Chapter 17: Post-Flight

The dungeon was full of steam, the sounds of chopping, and twenty cauldrons bubbling. Severus was walking among his students, third year Gryffindor and Hufflepuff were brewing the Shrinking Solution this lesson. He kept one eye on the table where the two Mr. Weasleys were working with their sidekick Mr. Jordan; the trio was prone to mischief if left to their own devices for too long. A knock at the dungeon door drew his attention.

"Enter!" he called.

Minerva McGonagall opened and peered around the door, "Professor Snape, may I have a word, in the corridor if you can step away."

He arched an eyebrow; it was unlike her to interrupt another teacher's lesson. He turned to the class, "Continue your work, Mr. Diggory ensure that no one goes off task."

Cedric Diggory looked up from chopping daisy roots, "Yes sir."

Professor Snape swept across the room and joined her in the corridor. After closing the door he turned to see his godson skulking behind her. "What is this?"

"I would ask that we go to your office, but you have a lesson in progress." Minerva glanced toward the door.

Drawing his wand, Severus cast Muffliato and said, "There, now we will not be overheard at least."

"There was an incident in the flying lesson. Madame Hooch had to take Mr. Longbottom to the hospital wing."

"Damn shoddy school brooms." Severus muttered. "Is Mr. Longbottom all right?"

"Quite," McGonagall agreed. "I'm going to speak with Madame Pomfrey after this." She addressed Harry, "Now, Mr. Potter do you want to explain what happened next?"

Harry had been looking down at his feet until now, but he glanced up and fleetingly met the eyes of the adults. "Another student was laughing at Neville's accident, and took this from the grass where he'd dropped it." He held up a small glass sphere, "It was a gift from Neville's grandmother. Theo and I told him to give it back, but he grabbed a broom and took it up with him. He said he'd leave it up a tree."

Severus closed his eyes for a moment and asked, "Which student, and what did you do next?"

"Selwyn," Harry said, "and I… I went after him, sir."

Of course, you did, Severus thought. He turned to his fellow professor, "Then why is Mr. Selwyn not with us?"

"Because of what happened next, I feel we should discuss it before considering punishment for both boys." She pointed to the object clutched in Harry's fist. "He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive, and he had the time-turner on his person. His personal safety was my primary concern, but its presence certainly does complicate matters."

"Selwyn threw it." Harry explained, "I didn't think about the time-turner being on me when I went after it."

Now Severus understood why she'd brought this to him, and why Selwyn wasn't present. Harry had recklessly risked his own safety, as well as a major magical catastrophe, all because of the taunting of a classmate. "Harry that was a very foolish thing for you to do. I understand that you were provoked, and Selwyn will be duely punished for his part, but you must be more cautious in future. " Severus placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, "Both with your personal safety, and with the fragile and dangerous magical instrument that we entrusted to you."

His godson had tensed under his hand, as if expecting a blow. Harry met Severus eyes and nodded, "In future? Does that mean I get to keep it, that I'm not expelled?"

"Students aren't usually expelled for a first offense." McGonagall explained, "unless their actions are dire indeed, such as causing harm to another student or students, and showing no remorse for their actions." Her mouth thinned as she considered, "As for the time-turner, this is your one warning to be more responsible with it. If something like this happens again, I will be forced to take it from you, and we will have to face the consequences." She gave him a severe look before continuing, "Now for the rest of your punishment, you and Mr. Selwyn will both serve a detention, and I will take ten points from each house. I'll be informing Madame Hooch of the incident and she may ban you both from future flying lessons." She glanced to the Slytherin Head of House as she said, "I believe that punishment to be sufficient, but you are free of course to address the matter further with your own student."

Profound relief crossed the boy's face as McGonagall had begun speaking, but at the mention of being banned from flying lessons he protested. "But Professor, I was really looking forward…"

McGonagall held up a hand to forstall his objections, "It will be up to Madame Hooch, you must take it up with her, now off you go."

When Harry was out of sight Severus turned to her, "I thank you for bringing this to my attention, and for your proposed punishmnent, it may finally get through to my student."

"We're the ones who enabled the boy, and procured the time-turner for him, so it is up to us to ensure he is responsible with it." She paused as the second half of his statement registered and asked, "Which student, what punishment?"

Severus smiled grimly, "Mr. Selwyn will be banned from future flying lessons. However, I agree with the rest of the punishment you proposed for both boys." He turned toward the door and returned to his students. Hopefully none of them had blown up the dungeon in his absence.

Harry and his friends were gathered in the courtyard during morning break to discuss the events of the lesson. Neville had returned from the Hospital Wing, but he was excused from lessons for the day because of the shock of the incident. He was sitting with them clutching the Remembrall in his hands. A shadow fell across the group and they looked up to see Hagrid standing in front of them, wearing his moleskin coat and a concerned expression.

"You alright Neville?" He asked, "Heard about what happened from Madame Hooch when she was cleaning up the broom you were flying."

Neville still looked shaken, but he smiled up at the gentle giant, "Well Madame Pomfrey fixed my wrist in about a second, but I'm still a bit rattled by it all."

Hagrid patted the boy on the shoulder, "Nothing a bit of rest and a cuppa won't fix. If you lot want to come round again tomorrow." His black eyes twinkled, "And you can tell me about your first flight Harry. Heard you're a natural, just like your dad."

"Thanks Hagrid," Harry grinned sheepishly. "I really shouldn't have done it though, not like that."

"Maybe not… but it was fun, eh?" Hagrid winked and then waved to the others. "Good ta see you all, hope to see you for tea."

As the gamekeeper took his leave another visitor made his presence known, "Bet you enjoyed that little flight Potter, since it will likely be your last."

Harry sighed, "What are you on about now Selwyn?"

"Come on, you can't tell me that you're not banned from flying lessons too?" Selwyn scoffed.

Harry shrugged, "If I am it's my own fault, but I'm going to ask Madame Hooch to give me another chance." He was worried about it more than he let on, but he wasn't going to show Selwyn how much it bothered him.

Selwyn's eyes narrowed, "Get off your high hippogriff Potter. You got on that broom same as me."

"You did it first as I remember," Harry shrugged again, "but I did let you goad me into following suit." He noticed that the more he acted like he didn't care, the angrier Selwyn became.

Neville spoke up for the first time since Hagrid left, "And I'm glad you did Harry, because from what everyone is saying, you showed Selwyn up, and you did it for me."

Before Selwyn could retort, the Slytherin Quidditch team captain wrapped an arm around him, "I think you've caused enough problems for one day, don't you Selwyn?" Harry noticed Flint's wand pointing at Selwyn's side. "Let's just go back to your friends and leave these people alone." As he started to haul Selwyn away he said, "That was some nice flying Potter. I was watching from McGonagall's classroom window… may have been the one to get you in trouble actually." He flashed a crooked-toothed grin, "Sorry about that."

Harry raised his eyebrows as the two Slytherins departed. He turned to Ron and asked, "Do you think he meant it?"

Ron snorted, "The part about him watching the lesson probably, but I bet he didn't want you to learn to fly so he didn't have to face you at Quidditch."

That afternoon at lunch Harry received notice of his detention. He would be servicing the school broomsticks with Selwyn tomorrow afternoon, watched over by Madame Hooch. That meant he would be missing tea with Hagrid but given the circumstances it was the least irksome outcome he could have expected. At least he was still at Hogwarts with his friends, and he still had the time-turner. So he went about the rest of his day determined to stay out of trouble.

Unfortunately for him, Fred and George Weasley had other plans. When Harry returned to his dormitory to exchange his possessions for Horatio's he found them sitting on his bed. The two were bent over a very old piece of parchment which they held between them. Harry let the door close and headed for his trunk. "Did you two go into the wrong dormitory by mistake?"

Fred looked up from the parchment, "No, but we thought you might have, seeing as you're in Quirrell's class right now, and you're standing here with us."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, still trying to play dumb, "I had DADA yesterday. Why would I be there today?"

'See, we were wondering the same thing." George said, "so we made a little list of all Ron's ickle Slytherin friends, and we noticed that there is one name missing." He held up a second scrap of parchment and waved it toward Harry. "Can you guess whose name isn't on the list?"

They were both looking at him, with mistrustful looks on their faces, and he knew that the gig was up. Somehow they had found him out, and there would be no use lying to them. He sighed, rubbing his forehead as he said, "Horatio Prince is missing."

"That's right," Fred said. "Clever thing too, using the same initials, but why would you need to or want to go to Hogwarts twice?"

Harry opened his mouth to explain but George cut him off, "That's what Fred and I asked ourselves, and we thought about and came up with a couple ideas. Want to hear them?"

Feeling that he had no choice but to play along, Harry said, "Sure…"

"First thing I came up with was that you just wanted a little break," Fred said. "We've seen how you don't like all of the attention, the spotlight or whatever."

George picked up the thread, "but then I pointed out that there were easier ways to take a load off, and I wondered if you had some sort of plan. If you wanted to make connections in Slytherin to make some sort of You-Know-Who type of army, but you wanted to do it without anybody suspecting. That might put Ron in danger, not to mention the rest of the Wizarding World, so we thought we should have a little chat about it."

Harry laughed, he couldn't help it, the very idea of what George was saying was so abserd to him. "You can't be serious?" Harry asked, and when they looked at each other and nodded he continued, "Well your first guess was correct, it's not just wanting to take a break, I want to have a life away from all the stares and whispers, where every single person doesn't know who I am before I meet them. I just happened to be put in Slytherin, where I've been doing my best to look after Ron by the way."

"Well the last part seems to be true at any rate." Fred allowed, "but how do we know you're telling the truth about the rest of it?"

Harry furrowed his brow, trying to figure out how to convince them. "Well how did you find out in the first place?"

"We saw you talking to Professors McGonagall and Snape, that made us curious." George explained. "So, we did a bit of research."

Fred added, "We've worked out that they're probably helping you do this." He gestured vaguely in the air, "living two lives thing."

"That's it then," Harry said with obvious relief in his voice.

"What's it then?" The twins asked in unison.

"The proof you asked for." Harry explained, "You've known Professor McGonagall for over two years, do you honestly think she'd be helping me if I wanted to be like him?"

"Well, no…" George frowned, "but that raises another question. Why not just come as Prince if you just wanted an annonymus life?"

"The thought honestly never occurred to me" Harry shrugged, "Besides, I think the world would notice if Harry Potter never came to Hogwarts."

"He has a point," Fred said, glancing down at the parchment in his hands. "What do you say George? We wait and see what happens?"

"I suppose," George stood, setting fire to his list of names, "but we'll be keeping an eye on you Potter."

Harry stared as they both headed toward the door, "but wait—how did you know it was me—in Quirrell's class today?"

"Ask us no questions and we'll tell you no lies," George said with a grin. "We won't ask how you're getting around the school, or going to class at the same time, and you don't ask how we know."

"Just suffice it to say that we do know." Fred said, drawing his wand to tap the parchment, "Mischief managed." He muttered as they walked out the door.

Harry shook his head and turned back to his trunk to put away his things. He knew the secret might get out eventually, but he'd hoped it would start with him sharing the truth with people he trusted. Now Fred and George knew he would have to tread carefully around them.

A/N: This is a much shorter chapter than I usually write. A reviewer pointed out that I was being too elaborate in my writing, and I do have a tendency to get lost in the details. I'll try to keep things more buttoned up in future, but I also like to give a sense of being in the scene, and that's why I write the way I do. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and that you felt the punishments and warnings were fair. It was only a matter of time before Fred and George found out the truth, especially if they've had the map since their first year.

Disclaimer: You should know this isn't mine by now. I'm just playing in J.K. Rowling's sandbox and building a different sandcastle.