Awakened 6

The days slowly trailed by and Harry settled into his lessons. What took time was adjusting to the fact that Remus was the defence teacher and had been for several years. But it didn't take long before they were good friends. After one particularly fun lesson of practising fighting a Bogart purely for the hell of it, Harry waited behind to speak to the professor. He'd already broached the subject with Megan and Ginny and they agreed with him wholeheartedly.

"Yes Harry." He said when the class had filed out.

"Sir, I was wondering if you might be able to help me set up a defence club for people wanting to learn things outside of class."

Remus looked at him thoughtfully for a moment.

"I assume you have a venue in mind?"

Harry grinned.

"Of course, the room of requirement."

Remus looked at him in surprise.

"I'm even going to ask how you know about that room, when almost none of the other professors do. How can help you with this?"

"Well, you know the people here better than I do; you know who is likely to be light or dark. Plus, being the Defence teacher you'll know who's likely to need the help out of class that I can offer." Harry looked at the Professor hopefully.

"I'll think about it Harry. That's all I can say." Harry's face fell but he still held out some hope as he left the classroom.

Remus watched him leave with a smile on his face. He would do great things.

That afternoon Harry had Potions which was rapidly becoming his favourite subject. He and Draco were the best in the class by far; something that Hermione was finding it difficult to come to terms with. He walked into the classroom to be greeted with hello's from Hermione and Neville who were already there. Snape was late as Harry was quickly getting used to as a regular occurrence. He sat down at the back of the room, as far away from Hermione and Neville as he could possibly have sat. Hermione looked over her shoulder at him questioningly but he just shrugged.

Moments later Draco walked in and came to sit next to him. After a few minutes of working on his potion Draco looked across at Harry who was staring into space and absentmindedly tapped a piece of parchment with his quill. Draco craned his neck over Harry's shoulder to see what he was writing. It was a list of what looked like defence spells.

"Harry?"

"Hmmm? Oh, hi Dray."

Draco sighed.

"Harry!"

"Huh? What it is?"

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm just making a list."

"Well, I can see that. What's it for?"

"It for a defence club I want to start, with Remus' help. For people to learn stuff outside of class that might be useful and to get better at things they already know."

Draco leaned forward with interest.

"What kind of things do you intend on teaching?"

It wasn't until half an hour before the end of the lesson when professor Snape walked in that they realised they had done no work on their potion. Both boys scrambled for the ingredients they needed. They had almost caught up with Hermione and Neville by the end of the lesson but hadn't quite finished which earned them a disapproving look from Snape.

"I'm disappointed in you boys. You had plenty of time to finish this potion. What was it that was able to tear your attention away from the lesson?"

Harry looked at Draco who nodded imperceptibly.

"Well, we were making a list Sir." He said, handing it to Snape.

He looked at the list with interest.

"What is the purpose of this list may I ask?"

"It's for a defence club that I want to start, with Professor Lupin's help of course."

Snape looked at Harry with a mixture of pride, admiration and a small amount of jealousy that he hadn't thought it of before now.

"This is a very good idea Harry. Come and see me later and I'll be able to add some spells to this list of yours."

Harry grinned at him.

"Thanks Sir!" and with that the two boys ran out of the classroom. As they left Draco looked over at Harry.

"Flying?"

Harry laughed.

"You read my mind."

A very short while later the two of them could be seen flying around on the quidditch pitch chasing each other.

The next day, Harry began to teach Ginny the basics of each position, each with a relatively low amount of success.

"This is ridiculous!" Ginny yelled after they'd been practising for about an hour. "I'm hopeless at everything we try!"

"Hey, we haven't tried everything yet. Come on, let's try you as a Keeper."

Reluctantly Ginny climbed back onto her broom and flew towards the goals"Right," Harry called once they were both hovering around the goalposts. "Just stay on the middle post and see what you can block."

Ginny nodded nervously at him. Harry flew back a few broom lengths and hefted the ball. He leant and aimed around Ginny into the hoop. As soon as the ball had left his hand Ginny had moved into it's path and caught it neatly. Harry looked at her and grinned.

"See, wasn't so hard was it?"

"I suppose not." She threw the ball back at him and for the next hour Harry threw it towards the goals. Ginny caught it, again, and again. When they were both exhausted they flew to the ground and sat on the floor. Ginny's face was beaming with delight.

"Look's like we've found the perfect position for you Gin. Next week I'll drag Dray out of bed so we can work two on one to try and get past you."

"Ron's not going to be happy."

Harry laughed.

"Well, he'll just have to get over it won't he. Come let's go back to the common room, I'm nackered!"

They made their way back to the Gryffindor tower, which for seven am was unsurprisingly empty, and collapsed on one of the sofas. After a while of just sitting in silence Harry poked Ginny in the side. All the response he got was a murmur from Ginny as she shifted closer to him. She'd fallen asleep. Harry smiled, and letting the exhaustion from the practise take over he drifted to sleep as well.

Harry was awoken several hours later by someone yelling very close to his ear. Blearily he opened his eyes and saw Ron standing by the sofa yelling very loudly at Hermione who was attempting to calm him down. Then he realised what had got Ron so worked up. He was lying fully stretched out on the sofa with a pillow propping up his head and Ginny was effectively lying almost completely on top of him with Harry's arm curled around her. Harry smiled and brushing some hair away from her face he gently shook her awake, calmly ignoring Ron who was close to frothing at the mouth. Slowly she blinked her eyes open and looked up at him. She blushed as she realised the position that she was in but after noticing her brother standing glaring at Harry and shouting at them both she snuggled even closer and put her arms around him.

"What do you want?" Harry asked him coldly.

"How dare you ask me that! Get away from her!" Ron lunged forward and grabbing Ginny's arm, he dragged her off the sofa onto the floor. Harry jumped off the sofa and leant to help her up. She shook his hand off and red with humiliation she got up off of the floor. Ron reached out to take her arm and pull her away form Harry but before he had even got close to her Ginny had taken her wand out of her pocket and sent the petrificus totalus curse at him. Harry smirked as Ron fell to the floor, rigid as a piece of wood. Ginny took one last look at the sight of her brother on the floor of the common room, his eyes madly searching for someone to do the counter curse, and left the room. Harry looked down at him,

"I really don't think you're going to be able to go to any of your lessons today Ron. I doubt that anyone here wants to face your sister in another bad mood if she knows that someone has helped you after what you just did to her." He looked up at the people that were standing around them and saw with satisfaction that everyone was nodding in agreement. Even Hermione was standing with her arms folded glaring at Ron.

"Come on everyone," Nevilles voice carried over everyone's heads. "There's nothing more to see here and I for one am hungry for breakfast." There was a mass exodus as everyone in the common room left through the portrait hole. Harry was the last to leave and as he looked back he saw Ron's eyes on him and he saw the hate that was beginning to grow towards him. He shook his head in despair at the loss of his oldest and best friend and silently left.

During the next few weeks Ron's attitude gradually got worse until he no longer stayed in the same room as Harry. Unless of course Ginny was in the room as well, in which case he stayed and watched the two of them like a hawk even if they weren't with each other. Ginny had begun to ignore her brother from that day and hadn't spoken one word to him, although she had laughed at his efforts to get the work he had missed as no-one had released him until after dinner in the evening. Even at quidditch practices Ron acted as though Harry didn't exist.

Eventually, about halfway through the term, Gryffindor had its first quidditch match. It came as no surprise to Harry that it was against Slytherin. He had joked with Draco about flying against him but didn't realise that it would be the first match he played. The day of the match he stood with the rest of the team and tried to keep his nerves in check. He had never been nervous about playing before, except maybe before his first match in his first year but this was different. It was as if he had something to prove to the people in the stands above him. None of them except Draco, Ginny and Megan had ever seen him fly and he wanted to prove what he could do. He hadn't even really tried that hard during practise with the team, wanting to keep something back for when they were playing properly. As such, the team hadn't tried to rely on him at all and they were better players than his old team because of it. Suddenly, Ron received a signal and he led his team out onto the pitch. They flew in formation around the edge above the stands and settled into their positions to start. As soon as the whistle blew Harry sped up to hover above everybody else. He methodically began to search across the pitch. He saw a flash of gold several times but he was a fraction too slow to look onto it. The Gryffindor chasers were doing an excellent job below him and already the score was 70-20 to Gryffindor. Harry hated to admit it but Ron was very good in his position as Keeper and was saving many goals that the Slytherins were managed to try and put past him. Finally when the score had reached 120-50 to Gryffindor Harry finally managed to spot the snitch and tore after it. Draco noticed a moment after Harry did and sped after him. But just as he had reached out his hand to try and reach it a Slytherin beater hit a bludger at him and it hit him square in the chest with such force that it knocked him off his broom. Draco looked round and raced to try and catch Harry before he hit the ground but Professor Snape had already slowed his descent and he landed softly on the sand. Draco looked back for the snitch but it had vanished. He looked over at Harry who was slowly getting up and after receiving several glares from his team-mates flew back into the sky. Madame Hooch flew over to him and checked him over.

"Are you all right, Potter?"

Harry nodded and climbed back onto his broom amid cheers from the stands. Ron tried not to look impressed at Harry's resilience and ordered the rest of the team back into their positions. Harry flew back into the sky trying to put the pain in chest to the back of his mind, at least until the end of the game. Slowly however Gryffindor began to lose their hard won lead and soon the score was in Slytherins favour at 170-140. Harry was scanning the sky and suddenly caught sight again of the snitch. He immediately took off after it and it shot into the sky, high above the stands. Harry raced after it with Draco close behind him when the snitch suddenly changed direction and sped towards the ground. Harry and Draco quickly followed it and they sped after it. Harry thrilled in the exhilaration of the chase and he loved diving on his broom. As they neared the ground Draco tried to harden his resolve but his nerve failed him and 10ft from the ground he pulled up. Harry carried on in his dive and a foot from the ground he pulled up his broom and raised his fist triumphantly in the air. The golden wings were flapping as he lifted the snitch up to show the crowds who erupted with cheers. It was a deafening sound but Harry didn't care. He had proved what he could do.

With Gryffindor winning 290-170 thanks to Harry he turned into a celebrity in his house and also many people from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff stopped him in the corridors to congratulate him. That evening in the common room Megan jumped on him and hugged him, almost crushing his newly repaired ribs that Madame Pomfrey had fixed after the match.

"Meg, please. Be careful, it hurts."

"Oh God Harry, I'm so sorry. What was the damage done by that bludger?"

"Four cracked ribs and a lot of bruising. The ribs are all fixed but the bruising's still there." Megan's face fell at the thought of causing her brother more pain but he slung an arm round her shoulders and ruffled her hair.

"Don't worry about it, just don't hug me as hard next time okay? At least not until it's gone down."