Previous Chapter - Harry breaks into Snape's office and discovers his mother's journals amongst many other's Tom believes were stolen from Death Eater victims. He copies them and leaves temporary copies in their place. Harry plays in the first quidditch game against Slytherin. During the match Quirrell casts a Jinx on his broom whilst Snape tries to counter it. Hermione interrupts them both and Harry catches the snitch winning the game. Hermione continues her quest for more information on house-elves.

Chapter 14 - End of First Term

It hadn't been an easy task, but Harry was confident he would place between fifth and seventh in for the end of term tests for his year. The tests themselves weren't especially comprehensive, useful or even important as far as final marks went. Harry treated them as a practice run for later more important tests and exams. Still, Harry didn't take the task lightly, he had a plan and he was going to stick with it. By second term in his third year he was going to be the top student and not a moment earlier.

He had decided to be top in Defence, fourth or fifth in both Transfiguration and Charms, go poorly in History and Potions and moderately well in the rest. The decision to be top in Defence had been made for a few reasons. It'd support his progress with the Defence club and, also, he had yet to risk breaking into Quirrell's office, so he couldn't easily check on the quality of the other students' work. Quirrell's office adjoined his quarters and was the closest to his classroom of all the professors. Also that the door had the most simplistic of wards on it just seemed way too suspicious.

Flitwick's office had been the most challenging to scout. The wards had not been especially powerful but they had been supplemented with many varied and creative charms. Every piece of furniture and even a number of floor tiles had dormant animation charms just waiting their chance to set upon an intruder. There was nothing dangerous, but any noise would have triggered off a near untouchable sound ward that Flitwick had inscribed along the back wall. That each animation charm had a separate trigger made it the work of many nights before Harry had gotten close enough to add a bypass and then to add himself to the exception list and then hide his presence from anyone who viewed the list. It was a dangerous play, as it did leave evidence of his presence, and he had done his best to trap the wards to collapse if it looked like anyone was going to break the concealment charm and discover his identity.

The end result of all the ward breaking was that he now had access to the test results of all the students in the school for all the core subjects except Defence Against the Dark Arts. Now he could make sure his tests results were just what he wanted them to be. He was rather surprised to discover that the results for his year's practicals were significantly better than the previous five years.

"Tom, why are all our year's results better? Even those not in our study groups are still showing better practical results than the previous five years."

'It was a powerful year that you were born in, Harry. The second most powerful this century.'

Harry's confusion was obvious, "A powerful year? What's that mean?"

'It's a rather complicated topic that combines astronomy, arithmancy and ritual magic. The power of dates, numbers and the cycles of magic. Your birth year doesn't just determine your age, but also influences your connection to magic. For example people born in one month will all have a slightly different connection to transfiguration magic than those born in another month. The differences are typically very minor and almost impossible to define or measure. I know your year was a powerful year because when Voldemort heard of the prophecy he put a great deal of effort into determining all the relevant factors that might come into play. Hence the reason you were chosen as the most likely child mentioned and why he attacked on that particular night and time.'

"So everyone born in 1980 is going to be a powerful witch or wizard?" Harry wasn't sure if he thought that was a good thing or not.

'Not exactly. It also depends on many other factors, health and power of their parents, their parents' birthdays, time and location of birth, siblings, to name just a few. However, overall, there will be predominantly more powerful wizards on average that year.'

"Is that why you said I should encourage the second year Gryffindors to create their own study group rather than let them join ours?"

'One of the reasons, but the main reason was just that I didn't want the group to get unwieldy. You have strong control of the leadership of the current group. A group with a lot of older students would likely see more contention over the leadership and direction.'

"But Katie wouldn't fight over leadership."

'Maybe not, but McLaggen would, and if you start cherry picking within a year you would lose respect.'

Harry nodded. He could have liked to have Katie study with them but had listened to Tom's advice when she brought the idea up.

Tom obviously followed his line of thought as he continued, 'How about next time you speak with her you offer her and whoever leads their group to come and watch how you run a session. That is if they do manage to get their group off the ground. That way you can control exactly what you teach that session.'

Harry didn't think that the seconds years were likely to get that far.

-my-friend-tom-

After the tests were completed Harry resisted the impulse to break into all the offices again to check his results early, he would get them after the break with everyone else and mere curiosity was not a worthwhile reason to risk getting caught, slim though the chance was.

Potions was the last test and Harry didn't bother faking his skill, he just didn't try hard. He already knew that Snape would mark him down no matter what. He didn't care, not even Snape's leering and hovering could change the fact that it was the last afternoon of classes for the term. He had already arranged a light picnic with all the first year Gryffindors, followed by broom relay races around the lake. Katie and the Weasley Twins were on his team and he thought their biggest threat would be a team made up of Hufflepuff fourth year girls that he had seen practicing the previous weekend.

"Potter!" Snape's sudden words right behind him had no effect. Harry already knew that Snape had moved there and he continued to carefully and slowly add the dust fly wings.

"Yes sir?"

Snape, slightly flustered by the lack of reaction floundered for a moment before asking, "What colour do you call that? Have you forgotten the basics of the potion already? It's supposed to be yellow."

Harry glanced at his acceptable if not perfectly yellow potion before looking past Snape at Malfoy's cauldron. He frowned as he concentrated, "Sorry, sir. Is it meant to be a glowing yellow like Malfoy's?"

"What?" bellowed Snape as he spun. Harry had already wandlessly stirred up the bottom of Malfoy's potion causing the potion to go critical. Harry hadn't actually planned to sabotage Malfoy's potion in this class, but he couldn't resist using the distraction Snape had provided him. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that Snape had tried to cause this same reaction in Harry's potion by startling him he probably wouldn't have even thought of it. Pity he couldn't thank Snape for the idea.

The potion started to spit just as Snape vanished Malfoy's potion. He glared at Malfoy but only snapped, "Start again." before he strode back to the front desk.

Harry sighed, at least Malfoy would have to finish late. If that had happened to Harry's potion he probably would have got an automatic fail. As he left the classroom with the other students he had to fight the urge to smirk at Malfoy. His new strategy of just ignoring the boy actually seemed to upset him even more than putting holes in all the pureblood's poorly worded insults and jeers.

Hermione quickly caught up with him, "Do you think it's a bit strange that Malfoy's doing so poorly at potions now? I mean, he used to be quite good and we already know that he had lessons before Hogwarts and gets extra lessons."

Ron laughed, "Who cares, Hermione? It just shows us that that stuck up ponce was never as good as he pretended. He was probably cheating at the beginning of the term."

"I'm not sure about that, Ron. I've been watching him and he seems to be doing everything right. His potions just don't work out. I've looked but I haven't seen anyone throw anything into his cauldron, but I wonder…"

Ron was quick to respond, "If anyone was I would say good on them. Hell, if it wasn't for Harry's little potion protection charm he would be still throwing stuff into ours."

Hermione nodded and gave a little grimace, "I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, though revenge doesn't really teach anyone anything. But I haven't seen that and I've been watching using a little mirror and I'm certain that's not what is happening."

Harry started, and quickly moved to shift his backpack to cover up his surprise. Hermione had been using a mirror to watch Draco just like he was and he hadn't noticed. "When did you do that? I didn't see you with a mirror."

Hermione gave Harry a little smile, "I used a little notice-me-not on it so no one would notice. It's a spell I had to look up. I can teach it to you if you would like?"

'Well, my impression of Hermione has just gone up. Not only has she been using the same method to watch Malfoy as us, she has cast it well enough that we didn't notice it.' Tom was amused.

"Us, Tom? That's kind of you but I think you meant to say that I didn't notice it."

'Well, I have to take some responsibility for not advising you to check for such magic near you.'

Harry returned Hermione's smile, "That sounds pretty interesting. How about in the common room before we go out for lunch?"

Hermione's smile faltered a little as she recalled that Harry had once again organised an outdoor lunch using the house-elves but nodded, "Sure. Do you want to learn as well Ron, Neville?"

Ron and Neville both shook their heads. Ron replying first "Naah. Term is over, learning is the last thing I want to think about now."

Neville, "Maybe later. I've got to write a letter to Gran. Let her know how I thought I went so she can compare it to my actual results."

Harry resisted the urge to comment on that.

-my-friend-tom-

Harry took the baton from Fred and kicked off from the little wooden platform. Roger Davies had fumbled their Baton pass from Cho Chang and he had almost tumbled from his broom when it refused to take off.

Harry recalled how impressed Professor Flitwick had been by that tricky charm and very grateful that Harry had provided the rules and required charms for the game on a long roll of parchment. Harry wished he hadn't needed to lie to the little professor about the source of the rules, and hoped that it wouldn't come back to haunt him. So far nobody had asked any more questions about the so called broom racing fanatic that had sent him a copy of the rules and required charms. In actual fact Tom had remembered the rules from a trip in Southern Europe, then Harry had used a modified memory to words charm to have a quill to write it all out. Tom had been pleasantly surprised that it worked and Harry had been over the moon to actually have in his hands something from Tom. To him it was the first physical evidence of Tom's existence. Logically it shouldn't have meant that much but emotionally it struck a deep chord.

Tom had rambled for a bit after that so he also must have been affected more than he had admitted, 'Well cast, Harry. That looks just like I pictured it. Not sure the rules are according regulation but they will do for what you need. With a bit of practice some of the books I have worked on could now be printed. I have a number that would be useful to you and a few that, well, I just would like to see published.'

"You wrote books? When?"

'Whilst you were growing up, I needed something to do. When I was younger and less cynical I truly thought I could fix the wizarding world. I was going to start by fixing the education system so I had planned a number of books regarding that and a number on fixing the political system. I just used my spare time to complete and polish them up. I've also put together a number containing the spells I learnt and developed. I never expected any of them to be anything more than mental exercises to organise and help remember things but now… Well, first I will have to reread them as it's no longer just a mental exercise. They could be used to help you. Some, however, are just too dark to ever publish.'

"But how do you write a book when you are… what is it like where you are, Tom, if you don't mind me asking?" Harry had asked hesitantly.

'It's okay, Harry. We have never really talked about it, but it's not a problem. Mostly I feel like I'm just floating with my eyes closed. If you share your vision it's like my eyes open and I am seeing though a large window. What you hear sounds to me like it's in a unseen room next door. Other sensations like smell and taste come to me like a memory of past events. When I want to write I retreat to my personal mindscape. Beside all my Occlumency defences, I have a room with books and notes. My presence within is like that of a ghost, only partially there, but I can handle a quill, read and write. It's not like it was when I was alive but it's a passable imitation.'

Harry had wished to visit it, but Tom had thought it would be a bad idea to try and link their minds any closer than they were already without knowing what the consequences of trying to enter each other's mindscapes might be.

Harry's thoughts returned to the game.

As Harry pushed his broom hard to catch Roger Davies as the fourth year shot through the third set of hoops, he reminded himself he needed to do something special for Tom for suggesting setting this competition up. Even though Tom declared it a reward for doing well with his wandless charm work, Harry thought it was too wonderful to leave it as just that.

Harry started rolling as he headed into the fourth set. The fifth ring was much lower and it was easier to lift the broom rather than push it away, so he was going to try an inverted dive to save speed. It was a tricky move and he hadn't tried it in any of the races, but this was the last lap and Davies was still half a section in front of him. Davies was already pulling his broom up to line up with the first ring of the fifth set when Harry shot below him inverted, his feet just missing Davies. That was the easy bit. It was pulling out of the fast dive that was the challenge.

Harry barely heard Davies gasp as Harry wrenched his broom hard right as he started rolling. It was a trick that he had been playing with. The combination turn and roll meant he went into a slide and the broom responded by shaking crazily. Harry grunted as he gave one mighty push with his hands and magic and brought the broom around to roughly the right direction. His broom had managed to keep most of his speed and had caught up. Davies was right above him and only half a broom length in front as they entered the first ring. However Davies had the best line, whilst Harry was still trying to steady his broom when they entered the second ring. Harry felt the cushioning charm around the ring pulling on his feet, slowing him down. He had no room to maneuver and Davies had position over him so Harry moved his weight forward and tucked his feet up behind him. He could already imagine the scolding he was going to get from Hermione after this, she knew how unstable this position was, having researched it after he had first demonstrated it. Her raised voice had let him and all their friends know what she thought of his experiments with advanced broom riding techniques.

Still it was enough, he avoided the cushioning charms on the third ring. Davies glanced behind and, noticing Harry's position, allowed his broom to drift down to block him. Harry couldn't resist a grin, it was the obvious move and the wrong one. Harry rolled and urged his broom around. In a dizzying twist he rolled over and flicked his broom head up and around. It worked perfectly. His broom twisted through the tail end of Davies' broom charms and they helped Harry shoot forward. Davies gasped in surprise as Harry surged past above him and upside down.

Half a broom length ahead was all the edge Harry needed and the next two sets of rings went past without any danger of losing his place. There was an explosion of green sparks as Harry was first through the finish ring and once again Harry was on cloud nine as the crowd cheered and applauded. As he brought his broom over to the stands he even saw Hermione clapping and cheering though she spared him a little amused shake of the head when she caught his eye.

Soon he was caught up in a four way hug as the Weasley twins and Katie grabbed each other and started to dance around in a circle shouting something that Harry was too giddy to even hear.

Harry couldn't have imagined a better way to finish the term.

..

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Author Notes: Welcome to all my new followers. Number of comments(reviews) dropped for last two chapters, chance/reason? Feed me, Seymour! Advice for improving my writing always appreciated even if I may not be capable of fixing everything.

This was a rather random chapter, I don't really plan out much about what will happen in a chapter but this one didn't go where I was planning at all. I didn't have any idea what I was writing until it appeared. Hope it was still an enjoyable read. Kinda wish I hadn't bothered giving the chapters titles, hard to think of appropriate titles.

Thanks as always to Aletheya for proofreading. Replies to reviews posted at www fanfiction net/topic/135718/89507238/1/