Chapter 14

-scene break-

Trolls benefitted from an innate magic resistance, thick skin, and an endurance that made them legendary. Harry loosened the magic feeding belt, and dropped the jacket into the frost covered ground, even if Trolls were legendary monsters this was unacceptable. All of this was a miserable lot he flicked his fingers and fire roared, damned trolls.

His ribs were sore, had been after he'd woken up the next day. It'd been one of many issues after the fight. On the plus side his reserves were not one of those issues. The burning crescent crackled pleasantly.

"It burns steel."
That wasn't entirely true, "It burns iron," Steel was much too time consuming and energy intensive to wrought with magic in such a way as it required forging iron into steel. On a small scale it could be useful, particularly combined with other tasks. Still the crescent probably could burn steel too. It was not the point, "I should have just used this." He flicked his hand and the fire roared. Impaling the troll had worked yes, but if he'd relied on something... simpler. The whole affair had left the Gryffindor in a bit of a problem. Harry rubbed the raw skin along his palm reflexively, as he set down. "You were born, you've lived in the wizarding world your whole life." It wasn't a question, he held up a hand, "I need a new pair of gloves, so I'm asking you about where to buy a pair." His first pair had been years ago, a pair of oven mits, they'd ended up burning away to raw magic entirely unsuited to the task, and not nearly flexible enough, "I can give you the criteria I need I just need to know a store to buy from."

Daphne looked at him, "You're asking me to go clothes shopping. Why?" It was a reasonable question, he knew to anyone else, even to people he regularly interacted with his request was strange "And why the bandages? You know Nott, and Draco are talking about them?"

"Let them talk, and I all want is a reccomendation, you don't have to go shopping," Everyone else was, talking that was. He flexed his hand, inhale exhale inhale. Each breath fire curled around his hand, it would have been pretty if not for the heat.

She sat down, "So have you seen Snape's limp," It was a little hard to miss the potion's master's new limp. The running joke was that maybe the potion's professor had been too close to an explosion, but all things considered that logically didn't mesh. No people would have heard about the explosion, and while it was possible Snape had gotten any burns treated then he should have gotten whatever was causing the limp treated; hypothetically.

Supposedly there a cerberus, a massive three headed dog on the third floor coridor. He'd heard about it a couple of times. He knew it was there because he'd taken the time to talk to Hagrid, and speaking of talking there was still the issue of the Centaur's warning. "If the centaurs are to be believed, if their view on the future is right" Which Harry wasn't quite decided on yet, but evidence looked like it supported their view on what the future was going to be like, "The future is going to get worse before it gets better." He remarked.

"So you want to buy a pair of gloves?"
"Yes." It was a simple enough request.

-scene break-

Harry leaned back by the fire. Today was pretty much supposed to be just a normal day for class. It had been Su that had insisted on an actual jog around the lake something about solemn clarity or something. Harry though he never freely admitted anything was open about having had his nose in a book while she'd been talking. Jogging around the lake on a cold november morning was not fun.

So now they were waiting, and eating for classes to start. Some of the older years, and even other first years, not that many were up, or here, didn't appreciate the bringing of other houses into the common room. Then again Harry didn't care. He bit down on the biscuit, he'd already brought up the need for coffee... again. They'd had this routine for the last couple of days now, and it wasn't really getting any easier, especially given it would only get colder.

Still even though today was supposed to be normal the troll attack... it was having repercussions, it'd been in the papers, and Harry was rather regretting somethings he'd said previously. Then again it wasn't like he had any evidence that the troll being let into the school hadn't been a death eater plot, he just didn't have any information to the contrary. It'd had gotten to be the worse last night after the evening edition of the prophet had shown up. Dumbledore had actually had to stand up and interupt a brawl between a couple of the older years, and say definitively that despite all rumormongering by certain people there was in fact no evidence that Death Eaters had had anything to do with the troll.

"Hey Harry," Fred gave him a look, "Heard Maxie is still lodged up in the hospital wing, what ever Birmingham had to be something pretty bad, think it was dark magic," Well that was nice to be hearing early in the morning. The four upper years involved in the scuffle last night had either gotten sent to the hospital wing for the night, or back their dorms. It had been the later that had kind of assured everyone for a moment that maybe this wasn't such a big deal. It looked like those Gryfindor hopes were going to be thoroughly dashed onto the rocks.

George was the one who noticed it first though, "Thats not all thats wrong is it? Whats going on mate, I mean it can't just be those ruddy snakes, I mean we can deal with them don't you worry about that. So whats troubling you?"

Harry tossed a book by the fireside, "I got it by the post," Fred reached to pick it up, it looked muggle. It was a simple looking book paper back, some color to it though. It had a cutaway of a big old building thing built into the earth, and some weird black and yellow trefoil on it. "Don't," Harry warned, "Its the first time in a while," The first time since the last fight, "I don't think its spelled, I don't, but I'm not sure." He couldn't be sure, up until a year ago he had known he hadn't been the only wizard in Surrey, obviously there had probably been more, but he'd at least had another person his age to discuss it with. "Its a book about nuclear fallout shelters, cold war architecture stuff."
"Nuclear?" Of course Fred and George didn't know, it was stupid to assume two pureblood teenagers who had spent their whole lives here in the wizarding worlds.

He shrugged, "Something muggles made," Harry had grown up in the muggle world, and he hadn't really had an understanding of just how bad the cold war had been until very recently, but it was still a very more defined understanding of the threat than the two purebloods. They had looked at lots of architecture, sure castles and towers were traditional for the fantastic, even comics agreed with the books there, but it never hurt to look at all the options. The book though it was new, just released earlier in the year. He reached down and picked it up, "I don't know whats happening, just watch out for the Slytherins." It was redundantly given advice the twins new that well enough.

The two of them both nodded heavily, "Course, gods be good have you seen what the bastards did to Maxie," It was Harry's turn to shake his head, "Well damn you need to then Harry, Pomfrey is good at patching people up. Its got to be dark magic I tell you. This is getting out of hand."

Everyone had already reached that consensus, and that was even including most of the instigators on the other 'side', even if it was for completely different reasons. It was however about that time that Harry realized he was in point of fact he was still hungry. A hungry wizard was a distracted wizard as they said... actually no one said it but it didn't make it any less true.

"Wait where are you going?"
"Get breakfast of course," He was hungry, so that was how Fred and George ended up tagging along, and it was on the way to the great hall that things got quickly out of hand. The banishing charm that Hogwarts taught to fifth years was a surprisingly effective spell, its siblings which accomplished much the same function with some tweak here or there even more so in most cases. It was such that Harry went flying down the hallway and hit the stone wall quite hard. Hard enough he couldn't see any thing through the stars as it were.

Now the problem with attackign two on three, is that most times you end up missing the third guy if you don't do it all that well. In this particular case it was George who managed to luck out. On the downside starting a fight so close the great hall when breakfast was already on the table on a morning with classes, not the brightest ideas of course. Of course for such to matter George had to hold out a bit longer than he strictly would have liked.

"Oh bollocks!" was the ever so refined response from George in the face of the incoming spellfire as he dove behind one of the enchanted suits of armor that lined the hallway. Fortunately Hogwarts was famous for having incredibly spacious hallways, which gave George some room to dodge around, "Bugger the lot of you," He groaned flicking his wand out and held on to it for dear life as another spell came hurtling his way. The suit of armor rattled, 'I swear if Harry doesn't kill them both i'm going to prank them till there gone from Hogwarts, I swear it.' George told himself, on the down side Harry was presently teetering on the edge of unconiousness. Fred wasn't much better at the moment, but at least he was stirring and moving just a bit. George flicked a couple spells from his wand, and ran behind the next suit of armor in the line to dodge the two slytherins return fire, unfortunately he didn't have all that much to take them out of the fight. In his favor though was his prized ability to conjure sight obscuring smoke, a spell he was very glad Bill had taught him, which made running to the next spot under cover.

The two slytherins were cursing at the spell, which meant it was working well, and they were certainly making a racket of it, what with the shouting, and the flinging spells into the smoke. This was of course were thigns became problematic people were coming down to eat. Unfortunately this principally meant young years, in this case third second years primarily from two of the other houses; in this case Gryfindor and Ravenclaw. It was good fortune alone that kept any but wayward Hufflepuffs out of the line of spell fire. Others were not so lucky, "No don't come this way!" George shouted, "Stay back you lot," Another banisher, it was weaker than the one that'd knocked Fred down the hallway but still a potent spell that came down the way, it still made George dive out of the way.

George winced a bit as he caught the edge of the banisher's wave, and tumbled head over heel, but it was one of the Ravenclaws that caught the bulk of the spell. George flicked his wand around, he knew for certain now he was going to learn that damn spell if he got out of it. He dodged an electric blue streak of light, which he didn't want to begin to contemplate what it might do, the Slytherins were getting impatient. That was when things got worse it seemed the commotion had gotten everyone involved, or rather people who'd shout from the doorway at other people to get them to come look, or join in the spectacle. Oh and Fred was getting up, and Fred was rather mad, the buzzing of the beetles wasn't really a terrible sign, at worst they'd just bite you but the spell was good for distracting someone, and it didn't need to be maintained. Fred wasn't the only one joining the fight, and for bad new there were Slytherins in the Great Hall.

So when Harry got up off the wall there were spells flying in what was loosely termed a general all around melee, see George had used his obscuring smoke spell again, and that had made things worse than better.

-scene break-

This had been by no means Hogwarts first riot, first melee amongst students. It as the first serious magical one of the year, first in the last couple of years, but they weren't unheard of. It didn't mean that the teachers took them lightly, to say McGonnagal and Snape were furious would be a severe understatement.

"Well here we are again boys," Fred declared dramatically standing on a chair as they all waited to here from Dumbledore, "Here we are, noble lions unjustly accused." They, the Gryfindors, had basically been ledd into the room, and told to sit down, after that the door had been slammed behind them.

His brother stood up on the chair beside him posing, "Indeed good brothers of Gryfindor house, here we are bound in chains, unjustly blamed for a fight instigated by our age old enemies the snakes of Slytherin," There was some rumbling from the Gryfindors who'd been involved in the scuffle. As far as the fighting had went the Hufflepuffs had really been the only house not involved and thus not having a portion of their house segregated off waiting for Dumbledore to yell at them for starting a fight in the corridor.

The collection was by no means a sizable portion of the house, sixteen Gryfindors were in the room most from the upper years, in fact Harry was the only first year present. For House Ravenclaw one of their younger years had gotten caught in the fight as well, but that was something for Dumbledore and Flitwick to sort out. The real problem would be Snape, and McGonagal together, or so the upper years expected.

"This cannot go on!" One of the upper years declared, "Those dark buggers need to be taught a lesson they'll not soon forget!" He shouted at them. Richard got out of his chair and started pacing around the still mostly seated Gryfindors, "We got to do something, the twins are right. We've got to do something." And so the rallying began, oddly enough the Ravenclaws, and the Slytherins in the next room were having precisely the same conversation as the Gryfindors... ironic.

"That will be enough out of you Mr. Westerman, you lot have caused enough trouble today," Came McGonagal's declaration from the doorway, "There will be no further continuation of this ridiculous schoolyard feud, you will remain here until I return from my meeting with the headmaster, and professor Snape." There was a groan from many of the assembled Gryfindors at this announcement even as she turned away and closed the door behind her and leaving them here to stir about in the room.

McGonagal sighed as she started walking towards Dumbledore's office, where Snape was no doubt already waiting. She knew that everyone had gotten off lucky Hennet at least only had a broken forearm, and that was easily fixed, not that she'd admit it but George's smoke had really kept things from getting worse. Nearly everyone involved had largerly failed to hit because they hadn't really been able to see the 'other side' as it were. As it was more people had gotten hurt falling down trying to avoid spells than anything else.

From the sound of it though Severus had already begun in on his usual rant. "I told you this was going to happen if the issue with the first years wasn't nipped in the bud," Snape was saying loud and angry, "lets face it now we've got the Ravenclaws involved, and"
"Now Severus, if you would at least wait to at least Minverva hear your complaints, I am quite sure you are simply blowing things out of proportion," Dumbledore remarked, "Come in Minerva its already unlocked," He called out in a louder voice, and then continued on as she walked into the office, "Now then we do however have much to dicuss about this scuffle. A terrible thing yes, and Severus is very much correct something to rectify and prevent from occuring again. Still with Christmas less than a month away I should hope that will settle things"

Snape's groan was long and loud, "A month," He exclaimed stammering for a minute, "Albus thats daft, we can't hope this settles itself out on its own." Snape's complaint was fairly grounded, if slightly exagerated, to be truthful the Headmaster was taking this a bit too lightly even if it was near Christmas. "Albus I," It took some hemming and hawing for Snape to actually come out and voice that maybe, just maybe that Gryfindor hadn't actually fired the first spell in the fight.

"I do believe given the events as we seem to understand them I think we can write off Mr. Potter's prescence as a mere outlier this many seems an incident of our upper years, distasteful as that might be given that they should all know better." McGonagal stated, she spared Flitwick a glance, "I do however think some form of disciplinary action should be enforced."

-scene break-

What had ended up being funny was that even with three houses loosing a not insignifcant amount of points Hufflepuff was still not in the lead. As is it was all the loosing of points had done was tie things up. Truth be told they were just lucky the Quiditch game had gone a cleanly as it had, especially given how close it had been. It'd taken till half into the match, relatively speaking both teams tied up at hundred, to a hundred and ten, lions leading, that Slytherin had started to stir things up.

Flint had started things off, but even with what had gone on, it had quickly devolved into not just the Slytherins fouling the other team. Neither Seeker in truth had been in a good situation thirty minutes after Flint had started things, that had been when the match was finally called. Of course by that time both the green and the red sets of spectators were by and large shouting at each other. So in the end Hooch had called the match, and it'd been a sour victory, but better than another brawl especially with almost the entirety of the school present.

It'd taken almost the entire teaching staff to get both sides to start heading back to their respective rooms. That was probably the problem, and in truth it didn't help people in Gryfindor were snopping after Snape now that he was limping. It didn't mean they were going to attack him, but at the same time no body could say how bad this was going to get it.

"Tell you Snape's been snooping around that third floor corridor no body is supposed to go,"
One of the upper years nodded, and gave some pause to consider before speaking up, "Bet thats where he got the limp, messing around with three headed dog." Everyone knew about the Cerberus now, and that it was Hagrid's dog, and that surprise surprise the dog's name was fluffy, but no body knew what was down the trapdoor.

"What do you think is up there?" Asked the first one,

Harry tossed his bag of books over his shoulder, riotous behavior or not Hogwarts was still a school, and classes were still being held. He got about twelve steps about out of the door before he got held up by another member of the house.

"Potter," In this case it was a Weasley, Ronald, not Fred or George, had run up, panting and out of breath, probably having just run all the way up from the great hall and breakfast, "Just the Lion was looking for, who's Nicolas Flammel?"

Harry stared at him, "I think he's a French Alchemist," He shrugged, "Thats what I read," He didn't remember anything else, and it'd been a muggle book, so maybe it was different Flamel, whatever the case it seemed to satisfy the red head.

"Right thanks, got to grab my books," Ron darted past, and shouted the password at the portrait before jumping through the frame.

The dark haired wizard resumed walking wondering briefly what that had been about, before putting it aside. He had a little bit of time before he needed to be in class with the rest of the Gryfindor first years, and he still had things to do. It was only mid November, and Dumbledore was hoping the Christmas would cool everyone off, but with the way things were worsening Harry wasn't holding out hope. So it was part of the reason he was off to where he was going.

Hogwarts was truly massive. It was visible on the outside obviously, he hadn't realized just how large the castle had been then. Under though, well that was even bigger. It'd been when he found the old Roman styles baths, long abandonned, in the castle he'd actually opened up Hogwarts a history again.

It hadn't been that helpful, but Hogwarts like many ancient magical Roman sites had had indoor plumbing, in fact Hogwarts hard originally used a modified Roman plumbing plan, that had been back when the Founder's had originally built the castle. It partially explained why the castle had such an extensive underground.

Hogwarts at one point had to have sustained a much larger population, but that wasn't the issue today, besides he didn't expect any trouble, and it wasn't going to cost him much time considering he did have potions with the other gryfindors, which was what made this meeting pratical in the first place.

"Snape is going to give you all the run around," Daphne remarked as he walked in, "Dumbledore thinks this will all be over after Christmas, that the hols will calm everyone down."

He shrugged, before brushing his bare hands, "Maybe, looks more like its going to get worse before then though," All things considered well the lower years liked to talk, but the older years seemed like the ones who were serious about going through with it. "there is a lot of talk in Gryfindor about all this, and there will probably be some more action soon."

Percy had tried to put a stop to that, but then again he hadn't seemed to have much luck. Percy had in no uncertain terms been told to shut up and tow the party line. It hadn't been something the prefect had taken particularly well putting him as one of the very few dissenting voices inside Gryfindor house. Hermione Granger was one of the few others who was openly dissenting within the group, though there were likely a few people who just weren't open about it.

"Its no different in Slytherin," She commented sitting on a long unused desk, "Has anyone actually opposed the idea in your house?"
He snorted, "Out loud? Yeah there have been a few of them, its all slimy snakes this, that greasy git that at this point. As it the house though the house is more or less in lockstep."

"I expected as much," She flicked her wand to check the time... which was one of the few things Harry preferred to do the muggle way, he liked checking his watch, "We should go ahead and grab our seats early."

-scene break-

The last week of November was where things started to come to a head. The headmaster continued to say things would be better after everyone had the chance to cool down, but three major things happened that last week. The first had been on the twenty fifth when a major death eater riot in Southern England had broken, no one knew why the Death Eaters had rioted that day. Of course officially no one at Hogwarts had known about the raid, but when word had come the morning after it'd certainly seemed the fighting had been thought about before hand.

It'd actually been a Hufflepuff who'd thrown the first spell that morning, but that had quickly proven a mistake for him in any case. The sixth year Hufflepuff had walked right up to a mass of Slytherins and hurled a spell at effectively point blank, he'd hit, but it'd really just pissed the snakes off. It still had gotten the other badgers to join it. Then it'd gotten worse when the younger years present had jumped in with their house mates.

The second incident had surprise surprise invovled Slytherin and Gryfindor, but the reason it was important was that Professor Quirell had gotten caught in the cross fire. Quirell had actually laughed if it off, and hadn't taken the issue badly at all in fact. It was that that had dramatically improved his standing with both involved houses, who did for the most part feel bad for catching him in the fray.

The same however could not be said for the respective heads of houses. Snape for once, or so it seemed, had actually dished out punishments to members of his own house. Normally that would be a high point in any Gryfindor's week, except there had been other issues. As it had happened Quirrel had not been the only one caught in the crossfire so now the Ravenclaws by and larger were also pissed at Gryfindor, as well as Slytherin. All in all it was not a pretty situation to be in.

That ponce... and for once this didn't mean Malfoy but rather Nott, since he had started the fight, well Nott had made a mess of things. Revealing just how fracturable Slytherin was. He and Malfoy had come to blows showing just were the various loyalties were. Nott and Selwyn had squared off with Malfoy and Zabini, and it had ended up drawing others into it. Now the Lions were looking to pounce in on the situation, so things were probably about to get worse.

The Weasley twins weren't here, because they had detention for their part in the action as of late, and well Mcgonagal hadn't been happy. Truthfully though Harry wasn't in the patient mood, without the gloves his magic was a bit more active, unsupressed a bit more free as it was.

It was Katie who finally ended up asking the question as his magic swirled around his feet, "You're not going to actually go looking for a fight are you?"

"No," He promised, and it was the truth, because he had for the moment learned his lesson after the debacle earlier in the month. Head plus stone equals pain was a fairly simple equation after all, and well there the fact things were complicated.

Su had wanted to bring one of the Ravenclaws, MacDougal if Harry was remembering right, but had ended up deciding against it at the last minute. It was probably because all four houses were now at each others throats. "Ravenclaw is tired of both Gryfindor, and Slytherin, and to a lesser extent of Hufflepuff"
"Because of the fight a couple of days ago?"

The Ravenclaw nodded, that was pretty much the defacto reason, "The fight did catch many people who were otherwise uninnolved in it in the fray," That had definitely been the case, Hufflepuff might have started the fight but the Slytherins innovlved hadn't been in anyway discerning about who they hit.

"I don't mean to dismiss your House," Katie turned to Daphne,"and don't take this the wrong way either, but I think Slytherin is our real concern, I mean Selwyn alone didn't hesistate to start cursing members of your house,"

Harry sat back against the rock, "Nott has been talking a lot more," Now that he was hanging around Selwyn a lot more, especially"and while they are well exept for you, like us first years, both he and Malfoy have apparently some influence on others," it didn't extend all the way to the upper years, but the Selwyn boy Nott was throwin in was a bit more worrying than Zabini ever could hope to be. "Malfoy seems to be loosing traction."

"The upper years don't really care about the first years," Daphne remarked "which is why I think all this is going on," Of course it probably helped Slytherin's prefects never said anything about members of their own house. That was when Daphne dropped the bombshell as it were, "They know you've been practicing the fire, they know all of us have."

... well that was probably going to be an issue, and Harry had a good idea who probably had made sure the information had gotten around to anyone who'd wanted to know. Redmond Boyle liked spreading information about, especially if it bolstered House Slytherin's position. It was possible that it had gotten out another way, but it didn't really matter at this point, not after the troll incident on Halloween.

Harry folded a corner down on his novel, and sat for a minute. "So then December starts tomorrow is there anything they've said?"

"Not yet, but I don't know if it'd be mentioned-"
Harry snorted, "and with them pissed off about loosing the Quiditch match they," They were probably going to try something sooner rather than later. "well Malfoy wants to show Nott up, and then there are the upper years."

"We should consider to leave the older students to each others care," Su suggested, and that might have been an actual option if they'd stop fighting were others would get caught in the crossfire, but given how spontaneous the fights were...

Another snort, "not really an option after that Hufflepuff walked up and pulled his wand on a whole group of Slytherins in the Great Hall." Dumbledore was going to have to do something before this got even worse, and no action seemed forth coming.

-scene break—