Harry had missed this. He had really, really missed this.
The wind was almost painful against his face, and he'd have the imprints of his goggles circling his eyes for at least a week, but man, did he miss this.
Far beneath him the roar of the crowd rang dully in his ears, and if he really strained he could hear Lee's voice straining above the noise, shouting out the movement of the players that were jockeying back and forth below.
It had been nearly an hour, so far, but he wasn't making much of an effort in catching the snitch yet. He'd actually spent most of it hovering in front of one of the goals, allowing Oliver to focus on only two and coaching. Oliver had only bothered to send Harry to start searching after his own team had managed a full four goals on the other side—it was Katie's first game, and Alicia's first not playing reserve, so they'd taken a while to get into swing.
Still, even then Harry wasn't trying that hard. Last time, up until the thing with the broom had happened, the score had been 20 to 10 in Gryffindor's favor. Marcus Flint (the ass) had only managed to drive up his team's own score while Harry was flailing about, trying to gain control and gaining a lot of attention in the process.
This time Quirrell, for whatever reason (and he really didn't want to know) wasn't in attendance, so the point now was to drive the score up as much as possible to prepare for an eventual tie. When combined with his seeker opponent—Higgs—Harry had absolutely no worries about being the eventual victor, so he was mostly just having fun.
He flipped around at last as the noise began to fade from sight, turning to find himself far afield and with Higgs lagging behind, unsure of whether or not to follow him on what really was a wild goose chase or to turn back.
Harry's own 180 seemed to make the Slytherin's decision for him, but by then it was too late.
Harry was caught up with the boy by the time they made it to the stadium, and so he had no additional time to look for gold.
"Sixty to zero! Sixty to zero! Everyone was worried about the Gryffindors, with their three new members, but we Lions proved them all wrong, didn't we?! Sorry, professor."
Harry sidled next to Oliver, idly watching out for the snitch as Higgs angrily flew a pattern above him.
"Really?" His captain said, sparing him an angry glance as he watched Marcus and Angelina nearly wrestle for control of the ball in the air.
"It worked, didn't it?" Harry grinned. Huh, Snape had disappeared from the audience. Harry wondered how the Slytherin's morale had taken it.
"Are you even looking?" Oliver snapped.
"I'm getting around to it! Besides, this is much too fun to end early. You're the one that said the more points, the better, right?"
"...Right. Just, just make absolutely sure Higgs doesn't catch it, okay? Or at least not until we've got a fifteen goal lead."
"Right-o, cap." Harry said. He zipped away, stopping by to wave at his dormmates on his way to Higgs' position.
"Potter." Higgs said, grumpily eying his younger foe.
"Higgs. How are you?"
"I'm busy, Potter."
"Everyone's busy, Higgs. Hell, I'm busy! I'm looking for this tiny golden flying thing, actually. Have you seen it?"
Higgs grit his teeth. "You're a runty little firsty, aren't you?"
Harry laughed. "I'll see you around, Higgs." He dove, and for a second the Slytherin didn't follow him, apparently assuming that his opponent was simply ending the conversation.
Then he too spotted the snitch.
The race was on.
Everything was in Harry's favor. He'd gotten a head-start, was much more cool headed, was lighter, and had a better broom. Both Higgs and he realized that, but neither were willing to give even an inch in response.
Harry swooped, ducking underneath a Weasley as the snitch continued its evasive measures.
Higgs simply barreled against the Beater, hoping for a more acute trajectory. The snitch dove across to the Slytherin goals, and Harry followed it through one, around another, and below the third. He could hear the chasers fighting over control of the ball in the middle of the field, and around them the Beaters circled like sharks, trying desperately to find a way to recalibrate a bludger's path towards the enemy Seeker without hitting one of their own teammates. The Slytherin Goalie, meanwhile, tried and failed to literally grab Harry as he went by, caught between the importance of the snitch and maintaining his position between the quaffle and the goals.
Harry finally caught the snitch just next to Alicia's ear as she simultaneously tossed the quaffle, full speed, through the lowest of Slytherin's goals.
The crowd erupted.
"That was the best—you heard me, the best—opening game Hogwarts has had in living memory! Look at how Gryffindor dominated! Look at the skill of the newest members of the team! Three cheers for the lions! Three cheers for the captain! Three cheers for Potter!"
...
Later, much later, after Harry had allowed himself to fully revel in the partying and the laughing and the glee, Harry finally made his way to the library and, with Hermione, prepared to dive once more into the wards of Hogwarts.
Unfortunately, they had barely begun before they'd become a bit... sidetracked.
"Yup." Said Harry, finally tuning back into Hermione's tirade as it seemed to draw to a close.
"It's stupid! It's ridiculous! It's... it's inane!"
"Yup." Said Harry.
It wasn't so much that Hermione was wrong (she wasn't), it was just... Harry was kind of used to it, he supposed. The magical world had never made sense or been the 'best' at anything before, so why should it start now?
Of course, Hermione had only just entered the world that summer, which likely helped allow the whole "I can't believe this!" rant to come into full and whispered fruition.
Harry had moved straight from agog disbelief to asking the next question: how to change it.
Which, before he had even had time to think of what he was going to do, had led to a lovely new screen blocking his vision.
New Elective Goal: Home for the Hols (250 XP)
Introduce more 'breaks' from school into the Hogwarts calendar.
He had, of course, accepted.
It wasn't so much that he thought they needed less time at school—Hogwarts had, in Harry's entire duration of knowing it, been something to try to fortify in, not escape from. It was just that a) he knew everyone else had a slightly different take on the ideal education/family ratio, and b) their reasons for having only the winter and summer breaks were a bit... well, they had last been changed seventeen years after the school's founding.
"It's just—just—just unbelievable!" Hermione finally concluded in a harsh whisper, glaring down at the loaned book like it would give her a reasonable excuse if only she tried hard enough.
"Yup."
"Don't you have anything else to say?!"
"I mean, I agree." Harry said. "But that's history, and this is now, so I'm trying to think of how to change it now."
The short version—the version which did not take five pages of very small writing to understand—was as follows: some versions of magical transportation were already a thing upon the founding of Hogwarts. After a (not at all) short argument between its founders, muggleborn students were allowed into the school. This presented a conundrum: neither the muggleborn students nor their family knew any types of magical transport, which meant they could not journey home as easily as their half- and pureblood peers.
The founders' solution to this had been to remove all but two holidays, make one of the holidays voluntary, and block their ears when the many magical families and even some of the nonmagical ones that just happened to live nearby began whining about the unfairness of the set up.
This was all well and good in the 9th century. In the 20th, with trains and plains and automobiles, it was a bit more shortsighted.
"I bet," Harry began, "that Draco wants to go home for Easter just as much as you do." He omitted himself, but Hermione didn't seem to notice. "I bet that his father would also like that."
His tablemate blinked at him. "Oh." Then. "But Draco's a bigot, Harry. I'd prefer not to rely on him."
"Studies show the best way to combat bigotry is exposure therapy." Harry said. "Let's go prove to him that you—and every other muggleborn and every muggle besides—are actually far more intelligent than he was ever led to believe." He slammed the book shut, handed it to Hermione to stuff in her pack, swept his own effects into his messenger bag, and began to march out of the library.
"Now?" Hermione whispered, shocked. Then, when it was clear Harry was not going to stop, "Now?" She scrambled to follow him, shoving the book and her notes away as she did, and as the two dipped into the hallway she shoved him slightly, trying to get an answer out of the grinning boy.
"Harry, we don't even know where Draco is! Wouldn't it be better to just wait for tomorrow? Harry, he's likely still upset over you beating Slytherin. I don't think this is a good idea. Would you just say something?"
"I figured the Slytherin common room would be a good place to start looking. Do you agree?"
"The—the—how do you even know where that is? And how about the password? Have you thought of that?"
Down a set of stairs they stamped, and along an oddly curved hallway, and down a sloped pavilion, and across a seemingly pointless skyway (given that there was building less than a foot away on either side) and then down another set of stairs, because Slytherin's dorm was really, really far away from the library.
"Harry!" Hermione snapped.
"Shh, I'm trying to think if we take a left or a right."
"So you've been to their common room before, then?"
"Nope."
This was actually kind of fun. Hermione was clearly not dealing well with his antics, but that was all the better—the more he could get her to overreact with him, the less she would around the others, and the better she'd be at actually communicating what she intended.
"Then. How. Do. You. Know where it is?!"
"Don't be silly, Hermione! A wizard never reveals his secrets!"
"A magician. The saying is a magician. Not a wizard. Wizards can spill any secrets they like, so spill!"
"Hmm... nope. I don't think this is a secret I want to give up just yet. Oh, look! There's the door!"
And there it was.
No Slytherins around, unfortunately, and Hermione was right about him not knowing the password, but there shouldn't be any issue with a good old fashioned knock.
"Harry. Harry!" Hermione looked outright scared now, eying the door as if Voldemort himself was lurking behind, ready to strike. Harry wanted to laugh, but he knew he couldn't. First year him would've been much the same way, and the less said about what he and Ron were picturing when they snuck in second year the better.
The door opened, and a very confused prefect blinked at the two heads staring up at him.
"Hello! My name is Harry Potter, and I'm a first year in Gryffindor. This is my friend Hermione Granger, and we're looking for Draco Malfoy."
"...Malfoy! You've got visitors." The door slammed in their face.
Hermione looked like she was ready to turn and flee, but Harry kept on determinately smiling at the door.
His persistence was awarded about a minute later, when the wood finally creaked once more.
"What are you—my father hasn't gotten back to me, you know. And how did you find this place, anyway?" Draco said, apparently having no idea where to start.
"Oh, everyone knows where all the other common rooms are." Harry said glibly. "They just pretend they don't. You know that! I mean, I haven't seen you in the Gryffindor common room before but everyone stops by the Hufflepuff one at least a few times a month, if just for the cookies."
None of this, of course, was true.
(Well, actually, he wasn't sure about the cookies. But then they were next to the kitchens, so they probably weren't going out of their way to have special 'Hufflepuff biscuits' when they could just mooch off of the neighboring food supply.)
"What? Everyone—" Draco glared at Harry. "I don't believe you."
"Your prerogative." Harry said. "Anyway, no, we're not here about the petition. We're actually here to start a new one up."
"A new—" Draco, like Hermione, seemed to find it quite difficult to relate to Harry. "Nothing's even happened with the one we've done already!"
"So what better time to start petition number two than the present, before all hope dies, withers up, and is found a husk of its former self in the corner of a room that's never been cleaned?"
Judging by their expressions he might be taking it too far. It was just so funny to see people react to his words and actions with genuine disbelief, and the more he did it the more he wanted to continue to in the future.
Draco, it seemed, had decided to completely ignore everything Harry had just said and try to start a new. "So you want another petition... on what, exactly?"
Harry turned to Hermione, who looked less than pleased at the attention. Finally, though, (after Harry nudged her), she took a deep breath and began, outlining in short, choppy sentences what she and Harry had learned about the lack of breaks and the reasons for it, and how now none of those reasons applied even half as much.
Draco, surprisingly, began nodding along nearly from the beginning, and looked almost eager to begin signature collection by the time she had finished. "I'll bring you a draft of the petition tomorrow at breakfast," Draco said, "and I'll use my connections to have the final version ready by lunch."
"Sounds good to me! Any objections?" Harry asked turning again to Hermione.
"Um, none. Thank you, Malfoy."
"It is to both our benefits, Granger." Draco said. He managed, just barely, to hold back his sneer.
Hermione, having apparently reached the end of her sociability, fled, leaving Harry and Draco to wrap up and exchange less hurried goodbyes.
"Just what, exactly, are you up to, Potter?" Draco said, his eyes narrowed as he watched his Gryffindor peer.
"Just wait and see, Malfoy." Harry said. "I'm going to change the world."