Quidditch and The DA

"How dare you kill my father," Malfoy screamed the anger evident in his voice, "Now I will make you pay!" Draco grabbed his wand off of the ground and raised it above his head. Harry also raised his wand ready to duel.

"Silencio!" Professor Dumbledore shouted and the spell hit Malfoy who was about to cast a spell. The Professor didn't cast the spell on Harry, he knew Harry wouldn't attack unprovoked. "Prefects, lead your houses to your common rooms, the Ball is over. Mr. Potter please wait for me in Professor McGonagall's office, Ms. Weasley see Madame Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing. Professor O'Bannon please notify the Ministry of tonight's events, Professor Snape come with me and Mr. Malfoy please. Hagrid and Madam Hooch, please remain here in the Hall."

Everyone snapped into action as Professor Dumbledore finished issuing his orders. Ginny hugged Harry before she turned to follow Ron and Hermione out of the Hall. Harry headed straight for Professor McGonagall's office, he ignored the stares and whispers as he walked past other students. Professor O'Bannon left and went to his office where he stepped into the fireplace and used the Floo Network to get to the Ministry. Professor Snape and Malfoy followed Professor Dumbledore to his office.

Harry sat at Professor McGonagall's desk fuming at himself. How could I lose control so badly to kill someone? Harry thought to himself. He felt a slight breeze begin to pick up as he began to get angry. He then began focusing on clearing his mind of all thought, he slowly started to calm down. When Professor McGonagall walked in Harry had been completely devoid of thoughts and barely heard her come in.

"Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall began, "How are you feeling?"

"I've been better, Professor," Harry answered honestly, "I killed a man tonight. Will I be expelled?"

"That is up for the Headmaster and the Minister of Magic to decide, Harry. We all heard what Lucius said and that he began to cast the unforgivable curse, and we all know he was an escaped Death Eater. I don't believe that there will be much punishment physically, Harry. I have no doubt that you will blame yourself for tonight and fight with your guilt for quite a while. I want you to know though, Harry, what you did was in defense of yourself and others around you. Harry, this is a war, there will be casualties on both sides. It is a shame but it is the truth, it will happen again. No one thinks less of you for tonight, well, no one that matters."

"I agree with Professor McGonagall, Harry," Professor Dumbledore's voice came from the entrance way, "First, I would like to inform you that Ms. Weasley has been released by Poppy and is back in the common room. Secondly, Minister Weasley and I have spoke and there will be no punishment on you, he even expressed his wish of paying a reward for catching an escaped Death Eater. With all of that said, I believe we need to talk about another matter."

"What matter is that, Professor," Harry said with relief of not being expelled.

The use of your power tonight," The Professor said quietly, "When the wind first came up did it just happen because you were angry? Or did you make it happen on your own?"

"I hadn't thought about it until now, sir. But now I do remember thinking to myself that I wanted the wind to happen."

"It seems, Harry, that you are gaining control over your powers. I believe Occlumency and your practice in Animagus is paying off, incidentally I hear that you are progressing nicely with that ability. Ok, Harry, you may return to your dorm, I will call for you if I need you."

"Yes, sir," Harry said quietly, "Sir, how is Draco?"

"He is hurting, Harry." The Professor answered, "Professor Snape has given him a potion to calm him down."

Despite not wanting to leave his bed in the morning Harry got up and woke Ron up. Come on Ron, lets go get some breakfast before the tryouts. Twenty minutes later they were heading into the common room where they saw Ginny and Hermione waiting for them. Harry smiled, he was glad to see that they had not turned their backs on him overnight for killing someone. The group headed to the Great Hall, the Hall was full of students eating breakfast. When they saw Harry they began whispering and pointing at him. Harry had grown tired of all the whispers and stares over the last five years. He jumped up onto the nearest table and waited for everyone to quiet down.

"Have a good look at me! I am Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived! It is my destiny to fight Voldemort again, and I must also fight those loyal to him. Events like last night are not a new thing to me, I lost a friend this summer to a similar attack! Now I would appreciate it if you would just quit staring at me and talking about me behind my back." When Harry finished he climbed off of the table and went to sit down at the Gryffindor table. No one was looking at Harry anymore and the Hall returned to its normal conversations.

"So, Ron," Harry said with a smile, "How was your night last night?"

"It was great! We danced for most of the night and then I kissed Hermione," Ron tried to continue when Hermione hit him in the arm.

"Ronald Weasley! You don't need to be telling everyone that we kissed," Hermione snapped at him.

"It was more than just kissing Hermione," Ginny said giggling, "I saw you to over in the corner, I thought one of you was going to suffocate for sure!" Ron and Hermione now both turned red as Harry doubled over laughing. After breakfast the four headed to the Quidditch pitch where Hermione took a seat in the stands while Harry, Ron and Ginny went to their locker room to change into their Quidditch robes.

The three of them came back out onto the field and saw a group of Gryffindor's standing around waiting. Neville, Dean, Seamus, Lavender, Colin, Parvati, and a second year girl named Kaylee Rose were talking about the tryouts.

"Hello everyone," Harry said clearing his throat, "first I want to fill you in on the positions we need. I am looking for two chasers and two beaters, so if you would like to be a chaser please form a group to my left, those who want to be a beater on my right." The group split up almost evenly, Lavender, Parvati and Kaylee all stood in the group for chaser while the other four grouped up for beater. "Ok, first I want to try out the chasers. We will start off with simple passing drills, then shooting drills, and then we will bring in some bludgers."

Ginny kicked off the ground and was followed by the three girls. They hovered in a circle and passed the ball to each other to let them get the feel of the quaffle while Harry circled them in the air. Lavendar seemed to be a bit clumsy catching the ball, while the other two seemed very capable. Ginny then led the group in flying passes, Lavendar began loosing more ground now as she dropped a few passes and overthrew her teammates on most of her passes. Shooting came next, Ron did an excellent job defending his rings and only allowed three goals. Lavendar gained ground on Parvati during this task as she scored two goals and Kaylee scored the final goal. The final drill had the three girls working together as a team and trying to score while Harry and Ginny hit the bludgers at them. They all did wonderfully at avoiding the bludgers and Lavendar actually improved on her passing ability.

They landed and Harry invited them to stay if they would like or they could leave, the results would be posted in the morning on the notice board. Next he had the four guys take turns hitting the bludgers at a stationary target on the ground. Dean and Seamus were the early front runners for beater. The next task had them trying to hit Harry as a moving target, in this task Neville performed the best and had accomplished hitting Harry in the leg, the only to even hit him. The final task was to see how well they could pass the bludger from one to another, they all did fairly well at this. Harry again informed them that the results would be posted in the morning.

The three current members of the team returned to the locker room to change and met with Hermione on the field. They walked back to the castle discussing what they saw during the tryouts. Then Harry remembered about the new brooms.

"Hey, how did you guys like your new brooms?"

Both Ginny and Ron smiled, "They are great, Harry," Ron answered, "It didn't feel as fast as yours but it was definitely able to turn and accelerate very easily."

"Yeah," Ginny jumped in, "I should have no problem loosing the other chasers and beaters."

"Good," Harry said happily, "That's what I wanted to hear."

After dinner that night Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione went to the Room of Requirement and got it ready for tonight. They had decided that tonight would just be a quick meeting on what they were going to do this year and to pass around the sign up sheet. They finished early and Harry began asking the other three their opinions on who should be on the team.

"I liked Parvati and Kaylee," Ginny mentioned, "Lavendar can shoot but she isn't all that good at passing or catching."

"And Kaylee is really good on a broom," Ron added, "you see her moves out there? I can't believe I am going to say this but the best beaters out there were Neville and Seamus."

"That's what I thought too," Harry agreed, "Ginny what did you think?"

"Same, Neville and Seamus."

"Ok well, since that is figured out I can fill out my roster right now," Harry said grabbing a quill and a piece of parchment off of the desk the Room of Requirement put there for him.

Gryffindor House Quidditch Team

Chasers:

Ginny Weasley

Parvati Patil

Kaylee Rose

Beaters:

Neville Longbottom

Seamus Finnegan

Keeper: Ron Weasley

Seeker: Harry Potter-C

Thanks to all of those who tried out and congratulations to those who made the team.

Just as Harry finished his roster DA members began walking in to the room. The room quickly filled up and soon it was standing room only. Harry couldn't believe how many people showed up.

"Hello everyone," Harry said loud enough for everyone to hear, "Welcome to the new members and welcome back to those of you who are returning. I must say this is a larger turn out than I expected, that's good. Now, we won't actually be doing anything tonight but I do want to discuss what we will be doing this year. First for all of those that remember, we will be using the same method of setting a date and time for meetings." As Hermione passed out the fake galleons Harry explained how they worked. "Now since we do have such a large group of members this year, those of us that were members last year will work with the new members to catch them up. For those of you who are new you will have to learn quick to catch up, we will spend the first three meetings working with you to catch up. After that we will have a test, if you pass you can continue, if not then you will have to try next year."

A first year student had raised his hand and when Harry acknowledged him he asked his question.

"What about us first years? How will we catch up?"

"Well we will do what we can to teach you," Harry answered honestly, "I am afraid that a lot of these spells are very complicated and you may not get them until you are a little older. But I don't want to exclude anyone. Ladies and Gentlemen, there is a war coming and we need to be ready. I'm sure you have all heard about last nights incident. That was nothing, that was a one on one confrontation. The battles my friends and I have been in already were much worse than that. And I believe the war that is coming will be much, much worse than anything we have seen yet."

Half of the members in the room had lost all color in their faces. One second year girl actually fainted in her desk. A few students got up to leave but Harry stopped them.

"You can leave if you wish, I won't stop you. But know that the next major battle could very well happen here at Hogwarts and it might be worth knowing what we will learn in here." The students sat back down in their desks and gave Harry a weak smile, Harry smiled right back. "Now as for what we will be learning this year. Starting with our fourth week we will continue learning the Patronus charm, following that will be various defensive spells and counter spells. After that we will begin on some more offensive spells. Ok, that about wraps up tonight's meeting, when your coins begin getting hot you will know I have set the next meeting date."

Everyone left the meeting and it was just the four main members again.

"You don't think I was to heavy on the gloom and doom do you," Harry asked his friends.

"No mate," Ron answered while holding Hermione's hand, "They need to know what is coming."

Ginny and Hermione agreed and they all walked back to the Gryffindor common room, they sat down in front of the fire and Harry remembered his roster. He decided that since he had it done he would post it now, he walked to the notice board and tacked the roster to the board. They set Harry's Quidditch set up and let Hermione and Ginny coach their teams. Ginny, obviously knowing more about Quidditch than Hermione was able to coach her team a bit better, but Hermione's non stop insistence on her seeker to catch the snitch paid off in the end. Unfortunately, Hermione's team still lost by thirty points. After the game they all said goodnight and went to bed.

The next day Harry finished all of his classes and hearing all of his new teammates thank him for their positions and then went to Professor Dumbledore's office where he was once again waiting for Harry.

"Ready for your next lesson Harry?

"Yes sir," Harry answered smiling, "I've been practicing but I keep getting stuck with ears, whiskers, part of a muzzle, a tail and fur all over."

Professor Dumbledore chuckled as Harry told him what was happening, "It seems Harry that your mind is reaching a point where it can't accept that you can become a red fox. You will get past this but it will take practice."

Harry spent the next hour practicing, once he achieved changing his entire head to that of a fox. The rest of the time he got stuck at the place he mentioned to the Professor. He was always able to transform back to his human self without help. As he got up to leave Professor Dumbledore stopped him.

"Harry, I would like to discuss last Sunday with you."

"Which part sir?"

"The Wizengamot Council lounge and Merlin."

"What would you like to know?"

"It's not anything that I want to know, Harry, it is something I think you should know. You see, there are very few people that Merlin's ghost will manifest himself to. The first group are very powerful and usually older wizards that seek his advice. Myself and perhaps six other wizards fall into this category. The second group are where you will fall in. This group speaks with Merlin when they have summoned him. This sounds like it would be anyone else, but there is a stipulation, the person that summons him will only be successful in doing so if they are going to sacrifice themselves for someone they love in the next year."

It took Harry a moment to understand the implications of what Professor Dumbledore just said and he went pale.

"Professor, how does one summon Merlin? It can't be from just walking in that room, I was there during the Summer and he didn't manifest."

"You are correct, Harry," Professor Dumbledore answered with a sad expression, "to summon Merlin you trace his name on his plaque."

"Sir, I didn't trace his name," Harry said his voice cracking as a tear came to his eye, "Ginny did."