The Tinkerer

by wickwynn

The Dursley family, who valued normalcy above all else, would of course never dream of keeping their orphan nephew in a cupboard, or of making a spectacle of him. That isn't to say they wanted to spend all of their time and money on him, however. From the salvage of broken toys and unwanted junk, left alone to his own devices, Harry built dreams.

15. Chapter 15

The Tinkerer

Chapter 15

At some point during lunch, Harry had gotten the idea into his head that while Lucius Malfoy's attempts at improving the Defense curriculum had apparently been thwarted by Quirrell, who Harry assumed had some kind of dirt on the young Malfoy patriarch, that did not necessarily mean that similar attempts to ameliorate the deficiencies in other classes would similarly be met with only lukewarm success. While Quirrell may be here to stay, in other words, that did not necessarily mean that they would have to continue to endure the other less-than-satisfactory professors that seemed to be running amok at Hogwarts.

This train of thought found Harry gathering up Lavender Brown from the Gryffindor table and bringing her over to where Kevin Entwhistle sat at the Ravenclaw table and explaining what he could of the situation without betraying Draco's trust. "Chief among which," he was saying, "is Professor Binns."

Kevin nodded. "Professor Binns has taught five generations of Entwhistles," he said. "That's not exactly a good thing, though, considering that none of them liked him."

"Five generations?" Harry repeated, aghast. If the man was an institution unto himself, it might make their work more difficult.

Kevin frowned. "But why are you bringing this to us, anyway?"

"Well," Harry said, "you are the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor parts of our society for the betterment of educational quality, aren't you?"

"We're part of a society?" Lavender repeated, her eyes a bit starry.

"You helped us with the petition against Quirrell," Harry clarified. "I assumed it was because you had a vested interest in the quality of education. So that's why I brought this to you two."

Kevin nodded, muttering something about how it made sense. Lavender, on the other hand, reddened. "Well of course we're vestedly interested!" she said. "We're the most studious students in our respective Houses, so of course we're committed to quality education!"

Something about that outburst didn't quite ring true to Harry, and he wondered if Lavender had some other motive, or if perhaps she had simply had a personal vendetta against Quirrell (something which Harry could sympathize with wholeheartedly) and was not necessarily interested in across-the-board reform. If that were true, it could prove problematic later on, but considering that he had no other friendly contacts within Gryffindor, and considering that she at least said that she was committed, he would have to simply not dwell on it. "At any rate," he said, trying to push through the air of awkwardness that seemed to have settled on them, "any actions we take will benefit greatly from inter-House cooperation."

Lavender nodded energetically. "It's good for us to work together," she said.

"Perhaps that's why nobody's ever managed to exorcise the ghost haunting the History classroom before," Kevin theorized. "There was never an inter-House organization dedicated to it."

Harry nodded. "That may well be the case. Well, I won't pretend I've read every page of Hogwarts: A History, but it seems like a sound hypothesis."

"Hypothesis?" Kevin repeated blankly.

Oh, that's right, Harry remembered. Wizards and scientific theory don't exactly walk hand-in-hand along the beach at sunset together. "A hypothesis is like a theory, but it hasn't been tested yet," he said. Seeing that that explanation only bewildered the clever Claw, Harry raised his hand to ask for another chance to explain. "In the muggle world –"

"Oh," Kevin said. "A muggle thing. Well, never mind it then."

Harry was a bit amazed by the attitude, but shrugged. He didn't really have time to convince Kevin that science wasn't a waste of time, and that wasn't the point of the present conversation. He shrugged and said. "Right, never mind it. What I meant was simply that your idea that nobody's ever tried to get all four Houses together to do something like this might have merit."

"Might?" Kevin repeated. "Well, it seems obvious to me."

Harry bit his lip and tried not to show his frustration with the thick-headed egghead. "I'm saying it's most likely true," he said delicately, "but there's just no way of knowing for sure. Anyway, it's not important. What's important, as you say, is exorcising the ghost that's haunting one of our lecture halls."

Lavender had a very thoughtful expression on her face, now. Harry regarded her as she seemed to put her thoughts into order. But then she noticed him looking at her, squeeked a bit, blushed and looked down at the table. Harry wanted to roll his eyes, disappointed that Lavender had only been interested in being part of this group, it seemed, because she fancied him. Still, it had looked like she had something to add, for a second there. "Lavender," he said. "Did you have something to say?"

Lavender looked up, her blue eyes widened by surprise and embarrassment.

Harry said, "I mean, it looked like you had something on your mind."

Lavender nodded vigorously enough to make her blond locks bob, firming her resolution, and Harry could practically see the Gryffindor propaganda going though her head. Still, it gave her the courage to speak. She said, "I do have something to say, Harry. You know, I'm the first person in my family to come to Hogwarts. My family isn't as old as the Potters or the Entwhistles or the Malfoys, not on either side. My mum was a muggleborn, and her parents didn't want to put their little girl in a swimming pool worth of debt, so they enrolled her in Shaftly instead. The tuition there is about a quarter of what it is here, did you know that? My dad's from a newblood family. Third gen. They've always gone to Lawrence Bay. But my parents have done really well for themselves, and since I'm an only child they thought that they could afford to do well by me, too, so they sent me here."

Harry hadn't expected her to tell him her whole life story. But she wasn't done. "As you might expect, I had my expectations pretty high. I mean, it's Hogwarts! I was the luckiest girl in the world, and I had the best parents in the world. For the most part … it seems like Hogwarts's reputation is well-founded. I mean, Flitwick and McGonagall and Sprout are academic superheroes in their fields."

"Superheroes?" Kevin repeated, confused.

Lavender said, "Rockstars, if you prefer," but that only made him look more confused. She huffed and decided to ignore him, and continued where she had left off: "And while Snape is an awful teacher, people say he's the greatest potionsmaster of his generation. But there are one or two teachers here that just aren't up to snuff. I mean, my parents are paying a lot of money for me to be here, you know? So I think that it's just not right. It isn't right that a Hogwarts education should cost four times a Shaftly education, and it's a bit dodgy once you get here. It offers worse coverage of some of our core subjects! I mean, having that idiot teach Defense – he's gotten a little bit better, but he's still a complete idiot, and he should be sacked. But then they have a ghost teaching one of the core classes? A ghost! Not that I have anything against ghosts –" she added, spotting the nearby Gray Lady, "– but he does a terrible job. I think Nearly-Headless Nick might make a decent history teacher, but Binns is an insult to the word 'teacher.' And really, I have to wonder, what does a ghost need a salary for? Where is my parents' money going, really? I want answers!"

Lavender suddenly stopped talking. Harry looked at her in amazement. Kevin's hands were hovering near each other, as though he wasn't sure if he should clap or not. Lavender looked around – and other people were looking at her too – and seemed a bit embarrassed again, but then she did that shoulder-firming nod and said, "It's an injustice. And I would be proud to help you investigate it and put an end to it, Harry!"

Harry blinked. Kevin clapped twice, softly, then stopped. Harry said, "Well, I'm glad to have you on board, Lavender."

She gave a hesitant grin.

"Anyway, yeah," Harry said, deciding to reward her enthusiasm. "I think we should be a proper society. Something with a proper name and a catchy acronym and by-line, you know. Hell, maybe even a mascot. Well, I think you're probably the best qualified to come up with all that, Lavender."

Now she was beaming. "So, what's the plan?"

Harry cleared his throat. "Well," he said, thinking about it. Was he supposed to already have a plan? But by the way they were looking at him, he was. They expected him to have the solution to all of their problems in his robe pocket, and all they would have to do would be to put their stamps of approval on it. He wondered, briefly, why he had decided to set himself up as the leader of yet another group – and then it dawned on him that he had always been the leader of every group with which he was associated, ever since he had come to Hogwarts, except for the Disciples, and even then he was the group leader's protégé and had some sort of special authority, despite having only been a member for less than two weeks. It was sometimes difficult to remember that the fame he had on this side of the 'magical divide' was the fame of a savior, one who wore a crown of thorns and carried a shining sword of justice – it was completely different from the fame he had grown used to on the other side of the 'magical divide.' Although he had thought that he had come to terms with this already, it seemed like more and more implications were coming to light all the time. It was startlingly clear, suddenly, that of course he was the leader, of course he had the solution, because if he didn't then, in their minds, nobody could. Harry said, "I have a few ideas, but I want to hear what you guys think as well. So let's meet tomorrow after transfiguration? I'll bring Draco along, too."

"That's right," Kevin said. "Why isn't Mr. Malfoy with us?"

Harry chanced a peek over at the Slytherin table. Sure enough, Draco was looking their way. Harry gave Draco a grin and a friendly wave that he hoped conveyed that he would bring him up to speed soon. "Well, that's because he's already done so much for our group," he tried. "I wanted us three to do something without his help."

That seemed to satisfy Kevin and Lavender. Of course the real reason was quite different: he had been worried that Lucius Malfoy's lackluster performance on the Quirrell front would come into the conversation, and he didn't want to put Draco on the spot trying to defend his father's disappointing actions.

"Anyway. Tomorrow after transfig, yeah? See you guys there!"

And Harry stood up and made his way over to the Slytherin table. "Hey, Draco," he said. "Parkinson, Greengrass, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle," he added, addressing each member of Draco's inner circle of friends while excluding others nearby. He didn't know anything about the two other Slytherin girls, but he knew that they were not Draco's close friends, and he wasn't about to entangle himself in another Zabini incident just now.

"Harry! How good of you to join us," Draco said warmly.

The rest of the boys all muttered his name and nodded. Parkinson said, "A pleasure as always," and inclined her shoulders in the closest imitation that one could do of a curtsy while remaining seated. Greengrass just gave him what seemed to be a friendly smile and a little nod.

"Draco, there's a little matter I'd like to speak with you about in private, if you have some time later…?" Harry said, not seeing any reason for a dithering preamble.

"Sounds interesting," Draco said, giving him a broad smile that did nothing to his eyes. "I'll tell you what, why don't you let me entertain you in the Slytherin Common Room?"

Harry blinked. Well, he hadn't expected to make a field trip today, but why the hell not? "Sure," he said. "I'd be delighted to see what all the fuss is about. That is to say, I've heard that your Common Room is lovely." That, of course, was a lie – Harry had never heard anyone describe the Slytherin Common Room other than by the phrase 'the snake pit,' but something told him that it probably was rather nice in there.

"Lovely?" Draco repeated, surprised. Apparently his assumption had been wrong. "Well. I suppose it's comfortable enough. I trust that someone as resourceful as yourself will have no trouble finding it?"

Oh, great, a test. "Of course," he said. "Let's say … an hour from now?"

"Excellent," Draco said. "Now, it seems like lunch is winding down. I trust you managed to get something to eat over at Ravenclaw?"

Harry found himself rather amused by that remark – it seemed to be Draco's way of telling him that he knew precisely what Harry had been getting up to. "Oh, don't worry about me," Harry said. "Anyway, see you in a bit."

Harry withdrew from the Slytherin table with a round of polite smiles and small nods to Draco's friends, and made his way out of the Great Hall.

"I can't seem to give myself a break," he muttered as he made his solitary way to the Hufflepuff Common Room. "Am I some kind of workaholic?" Harry straightened his tie and concluded: "Of course I am – I'm a Puff."

"Admirable!" cried one of the few paintings in the hallway that depicted a human being rather than fruit. Harry, who found the idea of talking to paintings a bit odd still, just smiled and kept walking. He'd actually caught students engaging in conversation with them once or twice, but Harry himself perhaps just wasn't wizard enough yet to think that talking to furnishings was in any way acceptable. Then again, he had just been talking to himself. He wondered why the paintings of people and animals never ate the paintings of fruit bowls.

"Where have you been?" Hannah asked the moment he sat down with his group on the couch.

"Just business," he said with a little wave. "How's everything here?"

"Hermione's put us all to work on our Charms essays," Hannah whined.

Harry looked at her parchment. It said her name, Professor Flitwick's name, the name of the assignment, and the word 'The.'

"Need help?" he offered.

"You should focus on your own essay, Harry Potter," Hermione stated. "We only have until Wednesday!"

"All right," he said. He had an hour to kill before his meeting with Draco in the snake pit, after all, which should be more than enough time to jot down the required eight inches worth. He borrowed parchment, quill and ink from Cerie – who always had a huge surplus of such things, due to her artistic proclivities – since he didn't have his own supplies handy, and got down to work.

"Won't you be needing your book?" Hannah asked, watching as he scribbled furiously.

"It's all up here," Harry said, gesturing to his head with his quill. An unfortunate decision, since it caused ink to splatter on his cheek. He wiped it off with his sleeve and went back to it.

The less-than-rigorous standards of academic integrity within the wizarding world meant that Harry was allowed to cite authors just by saying something like, "According to Skullfelt," and paraphrasing what the author had said. This meant that there wasn't really any need to have any books handy while writing a simple assignment like this one, assuming that one had done the reading in advance. Harry thought it might be amusing to see exactly what the boundaries were at some point: it might be of interest to cite a source with the phrase "I read somewhere" just to see if he would get marked down for that. He suspected he would, but it might be worth a few points on his essay just to see for sure.

Within thirty minutes, he was blowing the ink dry and bumming a bit of string from Neville to tie up the rolled up assignment.

Once done, he found Hannah regarding him with incredulity. "How do you do that?" she asked.

"Do what?"

"How do you just make an O-worthy essay up off the top of your head?"

"It's all based on the lectures and the reading," he said. "It's not off the top of my head. And it hasn't been graded yet."

"You always get O's though," she pointed out. That was true, of course. Harry's first ever transfiguration assignment had come back with a letter O written on it, which he took for a zero and panicked before Hermione kindly explained how grades work. Since then, it had just been a line of what he continued to think of as zeroes because it amused him.

Harry thought about her original question. This was a chance to impart some real wisdom on one of his friends, he realized, and he wasn't about to let it slip him by by just shrugging the question away. He said, "It's not about being clever, it's about organizing your thoughts. Just take a minute and think about everything you want to say, and get it all in the correct order, and Bob's your uncle."

"You know Uncle Bob?" she asked.

"Oh, never mind that part. Just focus on the assignment, Hannah. Before you put quill to parchment, think about each and every point you want to make. Then think about how to organize them so that it's clean, coherent and concise. Then you can think about how to make it interesting, too. Once you've got all of that in your head, dip that quill in ink and watch it all come out."

Hannah frowned. "I don't think my head can hold a whole essay all at once," she said doubtfully.

"Maybe close your eyes," he suggested. "And just think it through for a while."

Hannah dutifully closed her eyes and seemed to be thinking about her assignment. Harry, for his part, was amazed that people educated in the wizarding world weren't even taught things like this. How was anyone supposed to succeed in life if they didn't even know how to organize eight inches worth of essay?

Then again, he had the occlumency advantage.

"Of course," he added, seeing that Hannah's face was starting to look a bit agitated, "you could also just jot down all of the main points you want to make. It's probably better not to do it in your head, really, but that's just my habit."

Harry wanted to bring up the Binns issue, and the overall improvement of academics at the school, but he saw that Neville had been listening in and had his eyes shut, too. Taking another look around the group, it seemed like Cerie and Ernie were giving shut-eyed contemplation a go, too – although in Cerie's case she may have just been daydreaming. It wouldn't do to distract them at this stage. So he took his essay to his room and deposited it in his bookbag, exchanging it for the enchanting book that he still had a hundred or so pages left of, and spent the remainder of his time before his appointment with Draco reading it.

For someone who's supposedly got a rigorously organized mind, he missed one rather important detail. When the time came, he realized that he still didn't know where the Slytherin Common Room was, and cursed himself for not spending his time looking for it. There was time left to do that, though, so he decided to ask for help.

"Hey, Tosha," he said conversationally as he approached the group of fourth years plus the ever-present Frankie. "Where is the Slytherin Common anyway?"

Tosha's wink was more meaningful than he could bear. Then she said, "Why? You got a girly-thing?"

"Probably," Harry said.

"Oh, honey!" Samantha exclaimed, perking up. "Come on, tell us all about it."

"Actually, no," Harry amended, realizing that keeping his affairs secret was hardly worth getting Samantha worked up. "I've got a business thing."

"Oh, you're no fun," Sam said, returning her attention to her boyfriend.

Tosha rolled her eyes. "Come on," she said as she stood up from what could have been anything from a musical score to arithmancy homework, for all Harry understood the strange symbols. "Let me show you where it is."

As Tosha took him by the elbow and led him out of Hufflepuff, she whispered, "Is it really a girly-thing?"

"It's really not," he said. "Sorry."

"Oh, never mind. So what kind of business thing?"

Harry considered how much he wanted to tell her. It probably wouldn't be wise, he thought upon some consideration, to bring the Disciples in on the educational improvement project. Who knew what they might do? So he said, "Draco and I are discussing the dueling clubs. Don't worry though, I'm not going to tell him what's going on in Puff. I won't ruin our advantage. I'm just going to see if he and I can work something out to give us both a better chance of getting on our teams."

"Oh, pish," Tosha said. "You're already on the team, don't you know that? I mean, after that show this morning."

"Well, I didn't exactly cast any spells during that show this morning," he pointed out. "I was just the master of ceremonies. And there's a reason I didn't cast any spells – I don't know any dueling magic at all, yet. Are you interested in the team, by the way?"

Tosha considered this question for what seemed like quite a long time before she said, "Well, having just picked up a position on the Quidditch team, I might end up being a bit too busy for it. But you know what, I think I'm going to try out anyway, and if I'm too busy I'll just ask to be made a reserve. A reserve on the dueling team, obviously, not the Quidditch team."

Harry nodded, but he said, "You know, I think they'll be expecting the reserves to be at all of the practices, too."

"Hm. Well, I'll make it work, somehow."

"Why did you think it was a girl thing, by the way?" he asked as they turned down into the dungeons.

Tosha sent him a sly grin. "Well, it could have been," she said.

"Yes, but why did you jump to that conclusion?"

"Slytherins don't get a lot of love from the other Houses, you know?" Tosha said. "But Hufflepuffs have a lot of love to give. There's always a lot of Slytherin-Hufflepuff couples. Morgan says that it's because opposites attract, but I think we're not opposites at all. Becca says it's because those Sly-boys are just so brooding and mysterious, we can't help ourselves."

Harry thought this over for a while. Out of all of the Hogwarts Houses, it seemed like only the members of Hufflepuff maintained good relations with the other three. Speaking in broad generalities, it could be said that Gryffindors despised Slytherins, and Slytherins despised Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws despised Gryffindors and Slytherins. While the other three Houses didn't seem to hold Hufflepuff in particularly high regard, it was also true that none of them held any particular animosity towards Hufflepuff. Hufflepuffs included traditionalists that could sympathize with the Slytherins politically, as well as liberals that sympathized more with the Gryffindor crowd, but by and large they tended to stay out of the whole nasty business as well as they could, which made them natural peacebrokers. And when it came to the Claws, the Hufflepuff dedication to hard work and the Ravenclaw tendency towards navel-gazing theory-craft were natural compliments.

"Have you ever dated a Slytherin?" he asked her.

"Back in anno second," Tosha said. "I dated this one Sly-boy for about half a year. We ended on good terms, mind. They're not bad people, even if they can be a bit prickly. Well, this boy was about as prickly as they come, and eventually I think I wore him down. We both realized that it wasn't meant to be and we dropped it. But he really was a charming guy, in spite of the prickles."

"Prickly," Harry repeated, "yet charming." Weren't those basically opposites?

"Well, since you're friends with them, you'll understand what I mean soon enough," she said.

"Do you have anyone you're interested in now?" Harry probed.

Tosha batted him on the shoulder. "Bit young for me, sorry," she said. "You'd have better luck with Sam."

"Not me," he clarified. "I mean, is there anyone you fancy?"

"Well," she said, "since you really want to know … I suppose I could tell you, but don't spread it around."

"I'd never," he said seriously. "I mean, unless you thought a rumor like that would help you. Otherwise, never."

"There is this one boy that's caught my eye," she said. "It's a bit embarrassing, though, since he's a complete fusspot. Becca would tell me to get my head looked at if she knew."

"A fusspot?" Harry repeated, a bit amazed. "That doesn't sound like your type," he said cautiously.

"Maybe Morgan's right about opposites attracting," Tosha said. "Or no, it's not that. I don't really know what it is … something about how he handles those little brothers of his when they get on his bad side makes me want to get on his bad side in a big way."

"Er –" he said, or rather didn't know what to say. Suddenly this conversation was heading into perilous waters.

"Just watching how he digs into them whenever they cause trouble … I wouldn't mind if he dug into me, you know?"

Tosha looked over at Harry and seemed to take in his look of abject horror and remember all at once that he was only a first year, and a boy, and she said, "That is to say, er – well, Slytherin's right around the corner, here."

"Right," he said, staring at the blank wall they had stopped in front of. "How do you get in?" When she didn't respond, he glanced over, only to see her beating a hasty retreat back the way they had come. "Great," he muttered.

Feeling incredibly foolish, Harry knocked. Nothing, predictably, happened. Harry looked up and down the dimly lit corridor, checking both for any sign of a door and for anyone watching him make a fool of himself, and tried knocking again. Nothing happened once more. He wondered what he had expected the second time, and an Einstein quote drifted through his head. "Right," he said. "Let's not get all kooky. There's got to be something. Lumos Facis!"

After careful inspection of the wall, which had originally appeared to be utterly blank and featureless, Harry was able to confirm that it most likely was the entrance to Slytherin based on the fact that there was a faint, time-worn etching of a snake biting its own tail carved into the wall about a head above his eye level. Presumably, it had been etched there a long time ago by some Slytherin who kept saying the password to the wrong bit of wall and was tired of looking like a complete fool. Still, having confirmed that he had arrived at the correct bit of wall after all did nothing to help Harry open the passageway up.

"What would be a likely password?" he wondered, for he suspected that this entrance, unlike the entrances to Hufflepuff, the kitchens and Diagon Alley, required a verbal password rather than a physical interaction. "Salazar?" he asked the wall. The wall did not answer. "Tradition," he tried. "Pride. Ambition. Phineas the Bold. Honor. Respect your elders. I'm grasping at straws, here."

Harry was starting to get pretty frustrated by that point. Glaring up at the stupid ouroboros etching, he snapped at it, "Just open your arse up!"

To his shock, the little ouroboros spun about its axis, doing a full three-sixty, and then the section of wall which had frustrated him jerked back and slid to one side in a manner not entirely unlike the automatic door at his favorite electronics store (something which he would definitely not say out loud), allowing him passage.

"Nox," he muttered, staring at the hole in the wall in bewilderment. Leave it to Slytherin House to not have a password at all, but just have a door that only opens if you tell it to in a sufficiently authoritarian way. Shaking his head and wondering what he was getting himself into, Harry entered.

If he had been expecting it to look anything like the Hufflepuff Common Room, he was in for a rude awakening. Unlike the Puffs, the Slytherins apparently didn't believe in comfy couches, and instead preferred overly tall-backed wooden chairs without armrests. Unlike the Puffs, the Slytherins had no central hearth, but rather a great big fireplace that sat under a rather delicate-looking mantelpiece, which was adorned only with the House and Quidditch Cups which they had won last year and no personal momentos of any kind. Unlike the Hufflepuff Common Room, where people would often leave half-finished work lying around, the tables in Slytherin were all either occupied by studiers or completely cleared off and with their chairs tucked in. The shape of the room itself, though, was the strangest part. The Slytherin Common Room was extremely long and rather narrow, and the ceiling was extremely low, so that the fireplace went practically right up to it. All of it was made of dull gray stonework not unlike the rest of the dungeons, albeit rather more smooth. With the very low ceiling, the very tall furniture, and the dim light provided by the little lamps hanging here and there, the whole place seemed designed to heighten the claustrophobia that the long and narrow room would have regardless.

Harry didn't have long to stand around and take in the scenery, though. As soon as he entered, several sets of eyes snapped to him, and as they continued to stare, more and more people looked over.

A rather intimidating fellow was making his way over to Harry, presumably to rough him up a bit and toss him out, but fortunately Daphne Greengrass proved quicker. "Harry!" she exclaimed like they were old chums. "So glad you could make it. Draco was getting worried, since you're a bit late, and we neglected to tell you the password. Anyway, come with me," she said, taking him by the elbow in a similar fashion to how Tosha had done earlier and leading him over to one edge of the narrow confines. The boy who had moved towards him, presumably to act as an impromptu bouncer, resumed his seat, but continued glaring at Harry suspiciously.

"Thanks, Greengrass," Harry muttered.

"Oh, you," she said. "It's just Daphne. Come along, Draco's waiting."

Indeed, Draco seemed to have secured a private table with two chairs, over which hung a single green lamp, and appeared to be doing his own Charms assignment by himself as he waited for Harry. "Draco," Daphne said as they approached. "Harry's here."

Draco looked up at him with one of his half-grins. Dropping his quill back into the inkwell in a manner that spoke of unconcern, he extended his hand warmly and said, "Ah, Harry. Glad you could make it."

"Hey, Draco," Harry said hesitantly, feeling many eyes on the back of his head.

"Please, take a seat," Draco said as he stoppered his inkwell and put his things into the bag that was hanging off his chair. "Daphne, thank you," he added, noticing that she was still there.

Daphne smiled, nodded, and made her way over to another, larger table, where Harry observed that the rest of Draco's friends were. They all seemed to be pretending not to watch him, but at least that was better than openly watching him like some of the older students still were. "Interesting place," he said hesitantly. "I love the … fireplace."

Draco glanced over at it. Indeed, the rather opulent fireplace stood out like a sore thumb in the otherwise spartan environs. "It's a far cry from the manor," Draco muttered. "I don't know who told you it was nice, but –" then Draco suddenly stopped himself, stood up, and tapped the light fixture overhead with his wand. "Well, at least we have built-in privacy charms."

Indeed, the quiet murmurings of the Slytherins around them were abruptly cut off.

"Do you get a lot of guests here?" Harry asked hesitantly. He wished the privacy charm also had a Notice-Me-Not, so that people would stop watching them.

"Not many," Draco said, chagrined. "Of course, some of the upperclassmen sometimes bring their friends here, but it's rare. I believe you're the first guest of any of the first years."

"Maybe we should have done this in Hufflepuff," Harry said tentatively.

"Oh, don't worry about them," Draco said with a careless gesture. "They know better than to contradict me, even if I'm just a first year. Well, you know my father's position."

"Right," Harry said, feeling only slightly relieved. From what he understood, Lucius Malfoy was one of seven members of the Board of Governors, and he had already seen how someone as useless as Quirrell could outmaneuver the young patriarch of the Malfoy family, an episode which would probably have Harry taking any future claims of the Malfoy family's political potency with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, that was one of the orders of business for which Harry had arrived here. Wishing that he had some better segue, he said, "Actually, that's part of the reason I'm here."

"Oh?" Draco asked with interest. "Does this have to do with that lunchtime meeting?"

"Yes," Harry said. "Lavender, Kevin and I were thinking about taking further actions. Not against Quirrell, of course," he hastened to clarify. "I didn't forget what I said. We're not going to take any further actions against Professor Quirrell. On that front, your father has done what he can, and we appreciate his good work."

Draco's good humor seemed rather withering, despite Harry's attempts at padding the subject. "What further steps, then?" he asked.

"Professor Binns," Harry said. "We want to see Professor Binns removed."

Draco raised his brow slightly. "The ghost?" he said. "Binns has been here for a hundred years or more … it would be tampering with tradition to see him removed."

"I disagree," Harry said firmly. "Binns has been here for a hundred years or more, and it's long past time he's retired. Having a ghost teach History is not a Hogwarts tradition. Rather, hiring on a new person is a long-standing oversight which we mean to correct."

"I see your point," Draco said. "Fine. All right, I'll consider it."

"Consider it, and come to our meeting tomorrow after transfiguration," Harry said. "This time around, I want us to all think about it carefully and deliberate on the best choice before we pursue any course of action. Therefore, we'll be meeting tomorrow to talk it over. Anyway –" he added, seeing that Draco was about to interrupt him, "– I'm glad you'll be joining us."

Draco shook his head, seeing that his 'I'll consider it' had been transfigured into a 'I'll meet with you and talk it over' without his consent. "All right," he said. "I'll be there tomorrow."

"Excellent," Harry said. "Now, there's another more important matter I wanted to discuss with you."

"Is there really?" Draco said with evident disbelief.

"Yes. Now, tell me Draco, are you interested in participating in this whole dueling club thing?"

Draco nodded without delay, saying, "Of course. It's an opportunity to demonstrate a truly useful skill and to bring honor to your House and your family."

"I agree," Harry said. "Yet, with us being first years –"

Draco grimaced, if only slightly. "Yes," he said. "We don't really know any useful spells. Or that is to say, not many."

"Would you like to correct that imbalance?" Harry said, trying to make the suggestion sound as intriguing as he could.

Draco seemed to be hooked. He said, "Do you have an idea, then?"

"Well. What if you and I put our heads together – excluding the rest of Hufflepuff and the rest of Slytherin, since that would only increase the competition – and do a bit of extracurricular work leading up to the try outs for the team?"

Draco nodded. "An interesting solution," he said cautiously. "But would you really exclude your Housemates? That's not very Hufflepuffian of you."

"Hufflepuffs," Harry said meaningfully, "are not at odds with winning."

Draco seemed to mull this over. Finally he said, "So, just a bit of extra preparation leading up to the selection. Yes, I could see how having a training partner would be greatly beneficial. And of course, it would have to be a partner from another House, otherwise you'd just be helping your competitors."

"This partnership will only extend until such a time as our captains have selected us for our respective teams," Harry explained. "At that point, our Housemates will no longer be our competitors – we'll be competing against each other. Up until that time, however, this might benefit us both greatly."

"We would have to do it in secret," Draco pointed out. "Lest we be accused of consorting with the enemy."

"Clearly," Harry said. "We'll need a secluded area in which to work."

Draco nodded. "Yes, I know just the place we could use. It's in Slytherin territory, but it's not well-known."

Harry wasn't about to get into an argument about whether or not the entire dungeons were 'Slytherin territory' or not, since this seemed to be going so well. He said, "Excellent. So, tonight, then?"

"Tonight?" Draco repeated. "Well, yes, I suppose we shouldn't waste any time. All right. In fact, how about we begin immediately after the demonstration instead of waiting until tonight?"

"Can't," Harry said. "Hufflepuff is having a big meeting directly after the demonstration. Strictly House business, you understand. How about seven o'clock? I'll meet you in the first classroom on the left going into the dungeons. You find me there at seven and take me to this place you have in mind."

"That will work," Draco agreed. "You really are a rather busy person, aren't you?" he added, looking at Harry curiously.

"No rest for the wicked," Harry said, repeating the refrain that Ernie had said that very morning.

"Something curious, though," Draco said. "Don't you want to include Brown and Entwhistle? I mean, they wouldn't be in competition with us during the team selections, either."

Harry thought about it. "It hadn't actually occurred to me," he admitted. "It would be in a way logical to include them, too, wouldn't it? But no, I think it's better that we don't. Gryffindors can't keep their mouths shut about anything, you know. And neither one of them seems like the type to go in for dueling, in any case. Actually, I'm rather surprised that you would suggest including them."

In truth, though, it was an interesting idea now that Draco brought it to his attention. Or rather, a slightly different idea was interesting: maybe it would be in Harry's best interests to double-deal and train with Sonny and Terry as well as with Draco, but separately. He'd get more practice in and he'd impress upon Draco just how awesome of a wizard he was, even more than he would anyway. Harry had to throw out that idea, though. There were only twenty-four hours in a day and he already had a lot going on.

"I didn't suggest it," Draco clarified. "I was wondering why you didn't suggest it. Of course, you're right about them. Besides, we'll get more work done with just the two of us, I think."

"Definitely. Oh, there's one other thing," Harry said, retrieving the list of spells that was still in his pocket from that morning. "I have here a list of several basic Defense spells. I think we should focus on these spells first. If we have additional time, we can come up with something else, but these are of paramount importance."

"I see," Draco said, looking the list over. "Yes, this looks like a good place to start."

"Unfortunately, I only have the names of the spells, not instructions on how to actually perform them. I was wondering, Draco, since I'll be busy, would you be able to kip over to the library and find a few relevant books?"

Draco sighed at the concept of going to the library on a perfectly nice Sunday afternoon, but he said, "I suppose I could do such a small favor."

"It's not a favor," Harry clarified. "We both need those books, and only you have time to go get them."

Draco gave him a very amused expression, then. "You're learning quickly," he observed. "All right, I'll do it. Not as a favor, just as a necessary thing."

"Excellent," said Harry, straightening out his robes in preparation to stand. He could get used to delegating stuff to other people. He was, as Draco had pointed out, a very busy guy, and a lot of the things he had to do each day could only really be done by him, so it was always good to have people willing to act as gofers for the little things. He could definitely get used to it. While Draco could hardly be counted as a proper underling yet, Harry couldn't help but conclude that between his willingness to do little errands for him, and the fact that Harry was aware of Draco's secret humiliation with regards to his father's impotency vis-a-vis Quirrell, things seemed to be heading in that direction. Harry carefully admonished himself that he would just have to be careful not to get too big of a head, lest that crown of thorns pop it. "Well, that was productive, wouldn't you say? Now, remember, seven o'clock, first door on the left going down. Mum's the word, of course – wouldn't want people getting jealous, would we? Well, I'll leave you to your Charms essay, then."

"Not so fast," Draco said. "Why don't you walk with us? It's almost time for the orientation, you know," he added.

Harry nodded tentatively. While being member to a throng of all one hundred or so Slytherins wasn't exactly his idea of a nice little stroll around the castle, it would be rude to refuse.

It seemed, however, that his worries about being lost in a wave of green and silver ties was for nothing, because as it turned out, the group of first year Slytherins, plus Harry and minus Zabini and two of the girls, were among the first groups to make the trek up and out from the dungeon level towards the Great Hall.

During what turned out to be a rather pleasant walk after all, Harry found his elbow taken hold of by the same Daphne Greengrass who had met him at the Common Room portal, who seemed to have taken a liking to him, which afforded Harry an opportunity to ask a few questions which he had been wondering for some time – and especially since the 'hypothesis snafu' with Kevin – about how oldbloods, and more specifically the 'purebloods' of Slytherin, were brought up. "Daphne," said he, "what was your old school like?"

"My old school?" Daphne echoed, looking at him quizzically. "I've only been here," she supplied uncertainly.

Harry felt his brow furrow and made a concerted effort to smooth the creasing. "Oh – sorry, you'll forgive me, you must remember that I grew up on the other side, as it were."

"Oh, right," Daphne said, giving him a little smile that seemed to be a brighter kind of a confusion. He allowed Daphne a moment to compose the inevitable question: "Is that to say, muggleborns go to school before Hogwarts? But whatever would they study?"

Harry felt strangely stricken by this revelation. It had been said in the Ultimate Guide and in Hogwarts: a History things like "it is the beginning of every young witch or wizard's formal education," but Harry had, apparently, taken a liberty with his interpretation, assuming that it referred specifically to their magical education. "Oh, all kinds of things," he said, trying not to let his discomfort show, and looking at Daphne so as not to give away the fact that he was aware of Draco and Theodore eavedropping curiously. "Reading and writing, of course," he enumerated. "History, literature, mathematics … some science." The last was dropped casually, of course.

"Oh, I see," Daphne said brightly. "Well, those are all – well, those are mostly things that we're taught in our tutoring sessions."

"Tutoring sessions?" he repeated with interest.

Daphne nodded. "Draco, Pansy, Theodore and I all had the same tutors," she explained. "We would all meet about three times a week at Ted's house. Then of course, Pansy and I had a separate tutor for etiquette. I suppose the boys had the same but different?" she added, looking over at them.

"Quite," Theodore said simply.

"And you, Mr. Goyle?" Harry inquired.

"I had my own tutors."

"And you, Mr. Crabbe?"

"My mum."

Harry nodded, letting out a little hum of interest. "Fascinating," he said, trying not to be condescending.

"The muggles, then," inquired Draco, "they begin attending formal school at an earlier age?" It seemed that the concept rubbed the noble heir the wrong way, but he barely let any of that show through with the innocuous question.

"Much earlier," said Harry. "I've already been through six years of school."

"Six years?" Draco repeated in apparent amazement.

"Yes. Five days a week. Everyone in the muggle world goes to primary school, which begins when you're five years old. There are additional options for younger students as well, but they're optional – it's only required after age five."

This information seemed to stun his Slytherin friends. It was several long moments before Theodore said something, which was, "But surely, the muggles don't have that much to know. I mean, they don't even have magic. So what could they possibly be studying for six years?"

Harry wasn't quite sure how to tackle this question. "Er –" he said. "Well, muggle subjects, of course."

"Of course," echoed Theodore, appearing deeply unsatisfied by that answer. Then he tried to guess: "You must know everything about a History of Muggles," he said. "Not to mention, all sorts of maths. And I bet you speak French and German."

"Well, there's quite a lot of history and maths, yes, but I only took a little French. I was more interested in the physical sciences."

"The physical sciences," Theodore repeated. "What's that, then?"

"Well, basically. Er – well, muggles don't have magic, of course. So the physical sciences are how they describe how the non-magical world works."

This seemed profoundly to perplex Theodore, and the other Slytherins seemed to have given up on trying to decipher what to them must have seemed to be riddles. After a moment, Theodore paraphrased him, "Studying the world in the absence of magic…." He trailed off, then said, "I suppose it would all work just as you expect it to, wouldn't it?"

"Well," Harry said, realizing that this line of discussion was well and truly fruitless, "yes, quite. Muggles spend a great deal of time explaining the obvious."

"Fascinating," Theodore said in a way that conjured in Harry's mind the image of Theodore doing some lab experiments on muggles which involve asking them to describe obvious things in as much detail as possible. Harry shivered.

Crabbe, however, was entirely unfascinated. The big blob of anti-philosophy said, "Bit worthless, that. They shouldn't be wasting time. Put them out in the fields, I say, make them produce something."

Draco, Theodore and Mr. Goyle all gave Crabbe a dark look. Pansy, on the other hand, nodded smartly. Daphne seemed like she wasn't sure what to think.

"But I don't understand," she said. "What is the point of it?"

"Yes, really," seconded Draco. Theodore and Mr. Goyle also had looks of interest. Apparently, nobody had ever tried to explain what muggles do with their lives.

Harry determined that an example might help. "What do we know about gravity?" he asked.

"That's gravitas, Harry," Draco corrected delicately.

"Ah. All right, let's see here." Since the Slytherins had all left their bookbags in their dorms, and Harry similarly hadn't brought his from his room the entire day, he said, "Mr. Crabbe, if you would be so kind, could I please have two of your shirt buttons?"

Crabbe looked quite stunned at the suggestion that he should be devested of not one but two buttons by Harry's word, particularly in as much as he had no idea what the purpose was. Crabbe glanced at Mr. Goyle – who Harry was beginning to realize was Crabbe's immediate superior within the Slytherin hierarchy – and, if Harry had expected Mr. Goyle to turn to Draco in turn, he was mistaken, because at Mr. Goyle's somewhat intimidating look, Crabbe removed the two unused buttons around his shirt collar with minimal reluctance.

"Thank you, Mr. Crabbe," said Harry as he took notes on this interplay.

Crabbe only grunted as Harry received the buttons from Crabbe's caloused, paw-like palm into his own long-fingered left.

"Now, do observe, Slytherins," Harry said casually as he retrieved his wand from his inner pocket. Pointing to one of the buttons with its tip, he swiftly transfigured the bone it was originally made from into tungsten. Then he enlarged the metal one until it was about the size of a cricket ball, handed it to Draco so that he could enlarge the other one to the same volume, and then handed that over to Draco as well. "Now, Draco, please tell me, which of these buttons is heavier?"

"The metal one," Draco said, seemingly slightly reluctant to state a fact so obvious. "It's considerably heavier."

"I think so as well," said Harry. "Daphne, what do you think? Draco, let her hold them."

Daphne was quick to say that she agreed with Draco's assessment on the relative weights of the two engorged buttons.

"Does anyone else want to see?" Harry asked, looking around at the group.

"I'll take it on faith that the metal is heavier than the bone," said Theodore, who seemed to be growing someone impatient with Harry's protracted explanation.

"If you're sure," Harry said as he replaced his wand in his coats and took the buttons from Daphne's hands. Harry was about to raise them up overhead, but then realized that if he raised his arms up fully, his hands would still only be a few inches over Crabbe and Mr. Goyle's heads. So instead he said, "Mr. Goyle, if you would be so kind as to assist me," and handed them over. "Now, hold those over your head –" he demonstrated holding an invisible object over his own " – excellent, thank you, Mr. Goyle. Now, Slytherins, in a moment Mr. Goyle will drop these two objects simultaneously. Do you think that the lighter, bone one will hit the ground first, or the heavier metal one?"

Draco snorted. "The metal one, obviously," said he, and Parkinson and Daphne nodded in agreement. Theodore, Harry noted, seemed to know that Harry was trying to trick them all, and held his tongue. Crabbe had a stupid, lost expression – Mr. Goyle's face betrayed absolutely nothing, but you could see the gears whirring.

"That does seem likely," allowed Harry. "But let's just see. Mr. Goyle, if you would – and do drop them at the exact same time, if you could."

The buttons fell. Predictably enough, they struck the ground virtually simultaneously.

Draco turned to Harry with one brow arched at an extreme angle, and said, "Did you use magic?"

Harry smiled magnanimously, then caught himself acting condescending and turned it into a friendly smile. "Actually, no," he said. "Now, what do you think happened, there?"

The Slytherins didn't seem to have anything to say. Their brains were all working on the problem, just as much as their respective mental capacities would allow for, but nobody seemed to have any hypotheses to propose to explain the phenomenon. After a while, Harry got his wand out again and levitated the buttons to Crabbe – not untransfiguring them, and levitating them because he didn't think it would be very dignified to bend over, since that would put his face uncomfortably close to Mr. Goyle's trunk – and resumed walking down the corridor. The Slytherins all caught up quickly. "Now," Harry said as he walked, "what if I told you, the muggles figured out exactly what happened there four hundred years ago?"

After a rather long silence, it was Theodore who admitted, "In that case, I would have to conclude that maybe there is something worth learning at that muggle school."

Harry nodded. "Quite so," he said. "Now there was one other thing that I slipped in there. Did anyone catch it?"

"The metal," volunteered Mr. Goyle promptly. The other Slytherins all looked up at him curiously. "It was not lead," he said, "or tin or iron or anything I've seen before. Was it some muggle alloy?"

Harry favored Mr. Goyle with a broad, genuine grin, and he said, "You, Mr. Goyle, are very, very clever. But no, it was no muggle alloy – it was an entirely different kind of metal, which the muggles discovered I think about two hundred years ago or so. It is called tungsten."

"Tungsten," repeated Theodore. Mr. Goyle nodded – it seemed that this had perhaps been another theory that he had entertained, but had for some reason not voiced.

"Mr. Goyle, you were very close to the correct answer. Could you explain your reasoning?"

Mr. Goyle took a moment to compose his mind, and he said, "As soon as I held it, I somehow knew that it was not iron or pewter. But I did not know just what it was – tungsten, you say. Even though complex alloys are supposed to be rather difficult to transfigure, I presumed that that must have been what you had done, Mr. Potter. However, now that you've properly explained, I find myself remembering that first transfiguration lesson, in which you spoke of something called 'aluminium.'"

"Quite," said Harry. Then, turning to the rest, upon whose faces there were to be found traces of uncertainty, he elucidated: "I do not know if you all remember or not, but during our first transfiguration lesson, I transfigured that matchstick into a needle made of aluminium. Like tungsten, aluminium is a new type of metal only recently discovered by muggles. I noticed at that time that although it seemed that Professor McGonagall seemed to have heard the word 'aluminium' before, she did not seem to have a very clear understanding of just what it was. So, I thought that I might play a little trick on you all – no hard feelings, I hope – by throwing in yet another unknown element. Aluminium and tungsten are both used extensively by muggles, these days, although they have radically different properties. The bone button, if you would be so kind, Mr. Crabbe?"

Harry stopped walking for the time it took to transfigure the non-tungsten enlarged button into aluminium, and encouraged the students to pass the two around and get a feel for the metals. Then, continuing towards the Entrance Hall, he said, "These metals are not alloys of copper, silver or gold, or of iron, nickel, lead or tin. They are entirely new metals which, I believe, are largely unknown by wizards and witches. And tungsten and aluminium are both, in their own right, incredibly useful materials, and both have, in the intervening centuries since their respective discoveries, become quite commonplace in the muggle world. Now, Theodore, what would you say about muggle knowledge?"

Theodore was quite put on the spot by this, but he had to conclude, "The muggles," he said begrudgingly, "know things that we cannot comprehend."

"Quite so," said Harry, just as affably as before, giving Theodore a somewhat apologetic smile. "However, there is one other thing of note. Mr. Goyle, have you observed it?"

Theodore let out a scoff of indignation – apparently he was not used to being placated while some other boy was deferred to. Upon this indignity, Mr. Goyle deferred for the first time to Draco before responding, and it was only after Draco's confirmatory nod that Mr. Goyle responded. He said, "It occurs to me, Mr. Potter, that these things which wizardkind do not yet understand, which the muggles do, have applications in the magical arts."

"Just so," Harry said with satisfaction. "Just so, Mr. Goyle. While it is easy to look down on the muggles for their handicap, it would be wise to bear in mind that they have managed to do some very impressive things in spite of said handicap. And, in the process of overcoming their handicap, the muggles have discovered many things that wizardkind had no cause to investigate, but things which, now that they are known, we can put to good use."

Mr. Goyle's face looked grim – apparently he was sharp enough to hear the obvious but unspoken 'and we will be lost if we don't.' Draco and Theodore were nodding with a sort of hesitant pensiveness. Daphne and Parkinson seemed a bit out of their depth. Crabbe seemed to be more focused on not walking over cracks on the floor than the conversation.

As Harry thought about it more, though, the problem was much deeper than he had suggested to the Slytherins. Not only did wizardkind know nothing of newly discovered materials, but they seemed to have forgotten about some of the oldly-discovered ones as well. He had, since he entered the wizarding world, seen not a scrap of steel, nor indeed even any evidence of concrete. For such people, who had lost the art of cement, and indeed seemed to have little use for even bricks, he had to wonder what hope there was.

Harry felt the beginnings of yet another academic club taking shape in his mind.

"Look here," he said suddenly. "In the muggle world, there is an idiom: knowledge is power. Here in the wizarding world, that is a literal truth. Now, see: if I had not transfigured Crabbe's buttons to aluminium and tungsten, you would have no knowledge of these materials existing at all. A gap in knowledge, in the wizarding world, is a real weakness, for if I were to transfigure this tungsten button into a spider, and have it attack you, you would be at a loss for how to untransfigure it. Even vanishing it by transfiguration – that is to say, transfiguring it into air – would take considerably more effort than it would were I to attack you instead with an iron spider. Given this truth – that knowledge is power – it stands to reason that any wizard who is serious about becoming powerful must learn all that there is to learn. In the muggle world, as you have seen, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit for wizardkind. Things that even an eleven-year-old raised in muggledom understands implicitly could give you a significant advantage if you're faced against a wizard who is not aware of them. And Theodore – in the muggle world, we do not just go to school for six years. In fact, many people do not leave school until they are in their late twenties. Imagine what they know that people raised here never could."

All of the Slytherins, sans the space cadet Crabbe and the grimly gritty Mr. Goyle, seemed stricken by the reality that they were facing, which Harry summed up neatly: "There are billions of muggles, and many of them are brilliant. As long as wizardkind continues to ignore their advances, we will only create more gaps in our knowledge – knowledge being power, that means more vulnerabilities. Well," he concluded, "here we are. I'll be joining my Housemates. Thanks for the lovely discussion, Slytherins! Toodles."

And off he trot towards the area of the Great Hall that had been claimed by those wearing ties of yellow.

The Great Hall was quite transformed since lunchtime. The four long House tables were absent, and instead there was a platform measuring about four yards across and around ten yards wide. Around this platform – clearly the dueling stage – the four Houses had made due without their customary tables by clumping together in the places where their respective tables usually stood, so it was without much difficulty that Harry pushed diagonally through the boisterous Gryffindor rabble and towards his own people.

Nor was it hard, once he had pushed his way through all of his own Housemates towards the front, to find his yearmates – or at least Hermione, Susan and Cerie. "Hullo," he said.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, excited by something. "Where have you been? We thought you might not show up!"

"Oh, I just had some business to discuss with Draco. Do you know, I've learned something rather distressing. Well, I'll tell you all about it once we're out of this mob."

"Something distressing?" she echoed, then glanced around to check if anyone was looking at them. "Is it about the you-know-what?"

For a moment, Harry did not know what. Then Hermione looked pointedly at his scar, and he realized, and he said, "No, no, nothing to do with that. I've just learned about some serious issues with the education here at Hogwarts. Well, as I say, I'll tell you all about it presently – as soon as we're done here."

Hermione nodded in such a way so as to indicate that she had taken that as a promise. Harry gave her a wry sort of grin.

"And you?" he said. "You seem a bit out of sorts."

"Well, I was just worried about you," she said, looking away. And as she looked away, she showed Harry her profile, which looked a shade or two pinker than it usually did, and he tried not to laugh.

"Don't worry about me," said he. "I'm rather capable. But sorry for not telling you where I was off to. I was in a bit of a hurry, you know."

"What's it like in there, anyway?" she asked.

"A bit cold," Harry said promptly. Then he gave it a bit of thought and elaborated: "Instead of a Central Hearth, their fireplace is up against one wall. And I don't think they have a recreation room or a quiet study room. Unless they're maybe across the hall rather than directly connected to the Common Room. Oh, but they did have the most interesting light fixtures."

Hermione gave this assessment a great deal of consideration before she concluded: "Well, that seems … that is to say, that's too bad for them."

"Yes," Harry laughed. "The lamps don't really compensate. Hey, look, are you planning on taking your O-Levels and A-Levels?"

Hermione looked faintly appalled by the question. "But of course," she said. "I mean, otherwise … I might be stuck here, might'n't I?"

Harry nodded in agreement, thinking, I really must keep my options open. While the magical world was certainly plenty fascinating, Harry would be much remiss to abandon entirely the somewhat more rational and in some ways more comfortable society he had come from. His concept for yet another academic club was beginning to crystallize. He told Hermione, "I might need your help with a project."

She rolled her eyes. "You know, there really is only so much time in a day. I don't know how you expect to keep up with all of this. Don't think we're going to slack on Chinese."

"Bù huì," he said, meaning not gonna happen. "While it's true that there are only so many hours in a day, I find that there's somehow always room to squeeze in one or two more things."

"One or two?"

"Or three," Harry amended. Dueling practice with Draco, meeting with the inter-House society for education, and now keeping up to be ready for the O-Levels made three new things. And they were due to finally start enchanting this week, but that didn't technically count as a 'new' thing per se.

"Harry," Hermione said quite seriously, "above all, you mustn't neglect your occlumency."

Oh, yes, he thought. Including the new thing that they had started the day prior, that made five. Dueling practice, Education Society, O-Levels, Occlumency, Enchanting, Chinese, he enumerated internally. And I feel like I'm forgetting one or maybe two things.

Still, while Hermione might say 'there are only so many hours in a day,' Harry had long been thinking something quite different: the day is long and I don't need a lot of sleep. More to the point, he had recently come to have a newfound appreciation for the powers of delegation.

Suddenly, Professors Snape and Flitwick were coming in through the small door behind the head table, where they had been apparently waiting for the appointed time. Harry noticed that they were also joined by an interested-looking Professor McGonagall, but while Flitwick and Snape made their way up to the platform in the middle of the room, Professor McGonagall took a seat at the head table. Apparently, she had come only to observe the proceedings, rather than to participate, for she was soon sipping on a cup of tea and nibbling on a biscuit, looking for all the world like someone waiting for a show to start. She might as well have had popcorn, Harry thought with a little grin.

Harry found himself distracted again, though, as he remembered what he had shown the Slytherins shortly earlier and now related that to his favorite professor. He wondered if their world-famous professor of Transfiguration might herself benefit from a bit of knowledge about what the muggles knew about minerals and the physical sciences more generally. Certainly, he had seen the applicable relevance upon his first encounter with the subject, but he had also seen that the resident master of that magical art had only the faintest idea what he was on about at the time. He wondered if she might be even more incredible with a bit of a background in chemistry – and then there was the boar she had transfigured her desk into. Would a bit of biology make her even better at that kind of thing?

Harry suddenly realized that Professor Snape had already started talking. Ah, yes, Harry thought, reeling his mind back to the present. The great and noble sport of magical duels. "– so it falls upon me, and Professor Flitwick," the potionsmaster was concluding, "to make sure that should the time come, you're ready to face the challenges of the real world. At least, those of you who demonstrate the qualifications to earn a place on your House team."

Professor Flitwick squeaked a little addendum: "Although we hope that just having the dueling club will cause each and every student of this school to renew their interest in the exciting world of dueling and the related subject of Defense Against the Dark Arts!"

"Quite," Snape said, lips curling. It was clear that he found this to be more than optimistic, but perhaps, Harry thought as he looked at the man's somewhat long-suffering, sour expression, it had been one of the arguments he had used to get Flitwick and Dumbledore on board with this program to begin with.

The rules of a wizarding duel, as Professors Snape and Flitwick explained them, were extremely simple.

First, a duelist is disqualified for killing, maiming, or otherwise permanently injuring their opponent. Of course, as Professor Snape pointed out, in such a case there was no winner in the duel, since such a disqualification meant that neither participant was in a fit state to continue. "And indeed," piped up the excitable charmsmaster, "From 1897 to 1901, there was never a World Champion, since all of those duels ended in tragedy!" For some reason, though, Hogwarts's tiniest professor didn't seem to find it tragic so much as fascinating. Among the assembled students, there was a smattering of nervous laughter and much uncomfortable shuffling of feet.

A duel ends only when one participant is disarmed (meaning, more specifically, that their wand is in the hands of their opponent), disabled (meaning, to be precise, unable to perform spells), knocked unconscious, knocked off the dueling platform or ring, or if someone yields.

According to the World Championship of Wizardly Dueling's rules, participants would be given up to seven 'rounds' against each other, and it was the first duelist to successfully win four times who would win the 'set.' The winner of the set would advance in the tournament, while the loser would kindly make his or her way back to their homeland. In the World Championship, there was no prize for runners-up, even second place, unless you counted the dubious 'renown' of almost winning as a prize. However, here at Hogwarts, they would be doing the best of three instead of the best of seven.

While the World Championship of Dueling only had a youths division for persons aged thirteen through seventeen and an adults division for persons over seventeen – and just one Youth Champion and one regular Champion –, here at Hogwarts, the students would be divided into three brackets based on their year: the Alpha bracket of NEWT students (sixth and seventh years), the Beta bracket of OWL students (fourth and fifth years) and the Gamma bracket of everyone else. There would be an individual winner of each of the three brackets, as well as a runner-up and two people sharing third place (the two losers of the semi-finals), and all of these duelists would receive some points. In the end, all points from all brackets would be added up and it would be whichever House had achieved the highest score that would win.

Of course, as much as Professor Flitwick tried to emphasize that it was a team event, Harry wanted to win in his bracket. Harry, assuming that he made it onto the team, would probably be dueling primarily against third years, and maybe one or two second years, because, out of all of the first years in the school, Harry thought that only Draco and possibly Terry Boot had any chance of getting on their team, and he hadn't even had a chance to ask Terry if he was interested. Hermione could probably do it, but she didn't want to. Then again, there were plenty of wildcards whose abilities he didn't know well. Considering that he only had a week or two to prepare for the team try outs, at which point he would have to be at a third year level in dueling at the least, and then only until February to prepare for the tournament, that meant that he had his work cut out for him. Harry consoled himself with the thought that since there had evidently never been a proper Defense instructor, they would all essentially be starting from scratch.

There were a few additional rules, too. For one thing, phystical violence was strictly prohibited – no punching or kicking or anything. It was also prohibited to use weapons of any kind other than a wand or to use any enchanted item or potion. Also, summoning any object which was not already inside the ring at the start of the duel was prohibited.

Apparently, the fact that they were prohibited from using the Dark Arts or other dangerous spells went without saying, because Professors Snape and Flitwick never did say that. He was left to assume, then, that as long as they didn't do anything to maim their opponent, or anything blatantly against the law, it was anything-goes as per what kinds of spells they could use. This thought made Harry's list of Defense spells seem rather inadequate: what if he came up against an opponent that relied on transfiguration rather than these Defense charms, as he was beginning to understand many talented duelists did? Of course, Harry then remembered that he himself was extremely talented at transfiguration – maybe that should be his dueling style, then? It was certainly rather more flashy than just relying on the Disarming Charm and the Stunning Spell. Flashy is good, he thought, but I'll do whatever's effective.

"Are there any questions?" Professor Flitwick asked the assembly.

Harry raised his hand and waved it around energetically, thinking that it was his chance to get some clarification.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"Professor, what about the dark arts? Are we allowed to use the dark arts?"

Several people nearby recoiled and regarded him as though he had grown a second head and it was out for blood. Others looked intrigued. Professor Snape's lips curled into a faint sneer as he regarded Harry darkly – Professor Snape must have thought, Harry reasoned with a slight inkling of embarrassment, that he was trying to 'make light' of this important orientation by bringing up the dark arts.

"Hypothetically," he added weakly with a little shrug.

Professor Flitwick gave a squeaky little chuckle. "Well, Mr. Potter. Hypothetically, as you say – the interesting thing is that different countries may have slightly different definitions of what spells are considered 'dark.' Furthermore, there are many countries in the world where the use of dark magic is not frowned upon as it is here in Britain. Rather than have all of the disparate member countries of the World Dueling Association come to some sort of agreement about what spells are 'dark,' the Association has simply prohibited the forty-two spells which are forbidden by the International Confederation of Wizards. Additionally, anything that causes permanent harm results in disqualification. So, in answer to your question, in the World Championship you may use any spell that is not on that list of forty-two as long as the result of that spell does not kill or maim your opponent, irrespective of whether your home country frowns upon that spell's use, although it may be considered highly advisable to check local laws before doing so. However, in our little dueling tournament here at Hogwarts, we do not have to worry about the difficulties of getting various countries to agree. Therefore, any spell which is forbidden by British law is also, of course, forbidden within the tournament. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, Professor! Thank you. Oh, but is there a list of spells prohibited in Britain?"

Professor Flitwick looked thoughtful. "Hm. I suppose it may be possible to get such a list from the DMLE. Let us just say, Mr. Potter, as a rule of thumb, that anything you learn out of any book here at Hogwarts, or out of any book you buy at a reputable bookshop, or of course in any class, will not likely be illegal."

Harry nodded. That was a good rule of thumb to avoid a stint in wizarding jail, he thought. That list of spells that would get you sent straight to jail without passing go, on the other hand, was something he'd be interested in taking a glance at. Merely as a curiosity, of course – it was probably an excellent read.

A few of the other students had questions, too, but they weren't anything very interesting, which gave Harry time to think up another interesting question of his own.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?" Professor Flitwick asked hesitantly.

"What about the mind arts, Professor? I mean, can I Obliviate my opponent and make them forget why they're in a dueling ring?"

"Ah. Well, that touches on your earlier question, Mr. Potter. The use of Memory Charms by any person who does not have a Ministry Obliviator's License is strictly prohibited by British law, and of course even then its use is tightly regulated, and it of course may not be used for sport or amusement. And I don't think you'll find it in a book in the library here, Mr. Potter. Remember the rule of thumb!"

"Oh, right, of course," said Harry. "But could I confund the opponent?"

It was with a great deal of obvious hesitation that the charmsmaster admitted that yes, you were allowed to confund, but it wasn't very sporting.

"Oh, that makes sense," Harry said. "What about legilimency?"

"It is against the law to legilimize anyone without their consent, Mr. Potter, unless you happen to be an authorized Auror with a DMLE warrant," the tiny professor told him.

"What about if I confund someone into giving me permission to legilimize them?" was the obvious follow-up.

"Anything said while under the effects of a Confundus Charm is not legally binding," the professor said after a moment's hesitation. "So, a confunded person cannot give consent to be legilimized. Does that answer your question?"

"I think so. Thanks, Professor!"

Professor Flitwick just gave him a weary look.

Professor Snape, however, decided to add his own token of advice to what he must have seen as an inadequate answer on the part of his colleague. He said, "You would do well to remember, Mr. Potter, that these are merely the rules of the game. In the real world, should you ever come to wands with a dark wizard, it would be extremely naïve to expect said dark wizard to pay any heed to any law, regulation, custom or nicety. In such a situation, you would be remiss not to be prepared to defend yourself against the mind arts – or the place you wake up wondering where you are will surely be less pleasant than a dueling arena."

Harry nodded very seriously. Professor Flitwick gave Professor Snape a slightly incredulous glance, which Professor Snape returned with an arched eyebrow and what might have, just maybe, been the slightest hint of a smirk. Professor Flitwick then shook his head as though to dislodge something unpleasant and asked the assembly if anyone else had any further questions.

Blaise Zabini did. "Yes, Mr. Zabini?"

"Hypothetically," the boy said, "what would happen if we did kill or maim an opponent in a duel?"

"You would be disqualified, of course!" Professor Flitwick squeaked, appalled.

"More than likely," Professor Snape said silkily, "you would be disqualified, then have your wand snapped and be sent to Azkaban. Now, I assume there are no more questions."

At the answer to Zabini's question, Harry was beginning to feel just the slightest hint of doubt about this whole thing. He wondered if there was anyone opportunistic enough to use the dueling tournament as a guise to 'accidentally' off another student using a spell that wasn't normally lethal, thereby being disqualified but avoiding a prison sentence. Surely the Ministry would not take such a dim view of a young student who happened to be party to a tragic accident like that. Looking around at the assembled students, it seemed that a number of other people in the Great Hall had similar concerns going through their own minds. He would definitely have to keep on his toes, because there were probably few students in the school that more people had a good reason to harm than himself. Harry squared his shoulders, though, thinking, this is the price you pay for failing to get on the Quidditch team, Potter. Buck up! Because in the end, he still considered the goal of distinguishing himself, even at the risk of mortal peril, to be vital to his long-term success in the wizarding world.

"Now, in a wizard's duel, the most important thing is to be a good sportsman and a proper gentleman," Professor Flitwick said, which had Professor Snape taking a very long blink that probably concealed rolling eyes. "Or lady, of course. For that reason, it's absolutely necessary to observe a few niceties of propriety. Now, just like how team captains will shake hands before a Quidditch match, in the sport of dueling it is customary for the opponents to bow to each other before the start of the duel. Now, first the duelists stand with their backs together in the middle of the ring, like this! Now, we each take ten paces away from the other. One, two, three, dum, dum, dee, ra, ra, ree … ten! You'll notice that we each took ten nice, long strides. Then, customarily we will turn and face each other, then bow for at least a good two or three seconds – and some duelists think it's most polite if we hold eye contact while we bow. No curtsying, please – just a nice simple bow from the waist. Now, once we've risen and assumed our fighting stances – notice Professor Snape's textbook Aspfang Stance. I prefer a more mobile stance, I call this the Wasp Stance. I used to call it the Hummingbird Stance, but then – well, that's an anecdote for another day! It allows for very good lateral mobility, I find. Of course, there are many different stances, and many people develop their own personal stance. The important things are: stability, mobility and accessibility – to the opponent, that is! Now, once we've both assumed our stance, that's the signal to the referee – Professor McGonagall, if you would? – thank you – that's the signal that we're ready to go. Usually the referee will wait about five seconds or so – just for dramatics, you understand – then strike a gong!"

Professor McGonagall did not have a gong, but she did have that spell that she seemed to use at least once a week which made a sound not unlike canon fire. As soon as everyone in the Great Hall was suitably deafened, the combatants were in motion.

Snape struck first – with the slightest twist of his wand, a blast of red light flew towards the charmsmaster across the stage. Flitwick was having none of that, though – a shield of silver light appeared and Snape's spell washed around it like a wave running round a skerry, and just as soon as it had passed, Flitwick launched three bolts in rapid succession at Snape, which caused him to jump stiffly to one side. Flitwick used this chance to quickly trot towards Snape, closing the distance by half. Snape fired off his own spells to keep the charmsmaster at bay, but the little ancient man was incredibly nimble, and just zigged and zagged around them.

Suddenly, apparently by some unseen signal, both wizards were unleashing spells with such extreme rapidity that Harry could not fathom how they were all dodged, blocked and swept aside – or even how they were cast at all.

Because neither duelist used a single incantation, and used what seemed to be truncated wand movements, Harry realized that the only reliable way to discern what spells were being fired would be to know precisely what they looked like – the color, whether it was a spiral or a straight bolt, whether or not it distorted the air with heat, and the particular frequency of the humming or whirring they made as they zipped by.

Within those first few seconds, Harry had given up trying to understand just what spells they were casting, since he had none of that information, and instead focused his mind on their movements. Snape moved in slight, quick jerks to avoid each spell by a hair's breadth, and kept his wand directly in front of his lower ribs or stomach to be ready to shield and deflect oncoming bolts. Flitwick, on the other hand, was constantly in motion, leaping to and fro with stunning agility, sometimes racing away from Snape and sometimes towards him. Harry understood the name of Flitwick's stance: like a winged insect, Flitwick kept both arms extended perpendicular to his body as he scrambled all around, such that his spells came from strange angles from his extended wand arm.

Suddenly, Flitwick spotted a weakness in Snape's defense – Snape's wand had drifted slightly up from its position in front of his core, and it seemed that it didn't quite provide adequate coverage over his lower limbs. Snape was struck in the leg with a swift streak of blue and he was launched into the air, and somersaulted once, and before he had landed Flitwick had struck his airborn backside with another spell, which sent the potionsmaster's wand high up into the air. Its path formed a tall parabola, reaching its apex just as Snape landed on his back on the arena floor with a great puff as all the air was ejected from his lungs. But Snape, obviously winded, was not defeated. Even as the potionsmaster struggled to breathe, he leapt to his feet and made to jump above Flitwick and grab his wand before it was in the charmsmaster's hand. It looked like he would get it, too – but as he was in the air, arm extended to catch his wand, Flitwick caught him in the chest with something that sent him flying back again, and before Snape had landed in a heap on the opposite side of the platform his wand was in his opponent's hand.

The assembly of students just stared for the longest time. Then someone was clapping, and then Harry was clapping, and then Flitwick was giving the student body a little bow as they all roared their approval, while Snape was rejecting McGonagall's hand to help him up.

Snape managed to stand, and Flitwick walked over to him and handed over the man's wand as he bowed to him.

Harry thought about what he had seen as the audience continued to roar. It was clear that Snape was no slouch when it came to dueling, but Flitwick's tiny body, combined with his incredible mobility, made him a much more difficult target than the tower-like, almost stationary figure of the potionsmaster, and it meant that his shields offered greater coverage.

Harry wondered if Snape had envisioned this somewhat humiliating defeat in a battle lasting no more than twenty seconds when he had agreed to form this club. To judge by the man's dark expression, he had not.

Professors Flitwick and Snape allowed the student body to cheer for a while longer before Flitwick squeaked for order in the Hall, raising his hands. Once the pink-faced, starry-eyed students had settled down, Professor Flitwick invited them to analyze and critique the duel.

Harry decided not to raise his hand – there was no sense in blurting out what he had seen, when there was a chance that he had been one of the few who had noticed it. To his chagrin, however, it was the very first point raised when Professor Flitwick called on a fourth year in Gryffindor whose hand was raised. She summed it up: "After you launched several spells at Professor Snape's face, sir, his wand had drifted slightly upwards in defense, leaving his lower legs exposed to attack."

Professor Flitwick chuckled. "Yes, yes, very true," he said. "A bit devious on my part, I'll admit, but that is the nature of the game. You see, causing your opponent to break their form will often expose weaknesses that they may not be aware of. I spotted early on that if I could just get Professor Snape to raise his wand a few inches, he would be exposed."

"A cunning ploy," Professor Snape complimented with only the barest hint of resentment. "Worthy of a Champion, I daresay."

"Oh, Severus, please!" Professor Flitwick exclaimed, blushing bright red.

Another Gryffindor spoke up without being called on: "But if Professor Snape were – er, tiny – sorry, I mean, if Professor Snape were a little bit more compact, that is to say, differently shaped, then it wouldn't have worked."

"Very true," Professor Flitwick acknowledged. "You'll notice that when I do my shielding charms, I do not even need to necessarily hold my wand in front of my navel, as a taller wizard would. Now, it is possible to overcome this weakness by simply making your shield much larger, or using a shield that is not circular – but either of those solutions would require expending a great deal more magic. Circular shields are far, far more efficient than, say, egg-shaped ones, and a shield of a radius of exactly one Agrippan Armstück – or roughly thrity-five and one half inches, by our measure – is the most efficient of all, due to the arithmantic properties of the circle. Any other size or shape requires considerably more effort to produce – whether it be the standard Shield Charm or most any other. Advantageous for me, since I'm not that much taller than I am wide, and am less than seventy-one inches no matter how you measure me, but someone like Professor Snape must always bear this in mind."

The students tittered a bit at Professor Flitwick's frank assessment of his own physique, but Harry saw that of course it was no joke. Being pint sized made him not only a much more difficult target to aim at, but also gave him a huge advantage when it came to shields, since his shields were large enough to protect his whole body and then some. By contrast, Professor Snape's lanky body effectively limited where he was able to hold his wand to a tiny area around his stomach, less his shield leave something exposed. And indeed, when the two professors then demonstrated their shields, it was evident that they were exactly the same size, a size apparently determined by arithmancy, and that even when Professor Snape did hold his wand dead-center, it did not quite fully cover him.

Harry had a thought cross his mind that he would have thought he'd never think: I hope I'm never tall…. While Harry had not given the rumors of the charmsmaster's dueling prowess much credence when he had first heard of them, now that he knew that the size and shape of spells was determined by the objective hand of mathematics, rather than somehow being proportionate to the caster's body size, as he had for some reason assumed, it now seemed almost inevitable that Professor Flitwick should be a masterful duelist. He found himself looking at the tiny man slightly differently.

"Of course, I made a great mistake that nearly cost me the duel," Professor Flitwick went on to say. "I hope everyone noticed – it was not subtle." And indeed many students raised their hands.

Professor Flitwick called on a third year Slytherin apparently at random, and Mr. Cupsworth pointed out that his Disarming Charm had been ill-controlled.

"Much to my chagrin," the charmsmaster said, indeed seeming quite chagrined. "It is of course one of the first spells any duelist learns – but a finicky spell, at times. I'm afraid that in my excitement I let it get away from me. A well-executed Disarming Charm will of course deliver the opponent's wand to your hand directly, rather than send it up to the ceiling first."

After answering a few more questions, the professors then launched into advising the sixth and seventh years what they would be looking for for their captains. Even Professor McGonagall stood up to give her Gryffindors a hint about her expectations for them. For the Hufflepuffs, of course, it was all meaningless, since they had already decided on a better method of selection, and a few of the Puffs, including Ernie, lapsed into muttering about how they wanted to see a rematch, or a duel involving McGonagall. Harry did take note of the points the Heads of House raised about their expectations for their captains, though, because he thought that similar things might come up in the debate.

Maybe he should have expected it – and maybe part of him had – but when, after the Puffs had assembled back in the Common Room, he was called upon to act as the debate's moderator, he could not help but hold his forehead in his hand and groan in dismay.

"Sounds impartial to me," Anthony Witly said with a bright grin.

"Come along, Harry," Lindsey Sparrow said as she hefted him up from the comfy chair that he had just sat down in.

"All right, all right. I'm not really sure what I'm doing, though."

"You'll be fine," Lindsey said. "You're a natural at this stuff."

The fact that Harry felt merely irritated, and not as though he were about to start hyperventilating, he saw as a silver lining, not as proof that he was cut out for this kind of thing. Still, whether or not he felt that he was cut out for it, it did fit the image that he was obstensibly trying to cultivate, and so he really had no choice but to be carried along. Harry did note, however, that Professor Sprout had made an appearance in the Common Room, and tried not to give her too bitter of a look for doing what, if you look at it, was really more her job than his. She had the gall to smile and wave in a way that was both reassuring and proud. He wanted to scowl.

"Being that I'm so short," Harry muttered, and set someone's handy copy of The Standard Book of Spells Grade 4 on the ground, then made it a few dozen times its original size and climbed up.

Harry didn't know Professor McGonagall's canon-fire spell, but wished he did just then, just to give his Housemates a bit of a fright. Instead, he raised his wand and shot off some suitable black and yellow sparks.

He cleared his throat, pocketed his wand and straightened his tie in the manner that he had so often seen Ernie do, and said, "My fellow Hufflepuffs. Today marks the beginning of a new tradition. I hope we will all be able to stand proud, and tell our children, when they are proud Puffs too, that we were here this day and we decided to do things our way. The Hufflepuff way. This is not just a debate to determine who should be the captain of some sports team. Well, it is that. But it is also an expression of our deepest, most sacred virtues. Dedication – hard work – loyalty – these are not just words! Well, they are words. But they are also us. They are who we are, and what we believe, and what we do each and every day. By having this debate, and by having the demonstrations this morning, we stand and say that we decide to decide because we know that if we work together, we will succeed together!"

Harry wasn't entirely sure if the last bit really made any sense at all, but it seemed, by the roaring applause, that it didn't exactly matter.

"Our prospective captains – Sappho, Anthony, Abigail, Lindsey, Henry and Michael, come up here. There's plenty of room on this book for all of us. Or maybe not, let me make it a bit bigger. All right, get up here you lot. Our prospective captains. Look at them, Hufflepuff. These are the best among us – (out of those who wanted to be captain). Stand tall, everyone. You've all done well. You've all done us proud."

While the House was applauding their captain candidates, Harry hopped down from the platfom and beckoned Becca over to him. Handing her his hat, he hissed, "I need you to go round the fourth and fifth years and have them put some questions they want answered in my hat. All right? Nothing mean, obviously. And don't let anyone sign their damn name! Thanks!"

Becca gave him a bemused look, but shrugged and started gathering up the fourth and fifth years to one side of the room. Harry shot off some more festive sparks, this time really just because it was fun, and then said, "All right, candidates. First off, I'd like each of you to give us an opening statement. State clearly why you think that you are the very best of the very best, and deserve the honor of being the first captain of the Hufflepuff Dueling Club. Easy enough, right?" There were a few scattered laughs, but out of the candidates on the stage only Sappho and Lindsey looked like they weren't about to be sick or faint. "Okay, easy enough. Er – Ernie, let me borrow your hat. And some parchment. Thanks." Harry quickly jotted down the numbers 1 through 6 on bits of parchment and put them in Ernie's hat, feeling rather silly for having just handed his own hat over to Becca. Not that there was any shortage of fancy hats to go around. "Okay, candidates. Draw a number, and the number will determine the order in which you deliver your opening statements. Sound fair? Okay, here we go. No trading – you get what you get. Okay, go ahead."

"I have a question!" someone yelled. Harry looked around at the candidates, then at the rest of the House, but couldn't be sure who said it. Finally a little Puff that was probably a second year pushed his way to the front of the crowd. "I have a question!" he yelled again, even though he was now very close to Harry.

Harry looked at him in confusion, and said, "You have a question?"

"Yes!" said he.

"Okay," said Harry.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Well, aren't you going to ask me what my question is?"

Harry's mind boggled. He shook his head. He said, "All right. In that case, I have a question. What is your question?"

"My question is, what makes you qualified to be the – er – the whatever it is you're doing?"

There was a small uproar at that, a few of the Puffs even openly booing the question-asker. But Harry shot off some more sparks and called for quiet. Then he said, "Well, I don't really know. Er – I guess the sixth and seventh years thought that I would be impartial."

"Well?"

"Well what?" Harry said again.

"Are you impartial?"

"Well. I mean, I certainly have an opinion of my own, if that's what you mean. But I'm trying to be as impartial as I can be."

"Well, I'm not sure that that's good enough," said the boy. As the Puffs started booing again, this time more loudly, he shouted, "Hear me out! Hear me out! Just listen to what I have to say!"

Harry shot off some more sparks, which was at this point becoming something of a habit. "Everyone!" he called. "Let the kid explain what he means. He might have a good point, you know."

"Thank you," the boy said rather primly.

"You're welcome," said Harry.

There was a brief silence. A moment later, it dawned on Harry that the boy was expecting a prompt again, so he said, "Well, what did you mean, then?"

"I was only wondering," the boy practically shouted, "if perhaps Professor Sprout might be a better – whatever it is that you are."

Harry ran a hand through his hair, wishing he had a hat to adjust, but he wasn't about to put on Ernie's hat. Plus, it was filled with bits of parchment at the moment. He frowned as he tried to come up with a solution to this problem. In point of fact, he also thought that Professor Sprout would do the job better than he could, although it seemed to be going rather well so far. Finally, he called out loudly, "All right! I need a third hat! Sorry, could I borrow your hat?" he added to the boy whose name he still didn't know.

"Not likely," he said, crossing his arms. Crossing your arms, as it turned out, was not a good way to defend your hat. Someone behind him plucked it off and handed it back to Harry, who handed it back in turn to the question-asker boy, and then asked the boy who had stolen the hat to please 'volunteer' his own hat.

"Okay. Here's how this is going to work, people. I want each and every one of you – that is, everyone who wants to vote – to write either 'Potter' or 'Sprout' on a bit of parchment. Then our friend here is going to count the vote, and that'll determine who does whatever it is I'm doing."

The voting process took considerably longer than Harry would have expected, and then the counting of the votes took quite a long time too, and Harry was beginning to wonder if anyone was going to make it to dinner. Finally, the vote came out with 84 for Harry and 17 for Sprout.

"Okay, I hope we're all satisfied," Harry said.

"How do I know you didn't tamper with the parchments?" the boy asked suspiciously.

"How could I? I've been holding two hats this whole time, in case you didn't notice. Am I using my wand with my feet?"

"You weren't holding both hats while I counted the vote," he pointed out.

"I didn't touch my wand, either. Look – what's your name, by the way?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Never mind. Look, the vote's been cast, and that's that. Sorry it didn't go your way, but that's just how democracy works."

"Well," said the boy, "maybe we should have a vote on whether or not we want to be democratic!"

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose.

"In point of fact, we did," said Sappho Stone. "Last night, the sixth and seventh years had a vote to decide to decide things by voting."

In truth, the decision to decide according to Sappho's plan, as they were doing, was arrived at by more of an informal concensus than a proper vote, but Harry would hex the first person to say it.

The boy stared.

Sappho and the other candidates stared him down. Deep, deep down.

"All right," he said. "On with the show."

There was a great outburst of both irritation and relief as he finally relented. After Harry took a few moments to nurse his forehead in his palm, realizing that he'd probably be late to meet Draco at this rate, and definitely nobody was having dinner, Harry composed himself with another tie-straightening and shot off some more wand sparks – this time somewhat violently. Oops.

"Okay, everyone!" he said, trying to sound as excited as he could. "On with the show. Draw your numbers, candidates."

Harry had to feel a bit bad for Michael Sparrow, who went first. While the boy had a deft hand at both billiards and Charms, he was unfortunately not a convincing public speeker. When Harry managed to parse what he said through all of the stammering and the roundabout language, it seemed to boil down to something like, "Pick me because we'll definitely win if you pick me." Not inspiring.

Henry Rousseau, on the other hand, spoke so eloquently and at such length that people began to mutter about how long, exactly, he'd been preparing this speech. It seemed to many of them that he had possibly had recurring dreams about accepting positions of power with dignity and poise. Harry found himself thinking unflatteringly that it was probably about what Ernie would sound like accepting the position of Chief Warlock. While the words sounded good, it didn't really work. Of course, he received much more enthusiastic applause than poor Michael.

Speaking of Michael, it was his older sister Lindsey that went next. It seemed that she had learned from Henry's lukewarm reception not to lay it on too thick, and unlike any of the candidates that came before her she had the good sense to actually say what would make her a good captain: five O's on her OWLs and a swift strategic mind sure to devestate the opposition. Seeing her speak so well made Harry feel even worse for Michael, but he refused to hold that against Lindsey.

Next up – and Harry made sure not to sound any more interested in her than any of the other candidates – was Sappho. Her voice had a special quality to it that had Harry double-checking that there wasn't any mind magic going on. She captivated the whole House's imaginations by conjuring up vivid portraits through metaphor that emphasized both her ferocity and her femininity. Although there was a time limit of five minutes, Harry wished she would keep talking for hours. He wondered if he might have a bit of a crush on her.

Abigail was the one that had the misfortune of following Sappho up. She tried to make the best of it, but Harry supposed he wasn't the only one to catch her sending sidelong glances at Sappho. It almost seemed like Sappho had won Abigail's own vote.

Finally was Anthony. Anthony, it seemed, was a very straightforward kind of chap, but that didn't do him any credit, because he ended up saying "I think we'll win as long as myself or Sappho is elected captain." Harry, despite agreeing with the second half of the assessment, had the urge to scream at the boy's idiocy.

Once their speeches were all done, Harry took the measure of the room. Unless his eyecontact geometry was faulty, which having grown up in the Dursley household it was almost certainly not, it seemed like half of the House was staring at her. Nor was Sappho unaware of it – she was pink and grinning. She looked adorable. Harry shook himself and shot off some more sparks.

"Wonderful, everyone! Your eloquence does your House proud. Er – is there anyone who'd like to give up?"

Lindsey hopped off The Standard Book of Spells Grade 4 promptly. Her brother looked at her in astounded consternation, then seemed to figure that if she was giving up, that meant that he definitely had no chance, so the second Sparrow sibling hopped off the book as well. Abigail bit her bottom lip, then bent over and gave the shorter Sappho a peck on the cheek, before fairly running off the stage as the whole House laughed and cheered.

"Okay," Harry said slowly. He shot off more sparks for something to do while he waited for the House to settle down. Somehow the sparks formed a yellow heart and a black arrow shooting through it, which of course elicited another round of laughter and cheering. Abigail, for her part, was tomato red but grinning. Harry wondered if there was any point in voting at all, but he called Becca over for his own hat, which now was filled with bits of parchment. "Okay!" he said again, a bit more loudly. "Now we've got a few questions from the fourth and fifth years that we hope our remaining three candidates will answer.

"First question. Sappho, will you –"

Harry cut himself off and sent a glare at the cheekily grinning Becca before discarding the parchment and retrieving a new one.

"All right, first question. Since the entire tournament takes place on a single day, how will you approach strategizing against each of the other three Houses? A good question. Thanks, whoever wrote that. No thanks to who wrote the other one. All right, candidates. Er – who'd like to answer first."

Anthony Witly stepped forward. "I would use what we know about the other Houses to our advantage," he stated. "The Slytherins – you can expect them to have something nasty hidden up their sleeves, you know. I'll make sure our people are ready for it. Then the Gryffindors. Well, they'll probably be running around like maniacs, screaming their spells at the top of their lungs. I'll have our people train accordingly. Finally, the Ravenclaws. Well, they'll probably know all kinds of spells we've never even heard of, so I'll make sure that our people know superior shielding charms and every counter-spell you can think of, so we'll be ready for anything."

This 'strategy' was met with an amount of approval that surprised Harry, but he said, "Well said, Anthony. Okay, next?"

Henry Rousseau took a step forward and began speaking directly to the other male candidate in a condescending tone. "Well, the thing is, Anthony, you can't rely on those stereotypes. You've got to be ready for anything. A Gryffindor might have some sneaky tricks, or they might know some esoteric magic – you just never know. You never know what you have to be ready for next. So to that end – er – I'll train our team to expect the unexpected."

Harry wasn't quite sure that he was done, but Henry didn't say anything else, so he said, "Well put, Henry. Lastly?"

Sappho stepped forward, cleared her throat delicately, and said, "Espionage." She paused. Harry looked around. He wondered if he should ask her to clarify – but then she went on. "We will spy on every member of every team until we not only know every spell they know, but we know how often they go to the bathroom, and what flavor of toothpaste they use, and whether they put on both socks and then their shoes or go one foot at a time. We will know everything about the enemy, but most of all, we will know their weaknesses."

Harry stood there blinking for a few seconds, then said as levelly as he could, "Well said, Sappho. Okay. Er…. Second question…."

When the vote was in and counted, about half an hour later, the blowout came to no surprise to anyone, least of all Harry. At the end of the vote, Professor Sprout came up to her and said, "Miss Stone, I have received your application for the captaincy of the Hufflepuff Dueling Club, and I would like to congratulate you on being selected. I know you'll bring honor to our House."

The party began immediately. The Hufflepuffs who were so inclined to have solid food that evening wandering into the Great Hall in small groups before quickly hurrying back, and generally bringing some of the Great Hall's food with them. Someone brought a whole turkey and Harry had to wonder how they'd snuck it under their robes, or if the staff had just turned a blind eye.

For Harry, though, after joining in the festivities for a polite duration, he was happy to go down to the Great Hall and eat by himself at the practically-deserted Puff table. So what if he got a few odd looks from the other students? Not like that was anything new. Soon, though, several of the other firsties trickled in too, and they sprawled out taking up far too much space on the table, and spoke far too loudly, almost as if to make up for their whole House's absenteeism.

Democracy is a bitch, Harry decided. But it's totally Hufflepuff.

---

Thank you very much for reading.

---

Some notes:

There were several more scenes that were meant to be part of this chapter, but it was starting to get a little bit long, so I decided to cut it off right here. I hope it wasn't too abrupt.

I decided it might be fun for the readers to have a chance to have some creative input on an OC. So the irritating second year boy has been left without any name or physical description, other than that he's short, on purpose. If such a thing strikes your fancy, I'd love to read who you think he is/should be. Bear in mind, though, that he might not come back for a while.

Cheers!