(A/N: Hola, my lovelies! Thanks to the two people who reviewed my last chapter, it means a lot to me. ^^ Anyhoo, it's finally time! Time for what, you may ask? Time to start seriously deviating from cannon! Yaaaaaaay! Just had to lay the foundations for the parts of the plot that still need to happen. Yep, yep! I still don't own the magnificent Harry Potter series, no matter how many eyelash wishes I make otherwise. Please review and tell me whatcha think! Ciao!)

Chapter 15: And She Set Fi-iiire, to the Snape!

Of course, this proclamation created all sorts of chaos. It took several purple fireworks from the end of Dumbledore's wand (on a side note: why purple? Eh, whatev's it's Dumbledore.) to get the hall silent.

"Prefects, lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!" He rumbled.

"You lot go, we're going to help the Headmaster!" Dad said drawing his wand and rushing to join the teachers.

"We love you all, and it was lovely meeting you dear!" Mom said before racing to join dad and the others.

Percy was in his element and throwing 'I'm a prefect!'s around like they were shuriken. (Yes, I watched Naruto a lot before I knew of magic.) Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I just rolled our eyes and followed the prat. On the way up to the common room, we speculated about how a Troll got in; really, it seems unlikely it just wanted to partake in the Halloween Feast with us. At first we thought Peeves, but then we thought longer and realized that he only causes mild mayhem and this was anything but mild. So now we're stumped and eating food in the Common Room.

Eventually, we couldn't think of any more ideas so we went to bed. Man, my days just keep getting longer, don't they?

~oOo~

One day the week after the Troll Incident, our little group was hanging out in the snowy courtyard during break; warming up with some fire in a jar that Hermione made. Snape decided we looked entirely too happy, so he limped over to us and bitched out Harry for having a book outside the Library. Then he took the book and gimped away with a smirk. Butt trumpet.

"He made that rule up!" Harry kept growling. He and Snape do NOT get along.

This book was about quidditch and therefore really special to Harry. Hermione had lent it to him and it seemed to calm him down about the impending first game of the season. I must say the Slytherins, whom we would be facing, were not helping the 'nerves' situation with their constant taunts. How did everyone even find out that Harry was on the team anyway? The captain of our team had tried his damndest to keep Harry a secret. Personally, I think it's the portraits and ghosts. They seem like the type to gossip. I mean, what else do they have to do? Really.

Back to the point, when Harry was still pacing and grumbling about the book that evening Hermione suggested that Harry go ask for it back. After he left, I turned back to watching Hermione and Ron. They were playing Wizard's Chess and it was funny as hell. Not only did it amuse me that the pieces moved, but the fact that Ron was beating the pants off Hermione took the cake! I couldn't stop my snickering to save my life.

"Shut it, you." Hermione growled at me with mock-pissiness. Well, mostly mock.

Ron was grinning as he took down another one of Hermione's pieces.

Several minutes later, as Ron was plotting the demise of another of the poor chess set that was at Hermione's disposal; Harry walked in looking like he saw something that created a huge mental scar.

"Please tell me that you didn't see Filch naked!" I exclaimed in mock/sorta real horror to break that freaked out expression off of his face.

"Erlack! No! Why would you even think that?!" Harry exclaimed with the cutest expression of disgust that was mirrored on the other two's faces.

I shrugged, maintaining my 'innocent' expression, "Well, it was a possibility considering how pale you look!"

Harry blinked and shook his head, Ron snickered, and Hermione just rolled her eyes.

"So are you going to tell us what happened, or do you want more of my ideas?" I asked with a devious smirk.

Needless to say, Harry quickly launched into the story. Apparently, Filch was involved in the story. (Ha! I knew it!) He was helping Snape with the wound on his leg. Apparently, it was from a certain three-headed dog we all know and fear. I'm gonna call him Fluffy! Because it amuses me, that's why! Anyway, Harry decided that he didn't want Snape to spot him because then Snape might kill him. (Smart assumption on his part.) However, Harry being Harry, Snape looked up and saw Harry sneaking out of the staff room. He then adapted his signature glare of death and yelled, "POTTER!" So, Harry did the even smarter thing, and ran like hell all the way back here.

Well. This was food for thought. The boys jumped to the conclusion that Snape let the troll in so that he could sneak past Fluffy. Hermione didn't think he would do such a thing, being a teacher. I was conflicted. On the one hand, a troll happening to come into the school in such a way to distract the entire population of students and teachers seemed unlikely. On the other, Snape may be a butt trumpet of the highest degree…but this just doesn't seem his style. Also, another thing about that night struck me as odd; the fact that Quirrell of all people was the one to find the troll. Why wasn't he at the feast? I know that he doesn't like loud noises, they make him jump a mile, but one feast surely wouldn't kill him. I was dragged away from these thoughts as Harry spoke again about being nervous about his first quidditch match. Honestly, the boy has a one track mind.

"You'll be awesome, Harry! You were picked for a reason, y'know?" I encouraged.

"Exactly!" Ron agreed.

We three non-quidditch players kept at this until it was time for us to go to sleep. After all, we had a game to catch tomorrow.

~oOo~

Turns out that all our encouragement didn't help as much as we though, because Harry was pale as a sheet this morning and refused to touch his food. All of us firsties tried our best to get him to eat something, but to no avail. Seamus made the worst attempt by saying that Harry better eat something because seekers get beat up the worst and then dousing his sausages with blood-looking ketchup. I actually raised an eyebrow at that. Nice.

When we left Harry at the locker room after wishing him luck, we went up to sit in the stands and pulled out our surprise for Harry. We had made a sign that said 'Potter for President', Dean had drawn a lion on it, I had drawn a Nimbus 2000 on it, and Hermione had charmed it to flash different colors. When the Gryffindors flew out, we cheered as loudly as possible. After that, I honestly tried to follow what was going on but… I'm just not that sporty of a person. Sure, I cheered whenever Gryffindor scored and flipped off the Slytherins when they scored or did something douchey but honestly that's just par for the course with sporting events as far as I've learned. At some point, Hagrid joined us (smushing several students along the way). At one point Harry got really close to catching the snitch and one of the big Slytherins decided that would be too fair. So he decided to fly in front of Harry and slam into him, sending the poor dude spinning. Needless to say, we Gryffindors were less than pleased. (read: about to tear the Slytherins to shreads with our bare paws) Then, Harry's broom decided to do the funky chicken. Seeing as how he was at least 50 feet in the air, it wasn't nearly as hilarious as it sounds. My knee-jerk reaction was to yell, "OI! FRED! GEORGE! IF YOU DON'T CATCH HIM, I'M GOING TO HEX YA'LL INTO NEXT WEEK!" Their reply was, "What d'you think we're trying to do?! Barmy sister…" Ron was swearing, as was Hagrid, but Hermione was doing something rather odd; she had jacked Hagrid's binoculars and was scanning the crowd. And guess what she spied with her little eye? Snape staring somewhat creepily at Harry and muttering under his breath, obviously doing a spell of some sort. After pointing this out, she plowed several people over (including Professor Twitchy) to get to Snape. When she got back, Harry had regained control of his broom. However, he did end up falling off really close to the ground as he looked rather sick. Instead of the vomit we expected, a snitch came out of Harry's mouth. Huh, we won.

Pretty much as soon as we could fight our way through the rabid fans, Hagrid, Hermione, Ron, and I gathered up Harry and took him back to Hagrid's place. He needed his British comfort drink, a strong cup of tea. Hermione had jumped on the 'Snape is trying to kill Harry' bandwagon. When she voiced this, Hagrid let slip that Fluffy was indeed Fluffy's name and that this all had something to do with Nicolas Flamel in his attempt to defend Snape. Honestly, I don't think Snape is trying to kill Harry. It's too obvious for my liking. I have a feeling is much too sneaky to get caught doing something to kill someone. Don't get me wrong, I loathe the git…..I just have a gut feeling that it isn't him.

~oOo~

Before going to bed that night, I asked Hermione a question that had been bothering me all day, "What exactly did you do to Snape?"

She mumbled something, blushing like crazy.

"Say again?"

"I set his robes on fire, alright?"

I started laughing hysterically and couldn't stop for a while. Finally, after taking some calming breaths I informed her, "Hermione Granger, you are now officially my favorite!"

(A/N: So, to apologize for sluggish updating and the mental image of Filch, I have an offer for ya'll: Recently, I made a list of songs that I'm going to use during the rest of the entire story and instead of being tight-fisted with it, I'm gonna let ya'll pm or whatever me to ask for the name of a song for a year of your choosing. Keep in mind, I chose these songs because either the lyrics or title fit, or the thought of them in the story made me cackle. So have fun, and review! Thanks for reading!)