The Slytherin/Gryffindor rematch was scheduled to take place only one week after the Slytherin/Hufflepuff match. Dumbledore was adamant that the match be played before exams, so that students would have a reasonable amount of time to pretend to study.

Draco spent the majority of the week strutting around the Slytherin common room, announcing to anybody who would listen that he intended to embarrass Gryffindor on Saturday. The list of people who were willing to listen seemed to have no end. The only people who weren't caught up in Draco's spell were Harry and Tracey.

By Thursday night, Harry could stand no more. Harry grabbed Tracey by the arm and dragged her out of the common room. "We're leaving."

"Where are we going?" asked Tracey.

"Hagrid's," said Harry. Hagrid was the opposite of Draco.

Harry set a brisk pace as they walked toward Hagrid's hut. Tracey easily kept pace with Harry, quickly moving her shorter legs to keep up with his longer stride. "Are you upset about Draco again?" Tracey asked.

"Yes," said Harry. "I can't stand the way he's acting, constantly pandering."

"He's not doing it for you, Harry. He's doing it for everybody else. When it's just you and him in Potions, is he constantly reminding you that he's seeker?"

"Well, no."

"That's the difference. He's building up his social cache with everybody else in Slytherin. He doesn't need to do that with you, because the two of you are best friends." Tracey paused. "You could learn a thing or two from him."

"Come on." If there was one subject that Harry didn't want to talk about, it was ways in which Draco was better than him.

"No, I'm serious," Tracey said. "Draco has been seeker for two matches, but he's practically the king of Slytherin. Flint's been captain of the team for three years and he hasn't managed what Draco did in three months."

"Flint's worried about a professional contract," Harry said.

"So he can play quidditch until he's thirty-five, maybe forty. Then what?" Tracey shook her head. "Flint squandered an opportunity, but Draco isn't making the same mistake."

"So Draco's allowed to treat his best friend like crap, because he's building up his social status?" Harry was starting to get really angry. He hadn't thought Tracey would be like this.

"I'm not saying that it's right, I'm just telling you what he's doing." Tracey shrugged.

"Brilliant social advice from the girl who can't make friends beyond Daphne and me." As soon as Harry spoke, he regretted his words.

Tracey blushed and began pulling at her hair, nervous and suddenly self-conscious. "It's like when we watched Professor Snape check your broom for curses. I know what was going on, but I can't do it."

Harry and Tracey had arrived at Hagrid's. Harry opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could say anything, the door opened and Hagrid stepped out. When he saw Harry, he smiled.

"Harry! I thought I heard someone talkin' out here. Come on in, I was jus' brewin' a spot o' tea." For some reason, Hagrid always seemed to be brewing tea when Harry arrived. "And yer friend here, Miss Davis, right?"

"Hello, Professor," Tracey said. Harry realized that Tracey and Hagrid didn't know each other outside the Care of Magical Creatures class.

"Hagrid, this is my good friend, Tracey Davis." Tracey smiled and immediately perked up when Harry said this. Harry didn't see why he wouldn't; it was true, even if they had just been arguing. "Tracey, this is Hagrid. He was the first person to tell me that I was a wizard, and he's been a friend ever since."

"I didn't know you two were so close," Tracey said.

"I've known Harry ever since 'e was a babe," Hagrid said as he bustled around the stove, pouring tea. "We jus' had a bit've a gap in the middle there."

"Hagrid's the best. Pretty much the first magic I ever saw was Hagrid's flying motorcycle," Harry said.

"Isn't that misuse of muggle artifacts?" Tracey asked. "You could get in trouble with the Ministry."

"It doesn' seem ter bother anybody. Then again, I don' let anybody see me ridin' it, either." Hagrid winked.

Harry hadn't known about that law. "Hagrid, you have to tell me these things! I could have slipped and told anybody!"

"Well, considerin' where I got it, I thought you wouldn' want ter know."

"What do you mean?"

Hagrid looked down. "Shouldn'ter said that…"

"Hagrid, tell me." Harry leaned forward. "It's okay. I want to know."

Hagrid sighed. "Only 'cause yer asked, Harry." Hagrid began setting the teacups on the table. Harry quickly took a sip. If this was one of Hagrid's questionable cups, he wanted to warn Tracey, but the tea was actually quite good.

"I've had that bike for thirteen years, Harry, an' the whole time I've bin wonderin' what I should do with it. Fer a while, I wanted to give it to yeh, when you were old enough."

"Give it to me? Why?" Harry's eyebrows went up. Thirteen years… "Hagrid, did that bike belong to my dad?"

"Not exactly. I borrowed the bike, but before I could return it, the owner was… well…" Hagrid looked down at his tea.

Harry gave Tracey a quizzical look. He didn't have any idea what was going on. Tracey shrugged; she was doing no better.

"I've bin keepin' careful watch on the key this year, yer know," Hagrid was saying. "It's locked in that box, over there." He nodded his head toward a metal box that sat on the bookcase next to his bed. "Wouldn' do ter have it stolen. I'd be helpin' the likes of him…"

"Who, Hagrid?"

"Sirius Black," Hagrid said.

"You…" Harry spoke slowly. "You got your bike. From Sirius Black."

"I'd jus' got yer outta the ruins of yer parents' house. The whole place was burned, there were holes in the ceiling, nobody knew what was goin' on… an' then Sirius Black shows up, flyin' that motorbike. I thought he'd jus' heard the news an' come ter check on yeh. I din' know he'd been yer parents Secret Keeper, Harry." Hagrid suddenly clenched his hand into a fist and pounded on the table, shaking the teacups in their saucers. "I comforted the murderin' traitor! I thought he was upset about yer parents, Harry, but he was upset abou' You-Know-Who!"

Harry sat back, stunned. This was the first he had heard about the night his parents had been killed. Everybody was quick to tell him what happened, but nobody ever took the time to tell him how.

"Yer know what he said ter me, Harry? He said, 'Give Harry ter me, Hagrid. I'm his godfather, I'll look after 'im.' But I told him no, I had me orders from Dumbledore ter take yeh ter yer aunt an' uncle's. He told me ter take his motorbike to get yeh there. Said he wouldn' need it anymore."

"Too easy to trace?" Harry asked. Hagrid nodded.

"How many flyin' motorbikes are there in England? An' Dumbledore knew that Black had bin yer parents Secret Keeper, so it wouldn' be long 'til the Ministry was lookin' fer it. But Peter Pettigrew managed the find Black anyway, that poor lad…" Hagrid took a slow drink of his tea. "I don' know what woulda happened if I'da given yeh ter him, Harry."

"And why, exactly, did you want to give me his motorcycle?" Harry was astounded at Hagrid's lack of sensitivity.

"I though' it'd be a good way to tell 'im to bugger off," Hagrid said. "The boy he tried to kill, ridin' his motorbike fer fun."

"I guess it would be, at that." There was a beautiful simplicity to Hagrid's logic, and Harry gave Hagrid a small grin. "But no matter how amazing I think it is, it's muggle transportation. I'm not sure what the rest of my house would think of it."
"You should do it, Harry," Tracey said. "Everybody will think that it's cool."

"Even though it's muggle-made?"

"Especially because it's muggle-made, Harry. Rebellion is cool."

"Really?" Harry had never thought about "cool" since he had gotten to Hogwarts. In his youth, Dudley had made sure to emphasize that "cool" was "the opposite of Harry." And at school, popularity came naturally; Harry hardly needed to try to be popular, when he was Draco Malfoy's best friend and The Boy Who Lived.

Tracey sighed. "Yes, Harry. Rebellion demonstrates independence, and independence is cool." Tracey's tone was part lecture, part exasperation. Harry seemed to get that tone from her quite a bit. It reminded him of the tone that Hermione used when speaking to Ron Weasley about homework and revising. "Riding a flying motorcycle is breaking the rules about misuse of muggle artifacts, so it's cool. Nobody will ever say a thing about it, because you're Harry Potter, but everybody will know that you're getting away with it, which is why it's cool." Tracey waved a hand in the air. "It'll do a lot for your image."

"I have an image?"

"Not really," Tracey said. "If you weren't good at quidditch, you'd be rather pathetic."

"Hey!"

"Don' talk abou' Harry that way," Hagrid said. "He's a good kid."

"I know," said Tracey. "I like Harry a lot! But he doesn't think about social things."

"I didn't know I needed to," said Harry.

"Exactly. But that's why you have me." Tracey smiled and winked at Harry. "Trust me. Take the bike."

Harry turned to Hagrid. "Okay, I'll take it, I guess." Harry was dubious, but he did like the bike. And Tracey was right—he didn't think about social things. Harry had just thought that Draco was being a jerk for the last few weeks, acting the way he was. But according to Tracey, there were layers of subtext hidden within Draco's every action. Who knew?

"It's yers, Harry, but not until yer old enough," said Hagrid. "Dumbledore'd kill me iffin he knew I were givin' that motorbike to a third year."

"Come on, Hagrid." Now that the idea was in Harry's head, he wanted the motorcycle rather badly. "Please? I'll keep it quiet."

"I had a button installed for that, but it isn't people hearin' yeh that I'm worried abou'." Hagrid said. Harry was puzzled for a moment, then realized that Hagrid had taken Harry's statement literally. "Maybe as a graduation present."

"That's forever!"

"Harry will be seventeen the summer before his seventh year," Tracey said. "Why not then?" Harry glared at Tracey—his seventeenth birthday was closer, but still almost four years away.

Hagrid tilted his head this way and that, considering Tracey's suggestion. "Fine. Yer seventeenth birthday, then."

"Where do you keep the motorcycle, anyway?" Tracey asked. "I haven't seen it around."

"Course not," Hagrid said. "That woudn' do. I keep it down'n the stables so that none of the kids get any crazy ideas."

"We have stables?" Harry asked.

"Sure we do," Hagrid said. "I keep some've the thestrals in there, when they're sick or abou' to have a foal."

Harry glanced at Tracey, but she shrugged. Neither of them had any idea what a thestral was.

"It's gettin' late," Hagrid said, glancing at his clock. "I'd better walk the two of yeh back ter the castle."

As Harry and Tracey walked through the halls of Hogwarts to the Slytherin common room, Harry couldn't stop thinking about what Tracey had said at Hagrid's.

"Tracey? Am I really as helpless as you said? Socially?"

"You certainly have room to improve. You did more with your position as seeker than Flint did with his captaincy, for example. And the Heir of Slytherin business certainly helped, as did that thing with Quirrell first year." Harry wasn't sure he was comfortable with the casual way that Tracey mentioned his battles with Voldemort. It was very… calculating. "So, no, you aren't helpless… but Draco makes you look like an amateur."

"If I have to act like that, I'm not sure I want to be a pro," Harry said.

"See, I always thought that about you, too. But then we had our conversation with Daphne last Saturday. You want to be acknowledged, Harry. Admit it."

"I do, but is it so much to ask that people don't stare at my forehead like I'm some sort of freak? That maybe, for once, they like me for who I am or what I do, instead of what curse I survived?"

"If you want people to like you for what you do, you have to draw their attention to it. Sitting back and being quiet won't get you noticed."

"So I'd do better if I acted like Lockhart last year?" Harry asked. Tracey nodded, and Harry shuddered. "That seems so… slimy. Like I'm manipulating people into liking me."

"Harry, you're a celebrity, whether you want to be one or not. In the absence of anything else, people are going to stare at your forehead. SO GIVE THEM SOMETHING ELSE." Tracey was waving her arms in frustration. "That's what Draco's doing! People notice him because he's a Malfoy, but once they've noticed, he shows them a quidditch star. There's no reason you can't do that, too."

Harry considered Tracey's words. Her logic seemed to be sound. He was never going to stop being Harry Potter, but he might be able to stop all this talk about The Boy Who Lived. He could become great on his own terms.

A shiver ran down Harry's back, the echoes of a distant memory. He tried to think of what it was… but it was gone.

"Okay," Harry said. "I'll try it. But I'll probably need help."

"I said it before, Harry. That's why you have me."

Harry smiled. "Thanks, Tracey. But seriously this time, why don't you do it yourself, if you have it all figured out?"

"Two reasons," Tracey said. "First, people don't like me. They think I'm weird. I'm glad that we're friends, but it's true, so don't try to convince me otherwise." Harry hated to admit it, but Tracey was right. People did think she was strange.

"Second," Tracey said, "I'm ordinary. I might not be muggleborn, but I am only a halfblood. My family isn't rich or powerful. I don't have the name recognition of Malfoy or Parkinson or Greengrass. You, though…" Tracey smiled, and Harry could hear the excitement in her voice. "You've got more than all of them combined. You can be someone great, Harry."

Harry tried to hide his smile, but Tracey's enthusiasm was infectious. Someone great. Harry liked the sound of that.

"Okay, I'm going to be great," Harry said. "When do we start?"

"When's the next quidditch match?"