AN: I know I haven't updated for a while. Life has kept me busy. I am going to try to write half an hour every day and basically post a chapter once a week, but we will see what happens I guess. I know I have contradicted myself sometimes, but that's okay, because my memory is not all that great right now and if it bothers you too much, you don't have to read it. To read my story is your choice, and as such I have no responsibility over your decision. If you enjoy this story, okay, good, if not, well there's nothing I can do about it except complete my story and learn from this endeavor as best as I can. I didn't wait for a week of collecting writing to post it because I wanted to update for you guys and let you know I am still here, still continuing and sticking to the schedule outlined in the first chapter.

By the end of Chapter Nineteen Harry's first year will be over. Chapter twenty will detail his summer vacation.

Chapter Sixteen: Flying without a broom

They shook hands with the team that had dominated Hogwarts for ten years, that had bullied their way up the power system. The head of the procession of snakes in Hogwarts was Severus Snape, the potions master who had no qualms about taking house points away from those who did not deserve it, or handing out detentions left and right without any reservation.

Harry wondered why Albus did not step in to control the ill behaved professor and after a few seconds of thought while he watched the team captain of the Hufflepuffs shake hands with Slytherin's team captain Marcus Flint, he decided it was because they had a hidden relationship.

One that had a lot more to do with Voldemort than what was seen initially. Harry had been researching the newspapers over the past week and he had found records of several death eater trials where Severus's name had popped up at one time or the other. Harry knew there was a good possibility that Snape was a death eater, and one of Voldemort's servants who could be a spy. But the question he did not have an answer to was who did Snape spy for, Albus Dumbledore or Lord Voldemort?

Harry was sure that neither knew that answer for certain.

The air was a bit frigid and cold, and what Harry had said to Jack was fundamentally true, there was a scent of dragons in the air. Harry could smell it. Ever since he had done the dark rituals found in several tomes banned by over twenty different wizarding countries, he could sense the creatures approaching like they were a part of him. He could feel their aggression and anger, and at the same time, he could also feel the pride of the dragon, a lone dragon approaching Hogwarts, but under some sort of thrall that was clouding its judgment.

Harry felt a drop of sweat run down his back. Could it be that assassin Renaud who had tried to kill Harry? Could it be Malfoy wanting revenge? He knew the attack - and there was going to be one, that was certain in Harry's mind - would be directed primarily at him, and secondarily at Albus Dumbledore or the students. Albus made himself a fine target. Harry could attest to that.

Once he had wanted to kill the old man, the wizard who held Britain in his grip with a gentle touch and a twinkling blue eyed smile.

But when Harry came face to face with what the world considered to be the greatest wizard ever born since Merlin himself, he found his hands shaking, his teeth chattering.

There was power hidden in Albus's blue eyes, a power that Harry had no inkling of, that did not have any taint of darkness and yet it was not weak due to the lack of it. Rather, the power was strong, far stronger than any Harry had ever come across in another wizard.

Perhaps if he met Voldemort one day, he would have someone to compare Dumbledore with but until then Harry knew that assassinating Albus Dumbledore would only get him in major trouble.

He would bide his time, learn, observe and stay silent and aloof. He would be as invisible as he could, just watching and waiting, learning the ins and outs of Hogwarts. If he were to fight the man on his own ground, he would lose, but if that ground was a common region known equally well to the both of them, then Harry would have a good chance of laying some traps to capture Dumbledore.

And then what, Harry asked himself as the quidditch game began. He leapt on his new broom, and raced to the sky, eager to get a bird's eye view of the lake, to see the approaching dragon and do something about it.

The quidditch game progressed rapidly, and although Harry was playing seeker, he did not search for the snitch. Rather he focused on the crowd and their cheering and happy exuberant smiles. They liked him, Harry realized, and he liked himself very well at that moment. Usually he was dull and dead inside, emotionally blunted by the dark rituals he had performed in his prodigious youth, but now at these moments he was finally regaining what he had never sought, a childish need for approval and attention.

He basked in it as he leapt downward into a spiraling corkscrew, intent on making the opposing seeker follow him. And then just as he was about to reach the opposition's three nets, he held his arm out as if he were going to grab the snitch. As expected, the slytherin beaters swung at Harry with their bats, aiming for his head.

Harry ducked under their swings, and whipped downward into a sudden dive before stopping and turning upside down to see the show.

The opponent seeker rolled right into the two beaters's swings, and smashed his head against both bats. He fell like a rock to the sandy pitch below, and Harry watched... almost fascinated by the roaring of the crowd, by the cheering delight of his team mates and by the intense hot anger of the Slytherins.

Madam Hooch called time out, and the pitch was filled with a rumbling sound of thousands of intermingling voices, talking about Harry's move, and two red haired twins took it upon themselves to naming it the Potter Concussion Move.

Marcus Flint stalked toward Harry menacingly as Harry lightly landed on the ground. "What the hell was that Potter, you think you're going to get away with your dirty trick?"

Harry rolled his eyes, suddenly aware of an acute silence that penetrated the entirety of the arena as quidditch fans (and teachers) strained their ears to overhear.

"Not my fault your beaters have bad aim, eh Marcus?" Harry said with a weak smile, "Maybe they should practice a bit before playing in a real game."

It was a deliberate insult to an event that occurred ten days ago when Slytherins bullied the hufflepuff team into abandoning their practice time so the Slytherins could get more practice in before the big game, with a flimsy note from Professor Snape serving as their excuse and protection. The Hufflepuffs had to reschedule to four in the morning, and while Harry didn't mind (he barely slept) the rest of the team did.

Marcus was about to reply, but then the dragon struck, towering over the sky like a giant black cloud. It's sharp silver eyes were directly locked onto Harry's sight, and it swooped downward toward him.

Harry didn't move, he could only stand there in shock at the gigantic size of the deadly creature.

But Albus was not as inhibited and showed his true power in a single spell that Harry would never forget for the rest of his life.