JK Rowling owns all these characters and is filthy, filthy rich. I own only this particular plot and any characters I may have invented, and I am not any kind of rich. No copyright infringement is intended. -JM

"Go, go, Gryffindor, Go, go, Gryffindor, Go, go, Gryffindor..."

If there was one thing Harry hated, it was Quidditch.

The fourteen-year-old Gryffindor boy was skulking under the bleachers of the Hogwarts Quidditch stadium, kicking at the clumps of grass and weeds that grew in the cool shade, scowling at the roaring crowd above his head. His hands were jammed into his jeans pockets, his chin jutting out. His sandy hair was, as usual, sticking up every which way, the ends curling just above his eyebrows and just below his shirt collar. Lately it had grown so long that, every time Headmistress McGonagall caught sight of him, her face tightened into the kind of disapproving look which clearly said: Cut that hair, boy.

"And that's Weasley, away with the Quaffle again, my gosh that girl can fly..."

Harry Weasley scowled and kicked a wooden support-post. At least here, under the bleachers and out of the glare of the clear-skied spring morning, he didn't have to watch his sister win another Quidditch match. Here, he did not have to deal with Tori's drooling fans and admirers, did not have to endure his friends asking if he could introduce them to her, or maybe put in a good word for them. Here, he was alone.

But, he reflected, leaning back against the wooden support he had just kicked and pulling out his wand, "alone" was not always good, either. Harry began pointing his wand at random dandelions: one by one, the weeds exploded in showers of white fluff, the tiny seeds catching in the wind and floating off across the grounds behind the stadium. Alone, there was time to think. And there were not many good subjects for thinking, at the moment.

The subject which came most immediately to mind, causing him to groan aloud and slide down the post until he was sitting on the ground, was his Mum's latest letter. It had arrived with one of the school owls at breakfast this morning, and had not been a howler--thank Merlin for that--but all the same, she had not been happy. "I must say I'm slightly disappointed by your mid-term grades. Harry, you are not working up to your full potential! You must spend more time studying and less time fooling around. Your OWLs are coming up next year..." And on and on. His Mum was, it seemed, obsessed with grades.

The truth was, Harry wasn't trying his best. But why bother? He would never catch up to the rest of them. He didn't think anyone realized how difficult it was being the only untalented member of the Weasley family. His dad: a best-selling author and former best friend of the Great Harry Potter. His mum: the cleverest witch in the world, and the most-recognized magical-creature-rights activist in Britain. His sister Mattie: such a gifted artist that Mum and Dad had debated sending her to a Muggle art school instead of Hogwarts; she had won more Art prizes already than Harry had ever heard of, and she was only eleven. His new younger brothers, Bill and Fred: only the cutest pair of red-haired twins the Wizarding world had ever seen, and besides that they could already make their crib levitate.

And then, there was big sister Tori. Queen Tori, he called her in his own mind. She was Head Girl, a champion Chaser and Quidditch Captain for a third year running, and had earned more OWLs than any other student in Hogwarts history except her own Mum. If that wasn't enough, Tori was beautiful too: tall and slim, athletically strong, she had the kind of coordination and grace that Harry only dreamed about. Tori had to practically beat the lads away with her broomstick, while Harry had to get dragged to the last Ball by one of Mattie's bucktoothed first-year friends.

Harry threw his wand into the grass beside him. The air around him was filled with dandelion fluff; he brushed it out of his hair and clenched his fists, pounding them against his legs. "And Gryffindor S-C-O-O-ORES," came the loudspeaker announcement, "Thanks to Tori Weasley..." The rest of the announcement was drowned out by the screaming crowd. "Go, go, Gryffindor, Go, go, Gryffindor..."

Watching Quidditch only made him think, painfully, of his first attempt to try out for the House team, as a second-year. He'd been trying out for Keeper, like his dad used to play; it was the position Tori always made him play when she practiced at home, and the one he felt most comfortable with. Nevertheless, the very first time the Quaffle came streaking his way during the tryout, he'd leaned too far to the side in an attempt to catch it, and fallen off his broom. He'd fallen nearly thirty feet, blacking out and waking up in the hospital wing with a slowly-healing collarbone and right arm, and a concussion. He'd barely climbed onto a broomstick again, after that day.

"Oy, Weasley."

Harry turned toward the voice, and tried not to cringe at the sight of Shea Donovan, his fellow fourth-year Gryffindor. Shea was the closest thing Harry had to a best friend at Hogwarts; the two boys had been close since first year, but lately Harry had found himself shying away from the friendship. It may have had something to do with the fact that Shea's older brother, Troy, was both Head Boy and Tori's boyfriend. Shea was already on the path to follow his brother to head-boydom: he was sure to make Prefect next term, and was already attracting attention from every girl in their year. Harry had to practically wave his hands in front of a girl's face before she'd notice him.

Shea walked toward him now, tall, burly and confident, everything Harry was not. Shea smiled easily, slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a couple of Honeyduke's candies. He tossed one to Harry; Harry caught it. A Toothflossing Stringmint. Harry hated those. He unwrapped it and stuffed it into his mouth, wincing as the mint lodged between two of his molars and started flossing.

Shea joined Harry under the stands, squinting in the dim light. "Why aren't you watching? It's a hell of a game," Shea said, leaning against a post and running a hand through his thick black hair.

"I don't need to watch," Harry mumbled, staring at his feet and trying to pry the Stringmint out of his teeth with his tongue. "I already know what'll happen."

"Not much of a sport lately, are you?" Shea stuffed more stringmints into his mouth, crunching down on the new ones and spitting out the old at Harry's feet. "Hey, you got that map handy? Me and Joe wanna sneak into Hogsmeade later, after the game, get some celebration sweets."

Harry reached into his pocket for the Marauder's Map, then hesitated, his fingers brushing the yellowed parchment. He squinted at Shea, who was again brushing his hair out of his eyes and grinning in that easy way. Did Harry really want to be involved in another Gryffindor Quidditch celebration? "Naw," Harry said, pushing the map deeper into his pocket. "Map's locked in my trunk, up at the castle. 'Sides, I reckon McGonagall's getting suspicious. She nearly caught us last time."

"Naw, she didn't," Shea said, backing away from his friend. "You're no fun, you. Aw well, we don't need the map anyway. Got the whole thing memorized, don't I?" He tapped his head, flashed a last smile and turned on his heel, disappearing back around the corner and into the stands.

Harry watched him go, then turned his back as his friend disappeared. He bent to pick up his wand from the grass, brushing bits of dandelion fluff off the handsome, if slightly short, eleven-inch maple wand with dragon-heartstring core. Dragon heart, he thought. Yeah, right.

A movement caught his eye, and Harry looked up. A huge, lumbering figure was emerging from the edge of the Dark Forest, a few dead rabbits slung over his shoulder. Harry grinned; Hagrid was the one person at Hogwarts with whom he felt completely comfortable, and Care of Magical Creatures the only class at which he consistently excelled. Hagrid passed quite close to the Quidditch stadium on his way back to his cabin, and, spotting Harry, he raised his gigantic hand in greeting.

Harry waved back and, pocketing his wand, jogged over to meet Hagrid. The huge man reached down and ruffled Harry's hair as the boy fell into step beside him; Harry groaned inwardly to think what his head must look like now.

"Ere, now, Harry. How are ye?"

"All right, I guess."

"You won't be jes 'all right' when I'm through," Hagrid said. "I've a project, for you."

Harry looked eagerly up at his gigantic friend. Although the half-giant was a little grayer around the edges and more wrinkled about the face than he had been when Harry's parents had known him, his eyes had not lost their twinkle, and they were twinkling now. "What's the project, Hagrid?"

"Litter o' baby nifflers," Hagrid said, his voice calm but his eyes never leaving the boy beside him, so as to catch Harry's reaction.

Harry did not disappoint. "Baby nifflers, Hagrid?" His hazel eyes had gone wide. "I've never seen any. How old?"

"Aye," Hagrid said. "Few weeks old, a litter of twelve. I'm weanin' them early, so's they'll be tamer, easier to handle. Thought maybe you'd help me with some o' the feedings, today, get 'em used to being handled by different people."

"Yeah," said Harry, hard-pressed to contain his smile. "Yeah, I'll help you." The Quidditch match was forgotten, as was his Mum's letter, for now.

"Ow! Hey, gettoff..." Harry grabbed at the fuzzy baby Niffler, which was clinging to his shirtsleeve and attempting to pick up his watch in its tiny, scoop-shaped beak.

"Ah, Harry, yer gotta take off anything ye don't wanna lose." Hagrid held a Niffler baby in each hand, while two more dived in and out of his long, shaggy beard.

"Forgot my watch," Harry said, finally prying the Niffler loose, unclasping his watch and stuffing it into his pocket. He set the Niffler carefully on his shoulder; it rooted around his ear for a bit before settling down in the crook of his neck. Harry carefully held the feeding-dropper up to the last hungry Niffler in the box--the smallest of the litter--coaxing the fuzzy baby closer with a cupped hand. The creature found the food and clamped its beak around the dropper while Harry gently depressed the plunger, letting the food into the creature's mouth little by little. The baby settled into Harry's cupped hand as it fed; Hagrid watched silently until the dropper was empty and the little fellow was safely asleep.

"Ain't that a new watch, Harry?" Hagrid asked.

"Oh yeah," Harry said, petting the baby on his shoulder as it dozed, and pulling the watch out of his pocket. "My Uncle Charlie gave it to me. We visited him, in Romania, over Christmas."

"Ah, Charlie Weasley." Hagrid smiled at the memory of Harry's uncle. "Still workin' with dragons, is he?" Harry nodded. "I remember he had a way with animals, like you do, Harry." Harry smiled, pleased that he was good at something. "Yeah, you're like him in a lot of ways. I wouldn't be surprised if-" Hagrid broke off as the Nifflers in his beard converged on his chin, taking it in both their beaks at once and biting down hard. Hagrid sucked in his breath and tried to prize the babies away from his face, while Harry laughed silently.

"They're all right, Nifflers," said Harry, still scratching the animal sleeping on his shoulder. "Hagrid," he asked, as the man disengaged the Nifflers from his face and set them down in the box with the rest of their littermates, "Are you going to keep all of these for classes?" He indicated the dozen baby Nifflers huddling together in their box. "Can some of them go...other places? Like, can you have them as pets?" he asked, cupping a hand around 'his' Niffler as it slept.

Hagrid shook his head. "I don't think yer Mum'd be pleased to be chasin' both yer brothers and a Niffler around the house."

Harry sagged. "I guess not." He gently tugged the baby off his shoulder and set it down in the box.

"How is Hermione doing with the twins, anyhow?" Hagrid asked, frowning.

Harry shrugged. "All right. They've started to walk now, and Mum says they get into more trouble than any of the rest of us ever did." His voice had gone rather flat. Harry disliked talking about his brothers. He didn't know why his parents wanted to go and have more babies when they already had three children almost grown. And twins, at that. Since Bill and Fred were born, his parents' free time had gone from rare to nonexistent.

"Ah, I can believe it. If they're anything like their dad and their uncles...I remember one time, back when yer Dad and Mum and Harry Potter used to-"

A series of shrill cheers from the Quidditch stadium interrupted Hagrid. Harry used the opportunity to jump up and back toward the door of Hagrid's cabin, with a last look at the baby Nifflers. "Sounds like the match is over. Gotta go, Hagrid; thanks for letting me help and all." With that, he was out the door and practically running back to the castle.

"Bye, Harry..." Hagrid's voice trailed off behind him as Harry jogged up the lawn and into the castle. He left the cheers from the Quidditch stadium behind, as well. He stuffed his hands into his pockets again and kept his head down as he stalked toward the Common Room. Why did everyone always have to bring up his Mum and his Dad, and Harry Potter, and his brothers and sisters? It was like he didn't even have a life of his own. Like he was invisible. If he disappeared, they wouldn't even notice...

"Here, here, what's this?" The Fat Lady blustered around in her portrait. Harry recoiled and rubbed his nose: he'd run headlong into the Fat Lady's portrait, jamming his nose square into her backside. She was gazing down at him, her face screwed up in intense dislike. "That's the third time this week you've done that, boy," she said. "Let's hear the password, and let's have you watch where you're going from now on, understood?"

"Chocolate Frog," Harry mumbled.

"Mmm-hmm," said the Fat Lady, swinging open and frowning after Harry all the way down the passage.

The Common Room was empty, Harry was thankful to see: the fire had burned low, and the floor and chairs were littered with students' scarves and cloaks, mittens and candy wrappers and bits of parchment. Harry heaved a great sigh, stood staring at the fire for several moments, and then turned and kicked at the armchair nearest him. He kicked rather harder than he'd intended: the chair didn't budge, but a bolt of pain shot up Harry's foot and leg, and he grabbed his injured toe in both his hands, biting his lip and cursing under his breath.

Something stirred at the window across the room: Harry looked up, and found the Common Room was not empty, as he'd thought. His little sister, Mattie, was curled up on one of the window seats, her sketchbook on her lap and her pencil in her mouth. Mattie was looking very baggy and sloppy in a pair of sweatpants and an old orange Cannons jumper which had probably once belonged to Tori. Her bare feet were tucked under her on the seat. Her frizzy hair looked as if it hadn't yet been brushed.

Harry scowled at her. He had really wanted to be alone: here, now, was one of his sisters, to spoil things again. "What are you doing here?" he barked at his sister.

Mattie blinked, then looked down at her sketch book. "It's my Common Room too, you know," she said. Her voice was small and wavering, and Harry sensed, from the way her shoulders slumped, that she was not really in the mood for a fight. In fact, walking a bit closer to her, he noticed that her eyes were red and puffy, and that several scrunched-up tissues littered the floor around her.

A change came over Harry instantly, though you would have had to look closely to see it. His face softened from a frown of resentment to one of concern; his hands came out of his pockets and lost their angry clench; his lips curled into a smile. He sat down on the window seat next to Mattie and put his arms around her. "I didn't mean it," he said, as she began to cry again and buried her head on his shoulder. The sketch book fell, forgotten, to the floor, and glancing down, Harry saw that she'd been drawing a beautiful sketch of a dragon flying over the Quidditch stadium. A Hungarian Horntail, it looked like, though she'd gotten the tail wrong: there were supposed to be twelve spikes, not ten. He'd tell her later.

Mattie sat up again after a few minutes, and wiped at her face with a tissue. "Now then, what's wrong?" said Harry, his voice businesslike.

Mattie sighed, leaning down to collect her sketch book. She slipped her feet back into her sneakers and said, simply, "I'm just very lonely."

"Oh." Harry sat back a bit, and considered this. Mattie had never been a social butterfly the way Tori was, but surely she had some friends? Harry tried to think of who he'd seen his sister hanging out with, but realized that most of the time, when he saw her, she was on her own. He looked up at Mattie now and waited for her to continue.

"I haven't really made any friends since I've been here. And you and Tori are so busy I hardly ever get to talk to you, and I'm a total dunce in all my lessons, I'm rubbish at magic. And Mum and Dad haven't sent any letters in a really long time."

"You're lucky there," said Harry. "I got one from Mum this morning, and all she did was twit me about my grades..."

"At least you're getting letters," Mattie said. "Mum never writes me because she knows it won't do any good. I'm hopeless at lessons." She stuffed her sketch book into her bag and stood up. "And over Christmas, she and Dad barely spoke to me. They're too busy with the babies." She rolled her eyes at the mention of "the babies;" Harry thought about just how hard it must have been for Mattie to give up her place as the youngest Weasley. "I'm thinking...I don't even want to come back to this school, next year. I'm thinking maybe I'll just go to that art school, like Mum wanted."

"I don't think you should," Harry said. "I'd miss you, anyway. And you're not the only one who's not brilliant at lessons. I'm..."

"Oh please, Harry," said Mattie, starting toward her dormitory. "You're, like, Professor Hagrid's pet student. You're really smart, you're great at magic, and you're a terrific flyer."

"Hold on," Harry said. "I'm not even close to a terrific flyer. I-"

"I know you never fly any more. But I don't know why. You were really good, Dad said so all the time." Harry looked his sister straight in the eyes, to see if she was lying. But she didn't blink as she continued, "If I had a talent like that, I'd at least use it. I'd fly all the time, every day." She turned her back. "No one even knows I'm here." She shuffled toward the Girls' stairway. "Sometimes I think I shouldn't even be in Gryffindor."

"You don't have to play Quidditch. There are different ways of being brave," Harry called after her.

"Yeah," she said, "and you and Tori have them all. And I have none."

Harry just sat, dumbfounded, for a few seconds. Then he lifted his head; his frown had disappeared. Mattie had almost reached the top of the stairway. "Hey, where are you going?" Harry asked.

"I'm going to my room," Mattie replied, her voice dull.

"I've got a better idea," Harry said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the Marauder's Map, the old, crumbling map his Dad had given him before his first train ride to Hogwarts. "Want to come into Hogsmeade with me? I'm thinking of going to get some supplies for the party tonight."

Mattie turned, frowning, and started slowly back down the stairs. "It's not a Hogsmeade weekend. And anyway, I'm not old enough..."

Harry shrugged. "What McGonagall doesn't know, won't hurt her. C'mere." He pulled out his wand and, as Mattie reached the bottom of the stairs, touched its tip to the old, blank parchment. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he said. Mattie's eyes widened as she watched the map gradually appear on the parchment, and her mouth dropped open when she caught sight of the tiny figures moving around the castle. Harry grinned, enjoying her reaction.

"Is that...Hogwarts?" she asked, leaning so close to the map that her nose practically touched the parchment.

"Yup," said Harry.

"And are those...secret passageways?"

"Yup," he said again, his grin broadening.

"Harry..." Mattie grinned up at him, her hazel eyes gleaming with a hint of mischief. The two of them looked very much alike at that moment, as they smiled at one another over the Marauder's Map. Harry could tell, from her expression of slowly-growing joy, that his sister had grasped the full potential of this map, and would be a willing accomplice in using it. "This is really beautifully drawn," she said, leaning close to the map again to study the intricate detail in which the castle was rendered. Mattie turned serious again as she asked, "Does Mum know about this?"

Harry scoffed. "Are you mad? Of course not. Dad gave it to me. And Mattie," he whispered, "You can't tell anyone, all right? This map has to be just between you and me."

Mattie nodded quickly. "Yes, yes, I promise."

"Shake on it?" Harry held out his hand and Mattie grasped it. They shook firmly, and then smiled at one another again. The two of them wandered out of the Common Room together, studying the map and whispering about mischievous possibilities. The Gryffindor Common Room was left empty, save for the ghosts, and the crackling fire which told no tales.