Chapter Ten: The Bludger and the First Year
The first quidditch game of the season goes about as well as the last one for Harry, Fallen interrogates a House Elf, and a student is finally a victim of the Chamber's Horror.
Though he lacked the intelligence in other areas of his life, cleaning up his own mess after his first lesson had taught Lockhart not to bring any more live creatures into class.
Instead of teaching them anything, however, he instead read passages from his books and reenacted some of the more dramatic parts using the students as props.
The first time he'd used a student, he had predictably chosen Harry to help, and they had reenacted the particularly brutal fight with the werewolf he had supposedly faced.
Yoko had put an immediate stop to things when Lockhart had twisted Harry and slammed him to the ground.
\/\/\/
"Let him up," Yoko snarled, the fur on the back of his neck standing up. "Now, Lockhart!"
Fallen's tail swayed slightly as he watched Yoko's reaction to an adult putting physical hands on a child.
Lockhart released Harry and the boy scrambled away from the professor.
"What the bloody hell is wrong with you?!" Yoko snarled, vines beginning to slowly grow out of his fur like tentacles spreading. "In what world did you think it was a smart idea to put hands on a student?!"
"It was a simple demonstration," Lockhart assured him, smiling. "Harry was never in any danger. You're not hurt, are you Harry?"
Harry hesitated.
If he told the truth, odds were high that Yoko was going to tear Lockhart's throat out, and while he wasn't entirely sure he would miss Lockhart if he suddenly disappeared, he wasn't sure if Yoko would still be in the school if he killed a professor.
On the other hand, he was pretty sure that Lockhart had wrenched his shoulder and there was no way he was going to be able to hide that from Yoko all day.
"Nothing I don't get from quidditch practice," he eventually settled with.
Yoko snarled so viciously that the students on either side of him scrambled out of their seats.
"This is not a quidditch practice. This is a classroom. The damage done wasn't done to teach anyone anything, it was to further your own inflated ego!"
"Fallen!" Harry hissed, glancing over at the wolf.
"He'll kill him," Draco drawled, sounding not nearly as upset about it as he probably was. The blond glanced at Blaise, who was clenching his fists under the desk and ducking his head, so he wasn't watching his guardian. "Blaise and Harry probably shouldn't see that amount of blood, given their history."
Fallen sighed and got to his paws.
As attractive as Yoko was riled up and ready to kill, the boys did have a point.
"If you're planning to kill him, Assassin, you should probably get in line," he yawned. "Or pick a better place to do it."
Yoko curled a lip at him as he approached them. 'You plan to make light of what he did?'
Fallen snorted, lowering his head to meet Yoko's gaze more evenly. 'Do I look like I give a shit as to whether or not he lives or dies, Yoko?'
Yoko blinked demon-black eyes at him.
'You are the ak-esh, Assassin. Are you seriously going to lower yourself to my level? I'm pretty sure you've, on more than one occasion, called my methods 'brutish and uncouth'.'
The two Valerians side-eyed the professor, who was ignoring the two of them, having moved on to giving the students homework, some kind of poetry.
'We could always throw him to the monster in the Chamber and call it incidental,' Yoko sighed.
Fallen snorted, straightening. 'With the size of his ego? It would probably choke on him.'
Yoko sat and curled his tail around his paws, vines falling limp but not retracting, still funneled by his rage and Element. 'You're one to talk,' he snickered. 'Though it is a thought. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.'
'Given the standard he created last year, one would think Dumbledore would have picked someone a little more…reliable, as his new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.' Fallen said, ear twitching as the bell rang.
'I'm actually leaning toward him having hired him on purpose for our benefit.' Yoko said, standing and shaking his fur out, vines finally disappearing and leaving his silver fur completely unmarred by the medusa-like appearance.
Fallen snorted. 'His gift-giving needs work,' he drawled.
Yoko flicked his tail in the wolf's direction but made no move to follow the students out of the classroom.
Fallen wordlessly urged Draco to take the others to their next class when the group paused in the doorway to wait for them.
"So," Fallen said, sitting and mirroring Yoko's previous stance, watching as Lockhart turned back from his stairs, apparently having not realized that neither Valerian had left. "What did you come up with, Assassin?"
"First, at the risk of getting more pissed at him, I'd like to know how many classes he had before this one and how many students he inappropriately put hands on," Yoko said, the implication obvious even to Lockhart, whose eyes widened and he waved both hands.
"No, no! It was nothing like that!"
Yoko squinted at him, raising a paw as though unsure of what he was looking at. "Are you sure? Because I'm fairly certain that if I took Harry up to the Headmaster's office right now and asked him if he enjoyed your touch, he would deny it. He would likewise deny that he wanted that touch."
"You're taking it all out of context!" Lockhart said, obviously growing alarmed and watching his future drip down the drain with every slyly spoken word out of the fox's mouth.
"Here's an agreement we can come to then," Yoko said. "I will refrain from bringing this inappropriate contact and conduct to your employer, and you don't lay a single finger on a student in this school."
"But nothing happened," Lockhart said, weakly.
"I assure you, Professor, I can definitely make it real without having to coax a single lie out of anyone. Stop acting like a child, Lockhart, and start teaching something. I don't need to see the future to see you out on your ass at the end of the year. Do something fucking worthy with yourself."
Fallen waited until they were in the hallway to shake his head. "Even now, you're such a fucking weak-hearted idiot. Did you seriously try and give him advice?"
"I did make myself look good, didn't I?" Yoko said, preening.
Fallen looked at him for a long moment before swatting at him and darting down the hall toward their charges' next class.
Yoko yowled angrily at him before darting after him.
/\/\/\
Now, midway through November, Lockhart seemed to be trying to be an actual teacher, though he was failing spectacularly at it more often than he wasn't, and would, by the end of the week, revert to teaching some nonsense out of one of his books, only to remember Yoko's threat the next time the fox was in his class.
Yoko checked when he had the time, and, if nothing else, Lockhart wasn't reenacting any of his glory moments, at least not with students.
'You can't exactly blame him,' Fallen told him one evening, stretching out as he prepared for a quick run through the school before heading to Severus' office, to see if the potions master had found anything new because the Valerians were drawing a blank. 'You did none too subtly threaten him with child molestation charges.'
'You told me to be more like me and less like you,' Yoko pointed out, alternating between watching the wolf and the group of students doing their homework.
Yoko would be remaining at the Tower, though given that there was no new attack, neither was entirely certain what they were planning for, because they didn't know where the next attack would land.
'Blackmail is rather far from my normal method of-ah-persuasion.' Fallen smirked.
'Get out before I bite you,' Yoko said, tossing his nose in the air and turning away from the wolf.
Fallen laughed as he darted out the portrait hole.
"This hasn't gotten any weirder," Draco whispered, leaning over Harry to get at Blaise.
Blaise watched Yoko shake out his fur and settle himself by the fire. "They're happier though. I think they missed each other."
Harry kept his head down so no one saw the tears in his eyes.
XX
Honestly, without any new evidence, which would only come from a new attack, the Valerians had pretty much given up on figuring out what the creature was and were patrolling the school in turns merely to burn off some of the frustration with came from not knowing.
"-as much as it pains me to say so, I can't narrow down a creature's identity based on this ability alone. There's nothing that can simply petrify a cat short of a medusa, and I guarantee we would have noticed one of those at this school."
"For one," Severus drawled, barely looking up from the magazine he'd been trying to focus on for the last half hour. "There would have been less petrification and more stone statues."
Fallen eyed the remarkably laid-back professor. "Don't you have essays or something to mark?"
"I'm taking a break," Severus told him, pointedly sipping from his glass.
Fallen gave him a once over. "How are your Tornadoes doing?"
Severus gave him the evil eye. "Better than Draco's Harpies." He said, giving up the attempt to get any information out of the sports magazine until he'd gotten rid of the Valerian. "What did you really wish to ask me?"
"How difficult would it be to get lineage traced on your First Years?" Fallen asked, not missing a beat.
"Why would you be interested in the bloodlines of my Slytherins?" Severus asked, resting his glass on his armrest. "If it's to search out this supposed 'Heir of Slytherin', you'll find that it isn't going to be as easy as that."
Fallen ducked his head. "I'm aware," he said, grudgingly. "But I'm running out of leads to follow and would prefer not to witness the school descend into madness over the Chamber. Slytherin House can't afford that publicity."
"Have you investigated Slytherin himself?"
Fallen looked up at him. "Lead me through your logic."
Severus spun his glass as he gathered his thoughts. "Did you know that the Slytherin emblem is a serpent simply because it symbolized cunning and ambition?"
"Of course," Fallen said, frowning. "Though it's the least publicized of his skills and abilities, Salazar passed down the ability to speak to snakes through his bloodline. There's no proof for or against it, but Arcana believed that Voldemort was capable of the skill, even without his bond to Dark." The wolf tilted his head, confused. "Are you thinking that the monster might be a snake of some kind?"
"I admit that it's the most promising of abilities that Harry may have that grants him the ability to hear a voice no one else does."
"I'm still not following the logic," Fallen admitted. "Even if Harry is hearing a snake, Yoko and I should still be able to hear it. The forms we took hear things at volumes and frequencies that humans don't."
"Admittedly, without anyone to adequately test, investigation and research into the Parseltongue ability has lead to speculation that someone with the ability to Speak doesn't necessarily translate the language, so much as images and feelings, impressions of a sort, that their minds then translates into words."
"A form of telepathy?" Fallen asked skeptically.
Severus shrugged. "Personally, I'm partial to the theory that a Speaker has an additional gland in their brain awakened, one that most of us have simply never felt the need to utilize or awaken. It would be part of the ninety percent of the human brain that muggles have already deduced isn't activated."
"But at what point would Harry have awakened this 'gland' or whatever? The Potter family has never had a parselmouth, at least not as far back as I can recall it."
Severus' hand shook as he swallowed the last of his drink. "The night his parents were killed."
Fallen shook his head. "I'm no expert on the matter, but that seems rather far-fetched."
"Though I've only seen him do it a handful of times, I know that Voldemort was capable of casting spells in Parseltongue. By the time Voldemort was defeated in Godric's Hollow, I had figured that those particular kills meant something to him, though it probably only made sense to him and Dark."
"You think he cast the Killing Curse at Godric's Hollow in Parseltongue?" Fallen asked carefully. Even now, after over a decade, that night had left its scars on his friend.
"Given the reason he went after the Potters in the first place, I'm rather certain of it, though not enough to stake my life on it."
Fallen turned his head away from the potions master. "You're a dangerous man, Severus." He said after several minutes of silence.
Severus tapped his finger on his empty glass, staring at the wolf.
Fallen looked back at him. "No normal person would have equated Harry hearing voices to an unexplained habit of over a decade ago."
Severus smiled sadly. "Not that much of a leap, Fallen," he admitted. "I think of that night every day, wondering what happened that night and why it ended the way it did. What any of us could have changed to create a different outcome."
Fallen wisely didn't say a thing, taking the admission for what it was.
XX
Harry was suspicious pretty much from the moment Severus had handed him detention the night before the match between Gryffindor and Slytherin, though he wasn't sure if it was to give Slytherin an edge or if he simply needed an excuse to talk to him about the voice he'd heard, the one that had been silent since.
When Fallen and Draco arrived five minutes after the detention began, Harry became fairly sure that it was both.
Such was how Harry ended up scrubbing cauldrons while discussing his apparent ability to talk to snakes.
"I spoke to a boa constrictor once," he admitted when Severus finally asked. "It was in a zoo."
"Seriously!" Draco asked, gaping at him. "How could you not say anything?!"
Harry shrugged, avoiding looking at his friend. "It's never come up before," he said defensively, scrubbing extra hard at a spot that he was sure wasn't really dirty anymore. "And it was just the once! I'm sure loads of people can do it!"
"Not quite loads," Severus drawled, crossing his arms and watching his godson with amused exasperation. "Try perhaps one in a thousand."
Harry's head snapped up to his professor. "Wha-"
"Parseltongue is rare, Harry!" Draco told him excitedly. "The only wizard line in England able to do it was Salazar Slytherin, and even then, it wasn't every member of his family!"
Harry paled. "Then I-"
"Don't be daft, Potter," Fallen sneered. "I'm sure someone would have noticed if you were opening secret chambers and releasing a monster on unsuspecting cats."
Harry flushed. "Right." He whispered.
"How did you two even jump to Parseltongue?" Draco asked, looking between his godfather and his guardian. "Father says that it's pretty much died out."
"Logic," Fallen said. "Even if the beast in the Chamber is dead, Salazar would likely not have risked anyone else getting their hands on his weapon against muggle-borns. He'd use something only he could control. Only he could speak to."
Draco nodded. "And Parseltongue is no more common now than it was then, right?"
"There were fewer witches and wizards during the time of the Founders, of course, given the obvious spike in population since then, but odds are in our favor that Salazar was likely the only Parseltongue in England, at least until he started having children," Severus told him.
"So," Draco said, looking between Severus and Fallen again. "Did you figure out what snake could petrify people?"
"None that I can think of," Fallen admitted. "Despite the age he lived in, it's still possible that Salazar bred a mutant, or chimera, of sorts. One that would protect his sacred chamber from anyone unworthy of entering it."
"Harry," Severus said, drawing the brunette's attention away from the cauldron and back to the conversation. "Parseltongue isn't an evil talent, but the connotations that come with it make it tentatively a 'dark' one. Now, more than ever, you need to keep this ability a secret. Although there's no possible way you could be Slytherin's Heir," Severus sneered, like the very idea of it was insulting, and not to Harry, "certain people (which Harry took to mean 'idiots') will get the wrong impression of you."
Harry swallowed.
"As much as I'd like to say the threat is over," Fallen said, "I feel like the odds are against us here. It's far more likely that this is only the beginning. I want all of you to be on your guard."
Harry and Draco nodded solemnly.
XX
Since Harry was the one in detention, Draco spent the rest of it helping Severus brew a vat of Calming Draught.
It was nearly ten before Severus sent them both off to bed.
"Professor?"
Severus looked up from where he was collecting his equipment to clean before heading to bed himself.
"Thank you," Harry said. "For looking out for me."
"Potter, I know this is going to seem very rude, but don't mention it. There are factions still watching me, and I can't be seen being particularly kind to you."
Harry's brow furrowed, not understanding.
"Go on," Severus said dismissively, turning back to his equipment. "I expect a halfway decent fight tomorrow. There are no bragging rights when there's no effort to the win."
Harry grinned. "Don't worry, we won't be too hard on your team. I mean, we have to at least pretend all that practice you gave to Katelyn and the team had an impact, right?"
XX
Harry woke up unrested.
Though he couldn't remember them, for once, he was familiar by now with the exhaustion that came from a night full of nightmares.
Rather than terror, however, it was nerves that had him spending the last hour and a half before he needed to be up for breakfast half-hidden beneath one of his pillows.
Draco knocked on the bedpost before sticking his head through the curtains.
"Why are you still in bed?" he asked, frowning.
Harry didn't bother to pull his head out from beneath his pillow. "Why are you awake?" he asked in return.
"Because there's a quidditch game this morning?" Draco asked, as though his friend was being difficult on purpose.
Harry rolled his eyes so hard he was sure the pillow moved, before finally sitting up and turning to look at Draco, who wasn't only awake, but fully dressed.
"Why are you even dressed at this time of the morning?" Harry asked him, before answering his own question. "Nervous?"
Draco glanced at Ron's bed, as though the redhead, who was notoriously difficult to rouse at a normal time, was suddenly going to be awake two hours before there was going to be food on the table.
Harry moved his feet and Draco dropped onto the end of the bed.
"I know, logically, that we're better. We've drilled this strategy over and over. We've got lighter players on slower brooms, so hopefully, that will even out some of the speed difference the Nimbus 2001s give them."
Harry snorted. "Draco, you're the only twelve-year-old on the planet that would try to logic their way through a school sport."
Draco, very calmly he thought, reached over Harry's shoulder, shoved his pillow over his face, and tried to smother him with it.
It would have worked a lot better if Harry would stop laughing as he tried, very affectionately, of course, to kill him.
XX
When Harry finally wormed his way out of Draco's attempt on his life, he got dressed amidst some rather sour glares from the dormmates he'd accidentally woken laughing at Draco's murder attempt.
He and Draco slipped out of the common room and headed down to the Great Hall.
"So, what about you?" Draco asked him, nudging the brunette with his shoulder. "Nervous?"
Harry shrugged. "I always feel a little nervous before a match," he admitted, as though Draco couldn't see it on his face before every game the year before.
Draco had put it down to the fact that Quirrell, though they hadn't known it was him at the time, had tried to force Harry's Nimbus 2000 to throw him several dozen meters to his death, which he couldn't exactly blame him for.
Harry glanced at him, giving him a half-smile, remembering the same. "Never as much as I was that first game, of course. I guess nearly dying really made it hard to be nervous about the match."
Fallen stepped out of the shadows ahead of them, waiting until they were nearer and giving them a once-over on their approach.
"Let this go on the record," he told them both seriously. "I have put up with rain. I have put up with mud. A fucking ocean has been dropped on this school and I feel like Wood managed to have you out in the worst of it every single time you needed to practice."
Harry and Draco glanced at one another, worriedly, though Draco could feel only amusement and certainty.
"If Slytherin wins this fucking match, we will be having words. Am I clear?"
Harry laughed. "Yes, sir." He said, mock saluting the wolf.
Fallen tossed his head. "Right arm straight, from one shoulder to the other, if you're going to salute me properly, Potter," he said, turning away from them and leading them toward the Great Staircase.
Draco snickered. "Thank you, Fallen."
'I couldn't very well send you into the air nervous wrecks, could I? She'd roll in her grave as you both plummeted to the ground.'
"Thanks a lot," Draco grumbled with no ill-will. "Such faith!"
'You know exactly how much faith I have in you, Draco,' Fallen said seriously. 'You're going to be fine.'
Draco straightened his shoulders and smiled. "Do you think it would be in bad taste to go and see Severus?" he asked.
Harry snorted. "Now that you're on the team, he'll probably slam the door in your face," he said. "I thought you said he was competitive."
"Oh, he is," Fallen assured him.
"Put it this way," Draco said, grinning, "if we win, I'm probably not going to be welcome down for breakfast for a month."
"The horror," Harry said drily. "You'll have to actually suffer through seven whole breakfasts a week."
Draco tipped his head back, haughtily. "You Gryffindors are all horribly trying," he told him. "Severus understands the struggles I go through."
"Of course he does," Harry said, shaking his head with a smile and pushing open the door to the Great Hall. "It has nothing to do with the stories you tell him being the ones you know he'll agree with you on."
"How would you know what we talk about?" Draco asked.
"Because it's how you tell me stories about the things Ron or Hermione have done to irritate you," Harry told him.
"Liar," Draco said, unconvincingly.
XX
Breakfast was over too quickly, and the boys' nerves had returned, though not nearly as high, as they walked from the castle down to the changing rooms.
"Malfoy!"
Draco froze but turned to watch as Theodore Nott walked toward him, hands in his pockets as though he hadn't been avoiding the blond since their detention in the Forbidden Forest the year before.
"Can we help you?" Draco asked, shoving his hands into his own pockets to avoid Theodore seeing them clenched.
Given that they had though Theodore had orchestrated his detention to get a chance to talk to Draco, it had been a little painful when the Slytherin hadn't made any further attempts to communicate, not even over the summer when no one else could have known that he and Draco were exchanging letters.
Theodore didn't so much as glance at Harry or Fallen, keeping his gaze on his former friend. "Sorry I haven't been able to find time to talk to you, but I had a question."
Draco snorted. "Of course you do, why else would you have waited until there was no one around to approach me?"
"The message," Theodore said, ignoring Draco's dig. "Thoughts?"
Draco frowned at him, not sure why he had approached him, for all things, his thoughts on a Chamber that hadn't been found in over nine hundred years, particularly given that they were the same age and had likely heard all the same stories about it.
"So far," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. "I haven't seen any evidence that it's been found let alone opened. Until I see that, I don't think it's in my best interest to open my mouth and start putting my foot in it."
Draco slid his gaze toward Harry standing a couple of meters away.
Theodore didn't follow his gaze but nodded and offered him his hand.
Hesitantly, not sure why Theodore appeared to be making the attempt now, though he'd fully intended to figure out what his former-possibly-still-friend was up to if he and Fallen had ever gone down to the Slytherin dorms, he reached out and took it.
"Best of luck, Malfoy," Theodore said. "The team's been particularly brutal to your cousin. We've got no intention of rolling over for you, no matter how good your seeker."
Draco smirked. "Harry's skill aside, I'd expect nothing less, given how badly you were trounced in last year's match, and the rematch got canceled."
Theodore snorted and turned toward the stands, flicking his fingers over his shoulder in farewell.
"Did he just compliment me?" Harry asked, watching him leave.
"Of course," Draco said, nudging him with his shoulder. "We Slytherins recognize talent when we see it. We just don't like to respect it when it's not on our side."
Harry rolled his eyes. "You do remember you're in Gryffindor, right?"
XX
Once everyone was changed and settled around Oliver, the captain took in the team.
"Slytherin has better brooms than us," he said. "No point in denying that. But we all know we've got better people on ours. We've trained harder than they have, have plans specifically to outmaneuver their Nimbus 2001s, and we've been flying in all weathers-"
"Too true," George grumbled. "I haven't been properly dry since August."
There were mutters of agreement from the rest of the team, and it pretty much went without saying that Oliver was going to be drawn and quartered by his team if they didn't win for that alone.
"We're going to make them rue the day they let that girl buy her way onto that team," Oliver said, ignoring the interruption, and turned to Harry. "It'll be down to you, Harry," he reminded the seeker. "Our chasers can't hold out forever, so you show them that a seeker needs more than a rich family. Get to that snitch before her or die trying."
Draco gave a rather impressive impersonation of his guardian, growling Oliver's name in warning, but Harry simply nodded.
"You know, no pressure," Fred said, winking at Harry with a grin.
XX
Draco was a brilliant quidditch player, that went without saying.
He didn't have the near instinctual edge that Harry did in the air, but he was still one of the better players in their group of friends.
It showed immediately, however, just how outclassed he was in comparison to the rest of both the Gryffindor and Slytherin chasers.
It was likely because Gryffindor was fighting for every score they made, that it took Slytherin almost twenty minutes before they realized what their opponent's strategy was.
Gryffindor had gone into the game with the knowledge that the Nimbus 2001 was a superior broom and had figured that Slytherin would train the hell out of Katelyn, to outclass Harry, who had quickly risen to one of the best seekers of the school the year before, despite having only played in four games, one of which he'd nearly died in, and missed the Finals against Slytherin because he was in the Hospital Wing; and was the youngest seeker ever seen at Hogwarts.
Their prediction had turned out to be true.
Slytherin was relying on their superior speed and maneuverability, totally ignoring the fact that not only did Draco also have a Nimbus 2001 but his greatest weapon, wasn't that he was a good chaser on a great broom.
It was that he was a strategist.
By ten-years-old, he had been tutored in chess, go, and war-games by two of the greatest dark-duelists of their generation and the oldest living army commander, and had surpassed every other child of his social group, soaking up every lesson like a sponge.
He was still learning the psychological aspect of those lessons, but he was a by-far better planner than probably anyone else at Hogwarts (except for Ron, but Draco didn't count him, as he was too impatient outside of chess).
The Gryffindor's new plays had all been simple, and it was that simplicity that was proving just how effective they were.
Draco was the only one with a broom that could even come close to the speed and maneuverability of the opposing team, and thus the Second Year had capitalized on that need, by getting Angelina and Katie to get him the quaffle as often as possible, keeping close to each of them to avoid an interception from Slytherin.
He wasn't the best player on the team, but he didn't need to be. He just needed a second.
So, he tapped Angelina, Katie, Fred, and George to give him one.
With Draco in possession of the quaffle, Angelina and Katie ducked and weaved around the younger player, keeping Slytherin out of his way by using their own, brazen attacks against them.
Fred and George were unquestionable the greatest beaters at Hogwarts, not only because they were powerful with the bats, but because they calculated angles and speed quickly and could use that information in ways that no one else would think of, a talent that irritated their mother because rather than use it for something useful they used it to plan pranks and invent devices to aid them in that endeavor.
Even though they were two years younger than the twins, Crabbe and Goyle were dangerously powerful opponents, but they lacked the brain to keep up with the strange twists and turns the twins could come up with, or the instinctual knowledge of one another that turned Fred and George into FredandGeorge.
All in all, while Gryffindor was fighting tooth and nail to keep up with Slytherin by way of scored points, Slytherin was struggling to contain the suddenly savage Gryffindor team, each of whom had suddenly become more, potential tapped where they hadn't even known they had it.
Slytherin, of course, did eventually catch on that they were utilizing Draco as a one-person scoring machine and moved to immediately prevent Draco from getting the quaffle at all, zeroing in on him entirely and preventing the rest of the Gryffindor Chasers from getting at them.
So they flipped plays.
With Draco now under the sole focus of the Slytherin chasers, Fred and George changed protection targets, sometimes physically, to ensure that with their opponents occupied, Angelina and Katie could get to the goals without hassle from Crabbe and Goyle.
It wasn't to say that the plays were flawless.
Once Slytherin buckled down and took Gryffindor seriously, there would be no countering the sheer superiority that was the Nimbus 2001.
Which was where their not-so-secret star came into play.
Above them all, Harry watched with growing glee as Gryffindor and Slytherin remained close, with Slytherin only winning by two goals.
Once it became clear that his team had things well in hand, Harry turned his attention to finding the Snitch, ignoring Katelyn's grandstanding entirely, first to watch Draco, Angelina, and Katie show their Slytherin counterparts that speed wasn't everything, and then because he was nearly brained by a bludger.
Fred sent it skittering after one of the Slytherins, Harry couldn't tell who from how high up he was, and dove down to do some complicated twist that sent another of Slytherin's chasers swerving away before he was divebombed and knocked out of the air.
Seconds later, however, the bludger returned, forcing Harry into a roll of his own to avoid it.
This time, it was George that came after it, a heavy-handed swing sending it after Katelyn, who even from the distance Harry could see squeak and duck to avoid it.
"Alright there, Harry?" he asked, grinning wickedly.
Harry laughed and swerved away from the prankster to continue his search for the snitch.
Within seconds, however, the bludger was back again, violently weaving after Harry's tail, forcing the seeker into increasingly complicated maneuvers to avoid being taken out of the air.
It was a couple of minutes before either of the twins realized that the bludger was, quite literally, dogging Harry's tailwind.
They tried, at first, to alternate between beating it off their seeker's tail and putting their parts in Draco and Oliver's plays into motion, but it quickly became clear that whatever curse or spell had been placed on the bludger was growing stronger, because now it wasn't even seconds after being thrown off track, that it swerved toward Harry at its new angle.
It isn't until Crabbe and the second bludger had nearly taken Angelina out of the game entirely, that anyone realizes that something is wrong.
Oliver, with a greater view of the field, immediately calls a time-out.
"What the hell are you two doing?" he asked angrily, waving at Angelina. "That bludger nearly took her out of the game!"
"Yeah," Fred agreed, equally as angry. "And I'm pretty sure they rigged the second one to make sure Harry doesn't catch the snitch. It hasn't gone after anyone else for almost twenty minutes."
Draco frowned across the pitch. Slytherin was jeering and pointed at Harry.
"I don't think it was Slytherin," he admitted. "They obviously didn't really plan another strategy, at least not past using the speed of the Nimbus 2001 to outmatch Harry and his 2000."
"And the balls have been locked up in Hooch's office," Oliver added. "There's no way they could have gotten in there."
"Can you bring it to the ground?"
The team turned to look at Fallen as the wolf walked towards them through the rising rain and wind.
"If you directly interfere with gameplay like that, we'd have to forfeit!" Oliver said.
"We'll have to forfeit anyway if our seeker's dead!" Draco snapped, gesturing to Harry. "I'll fly with him. If it's the same person who stopped you at the station, it wouldn't dare come after me too." He glanced at Fallen.
"But our entire strategy hangs on you and your 2001!" Angelina objected.
"What if we split you two up?" Oliver asked, looking between Fred and George. "One of you on Harry and the other on the second bludger and Slytherin's beaters."
"No offense, but they'd never keep up," Harry said, looking at the twins apologetically. "The only one who could possibly fly with me and keep up would be Draco, and we can't risk him."
Hooch blew her whistle.
"Listen," Harry said quickly. "I'm pretty sure that I can stay ahead of the bludger. Let me find and catch the snitch and we'll deal with the bludger afterward."
He flicked a glance in Fallen's direction, and the wolf gave him a sharp nod, before turning on his tail and returning to his place by the Gryffindor stands.
Hooch watched him suspiciously, but Oliver and Draco assured her that he was only concerned for the reason for the time-out.
As they all mounted their brooms to resume gameplay, Harry smiled when he heard George hissing at Oliver.
"This is your fault! 'Catch the snitch or die trying'! What a stupid thing to tell him!"
XX
Harry spent the following few minutes amusing the crowd of onlookers by performing some rather ridiculous stunts to keep away from the bludger behind him.
Every once in a while, Harry could hear the massive, heavy black ball swerving for no apparent reason, and it wasn't until he was swerving sharply to one side to avoid it that he realized that it was avoiding Katelyn, who had stopped in her own relentless, and thankfully futile, search for the snitch to point and laugh at his antics.
"Training for the ballet, Harry?" she called over the wind and rain.
Harry swerved up and to the right to avoid the bludger before throwing a hateful glare in her direction, wondering not for the first time if Dobby was doing all of this because she had told him to or not.
He was forced to flip nearly upside down to avoid another attempt by the rogue ball, and caught sight of the glitter of gold out of the corner of his eye, though he couldn't tell you with what light it was reflecting, because the clouds made in nearly night outside.
Harry flipped himself upright, performed a corkscrew-like maneuver, and hovered there for a second, debating whether or not it was wise to go straight at Katelyn and hope she didn't realize the snitch was there, and end the game quickly, or to come at it from another angle and hope it didn't dart off before he was in a position to make the attempt.
He shook his head and leaned forward.
With the bludger on his tail, he was unable to keep tabs on the game below him anymore and it was highly likely that the Slytherins had used the time-out to quickly rally a plan to counter Draco and Oliver's.
He needed to catch the snitch.
The one decision saved him from shattering half his rib cage.
As he moved, twisting ever so slightly to change the angle of his approach to go after Katelyn's shoulder and hopefully look like he was planning to go over her head, his 2000's change in position meant that the bludger, when it finally hit him, took him just over his elbow, as opposed to his exposed ribs.
The pain was agonizing.
Already hazy because of the rain, his vision blurred even further, and he could no longer see Katelyn or the snitch he was aiming for.
It was sheer luck that the fingers of his unbroken arm touched the cold metal of the snitch and that Katelyn shrieked and swerved aside because Harry could never have missed her otherwise.
As soon as the snitch was secured in his palm, he pressed the golden ball into the broom handle and swerved toward where he hoped and prayed the Gryffindor stands were.
He hit the ground, screaming as his broken arm made contact before he ever saw the red 'x' of Fallen's Element turn the bludger into shrapnel and the earth open wide enough to have swallowed it whole if it had needed to.
XX
"Merlin, Harry," Draco breathed as he and the twins dropped like stones to land around Harry and the Valerians.
Harry was blessedly silent, but the agony in the scream he had released had nearly stopped his heart.
"Is he alright?" Fred demanded, kneeling beside the younger boy.
"He passed out from the pain," Fallen told them, stepping away. "That's a nasty break. At least two."
"I'm amazed he managed to fly after it hit him," Yoko said, sounding honestly impressed.
Fred glared over Hooch's shoulder at Oliver as the professor and the rest of the team rushed over. "That's all Oliver's fault."
"Seriously, telling him what he did," George sighed, shaking his head.
"We'll be talking about that later," Fallen told them. "Let Hooch through so she can look him over properly."
XX
Harry didn't remember blacking out, but he supposed it must have happened because he opened his eyes to a blurry face - which said he didn't have his glasses on anymore, and where did those go to? - and a too-wide smile.
"Not you," he groaned, rolling onto his good side, pulling his broken arm closer to his chest to try and protect it from the idiot.
"Don't move, Harry," Lockhart told him. "Just a quick spell to put your arm to rights."
"You bloody well are not!" Draco snapped somewhere, accompanied by a vicious snarl.
Before Fallen's blurry red form knocked Lockhart from Harry's view, however, whatever spell the professor had cast had evaporated all the bones in Harry's broken arm.
XX
Lockhart's screams could have been heard back up at the castle.
Fallen had torn through the man's arm straight to the bone and it had taken no less than four professors to haul the wolf off his target because Yoko stood like a sentinel less than a meter away and redirected any spells they tried to cast on the wolf, not bothered by the General's rage or the blood that now stained the pitch's grass.
None of the Gryffindor team had witnessed most of that confrontation, of course, because they had all been sent back to the changing rooms to get out of their apparel, because Madam Pomfrey, the medi-witch of Hogwarts, would refuse to let them into the Hospital Wing so long as they were still wearing their gear, and they were eager to join their seeker there.
XX
Draco swept into the infirmary like an enraged bull, with little of the finesse that he had brought to the quidditch match less than an hour ago.
"-nd bones in a second, but growing them back-"
"Can you do it or not?" he asked sharply.
Pomfrey pointed a firm finger at the blond. "You mind your tone, Mr. Malfoy, or I'll toss you out on your ear myself." She threatened. She waited until Draco had averted his gaze before turning away from him. "It's not a painless process, but yes, I can grow them back."
"Fallen?" Harry asked hopefully, looking behind the blond as he obediently fell silent and approached the bed Harry sat on the edge of.
Draco pressed his lips together. "They confined him to the pitch." He said shortly, dropping onto the empty bed opposite him.
He shot a dark scowl at the bed that Lockhart sat on, though he was hidden by the curtain at his own request.
"Apparently he's been too volatile this year and McGonagall won't let him out until Dumbledore's gone down to talk to him."
"Perhaps if certain professors kept to their own specialties, we'd be a little less 'volatile'." Yoko sneered, stalking into the infirmary.
There was a strangled 'eep' from the curtain, though that could just as easily have been because Pomfrey was slipping beyond it to get a good look at the damage Fallen had done to Lockhart.
"I'm sorry, Draco," Harry whispered. "I didn't mean to get Fallen into trouble."
"Fallen knew exactly what he was doing, Harry," Yoko told him. "So don't fret so much over this. He'll be out within the next hour or so, as soon as Dumbledore gets off his ass. We have some questions of our own for the Headmaster."
Harry ducked his head, trying not to imagine black fur instead of red, going straight for the throat of their idiot Defense professor.
XX
"Fallen."
Fallen was surprisingly calm, given the rage he'd exhibited less than half an hour ago, as Dumbledore swept past Hagrid and Grubbyplank, the latter of whom was watching Fallen with narrowed eyes.
"What happened?" Dumbledore asked seriously.
"I came this close to killing Gilderoy Lockhart," Fallen told him evenly. "And if you were smart and cared an ounce for the children under your care, you'll drag him back here and let me finish the job." He sniffed derisively. "Or let Yoko slip something debilitating into whatever that swill is he drinks at dinner. We promise it will be a swift death."
"You understand that Minerva believes we should ship you back to Malfoy Manor? That you're too dangerous to keep here, given the number of times you've nearly killed him."
Fallen's lip peeled away from his gums. "You mistake me, Albus Dumbledore. This time I nearly killed him. If I'd wanted him dead before, he would be. There were no adults to get between him and I the last time I attacked him, though my patience had been greater than."
Dumbledore's frown deepened. "You don't appear to be helping your case, Fallen."
"What case is there to help?" Fallen asked, raising his muzzle derisively. "Harry Potter currently has no bones in an appendage that is rather necessary to his life expectancy. Seconds before that, a bludger had shattered it into what was likely more than three pieces. A smart man would recognize his limitations. What if that spell had gone a little higher? A little more to the left? He would then have no bones in his neck. Or his rib cage."
Dumbledore's lips pressed tightly together.
"And you have left that man in charge of students in your care, Dumbledore," Fallen said, getting to his paws and starting to pace around the Headmaster. "Do you honestly think that if I didn't wish to be here, I would be? No, I'm still here because I have questions for you about that man. And this time," Fallen's eyes bled to black and the entire pitch became a dome of red-tinged air. There were alarmed cries from the two staff members, but neither Dumbledore nor Fallen paid them any attention. "I think we should do so on my terms, what do you think?"
XX
Draco drew the short straw in helping Harry changed out of his quidditch gear and into the pajamas Pomfrey had brought for him.
"Can you do me a favor, Harry?" Draco asked him seriously, making a face as he and Harry pulled the rubber-like arm through the sleeve. "Can you stop getting hurt? At the rate you're going I'm going to best friends with Frankenstein soon, and I don't know if I'll be able to do that."
Harry snorted. "It's not like I do it on purpose." He said, irritated.
Before he can continue, or Draco can retaliate, the whispered voices of Ron and Hermione rise to pitch outside the closed curtain.
"How can you stick up for him?!" Ron yelled, the curtain billowing like he'd hit it with his hand by accident. "If Harry had wanted a deboning, he would have asked for one!"
"Anyone can make mistakes, Ron!" Hermione hissed back. "And it doesn't hurt anymore, does it, Harry?"
Draco was the only witness as Harry's face twisted into a dark rage before it was shut down and away.
"No," he snapped, with only a fraction of the anger he'd seen on his friend's face a moment before. "But it really doesn't do anything else right now, either. Thanks for asking."
Ron made a victorious sound, so Hermione must have made a face or something in response to Harry's words and tone because she didn't say another word to them.
XX
Pomfrey came to them after escorting Lockhart out of the infirmary under Yoko's dark glare and bared fangs, a bottle labeled 'Skele-Gro' in one hand and a beaker in the other.
"You're in for a rough night," she told him, pouring out a beaker full of the steaming potion and handing it to the brunette. "Growing bones is a nasty business."
Almost immediately, Harry regretted taking the potion.
It burned going down and tasted like someone had boiled the entire school's quidditch gear in it.
Blaise helpfully handed him a glass of water, and while he got most of it down before the potion really went into effect, he sputtered out the last bit of it as stabbing pains began to radiate down his arm from the shoulder.
Draco handed him a towel from a rolling cart at the other end of the infirmary and it said a lot about what must have been written on his face that he didn't say anything about the mess Harry had made.
"I'll stay the night with you," he said instead. "Help distract you from the pain."
"You will be doing no such thing," Fallen said, stalking into the room.
The wolf looked exhausted, though the way his gaze burned as it trailed over the now-empty bed that had once borne Lockhart, said he wasn't so exhausted as to have forgotten his target.
"Fallen!" Draco cried, taking a step toward his guardian.
"Well?" Yoko asked, looking him over. "You don't look like you're getting thrown out."
"Dumbledore and I had a very enlightening conversation regarding Gilderoy Lockhart," Fallen told them. "A couple of compromises were made on both sides, but no, I'll be remaining at Hogwarts if Dumbledore wishes to prevent further bloodshed."
The words made little sense to the children, but Yoko appeared appeased by the explanation, though not necessarily pleased with it.
Fallen turned his attention back to his charge. "I'll be remaining with Harry tonight, so you will be in bed," he told him.
Draco frowned. "But-"
"Draco." Fallen warned flatly.
Draco bit his tongue and fell silent.
A couple of minutes later, the twins arrived with what looked like half the dining hall: several platters of food, a jug of pumpkin juice, and a plate of sweets and cakes.
It was a great distraction for about fifteen minutes when Pomfrey stormed over.
"Out!" she yelled. "This boy needs rest, he's got thirty-three bones to regrow. Out! OUT!"
Personally, Harry thought that if she'd given his 'guests' a minute to finish trying to scramble together the rest of the food and drink, they would have moved just fine. There was really no need to scream at them, but he knew better than to say as such.
XX
Harry wasn't left alone for long.
Only perhaps ten minutes after the Gryffindors had left, Severus swept into the infirmary, a still smoking vial in hand.
By that point, the Skele-Gro had really had a chance to get to work and the pain was nearly unbearable and Harry's attempts to coax further information on Fallen and Dumbledore's conversation could no longer distract him from it.
"Whazzat?" Harry asked, voice slurred by grit teeth and pain.
"It will help you sleep," Severus told him coolly, even as he handed it over.
"Ah," Pomfrey said, slipping out of her office as Harry knocked it back gratefully. "Thank you, Severus, for getting this to me so quickly."
Severus curled a lip. "You didn't give me much choice, Madam," he said, just this side of polite. He turned on his heel and left the infirmary as quickly as he'd entered it.
Harry was so woozy by the sleeping potion that he isn't sure the closing door is even real or not.
XX
The potion he'd taken did keep Harry asleep though, between his normal nightmares and the pain - that even through the drugged haze was painful - he didn't manage to stay completely under.
He kept 'surfacing', sometimes for a couple of minutes, sometimes for only a second or two.
During one of those moments, he thought he heard Fallen arguing with someone.
"You've assaulted a wizard, elf." The wolf growled.
"Forgiveness!" a vaguely familiar voice, high-pitched and terrified. "Please Master-Wolf-General! Forgiveness! Dobby was only trying to help Harry Potter!"
"What have you done?" Fallen demanded.
Dobby wailed.
"Start with the train station, elf," Fallen growled. "Was that you?"
"Yes!" Dobby wailed again, loud enough that Harry wondered why Pomfrey hadn't heard it. "Dobby tried to make him go home!"
"The boy nearly died getting to this school, elf, you nearly killed a wizard."
"No!" Dobby cried wetly, sniffling and sobbing. "Not Harry Potter! Dobby didn't mean to! Dobby never dreamed he'd find another way!"
"And that's part of your problem, elf, you haven't been thinking. Your kind isn't supposed to think. You're to do as you're told!"
Dobby whined softly.
"Was this your fault as well?"
Dobby sobbed. "Yes, Master-Wolf-General, sir. Dobby just wanted to send him home!"
"Why?"
There were several heavy thudding sounds before Dobby started crying again.
There was a low vibration before Fallen's voice came back, low and hateful.
"You come near Harry Potter again, elf, with hand or magic, and I'll do far more damage. You slit your throat before you obey another command that brings you near him. Do you understand me?"
"Forgivenesses, Master-Wolf-General, forgivenesses!"
Harry never did hear if Dobby agreed to Fallen's rather violent demand before he's dragged back out of lucidity, a high-pitched scream echoing in the dream that followed.
XX
The next time Harry came back up, it was to Dumbledore's voice.
"-nerva found him on the stairs," the Headmaster was whispering.
"Foolish boy," Fallen grumbled. "What possessed him to be out of bed?"
There were several hurried footsteps and whispered conversation between McGonagall and Pomfrey that Harry couldn't make out.
Dumbledore and Fallen were closer the next time the Headmaster spoke though, so they must have gotten out of the way.
"He had a bunch of grapes beside him," Dumbledore told him grimly. "We believe he was on his way down to visit Harry."
Fallen growled. "This better be the only time that gets said aloud," the wolf said. "With Potter's guilty conscious this year, he'll likely feel responsible for it."
Dumbledore hummed.
"Petrified," Pomfrey said grimly. "Just like Mrs. Norris."
"Check the camera, Headmaster," Fallen said, voice fading as Harry slipped back under again, despite Harry's struggle to remain 'awake' so he could hear more, specifically who was attacked trying to come and see him.
XX
The following morning, Harry only had a vague memory of either of his 'dreams', and even those were eagerly forgotten for the moment because the bones in his arm had been fully regrown.
After several tests with Pomfrey, Harry was allowed to dress and join the rest of the school at breakfast.
As they're leaving, however, Harry noticed that there was a second curtained-off bed.
"Fallen," Harry said slowly, not sure how much of the wolf's rather volatile temper was driving, given the exhaustion that must have been plaguing the wolf.
The General hummed to show he was paying attention but didn't turn to look at him.
"I had a dream last night."
Harry flushed as Fallen finally deigned to turn and look at him, red eyes unimpressed.
"It was about another attack."
Fallen was silent for a couple of seconds. "Colin Creevey was found last night by McGonagall on one of the staircases," he eventually admitted.
Harry swallowed. "Did he…was he coming to see me?"
Fallen stopped and turned to look at the child. "How much were you awake for?"
Harry rushed to shake his head. "That was pretty much it. I don't…I don't really remember much of what I did hear."
Fallen eyed him suspiciously for a minute before turning and continuing down the corridor. "McGonagall and Dumbledore do believe that Creevey was coming down to see you," he admitted. "That's through no fault of your own, of course. The boy should have known better than to be out after curfew in the first place."
Harry didn't necessarily agree with him but didn't say so.
"There was one other thing I kind of remember…."
Fallen turned to look at him, coming to a complete stop at the top of the stairs leading down into the Entrance Hall.
"I thought I heard you arguing with Dobby."
Fallen's lip curled in a none-too-pleasant snarl. "The stupid creature dropped in to see how you were feeling. I took the opportunity to stop and interrogate him. He won't be bothering you any further this year."
Harry remembered the scream he wasn't sure belonged to one dream or the other and wasn't sure if she should feel bad for any injuries Fallen may or may not have given to the house-elf, considering he had just spent over twelve hours regrowing the bones in his arm after Dobby's bludger had shattered it and Lockhart had tried to 'help'.
"You know, between Lockhart and Dobby…I'm not entirely sure I should be worried about Dark and Arcana."
"Oh?"
Harry gave the wolf a weak smile and started down the stairs. "They seem more likely to kill me out of sheer incompetence."
Fallen barked out a startled laugh, following the boy down to breakfast.
