Author Notes: I'm back from holidays. I've posted my replies and comments on reviews on Chapters 8, 9 and 10 at www fanfiction net/topic/135718/89507238/ or tiny cc/ff-mft (Add full stops to complete either web address... Does putting the replies there work? Do people read them? Should I just stick them at the beginning or end of my chapters instead?)

Previous Chapter - 10. Quidditch: Harry spends more time practicing his detection spells. He makes up with Hermione, apologizing for abandoning her and offering to help her even though he doesn't fully agree with her cause. He introduces Hermione to the Kitchen and the Hogwarts House Elves. Malfoy tries to trick him into coming to a 'wizards duel' but Harry sees it for what it is. At the quidditch trials he gets the Gryffindor Seeker position and meets the rest of the team including Katie Bell. He introduces the Defense Self Study group to shields that work against physical attacks.

Chapter 11 - Potions

It was the second potions study group with their newest member and once again Ron was being difficult. He wasn't rude but he certainly wasn't very friendly to their newest member and it was getting on everyone's nerves.

"What is your problem, Ron? You're almost as bad as Snape!"

"What? I didn't do anything."

Harry just snorted, "You need to learn to stop with your thoughtless comments. Just cause some of the Slytherins are stupid gits doesn't give you the right to deride the whole house,especially now. In case you've forgotten, Millie is in Slytherin house."

Ron just shrugged, "Millie's not as bad as the others."

Hermione punched Ron in the shoulder hard, "Not as bad? Not as bad? Listen to yourself, Ronald Weasley. You're as thick as a brick."

Ron paused and then slowly looked at Millicent, "Eh.. yeah.. Sorry Millicent. You really aren't like the others, I just.. yeah I don't think before I speak much."

Millicent just nodded her head still bowed, "It's okay, Ron, it's nothing."

Harry shook his head, "Hardly nothing, Millie. We don't want you get upset with us."

"Never, Harry. Even if if you weren't nice this is so much better than being in my common room."

Hermione asked, "Why? What's wrong with your common room."

Millicent shook her head, "Nothing. It's okay."

Hermione had tried a number of times but hadn't managed to get Millicent to speak of what was happening in her house. She'd been seen a number of times with red eyes but every time had refused to talk about it. But Hermione was persistent and tried again, "Come on Millie, we're friends now. You can tell us and maybe we can even help."

Harry, Neville and Ron all nodded.

Ron added, "I'm really sorry. Look, I promise I'll do my best to think before I speak."

Millie looked nervously around at the four Gryffindors, "Friends?"

They all nodded and smiled at her.

"I'm not sure I should, what if they found out I spoke about it?"

Harry spoke up, "None of us will say anything you don't want us to, Millie."

After the others agreed, Millicent started telling them about all the pushing and verbal abuse she and the other half bloods were enduring now. It seemed that all the half bloods in the lower years were being targeted. Only those in fifth and above were mostly immune to all but a few sneers and muttered insults.

Millicent didn't say it, but the others got the impression that she bore the worse of it since she had no support in her year group. With Tom prompting him, Harry led the conversation towards the worst offenders and eventually into discussions about the different factions.

Harry was most interested when Millie started to talk about Malfoy.

"Draco wasn't very popular for a few days because he lost a lot of points playing some sort of stupid trick on Filch over the weekend. However, one of the third years needed to suck up for some family reason and once one person stopped treating Draco like a leper everyone else caved. Was almost nice for a few days, Daphne and Tracey would even be nice to me when Draco wasn't around but now it's back to just being the same as it was and Draco is always in the common room again.

Millie went quiet and the girls comforted her before the study group turned back to their potions homework.

As the others started comparing their sources, Tom admitted to being very pleased that Millicent was so observant and that they had been able to learn a lot about what was happening inside his old house.

'That was all very useful Harry. Well done.'

"It was mostly Hermione."

'Well I can't exactly go thanking her can I, now?'

"Haha very funny, Tom."

'So it sounds like Snape and Malfoy are at the root of all her troubles. I can understand Malfoy looking for a new target since he's having little luck baiting you directly, though I'm not sure why Snape is encouraging this behaviour unless he's trying to curry favour with Malfoy senior.'

"Why would he do that?"

'Apart from the money and connections Malfoy cultivates, he probably is also a good source of the more difficult to obtain ingredients for his potion research.'

"Wish we could do something to get back at Snape." Harry's hated being unable to fight back.

'Well Harry. I think we should.'

"What? I thought you wanted to keep a low profile and work out how to influence him slowly?"

Harry could imagine Tom nodding, 'I did but I no longer think that's the best way to proceed. We still need to keep a low profile but I think it's time to neuter Snape.'

"Neuter?"

Tom paused a moment before answering, 'Damage his reputation so he loses influence with the Malfoys. If we can weaken Malfoy junior's influence at the same time it'd be a nice bonus.'

"How do we do that?"

'Most of the board members have relatives attending Hogwarts, including Malfoy senior. If news of Snape's poor teaching techniques was made public it would cause him problems. We'll need to gather or plant evidence.'

"More sneaking about at night?"

'Yep.'

Harry grinned "Sweet!"

-my-friend-tom-

Harry had planned to have a nap before his ward breaking expedition, but he was having a lot of trouble sleeping. He was still riding on a high from a highly enjoyable charms study session. He decided he really liked Susan, she brought a lot fun to the group. They had come up with a game where they used charmed marbles to try and knock their opponents marbles off the table. Susan and Harry had quickly proved that they were the most adept at the game and after eliminating the rest of the group had spent five more minutes laughing and trash talking whilst their marbles fought. They finally declared it a draw as their last marbles fractured into tiny pieces, both still on the table.

Harry was still staring at the roof when Tom spoke, 'Time to go, Harry.'

Harry cast his stealth spells and, after checking that the curtains on the other beds were all closed, left the Gryffindor tower careful to neutralize the wards and watching paintings on his way out.

'Homenum Revelio.'

Harry cast the spell on the hospital wing and was pleased to confirm that there had been no new patient admitted during the afternoon and that Madam Pomfrey was away. He only hoped his luck would hold and that there would be no late night emergency. He had a backup plan, but wasn't fully confident that he could pull it off undetected.

It was only a matter of minutes before he had bypassed the alarm wards. They were set to alert the nurse if someone needed attention and were quite simple. The wards on Madam Pomfrey's office were a little more difficult but he managed without verbalising the required spells, keeping Tom happy.

He was shocked by the sheer amount of records on potion related injuries over the past twenty years.

'Looks like you have a fair amount of reading ahead of you.'

As Harry started duplicating the journals he asked, "Isn't there some magical way of collating all the info?"

Tom considered his question for a long time before answering, 'Not that I know of, but there is no reason why it couldn't be done. I would suggest creating some sort of intelligence to read and process the information. An item similar to the highly intelligent headmaster portraits or the sorting hat with the capability of reading and writing could do it, though such would be difficult to create.'

"How difficult?"

'I imagine with my help the work of three to six months full time research. Though I believe I could provide a better estimate after the first month.'

"Oh.. no quicker method?"

By the time Tom replied Harry had completed copying the potions journals and had started copying a few textbooks on healing spells that he hadn't seen in the library. Two of them had wards versus copying so he had had to bypass those first.

'Another possible method would be to create an occlumency avatar to do the work and create a spell to inscribe it's internal writings on to parchment.'

"How long would that take?"

'The spell would be easy enough, I already know a spell to write thoughts out on parchment. It would just be a matter of adjusting it slightly. I believe that with proper effort you could have such an avatar created within three to four weeks.'

"Hang on a moment. You know a spell that I could use to write my essays by just thinking about what I want to write? Why haven't you taught me that yet?" Harry was a little shocked that such a spell could exist.

'Well, you needed to improve your handwriting.'

Harry thought he detected the faintest hint of hesitancy in Tom's words. "And?"

'Okay. I didn't think of it. I'll teach you as it would free up a lot of your study time to train. Your handwriting is already good enough, anyhow.'

"What other spells would be useful that you haven't told me?"

'If I knew that, I would have already taught you Harry. Finish up and let's scout out the wards on Snape's office.'

Harry shrunk all the copies, dumped them in his bag and reset all the wards before leaving.

As expected, the wards on Snape's office were much more extensive than those on the hospital. Harry took careful note of what they were so they could recreate them and practice without risk. They already knew that Snape's office was going to be much more challenging and were happy with their progress. Due to Snape's quarters adjoining them, their plan was to raid it during a senior year double session. There was going to be a lot of risk and hence a lot more planning before they made the attempt.

The next night, Harry started working on creating a new Avatar in his mind to handle the sorting through of twenty years worth of potion related accidents. He first had made an effort to read through the records himself but had quickly realised that using the Avatar would not only be a whole lot more accurate, but also faster and so much less boring.

-my-friend-tom-

Harry was one of the first to notice the six owls carrying the long thin package into the Great Hall during breakfast. When it was deposited in front of him with a letter he opened and read it.

'Interesting.'

"I'm not sure I understand. It's very cool but first years aren't allowed brooms. Why is it being delivered to me?"

Neville asked politely, "Should I ask?"

Harry just shrugged and handed him the letter.

'This is bound to cause problems and she must know it.'

Harry quickly took a big mouthful of his omelette and got up. He shook his head to the questions he was being asked as he headed back towards his dorm.

Sadly Malfoy hadn't bothered to finish his own breakfast either and intercepted by the doors. "If that's a broomstick you'll be in trouble." He smiled evilly and moved to block Harry again.

Harry frowned, "Grow up, Malfoy."

A familiar voice came from behind Harry. "A Nimbus Two Thousand. Wow Harry that's like a professional broom. You're so lucky." Neville had obviously passed the note on to Ron. Harry regretted not getting it back. Ron was fine in small doses, especially when he wasn't speaking.

Malfoy smirked, "So it is a broomstick. Wait till I tell..."

Harry sighed, Malfoy was nothing if not predictable. "Your daddy? Yeah make sure you have a little cry whilst you are at it."

"Why you dirty.." Malfoy started reaching for his wand.

Harry was wondering if he would ever learn when Professor Flitwick appeared between them.

"Not planning on casting another hex there, are you Mr Malfoy?"

Malfoy's hand moved quickly away from his wand, "No sir. Was just about to let you know that Potter's got himself a broomstick."

Professor Flitwick turned and smiled at Harry, "So I heard. What model is it, Mr Potter?"

Harry smiled back, "Nimbus Two Thousand Sir."

"Nicely done. I'm looking forward to seeing your flying. Minerva has so been raving about how good you are. Be warned though Ravenclaw has a very good team this year. Run along now and make sure you take good care of it."

Laughing at Malfoy's shocked expression Harry, Neville and Ron headed back to the dorm to examine the broom. They could still hear Malfoy complaining to Flitwick about the unfairness of it as they made the second staircase.

"You mean problems like that, Tom?"

'Jealousy, yes. He's going to be doing his best to make it known you are getting special treatment. Sadly he won't be wrong.'

"And you think Professor McGonagall did it on purpose?"

'Maybe, then again she is a quidditch fanatic so maybe it's purely for that reason. I'd love to know how she got around the rule. Maybe you could ask her after your next transfiguration class.'

By lunchtime it was obvious that most of the school had heard of Harry getting special permission to have a broom. Surprisingly there wasn't a whole lot of fallout. Even Ron hadn't made a big deal about it once Harry had promised to let him have a ride on it that afternoon.

Harry got his chance to ask Professor McGonagall about the broom and she let him know that she had approached the Headmaster about getting a few of the school brooms upgraded so Harry could borrow a half decent school broom, but the Headmaster had been more than accommodating and had suggested and then given permission to use the Gryffindor's club funds to buy Harry the broom.

'I could understand McGonagall pushing to help her team win but Dumbledore suggesting it? That makes no sense.'

"Do you think he's trying to cause problems for me?"

'I don't know, Harry. He was Gryffindor but I doubt his house loyalty would stretch that far. Maybe he's using it as an excuse to provide you a broom that could get you out of danger quickly. I'll teach you how to add permanent shrinking charms to it. It's not an easy task, especially with a high end broom, but I can direct you without having to explain all the theory.'

"When will I learn the theory?"

'The basics during fourth or fifth year runes though no one here's going to teach you how to add enchantments to a high end broom. Breaks all sorts of laws.'

"Oh."

-my-friend-tom-

Tom had set Harry a new project that Harry was very excited about. Getting revenge against Malfoy during potions, though, that wasn't exactly how Tom had presented it to him. Tom had explained the whole purpose behind the project it but all Harry could focus on was that he was going to feed Malfoy some some of his own medicine. He hoped it tasted foul.

The hardest part of the project had been coming up with methods that would make it extremely hard to point the blame at Harry or in fact at any of the Gryffindors. Key to it would be only using wandless magic. So Harry had had to work very hard practising and improving those skills. He was glad it was for a good cause. Tom still declared that his wandless magic still wasn't strong enough to affect a mature wizard, though admitted some of his spells were now strong enough that they would be of use against squibs and young wizards. However, for this project, they had decided to focus on indirect magic such as levitation, heating, cooling and stasis charms as such spells wouldn't need to work against Malfoy's innate magical resistance and would be more difficult to detect. Switching spells would have been very useful but the potions classroom was warded against them.

Next hardest had been learning how to carry out the sabotage without looking Malfoy's way. They spent hours evaluating, testing and ruling out various scrying spells before finally settling on using a small silver mirror with a powerful notice-me-not applied to it. It was a small risk, even though Harry hadn't found any wards against enchanted objects inside the Potions room.

Harry started off small. Knocking small amounts of already measured ingredients off the table and making minor modifications to the temperature of Malfoy's brews. He also tweaked Nott and Crabbe's potions as well, though not to the same extent. There were no explosions or melting disasters but the resulting brews generally varied from poor to ruined and Harry was pleased to see Snape lose it more than once at Malfoy, Pansy, Nott and Crabbe. He would have liked to hit Goyle as well but that would have meant targeting Zabini and he had nothing against the boy. He was happy that Tom had suggested also leaving Daphne and Tracy alone as well. He told himself it was just because they hadn't actually done anything overtly against the Gryffindors.

It was midway during the second week of the Malfoy Potion Project that Harry managed his first epic success. Malfoy, like the rest of the Slytherins, always prepared their ingredients and lined them up in the order they would need them. So after he had purposely knocked a jar over gaining everyone's attention and a sneered remark from Snape, it was a simple matter to look down in shame and using the mirror and a levitation charm to switch two of Malfoy's prepared ingredients that looked vaguely alike.

"Clumsy as your father, Potter. Be glad it didn't break or I'd have you cleaning cauldrons for detention."

"Sorry, Sir." Watching the ingredients changed place right under his Malfoys sneering face it was a struggle not to smile.

Snape sneered, "Sorry? I doubt it. Get back to work and be more careful."

Hermine and Millie sent him small sympathetic smiles before turning back to their potion. Ron was still glaring at Snape. Neville was making small encouraging noises as he rechecked the weights of the ingredients still to be mixed. Harry was rather pleased to have such friends. Even Ron was a good guy to have at your side when you had an obvious enemy. Sadly, without an obvious enemy present, Ron's ire tended to randomly land on anyone around.

Harry had just adjusted the heat when a loud sizzling and popping noise from behind him heralded the beginning of the show. It sounded right nasty but his and Tom's careful checking seemed to suggest that the new mixture would be highly caustic but not explosive.

"Malfoy. What is happening to your potion?" Snape strode towards table as Malfoy and Pansy both kicked backwards sending themselves and their chairs flying.

Snape was quick to cast a shielding spell around the cauldron and everyone ducked in preparation for the explosion that didn't come.

"Curses. What did you do Malfoy, Parkinson?"

Everyone stood up as and stared as the cauldron seemed to melt inwards and flop over the flame putting it out. Within moments it was just a bubbling mixture of green and red goop that was sinking into the table.

It took Snape two minutes to find a stasis spell that managed to halt the sinking mixture which had by that time started slowly eating into the stone floor.

"Someone must have put something in my cauldron Sir." Malfoy spoke up boldly turning a nasty smirk at the Gryffindors. "Weasley was quite close to it."

Snape however was examining the remaining ingredients lined up neatly on Malfoy's table.

"You fool. You mixed up the ground oak and the ground griffon feather and put the oak in first."

Malfoy shrunk back against the back wall almost tripping over his chair. "No, I can't have. Weasley must have swapped them."

Snape looked back down at the table, "Hardly likely, Draco. Even if he had the intelligence enough to know the difference there would be particles mixed in. The griffon feather sample is pure and there is no dust trail beside it. You idiot. I'm getting tired of your poor excuses for substandard work and now this. Detention for a week. Now get out of my sight."

A white faced Malfoy grabbed his books then fled the room.

Snape shouted, "Back to work and I better not hear a single word from any of you."

'Well done Harry. Another two weeks and we will be ready for the big finale.'