A/N: thanks for the review Faraway!



Harry was very happy he had been able to talk to Cho. In fact, if he knew any good songs, he would have sung them. But he didn't have the greatest memory, so he just went about with a huge grin on his face for the rest of the evening.

While sitting in the common room, talking to Hermione and Ron, Harry caught something he found very amusing. Every few minutes, Neville would look up from his charms homework and glance at Ginny. At he same time, Ginny was paging through a copy of Which Broom?, and would look up from it every few minutes and glance at Neville.

"Ron, does your sister ever talk about Neville?" Harry asked.

"Actually, she talks about him often. Often enough to tell me something. Whatever Neville's doing, it's brilliant, because lately he's made lots of new friends."

"He's kind of like our mascot now," Hermione said, "He used to be meek, but now he's more bold. I read something like that about T.J. Atkers, in Hogwarts: A History. He started as a poor student, but now he's famous for writing about Primary Harmonic Dissonance in Advanced Charms; it helps with the theory of QuasiTechnic Photo Transfers in Defense Against the Dark Arts. It's my favorite topic…"

Ron and Harry just looked at Hermione, then at each other.

"Don't look at me, you're the smart one," Ron said.

"Don't look at me, you're the one who's supposed to know her better than me!"

"Both of you should know, I always tell you about it."

"I have bad memory."

"I can't remember that, I'm too busy thinking about you!"

"I should Photo-Dissonate both of you."

"You should. I'd know what it is then."

"You wouldn't do that to me, would you, Pumpkin?"

"Did my brother just call someone pumpkin?" Fred entered, with George right behind him.

"Oh sweetums, don't discombobulate me." George mocked Ron.

"Yes, but for calling me that, he sure doesn't listen," Hermione rolled her eyes and headed off for her dormitory.

"Oi, Neville, are you looking at Ginny again?"

"No Fred, I'm looking at you."

"I'm flattered, Neville."

"Does anyone know how to do this Transfiguration homework?" George called out.

"I do," Alicia Spinnet said.

"Where's Katie?" Fred asked everyone in the room.

"Right here," She came down from the seventh year girls' dormitory, "Where were you yesterday?" she said, shoving him into a chair.

"What would this common room be like without Fred and George?" Harry asked no one in particular.

"It'd be awful!" George answered, "Quidditch game tomorrow, chaps. Until then, your local Weasley twins will be working! Fred, get yourself out of trouble and let's get going! We have to do some developing for the company!"

"Right. Going to have to continue this talk later, Katie. Some serious work here, y'know!" He sprung off to the dormitory before she could reprimand him anymore. The common room quieted down again.

"Looks like you better look up Photo-Dissonation before you talk to Hermione again," Harry advised Ron

"And cut back on the cute names when she's serious," Neville added.

Ron just hung his head back.

"" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" ""

Harry looked through the index of Hogwarts: A History that night for the words Garo, Elcrys, and Flamsha. Sirius had corrected his spelling of the first two after Harry had misspelled them in the first letter he'd sent. The third one was easy enough. If Sirius was looking for information, he was putting himself at risk, and that was a bad thing. Besides that, Harry had a sneaking suspicion that not only Cornelius Fudge was after Sirius, but that Voldemort wanted him dead for some reason as well. It was strange, really. Sometimes the strongest allies seemed to be the worst enemies.

"" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" ""

Harry was eager the next day to see the quidditch match. Not only to see Cho play, but also to see how the other teams were. Until it was time to head out to the pitch, all the prefects combed the common room, all the staircases, and the area around the portrait hallway, and casted all kinds of protective charms, and magical alarms that would go off if dark magic was used. All in all, Harry felt like the Gryffindors could take on the dark army on their own if they had to after all the charms were set up.

Harry and Ron had the best seats in the Gryffindor section by eleven o'clock, both with omnioculars in their hands. Hermione was sitting next to Ron, and Fred and George were careful to sit somewhere else, since Ron told them to keep away after the incident last night.

Ron looked in his omnioculars, and saw that there was a recording from the last game, from when Harry had made his daring catch of the snitch. Seamus had done a pretty good job of catching the whole sequence.

"Harry, look at this," he said, handing the omnioculars to Harry.

"That looks a lot different then I thought it would," Harry raised his eyebrows.

"Today, we have Ravenclaw vs. Hufflepuff, a match that will keep you on the edge of your seats, since it's been over a year since they've faced off," Lee Jordan's voice caught the attention of the he crowd. "Captain of the Hufflepuff team this season is seventh year Ian Parker, whose position is chaser…" everyone cheered as the captain of Hufflepuff flew onto the field, and the rest of his team was announced.

"And now for the captain of the Ravenclaw team, sixth year Cho Chang, who plays as seeker…" Harry watched as she flew onto the field, and then replayed it. All the players assembled at the center of the pitch, and Madame Hooch came into the middle of the ring they formed. Harry knew the talk they were getting; make a clean game, play nice- yeah right.

The snitch and bludgers were released. The quaffle was thrown up into the air, and the whistle shrieked. There was a mad dash as the six chasers went for the ball, with a Hufflepuff managing to grab it. She flew up and towards the Ravenclaw goal, but had to drop the ball to avoid being smashed by a bludger. A Ravenclaw was quick to take the quaffle and dash to the other side. Harry looked for Cho, but he couldn't see her. He looked higher, and saw her about 100 feet above the game. He didn't know why she was so high up; what was she doing? His attention was turned away as a goal was scored by the Ravenclaws, announced by Lee, who was doing quite well about not going off topic this game. McGonagall had only yelled at him twice so far. It was probably because there were no Slytherins to insult…

About twenty minutes into the game, with the Hufflepuffs winning 70 to 40, Harry saw Cho start to descend, towards her side of the field. The other seeker saw her, and dashed in the same direction. But as she passed under Cho, the Ravenclaw seeker turned upside down in her dive and curved in the other direction. The Hufflepuff was now going in the opposite direction of where Cho had sighted the snitch. By time she realized that Cho wasn't following her, Cho was in hot pursuit of the fleeing snitch, which Harry could see quite clearly now through his omnioculars. The Hufflepuff turned and went as quickly as she could to where Cho was. It was almost completely hopeless. If she'd had a Firebolt with a broomring, maybe, but she didn't. Cho caught the snitch right as the Hufflepuff got on her tail. The Ravenclaws cheered and yelled, the Gyfindors cheered, Hufflepuffs halfheartedly applauded, and a few Slytherins (the ones who had any speck of school spirit and kindness) cheered.

Harry worked his way down to the locker rooms. He was very excited to go with Cho to the Library.