A/N: I'm really really sorry about the slowness of this update, however real life has a tendency to catch up with you. My wife gave birth not too long ago and I've been spending a lot of time with them. Enjoy!

The sound of metal hitting metal resounded around the padded room, the sound reverberating off the walls and then being absorbed by the pads as the two combatants moved. The metal flashed in the air with the lights from above creating streaks of light that seemed to move in a long fluid motion from left to right and then straight up. The metal slashed downwards and was met by another set of metal, the resounding clang sounding through the air once again, but before the sound could go further the sound rebounded and echoed, forming again and again as the two pieces of metal struck each other in quick succession.

The pair of people in the middle of the room moved around one another, their movements almost a blur to the outsider watching them. Their bodies flowed easily as if through water as their swords brought to bear on each other, slashing and moving in and out of the space where a body had occupied only a moment before. In only a moment the figures began to back off from one another, separating and slowly lowering their swords to point towards the ground, facing one another.

Harry breathed heavily in the white gi that he wore the linen light upon his skin and yet still soaked through with his sweat; the glint of gold could be seen on his right hand. The long English spatha sword gleamed in the light as the point of the blade rested against the ground and the twin sharpened edges both pointed from his opponent and down to the ground as well. The sword was almost as tall as him and weighed quite a lot, but he hefted it easily as he kept the point directly down at the floor and looked down the blade at his opponent on the other side of the room.

In stark contrast to his son, Mister Smith was not breathing heavily at all, his chest slowly rising up and down in a controlled manner. He wore a black gi tied around his waist with a white belt in contrast to the color choice of his opponent across the room. He too held a spatha type sword, the flat side of the sword gleaming of an unknown metal in the light as it trailed down and sparkled in the light giving off an almost rainbow effect along the metal.

"You've been keeping up with your training, I see, even at school." Mister Smith spoke slowly, his voice carrying around the room easily.

"It wasn't hard to find the room; it was exactly where my mentors told me it would be." Harry moved the sword slightly to the side, changing his stance so that the flat edge of the sword pointed outward towards the other man.

Mister Smith nodded and turned his own sword inward, facing the flat edge towards his opponent as he leaned against the pommel. "What about everything else?" Harry nodded and a bottle of water appeared in his hand; at this Smith looked up around the room. "Oi, no cheating out of the peanut gallery or I'll have to reprogram a few things; honestly I turn my back for one minute and things are flying off the handle."

Harry shook his head and laughed. "Come on, we both know that's not true, you wouldn't change a thing after so long." He took a swig of the water and then sighed as he swallowed it, savoring the cool feeling on the back of his throat. "It's going well so far, but I think that there's something going on in the background that could cause a few issues for everyone."

"Still worried about that troll from Halloween are we?" Smith smiled as he tossed Harry a white towel from a nearby bench. "I love a good mystery, really I do, I only wish I could get in there myself and see what it's all about."

Harry shook his head a little. "I doubt that's going to happen. Something's going on there and I have a feeling that it has to do with the Headmaster, but I can't be sure. I'll keep observing as much as I can and stay out of established events as much as possible."

"You know the rules and you have the training, just keep that in mind as you go through the rest of the school year." Smith wiped his own face down with a towel, rubbing at his sandy brown hair for a moment and then putting the towel back down on the bench. "We'll have to take some precautionary measures against a few things here and there, but it should be all right."

"Are we headed back towards the station?" At the nod from Smith Harry tossed the towel to him and strode through the door in the wall that had just slid open. Popping his head back into the room he smiled. "Dad, I can't thank you enough for all the training and everything both you and my mentors have shown to me."

He shrugged a little as he moved towards the door to follow Harry up the hallway towards the large circular room. The groaning sound could be heard from the room and was getting louder as they moved down the metal grating of the hallway. "Don't mention it bucko, they trained you up well and I'm only going along with it, like I usually do."

Harry shook his head as he turned a corner away from the circular room and into a large space that expanded upwards with a spiral staircase. The staircase wound up along the inside of the room with the outside covered in various clothes. "I'll get changed, you should probably as well. Why can't you just drop me off at Hogwarts itself? You know that we could just do that."

Smith shook his head as he leaned against the door jamb while he watched Harry ascend the staircase towards a certain rack of clothing. The rack swiveled around a little to face him showing various types of small robes. "You know that I can't do that. If Dumbledore even suspected that we could do that he would hold you hostage or something like that." He waved it off a little and shrugged. "Besides, I thought you would want to ride the train back with your friends."

Harry nodded as he pulled down a Gryffindor emblazoned black robe with a small button up white shirt and black jeans before heading back down towards the ground floor. "True, but I just didn't want to face the questions about what I did over the holidays. I doubt that many of them would really understand what I was doing. I did spend some time with Hermione, which was nice."

Smith nodded as he stood to the side to let the young man to pass by him before following him out into the hallway. "I told her parents about the maturation."

"How did they take it?"

"No one seemed to have told them about it, but that doesn't really surprise me seeing as how they have tried to suppress the information for as long as they have." He put his hands behind his head a little as they walked down a small flight of steps into an identical hallway. "Just warning you since I'm sure that she'll have numerous questions about it when you get on the train."

"Not much different from my original train ride to the school, doesn't really surprise me." He groaned as he shook his head. "I can only hope that the whole history doesn't repeat itself; I have no real desire to deal with Weasley and Malfoy all over again."

Smith quirked a small smile. "You get into trouble wherever you go, you know that." He ruffled the young man's messy hair as they came to another door that slid to the side disappearing into the adjoining wall. "Come on up when you're clean and dressed." Harry nodded as Smith moved off down the hallway towards where the groaning sound could be heard.

XoXo

The sun was just barely peeking over the top of the mountains casting shadows down along the long loch that stood before the ancient castle. The light reflected off the many window panes, throwing glittering prisms of color across the ancient flagstones of hallways and glittering along the suits of armor. The towers shone brightly in the new morning light with banners snapping in the slight breeze that had come in the early morning. The sunlight slowly slid down the main tower and glittered through a stained glass recreation of itself and into the cluttered office of the Headmaster.

Dumbledore sat behind the desk staring at a small brown paper wrapped parcel on his desk. At the top of the paper, tied up with nondescript brown twine, was a small note in loopy handwriting that he recognized rather easily. He pulled his wand from his robe sleeve as he poked at it slightly and then sighed as he leaned back into the chair and stared at the offending object on his desk. Stepping his fingers before him he looked over the half-moon spectacles at the parcel as if it would explode at any moment.

Off to the side of the office near one of the regular windows, which stood open, was a small brown owl preening itself slightly. The owl didn't seem to notice the old man staring balefully at it as it continued to pluck feathers from the plumage and let them flutter down onto the rug of the office. A few of the feathers picked up the wind and slipped from the open window, but most of them had landed inside the office. Dumbledore looked up and stared at the owl that had refused to do its job for once.

The ancient Headmaster had learned that Mister Potter would be staying with his guardians for the holidays through a rather irate Mrs. Weasley. She had called him a few hours after the train was schedule to arrive at King's Cross station, lamenting that the boy wasn't coming to her home for the holidays. When asked what he was doing, she said that some undercover Auror was escorting him to his guardians. This was obviously some kind of ruse as there were no such people stationed around Platform nine and three quarters, and even if there were they would not have exposed themselves to her to do their duty.

Slipping the spectacles off his crooked nose, Dumbledore slowly rubbed at the bridge of his nose. It was acting up again due to the cold weather and the open window wasn't helping matters. Keeping his eyes closed he heard the owl give a squawk at him before the sound of a flutter of wings slowly died down. Once the fluttering was done he waved his wand absentmindedly at the window and listed to it close and latch shut. Almost immediately the cold breeze was cut off and the temperature in the room rose by several degrees.

Still keeping his eyes closed the aged man addressed the seemingly empty room. "Why did it not deliver the package? It is an owl and should simply do it's duty and then fly off to do whatever it is that owls do." He shook his head a little as he stared at the package again on the top of his desk.

He had made the decision rather easily to return the cloak to Harry with a few modifications added to it. The cloak, he knew was Harry's by right simply because his father and family owned it, but it was something that he did not wish to part with easily. He had added a few charms and enchantments to the cloth to make it more noticeable than it was originally; more specifically to take away the silencing effect that it was supposed to have over the wearer. He had also added a few tracking and usage spells so that he knew when Harry would use it and where he was at any point in time.

Dumbledore always prided himself in knowing people inside and out before going into a situation. He would gather intelligence and plan as much as he could before making a single move; in this aspect he was a chess master that would take years to sometimes make his next move. He knew that Harry would latch onto any attention that was given to him and having something of his family's would make him more susceptible to suggestions. Knowing this, the man had deduced that Harry would utilize the cloak, not to study or to get into the library, but to sneak around the castle listening to the suggestions of his best friends in Gryffindor.

That was of course if he could get the cloak to the boy in the first place. When he had first found out that Harry was leaving for the holidays he was shocked; knowing that the Dursleys would abhor the boy and push him away on the holiday, but he had accepted it. He had sent Mrs. Weasley, giving her a few mental suggestions and a push in the right direction, to give him an alternative that he was sure the boy would latch onto vehemently once he heard it. Sure the Weasley boy was being pushy and wasn't one of Harry's close friends, but that could be easily changed.

Again, he was proven wrong, and in the most unusual fashion. Harry denied the chance to spend the holidays with the seemingly loving family of the Weasleys in favor of going home and spending it with his relatives. Looking up from the package Dumbledore consulted one of the ward monitors sitting on a nearby shelf; the small silver dragon puffed out different colored smoke based on the strength of the wards of the home, and at the moment it was a bright green showing that they were as full as ever.

His latest scheme in getting the cloak to Harry was to simply tie it to the leg of an owl and have it delivered as a late Christmas present. Having done so in the most nondescript fashion he had used a school owl, thrown it out the window and forgotten about it. It wasn't until the owl returned right where it had started that he got agitated. Three more unsuccessful trips later the owl stopped going out the window all together.

"Perhaps I made the wards a little more powerful than I had intended." The man let off a chuckle a little as he fiddled with the brown twine that had tied up the package that he had created only a few hours before. "I think that I might have to pay a visit to young Harry and see how his home life is getting along. If anything I will be able to give him my present in person and speak with his guardians." He nodded resolutely as he moved towards the fireplace.

Just as he was about the pick up the floo powder that was resting in a cast iron pot on the mantle, the fire flared a green and a voice of an older man came out. "Albus, I believe we should speak."

Kneeling down, Dumbledore looked into the fire to see an old wrinkled male face. The man's head was completely bald with a small ring of pure white hair along the temples. He appeared to not have much of a beard as it disappeared into the green flames, but his eyes sparkled slightly with their brown color. "Amicalus, what can I do for you this fine day?"

"The petition that you have submitted last month is up for a special vote today." The man turned slightly to appear to be looking at the side of the mantle for a moment before he turned back fully to look at the man before him. "In fact some of the committee is looking forward to coming to Hogwarts for the feast if you are amicable to the idea."

Dumbledore stroked his long beard for a moment as his eyes stared off at the top of the mantle for a moment. He was specifically looking at a small crystal rose that glow a faint red inside. "I think that might be an interesting idea, Amicalus. Can you tell me why the committee would want to come here?"

"Your petition was startling, and it was determined that we should observe the boy ourselves. If it is not acceptable then we can find another time for the boy to be brought before us, or to be observed at another time."

"No, no, of course not. You and the rest are more than welcome to come to Hogwarts. You were all former students here and are always welcome to return." Dumbledore smiled and bowed his head as the man did as well before the green flames disappeared.

Moving back to his desk he slowly slumped into it and stared at the fire. Slowly he began to stroke his beard as he spoke to the empty office. "Now how will I swing this one?"

XoXo

The large red steamer slowly pulled away from the station as many people on the platform waved before popping out of existence. The countryside around it and indeed a few of the cars that were being pulled were covered in a few inches of snow, a gift from a few nights ago to the returning students packed closely into the small compartments on the train. Friends were meeting old friends as well as making new one's, swapping stories and presents that they weren't able to do over the rest of the holiday. Overall it was a very joyous atmosphere carried over from the platform and the crying parents and loved one's to see the children depart.

The mood was not all that different in the last compartment where four first years were sitting talking and laughing with one another. Two Gryffindor, a Slytherin, and a Ravenclaw were all laughing at something that a black haired boy was saying, waving his arms around like tentacles and then making large mouth motions against his face. The two girls were positioned across from the boys on the benches with a snowy owl and a toad perched above the boys respectively.

"Seriously, the thing must have had five heads with huge ten inch fangs." Harry motioned with his hands against his mouth showing his fingers dangling down like teeth. The others laughed a little harder as he smiled and continued. "It walks up to my dad and gives him a great big hug warbling on about a long lost relative."

Hermione nearly fell off her bench as she laughed so hard, but Neville moved forward to catch her, breaking the mood. Harry and Daphne both looked at the two blushing children with a knowing look. "So…uhmm….how was your holidays?" Hermione asked the boys.

"Mine was great, thanks again for that plant, Harry." Neville smiled as he turned to the boy next to him. Harry had sent a late present that turned out to be a seed to be grown in a nice humid environment. It was a harmless magical vine, but not something that you could just clip away and give to someone whole. "Gran and I spent a lot of time talking about life and…" He got quiet and blush a little, refusing to look at the girls.

"Anyway…" Harry smiled as Neville gave him a small smile in appreciation. "Did you two girls enjoy your slumber party?"

The girls giggled a little, but nodded as Daphne leaned forward. "I had no idea the extent of traditions in the muggle world, and the movies…" She giggled a little again. "I thought portraits were good, but that was something else."

"You should go to a cinema sometime, the screen is huge." Harry laughed at the wide eyed look the purebloods were giving the other two. "I've got presents for you two as well, sorry that I couldn't get it in time for the actual holiday." The girls started to stammer out that he didn't have to get them anything, but he waved it away. "Nonsense, you guys are my friends and I want to get you something."

"We didn't think to get you anything, Harry." Hermione spoke up, chewing on her lip as the others nodded as well.

"Not to worry, I got enough stuff for all of us, besides I didn't buy it so technically they're all presents." He smiled as he kicked open his trunk and once again disappeared inside of it. He leaned on the edge onto his tiptoes and rooted around for a bit; his body disappearing much more into the trunk than would seem possible.

Hermione rolled her eyes a little. "Harry, that trick gets old rather quickly once you explained about the trunk in the first place."

Harry laughed as he pulled his head back out of the trunk. "Perhaps, but how about this one?" Leaping up he tucked his legs up into a perfect cannonball maneuver and disappeared under the lid of the trunk. "Geronimo." His voice could be heard echoing for a moment before a loud splash.

The three friends shared a confused look for a moment before a hand came up producing three packages wrapped in different paper. Dropping the packages just on the outside of the trunk the rest of Harry slowly slipped up above the lid of the trunk soaking wet. Giving a few shakes of his head to get rid of the water he lifted himself up out of the trunk and gripped a towel from just the inside of the lid. Slowly he dried himself off as he handed out the three packages to their respective members in the compartment.

Hermione hadn't taken her eyes off the trunk and shook her head as she accepted the package. "I'm not even going to try and ask." Harry smirked at that as she leaned down and stared at the package. "I didn't think you were going to get me anything beyond what you already got me for the hols."

Harry shrugged as the other two started to unwrap what he had gotten them. For Daphne he had gotten a small selection of muggle music ranging from rock music all the way down to what most would consider easy listening. To play them he had gotten what looked to be a silver cassette player with a few added runes on the side and the top of it. At her confused look, Harry smiled even more.

"I got it to work on pure magic instead of having any sort of electrical interface. It was actually rather easy once you know what you're looking at." Hermione and Daphne stared at it for a moment and then looked back up at him. "What, did I violate the laws of magic once again?"

"It's a known fact that muggle electronics don't work around heavy magical areas." Hermione took the cassette player from Daphne and popped in one of the new tapes. Pressing the button the speakers started to blare one of the popular songs of the previous year. Pressing another of the player's functions the tape skipped forward and started playing again. "How did you do this?"

Harry smiled and turned to Neville instead. "Let's get through with the other presents first and then I will entertain your questions about anything in particular."

Neville was given a book on various plant species that he had never heard of. The book came with moving pictures of the fully grown specimens as well as what looked to be hand written notes by the author about a few of the more rare species. He was soon lost in thought as he flipped through it. It was what Hermione had gotten that had her confused.

"A box?" She held up the small box about six inches perfectly squared on each side and turned it over in her hand. Each side contained a different set of symbols set within their own small tile. The entire thing was an earthly brown color with none of the symbols repeated on each of the sides.

Harry smiled as he took the cube from her and turned it over in his hands as well, manipulating a few of the symbols on each of the sides until an unearthly music began to play in the compartment, soft and soothing to the heart and ears. In a moment the music stopped and the tiles slid back into place. "It's a puzzle box. You'll have to figure out how to open the top of it before you'll get your real present." He laughed at the somewhat hurt look on Hermione's face.

"Why are you being so difficult, Harry?" She pouted as she took the cube back from him and started to press the symbols in a random order.

"You like a good challenge, don't make it seem like I'm going to torture you with this." He smiled when her eyes light up as she pushed more of the tiles down watching each symbol sink into the cube before moving on to the next one. She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment as her fingers traced over a few of the tiles looking for another one to push down.

Hermione's eyes light up like it was Christmas all over again as she snuggled down into the bench with the cube to try out different combinations. Harry chuckled a little as he let his friends enjoy the small trinkets that he had gotten for them. Daphne was already listening to one of the cassettes that he had gotten and Neville was buried into the book as he sat back down on the bench. He was in the process of packing up his trunk once more when there was a knock on the compartment door.

Nevile, Hermione, and Harry all looked up at the door; Daphne was rocking out with her eyes closed and mouthing along with one of the songs on the cassettes that she was listening to. Harry stood up and pulled the glass door aside to show a rather enthusiastic looking Ron Weasley standing on the other side holding a brown wrapped package up to Harry.

"Here Harry, Happy Christmas!" He seemed to bounce on his toes a little as she shoved the package into Harry's waiting arms. "I was supposed to deliver it to you since I'm your best mate and the sender knew that I was trustworthy." He craned his neck around and seemed to look into the compartment at the assortment of people. "Hey, what are you people doing in my and Harry's compartment?"

Harry rolled his eyes and was about to push the door closed when he stopped and stared at the package. "Where did you even get this, Weasley?"

Ron snapped out of glare at Daphne, whom was still ignoring everything around her in favor of drumming with her fingers on her thigh. "Oh, mum said that someone dropped it off for you, figured that you would get it from me since we're best mates and all."

Groaning Harry pushed the door closed just as Ron was about to say something else. Flopping down onto the bench Harry put the package on the top of his closed trunk and stared at it. Neville was the first one to ask. "Aren't you going to open it, Harry?"

Harry shrugged a little as he simply stared at it for a moment, fiddling with a gold band on his right hand. "I'm not really sure that I should. If it's from Weasley it's liable to just be a giant heart with our pictures in it."

Hermione giggled a little as she reset the runes on the cube and put it into her bag sitting next to her. "He said that he got it from someone else."

"Correction, he got it from his mum, whom got it from someone else." Neville said as he put away his new book as well, leaning in to examine the small package addressed to Harry on the top of it. There was a card with Harry's name tied to the top of the package in loopy handwriting. "Gran always thought that the Weasley's were a little odd. I've heard stories from the twins about how their mother likes to coddle the lot of them, even the older siblings whom are already out of Hogwarts."

Hermione sighed and nodded. "I think her temper and her mollycoddling are legendary throughout Hogwarts, just as much as her eldest sons are." At a look from the two boys she sighed and continued to explain. "William Weasley was Head Boy his seventh year before becoming a curse breaker for Gringotts, and Charles Weasley was arguably the best seeker Gryffindor had ever had, he now works with dragons in Romania."

Harry whistled a little and picked up the package before kicking his trunk open. "Sounds like dealing with dragons would be easier than Molly Weasley. I do sometimes wonder how such great guys like the twins could come from the same family as Ron and Percy." He shook his head as he reached into the trunk only up to his elbow and came out with a small eyeglass.

Neville shook his head as he looked across Daphne towards Hermione. "How exactly do you know about all the Weasley family anyway?"

Hermione huffed a little at Harry and then turned at Neville's question. "Percy isn't bad, just a real stickler for the rules. Anyway, I was interested in the family when Ronald wouldn't leave Harry here alone so I looked them up in the old school albums as well as the newspaper articles around that time."

Harry shrugged as he sat back down on the bench with the package in his lap and the eyeglass in his hand. The glass had refraction at the bulbous end much like a jeweler's glass with multiple small pieces of glass and a single one at the other, smaller end. He put it in backwards at first, the large end in his eye as he looked over the package getting a small giggle from Hermione and a confused look from Neville.

"It goes the other way around, Harry." Hermione giggled as Harry gave off a snort and turned the glass around, blinking slightly to cause his eye to reflect several times in the glass and look like an insect. This set Hermione off giggling again.

"What exactly is that thing, Harry?" Neville leaned in to look at what Harry was doing.

"It's a loupe, or commonly known as a jeweler's lens, Neville." Hermione spoke when it seemed like Harry wasn't going to answer. He was busy examining the package from all different angles and even turning it upside down and shaking it. "Muggle jewelry makers use them to inspect gems to ensure that they are set correctly and that the gems are unblemished for sale. My parents also use a variant attached to a pair of glasses to inspect their patient's teeth."

Harry nodded as he finally picked the letter off the top of the package as if the thing would explode if he touched it too much. "Correct, Hermione. This prismatic lens allows me to see things at a much higher magnification with the refractive power of several inlaid prisms."

"Alright, that explains what that is, but what exactly are you doing with it to look at the package?" Neville asked as Harry slowly extracted a piece of parchment from the envelope and looked it over for a moment before turning it around to face the others.

"Your father left this in my possession before he died. Use it well." Hermione read and then shrugged. "I guess it was some kind of heirloom of your family's. Do you want to open it?"

Harry shook his head as he picked up both the package and the glass before dropping both into the trunk. Not waiting to hear it come down inside of the trunk he left it alone for the time being as he sat back down on the bench. "Nah, if it was my Dad's then I should have had it long before now. Plus the whole 'use it well' makes me a little suspicious."

"It could have been some kind of book or some kind of teaching material that you could use in your studies." Hermione protested, looking at the closed trunk with a small about of wanting.

Surprisingly it was Neville whom shook his head and answered. "Pureblood family heirlooms are rarely anything that can be used to such a degree that would necessitate its use immediately. My Gran has several heirlooms from her family, and their mostly ceremonial things or things that some ancestor got through conquest that thought were important, but have no real equivalent these days. Any books or serious heirlooms such as weapons would be locked up in his family vault or beneath the family manor."

Harry nodded and smiled a little. "There was quite a bit at Gringots, but I'm still waiting to head to the Manor with my Dad until sometime in the future."

Hermione groaned and put a hand on her head. "I'm sorry, but we're talking about your dad being dead and then he's alive. I keep forgetting that you're actually adopted now." Harry laughed a little as Daphne had pushed a rune and pulled the headphones off of her head and smiled brightly.

"These are great, Harry, thanks. I don't really care how they work, it's just amazing." She looked around the compartment at a Neville whom was smiling at Hermione whom had her head in her hands. "Did I miss anything?"

XoXo

Surprisingly enough, for the four friends at the very least, Malfoy was not on the train and had apparently opted to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas Holidays. Harry had pointed out that he almost missed the blonde's visit on the train as he remembered the last time he had almost had the ponce's eyes crossed using simple logic. This kept them laughing as they took the carriages up to the castle; which was odd in itself before they got to the large doors.

Once they were at the large doors Harry had hopped out of the carriage and patted what seemed like thin air to most of the others. Neville shivered as he watched Harry, but kept his mouth shut when the others had asked about what had happened. He joined the rest of the crew and the other students as they streamed into the castle and into the Great Hall. He was one of the only one's that noticed the small contingent of very old looking men that had congregated at the Head Table with Dumbledore.

On either side of Dumbledore were two men with beards almost as long as his own and heads that were nearly a polished cue ball. Their aged wrinkled skin seemed to hang off their gaunt skulls in large pockets that made jowels under their jaws. Each man was wearing purple robes and were discussing amongst themselves as whispers broke out along the Great Hall as the students were sitting down to begin the new fest. Harry kept his eyes on the old men, but didn't say anything when his friends mentioned their being there to him.

Internally Harry's danger sense was going off in his head as he stared at each of the men in turn and then at Dumbledore himself. Almost of their own mind his index finger of his right hand began to draw out circles and designs on the table while his first two fingers of his left hand drummed out a beat of four. His eyes were so focused on the Headmaster that he didn't notice the other pairs of eyes that were following his hands as well as his own face where they were looking. At the next table were a pair of young girls of twelve staring at him intensely.

"Isn't he so dreamy?" The girl with black hair sighed as she leaned on her elbows staring unabashedly at Harry.

"You need to get a hold of yourself girl." Her companion at her side said as she buttered a roll and popped it into her mouth. The feast had started only a few moments ago, but Harry didn't seem to have noticed the food appearing on the plates before them. "Plus, I thought you were going to go after Diggory first and maybe work your way up towards Potter."

She sighed and shrugged still staring at Harry as he had finally noticed the food and started to sensibly load his plate with a few different vegetables. "I can jump in feet first if I really wanted to, there's not much competition from his own house."

The other girl nodded as she slid some mashed potatoes onto her fork and scooped it up into her mouth. She finished eating before speaking. "True, but you see how he hangs out with Greengrass and Granger."

The other girl scowled a little as she looked down the table at where Hermione was talking at a pair of older girls about something that seemed to have their interest. "Don't remind me. I can't believe she got in there before any of us. I wouldn't be surprised if she tried to get in Gryffindor just to be closer to Potter."

Her friend shook her head as she finished eating and pushed the plate away from her. "Seriously, you need to find a better hobby. You're practically stalking the boy now, following him everywhere."

"It's not like it matters, he always seems to disappear. I've followed him along the first floor, you know where that out of order bathroom is, and he just disappears right around the corner. Then there was that time up on the seventh floor." She groaned and shook her head. "I just don't understand how he gets around so fast. It almost like he seems to be in more than one place at a time."

Her friend shook her head and patted her on the shoulders a little. "That's impossible, we've already covered the theory of apparition and know as a Ravenclaw that it's impossible to apparate on school grounds. You're trying too hard. Why don't you just go and introduce yourself to him and hope for the best?"

"That could take forever." She groaned as she played with her peas, pushing a small amount around on her plate before everything vanished to be replaced by the deserts. "Potter's girlfriend would be given certain liberties around school, not to mention the fact that every girl under fifth year is attempting to snag him all at once. Just look at how those Gryffindor girls are making googgly eyes at him."

Indeed many of the girls fifth year and below were staring at Harry wantonly, but he wasn't paying the littlest attention to them. He was laughing at something that Neville had said as the boy slapped him on the back to keep from choking on the juice he had just swallowed. Another round of laughter caused some of the pumpkin juice to seep out of his nose as he grabbed a napkin to hold it in. The girls, Lavender Brown in particular, were inching their way closer and closer to him to try and fill in gaps on the benches that didn't exist.

The other Ravenclaw girl, not the black haired one, shrugged as she pulled a tart towards her. "Seriously, he doesn't seem interested in girls in the romantic sense at all. I don't see the point of pinning over him if he isn't going to give you the time of day."

"Of course he's not interested in them right now, he's eleven, but in the future he will. I mean, think about it, if you're friends for years, aren't you more likely to get into a relationship?"

The girl shrugged again. "Knowing absolutely nothing about Harry Potter as a person, I can't really say, but he's just as likely to pick a random girl out at sixth year and stick with that one."

The black haired girl pouted a little more. "I want him now though, who knows what kind of shape he'll be in later. You know that most romances at sixteen don't actually last, it would be unrealistic to expect someone that dates in sixth year to be together twenty years later without at least some kind of other dating opportunities." She shook her head and smiled as she spooned out some pudding. "No, you're right, I've got time Marietta."