Carpe Diem: Second Year Revision
by Alec6427/NecessaryEvil
Disclaimer: I don't own any of J.K.'s characters or places I'm just borrowing them for the time being. She isn't using them anyway, besides Cho gives great back rubs..
Chapter Three:
House Mates
It was Hagrid who came up with their house title, so it came as no surprise that he called it Draconis House after his favorite species of pet. Many thought that the emblem should therefore be a Dragon, but William insisted that it should be the sign for infinity since their house was the link of all the others. After an hour and a half of arguing over this they finally agreed that the house emblem would be a dragon prowling around and in between a silver and gold infinity symbol placed on a black background. Harry was very proud to have come up with the compromise having thought both ideas perfectly fitting, he looked around and blushed when he saw Cho beaming at him.
The emblem was made and the dragon would wander around in it and growl quite menacingly at any students it didn't approve of (which mainly consisted of Slytherin's house and head of house). The emblem was soon set up in the house's common room and above their table in the Great Hall.
Harry very much liked his new housemates. Ron was his usual self, but he was proud to be put in what he called 'The Best House' though Harry noticed that he sobered a little every time he mentioned Hermione. Cho stayed as friendly as she had been and Harry was happy to find out that she was also a Seeker, sometimes they would talk for hours on end about strategies and broomsticks, Harry was sure that if she had been in another house or if they had met some other way then he would have just been a babbling mess around her, but she hadn't laughed at him when he locked eyes with her in the carriage and she had smiled at him when she had caught him looking at her during the sorting, besides it would be impossible to avoid someone in your house for long so it wouldn't make much sense to go all red in the cheeks around her, though she did seem to bring a slight pink tinge to his cheeks. Fred and George spent most of their time coming up with new pranks to try on the Slytherins and even worse pranks to try on Snape. William and Jess Finn spent all of their time out at the Quidditch Pitch. Harry hadn't yet seen the smallest member of the house, Colin Creevey. Besides all this, without Hermione constantly pestering him to study, he found that he understood the material much better. He joked to Ron about this saying that Hermione had probably been sabotaging him the previous year so she could be the top student, Ron simply glared at him to which Harry grinned, Ron probably would have made a similar joke just last year, but Harry could tell Ron was starting to miss her.
*
A week into the school year the announcement that Harry had been waiting for finally came. Will was going to be having all eight members of the house come out to the pitch that Sunday to see who would be playing what position seeing as how, "Everyone seems to want to play the same position as too many others and we don't have enough people in our house to leave anyone out."
Everyone tried their hand at Chaser, Keeper, Beater, and Seeker. At the end everyone looked at William expectantly, they seemed to have accepted him as Team Captain and house Prefect without a word spoken about it, he had after all been mostly responsible for the creation of the house.
Harry could see William visibly cringe as he saw this, but he didn't argue just said, "Oh alright."
"Keeper will be Ron, Beaters will be Fred and George, Cho you and Harry are both equals at being Seeker, but Harry's has yet to get skills in any other position so you are Chaser and backup Seeker. Harry as you might have figured out is the Seeker. Me and Jess are...."
"Excuse me big brother, but I'd like to be an alternate,"
"Fine, me and Colin are the other two chasers and Jessica is our entire alternate team. Now our practices will go like this, we will take turns practicing every position, because if we get enough practice like that we'll be able to switch your positions every game and have completely different strategies for all your styles. Keep the other teams on their toes. Each practice team will have a keeper, a chaser, a beater, and a seeker. I will also suggest that you get in some practice of your main position outside of our practice sessions,"
"Now for this practice the teams are like this; Potter an Cho as Chasers, Fred and George keepers, Ron and Jess beaters, Colin and me seekers. This is going to be fun isn't it. these teams are setup so that we'll be about even and that we're all playing a position that is not our best. And off we.. wait a minute, here comes Dumbledore,"
Dumbledore was indeed making his way across the pitch a parchment in his hand, "Excuse me Mr. Finn but the sorting hat has just remembered a few names and a few new transfer students have been placed in your house,"
"Who?"
"Ernie McMillan of Hufflepuff and April Levin of Hufflepuff are the names it has remembered, both second years if memory serves. From Pearl Academy a fourth year named Jeremy Johnson and a third year named..."
"Jennifer Liu?"
"Yes, quite,"
"When you see them could you please tell them their entire house is at the Quidditch field waiting for them,"
As Dumbledore left William turned back to the Team, "I'm sure Jen will want to play. Probably take your place on first string Creevey. Well then on with practice
*
As it turned out Jennifer was a good looking Asian girl who was the best Chaser Harry had ever seen, and as predicted she took Colin's position. April had red hair cut to her shoulders and was made a third backup Chaser. Ernie, who Harry had met in Herbology was made backup Keeper. Jeremy, who was tall with black hair and fair skin was made backup Beater. They now had an almost complete secondary team, all they needed was a third Seeker in case Harry was injured and Cho couldn't sub for him, and they needed another backup Beater.
*
When they got back to the dorms two new beds had appeared in the room and Ernie and Jeremy's stuff was at the foot of them. Harry got into bed and tried to sleep, but he couldn't he was too excited, so he got up and silently made his way to the balcony he stood by the edge staring into space and thinking, about his parents, about Cho, about Ron, about Cho, about Quidditch, and his personal favorite; about Cho and Quidditch. He just stood there dreamily as unaware of his surroundings as he had been when he had sat in front of the Mirror of Erised the year before. Until he heard a voice from behind him he didn't have any reason not to think he was alone, "The lakes beautiful at night isn't it," Harry nearly jumped out of his skin and turned to face Cho, she was grinning and looked rather settled in to have just arrived so Harry figured she had been there for awhile.
"I wasn't actually paying much attention to the lake," Harry admitted," but yes it is a fantastic sight,"
"I wasn't paying much attention to the lake either," Cho grinned, "So what troubles you young Potter,"
"Just thinking about things,"
"Always dangerous,"
Harry grinned, they spent hours more talking and laughing and finally made their way back to their dorms around two in the morning, Harry fell into his bed and instantly fell into a sleep filled with wonderful dreams.
*