-Chapter Nine-

Smoke and Mirrors


For a few moments, the fall was exhilarating. The wind whipped around Harry's face, the increasing chill belying his acceleration. It felt as though he truly was flying unsupported, not even shackled to his broom.

His broom. That thought brought him back with a bump that would only be rivalled by his upcoming appointment with the ground. Unsupported flight would be fantastic, but this was uncontrolled flight, also known as falling from a fatal height. Harry drew a quick breath, his body preparing to yell in its own futile attempt to get help, but the air was forced from his lungs before he could utter a single sound.

The feeling of laying on cold, slightly damp grass intruded upon Harry's awareness as he attempted to make sense of what had happened. He was also rapidly becoming aware of a crushing pressure on his torso. He coughed and began to blink, his eyes trying to focus.

His sight first registered a bright orange colour, which quickly took on the detail of a head of ginger hair. Two heads of ginger hair. Both groaned and turned upward to look at his face from their position on his chest.

"Afternoon," said one.

"Nice day for it," the other said. Harry blinked. He'd seen these two third years before, and heard of their reputation. They were the two being pointedly looked at during the welcoming feast and, from what Harry had heard, the staff were right to suspect these two troublemakers. However, Harry didn't want to jump to any conclusions about why they were on top of him.

"What in Merlin's name is going on?" Harry was glad Madam Hooch had thought to ask this most salient question. The ginger twins pushed themselves off Harry and sat up, revealing brooms in their hands.

"It was the broom, ma'am."

"It was cursed."

"It chucked him off and flew away."

"We had to catch him." The twins explained what had happened in a way that changed focus from one sentence to the next, each instinctively knowing where to jump in as the other finished. Harry continued to lay on the ground as Madam Hooch interrogated the twins.

"What were you doing here in the first place?" she asked, hands on her hips. "I know for a fact that all third years still have classes at this time on a Thursday."

"Gryffindor had a free period."

"The professor was ill."

Madam Hooch raised her eyebrows and promised to put the twins in detention if she found out they were lying. Next, she focused on Harry, kneeling down beside him and waving her wand over his body. He didn't see any effects of the spell, but had to assume it had indicated something to her as she abruptly stood back up.

"You seem to be unhurt, Mr Potter," she announced. "If you feel any adverse effects from your adventure today, take yourself to the hospital wing. Otherwise, I'll see you here next week to improve your broom control. Now, Weasleys, where did the broom fly off to?"

"It looked like it was heading towards the Whomping Willow," they answered in unison. Madam Hooch furrowed her brow at this, but strode back to the rest of the first years in order to dismiss them for the day.

"What's a Whomping Willow?" Harry asked.

"Nasty big bugger of a tree."

"Knock you clean of your broom if you fly too close."

"Then it'll just keep beating you."

"Turn you into jam."

"Anyway, we're the Weasleys."

"I'm Fred, he's George."

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter," he said by way of introduction. The twins rolled their eyes.

"Yeah, we know. I think most of the wizarding world would know you by sight. Here, come with us."

The twins hooked their arms under Harry's, flanking him as they walked back towards the castle. As they left the Quidditch pitch, they spotted Madam Hooch heading towards a swaying tree on the far side of the grounds on her broomstick. However, they were going too quickly to be able to see what she would do when she got there.

Passing through the entrance hall, they noticed Ron hanging slightly behind in the doorway to the great hall. When he saw them, he smirked and headed in. Harry and the twins, however, weren't headed to the great hall for the start of dinner. Instead, they began to climb the grand staircase.

"Did you really have a free period?" Harry asked. The twins wore expressions of mock affronts, their free hands clutched to their hearts.

"Fred, he wounds us."

"Understandable, though, my dear George. An ill professor is a rare occurrence indeed."

"Still, it's not a big loss, brother."

"Indeed. Defence is pathetic this year. I don't know what I'll do if I hear another lecture about the dangers of duelling and why the best idea is always to walk away."

"That's odd," Harry interrupted. "Professor Quirrell has always given us good lessons. I've learnt a lot from him already." The twins looked as though he'd grown an extra head.

Quickly, the odd trio came upon a large mirror, almost the height of the wall to which it was fixed and nearly half as wide. Fred, if Harry had been keeping track properly, reached around the left edge of the mirror and, with a click, it swung open just wide enough to let them behind it. Passing through, they entered a room that was about half the size of the Charms classroom, although the end opposite the entrance was a wall of rubble, the ceiling having caved in long ago. The floor was surprisingly clear of rubble and dust, however, and there were boxes and loose items laid out along one of the walls.

"Nice place," Harry said, hanging back by the entrance. Fred and George pulled out a few boxes and sat on one each, palms open in a gesture of friendliness.

"Thanks," one of the twins said. Harry had lost track of their identities since they'd entered this hidden room. "We just wanted to ask you some questions."

"Right…" Harry said, sitting on one of the other boxes, feeling that this was the least he could do for the two people who'd saved his life.

"What have you been doing to our Ron?"

"Your what now?" What was a Ron?

"Our brother. You know, lanky tosser. Hair as bright as a neon banana. Shares Potions with you." Harry couldn't help but smile at the disparaging way the twins talked about their hair colour.

"Oh, him? I haven't done anything to him. He makes that difficult sometimes, but I've got enough trouble going around as it is."

"That's not the way he tells it," said a twin, leaning back. "He says you've got it out for him, especially in Potions."

"What?" Harry scowled at the tales that had been told about him. "He's the one that's had it in for me, ever since that first Potions lesson. Snape started off by asking some complicated Potions questions-"

"Yeah, he does that," the left-hand twin interrupted. "He likes to show the first years how stupid they are and what little he has to work with. Lovely chap."

"Anyway," Harry continued, "I might have answered back a little, but ended up answering one of his questions because I'd read ahead a bit."

"Such a Ravenclaw."

"So then Snape picked your brother next and asked him a similar question, but he tried to copy my answer. He copied it really badly and Snape said some unkind stuff to him, so then he thinks it's all my fault and is just so rude all the time." Harry sighed as he finished his explanation and looked down to the floor. The twins pondered this for a while.

"That sounds about right." Harry looked up in shock, bemusement clear on his face. "We know our brother can be a bit of an idiot at times-"

"All the time…"

"Right you are, George. He doesn't like it when people are better than him-"

"Which makes him a right pain when us two handsome and talented chaps are around…"

"Anyway, we've been watching and, out of all the Slytherins, you seem the most polite and haven't even been rude to him once. I mean, we haven't seen you around much, sure, but in your flying lesson, all you cared about was being in the air. Compare that to that blond one in your house-"

"Probably a Malfoy…"

"-who was making faces at people who hadn't flown before and muttering under his breath. Poor show. You, however, are a nice Slytherin."

"At least that's two people who won't have it out for the entire house," Harry replies, glad that the twins, of all people, didn't believe that all Slytherins were terrible people. In return, Harry conceded that not all Gryffindors had been harassing him and his classmates, and so not all Gryffindors were bullies.

Harry, Fred and George continued talking for a while, keeping to more mundane topics and getting a feel for each other's personalities, preferences and beliefs. Harry had frowned when Fred had brought up the topic of girls, but George had quickly elbowed his brother in the ribs, moving the conversation along to their favourite foods.

Salivating heavily at the thought of treacle tart, Harry's stomach gave a loud rumble. They'd been talking all through dinner in this strange room and there wouldn't be anything to eat until the morning. He sighed. He'd been getting used to the regular food schedule at the castle, and here he couldn't even sneak out at night to raid the fridge.

"Something wrong?" George asked, noticing his shoulders sag.

"All this talk about food just made me realise we'd missed dinner," he replied in a small voice. "Sorry for making you miss dinner."

George began to chuckle. "Don't worry about that. Here, come with us. Gotta show you something."

Following the twins, Harry made his way back down to the entrance hall, passing the occasional handful of students chatting happily. Fred and George talked to him about pranks that had taken place in previous years, though they were quick to assure their surroundings in general - before, during and after their description for each - that they had most definitely played no part in any prank and that any connection, real or imagined, was a complete coincidence and not to be taken as proof of guilt. Professor Flitwick hadn't looked convinced, but kept quiet as he passed.

Eventually, they stopped in a corridor one floor below ground level. It was lined with still life paintings. There was a leafy garden, a bowl of fruit, a mountain vista, for some reason a turnip on a sundial… As one, both Weasley twins approached the painting of the bowl of fruit, extended a finger each and tickled the pear. Harry looked at them, bewildered, until it started to giggle, then chortle, squirming away from the tickling fingers until it popped out of the canvas in the form of a door handle.

"Who are they?" Harry asked when he saw the bustling crowd of waist-high creatures working around the kitchen.

"These are the Hogwarts House-elves. Without them, the castle would probably fall apart."

"Misters Wheezy be too kind to say so," a squeaky voice said. One of the elves had approached them, dressed in a tea towel which bore the Hogwarts crest.

"Well it's true," George replied. "You guys cook and clean and mend and help in any way you feel you can, all for a giant castle with hundreds of people living inside. You're the real magic here."

While his twin was talking, Fred gave Harry a wink and he started to wonder whether the Weasleys were being sincere or whether they were laying it on thick for a reason. Nevertheless, the elf stood straighter during the speech and his eyes grew watery.

"Sir bes too kind to the elves. What can the elves be doing for the kind sirs?"

The three students were quickly shuffled over to a table at the edge of the kitchen when they asked for some food. It was already fully laid for dinner in the few seconds it took to get there, just like the places were set out in the great hall. Harry was still looking around at the House-elves working in the kitchen with a faraway look in his eyes when his shoulders were both firmly grasped and he was pushed down into a waiting chair.

"At some point in the future," he said to the elf, knowing it would be impolite to ignore the others at the table for the duration of their meal, "would you be willing to tell me more about your people?" The elf's eyes became watery once more and Harry was told to call for him by name one evening.

#

Harry sat down for lunch the next day, sniffing at the sleeves of his robe. They had been using valerian sprigs in Potions that morning. Valerian was a plant with sweet-smelling flowers and they had been required to separate the leaves, stems and flowers with a brass knife for use in different potions. Apparently the knife had to be brass, but Professor Snape had decided not to tell them why.

His robe was particularly sweet-smelling as he had been one of the few who had progressed past the separation of the three main parts of the plant and onto separating the individual petals and the central part of the flower. Years of work in the garden had prepared him well for the task of dissecting plants with precision.

A shadow fell across Harry and he snapped his head up to see what was causing it. He immediately recognised the shape of a person brandishing a stick and began to raise his arms, before his eyes filled in the rest of the details. It was only Madam Hooch and she seemed to be holding the splintered handle of a broom. Letting out a breath, he lowered his arms and picked his cutlery back up.

"You're very difficult to find, Mr Potter," Madam Hooch began, "even at mealtimes."

"Sorry, ma'am," he replied, not knowing what else to say.

"Never mind. We've looked at the broomstick you used yesterday, or what was left of it, and we only found a few traces of magic on it. This is what we'd expect from a smashed-up broom. As we thought, this will be what's left of the charms that allow a broomstick to fly. Nobody was cursing your broom, Mr Potter." Harry wrinkled his brow at this.

"But I felt the broom acting crazy. That's not normal. It must have been cursed."

"Mr Potter, there's no evidence of that," the flying instructor replied curtly, scowling. "Stop making a scene. I'll see you next Thursday and you can join the beginner group with me so that you can learn how not to fall off your broom."

With that, Madam Hooch placed the now useless stick firmly onto the table in front of him and stalked off back to the staff table, leaving Harry staring after her, slack-jawed. A minute later, his disbelief gave way to resignation and he turned back to his dinner. He paused, then pushed his plate back. Suddenly he wasn't hungry any more. Grabbing the tortured reminder of his first flight, Harry left the great hall.

#

The library was always a peaceful and comfortable place. Few first years tended to spend their free periods on a Friday afternoon in the library and most of the rest of the school was still in class, so the library was even more peaceful than usual. Harry couldn't find the inner calm necessary to get on with his homework, however, so he decided he would work on something interesting. Even though his work comprised of the exact same actions as doing his homework, it was much more enjoyable purely because it was something he wanted to do. He'd worked out long ago that the way to make something bearable was to turn it into something you wanted to do.

Indeed, Harry wanted to work on his first magical project, mostly because he was tired of straining his eyes every Wednesday evening. He quickly sketched out a plan of what steps he'd probably need to take, from 'make the quill glow' to 'get it to point light in one direction onto the parchment'. The occasional question, like 'can you make a liquid like ink glow?' was written in a circle and a warning of 'make sure it's not too bright' was enclosed within a square. Satisfied with the plan of action, the endless shelves around him were the next port of call.

While the lumos charm is one of the key spells every wizard should know, it has a number of drawbacks. The constant drain of magic from the user, while negligible in the average wizard, should still be considered as such. A further detriment is a component of all spells, in that a spell cannot be cast, or continue to be cast, when a wizard is not holding their wand. This is a benefit for practical safety purposes (see Chapters 1 and 2 regarding safety and the dangers associated with miscasting) and exemplifies the utility of the disarming charm for defence (note that the description of charm for disarming is a misnomer and that the spell in question will not be covered within these pages).

A wand may continue to be lit when removed from a wizard's hand for a short period lasting a few seconds. It is presumed that a wand has the ability to store a small amount of magic for this purpose, although the results vary significantly between both wands and wizards. However, this is a feature utilised almost solely by entertainers at large gatherings and has no practical use.

The lumos charm is not used for bestowing illuminating properties on any item other than the tip of the wand being used to cast the spell. The reader should refer to the Enchanting section of this book to read about the use of charms to change the properties of objects beyond the duration of the spell.

Charming Charms by Calidus Masse was, like every other book in the library, a bit difficult to get through. Wizarding authors seemed to have a penchant for flowery language and clearly thought they were Merlin's gift to the world. Harry had also noticed that there had been not a single mention of witches, compared to the constant references to wizards.

Another issue was the constant referral from one part of the book to another, and sometimes even to a different text. He had bounced around through the book to have it finally tell him that enchanting an object with spells gave annoyingly temporary results. Spells tended to wear off after a while. However, in typical magical textbook fashion, he had been helpfully pointed towards a completely different topic, in a completely different area of the library. Apparently, Ancient Runes would be a useful topic to look into.

Taking the book with him in case it would help with his actual Charms homework, Harry headed back down towards the dungeons. It was almost time for dinner and books often mixed poorly with food. As he came to the grand staircase, somebody was coming in the opposite direction. Harry looked up at the sound made by the person, sounding oddly like 'meep', but only saw the hem of a green-trimmed cloak disappearing down a corridor on the next landing down.

Shaking his head, he returned to his risky strategy of making his way down the grand staircase with his nose in the book. It was with a hefty dose of luck that he avoided the high-speed shuttle service directly to the entrance hall, whose buffet car served generous portions of broken bones. He paid attention to where he was going while in the dungeons, however, as the footing was uneven and the light dim. Passing a few older members of his house loitering in nearby alcoves, Harry eventually made it to the common room.

"Homogeneous" was this month's password to make the wall open up and reveal the common room. Harry smiled every time he had to say it, as well as every time he heard someone else say it, but he smiled even more after his evening with the Weasley twins. The common room was oddly quiet as he walked through and into the Allies dormitory passage.

He smelled it at the same time as he saw it. There was a wisp of smoke curling out from beneath the door to his dormitory.