The next day, Harry woke up to the sounds of Seamus and Ron, debating whether or not to wake him up.
"It's okay!" Harry yawned, sitting up and stretching, "I'm up." He reached over for his glasses and slipped them on, blinking at his two friends, "What time is it?"
"Nearly breakfast time! Hurry up, I'm starving!" Ron replied.
Harry was about to mention the outburst he'd had the previous night, but seeing as Ron didn't bring it up, he wasn't about to. Instead, he got up and got dressed as quickly as possible so the three of them could head down to breakfast.
They entered the Great Hall to the buzz of excitement as the rest of the school ripped open their timetables over their food.
"Harry! Ron! Seamus!" Hermione called them over and the three of them sat down with the rest of the Gryffindor's.
"What do we have first?" Ron asked as he filled up his bowl full of cereal and didn't waste any time tucking in.
"Transfiguration." Hermione told them, and Ron groaned.
Harry pulled out his timetable and glanced over it, "Oh great! We have Flying second!" He couldn't wait to get back on his broom after so long without flying.
They finished their breakfast quickly and walked up to the common room to gather the books they'd need that day, before heading down to their Transfiguration classroom.
"Oh no!" Ron cried as they walked to their seats. He lowered his voice, "We're with the Slytherin's!"
"I think we've got Flying and Potions with them too." Harry replied as they sat down, causing Ron to sigh.
"Welcome back, fifth-formers," They were greeted as Professor McGonagall, their Transfiguration teacher, swept out of her office and into the classroom, "You'll need to get ready to work extra hard this year for your OWLs, which is why we're going to start revising things you should already know."
"Oh good, I need to start revising more." Hermione whispered, and Ron rolled his eyes at Harry behind her back.
Professor McGonagall put them in pairs and gave them tasks they'd done previous years.
"I don't think I'm ever going to get the hang of this." Ron said gloomily as he watched the goblet he'd just attempted to transform from a fly try to take off into the air.
Harry caught it just as it was about to fly off the table and turned it back into a fly, "It's not that hard, you'll get it eventually."
Ron propped his head up with his arms, sighing as he watched Hermione turn Neville's toad into a perfect plate.
The lesson soon ended and after Professor McGonagall marked them on their transformations, Harry and Ron hurried down to the Quidditch stadium as fast as they could, eager to get on brooms. Hermione followed them, mumbling something about learning useful things.
"Ah, Potter. Nice to see you." Oliver Wood greeted as they arrived. He was stood in the middle of the pitch, surrounded by brooms and a crate that Harry knew was full off golf balls, "Everyone gather round!" Wood called as the other Gryffindor's arrived, followed by the Slytherin's, "Today we're going to play some Quidditch. We'll practice little moves and tactics often used in the game, and then maybe we'll have a little match at the end. Now, I want you all to find a partner – preferably someone at your own level – and take a couple of golf balls. Just throw them about to each other, make your partner dive for them, things like that. So everyone come grab a broom."
Everyone surged forward, trying to find a good broom out of all the broken, splintering ones. The school brooms were known for being slightly dodgy – they'd often zoom in a different direction or do the complete opposite of what you'd asked it.
Harry and Ron mounted their brooms and kicked off, starting to throw the golf balls to each other. They went up to the nearest Quidditch hoop and Ron acted as a keeper, saving Harry's shots before throwing them near the floor so Harry could dive for them.
"Not bad, Weasley." Wood said as he hovered near them on his broom, watching as Ron saved a shot. He turned to Harry, "Looking forward to the Quidditch game, Harry?"
Harry nodded eagerly, "You don't happen to know when the first one is, do you?"
"Yeah, Gryffindor play Hufflepuff a week on Saturday. I want you lot to do me proud this year. I still can't believe that they cancelled the Quidditch last year for that stupid Cup!" Wood shook his head, tutting as if he couldn't believe anyone would ever want to cancel his beloved game.
"Are you still playing for Puddlemere?" Ron asked.
Wood nodded, "I'm practicing with them two times a week after school, and once on the weekend, plus we have a reserve game every other week. You two should come watch one one time."
"Why would anyone bother wasting their time going to see the reserves?" Draco Malfoy scoffed as he zoomed past on his broom, chasing a golf ball from Goyle.
"One day the reserves, the next day Scotland." Wood said dreamily, before shooting off to save Neville from falling off of his wobbly broom.
Harry laughed, throwing another golf ball at Ron.
After a while of practising, Wood got them all to sit down on the grass while he announced something.
"As you know, we need a captain for the Quidditch teams this year and Professor McGonagall has kindly offered to let me choose the captains. I have already chosen the two captains for Gryffindor and for Slytherin. So here goes: the captain for Slytherin will be Draco Malfoy."
The Slytherin's cheered and Ron looked glumly at Harry. "First he's a Prefect and now he's the captain of the Quidditch team! What has he done, got his father to pay the school or something?"
"And now the captain for Gryffindor. It took me quite a while to decide this as I have played with the Gryffindor team since my second year at Hogwarts. But I thought it through and decided the best person for captain should be Harry Potter." Wood proclaimed, winking at Harry.
Harry beamed as the Gryffindor's cheered for him. Hermione grinned at him and gave him a hug – she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately - and Ron gave him a thumbs up.
"Also, Gryffindor are short of a player since I played the keeper two years ago. I offered to play but of course, Professor McGonagall can be a little harsh sometimes. There are two people that have played well today from the Gryffindor's. Those people are Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom." Wood told them. Everybody was surprised by this as Neville usually wasn't good at anything, but they all had to admit that he had improved by a lot since their first year. Apparently his Gran had bought him a broomstick and he'd been practicing whenever he was at home. "So I'll be watching you extra carefully from now up until the Hufflepuff game. I want the both of you to train hard and then I will decide who gets the position a few days before the match so you'll have time to prepare." He gave them both a smile. "Right that's about all the time we have left for today. Well done class, keep it up."
The students all left for the changing rooms and Ron and Harry got changed quickly. As they were walking across the grounds Harry heard something.
"Harry!" It was a sharp and urgent voice that was almost a whisper.
"Huh?" Harry said, looking up and searching round.
"What?" Ron asked, confused.
"Harry!"
It was coming from the Forbidden Forest, Harry was sure of it. He looked around, searching for the person – or thing – that was calling his name.
"Harry?" Ron asked, breaking his concentration. "What's up?"
"What? Oh . . . nothing, forget it." Harry said, hurrying back to the castle with Ron trailing behind.