As predicted, Defense Against Dark Arts turned out to be boring. The next morning, the second year Slytherins had their first Defense class of the year. There was the quiz that the Gryffindors had warned about and Harry decided to follow Dean's example and write down silly or snarky answers to the questions. He apparently wasn't the only one, for when Lockhart looked over the papers, he remarked, "Some of you really need to read my books better. Six of you wrote down 'If I knew what your secret ambition was, it wouldn't be so secret'. And no, my ideal birthday wish isn't 'to receive a brain' or 'learn how to properly deal with Cornish pixies'. I do know how to properly deal with pixies and was only testing yesterday's class."
Daphne, who was sitting next to Harry, let out an unladylike snort. Lockhart finished going over the quiz and then opened up Break with a Banshee, where he started reading out the chapter of how he dealt with the Bandon Banshee. None of the class was happy to discover that Anthony's prediction of Defense class was true. Even worse, Tracey and Harry were (to their great annoyance) called up front to act out the roles of the banshee and a Bandon villager respectively as Lockhart went from reading to enacting out the whole 'thrilling escapade'. Draco went from being bored to great amusement at seeing Harry and Tracey having to take part in all this and Pansy joined him, shaking with suppressed laughter.
When class was dismissed, Draco and Pansy walked out chortling over the enactment, and Crabbe and Goyle joined in with a few guffaws as they followed Draco. Out in the corridor, Pansy said, "Hey, Davis, if the Bandon Banshee actually had been anything like your acting of it, Professor Lockhart would have defeated in a few seconds."
"Oh shut up, Parkinson," Harry retorted. "I imagine your acting would be even worse."
"What about your acting, Potter?" Malfoy asked. "Or do you really sound like that when you're scared or when you're thanking someone for saving them?"
"I was annoyed at being called up, so of course I'd make that clear!" Harry snapped. "If you'd been -"
"Harry, enough," Theodore interrupted. "Their opinion doesn't matter as it's beneath us. Just ignore them."
"Yes," said Daphne sweetly. "After all, unicorns take no notice of what a mule thinks of them, so we should take no notice of what people like Pansy and Draco think, even if they are as stubborn as one. Now come on, or we'll be late for Potions."
Both Pansy and Draco looked indignant at basically being compared to mules, but the four AA members ignored them and hurried down to the Potions classrooms while Blaise and Millicent chuckled at the comparison as they followed at a more leisurely pace.
On Thursday, Slytherin had Quidditch tryouts, as Terrence Higgs had chosen to drop out of being Seeker in order to focus on studying for NEWTs that year. Draco showed up for it with a Nimbus Two Thousand One and more-or-less said that if he were to be made Seeker, his father would buy six more of the brooms and donate them to the team. The beaters, Derrick and Bole, looked excited at that, but Flint, not looking impressed at all, said flatly, "You're only being made Seeker if you're better than Potter or the other candidates trying out, Malfoy. Having the best brooms on the market isn't going to make up for poor performance on your part, and I want Slytherin to win the Quidditch Cup this year after we lost out on it to the Gryffindors last year."
Malfoy looked rather sulky at that, but didn't say anything as Flint ordered the four candidates for Seeker into the air so he could gauge their flying skills before letting loose the practice Snitch. Harry and Malfoy proved to be the best flyers, with the other two, both third years, competent enough but not to the level of the two second-years. Flint then had the two third years fly on their own and released the practice Snitch.
Of the two third-years, the girl, Adella Roper, caught the Snitch first. The boy, Julius Bole (a younger brother of the beater) was disqualified and Adella was first pitted against Malfoy and then Harry. Both second years beat her to the Snitch and then they faced off against each other. Though Malfoy had the slightly faster broom, Harry was still able to beat him to the Snitch, and did so the subsequent two times. (Though the third one was a close one and Harry had to knock Malfoy's arm out of the way in order to catch the Snitch). Flint declared Harry to be Slytherin's new Seeker, with Malfoy as the reserve.
There were some cheers from the scattered Slytherins up in the stands, except for Pansy, Crabbe, and Goyle, the former of whom looked very upset and started protesting that Draco deserved to be the full Seeker. Malfoy himself objected vehemently, saying that he had the faster broom and would go to his father about this.
"That's enough, Malfoy!" snapped Flint. "I'm the captain and what I say goes. You might have had the faster broom, but Potter was still able to beat you to the Snitch three times on his Nimbus Two Thousand. And what kind of Slytherin are you, if you have to go to daddy for every little thing that doesn't go your way?"
Malfoy turned pink, but apparently couldn't come up with any retort and so stalked off the pitch in a foul mood. Harry shook his head at this and then Flint dismissed the team, saying that he would arrange for them to have practice Saturday morning.
As Harry headed back to castle so he could tell the non-Slytherin members of the AA that he'd made the team, an idea occurred to him. He knew that his trust vault had over seven thousand galleons and the spending money he'd withdrawn this year and last hadn't made any dent in it, considering that five hundred galleons got transferred to it yearly from the Potter family vault. He also knew that the Nimbus Two Thousand cost less than one hundred galleons and that the Nimbus Two Thousand One would be only slightly more expensive than that. With that in mind, he made a quick detour to the Slytherin common room to pick up some writing supplies and another detour to the Owlery, where he soon sent Hedwig off with an order to Quality Quidditch Supplies.
By Saturday morning, the four Heads of House would have each received seven Nimbus Two Thousand Ones, with a note specifying that they were donations to the house Quidditch teams. The order had noted that the money was to be taken out of his trust vault, but the brooms were to be sent anonymously, as he didn't want anyone finding out that he had done this. If his guardians did find out the large withdrawal from his trust vault, he would explain why, but otherwise he wasn't telling anyone.
As it turned out, the broomsticks arrived in the afternoon. The accompanying notes only said that the brooms were being donated anonymously by someone who really liked Hogwarts and was feeling generous. There was quite a bit of headscratching and speculation as to which wealthy Hogwarts alumni felt the need to make such a generous donation at dinnertime after Professor Dumbledore made the announcement and the Heads called their houses' respective Quidditch teams in their offices to pick up the team brooms.
"It wasn't my father," Draco snapped when some of the Slytherins questioned him. "After only being made reserve Seeker, do you think I'd ask him to donate brooms? And even if he did decide to donate brooms, he'd only donate to Slytherin, not the other houses."
When the AA met up after dinner, they were also speculating on who the anonymous donor was, until Padma noticed that Harry was silent during all this, and in fact had a mysterious smile on his face. "Harry, what's up with you? Aren't you curious as to who donated those brooms? And why do you have that smile on your..." Her voice trailed off as she stared at him and then she exclaimed, "Harry! You didn't send those brooms, did you?"
The rest of the AA stared at Harry, and Hermione remarked, "Well, if he did, he can certainly afford to. But why would you do such a thing, Harry James Potter?"
"I'm not saying I did," said Harry firmly. "But if I did, Malfoy is the reason. He flat out tried to bribe his way to becoming Seeker by saying that his father would give the Slytherin team Nimbus Two Thousand Ones. Flint wasn't having any of that, but Malfoy's bribe annoyed me. Besides which, it would be hardly fair to have one team have top-of-the-line brooms while the others didn't, right?"
"Yes, but why would you spend at least two thousand galleons in one go like that?" Theo demanded. "Even if you can afford it, that's still a strange thing to do, and if you felt such a donation was necessary, you could have asked Sirus and Lia to make it."
"I didn't say I made the donation," Harry snapped. "Besides, don't you agree that that the house teams could use good quality but standard brooms, in the interest of fairness?"
"Leave Harry alone," Ron interjected. "He's not going to confirm or deny making the donation, even though it's pretty obvious to us that he did, and he makes good points. Besides, it's his money and he can spend it however he wants."
There were still some doubtful looks, mostly due to the large amount of money that had been spent, but the AA dropped the subject, other than to promise to not reveal that Harry was behind the donation since he clearly wanted to remain anonymous.
For Saturday's morning practice, it turned out that the Gryffindor team had booked the pitch for then, while Flint had gone to Professor Snape for a note authorizing the Slytherin team to use the pitch at the same time. It looked as if Flint and Wood might come to blows, or hexes, over this, until Harry interrupted, "I thought we were working to improve Slytherin's reputation, Flint. Stunts like this aren't helping with that."
Flint paused and looked taken aback, as if he hadn't thought about how this would look. Harry continued mildly, "I know you're anxious to get me trained and all, but you didn't need to go that far. Well, since the Gryffindors have booked the pitch, but it would be stupid the waste Professor Snape's note, why don't both our teams have a practice match? We can ask Madam Hooch to oversee us and it'll be good practice for when we actually do have to face off against each other in a real match."
Fred and George sided with Harry's suggestion, and so, with some reluctance, Marcus Flint and Oliver Wood agreed to it. Angelina Johnson, one of the Gryffindor chasers, ran off to get Madam Hooch, and when the flying instructor arrived, the two teams took off in the air for the practice match. Some of the other students turned up to watch, including Lee Jordan, who took up his usual role of commentator and Daphne ended up filling in as Professor McGonagall as she tried to keep him in check with his comments.
Harry ended up catching the Snitch after an hour (it was agreed that the Seekers wouldn't actually try to catch the Snitch until after forty-five minutes had passed so that both teams could get an actual practice in), with the unofficial score being two hundred and fifty to one hundred, in Slytherin's favor. All in all, it was declared a good practice match, with both teams knowing what they had to work on for the real matches. They then left for the locker rooms to shower and change.
After lunch, the AA went down to visit Hagrid, who showed off his pumpkins, which were now even larger than when he'd shown them to Harry, Ron, Justin, Theo, Parvati, and Padma the day they couldn't get through the barrier. He was happy to see the group, though he did admit to at first thinking that perhaps Professor Lockhart had come back, as the Defense teacher had visited that morning. The AA was rather pleased to see that Hagrid didn't think much of Lockhart, and he confirmed the stories of the antics that Lockhart had gotten into back as a student.
On Sunday, Harry, with the AA surrounding him, called Sirius and Lia via the two-way mirror to report that so far, nothing untoward had happened. Sirius brought up the fact that he'd found out that morning that 2,600 galleons had been withdrawn from the trust vault, so Harry had to explain about the anonymous donation that he'd made. Lia proceeded to lecture him about his spending, saying that he could have gone to them and they would have made the donation instead.
"I didn't think of that, all right?" Harry said. "It's my money and I can spend what's in my trust vault however I want. Besides, it's not like I spent those almost three thousand galleons on something frivolous for myself, but on something rather useful for Hogwarts."
"You have a point there," said Lia. "I just wish you had consulted Sirius and me first before you went ahead and did it, Harry."
"I'll do that in the future, Aunt Lia," Harry promised.
"Good," said Lia and after she and Sirius wished the AA well, they ended the connection.
Author's Note: Reviewer Harriverse kindly reminded me that I had written Sirius as donating new school brooms in the previous fic, so I have changed it to just having Harry buying brooms of the house teams.