Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter =[... if I did... Dean would be a Manchester United fan...! CHAPTER THREE


START OF TERM FEAST

The summer holidays flew past quicker than Harry had ever thought they would. With the Marauders Map and invisibility cloak [it had been on his bed the day he found the map, with a note saying 'use it well'. Prongs had told Harry how to use it], exploring Hogwarts truly felt like an adventure. The map not only showed all the intricate passageways but also showed how to get through them all. Harry had ended up in Hogsmeade Village twice when he couldn't sleep. He had also gotten to know the teachers quite well. Snape was intelligent and ambitious and had even told Harry he could help him finish the batch of Felix Felicis. Professor Harris was also intelligent, but also rather amusing. She hardly seemed like a teacher at all. Dumbledore was yet the most intelligent, and Harry found him to be very good company. He always knew what to say and could always make Harry smile. And when Dumbledore and Harris were together they were even funnier, so much so that even Snape cracked a smile.

It was the day the rest of the students would arrive at Hogwarts and Harry was pacing his room nervously. He walked up to mirror for what felt like the hundredth time and examined his appearance. It seemed adequate; he was wearing the school uniform. Harry had gotten Madam Malkin to make his robes a little a baggy, [She was appalled, Harris agreed with Harry heartily] he was very used to baggy clothes by now.

He had taken a trip to Diagon Ally with Professor Harris and bought his robes, as well as all his school books and other things he'd need. The games keeper, Rubeus Hagrid, a man with a bushy black beard and beetle black eyes who looked too big to be allowed, had met them there and come back to Hogwarts with them. He insisted on buying Harry a late birthday present, a snowy white owl. Harry had named her Hedwig, a name that he had read a long time ago.

Harry's hair was useless as always. It fell into his eyes and stayed that way. He gave up and left the common room, not quite sure what he was going to do in his last hours of being the only student in the school. Harry reached the dungeons, then turned around abruptly, and headed towards the Quidditch Pitch. He wasn't sure if he'd ever get the Quidditch Pitch to himself once the year started.

He stepped out of the castle into the chilly grounds. From all the things, this weather was the hardest thing to get used to. It was so cold, he might as well be in White Witch infested Narnia. Harry pulled his robes tightly around him and sped off towards the Pitch. Dumbledore had given Harry full permission to borrow one of the school brooms anytime he wanted, after him having to ask almost everyday.

Harry entered the pitch, only to find someone already there. Professor Harris was flying in and out of the goalposts with superb accuracy and precision. She was wearing robes of a deep red colour and it astounded Harry how she managed to fly so well in them. A good ten minutes after he'd been watching her obvious and for some reason familiar talent, she noticed him and flew to the ground.

"Professor", Harry said as she demounted her broom.

"Hey!" She said in greeting, walking the length of the pitch towards Harry. "How long have you been watchin' me?"

"Long enough to see how talented you are!"

"Well thank you sweetheart", She said fairly pleased. "I should be, I've been playing for Manchester Devils as a reserve for two years. Part-time. Probably gonna go back after this year. Manager offered me a first team place if I kept up my fitness".

"Oh". That was it. She was a promising reserve for Manchester Devils. They were the biggest and most famous Quidditch Team in the English Quidditch Premier League and happened to be Harry's favourite English team. He followed English Quidditch as well. His Australian Quidditch A League was Wollongong Warriors. "That's why you looked so familiar!"

"I do?" She asked quite taken aback. Obviously she didn't think Australians watched the Premier League.

"Yeah. I've seen your picture in Quidditch Quest. They we're saying you're going to play for England in the World Cup".

"They lie", she mused. "It's just a rumour, but you never know. The England Manager's still yet to pick a team".

"Right. Any chance you could show me some moves?"

"You any good?"

"Sort of. I'm getting the hang of the 'Wollongong Shimmy'".

It turned out this was an understatement. Harry was an exceptional flyer and an even better Quidditch player. Harry and Professor Harris continued to play/train until Harry noticed that his wristwatch read 5.30PM, the Welcome Feast was due to start in half an hour.

"We better get back to the castle", Harry said as his stomach gave an unpleasant jolt at the idea of the students arriving.

"Race you!" Harris challenged and sped off towards the castle. Harry was used to this sort of behaviour from the teacher. He did a sharp 180 ̊turn and soared after her. It did no good how hard he tried, the Professors broom was a firebolt [fastest broom yet] and she was much lighter then him. She was out of sight by the time Harry reached Hagrids Hut. Harry flew to the front doors and demounted his broom, Harris was nowhere in sight. He went into the Great Hall to find her in mid air on top of the house tables, Mr Filch [the grouchy caretaker] standing underneath, screaming furiously. He had reason, it had rained twice, while they were playing, meaning both were covered in mud. Harris had brought a trail of mud and rain in with her.

"Headmaster!" Filch screamed in Dumbledore's direction. Dumbledore was sitting in his usual place and looked quite at ease with the situation. "Headmaster?" Filch now looked as if he would cry.

Dumbledore gave Harris a nod, this must have been orders to get down, as Harris demounted immediately, taking care to almost fly into Filch. She pointed her wand at herself and was clean immediately, then walked casually towards the staff table and took Snape's usual seat [they argued over this, without fail, everyday]. Filch turned to exit the hall, when his eyes met Harry's appearance. His gloomy mood uplifted instantly.

"Dursley", he said maliciously. "One hundred…" He started, but didn't finish as all the dirt, sweat and rain vanished from Harry's face and body and even the trail Harry had made had. Harry looked up at the staff table to see Harris wink at him. Dumbledore was amused. "You!" Filch span on the spot to glare at Harris. "You were a nuisance as a student and now as a teacher, I'll…"

"Argus," Dumbledore interrupted, some of the calmness in his voice had gone. "Please refrain from talking to my staff in that manner. She after all, is as much a part of this school as you". Filch glared at Harris and limped out of the Hall muttering angrily to himself. Harris remained nonchalant.

Harry laughed and took a seat at which he had been told was the Gryffindor table, fragments of Dumbledore and Harris' conversation reaching him.

"He's really smart, and an amazin' flier…"

"Quite an accomplished young man…"

Were they talking about him? Seemed rather likely. Harry tuned out in fear that he might hear something that he wished he hadn't. He knew he was a decent flier, just didn't think he was anything special. The players at his school team in Queensland were much better than him. They were fast, agile and everyone in the school noticed them. Harry hadn't even been allowed to try out for the team, of course that was more due to 'Big D' then anything else.

"Hello Dursley", Snape greeted him as he walked past him and took a seat next to Harris, but not without a glare at her.

"Why don't you come sit up here?" Harris called to Harry.

"No thank you. I'm fine", Harry insisted. He had started to feel queasy again. It was incredibly nerve-wrecking to be the 'new guy', especially when the rest of the students in his year had known each other for six years.

"Are you ok sweetheart?" Professor Harris had come to sit by him.

"Yeah", Harry said snapping out of his thoughts. "Just a little nervous. Not sure if I'll fit in".

"'Course you will", She said encouragingly. "You're intelligent, sweet, charming, an amazing flier… how could you possibly not?"

"You're my teacher, you have to say that", Harry said gloomily.

"True", she said. "But I'm also your friend. And look at it this way, if you don't fit in straight away, you can always chill with me". She smiled hopefully. Harry smiled back. He had a friend, okay so it was a teacher, but it was a friend non-the-less. They continued to talk as the rest of the teachers that Harry hadn't met, filled the staff table.

There was Professor Minerva McGonagall, Transfiguration, Head of Gryffindor house. She was a stern looking woman with her hair in a tight bun and wore square spectacles over her cat-like eyes. The Professor of Herbology was a squat woman named Pamona Sprout, there was also the Charms Professor, Filius Flitwick, a tiny man who had to sit on a stack of books to see over the table. There were also Professors Babbling [Ancient Runes], Vector [Arithmancy], Trelawney [Divination], Sinister [Astronomy] and of course Hagrid the gameskeeper and Care Of Magical Creatures teacher.

Finally the students started to file in, taking their seats at their house tables. Harris was telling Harry that in her day, which wasn't far from Harry's, the Slytherins were an unpleasant lot, not the type to mingle with any other houses. The Hufflepuffs were extremely, sometimes annoyingly friendly. The Ravenclaws were very smart and stush [a word which Harry didn't know the meaning too, but assumed meant self-important (it does)] and Gryffindor was by far the best house, full of brave, chivalrous and attractive people. Of course this view was biased as she had spent her first three years at Hogwarts in Gryffindor[ she had moved away in forth year to a different school]. She had got the attractive part right, Harry watched in amazement as three of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen walked through the doors. One of the girls, had long straight black hair and an innocent look about her. Another one had chocolate brown eyes, full lips and wild dark hair. The third girl also had chocolate brown eyes, but where the other girls' hair was dark, this ones was flaming red.

Following closely behind the three, were five other girls. None of them were as eye-catching as the first three, but they looked as if they took pride in their appearance. Three were blond, two brunettes. Harry's stomach gave a lurch as the redhead, the one with the wild hair and one of the brunettes came towards the table. They took a seat at the other end of the table.

"Friendly", Professor Harris said sarcastically, referring to the pretty girls. "In my day…"

"Would you stop saying that," Harry said, not without amusement. "Your day is my day". Harris laughed as a particularly noticeable group of boys came into the hall. The leader of the boys must have been the blond. He had a certain air of importance about him, there wasn't any other way to describe it. A redheaded boy was walking slightly behind him with a two tall boys. The redhead was gangly, walked with a strut and looked arrogant. The third boy was the yet the tallest of them all, he seemed quite pleasant though, he nodded and smiled at quite a few people as he walked in. The last boy was off a strong build, tall and muscular. He had slits for eyes and walked with a certain swagger. These boys also split up, the redhead and tallest boy joined the Gryffindor table, the other two went to the Slytherin table.

The splitting up of friend groups into houses happened quite often, until the tables were almost full, Harry and Harris were surrounded.

"Not really much like 'your day' is it?" Harry asked Harris, making quotations with his hands appropriately.

"No," Harris was disappointed. "What happened to the good old days when Gryffindors and Slytherins loathed each other on principle?"

Harry laughed and looked around the table. Seated in front of him was what looked like a book [Hogwarts: A History to be exact] with a mane of bushy brown hair, presumably it was a girl. Seated next to her was a dorky looking boy, a large chain with the letter 'N' in a circle on it, sticking out of his collar. He was spitting lyrics [not very good ones] to a small boy next to him, who looked appalled.

Behind the boys, the blond Slytherin was stood. When did he get here? He wasn't even looking at the boys though, he was staring at something next to Harry, a mixture of admiration and desire on his face. Harry looked. Of course, Professor Harris. Harris was at the moment engaged in a conversation with a pair of redheaded twins and was laughing heartily.

"Hello," the blond said calmly in a smooth voice. At his words, all the people in hearing range went silent. Harris looked up, then noticing it was her he was talking to, smiled sweetly at him.

"Hi", she said.

"Malfoy, Draco Malfoy", the blond said his hand to her, she took it.

"Professor Tina Harris". She smiled amused at his, and quite a lot of other people's, shocked reactions.

"You don't look a day over sixteen", Malfoy said after he had recovered. "What subject do you teach Professor?"

"Defence Against the Dark Arts".

"Wonderful subject. And soon to be my favourite". Malfoy winked at her, kissed the back of her hand as he was still holding it and walked back to his seat, looking somewhat triumphant. Harris looked very amused.

Shortly afterwards, the pretty girls also came to look at the woman who had excited Malfoy, led by the redhead. She smiled genuinely at Harris, the blonde and brunette tagalongs seemed fake, but the girl with the wild hair didn't even pretend, just stood looking sourly at her.

"Hi, I'm Ginny Weasley", the redhead said. Ginny, that was a nice name.

"I'm Parvati," the brunette said.

"Lavender Brown", the blonde. "And this is Romilda Vane". She gestured towards the sulking girl.

"This is Harry", Ginny glanced at him, the others ignored the gesture completely. "And I'm Professor Harris". The girls stared. Romilda broke into a smile, Lavender and Parvati became even more fake, Ginny remained the same.

"Hi Professor", Romilda said in a loud voice.

Harry didn't understand this. He could see why she was sucking up to the teacher, but what was the big problem beforehand?

Harris gave Harry a pat on the back as she rose from her seat. "I better go sit with the teachers before I get asked to the Halloween Ball". With one of her sweet smiles, she left to go and sit next to Snape. He'd taken her seat and they had begun to argue over it again. The girls had gone back to their seats.

Dumbledore rose from his seat after the first years had been sorted into their houses, and the Hall fell silent. "Students," he began with a pleasant smile. "Here we are again, the start of another year. The last for some, for first for some and the first and last for some others [people whispered at this]. First of all the start of term notices; The forbidden forest as always is naturally forbidden to all students as well as wandering around the castle after hours. And also try to be careful when re-entering the castle as it is quite muddy this time of year and it will mean more work for Mr Filch [students sniggered mischievously at this]. Also we have a new member of staff this year. May I present Professor Tia Harris [she stood up at this and was met by a raucous applause and quite a few wolf whistles], alright then, let us eat." With that the silver and gold dishes filled up with food. It was mouth-watering; there was every kind of food, whole chickens, mountains of mashed potato… everything. This is what you called a feast!

Harry was ravishing a steak and kidney pie [his favourite], when the goofy looking boy spoke to him.

"Yo, how do you know the hot Professor?" Harry didn't look up, just shrugged in response. The boy wasn't pleased by his nonchalant response but didn't press the matter. Harry didn't like the way the boy had spoke to him, he wasn't about to respond to something like that.

When the feast had finished, the prefects [which for Gryffindor were the bushy haired girl opposite Harry who announced herself as 'Hermione Granger', the obnoxious redheaded boy, Ginny Weasley and another couple of students Harry didn't know of] led the houses, mainly the first years, to the dormitories. Harry saw the Slytherins go down the descending spiral staircase, led by Malfoy. Harry knew where the Slytherin common room was, he'd stumbled upon it once, it so happened that once you had been in a common room, it showed up on the map permanently. The rest of the school climbed the staircase, most of them upwards, Hufflepuffs went downwards towards the basement. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws split up eventually to go to their different towers.

Harry was back in the common room, most people trudged up to their dormitories too full to chill. But Ginny and her girls stayed behind and sat in the corner. Lavender looked as if she had something really important to tell the rest of them. Harry took a seat by the fire that was within earshot of the girls. He wasn't eavesdropping, just listening in… okay so he was eavesdropping.

"I heard Krum and Fleur broke up!" Lavender was saying, it was met by a couple of gasps. (Krum and Fleur go to Hogwarts)

"No they didn't", Parvati said. "I walked in on them on the train".

"Ew", Romilda said simply.

"He's still with that phlegm, she told me so herself", Ginny said calmly. They were quiet for a while.

"Malfoy looks good this year," Ginny began conversationally.

"He looks good every year", Romilda said unhappily.

"What's the matter with you?" Lavender asked Romilda.

"He was flirting with that teacher", Romilda's voice was angry.

"He probably didn't know she was a teacher and she was really pretty", Parvati offered.

"Not helping", Lavender said.

"Sorry".

"Hey, hey", Ginny said. "Malfoy loves you Romilda, he's lucky to have you and he knows that".

"Hmm," Romilda was still not satisfied. "Not everyone's like your Blaise".

"Yeah, everyone wants to be with him", Lavender said.

"At one point they were", Parvati mused, Lavender and Romilda laughed.

"Hey!" Ginny said defensively. "Not anymore. He stopped all that".

"You never know. Old habits die hard".

"Parvati!" Romilda said loudly.

"Sorry".

The girls then went into a conversation about how most guys were ridiculously stupid when it came to girls. Harry figured that was his cue to leave and walked up to his dormitory. Four boys were already there. The obnoxious redhead was looking for something in his trunk, throwing out all sorts of things in the process. The tall and friendly looking one was putting up a poster of 'Manchester United Football Club' (I know that's wrong). The dorky boy, who's bed was opposite Harry's, was lying on his bed listening to a magical iPod and shaking his head to the beat. The last was a boy Harry had not seen yet, he was small, couldn't have been more then five foot three and was bouncing up and down near the two cooler boys, speaking rapidly in an Irish accent. None of them looked up when Harry entered the room. He went over to his four poster and sat down. Deciding to read up on some school work, not that he hadn't done enough of that already, he pulled out Defence Against the Dark Arts: Advanced Level and began reading it.

"Yo, how come you've got that?" The dorky boy had come over, one earphone still in his ear. Harry didn't look up, just shrugged. "I'm Neville Longbottom."

Harry looked up. "Harry Dursley". He said, knowing he couldn't put off not speaking any longer.

"Where you from?"

"Australia".

"Yeah, you sound it. Welcome to Hogwarts". Neville said gesturing to the room. "It's the shit". Harry looked over to the boys, the redhead had found what he was looking for, a stack of magazines it looked like, the Irish boy was looking over his shoulder at them. The Man United fan just shook his head disapprovingly. "Oh they'll never talk to you", Neville was amused. "Unless they're dissin' you! The ginger ones Ron Weasley, the Irish ones Seamus Finnighan and that ones Dean Thomas".

"Weasley?" Harry asked. "Is he that Ginny's …"

"Brother?" Yeah, she's a hottie she is". Harry chose not to respond to this.

After a while Neville left him, of course Harry had to make up excuses about how he was really sleepy before Neville even looked as if he was going to budge. Harry closed the curtains round his bed and pulled out the map. Everything seemed to be in order, except for the dot that read 'Romilda Vane', Romilda was on the dungeon stairs, just stood there, by herself. It seemed she was waiting for someone.

"What's she up to?" Harry thought aloud.

Prongs offers that she is probably meeting a filthy Slytherin.

Padfoot can't say much for her taste in boys.

"Thanks", Harry whispered to the map. Then deciding it was probably time he got some sleep, put the map away, and lay down.

He fell asleep instantly.


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