You're a protagonist Harry

Chapter 17 – FIRE!
…

There was something to be said about Mondays. Actually, there was a lot to be said about Mondays, little of it complimentary, but the point being, no matter how good a Monday might seem on the face, or even the buttocks, at its heart, it was still a Monday.

He should have remembered that before he walked into the family room.

"We saved you a seat Harry."

But he didn't.

"Right between us."

Oh, the shame.

"What's this then? A trap?"

The two girls giggled and batted their eyes, "Maybe."

He had to admit, they had the act down. Coy and innocent and terribly, terribly unthreatening. But he was no fool. Harry Potter was no fool.

"Pwease Hawwy!"

He was a sucker, that's what he was.

"Does it seem warm in here?" he mused aloud. "It seems warmer than the last time we were in here."

The Gryffindor family room was not enormous, but it wasn't small either, and it was far less crowded than the first time he'd been there, missing all the older years as well as several notable members of the first year like Ron and Hermione.

There was really no clear reason they should feel so warm… I mean IT, it should feel so warm. Not them; he barely noticed them; the two girls pressed against him. He hardly felt their smooth, soft skin brushing against his as he squashed him between them. Nope, nuh uh, not at all.

The appearance of the Head girl made for an excellent distraction, "Evening everyone. Glad you could all make it."

"We had a choice—ow!"

The Head girl smiled as Harry rubbed his side and carried on like he hadn't just spoken, then been assaulted by a grinning Indian girl.

"A special welcome to our guests from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff joining us tonight," she said, nodding to the non-lions in the room. "I trust everyone will put their best foot forward and 'not' embarrass Gryffindor in front of the other houses."

"Why do I feel like that was directed at muh—ow! Lavender!"

"Shush," the flower girl shushed, to the undisguised mirth of those around them.

"I know where you all sleep, just remember that."

"Anyway, you're all here because your element is fire. I am here to help ignite your little sparks into a great, passionate blaze!"

"That sounded mildly suggestive—ow! I don't care what you do, I'm telling you—ow!"

"Harry, problem?" Cassidy inquired innocently.

"No. Why do you ask—ow!"

She was very disappointed, he could tell because she was shaking her head in 'that way'; tut, tut, tut, so disappointing. He knew the look well. Many of his teachers had given him that look. They didn't understand, but with Cassidy, it was more a matter of not appreciating.

"Come up here please."

He was more than happy to do so, as it got him away from the elbows.

"Yes?"

The older girl sighed at his cheeky greeting, "Oh Harry. What am I going to do with you?"

"I can think of a few things," and there were several others that required no thought on his part whatever.

"Tsk, tsk" she tsktsked, "I think you have a bit too much to say for someone here to learn."

"I don't."

"Well I do, and I'm the teacher."

"You gonna keep me after class? I've been baaaaaaad."

It probably wasn't wise antagonizing her, but how was he to know? Sarcasm was how he dealt with life, and it was hard seeing her as any kind of threat. At least, right up until he found the tip of her wand under the tip of his nose.

"Epoximise!"

Flinching back from the sudden tingle he tried to exclaim but found something to be wrong with his mouth. It wouldn't open. He was locked at the lips.

"What's the matter Harry? Nothing to say now?"

Oh, he had a lot to say. The problem was his lips wouldn't let him say it and no matter how much he tried to say with his hands, the message was just not getting through. Or it was getting through and just being ignored. Yeah, that seemed more likely given how she was grinning and everyone else was laughing.

The injustice of it all. He couldn't even threaten anyone properly.

"Well, now that we've got that all cleared up, why don't you take your seat and we'll continue where we left off," said Cassidy looking much too pleased with herself.

Unable to do much else, he hung his head and trudged up the steps to find a seat, cuz there was no way he was sitting between the elbows again. That's what he thought anyway, the elbows had different ideas and snuggled in on either side the moment his butt hit the seat.

"You didn't think you were going to get away from us, did you Harry?"

He had thought that, and no amount of twirling blonde hair or batting black eyelashes was going to change his mind on the point.

"Now, as I was saying," pause for smugness, "I am here to instruct you on how to express your inner fire, outward. Once that is accomplished, the next step will be in learning to control it, shape it, bend it to your will. But that's jumping ahead at least a couple weeks. We start at the beginning. We start, with this."

Reaching into her large sleeve she pulled a long, white candle; the common type that could be found at any candlestick maker, right after the butcher and the baker.

"Your first exercise will be to light the candle, like so." A look of concentration and a tiny flame sprang to life. "The key is focus. You must drown out all distractions and center your entire attention on feeling the flame and pushing it toward the wick."

"Shouldn't we have our wands for this?" Madysonne asked, proving she was paying attention despite looking completely bored.

"No, sorcery is your inherent power. You can use a wand to channel it, but it's not necessary and better learned without it," Cassidy explained.

Seeing no further questions, she produced a small box of candles like the one she was holding and began passing them around. All was going well till she came to Harry, with an empty box.

"Don't worry," she said like a malicious imp. "I've got a special candle for you."

He didn't like the sound of that, and he liked the sight of it even less. While everyone else got a long slender candle, his was short, stubby, and messily half melted.

"Perfect," she said smugly.

"I'm sure she doesn't mean anything by it," Lavender said, eyeing his candle and pretending she didn't understand the joke. He might have believed it if she didn't look like she was about to burst into irrepressible giggles.

Unable to express in words exactly what he wished to express to the eye batting blonde, he gave her a growling eye roll which was usually good for conveying an annoyed 'yeah, whatever' regardless of the language, and let that settle the matter; turning his attention to the small stubby candle in his hand.

"Now its very important to concentrate. Focus is the key to this exercise. Put everything else out of your mind, ignore all distractions and concentrate."

A task easier said than done when she insisted on giving them helpful encouragement. She stopped when it became evident no one was listening.

The cloud of intensity that grew out of the heavy silence expressed that well; everyone focused on their candle, leaving Cassidy to quietly click, click, click around the room. The sound of her heels almost as distracting to some as her helpful encouragement.

She was doing it on purpose, he thought. She had to be.

"Come on—you stupid candle—light!"

'She' probably wasn't, he thought. Lavender stared at the candle. She stared and stared, she clenched and stared, she squeezed and groaned and went full on red in the face and stared. Nothing. Nothing happened—except she almost passed out.

"Stupid candle," she gasped, leaning against Harry's shoulder as she caught her breath. "Any luck Vati?"

"I think I've gone cross eyed."

She hadn't—much.

"The first time is always the hardest, but you just need to push through. Block out all distrac…" she was saying when something across the room exploded.

"Gah, ugh, peh! Uh, got it in my mouth!" cried Seamus.

"Oh dear," the mother hen tutted as she scampered across the room.

"Who didn't see that coming," Lavender tittered, joined by Parvati.

Harry found it amusing as well but refused to acknowledge the people enabling his censorship. The people enabling his censorship didn't like that, they demanded attention, in their annoying little girlish ways.

He did his best to ignore their rubbing and nudging, he was mad at them after all and it would take a lot more than that sort of coy play to get his attention, if he could only focus.

The candle made for a good distraction, once the obvious taunt was shoved away in the back of his mind so he could ignore it and get on with the magic. The rubbing and nudging were put their too, wrapped in thick, tight rope they seemed to enjoy a little too much to which the taunt screamed 'tighter!'

Blocking all that out.

His vision narrowed to a small space; the blackened tip of a stubby half melted candle. He didn't clench and grunt and turn red like Lavender. Nor did he go cross eyed like Parvati. He knew this place, this tunnel of vision. He'd been there often on hot summer days when the work was in front of him and all else was just a needless distraction to be summarily ignored, lest he face his uncle's wrath.

It was calm, familiar. He felt the warmth in him, the heat beating down and the gentle breeze brushing his hot skin. Push it out. Push it to the wick. He felt it, he pushed, it moved across his skin like a million marching ants. His fingers ached, knuckles popping.

Something was happening. The wick was smoking, but there was something else. The smoke was moving, not just rising but drifting to one side like a string pulled off center. He felt it, the gentle breeze playing against the flame. Cassidy hadn't said anything about that.

He wanted to stop, ask what was happening but he couldn't. His mouth was sealed and even if it weren't, he was too far in, he wasn't pushing anymore. Something was pulling. The breeze was pulling, or just pushing in a direction he no longer controlled.

The smoke grew thicker, clearer, harder to ignore. The black tip began to glow as the power built. A thrill ran through him, almost electric and he felt the powers converging, ready to ignite, ready to explode.

"Hey Harry, looks like you got…"

*kaBOOM*

The explosion of Harry's candle made Seamus' look like a sparkler by comparison. Lavender and Parvati were both knocked off their seats. It was unclear what force kept Harry in his, but he was still sitting there when everyone stopped cringing and Cassidy came over to survey the damage.

"Is everyone alright?"

Calmly, Harry reached up and removed his soot stained and wax splattered glasses. "I think that very much depends on your definition of 'alright'." He said. And realizing he'd said it, "Oh, looks like I can talk again. In which case I'd just like to say I'm placing all the blame for this on you."

"WHAT!" the very important young woman squawked. "How is this my fault?"

"If you hadn't glued my mouth shut, I might have been able to say something before this went BOOM! And not a word out of you Finnegan. I can hear you cackling under your breath."

"Just happy to have some company," the boy who did explode things totally did not cackle.

"Yeah, yeah," Harry grumbled, matching the Head girl glare for glare. Much as he hated to admit it. She was awful cute when she was angry.

But he was still mad at her.

"Can I have new candle please?"

"Are you going to blow that one up too?"

"… maybe."

Growling in frustration, she stomped off to find him a new candle. "Well, this is going well," he mused, glancing behind him to where Lavender and Parvati still lay, dazed. "Wonder if Ron and Hermione are having this much fun."

And the thought of Ron 'slumming' with Hufflepuff, put a grin back on his face. He really needed to do something nice for a Hufflepuff, any Hufflepuff. For some reason he got the feeling they were not a bunch that should be crossed. Almost like he was seeing the future or something.