"So, how was your holiday?"
Harry barely heard Neville. He could feel Ginny's fury, and almost smiled in spite of himself. She could solve any of her problems with a healthy dose of anger. Harry personally just felt frustrated. The Slytherins were getting smarter, it was true. They didn't come to bother the Gryffindors on the train this time. They sent slightly less obvious barbs, and only when there was no chance of retaliation. For instance, on the way into the Great Hall, Malfoy had loudly warned Daphne Greengrass about playing host to parasites. Ginny later told Harry that Daphne lived in Kent, near another family of Weasleys including Dad's brother.
Then again, Carina Rayne had given Ginny a delightful gesture on the boat journey across the lake which involved pumping her hand over her open mouth. Fay had laughed and said that Carina was reminding them how her family got wealthy. At least the incest comments were dying down.
"Harry? You okay?" Neville asked softly.
"I... it's not me I'm worrying about, Nev," Harry replied.
"Oh. Well, I wouldn't worry about it. She's Ginny."
"She's human, and their bullshit is getting on all our nerves," Harry replied.
Neville seemed to take note of the curse, because he didn't say anything for a while. "It's more than that, Harry. It's the media attention and the Mirror and the Stone," Neville said softly. "The troll and the cerberus and wondering what new hell we're going to face tomorrow. We aren't having a normal year at Hogwarts, Harry. Face it, if it was just the Slytherins it would just be standard Gryffindor-Slytherin stuff."
Harry sighed. "You're right, Neville. Doesn't make it easier, though."
"Hey," Neville smiled uncertainly, "that's what makes it fun, right?"
The others stumbled in, not having left early like he and Neville. Ron fell through the curtains of his four-poster, and was snoring at once.
"Bloody lightweight!" Seamus called.
"Bed?" Dean asked casually.
"Yeah," Seamus replied. Dean shook his head, sniggering.
Harry grinned at Neville, his spirits finally picking up. "Don't worry, some day you'll look back and be glad you nearly died."
"That's the insanity I'm used to," Neville said, pulling his curtains shut.
Harry waited until he was sure that everyone was asleep before crawling out of bed. Unsure of what exactly Ginny had planned, he borrowed Dean's winter coat, having left his own at home. He didn't know if the castle could detect Gryffindor robes, but on the off chance they were headed to another house's quarters... Quiet as a whisper, he fixed his curtains and slipped out onto the cold, spiral staircase. He could feel Ginny downstairs waiting for him.
The cloak was thrown over him as soon as he was off the bottom step. "Hey," Ginny murmured, leaning up to give him a quick kiss.
"You going to tell me why you ran off with the cloak?" Harry asked.
"Why?" Ginny giggled. "Don't you trust me?"
"Less every day," Harry grinned. "Let's get out of here."
Ginny led them through the mirror she'd discovered in her first week, which hid a secret passage to the infirmary. The passage allowed them to avoid all the patrols on the seventh floor. When they came out of that passage, Ginny walked across the hallway to a plain bit of wall that she stroked gently while humming a certain note. The very stone seemed to shiver, and she walked them right through it.
Harry stopped them in the dark passage. "How did you find all these passages, Ginny?" It was not the first time the question had occurred to him, but it was the first time he'd voiced it. She seemed to violate the laws of time. She was friendly with at least half the year, read as much as a Ravenclaw (Hermione would always have a league to herself) and still spent most of their free time hanging out with him, Ron, Neville and Hermione.
She smirked at him. Somehow he could still make out Ginny's facial expression in the darkness. Feeling an overwhelming urge to kiss her, Harry made good on it, pushing Ginny slowly back against the rough-hewn stone wall. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled him closer, and he threw Dean's coat to the side in his enthusiasm to get it out of the way. A faint smell of flowers tickled at his nose, and Harry could no longer think past what he was feeling. His body was reacting in ways that were not his own. It was satisfying though, feeling her pinned between him and the wall - a rock and a hard place. It felt empowering to hear her whimper when his lips moved from hers to kiss at her ear, her neck...
'What came over me?' He stopped, resting his head against the wall but still holding her tightly. Her breath in his ear was still keeping him from thinking straight, but he'd recovered some semblance of control. 'When am I ever this...?'
Then it didn't matter, because Ginny was feathering kisses on his neck and he forgot why he wanted to slow down. When she pulled on his ear with her teeth, he gave up and returned to her lips. Her skin burned beneath his touch as he trailed a hand down her neck to the small of her back, leaving her shivering. She melted closer to him, her foot gliding up the back of his leg and pulling him in. Her lips caught on his, rough after minutes, hours, some length of time locked together, as she slid down to take his bottom lip between hers, pulling gently and biting with the same maddening, enticing slowness.
He managed to pull away again, to look at her. She was breathing as hard as he was, her eyes almost closed but gazing at him with some kind of desperation. She was flushed totally in that way only she could manage. He was starting to feel desperate himself, although for what he wasn't sure. All Harry knew was that he wanted more.
When they stumbled out of a door-pretending-to-be-a-wall-pretending-to-be-a-door, they were so distracted they nearly ran into Percy's seventh year counterparts.
"Hey," Ginny whispered. "Why did you drag us away so soon?"
"Soon?" Harry snickered. "We would've been in there all night!"
"Exactly," she replied, smirking.
Harry shook his head, laughing softly. "You're insatiable."
"Oh, has Hermione been teaching you long words?" Ginny asked innocently.
He forced her hands behind her back and pushed her against the wall. When she finally opened her eyes, realising she'd failed to goad him, she turned to pouting at him with the lips he'd defiled. "You didn't answer my question," Harry grinned.
"What?" she asked.
"The secret passageways," said Harry. "How did you find them?"
"The portraits," Ginny said. "I just ask them about it. They usually help, but sometimes they ask me riddles and stuff first."
Harry leaned down, watching the smile on her face. Her eyes closed and she seemed to relax utterly, and he kissed her right on the tip of her nose. He took a moment to enjoy the way her face flushed and scrunched up. "So, where are we going?"
"Slytherin common room," Ginny grumbled.
Harry stared at her.
"What?" she asked hotly.
"Ginny, you're amazing," said Harry, "I wouldn't doubt you normally, but that's insane."
"Because Fred and George haven't done it yet?" Ginny asked. "Because no Gryffindor has in recent memory?"
"Well, when you put it that way it sounds very tempting," Harry admitted.
"Come on, then," she smiled. "Let's go make trouble."
As it was, they were on the fourth floor. There was a portrait of a very powerfully built man in shining steel armour about fifty metres further down which brought them to a sort of secret passage crossroads.
"I swear I made marks here to show which passage goes where," Ginny protested.
"Lumos," Harry incanted. His wand lighting charm was one of the stronger ones in the year, and the only one to produce blue light; everyone else's was yellow. He raised his wand, spreading a wide cone of light through the tunnels and staircases to look for clues.
Not to be outdone, Ginny summoned bright white light from both hands. Harry couldn't even see her hands anymore — the light was far too intense. The entire area around them was bathed in it such that it seemed like the midday sun was shining indoors. Undaunted by the power of the light, Harry knelt to look closer at her hands. Once he got close enough, he could see through the glare, and found that her hands were shimmering in what seemed to be a cold, blue-white fire.
"That's Hermione's Bluebell Flames Charm!" Harry exclaimed. Hermione had discovered this charm in the early winter in an attempt to keep them warm. Of course, Ginny had her own solutions, but she wasn't always around. The bluebell flames didn't burn like normal fire. They were deep purple, and were only as hot as the caster wanted them to be. It was quite difficult to set something else on fire with them, though. Incendio was the spell of choice for that.
"Mm-hmm," Ginny agreed. "You like it?"
"Do I like it?" Harry gaped. "Can you focus the light?"
Ginny grimaced, throwing her hands forward and closing them slightly. The light was now only directed in front of her, but it was hardly a narrow beam. "It's not like the lumos light," she said. "It's just a fire."
"How about your whole body?" Harry grinned.
"But Harry, what if my clothes burn?" Ginny laughed.
"I'll put you out," Harry assured her.
She planted her feet at shoulder width apart, and put her arms slightly out to her sides. The fire grew. It was slow at first, crawling tenuously up her wrists, but once they were that far it was only seconds until her arms were ablaze.
"That is awesome," Harry praised.
Ginny grinned at him, doing a little dance so that her arms trailed fire in ribbons through the air. Then she assumed the same position as before, this time bending her knees slightly and closing her eyes. The seconds drifted by and became minutes, but Harry barely noticed. The fires had a strange, entrancing quality to them. Far slower than before, the flames began to extend over her shoulders, growling quietly. They were getting bigger too. Harry had barely noticed it when they were only covering her arms, but the flames were moving in rolling waves over her, so tall that the ones on her shoulders reached her eyes when they flicked just the right way.
A flame flicked suddenly in front of her eye, and something strange happened. Her eye glowed back. It wasn't just a reflection — it actually glowed, and not in the blue colour of the flames, either. It was the orange-red that Harry associated with her, bright and angry. She must have felt it too, because a smirk was tugging at her lips.
The blue flames were licking at her neck now, and stretched down under her armpits to near her waist. But the glow in her eyes resolved itself into flames of their own, and in a bright flash, the blue fire turned orange-red, taking over her whole body. Ginny gasped, but didn't show any sign of discomfort. Her clothes still weren't burning either, so Harry didn't do anything but watch as the inferno walked towards him.
She reached out and touched his cheek, and he felt her warm, soft skin on his without flinching. "I always knew I was going out with the hottest girl at school," Harry joked.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she said. "This is pretty damn tiring."
"Wait," Harry urged.
He ran his hand through her flaming hair. Somehow, it seemed to take on a life of its own in the flames, and his fingers tingled to touch it. The movements of the flames sometimes carried her hair with them, or repulsed it, causing all of it to ripple chaotically.
He kissed her gently, slowly. It felt different, but he couldn't really describe it. Everything was a little more intense. He could place her smell. The flowers were from a field behind the Burrow, past the pond. The fire blazed brighter, and he could feel her heart thudding gently, quickly, as she pressed close to him. He pulled away slowly, knowing they'd never get anything done if they kept doing this, but wondering if that was really such a bad thing. The fires dimmed when he let go of her, and quickly died away to nothing. He reached out and grabbed her again before she could fall.
"Mm, tired," she moaned softly.
"Sorry," Harry said guiltily. "Hey, I know what'll perk you up."
"What?"
"Let's go find a use for these," Harry grinned, pulling a handful of stink pellets out of his pocket.
Ginny blinked. A slow, shifty smile spread across her face. "Where'd you get those?"
"I borrowed them from Fred and George," said Harry.
"Right," Ginny laughed. "Borrowed."
"They'll appreciate it, I'm sure," Harry defended. "Besides, I put a few Knuts in one of their pockets to pay for them."
"Come on," Ginny said.
"You still haven't explained how we're going to get into their common room," Harry pointed out.
Ginny gave him a look that told him quite clearly that he was an idiot. "Where do you think I went with the cloak? I ran to the bathroom, put in on and followed the Slytherins. Even got their password — it's 'aeternae hereditatis'. That's eternal legacy in Latin, I think."
"Nice work," Harry enthused. Ginny blushed by way of her reply.
They chose a passage at random, having decided that the castle was just going to guard its secrets here, and ended up in the Entrance Hall. The vast chamber was incredibly intimidating at night. The moonlight was filtered red, yellow, blue and green by the enormous stained glass windows over the intermediate landing. Four huge hourglasses stood in recesses on that same side. To the left of the central stair were the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff hourglasses, filled with rubies and citrine quartz. To the right were the Ravenclaw and Slytherin hourglasses, containing sapphires and emeralds respectively. Each gem in the bottom represented a house point, and Gryffindor seemed to be tied with Slytherin, no doubt as a result of Snape's ridiculous favouritism.
The two young Gryffindors stood now in the light of their patron's lion.
"Good omen, huh?" Ginny said.
"We don't need one," Harry smiled.
They decided against taking the shortcut to the dungeons to the left of the marble stairs, and instead took those stairs up and around to the first floor corridor, doubling back to reach the Grand Staircase. It was called that for a good reason. The staircase was a complex network reaching from the dungeon level all the way up to the seventh floor. But this was Hogwarts, so it wasn't quite as simple as that. The whole staircase was moving. A near constant rotation of stairs meant that you had to stay on your toes or risk walking off into thin air. Harry occasionally heard nasty stories of people falling four floors and cracking their skulls on stone banisters. You didn't come here with enemies around you.
They hurried down, unnoticed by the hundreds of sleeping portraits. Ginny surprised him by stopping on the ground floor rather than continuing the route to Potions class. She hushed him and dragged him along corridor after corridor deeper into the castle. After two or three minutes, she stopped behind a statue of a bishop chess piece. Harry knew these formed a trail to the transfiguration courtyard, but now Ginny was examining the base very closely. She let out a pleased sort of noise before putting her heel on it and pushing. The statue slid forwards, making a nasty grinding noise that had them quickly jumping through the hole it left behind.
'There's a portrait in the way if we go from the potions corridor,' Ginny explained telepathically, clearly recognising the need for absolute stealth in enemy territory. 'Some medieval cow.'
Harry sniggered. 'I'm sure that was an interesting conversation.'
'Call it that,' said Ginny. 'Left here, and hello Slytherins!'
It was a bare bit of wall.
"Aeternae hereditatis," Ginny said sharply. A perfectly concealed door slid open to admit them.
'Too easy, surely,' Harry thought. 'Neither of us is wearing anything Gryffindor, so unless the castle is watching us...'
They walked through, and found themselves in a long, downward sloping corridor made entirely of obsidian, lit by magical overhead lights. The green lights gave the dark glass corridor a cold, internal glow effect that set Harry on edge. It opened quickly onto a large room, presumably their common room. It was filled with dark green sofas and armchairs; the walls were all the same dark obsidian, and at the far end was a large fireplace with an ornate silver mantelpiece. Harry found it amusing that even fire wasn't allowed to be red and gold here. The fire was an unearthly pale green that seemed to trap his eyes. The room was further lit by ornate chandeliers producing the same green light as from the corridor; daytime lighting would presumably come from the vast windows — in an underground dungeon.
Ginny pointed as a shape flitted past one of the windows. 'We're under the lake!' she gasped.
'So what do you reckon?' Harry asked.
'I reckon they're pretty vulnerable here,' Ginny murmured, reaching out to feel the glass. Harry's eyes bugged at her implications. Still, he could tell that it was incredibly thick, even before considering magical protections. There wasn't much chance of someone actually drowning the Slytherins in their sleep. No matter how foul they were, he felt glad about that.
'That's more than a bit too far, Ginny,' Harry warned.
She looked at him like he'd grown a second head. 'You thought I was suggesting it?'
'Not really, just wanted to be clear,' he replied. He was secretly glad though. Ginny could be pretty vindictive sometimes. 'Besides, I reckon this stuff is pretty strong.' He nearly tapped the window, but she seized his wrist.
'I didn't really touch it, Harry,' she said. 'I can feel craploads of charms on this. One of them could be an alarm.'
He pulled his arm back quickly. 'Right. So, what's the plan?'
'Until ten minutes ago,' Ginny said, looking at the silver clock above the fireplace, 'there wasn't one. Now though... stink pellets, please.'
He allowed her to take charge for a while, curious to see what she'd come up with. She gave him half of the stink pellets back.
'I'm curious, you see,' she said. 'I want to know what happens if someone swallows one of these.'
Harry considered what he knew about them. Stink pellets were a fairly subtle prank device, dissolving into whatever they were thrown at and producing more and more smell over time. If they were used intelligently, no one would know the pellets were responsible, and it would be presumed that the victim just hadn't washed in a while. 'Have the twins tried?'
'If they have, they haven't told me about it,' Ginny replied. 'Probably highly dangerous.'
'I'm guessing you're going up to the girls' dorms, huh?' Harry asked.
Ginny nodded. That left him the guys. He didn't fancy getting close enough to any of them to do as Ginny planned to. Nine stink pellets were sitting in his pocket. If they had a small bathroom for each year like the Gryffindors, it wouldn't be enough to properly attack all of them. He wanted a bit more than mild irritation. Still, he did have a secret weapon. He'd taken a look at the second year Charms textbook, and planned to give Malfoy something to wake up to.
'I think the girls' staircase is the one on the right,' she told him.
'Why?'
'The carpet is scuffed pretty badly on the left staircase,' Ginny replied. 'Guys are going to be rougher than girls, right?'
'You take the cloak.'
She hurried off again, and he headed for the left staircase. He winced when his foot touched the first step but he didn't set off any alarms. Ten steps later, he almost fell foul of a trick step, one of the most elementary traps in Hogwarts. A few of the steps in Hogwarts were only illusions, and the illusions were so good that the only way to avoid putting your foot (and a leg, usually) right through them was to remember exactly where they were. Harry's trailblazing exercise nearly cost him his cover as his foot went halfway through before he could recover himself. There were no banisters for him to put his weight on, so he slowed down even further to test each step. This was fairly difficult considering he was going downstairs. The first dormitory he came across was the second year dorm. Harry silently cursed his luck, realising that the first year dorm was probably at the very bottom, and crept along the seemingly endless corridor step by painful step.
Ginny almost floated down the steps. Her desire to go unnoticed seemed to have resulted in a Featherweight Charm. Regardless of the cloak and the stealth charm, she kept her movements controlled. 'Why didn't he want the cloak?' Ginny wondered. He knew she could take care of herself. They had never had the need to split up before, not in the restricted section of the library, nor in the narrower secret passages near and in the clock tower. 'Unless he wants to prove something. To me? He doesn't need to. To Malfoy? He doesn't care enough. To himself...'
In her distracted state she nearly walked into a wall. The dead end of the girls' staircase was obsidian like the rest, but polished so brilliantly that Ginny could see a reflection in it. Luckily, she did not see a hint of her own image.
Something moved.
Ginny stared at the mirror-wall, not daring to breathe. Had someone noticed her following them to the dungeons? Had they heard her, and set a trap? Was there someone who could see through invisibility cloaks?
She stared and stared until her eyes started to ache, but she saw nothing. Giving it up as a trick of the light, she turned away from the mirror, but at the very moment she started to turn away the movement repeated itself. She dredged up all that she knew about Slytherin, while preparing to flee.
'Slytherins are cunning and ruthless. They have the strongest association with the dark arts, though mainly through superstition and popular opinion. That's it! The core traits of a Slytherin mean people don't trust them, so they can't trust anyone else... A Slytherin is always looking over their shoulder. There's nothing there.'
The reflection did not appear this time. She had passed the test. 'Surely though, that means the mirror knows I'm not a Slytherin... He valued cunning. Maybe I've earned some respect for getting in here.'
Finally letting go her panic, she headed towards the first year dormitory. There was still a light on inside. Ginny pushed the door carefully inwards, holding her breath to listen for the slightest creak, but none came.
Tracey Davis was sleeping with open curtains and a candle burning on her bedside table. Ginny hadn't realised the quiet little girl was afraid of the dark. It couldn't be easy living down here if you were faint of heart. Perhaps that was why she hung around with Daphne so much. In appearance, the two were nearly opposites. Daphne was fair, blue-eyed and willowy. Tracey, on the other hand, was small and carried a little extra weight, had slightly brown skin that spoke of her mixed parentage, and had eyes and hair like the night. Ginny guessed at the bed to the left of Tracey, and found Daphne sleeping peacefully. Getting the pleasantries out of the way early, she tucked a small piece of parchment into Daphne's hand. On it was a drawing of a chimaera. It was the solution to the first riddle they'd solved together, and hopefully would serve as a nice little cryptic clue that Ginny Weasley was here.
The next bed she opened revealed Pansy Parkinson. Ginny grinned maliciously at her target, assuming a casting pose and picturing exactly what she wanted to inflict on Malfoy's little pet.
'This'll teach her,' she thought, thinking back to those first few weeks after Yule. She didn't say such things in front of the boys - she was smart enough for that, apparently. But no matter how much Hermione told her it was meaningless and pathetic, it lit a fire inside her when Pansy suggested that Ginny's dating her brother had any bearing on her relationship with her blood siblings.
Her skin turned a violent, familiar shade of green. Ginny thought it a beautiful colour in Harry's eyes, but in this sharp, jagged line on Pansy's forehead it felt wrong. When she was finished, Ginny had the powerful urge to undo it, but she knew it would cause Pansy more strife this way than anything she could do directly. Or not.
Opening the girl's trunk, Ginny pulled out all her underclothes and set them into a neat pile, before restoring everything as it had been.
Millicent Bulstrode was her next victim. The beefy girl was more of a follower than anything else, so for the sake of variety, Ginny stole her wand to hide elsewhere.
The third would have no such luck. Ginny pinched Carina's nose gently so that her mouth opened. Retrieving a few stink pellets, Ginny popped them in. The pink-purple pellets visibly darkened in her mouth as they started to dissolve.
"Suck on that, bitch," Ginny hissed.
A couple of seconds later, Carina swallowed the things down. Ginny carefully restored all the curtains and levitated the pile of Pansy's drawers, corsets and petticoats to the bathroom. Closing the door, she began to hum softly to herself as she burned them all, dumping the ashes down the shower drains.
Harry woke up feeling incredibly happy, and knew that Ginny must still be in dreamland. It was only six o'clock, after all; even four hours of sleep was enough for him. The others in his dorm were all still snoring. He debated the virtues of sneaking back to the Slytherin dorms in his invisibility cloak to hear the sweet music of Malfoy waking up to a bed full of magically engorged insects, but decided against it. It wouldn't do to get caught, or even to be out of Gryffindor Tower. Who would normally imagine that a first year could sneak into another House's quarters?
As it was, Harry just lay in bed, reading. It would never supersede Quidditch as his hobby of choice, but after Lord of the Rings and The Darkness Within, he was ready to give novels a chance. He'd lost sleep to finish that damned book before the holidays ended. At least they'd run out of movies. Mrs Weasley had flat-out refused to let them watch The Terminator, throwing a fit the moment the woman said 'contains scenes of a sexual nature'. Harry got the feeling the twins had predicted that and watched it already, though.
Today's book of choice was not a fiction, however. Determined that Snape's hatred of him should not force him to retake first year potions, he had borrowed Hermione's copy of the textbook, along with a Muggle chemistry textbook. It seemed that she had spent the year making connections between things she had somehow managed to learn under Snape's tutelage, and things she already knew about chemistry. Her textbook was full of pieces of parchment, paperclipped in, which detailed how certain reagents reacted exothermically with this or that substance and so on. She had even begun to draw up reactivity series for magical ingredients. He didn't know how that would be useful if he wasn't trying to invent his own potions, though. The thing that really caught his interest was Hermione's translation of the introduction and explanatory passages into Muggle terminology.
School textbook or not, Arsenius Jigger's Basic Drafts and Potions either hadn't been written for kids or it was for children of another time, because apart from Ginny and Susan Bones, no one he knew could make hide nor hair of it. He supposed it was Snape's way of making sure he got his money's worth out of each class. If he knew most of the class was clueless, he could have more fun with them.
After half an hour of flipping through the chemistry textbook, Harry was able to conclude that Hermione was secretly sixteen years old and had already done her GCSEs. He hadn't heard of half of the things that were mentioned in her book, and while it did a decent job of explaining the different types of intermolecular bonds and how they affected something's physical state, he felt hopelessly inundated by unfamiliar material.
Resisting the urge to just put the books down and go out for a bit of early morning flying, Harry flipped to the front of the chemistry textbook and started reading right from the foreword. He'd never been unintelligent. Schoolwork had never presented a challenge to him. What he'd found difficult was forcing himself to do a bad job in order to avoid Vernon Dursley's rage that he might be so insolent as to do better than his perfect Dudley - Dudley being a kid who just about passed the SATs. Now Harry was at a school of magic, learning about things that he had no foundational knowledge in whatsoever. And if Hermione was right about one thing, it was that he hadn't been taking his studies seriously enough. If he was truly making a fresh start, he needed to change that. Realising that he hadn't gotten lost in the introductory passages, Harry allowed himself a satisfied smile, and began to read about the different states of matter.
Early as it was, Harry expected to be able to finish at least one chapter in peace. The earliest riser tended to be Dean, who had a younger sister back at home to look after while his mother and elder sister went to work. He didn't talk about his father. So when Ron of all people yanked Harry's curtains open, Harry did a double-take.
"Seriously? Can you not knock or anything?" Harry laughed. "I thought you learned your lesson with Dean a few weeks back."
It had been at least five weeks since the event; Ron had stuck his head through Dean's curtains and come out looking like he was going to be violently sick. Even now, Ron made a face and averted his eyes.
"Come on mate, leave it out," Ron muttered. "Besides, this is almost as bad."
"Knowledge is a gift, Ronald," Harry grinned. "And we entrust our knowledge to books."
Ron rolled his eyes at him. "Come on, Hermione, let's go get something to eat. Fred and George said they did something to the Slytherin table, and I want to be there to see what happens."
Harry stopped dead. The thought that the twins might have been watching their backs hadn't occurred to him.
"What's up mate?" Ron asked. "You look a bit spooked."
"Oh, nothing," Harry lied as smoothly as he could. He didn't have as much practice as Ginny, but he had some confidence in his abilities. "Just noticed the spider on your shoulder, that's all."
"Ye- wait, what?!" Ron cried, throwing off his jumper and beating at his shoulder.
Harry covered his mouth to hide his laughter. It was cruel, but Ron's massive overreactions to spiders never disappointed.
"You bastard," Ron griped. "There wasn't a spider, was there?"
"What the hell is going on?" Seamus groaned.
"Ron was attacked," Dean said helpfully.
"Oh, good," Seamus grunted. There was a thud as he fell back onto his pillow.
"What's this about Fred and George?" Dean asked.
"And why couldn't it have waited another hour?" Neville yawned.
"Well, it's going to wait a while," Harry said firmly. "I'm not going to take the blame for whatever the twins have done."
"What's that, Harry?" Dean asked, pointing out the chemistry textbook in his hand. "You trying to do normal school at the same time?"
"No, Hermione reckons this'll help me understand Potions."
"Oh yeah, it does help a bit," Neville offered. Everyone turned to him, and he laughed nervously. "What? She lent me a book, guys..."
"That's what we were wondering about," Dean grinned. "What were you suggesting?"
Neville mumbled something under his breath, turning bright red.
"Anyway, I'm going to get back to this..." Harry said, waving the book at them. "Ron, do me a favour and wait it out?"
"Fine," Ron huffed. "Dean, you want a game?"
In their dorm, it was known by now that when Dean wanted a game, you were heading out into the muck to have a kick-about. When Harry wanted a game, it was probably tag. On broomsticks. When Ron wanted a game, it meant chess. Neville never actually used the phrase, and with Seamus's love of blowing things up, people tried not to join his 'games'.
"Sure, why not?" Dean replied.
By the time Harry had finished the first chapter, Ron had beaten Dean twice, Neville had gone to take a shower and Seamus had given up on trying to get back to sleep. He was just heading to the bathroom to relieve himself when he heard footsteps coming up the staircase. Leaning against the wall, Harry waited to see who was coming up here in the morning. The only thing above their dorm was an attic-like space which held what seemed to be a Gryffindor refuse pile through the ages. So either Parvati had finally tired of Fay's electronic music and had come to get rid of the specially tweaked wizarding wireless, or...
"Harry!" Ginny called, sprinting up the last few steps.
"Morning," he replied, before she smashed into his stomach. "Jesus, Ginny I'm going to the toilet."
"Oh, sorry," she winced. "Did you hear...?"
"Fred and George?" Harry asked.
Ginny nodded. "Well, go and do your business then, I just thought you should know."
"Yes, ma'am," Harry grinned, hurrying into the bathroom before Ginny could retaliate.
The Gryffindor first year bathrooms, like all the others, consisted of three toilets at the far end, and four showers, two on each side going down. Everything was nicely enclosed for privacy. Harry grinned when he noticed that, as per usual, no one had left their towel on the towel rack. It was far too easy of a target.
"Hey Harry," Neville said, a bright red towel wrapped around his waist. Water ran in rivulets down a much leaner form than had first walked in here seven months or so ago. He'd never been Dudley-fat. That was a level of obesity that was heading for the record books and an early grave. But now, Neville was only a little pudgy, and almost as tall as Ron.
"Mate, have you been working out?"
Neville blushed. "Yeah, kinda," he said quietly. "My grandmother reckons I should be 'fighting fit'."
"Cool," Harry shrugged. He wasn't going to stand in the way of that. Getting fit would probably help his confidence even more considering the hard time the Slytherins gave him for it. "But why now?"
"It started at Christmas," Neville explained. "My grandmother thinks that now that..."
"What?" asked Harry.
"She reckons it's important now that I'm hanging out with you," Neville rushed.
"Why's that?" Harry asked, perplexed.
Neville turned an even deeper red.
"Oh God, you didn't tell her about Fluffy and everything?!" Harry exclaimed, fighting to keep his voice down lest he inadvertently advertise it.
Granted, he'd let it slip to Susan Bones, but he had that under control, and she didn't know that Ron, Neville and Hermione were involved, so at least their butts were out of the fire. If Mrs Longbottom found out then they were all kinds of screwed.
"No, I would never!" Neville shook his head violently. "She just thinks that since you're the Boy Who Lived and everything, all the big stuff will happen around you. She wants me to be prepared... to be a fighter, like my parents."
Neville didn't talk about his parents.
"Neville, I-"
"They were Aurors," Neville said, clenching his teeth. "And now they're gone. That's all you need to know."
"I'm sorry, Nev," Harry said softly.
"Don't worry about it," Neville replied. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get mad..."
"It's fine," Harry urged. "Look, I'll catch up. Going to... you know."
"Oh, right. Sure, see you in a bit, Harry."
When Harry was done, Ginny was still waiting outside.
"Neville seemed a bit grim," she said.
"Yeah," Harry replied. 'His parents got brought up.'
Ginny winced. 'Dad said that Bellatrix Lestrange killed them.'
'Who?'
'Malfoy's aunt,' Ginny explained.
Suddenly, Draco Malfoy's comment from the train ride at Christmas became crystal clear. 'That little bastard.'
Ginny tugged him downstairs, presumably trying to distract him.
"Ginny, why do you insist on going up there all the time?" Hermione asked in a long-suffering voice.
"Hey, I don't spend all my time up there!" Ginny complained. "Go on, sing Magic for Harry."
"One time," Hermione griped. "That was one time."
Harry felt the weight of his anger leaving him. What was the point in getting angry with Malfoy anyway? It wasn't like he could actually do anything. He was just running his mouth off to feel better about himself because he knew that he couldn't match up.
"Oh, ho, ho, it's magic! You know..." Fay sang from the stairs, grinning madly. Her good mood was infectious, and Harry's mouth twitched into a smile.
"Never believe it's not so!" Ginny continued, pushing Hermione's shoulder.
"It's magic!" Harry added.
"You know..."
Harry barely even noticed Rionach was around most of the time. Fay was definitely the louder half of their team. Apparently, singing was something they had in common, for she did not opt to just shout her line as he and Ginny had done. Standing next to Fay now, she was a head taller, but her brown hair still fell lower than Fay's, which was cut above her shoulders. And they were all taller than Harry.
"Never believe it's not sooooo!" they chorused.
"Never been awa-ake," Hermione smiled reluctantly. "Never seen a day break."
"Leaning on my pillow in the morning..." People were filtering down the stairs now and deciding to join in.
"Lazy day in bed."
'Why not,'Ginny grinned. 'Free for all!'
"Music in my head! Crazy music playing in the morning light..."
It was a happy band of Gryffindors that made their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast, singing the odd marching song just for the heck of it, and because it annoyed the ever living piss out of Percy. The house point hourglasses showed that they were leading Slytherin by seven points, and as Percy led them into the Great Hall, Dumbledore was smiling down at them from the head table like some genial grandfather. Golden light streamed in through the huge clerestory windows to welcome them in, and the smell of bacon and eggs and sausages drove them on. Their house ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, floated in through the wall and bade them a good morning in his usual flamboyant fashion, continuing to drift along until he disappeared through the opposite wall.
The morning seemed absolutely perfect as Harry sat with his friends, tearing into an omelette. But it wasn't. It wasn't even close. He waved to classmates as they came in behind them. Susan offered him a grin in return, while Terry looked furtively up at Dumbledore before throwing a paper aeroplane. Ron gave Terry a thumbs-up and returned his attention to his eggs and bacon, leaving Harry to inspect the chocolate frog card affixed to the rear of the plane like a tail wing.
That was when the morning became perfect. Malfoy walked unsteadily in, followed as ever by Crabbe and Goyle. He looked deathly pale, and his eyes were slightly wide, staring around the hall as if imagining that the perpetrator would simply give himself up under his gaze. They were the last of the Slytherin boys to show up, and as yet none of the girls had arrived. Ginny snorted.
'What did you do to him?'
'Let's just say that Ron inspired me,' Harry grinned.
Ginny scrunched up her face trying to figure it out, but by this point Malfoy was sitting at the Slytherin table. In the same place he always sat. Harry turned his head down at his plate, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Malfoy reached out to pick out whatever he was going to eat, but stopped. His expression went from anxious to frustrated as he started punching empty air. Harry watched, enraptured, as did a good portion of the student body as Malfoy got more and more worked up. Finally, Malfoy stepped back from the table, pulled his wand out, swished and flicked. At once, every bit of food on the table near to him picked itself up and threw itself at his face.
Malfoy stood there for a moment, absolutely still and silent. The rest of the students watched him, absolutely still and silent.
"My father will hear about this!" Malfoy yelled, as a bit of scrambled egg fell off his head.
He turned and stormed out of the hall, passed at the doors by Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis. Malfoy turned to glare at them.
"You were in on this!" he spat. "Nothing happened to the two of you!"
"I swear to you, Draco, I wasn't involved in any way," Daphne said coldly. "You should probably go to the bathroom, you have..."
"I know what I have!" he said, still glaring daggers at the two of them. He turned to the Gryffindor table, but Harry pretended to strike up a conversation with Ginny. When he looked back, Malfoy was gone.
'Now,' Harry thought. 'Now the morning is perfect.'
Through all of this, neither Dumbledore nor any of the teachers present said a single word. Someone at the Hufflepuff table sniggered. A Gryffindor echoed them, and soon most of the hall was bursting at the seams. Fred and George were grinning at each other, presumably congratulating each other on a job well done. However, as Tracey and Daphne sat down, Dumbledore rose. And when Dumbledore rose, silence fell.
"Practical jokes are the butter to a childhood's bread," he said genially.
Professor McGonagall pinched the bridge of her nose. 'So help me God...' Harry imagined she was thinking. He had to bite his lip to stop himself from cracking up again.
"They give us entertainment when the drudgery of day to day life starts to weigh upon us, and can even help us to forge new friendships."
Then Dumbledore's expression turned grave.
"However, we must keep in mind that not all people have the fortitude to cope with situations we believe to be harmless fun."
Snape stalked in from behind the head table, and gave Harry a hard stare, as if he knew that Harry had sneaked into his House's dormitories last night. Dumbledore turned and gave Snape a nod, which the professor took as his cue to sit.
"While it may amuse some of you to see such misfortune laid at the feet of young Master Malfoy and his peers," Dumbledore continued, still addressing the doors at the far end of the hall, "know that the punishment for these offences is handed over to Professor Snape, should you be caught."
Harry had never seen a wider range of emotions on Professor Snape's face, and there was a sudden surge of hushed whispering. Snape's glee at being put in charge of penalties was so great that Harry couldn't bear to look at him, but oh boy did that turn around.
"What does he mean, should you be caught?" Hermione hissed.
Harry shrugged. He wasn't too sure himself. Was it a warning? Subtle sponsorship? Snape seemed to think so from his glowering outrage. Harry felt sorry for the sausages being subjected to that stare.
"You know what I think is funny?" Neville said, clearly still trying to control himself.
"What?" Ron asked.
"There were eleven teachers up there," Neville managed through stifled laughter. "And not one of them used a Cleaning Charm on him."
"Mr. Potter, get down from there!"
Harry grimaced at hearing Professor McGonagall's voice. He'd never actually read the school rules, but he was pretty sure that climbing the school buildings was discouraged.
Ginny didn't appear over the edge, presumably thinking McGonagall didn't know she was there.
"You as well, Miss Weasley," McGonagall added. "There's no use pretending."
Harry jumped down onto the tiled roof of the entrance courtyard's surrounding walkway, running and sliding in equal parts down to the edge. Letting himself fall as he went, Harry twisted and grabbed onto the edge, dropping gingerly for the remaining two metres to the ground.
"You look entirely too well practised, Potter," McGonagall said matter-of-factly. Ginny floated effortlessly down, her eyes aglow with the channelled magic. Much of the usual break time activity in the courtyard had now stopped as people watched the spectacle unfold.
"Practised, Professor?" Harry said blankly, playing for time.
"Yes, Potter," McGonagall replied. "That is indeed what I said. Congratulations. Now, I did not come here to reprimand or compliment you on your climbing. I received a letter from the Ministry this morning about a meeting between you and a Miss Laetitia Protcham this weekend."
Ron, Neville and Hermione, who had been usefully laughing at Harry and Ginny from the shade, started shooing away the curious onlookers.
"Yes, professor, she's from the..." Harry began.
"I know, Potter," McGonagall cut in, though there was an atypical softness in her expression. "The meeting will take place in a room near the Gryffindor common room. Percy Weasley will be taking you there at half past four on Saturday. Did you have any questions?"
"No, thank you, Professor," said Harry.
"Enjoy your morning break, Potter, Weasley," McGonagall said, turning on her heel and heading back into the castle.
"So..." Ginny drawled. "Does that mean she doesn't mind us being up there?"
"What's there?" Harry asked.
"Not much," Ginny frowned. "Kinda disappointing really, and you can see more from the astronomy tower anyway."
"Ah, well," Harry shrugged. "Hey Neville, I just thought of something."
"Yes?" Neville asked.
"Why don't you come work out with us down at Quidditch practice?" Harry offered.
"I don't know, Harry..." Neville grimaced. "You guys go pretty hard."
"You don't?" Harry grinned. There was no way that Neville could have brought about the changes he had just with a morning jog and a few pushups.
"Wait, work out?" Ron asked. "You mean you'd do that voluntarily?"
"What's wrong with that?" Neville frowned.
Ron shrugged. "That's all effort, Nev."
"He's clearly started already," Hermione huffed. "I'm sure he knows what's involved."
Neville reddened slightly.
"You're mad," Ron told Neville with absolute certainty.
Neville shrugged, turning back to Harry. "Have you even talked to Wood about it?"
Harry made a face. "Not really, but is he going to say no?"
"We don't know, Harry," Hermione said slowly. "That's why he wants you to ask."
"Yeah, s-" Harry began.
Their heads snapped up as one, as the school's giant bells sounded the end of break.
"Ah well," Ginny sighed. "See you guys!"
"Have you been spending a lot of time here?" Hermione asked.
She'd probably assumed he was going somewhere sensible to spend the latter half of lunchtime, like the library or the common room, and had left the Great Hall with him only to end up following him up to the trophy room. She should have known better.
They ran into a furious, panic-stricken Pansy Parkinson along the way, who'd screeched something about Carina and perverts. Harry didn't think he even wanted to know what had come of the stink pellet victim, but from the murderous look in Pansy's eyes, Ginny definitely would.
He grinned at Hermione, noting the twist of her mouth. Looking at Quidditch trophies didn't sound like her idea of a good time.
"Yeah," he whispered.
Turning his attention back to the trophy case, he knelt suddenly to look at the photographs stored a level below the silverware.
The common awards, such as the house cup, the Quidditch cup and the head boy and girl registers sat in islands in the middle of the trophy room. These islands featured a display case on top which protected the trophy or shield within, and windows lower down showed photos of the people involved. Special awards on the other hand rested in a continuous display case running along three walls of the room, with large, animated images of their recipients hanging on the walls above.
"That's your dad, isn't it?" Hermione asked softly.
He nodded. The bespectacled, messy haired young man kneeling in front in the picture was being patted on the head by a taller, long-haired boy. The rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team were chewing their lips and cheeks to hold back their laughter. After all, McGonagall was standing just to one side. It was a much younger McGonagall, with a lot of auburn still in her hair, and she seemed uncharacteristically happy. Suddenly, the messy haired boy grabbed the taller one's hand from mid-air, and pulled him to the ground over his shoulder. Just as suddenly, he froze, since the other had his wand trained on his crotch and was laughing heartily. McGonagall shook her head and smiled as James Potter grinned and dragged his laughing adversary to his feet!
Suddenly the boy in the Keeper's position jumped about a foot in the air, his tracksuit bottoms aflame under his robes, which were somehow managing not to get burned. McGonagall was there immediately with a Water Charm to douse the flames. However, the flames disappeared of their own accord and without a trace, leaving the poor boy with only a sopping wet crotch from the good professor's timely charm.
As McGonagall berated James and his friend, Hermione noted that Harry's shoulders were shaking. She put her arm gingerly around his shoulders, but when he turned to face her, he saw that he was crying with laughter.
"Harry?" Hermione asked tentatively.
"They were geniuses!" he cried. "Getting McGonagall to do the work for them?"
"I..." Hermione bit the corner of her lip in her dilemma. "I'll admit, it was clever, but the way they're applying that intelligence isn't so smart."
Harry looked up at her, a little frown on his face. "Everyone needs to let off steam, Hermione."
"Maybe so, but that was a dirty trick - trying to humiliate a respectable figure of authority like that," she replied, perhaps a little hotly. "Wait... what are you trying to imply?"
Harry's frown at once melted into a shifty smirk. "You, ah, remember that time when Seamus was getting help from Professor Flitwick in Charms for his dodgy casting, and the feather exploded while Flitwick was demonstrating?"
"You're joking?" she asked incredulously.
"Hey, Seamus blows stuff up all the time," Harry pointed out defensively. "Remember the time he was trying to turn water into rum, and he set fire to his own eyebrows?"
Hermione didn't look too impressed. "So, tell me Harry, just how far do these practical jokes of yours go?"
"Don't worry, we don't hurt anyone," he grinned.
"Ginny," Hermione asserted. Harry shrugged. 'What did she expect?' "What about Ron and Neville?"
At this, Harry began to scratch nervously at the back of his neck. "Well, we haven't really..."
"Don't worry about it, Harry. I understand. You can't exactly pull Neville into a broom closet for a quick snog, can you?"
"Yeah, exactly. Wait, no! What?" Her composure cracked, and the trophy room echoed with her laughter.
"Brought a friend, Harry?" Wood asked, looking Neville up and down. Neville began to fidget with the hem of his robe.
"Yeah, Neville Longbottom," Harry replied. "He wanted to train with us."
"Can't speak for himself?" Wood asked wryly. Neville opened his mouth to retort, but the Quidditch captain raised his hand to stop him. "Look, I'm going to stop you right there. This isn't a social club. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but we can't afford to slow down right now. If you join, everyone will want to join, and then we'll never get anything done."
"I understand," Neville shrugged. "Hey, I'll see you later Harry, I'm going to go get my Potions done."
Harry sighed as Neville hurried back towards the castle.
"Sorry, Harry, but we really can't afford this," Wood said. "You're going to need to put some more muscle on before the next match if you don't want Greene to pulverize you."
Greene was Ravenclaw's Seeker, and was built unusually heavily for his role.
"Just tell me what I need to do," Harry said determinedly.
Training with the Gryffindor team was one of the most physically strenuous things Harry had ever done.
Harry had never even done a press-up before coming to Hogwarts, but he was now doing fifty in a set. Wood's regime was engaging muscles Harry hadn't realised he had.
"That's you done, Harry," Wood panted after their third lap of the Quidditch pitch.
Harry found himself getting vaguely irritated. If he was supposed to train up especially for this game, shouldn't he be training harder?
"I want eight sets," Wood ordered. "Twenty press-ups. One minute breaks."
The following half hour saw his awareness degenerate to the blood pounding in his ears, the persistent tickle of sweat as it rolled down past his eye, and the inescapable feeling that he was about to collapse. Wood wasn't going easy on him. He was trying a different angle of attack.
"Potter, I left a box over there," Wood said, breathing heavily as he indicated the stairs down to the Gryffindor changing rooms. "Pull out the tens and the twenties, we'll be with you in a minute."
Harry didn't have a clue what he meant, but he did as he was told. His teammates were sprinting to the other side of the pitch, and would soon be back with him. Concerned that they would beat him, he began to jog.
The box, it turned out, was full of weights. They were iron affairs, with white leather grips, and numbers scorched into their sides.
"Good job, team," Wood panted happily as they pulled in behind him. "Get your brooms and run through standard exercises. Angelina, you're in charge."
"Yes, captain," the tired, disgruntled players panted.
"Right, Harry," Wood grinned. "Let's put a bit of meat on your bones."
"Awwhhh," Harry groaned as he sank into the plush chair.
"Are you tired, Harry?" Miss Protcham laughed.
"Wood is absolutely mental," Harry breathed. There was a deep ache in every part of his body, and he clung to the water bottle his captain had pushed off on him like it was a lifeline. "My Quidditch captain. Training me up for the next match."
"I see," the woman smirked. "I remember Quidditch training sessions back when I was at school."
Harry coughed gently to clear the tickle in his throat. "What position did you play, Miss Protcham?"
"Oh, I never played," she grinned.
Percy cleared his own throat from over by the door, blushing brilliantly. "I'll, ah… be taking my leave of you then, ma'am."
"Okay then," she smiled. "Thank you for your help, Mr. Weasley."
"No trouble at all," Percy said, still bright red. "I'll be back in forty minutes."
"So Harry, how've you been?" Miss Protcham asked brightly.
They talked for ages, about everything from his Seeking to working at the Ministry to the state of his room. Harry almost let slip about his living conditions at Privet Drive when he mentioned how big his new room was, but it seemed that Miss Protcham already knew a little about how things were at the Dursleys. Perhaps the Weasleys had told her, or Professor Dumbledore. Either way, it seemed to be far too soon when a smart triple-knock on the door announced Percy's return. Miss Protcham ended up dragging him in and making him sit down too.
"What's it like being a prefect here?" Miss Protcham asked. "I went to the City of London Academy of Magic, but everybody always talked about Hogwarts."
"There's a magic school in London as well?" Harry asked, eyes wide with shock. It was impressive enough that they'd managed to hide Diagon Alley, but an entire school of magic? Surely there was the occasional kid accidentally blowing something up…
"Oh, yes," she smiled fondly. "We had to have Quidditch indoors. There was a massive underground stadium… But go on Percy."
"Well, it's obviously a hefty responsibility," Percy said. "There's only twenty-five of us on the team, and it's a very large castle…"
"It is at that," she said, tucking her long black hair behind her ear. "What kinds of things do you deal with?"
"Curfew patrols, break time monitoring, supervising detention..." Percy rattled off.
"Not to mention being an inspiration to all of us, Percy," Harry said sincerely. Miss Protcham stifled a giggle. Looking around warily, Percy stared at Harry. Harry, however, maintained his serious expression.
"Thank you, Harry," he said hesitantly. "The most challenging part of the job is what you aren't doing in an official capacity. Like motivating your fellow students to focus on their studies, and discourage them from disruption rather than punish them for it."
"Some do it better than others," Miss Protcham nodded. "Harry and I were just talking about your twin brothers, actually."
"Ah, yes," Percy winced. "They can be quite challenging."
"Indeed," she said, her bright blue eyes dancing with suppressed laughter. "I shouldn't take up any more of your time, I'm sure your friends are missing you, and you'll have plenty of homework..."
"Not at all," Harry insisted, scratching at the back of his neck. "I like talking to you, Miss Protcham."
"Please, Harry, call me Laetitia," she said. "Or Letty, everyone else does."
"Laetitia's a nice name," Harry shrugged, blushing.
"Thanks," she laughed, standing and gathering her things. "But really, I should be headed back. I'll come see you again in a few months, Harry."
"Okay," Harry frowned.
"Not going to hug me goodbye?" she smirked.
Harry felt his face burn.
"Isn't he adorable?" said Miss Protcham.
'Bloody hell...' Harry held his tongue, remembering that regardless of how friendly and personable she was, she was still an adult and authority figure. Instead, he got up and embraced her. "It was nice to see you again, Laetitia."
"And you, Harry," she said. Then she took him by the shoulders and knelt in front of him, whispering, "Remember, I'm always here if you change your mind about those people."
An image flitted through his mind, of Uncle Vernon handcuffed and bent over the bonnet of his prized company car, while all the busybodies on the street looked eagerly out of their windows. The panicked shrieks of Aunt Petunia ruined it though. As did Dudley's face as he sat in the back of a police Vectra, the flashing blue lights dimly illuminating his seal-like features.
"Um... Thanks," said Harry.
"Just keep it in mind, okay?" she said, standing up and turning to Percy. "Well, then, Mr. Weasley, shall we go?"
Percy nodded and led her away. Only to be replaced by Professor McGonagall.
"I'm... glad that you've settled in with the Weasleys, Potter," she said, as though struggling with something. "They are good people. I know what those... what those people were like, at Privet Drive, but I had no idea that they were so abusive. I'm sorry that I didn't do more to look after your welfare, Potter. I owed your parents that much at the very least, regardless of anything else. If there is ever anything bothering you, I promise I will not fail you again. You have my word."
With that, she turned on her heel and disappeared.