DISCLAIMER: I own nothing – it all belongs to JK Rowling.

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Lupin started their lesson with Occlumency, and Harry had been pleased to find that he was already much better than he had been the year before. "Guess it takes a few hard lessons to get me to apply myself, right?" he muttered bitterly.

Lupin, however, was a much better teacher than Snape. He taught Harry how to clear his head and mentally steel himself for the onslaught, before trying to enter his mind. By the end of the two-hour session, Harry was able to prepare himself to the point where Lupin could only access about two seconds of his memories before Harry shut him out.

"Excellent work, Harry!" said Lupin, delighted. "I want to you practice those exercises every time you get a spare minute, and next week we'll start working on how to keep your defences up permanently."

Harry's head was pounding with the effort. "What about Legilimency?" he asked, half-hoping that Lupin would call it a night.

"We need to get you well-trained in Occlumency first – you'll see, once you've mastered it, Legilimency follows on naturally," said Lupin. "Patience, Harry, patience."

Going back to the common-room, he found Hermione and Ron pointedly ignoring each other. Deciding he wasn't up to playing peacemaker, he didn't even bother to ask them what was wrong and headed straight up to his dorm. Harry diligently practiced his mind-clearing exercises for a few minutes, before falling asleep out of sheer exhaustion.

As it was only a few minutes after sunrise when he awoke the next morning, he briefly considered having a lie-in. However, he was too nervous about the Quidditch try-outs that afternoon to stay in bed too long. Stealthily getting dressed to avoid waking Ron, Seamus, Dean and Neville, Harry grabbed his Firebolt and snuck out for an early-morning flight.

On entering the common-room, he was startled to find Luna staring dreamily out of the window at the brightening sky.

"Morning," he said, going over to her. "You're up early, aren't you?"

Luna looked right through him, before re-focusing on the rising sun. "Not really," she said. "I often get up early to see the sunrise – makes you start the day with a fresh mind, you know?"

Harry could see her point. The grounds outside were sparkling with dew, looking freshly minted and clean. Watching her dreamy profile, Harry suddenly thought of something.

"Luna – do you fly?" he asked.

"Why, yes, as a matter of fact I do," she said, looking vaguely surprised. "Daddy refuses to Apparate – got himself splinched once and left an ear and a foot behind." Harry winced. "We always go on our long trips by broom – we flew to Sweden for our last holidays. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I just remembered how comfortable you were on the Thestrals when we flew on them to London last term," Harry said. "You looked like you've been flying for years."

Luna was staring out of the window again. Walking away from her and grabbing his Firebolt, Harry had an idea. He picked up a bottle of ink sitting on the table next to him.

"Luna – catch!" he said, throwing the bottle at her as hard as he could. To his amazement, she reached up and lazily plucked the bottle from the air with no effort at all.

Harry started grinning. "Luna, how about trying out for Chaser in the Gryffindor Quidditch team this afternoon?"

***

"Luna? Loony Lovegood?" Ron exclaimed. "Now I know you've finally lost your tiny mind, Potter!"

Harry had just told Ron about his invitation to Luna. He was still grinning like a village idiot. "Seriously, Ron – she's got the reflexes of a cat!" he said enthusiastically. "And I reckon she's a wicked flyer – she's got more miles on your broom than both of us combined. We'll have to wait and see, but I really think I'm right about this!"

Shoveling bacon and eggs into his mouth, Ron looked unconvinced. At that moment, Hermione entered the hall. Spotting Ron sitting with Harry, she glowered at him and sat down at the furthest point away from them that she could find.

Harry sighed. "Now what's going on with you two?" he asked Ron. "Are you arguing again?"

Ron shot a disparaging glance down the table towards Hermione. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again – she's barking mad," he said dismissively. "She's got some nutty idea that I'm just being friendly to Susan Bones so she'll help me in Care of Magical Creatures - Susan got an 'O' for her OWLs."

"Well, are you?" said Harry, grinning. "Being friendly, I mean? You looked very, um, friendly yesterday at lunch."

"Susan's a nice girl," said Ron defensively. "We got talking in class the other day and I found out she also supports the Chudley Cannons. And she doesn't think I'm a first class moron, unlike some other girls I know."

"Ah, I see – common interests," teased Harry. "So why is Hermione so annoyed with you?"

"Well, I figured I'd give her a taste of her own medicine," said Ron, starting to laugh. "You know how she's always so secretive about Krum? Well, when she started pestering me about Susan, I just put on a blank expression -" he demonstrated "- and told her were 'just friends, like you and Krum'. And for some reason, she went berserk! Hammered on for about fifteen minutes about me 'having the emotional depth of a paddling pool'." For a minute, he looked a bit bewildered and shook his head. "I swear, Harry, I'll never understand women."

"You and me both, mate … you and me both," said Harry fervently.

They spent the rest of the morning in the library, making inroads into the mountain of homework they had already accumulated. Tonks had asked them to do research into ancient druidic methods of magical defence, and to come back with some hexes and jinxes that could still have application in the modern world.

Then there was an essay for Professor McGonagall on the difficulties of cross-species transfiguration, with examples of where it had gone horribly wrong. Some of the pictures in the transfiguration reference books were disgusting – such as the one where someone had tried to transfigure a cat into a Hippogriff and ended up with something resembling a large, hairy wart with bird's legs and a beak.

Wearily leaving the library for lunch, they bumped into Hermione. She'd obviously decided to bury the hatchet with Ron, because she started talking to them, if rather self-consciously.

"So – any idea who's going to arrive for the tryouts?" she said hesitantly.

"Not sure yet," said Harry. "The only ones I know about for definite are Ginny and Luna."

Even Hermione looked surprised. "Luna?" she said, raising an eyebrow. "I would have thought she was a bit of a liability."

"Harry reckons she's going to be our secret weapon," said Ron, sniggering. "But I warn you, mate, she just might end up killing herself or someone else when she falls off her broom because she forgot it was there."

"Do have some belief in your Captain," said Harry with dignity, drawing himself up to his full height – which was still a full three inches below Ron. "Where's your faith?"

When they arrived at the Quidditch pitch, Harry was surprised to find a fairly large crowd of Gryffindors filling up the stands as observers. A group of about twelve people were standing near the goalposts, holding their brooms nervously. Harry went over with Ron, lugging the box containing the Quidditch balls between them. Katie Bell joined them halfway across the pitch.

"Well, any likely prospects, Harry?" she asked, her brow furrowed. "We need some really good Chasers this year to replace Angelina and Alicia, you know."

"Yeah, plus a decent set of Beaters," added Ron. "Sloper and Kirke weren't up to much, so it's not a great loss there."

"Katie, I want you to work with the Chasers," said Harry quietly. "You've got the most experience, so you know what to look for – and put them through their paces really hard, OK? Ron, you and I will have a go with the Beaters. And we all need to keep an eye out for a  reserve Seeker and Keeper."

Waiting in the group of aspirant team members were Ginny, Luna and – to Harry's amazement – Colin and Dennis Creevey. "I didn't know you chaps played," he said to them.

"We've been practicing really hard," said Colin, grinning at his surprise. "Back in the Muggle world, we play a lot of tennis and squash, so we know how to hit a ball. We want to try out for the Beater slots."

This will be interesting, Harry thought. I must admit, my ideal Dream Team didn't include the Creevey's, but you never know …

Also in the group were a some fourth and fifth year students Harry didn't know, and a tiny second year called Annie Parks. She looks like she could be really fast, Harry thought. Maybe a reserve Seeker? He smiled encouragingly at her and she blushed like a sunset.

"Don't turn on the charm, she's nervous enough as it is," hissed Ginny. Harry glared at her, but didn't bother to dignify her comment with a reply.

"Right," he said. "Let's get going. If you're trying out for Chaser, stand over there with Katie. If you're keen to be a Beater, over here with me and Ron. While you're flying we'll be keeping an eye on you for the reserve Keeper and Seeker positions."

The group re-ordered itself, with the majority clustering around Katie.

"OK, we'll start with you lot then," Harry said, opening the box and taking out the Quaffle. He tossed it to Katie. "One by one, I want you to go up with Katie and do a few maneuvers. I want to see a fast dive, a quick ascent and at least one Sloth Grip Roll while you're heading towards goal. You need to pass a few times to Katie, and then have bash at putting the Quaffle through the hoops. Got it?"

They nodded nervously. "Who's first?" said Katie. None of them seemed particularly keen, but Ginny volunteered.

"I'll do it," she said. "Wish me luck, big brother!" Ron grinned at her.

Katie mounted her broom and shot skywards. Two seconds later, Ginny was right behind her. She sent her broom into a steep dive, pulling out to skim the grass with her toes, before rising again at high speed to gasps from the small crowd.

Katie pelted off towards goal, reverse passing the ball to Ginny who caught it deftly, performed a faultless Sloth Grip Roll and threw it back. On their final pass, Ginny neatly slotted the Quaffle through the centre hoop.

Harry nodded at Ron, impressed. "Reckon that's one Chaser in the bag," he said quietly.

Ron nodded. "I still can't believe my little sister can fly so well," he said proudly.

The other Chaser aspirants were less successful, each dropping the Quaffle at least once. Little Annie Parks, however, acquitted herself fairly well – the only problem was that she was so tiny she was nearly knocked off her broom when Katie gently passed her the Quaffle.

Last up was Luna. Ignoring the surprised whispers from the crowd, Harry slapped her shoulder as she walked past him to pick up her broom from where it was leaning against the goalpost. "Good luck," he whispered. She gave him a vague smile in return.

The next second, Harry was gasping in amazement. Luna had soared upwards in a climb so steep it seemed impossible that she hadn't fallen off the back of her broom. At the top, she performed a tight loop before heading downwards at breakneck speed. She pulled out three feet above ground by turning upside down, and then zoomed upwards again.

Taking the Quaffle from Katie, she sped towards goal, lazily performing a Sloth Grip Roll on the way, and hurled the ball through the goalposts with deadly accuracy. She put on an unbelievable burst of speed and shot over the goalpost to collect the Quaffle on the other side.

There was a burst of spontaneous applause from the crowd, and Harry turned grinning to Ron who was gaping at Luna, visibly stunned.

Luna came in for a gentle landing right in front of them. "All right, Harry?" she murmured, handing him the Quaffle.

"More than all right, that was bloody marvelous!" he said, beaming at her. Ron was speechless, gaping at her like a fish out of water.

Katie landed next to them. "Lovegood, I'm just really glad you're not in Ravenclaw any more!" she exclaimed. "That was incredible!"

"Well, I wouldn't have tried out at Ravenclaw," Luna admitted. "They would never have given me a chance in the first place. Thanks for letting me try, Harry – that was fun."

There were only three options for Beater – the Creeveys, and a big fifth year called Alvin Hoppes.

"OK, we'll all go up together," said Harry, giving each of them a bat. "Once you're all up, I'll release the bludgers."

The Creeveys proved to be amazingly adept. Years of tennis practice had given them an unerring eye for the ball, plus great accuracy in sending the bludgers in the direction they wanted them to go. Colin nearly unseated Ron with a neat backhand swipe at the bludger, which Ron wasn't expecting. While Hoppes wasn't nearly as accurate, his flying skills were fairly good and he was big enough not to be intimidated by other flyers.

Taking them all in to land, Harry called out: "Right, that's it for the day! Thanks for trying out, chaps – we'll post the names of the new team members on the board by tonight."

Once everyone had dispersed, Harry, Ron and Katie went into a huddle.

"It's a no brainer for the Chasers," said Katie immediately. "Weasley and Lovegood, no doubt about it."

"I'd have to agree with you," said Harry. "They're excellent – I reckon you three will make a great combination. Ron?"

"Who would've thought Luna could fly like that?" mused Ron. "Absolutely – can't believe she hasn't played for a school team before."

"Beaters have to be the Creeveys," Harry decided. "I was actually really impressed, weren't you?"

"Yeah, and I think Hoppes will make a reasonable reserve Keeper," said Katie.

Ron nodded. "He's as solid as a brick wall, but he flies quite well. With a bit of practice, I think he'll do fine."

"I'd like to consider Annie Parks as reserve Seeker," Harry said thoughtfully. "I know she's tiny, but she's quick and I think she'll be good in the position with a bit of work."

"Agreed. So that's our team, then?" said Katie happily. "I must say, I didn't think we'd get anything nearly as good as this!"

Privately, Harry agreed. Now, it was just a matter of practice, practice, practice. There was no way he was going to let Slytherin get their hands on the Quidditch Cup this year.