Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.

AN: So, here's Chapter Ten, and just last night, I was rereading the first three chapters and see typos that I now notice for the first time. Sigh. Ah well. Anyway, thanks for all the Favs, Follows and Reviews. Onward!

CHAPTER 10: Flights and Duels

12 September 1991

As Harry headed down for breakfast, he wondered if he'd need an extra dose of Sleakeasy to get through the day, for today was to be the much-anticipated start of flying lessons. Naturally, the Slytherins and Gryffindors were grouped together, so it was probably going to end in tears. And sure enough, the day got off to a poor start when Malfoy and his lackeys inexplicably picked a fight with the Gryffindors at breakfast, one quickly broken up by Professor McGonagall. When they came over to the Slytherin table, Harry asked what that had been about. Malfoy was evasive, but Goyle blurted out that they were mocking Longbottom because his grandmother had sent him a Rememberall as a present.

"And what's a Rememberall when it's at home?" asked Harry.

"It's a globe that turns red when you've forgotten something important," replied Draco blandly as he buttered some toast.

"Hmm. I suppose that could be useful," replied Harry.

"Not really. Besides, Longbottom's is huge and ancient and ugly and looks to be made of cheap glass. He'll probably break it by the end of the week."

"I thought you'd gotten over your issues with Neville."

"I don't have 'issues,' Potter. But your brother hasn't done anything obnoxious in a week, so I've gone back to having equal disdain for all Gryffindors."

Harry shook his head and went back to his Daily Prophet. He hoped the rest of the day would be less dramatic.

Ten hours later ...

Harry's hopes had been in vain. That evening, Draco sat down for dinner across from him, and Harry just looked at the other boy in furious consternation. Finally, Draco noticed he was being stared at intently.

"What?" he asked.

"And what, pray tell, was all that about?" asked Harry somewhat hotly.

"You'll have to be more specific, Potter. It was an eventful day."

"The bit where you insulted Longbottom when he wasn't there to defend himself, then you deliberately threatened to destroy Longbottom's Remember-thingy after he fell and got hurt, then you flew off with the Git in defiance of Madame Hooch's orders, and then tried to destroy the Remember-thingy, only for the Git to miraculously save it. Oh, and just now, you challenged the Git to – and I can't believe this is even a thing – a wizard's duel?!"

"Yes. That all did happen. Do you want to be my second? The Weasel is seconding the Git."

"At a wizard's duel? It's not even October! What are you two going to do – transfigure matchsticks to needles and fling them at one another until somebody loses an eye?"

"You'll just have to come to the duel and watch. Meet me in the Trophy Room at midnight."

Harry's eyes narrowed as he studied Malfoy's smirking face. "You're not even going, are you? This is just a trick to get the Git and the Weasel out of bounds after curfew."

Draco laughed. "That's what I like about you, Potter. Despite your obvious deficiencies, you're still leagues ahead of your miserable brother."

"Well, I suppose that's what passes for a compliment in this house."

"Pfft. If you wanted compliments, Potter, you should have gone to the Puffs."

Harry snorted. "Well, hopefully, this has at least cured you of your strange obsession with Longbottom's Rememberall."

Draco sneered at him and then resumed eating. Theo eyed the whole exchange silently.

Later, as the Slytherins were returning to their dorms, Theo nudged Harry and whispered, "You should think about getting a Rememberall yourself if you can." And then he held out his hand to show a small orb that looked just like Neville's only about one-fourth the size. "Draco has one as well. They're more useful than you might think." Then, Theo moved on quickly leaving a perplexed Harry Potter behind.

13 September 1991

The next morning, Harry met with Hermione and Neville in the Library. They were supposed to meet up so that he could answer a few last minute DADA questions before that morning's class. But now, instead, he was sitting in a padded chair rubbing his temples and listening as Hermione and Neville described their "adventures" from the night before.

"So let me get this straight," he said tiredly. "Jim and Ron decided to sneak out to participate in an illegal midnight wizarding duel which wasn't going to happen anyway because the whole thing was a trap to get Jim in trouble which I figured out in less than five seconds. And you went along because...?"

"Well, I wasn't planning on accompanying them, but I came out into the hall after them to tell them not to go, and then the Fat Lady wandered off somewhere and I was stuck anyway, so I thought it better to go along with them than just sit in the corridor by myself," said Hermione as if that was the most logical thing in the world.

"And they actually found me passed out on a bench nearby. I, ah, sort of forgot the password and fell asleep." And then, Neville muttered "stupid Rememberall" under his breath just barely loud enough for Harry to hear.

"So to continue," Harry said with some annoyance, "the four of you went to the Trophy Room, discovered that Malfoy never showed, almost got caught by Filch, and then decided the best thing to do was to go to the Third Floor Corridor of Certain Painful Death?"

"Well," Neville replied with a grin, "obviously the Headmaster's warnings of certain painful death were exaggerated since we did not, in fact, die or even suffer pain. But we did find a Cerberus! And we also learned that Jim has a very high pitched voice when he screams!" He laughed, and Hermione punched his shoulder in annoyance.

"We also learned that the Cerberus was sitting on top of a trap door," she added. "Obviously, something incredibly valuable is being hidden down there with a Cerberus to guard it. But what could it be?"

Harry looked back and forth between his two friends in wonderment. "A better question would be: why on Earth do you care? Dumbledore said to stay away because it was dangerous, and I take him at his word. How did you even get past the door?!"

"Alohamora. It's in Chapter 7 of Goshawk's Standard Book of Spells for First Years."

Harry, who had already read that entire textbook from cover to cover, stared at her and then crooked an eyebrow suspiciously. "No it's not," he said firmly.

Neville looked at Hermione who was now blushing.

"Oh, alright! It was in Chapter 7 of the 1923 edition which I found in a used bookstore in Diagon Alley. It had a lot of wonderful spells that weren't in the current edition because they were deemed unsuitable for children to learn."

"Oh, that's a relief," said Neville. "Now, I don't feel so thick for having never heard of it."

"So to recap," said Harry acidly, "you were concerned about Jim and Ron doing something foolish, so you followed them out and then helped them break into an out-of-bounds area with an illegal lock-picking charm."

"It's not illegal, Harry, just ... frowned upon. Besides, they do teach it in upper year classes. You can't practice warding a door against the Alohamora if you don't know how to cast it."

"Ah, so you can ward the door leading to the deadly Cerberus against the Lock-Opening Charm that precocious First Years can cast, but the staff didn't bother to do so because ... you know, I don't even care anymore. I'll give myself a headache if I keep trying to apply common sense to this school."

Harry looked over at Neville, who seemed amused rather than embarrassed. "Wait a minute. You say you forgot the password to get into your dorm? I thought that Remember-whatsit was supposed to prevent that."

"Oh no. Apparently, it just turns red when I've forgotten something important, but it doesn't actually tell me what."

"That seems spectacularly unhelpful."

Neville stiffened. "It was a gift from my Gran. I don't care if Malfoy thinks it's stupid..."

"Easy, Neville. Draco was just being ... Draco. Besides, I'm reliably informed that he has one himself and was actually mocking you for yours being an antique. Apparently, the newer models are much smaller and sleeker. Probably a Scandinavian influence. I blame IKEA."

The other boy, on whom Harry's joke was completely lost, merely shrugged. "It's kind of a tradition for Longbottoms to reuse family heirlooms. That's why I'm using my dad's wand instead of a new one."

Hermione's brow furrowed. "You can do that? Just use a family member's wand? Mr. Ollivander must have made me try fifteen wands before we found the right one."

"And twice that number for me. He kept going on about how 'the wand chooses the wizard' and stuff like that."

Neville shrugged again, but Harry persisted. "Nev, I know you've been frustrated about how much trouble you've been having in classes, but it looks to me like you're doing fine in everything except wand-work. The book on wand lore I picked up at Ollivander's says that using a wand that's unsuited for you at best makes it hard to work magic and at worst can be physically dangerous. Is it possible that your wand isn't compatible and that's what's holding you back?

"It's my father's wand, Harry! He was a great wizard, and I want to be worthy of him!" exclaimed the boy, who was becoming upset. Pince shushed loudly from her desk, and Neville ducked his head.

Hermione patted his leg and said gently, "We know, Neville. But you're not a carbon copy of your father. Your mother was a great witch as well. And half of you comes from her. Was her wand made of the same materials as your father's?"

Neville closed his eyes. "I ... don't think so. I understand what you're saying. If ... if my wand work doesn't improve, I'll talk to Gran about getting a new one."

"Like you promised to talk to the nurse about your magic and your memory issues?" thought Harry, though he said nothing aloud.

"Well, I suppose we should head on down to breakfast before the Weasel eats it all. But both of you, please, stop trying to follow after Jim Potter and save him from himself. I understand the desire to stop Jim from costing you even more house points, but it's not worth the risk of you two getting into trouble or possibly even hurt." Harry shook his head. "By the way, I never heard. How many points did McGonagall take yesterday after that broom nonsense with Jim and Draco?"

Neville and Hermione looked at each somewhat nervously.

"What?" asked Harry, suddenly apprehensive..

Thirty seconds later, after the trio had been kicked out of the Library because of Harry's yelling...

"Unbelievable! This place is absolutely unbelievable! A teacher says 'don't do this or you'll be expelled,' Jim Potter does that very thing a minute later, and not only is he not expelled, he gets on the flipping house Quidditch team! Bloody hell!"

"Language, Harry!" said Hermione.

"I bet he's the youngest Seeker in, what, twenty years? Thirty?"

Neville coughed. "A century."

"GAAAAAAH!"

"Harry, please. Think it through."

"Oh, by all means, Hermione, explain what rational reason there is for putting Jim Potter on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, other than McGonagall caring more about a stupid trophy than any pretense of school discipline!"

"Professor McGonagall, Harry," Hermione corrected. Harry actually sneered at that, which startled Neville. He was used to sneering Slytherins, but he'd never seen Harry do it before. He was surprisingly good at it.

"Listen, Harry," she continued. "Yes, this seems grossly unfair, but think about it from Professor McGonagall's point of view. They've been using sticks pretty hard with Jim to no avail, so they've decided to give him a really big carrot."

Neville looked back and forth between the two. "I have no idea what you're on about. Carrot? Is this like that 'ninja' thing from last week?"

Harry sighed. "It's a Muggle expression, Nev. To get a donkey to move you can either hit it on the behind with a stick or dangle a carrot in front of its face. It means that they obviously can't control Jim with detentions, let alone loss of house points, so they're giving him something he desperately wants – the status of being on the house Quidditch team – which they can then threaten to revoke if he acts out of line."

"Exactly," said Hermione. "And as an added bonus, the Gryffindor captain is a madman named Oliver Wood who has set up a truly grueling practice schedule – twelve hours a week. Possibly more as the first match draws near. We are playing you lot after all. That's twelve hours or more a week he'll be under the supervision of upper year students and kept out of mischief."

Harry took a deep breath and exhaled. It made sense. But that didn't mean he had to like it. "Fine. I hope the Git falls off his broom." The other two laughed. "I'm sorry I lost my temper. You to go on to breakfast. I need to use the facilities." The two Gryffindors said their goodbyes and headed on. Harry turned and walked the other way, pausing at the boy's lavatory door before looking back at his friends. Then, seeing that they weren't watching, he quickly darted past the bathroom before turning down a side corridor and into the empty classroom sometimes used for Care of Magical Creatures. Checking quickly to see that no one else was there, he picked up a piece of chalk and threw it at a large painting of a sleeping ashwinder wrapped around its eggs.

"Esme! Esme! Wake up!" With a hiss, the fiery serpent raised its head and hissed at Harry, the corona of flame around its head lighting up the whole room. "I'm sorry for waking you, but this is important. What have the other snakes been saying about the locked room in the Third Floor corridor? You know, the one with the three-headed dog in it."