The next few days passed without incident. Because there was no more immediate excitement, and the professors refused to speak a word on the issue, and the newspapers only mentioned it the once… well, it wasn't as if anyone was about to get any new information, so why talk about it at all?

Besides, Harry had a much more tangible goal to focus on: Quidditch.

In their first Flying lesson Harry had failed completely and utterly in getting onto the team. While he knew that doing so wasn't strictly necessary for any of his plans, it was flying! He really didn't want to have to go another year without gliding through the air.

Thankfully, this time he had a plan.

Goyle, sweet, lovable, Gregory Goyle, had handed it to him on a silver platter smack dab in the middle of potions the day before.

Harry, who was still paired up with Ron for that class, had quickly made a deal with the other Gryffindor that he'd do the potions preparation (years of practice had made him a mite better than he had been his first time) while Ron would stir and keep track of the instructions. As it turned out, when Ron had been put 'in charge' (as he seemed to view reading the instructions to be) he was actually quite intensive about it, and had even gone so far as to have convinced his brother Percy to give him a watch in the interim between Tuesday's and Thursday's class so that he could better monitor when ingredients should be added.

He still knew almost nothing about why they should be added and his homework was regularly the bare minimum that was acceptable, but that didn't stop him from already being eons ahead of where the two of them had been Harry's first year.

Anyway, Harry had just finished preparing most of the ingredients and was now flipping through his textbook to try to remember whether or not Virginian Sneeze Weed was supposed to be finely ground before or after it was lightly roasted, when something came soaring to their table from the neighboring one.

Harry snatched out his hand, grabbing the offending petal of the sensitive joint-vetch just before it reached his' and Ron's Fast Flu potion before whipping around to see who had thrown it.

It was Goyle.

Partnered with Crabbe, Snape had already stopped them no less than ten times from making an insanely stupid mistake in their brewing, and their team was the most clear evidence that for all that Snape may favor Slytherins even he had his limits. If Harry remembered correctly their pair had even been forcefully split apart before November, because Snape had said they were "more dangerous than Longbottom and Finnegan—combined!"

But for now they were still together, their potion was an off-yellow color rather than the near-teal it was supposed to be, and they were snickering at Harry's face.

Really?

This hadn't happened the first time around—well, that wasn't entirely true. It had, actually, and usually at least once a week, but the ingredient throwing had started much later in the school year last time.

So why had Goyle—who he was on far better terms with—decided to start so much earlier this time?

Goyle's eye darted to Snape, who was looming over Seamus and Dean's table and telling them exactly how stupid he thought they were, then back to Harry.

"Hey, Potter." Goyle said. "Feel good about yourself?"

What? "What?"

"Was mean of you, wasn't it," Crabbe interjected, "to say that about Goyle's aunt?"

"What?"

Goyle seemed to be finished with him however, and turned back to his suddenly frothing potion.

"Goyle's aunt wrote books about you." Joshua Runcorn, who stood at the table behind Harry, whispered. "About how you must have been raised in opulent wealth and everything. Not only did your letter to the Daily Prophet say she was a liar, but the Daily Prophet also wrote that thing about how people should be wary of books written about you."

"But—but how is that my fault?" Harry whispered back. "I mean, all I did was tell the truth."

Joshua was about to reply when a looming black figure appeared behind him.

"I realize you may have gotten confused," Professor Snape drawled, "but this is Potions class, not gossip central. 10 points from Gryffindor, and any additional talking will see five points removed for every word I hear."

Both boys nodded, and the rest of the class passed in silence.

As they left, however, Gregory approached Harry again.

"Bet you think you're so good." He said. "Bet you're going to write a whole bunch of books about yourself, and getting all of the money that should be my aunt's."

Harry was developing a migraine. He hadn't been aware that Goyle's aunt had even written about him, but how did Gregory think that he was the bad guy for telling everybody the truth? "Look, I'm sorry Gregory, but—"

"You can't call me that." Goyle said. "Because we are not on friendly terms, and only people on friendly terms can call each other by first names."

"Okay, Goyle, I'm sorry that—"

"No. Apologies aren't enough. Let's duel at midnight."

Really? Really? And then Harry had his brainstorm. "I have a better idea." He told Gregory. "How about instead we use Flying class to play a game? Ever play keep-away?" Gregory nodded. "Okay. next Flying class pick up a rock, and if I grab it before the end of class then I win, and if not then you do. Deal?"

There, no particular risk (compared to other, much more inane, ideas that Harry had come up with to get onto the Quidditch team) and this would allow him the chance to show off his talent (he'd learned at about third year that Professor McGonagall always watched Flying lessons, so that wasn't something he had to worry about.)

That said, if the stakes were not as pointless ('losing', after all, didn't mean much of anything) then Harry would be much less eager, so he just had to hope that Goyle didn't think of changing them before he agreed.

Apparently realizing this, Malfoy suddenly jerked forward and grabbed Goyle's shoulder, but before he could say anything Goyle had already spoken. "Done. See you on the field Friday."

Harry grinned. Goyle grinned. Draco Malfoy looked very put out that he had not been involved.

The next day Goyle went up to Harry the second the Gryffindors arrived at the Quidditch pitch and showed him the stone he'd picked. It was not a stone at all, but rather a glossy black marble. "Too hard?" He taunted.

"Nope." Harry grinned. It would be hard, yes, but that'd just make it more fun.

Goyle seemed to have thought Harry would protest more. "Oh. Um… good. Well, be ready to lose." Madam Hooch's whistle blew, and every first year rushed to a broom and got into the air.

For the first hour or so Goyle played it safe. He only took the marble out of his pocket once or twice to taunt Harry, and even then only if he was too far away to reach it in time. Instead the two mostly just focused on on completing the (relatively) small 3D obstacle course that Madam Hooch had set up.

After the hour, however, Malfoy seemed to have decided he was tired of being left out. As Harry helped both Neville and Hermione (who had gone out of her way to tell him how stupid the competition was for the last twenty-four hours, and saw no reason to stop now that it was ongoing) to stay on their brooms as they navigated the course, he also kept an eye on Malfoy, who had sidled up to Goyle and was now whispering furiously to the taller boy.

As he watched, Malfoy darted away and Goyle pulled the marble out of his pocket. And threw it.

Malfoy caught it and looked at Harry triumphantly, before tossing it to Crabbe.

So the game was afoot. (Was afoot really a word? Harry'd heard it before, of course, but it didn't feel like a real world. Oh well.)

"You good?" Harry asked Neville and Hermione. Neville nodded. He was still pretty shaky, but the two and a half or so hours of practice was enough that he'd stopped constantly thinking he was about to fall off. Hermione was more vocal.

"You shouldn't do it, you know." Hermione said. "You're going to get into trouble."

Harry grinned. "I'm of the firm opinion that everyone should get into trouble at least once." He said. "Might as well be now."

He took off.

As it turned out, Malfoy had gotten nearly every Slytherin on board with playing keep-away, so Harry found himself darting between Greengrass and Zabini and Bulstrode and nearly every other first year in green.

He spun, rolling under his broom as Bultrode's toss went south to land in Nott's waiting hand, only to immediately have to shoot up to get to the marble before Nott's throw landed it in Crabbe's hand. Crabbe tossed the marble to Malfoy, who sent it to Parkinson, who threw it at Davis, but Parkinson couldn't throw, and the marble went short.

Everyone watched as the marble sailed towards the ground. Davis turned her broom to get it, but her broom moved too slowly. Malfoy was bent completely flat on his broom, but he was too far away. Harry pointed his broom straight to the ground. The wind flew in his face, his goggles barely protecting him from the sheer force of it, and his hand reached out.

The marble was so small—it flew through the air with absolutely no wind resistance, and it was tiny enough that aiming for it was nearly impossible from a distance. As he neared he kept on having to readjust, swiveling his broom and his wrist ever so slightly as he got nearer, nearer. He heard shouting—that was Professor Hooch's voice, definitely—and a scream of exertion from Malfoy, but he didn't stop.

The ground got closer, closer.

Harry tried to flatten himself even more.

Another adjustment—he was nearly there—another—only an inch away—the ground was so close—time to grab it—almost—almost—almost—it was in his hand!

He immediately dragged his broom into the air. It creaked, but did as he bid, pulling him level with the earth so that only the tips of his boots got dragged through the dirt.

That was a much closer call then he'd ever had before.

Harry's grin couldn't get any wider.

"Mr. Potter!" Madam Hooch screeched. Harry pulled his broom to a stop and looked down to see his boots absolutely coated in a several centimeter thick layer of mud.

"Mr. Potter, of all the irrational, inane, stupid, dangerous, I—I can't even—!"

Behind the Flying instructor Harry caught sight of Professor McGonagall rushing out of the open door of the castle.

"You—you could have died, you know that?!" Madam Hooch was saying, now. "Look at your boots! How could you—why did you—?!" She looked nearly apoplectic. Harry would have to figure out how to make it up to her, somehow; he hadn't thought of it, at the time, but it probably did look to her like she'd have to deal with a student dying or at least getting seriously injured on her watch.

"Madam Hooch—Madam Hooch, I'll take it from here." Professor McGonagall said, coming to stand next to Madam Hooch. By now the entire class had clustered around them, and Hermione had gone out of her way to position herself so he could see her I-told-you-so face.

Madam Hooch glanced at Professor McGonagall, then back at Harry.

"Fine." She snapped, before marching off to look at the huge dirt scar Harry hard carved into the field.

"Follow me, Mr. Potter." Professor McGonagall said. Harry hid his grin.

He met Oliver Wood not two minutes later, and by the end of the weekend was a proud owner of the best Nimbus on the market.

Harry spent a week flying every second he'd got in the daytime, and exploring as much of the castle as he could at night with the help of the Marauder map (he'd done so before, of course, but the castle changed constantly, so he wanted to make sure his information was as up-to-date as possible.)

By the next week, Sunday night, he'd finished all the preparation he believed necessary.

It was time to go after the Basilisk.

He set his (borrowed) watch's alarm for three in the morning, giving him almost six hours of sleep under his belt (a silencing charm and a lie about wanting to study for the first DADA test the next morning assured that his early bedtime wasn't questioned.)

A quick notice-me-not charm and he was ready to go, and he carefully opened the fat lady's door, shoving a particularly recalcitrant, but nonetheless awake, cat out in front of him as he did so— if Crookshanks taught him anything, it was that cats could, in fact, get out of the dorm with significant effort, and one leaving was therefore much less suspicious than the door simply opening on its own.

Sure enough, the fat lady, while annoyed at being woken up, simply huffed when she saw the cat and settled back in to sleep with little fuss.

His next stop was the coop next to Hagrid's hut, where the liberal application of stunning charms offered him his pick off roosters.

He took all of them, just in case. The magically enlarged bag he'd brought with him became more than a little heavy, but a weak levitation charm solved some of the problem.

Moaning Myrtle was just leaving the third floor bathroom for god-knows-what reason when he snuck into the hallway, so he just waited for her to disappear through the next wall before nudging the bathroom door open.

A hiss gained him access to the Chamber, and a quick finito got rid of the sticking charm keeping his broom on his back.

Everything was going to plan. He went down.

By the time it was 3:45 he was standing in front of Slytherin's statue, trying to stay out of the way of the recently renervated roosters as they tried to figure out where to lie down to finish their sleep.

Now the waiting game.

The thing was, when he'd planned out tackling the Basilisk however many months ago, he hadn't really taken into account boredom.

He was prepared for the adrenaline, yeah, and the anxiety and fear, but while he'd planned to wait for dawn to ensure crowing he hadn't really taken into account what to do in the interim.

He should have bought a book.