Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! I'm reading all of your comments, and appreciate them. I've had to edit the last chapter because I made a mistake--the fifth-years don't have dinner on Fridays until after their run.

"What did you make of that?" Harry asked Ron as they sat in the common room. They were preparing to work on their essays for Professor Binns about the Wizards' Council, the body which governed the wizarding world before the Ministry of Magic was formed.

Ron looked up from his textbook. "Well," he began, and paused to think. "Last year the Daily Prophet reports that someone conjured the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup. Then last term Dumbledore announces to the school that You-Know-Who is back." He shrugged. "People are scared, I guess."

Harry didn't follow. "But what does that have to do with the fight back there?"

Ron looked at him. "Harry, think about it. If everyone is worried about You-Know-Who, the Slytherins become unpopular by association. That's how it was before--you know, before..." Ron trailed off, suddenly very interested in retrieving a roll of parchment from his backpack. Harry knew what Ron was thinking. Before my parents were killed, he thought.

Ron added, "At least that's what my dad says."

Harry considered this. Now that Ron mentioned it, he realized that, in the corridors and classrooms, there were more dirty looks and insults aimed at the Slytherins than usual. Even more than in his second year.

"Almost makes you feel sorry for them," he mumbled.

Ron snorted. "Well, Malfoy won't mind. He'll eat it up. Already thinks he's above all the rest of us." He found the parchment and set it out on the table. "Come on, we only have a couple hours before we have to meet Green outside."

***

That evening's run around the lake with Professor Green produced the fifth-years' best times yet. Professor Green nodded approvingly at each student as he or she finished the run. True to his word, Harry ran as hard as he could--even lapping Neville--and finished far ahead of Dean, who came in second. Malfoy had apparently resigned himself to running with the rest of the students, although no amount of yelling by Professor Green could make him take on a more-than-leisurely pace.

After their usual cool-off walk around the lawn, the fifth-years shuffled up the steps into the castle and filed into the Great Hall for dinner. Just as they had the previous week, they each went to their respective House tables, and Professor Green walked up to the empty staff table. But before she had reached her seat, she turned around, struck by a sudden thought.

"This is stupid!" she said. "There aren't many of us here--why don't we all have dinner together?" She grabbed a few serving dishes from the staff table, carried them over to the Slytherin table, and sat down.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other. "Do we have to?" Ron grumbled. But each student picked up a place setting and a serving dish full of food and carried them over to the Slytherin table. They all sat down and began to eat.

Once they were seated together, the students realized that they didn't mind sitting with the other Houses--in fact, they rather preferred it. At the end of the table, Professor Green laughed at a joke Ernie Macmillan was telling. Ron struck up a conversation with Padma Patil--to Hermione's great annoyance, Harry noticed.

After they had eaten, Professor Green produced an acoustic guitar and, quite unexpectedly, began playing. She taught them a very old wizard folk song, sung in a round, and even managed to convince most of the students to sing along. A few Slytherins, however--including Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle--slipped off to their common room.

No one kept track of the time, and because they were having so much fun chattering and singing, they remained in the Great Hall until very late. At midnight, Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Snape, and Flitwick suddenly appeared in the door, looking very tired and, in Professor McGonagall's case, irritated. Professor Green didn't notice them at all until Professor McGonagall spoke to her quite sternly.

"Persephone! Would you mind relinquishing our students for the night? It is very late, after all!"

Professor Green looked up from her guitar, startled. She grinned sheepishly and nodded. "Oh, I am sorry, Minerva! What time is it, anyway?" She turned to the students around the table. "You had all better be getting back to your dormitories. Really," she looked back up at the Heads of the Houses standing in the doorway to the entrance hall, "I am sorry."

Professor McGonagall's face softened at this, and she nodded forgivingly. In fact, none of the teachers really seemed angry at Professor Green, and they all smiled--except for Snape, who didn't so much smile as fail to scowl. Everyone got up from the table, and the teachers walked the students off to their respective common rooms and ordered them to bed.

***

The last week of September, Ravenclaw flattened Hufflepuff in the first Quidditch game of the year. The whole school had turned out to watch, of course. Harry noticed that Cho Chang had improved markedly in her position as Ravenclaw Seeker; she appeared to have acquired a new broom, a Nimbus Three Thousand, which gave her a great deal more speed than when she had played against Harry two years before.

"It's no Firebolt," Ron had commented as he sat next to Harry in the stands, "but still, Harry, looks like she'll give you a bit more competition this year."

"Uh-huh." Harry hadn't told Ron that he wasn't watching Cho strictly to assess her performance as Seeker, but Ron had snickered at Harry's glazed look anyway.

Now, in the second week of October, after a month of practice, the Gryffindor Quidditch team was preparing to face Slytherin. Just before the game, the team sat in the locker room and listened as Angelina, who had been elected captain, addressed them.

"It's going to be a difficult game for us," she began. She paced back and forth before them, much like Oliver Wood had done two years before. "Slytherin has three new players, and they're all strong--Price is as good a Beater as I've ever seen at Hogwarts."

Fred and George frowned.

"Still," she said, ignoring them, "we've got the best Seeker in the school!" She smiled at Harry. "Harry, you know what to do."

Harry wasn't nervous. He had faced Draco Malfoy on the Quidditch field before, and Malfoy had always failed to catch the Golden Snitch. Harry nodded back at Angelina.

"Alright then! We've worked hard for this. Let's show the Slytherins how Quidditch is played!"

Energized, the team took the field. As they walked to the center of the Quidditch pitch, they could hear the yells of the entire school assembled in the stands. The Gryffindor team lined up opposite the Slytherins. Angelina had been right; they had three new players, but they were just as big as the Slytherins whom they had replaced. Harry glanced down the line at Ginny; she looked unusually small standing on the field next to Angelina, and across from a particularly burly seventh-year with broken front teeth. Draco Malfoy narrowed his eyes at Harry maliciously.

"Captains, shake hands," Madam Hooch called, placing a silver whistle in her mouth. Staring fixedly, Angelina shook hands with Adam Price, the Slytherin team captain.

Suddenly Madam Hooch blew the whistle, and fifteen broomsticks and four balls flew up into the air. The Golden Snitch disappeared almost immediately. The Slytherin Keepers caught the Quaffle first, and instantly flew toward the Gryffindor goal hoops. They got there almost before Ginny was able to take her position.

"And Zabini shoots--no! The Quaffle is knocked away by the Gryffindor Keeper." As they zoomed around the field, the players could hear Lee Jordan commenting from the stands.

Katie caught the Quaffle and headed toward the Slytherin goal. Harry decided to take up a position above Ginny, and keep an eye out for the Snitch. As usual, Malfoy followed him at a distance. Harry knew what to do. Malfoy's Nimbus Two Thousand and One wasn't nearly as fast as Harry's Firebolt. Harry would need only spot the Snitch first; getting to it before Malfoy was going to be easy.

"Oooh! Very rough collision there ... And Zabini is called for blatching. Penalty shot to Gryffindor."

Harry looked down. Katie appeared to be composing herself after a particularly hard hit from a Slytherin Chaser. "I'm alright," she told a concerned Angelina. Katie took the penalty shot, and scored.

"That's ten points to Gryffindor! Slytherin zero." Lee's tone very thinly veiled his excitement.

"Slytherin in possession. Hunt passes to Norton. Norton takes the shot--oooh! Price nearly takes the Gryffindor Keeper's head off!" Lee announced angrily. The Slytherin Beater had moved into the scoring area and, on the pretense of hitting the Bludger toward Ginny, swung his bat very close to her head.

"Slytherin scores! No penalty called." Lee paused meaningfully. "That's Gryffindor ten, Slytherin ten."

Harry looked around. Still no sign of the Snitch. Malfoy circled below him, and above Ginny.

"Gryffindor in possession, and--no! The Quaffle is taken by Zabini. He closes in on the goal, and--oh my God!" The alarm in Lee's voice was matched by fearful cries from the spectators as a Slytherin Beater hit a Bludger at Ginny's head from close range just as Blaise Zabini attempted to score.

"Nice Sloth Grip Roll by Weasley, and the Bludger misses her. But Zabini scores. That's Slytherin twenty, Gryffindor ten."

Alicia took the Quaffle, and a Slytherin Chaser promptly smashed into her head-on.

"Norton's called for blatching; that stinking rat--alright, sorry, Professor--that's another penalty shot for Gryffindor!"

Alicia lined up to take the shot, but she was still shaken up from the collision. She missed.

Finally Harry understood. The Slytherin team knew they couldn't beat Gryffindor fairly--it was clear that Malfoy was no match for Harry when it came to catching the Golden Snitch. Their only chance was to play rough, and score as many times with the Quaffle as possible. They were going to try to get so far ahead in points that, no matter who caught the Snitch, they would win. Harry wondered whether they had gotten this idea from last year's Quidditch World Cup.

True to Harry's prediction, what followed was the roughest game of Quidditch that Hogwarts had seen in two hundred years. Angelina, Alicia, and Katie took a total of nine penalty shots, seven of which they missed because they were so badly hurt or shaken up from the fouls themselves. Five times Ginny narrowly avoided being hit by a Beater's bat. Harry noticed that Fred and George had, in turn, become quite careless about swinging their bats near the Slytherin Beaters' heads.

"That's Slytherin ahead, one hundred ninety to thirty." Lee's voice had gone beyond angry and now sounded genuinely worried. Angelina signaled for time out.

"Okay," she whispered, trying to catch her breath. She had just been smacked by a Slytherin Chaser's broom, and her forehead was bleeding. "New plan. Just stay alive. Harry, if you see the Snitch, catch it. Before someone gets killed."

Harry could hardly believe his ears. Oliver Wood would have told him just the opposite--in fact, in Harry's third year, he had told him to "get the Snitch or die trying."

George protested: "Angelina! We can't let them win! Especially not like this." Fred and Katie nodded in agreement. Harry, Ginny, and Alicia remained silent--Angelina's plan made a lot more sense to them.

"Listen to me, George. You're not the one getting bumped around out there. I know--it's not your fault," she headed him off as he started to interrupt, "but you can only defend us from Bludgers, you can't keep their Chasers off us all the time. And Ginny's getting eaten alive out there. I know this is probably exactly what they want us to do, but this game is just not worth risking our lives."

Madam Hooch's whistle signaled that play was resuming. The players took their places again.

"And Spinnet has the Quaffle. She passes to Bell, and--Bell scores!" Harry's heart leapt. Slytherin was exactly a hundred and fifty points ahead now--if he caught the Snitch, they could end in a tie game.

Malfoy glanced at him and seemed to be thinking the same thing. He shot Harry an angry look, and then glanced down at Ginny. The Slytherin Chasers were closing in with the Quaffle, despite the best efforts of Fred, George, and the Gryffindor Chasers to hinder them. The Slytherin Chasers broke away from Angelina, Alicia, and Katie, and approached Ginny. Malfoy watched all of this, grinned up at Harry, and dove.

Harry realized what Malfoy was going to do a split second before he had done it. It was illegal for more than one Chaser to enter the scoring area -but the Seeker was allowed anywhere on the field. On the pretense of having seen the Snitch, Malfoy dove headlong toward the spot where Ginny hovered, focused on the approaching Chaser.

"Ginny! Look out!" Harry screamed as he tore downward after Malfoy. But Malfoy was bearing down on her. She turned upward, saw him for a split second, and dodged out of the way. Instead of hitting her head, Malfoy's broom tore into her shoulder. She clung to her broom and was sent spinning.

"Norton scores! And ..." Lee stopped. For the first time in as long as anyone could remember, he was speechless.

Instantly, the crowd grew completely silent. Later, Harry could remember thinking how amazing it was that so many people gathered in such a small space could produce so little sound as that crowd did at that moment.

Ginny spun to a stop a short distance above the field. Harry flew over to her. She pulled her left hand away from her right shoulder, and Harry saw that it was covered in blood.

"Are you alright?" he called. She looked up at him, then past him, and gasped. Harry turned around.

Behind him, Draco Malfoy held up the Golden Snitch in triumph.

The only ones cheering Slytherin's win were the Slytherins themselves. The rest of the school--Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs alike- were yelling angrily.

Lee Jordan had found his voice again.

"The Slytherin Seeker nearly impales the Gryffindor Keeper! Disgusting, slimy, pathetic piece of trash! You low-life ..."

But Harry and Ginny were distracted from Lee's tirade. They were watching Malfoy, who was so caught up in flaunting his first-ever catch of the Golden Snitch that he didn't see George flying toward him from behind. George dropped his bat onto the field, flew beside Malfoy and punched him -hard--in the face. Stunned, Malfoy dropped the Snitch and flew to the ground, followed by the rest of the Slytherin and Gryffindor team members.

"George, no!" Ginny cried hoarsely--obviously she was still in pain- but it was too late. A full-fledged fight had broken out on the Quidditch field. First it was Fred and George on Malfoy, then three more Slytherins came to Malfoy's defense. Angelina tried to break it up, but was pushed aside by Norton, who rushed to join the fray.

The next thing Harry knew, pandemonium had broken out. Spectators were crowding onto the field, attempting to rescue Fred and George by beating the Slytherin team members. Fists flew as angry shouts filled the air. Harry turned to Ginny.

"We've got to get out of here!"

"But Fred and George!" she cried. "We can't just leave them!"

Just then a blinding flash of light pierced the din. Harry could barely make out the gleaming white beard of Albus Dumbledore in the midst of the crowd.

It took the faculty several minutes--and many more flashes of light, along with a few Stunning spells--to put an end to the havoc. An hour later, both Quidditch teams and several spectators found themselves in the hospital wing, being treated for bruises, cuts, scrapes, and in Ginny's case, a broken collarbone.