Have you ever seen a Quidditch match, Potter?

Oliver Wood, Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers, page 153

ANSWERS TO THE REVIEWERS

Starlight: I'm not the only one to do so. JKR is biased. *growls* All the best go in Gryffindor, and the bad go in Slytherin. That makes me bad, 'f course, 'cause manipulation and cunning is me (Along with the "disregard for rules", to quote Dumbledore so well). If you add to it Harry-style stubbornness, that is. Well, watch and see. Ron and Hermione are essential to the plot, although they're backed away to favor Blaise and Draco. Ron WILL play a big role later on though.

Lily-Black(Beta): Erm… COZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!! Don't say that, they'll get jealous! Lol, but you ARE my beta, so… *cough, cough* *shudders* Yes ma'am, writing faster… no whips, plz… Hmm… maybe I do.. ever wonder why my first keyboard broke? Machine gun ammo on plastic keys doesn't go well… ^_- Well, you guys be happy, she'll force me to write if I ever get tired. No that I will, this is too much fun. Can't wait for book 4 though ^_-

VMorticia: Sorry!!!! I can't let out ONLY long chapters, can I? No. I can tell u chapter 6 is long and cool (and funny), and that's why it took time for chapter 3 to be released. Snape, OOC? Hmm… I guess a bit… But you'll see he rarely does it. Really? What are you thinking? *ignores Draco* *BLUSH* Erm… thx! *pouts* well, it didn't work on anyone else apparently. *Glares at all those who didn't review.*

Tima: Erm… *Takes away her sugar again* Snape likes Slyths… just not Harry. Or Blaise, for a reason I won't reveal until book… 3 or 4. Depends on how early Snape and… hehe, shutting up here. ^_-

Kathleen: Things aren't gonna get better between those two until book 2. Sorry. And Harry will only know it all until book 3.

5 reviews? 5 ****ing reviews?!! That's it?! *pouts* I WANT MORRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

The reason why it took a while: The Harry Potter lexicon betrayed me!!! The Slytherin student page (in which I had the characters for the Quidditch team) included those Flint re-made in book 3, thus confusing me with 4 chasers! I had to dig around to try to find the missing chaser of the first team. Corrected chapter 5 while I'm at it, too.

Chapter 4: Flying lessons


Harry's first weekend at Hogwarts was spent in the Slytherin common room. Not once were the words Gringotts, Snape, McGonagall or homework mentioned as they passed their time, Draco and Blaise arguing over Quidditch teams and Harry watching his friends' antics and silently speaking to Nemesis. Later, Draco revealed his talent at chess by clobbering the two others to the ground, before getting challenged and beaten by Flint, the Quidditch captain. Of course, it was Slytherin chess, which meant double-crossing, deceptions and cheating were a must.

The Slytherins and the Gryffindors were, as Harry quickly discovered, in some kind of cold war. True enough, it was getting colder and colder in the potions classroom, but it wasn't for that reason. He noticed that if someone from Ravenclaw of Hufflepuff tried to get close to the Gryffindors, there was no problem, but as soon as there was a Slytherin, they were shunned, and not just by the lions. He quickly guessed none of the other houses liked Slytherin much, rallying behind the house who was most likely to win against them.

"They're just jealous." Draco said when Harry had told his observation. "We're the top house, that means they have to work harder to get the same results we do."

Nevertheless, Harry found it a bit unsettling that everyone outside of their own house hated them.

True to Blaise's words, Snape assigned them a monster assignment to do with their partners during the next class, an assignment that would count on their final grade and would take two whole months to prepare: Make a dose of "Skele-grow". As he had feared, Harry was stuck with Granger and Blaise, to her absolute horror, was still stuck with Longbottom. And when she tried to protest, Snape had given her the very first Slytherin detention of the year. Acclamations and trumpets did not follow.

"I'm gonna fail potions, I'm gonna fail potions…" became Blaise's personal mantra, while Harry preferred a "I gonna go crazy, I'm gonna go crazy". Draco, who was with Pansy, who was averagely good in potions, couldn't help but snicker at his two friends.

The bad news didn't end there. Harry had been looking forward to learning to fly since Mrs Zabini had told him about Quidditch. Imagine his horror when he found out Potions wasn't the only class the Slytherins had with the Gryffindors.

"Bloody Gryffindors, always ruining everything for us." Blaise grumbled as they headed toward the great hall that morning. Harry nodded and sighed a reply.

"Now, not only do I have to make a fool out of myself on a broom, but  I have to do it in front of them."

As they entered the great hall and headed for the Slytherin table, Harry noticed that Hermione was apparently reading flying tips out of a book, to which some Gryffindors were listening. To his great surprise, however, Pansy also seemed interested in the lecture, copying Hermione's demonstration on how to hold a broom correctly.

"I doubt you'll make a fool out of yourself if you're anything like your dad was, Harry." Blaise noted. "He's in the Quidditch hall of fame in the trophy room. Gryffindor chaser, he was."

"And how do you know?" Harry asked.

Blaise glared at the air, her fists clenching around an imaginary neck, her mouth twisting into a demonic sneer. Harry wouldn't have been surprised to see vampire fangs in her mouth, or her eyes turn red.

"Snape had me clean up every single bloody trophy in that stupid room without magic." She hissed. "He said I was lucky he didn't owl mom and dad. I almost wish he did, she would have bloody killed him."

Harry chuckled, imagining a irate Mrs Zabini strangling Snape to submission. Yup, he liked that mental picture.

They sat down just as the owls flew in, carrying the morning mail. An old, grey fluff of feather made a crash landing directly in Ron Weasley's soup while, beside him, a true owl gracefully dropped a package directly on Longbottom's head. While Weasley handed the soaked letter to his twin brothers, Longbottom unrolled the round package. Curious, Draco got up and pranced toward the Gryffindor table, Crabbe and Goyle following with grins. Harry found it safer to stay at the Slytherin table. Didn't want to give reasons for Snape to give him punishment after all.

The blonde boy stepped up to Longbottom and grabbed whatever it was, a round ball of glass in which grayish smoke floated. Weasley immediately got up and snapped at Draco to give it back, which he did when Professor McGonagall walked up to him. He walked right back to Harry and Blaise, while Crabbe and Goyle gave the Gryffindors parting sneers.

"It's a rememberall." Draco said, then, to Harry's puzzled look "A ball that glows red if you forget something."

Harry gave another look at the Gryffindor table. Sure enough, the ball in Longbottom's hand was red.

Blaise grinned and leaned back, a victorious air in her voice as she sang "I'm not gonna fail potions, I'm not gonna fail potions…"

"How come?"

"Well, if Longbottom does the smart thing and brings the rememberall to class, we can use it to know if we're forgetting an ingredient, or if we're doing something wrong!"

"That's if Longbottom does the smart thing and cheats," Draco said. "and since he's Longbottom, thus stupid, and a Gryffindor, thus even stupider and honest, I doubt it's gonna happen."

Blaise pouted and crossed her arms, a calculating look in her eyes. "Maybe I can make him bring it. I'll see what I can do."

"Well, if you find a way to make Granger mute, give me a shout." Harry sighed in defeat.

Breakfast came and went, and after it came the flying class, which most students waited eagerly. Listening to the other first year Slytherins' stories, it sounded like each one of them had tried flying before, or at least mounted a broom. Of course, it also meant that there was a lot of room for bragging and Draco found himself in his element as he told a fascinating 'true' story in which he narrowly escaped a muggle helicopter, a group of rampaging dragons in the middle of downtown London, managing to fly inside Malfoy manor with a Manticore after him only to land after heroically saving a fair maiden from a certainly fatal fall in the Thames river. Never mind how he got back all the way from southern Scotland, in which Draco told him Malfoy Manor was located, to London in a few seconds, or heard the fair maiden's scream from all the way over there. Blaise wasn't any better, claiming that she had flown just 3 meters over the muggle-busy streets of Rome without being spotted, when she was only 3 years old.

It took place in one of the courtyards of the castle, in which a short grey-haired woman with hawk-like yellow eyes was standing in front of two rows of old and bendy brooms that had evidently seen better days.

"We're supposed to fly on those?!" Draco hissed in protest. "What are they, Oakshaft 79s?" 

Blaise shook her head. "Naa, they're probably older. D'you think they had brooms at the founding?"

"If they did, it was those." Draco noted, pointing at the broom in front of him. Harry looked down at them and had to admit they looked in a very bad shape, unlike the Cleansweeps six and seven at the Zabini's home

"Silence, please!" The teacher shouted, her yellow eyes frowning at Draco, who promptly shut up. Already got in trouble with one teacher that morning, better not make it two.

"I am madam Hooch, your flying instructor. During this class, you will listen to my every command, or you will be expelled faster than you can say Quidditch. If I say land, you land. If I say lift off, you lift off." She glared at all of them, her eyes making Harry shudder. Unusual eye colors unnerved him, for some reason.

"Put your hand over your brooms and say 'UP!'"

"UP!" The students said at the same time.

Harry and Draco's broom immediately shot up in their hands, but they were the only ones who managed it. Granger's broom lazily turned on itself while Longbottom's might as well have been a bag of potatoes; it simply refused to move. On their side, Blaise's was trembling it's way up, a bit like an old man climbing stairs, while Crabbe's was apparently edging away from his hand and Goyle's refused to move, until it suddenly shot up and smacked on his forehead.

Madam Hooch showed them how to mount their brooms correctly, then verified how they held it. To his surprise, Harry had done it perfectly, while Draco got a verbal lashing for having flown for years in a wrong way.

"When I blow in my whistle, kick at the ground to lift off. Kick as hard as you can. You will go up one or two meters, then land immediately by bending forward a bit."

She started a countdown, but Longbottom, with his usual clumsiness, accidentally lifted off and shot high up, accidentally pulling his broom to a very fast climb, much to the boy's horror.

"Bend down! Lower the broom!" Hooch barked.

However, Longbottom did another mistake, instead of going down, he made the broom go faster. Panicked, he managed to do another mistake, turning straight toward a tower, slamming into it in a very loud crack. The broom did a downward arc and stuck itself into the ground, while the boy fell down, his cape catching against a torch-holder, suspending him nearly 30 meters above the ground with nothing but air in between.

Hooch got on her broom and, expertly, flew up to him, rescuing him. Unfortunately, the cape was in a bad shape; one of the pockets inside ripped open and…

"My rememberall!" Longbottom wailed as he saw the object fall, already too far for him to get it.

Harry tensed up. If that rememberall broke, there went Blaise's hope for a good potion grade! He quickly mounted his broom and shot up to catch it. The object was already halfway down and falling faster and faster. He had climbed too high and now had to dive to even have a chance at getting it.

'Only one try at this' Harry though grimly, pushing the old broom faster. He was nearly there…

1 meter…

a few inches…

His fingers closed on the glass ball. Wasting no time, he pulled the broom up to stabilize himself, realizing he had only been a couple of inches from the ground. One more second and he would have had to visit the infirmary. Holding the rememberall triumphantly above him, he landed close to the other students.

"Harry, now you're in for it." Blaise hissed.

Harry was about to ask why, when he noticed she wasn't looking at him, and neither was anyone else. They were looking behind him.

"What is the meaning of this stunt you just pulled, mister Potter?" A familiar, cold hiss came to his ears.

Harry turned around, almost afraid of what he'd find. Just as he had feared, it was Professor Snape, looking as sour as ever but with an odd, calculating glint in his eyes. The boy opened his mouth to reply but Snape interrupted.

"Trying to show off in front of everyone, are you? Follow me."

After one final fearful glance at Draco and Blaise, he followed the teacher inside the school. Never had the stone walls looked so cold, never had the flaming torches been so dim, never had the stairs to the dungeons been so proud to bear the writing "Abandon all hope, all ye who enter".

As Snape guided him deeper below the school, Harry's mind reeled in thought after thought, as if salvaging the floating remains of a sunk vessel.

"Am I gonna get expelled?" was pretty much the biggest of all, which, continuing on the above metaphor, could only be compared to someone trying to reel in a 2-ton anchor with a Fisher Price fishing rod. If such a thing exists, copyrights and apologies.

"They can't send me back to the Dursleys, they just can't!" an image of himself ringing at the Dursley's doorbell with his trunk in tow came to his mind. "Oh, they'd have a field day with that…" Then, Mrs Zabini's horrified and remorseful look at his being denied the right to learn magic… his faceless parents' shame… and Snape's victorious look, his dark eyes turning red with snake-like irises… a high-pitched laugh…

So caught up in his thoughts was he that he didn't notice Snape opening the door to his office, a flat piece of wood with only a handle as decoration that promptly slammed against his face, effectively (and painfully) pulling him back to the world of the living with more efficiency than Dudley sitting on him…

…ok, enough with the exaggerations, that was going a bit far. Dudley sitting on someone had more chance of sending him to the land of the dead than the living.

"I see you are much more graceful on a broom than on the ground, that's at least one good point for you." Snape sneered as Harry, still rubbing his aching forehead, entered in the office.

Quaint and simple, the office was nothing but an almost perfectly square room with a round wooden table on which piled up essays separated by their house, apparently, a simple, thin bed with a very small dark green sheet on it, a small fireplace and a drawer on which picture frames were turning away from the center of the room, one of them face-down. Personally, Harry thought it was too empty, too cold for him to stand living in there. It looked like the man had nothing but work left in his life.

"Harry Potter. The boy-who-lived-to-find-himself-in-my-office-during-his-second-week-at-Hogwarts. Typical Potters."

Harry bowed his head, only to hide the "drop down dead, please" glare that had appeared on his face.

"I saw everything that happened, mister Potter. And frankly, I'm not impressed. I guess Potter's claim was true, there really is a daredevil gene in the family. And  evidently it's especially strong in you. Thinking you can bring yourself a bit more fame through catching a trinket for Neville "I got gifted with two left everything" Longbottom, I suppose. If anything, you made yourself look like a Gryffindor."

Harry's glare intensified and his fists clenched tightly. That was the worst insult you could get from Snape, from what other Slytherins had said. Deep, slow and echoing footsteps indicated to the boy that Snape had started pacing in a circle.

"Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived, defender of the weak and the stupid. It sure sounds good, does it." He hissed, glaring at Harry so strongly the boy could feel it through his hair. "No it doesn't. That's for Gryffindors. You're a Slytherin, for goodness' sake act like one!"

The man stopped pacing and turned directly to Harry.

"Nevertheless… an obvious natural skill like yours deserves to be exploited." He said in a much calmer manner. Harry looked up in surprise.

"Sir?"

"Follow me, Potter," Snape said, opening the door. "I have to present you to someone."

More puzzled than afraid, Harry followed Snape back up in the castle up to the third floor, turning toward the Charms corridor. Was he gonna ask Flitwick to help him with his punishment? As impossible and ridiculous as it sounded, it was the only explanation Harry's mind came up with, though he truly  wished it was the case -- Flitwick was, true to Mrs Zabini's words, the softest teacher of the school.

Snape didn't even bother to knock on the door, simply opened it and peered in, rather rudely interrupting Flitwick's lesson.

"…cantanion is… can I help you, Serverus?"

Ignoring the small teacher, he simply hissed "Flint, come here."

Flint? The prefect? Oh, things were getting better and better… maybe he'd stick Flint after him all day long… and Harry had seen enough of the rude prefect the first day.

Tall, burly and with hair messy enough to make combs scramble in fright, bearing two dark and rather scary eyes on a sharp and angular face, Flint was not one who inspired safety. Harry shivered, thinking of having that boy following him around all the time, trailing his every moves…

"Flint, I believe you said you weren't satisfied with the Higgs' performance last year."

Flint roughly grunted with a nod of agreement.

"Nearly lost the cup 'cause of that idiot not spotting the snitch until Brown nearly tore his ear off. Even worse, 'cause of him, we lost to Hufflepuff!!"

Snitch? They were talking Quidditch? But why?

"Yes, yes, that's was very embarrassing, I must admit, but you and I are already aware of all this." Snape stopped Flint's rant with a careless wave. Apparently, Snape didn't care much for Quidditch. "I heard you were looking for a reserve Seeker, just in case."

Flint grunted again, giving a look at Harry. "And why is he here?"

"Mister Potter, in his first ever flying lesson, with no precedent flying experience unless he decided to steal his neighbors' brooms and managed an unnoticed flight in the middle of Little Whinging, has managed to catch a small, falling, barely visible object and inch from the ground by diving down and managed to escape any harmful side-effect other than an inflated ego." Ignoring Harry's scowl, Snape continued "I do not consider myself an expert on Quidditch, but I do believe that such a feat deserves attention, especially from a first year."

Flint gave him a searching look, then turned back to Snape. "I'll have to see what he can do. Even though he can't actually have a broom since he's a firstie, he might get a place in the reserves."

Snape nodded at Flint and turned to Harry. "See you for detention tonight at 8, at the Quidditch pitch."

Harry nodded, his mind numb. Had he just been offered a place in the Quidditch team? Yes he had! Trying to hold back the grin threatening to break his face, he nodded and turned around, walking away from the charms classroom back down to the dungeons.

When he arrived at the Slytherin common room with a huge smile reaching to his glasses, Draco and Blaise's first reaction was to give him a "Now-what-did-Snape-made-you-test" look, before asking him to explain what happened, which he did, the rest of the first years coming over during the time. Of course, Harry skipped over the parts where Snape insulted him, which none of them picked up.

"Seeker on the Quidditch team? Then you'd be the youngest player in the century!" Draco said with a gasp.

Harry nodded. "They're gonna test me out tonight at eight.

"You lucky, lucky thing… I wish I had tried to help Longbottom… as appalling as that sound."

"Well then, next time he's on a broom, I'll give you a shout." Harry joked.

Evening came quickly and, after being wished luck, Harry left the common room, following Flint to the Quidditch pitch.

Huge, oval-shaped and as only features six hoops perched on fifty-foot-tall poles, the quidditch pitch was surrounded by stands which would probably be full by the time a match started.

Harry took one of the school brooms, which looked like it had been charmed and carved by a first year Hufflepuff, then met Professor Snape on the pitch, standing beside a box of ping-pong balls.

The exercise was simple; Flint would throw the ping-pong balls and he had to catch them all. He quickly found something out as he caught ball after ball: he loved to fly. It seemed as natural to him as moving an arm. Before long, the box was empty and, as he landed, he noticed Flint's huge grin and Snape's satisfied look.

"Every single one of them… He caught them all!!" Flint gasped, looking like Christmas had come early.

"Which is excellent, certainly."

Flint gave a look at Snape. "Any way he can have his own broom?"

Snape nodded. "Our dear Headmaster owes me a favor. He can bend the rules to allow mister Potter his own broom. However, I doubt he can make it on the main team this year, unless Higgs suddenly suffers some… unexpected injury."

Flint nodded, eyes glinting. For some reason, Harry suddenly felt pity for this 'Higgs', who ever that is.

Harry took the broom back inside, but before he was about to leave, he found himself face-to-face with Snape.

"Where are you going, mister Potter?"

"Erm… back to the common room?"

"Did I say your detention was over? No. Follow me."

And Harry spent the rest of his otherwise happy evening grumpily dissecting frogs and emptying their guts in a barrel. And when he returned, the night was already well on it's way, the air was colder and the showers nearly more.

His assumptions became cemented: He hated Professor Snape.

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SPECIAL AUTHORS' NOTES

Ok. Am I the only one pissed off at this new move from FF.net? (I'll turn 17 in 9 days, and whoop, they remove adult fiction! GRRR) No more NC-17s. That means a huge clash in the freedom of speech thing. Guess how happy I was when VMorticia showed me this petition (with over 15K signatures by the time this is written)

http://www.petitiononline.com/KEEPNC17/petition.html

Everyone sign please!! They can't remove NC-17 stories, excellent (and plotful) ones have been made… I can even say that 3 of my favorite series are rated NC-17! Fanfiction.net is censoring too much, this is the last straw.

Sign it. (Takes out a whip) SIGN IT!!! (*Waa-KISH!*)

Review. REWIEWWW!!! (*Waa-KISH!*) *pouts* Pwetty Pweeze? Ugh, can't believe I'm doing this. Shows how desperate I am.