:D

Harry hadn't bothered to retrieve his cloak and had instead transformed into a falcon and dove off the astronomy tower. There was hardly any light and he kept nearly hitting things as he flew down, but finally he'd swooped into Hagrid's open cabin window and transformed back into Harry right in front of the man.

Once Hagrid got over the shock, they talked, Harry guessing what Hagrid had been up to and the half-giant admitting that, yes, he had been negotiating with the giants. What Harry found out unnerved him and he was about to continue asking questions when Umbridge arrived. Transforming into a falcon, he slipped under Hagrid's bed, pecking and swiping his feathers at the spiders and other creepy crawlies. There he listened to her interrogate Hagrid. Resisting coming after her was one of the hardest things he did that night. Finally, she was gone and Harry, not feeling like morphing back and forth, gave a nod to Hagrid and started to fly off into the night.

What happened next was a blur. He was only twenty feet from Hagrid's cabin when something big overshadowed him and then he felt the jaws crunch down on wing. A screech escaped him as he twisted, a loud pop indicating he'd tore his wing from its socket. Talons and beak attacking ferociously, he was able to break free, but could do nothing anymore as he hit the snow. Above him, the shadow of some skeletal winged horse-like creature circled wide, no doubt with intentions to come after him.

His head swiveled and saw that Umbridge had stopped at the entrance to school and turned his direction. He couldn't transform back or she'd see! Worse, the Thestral, as he was sure that was what it was, would eat him the moment it landed. Something white swooped down and picked him up and his eyes tried hard to focus on it. Shock painted his features to see Hedwig carrying him off towards the owlry and then he watched the Thestral change course and head back into the forest. Hedwig carefully placed him on the floor of the owlry and Harry got to his feet, slowly transforming back. To his disgust, his broken arm remained so.

"Thank you, Hedwig." He stroked her head and she cooed lovingly. "You really saved me there."

Reluctantly, he took himself to the hospital wing where he refused to tell Madam Pomfrey how his arm had become this way.

Hagrid's lesson turned out to be about Thestrals, which Harry wasn't pleased about given his own recent experience with them. Theodore, having decided to take the class again, didn't seem to thrilled about this either. It appeared that, aside from Neville, Theodore and Harry were the only one's who could see the creatures. Harry could only imagine how frightening it would be to see meat rise up into the air by an invisible force and then disappear.

Suddenly, Umbridge was there and the way she was marking down Hagrid got Harry's blood boiling. It seemed Theodore caught onto Harry's anger as he did a very gallant thing if Harry had anything to say about it: with his foot he pushed a stick in front of Umbridge and tripped her up so that she fell hard on the ground at the feet of a particularly large Thestral. She stood quickly, glaring at the stick and then at Harry as if she suspected him, but Harry had been shoved only a moment before by Theo so that he stood right next to Ron and Hermione some distance away from where Theodore stood.

Standing, she gave Theodore a dark glare and then continued on her way, brushing at her now dirt-stained pink robes. Harry wandered back over to Theodore and nudged him gratefully with his elbow.

The D.A. lesson before Christmas break found the entire Room of Requirement decorated by Dobby and he began to try to fix some of the misspellings (he hoped Dobby had meant to put Merry instead of Harry) while Theodore began to try to tell him something.

"Can you help me, please?" Harry asked, but it was too late as people were coming in, several joking on about the decorations. Harry gave up when Luna told him the mistletoe was probably infested with nargles.

Then Ron entered, who hadn't come since the meeting before the match.

"You cost us our Beaters." Where the first words out of Ron's mouth. "We don't have any anymore."

"Leave it, Ron." Fred argued, glaring at his little brother.

"Yeah, we cost us ourselves." George put in.

"Harry was just trying to keep us from getting expelled."

"And it's a good thing too because we're lucky we only got banned."

"I got banned too." Harry admitted and several murmurs went round. This seemed like a satisfactory trade-off to Ron and he didn't bring it up again.

They all started practicing what they had learned and Harry once more found himself instructing Terry again more than he needed to be. Finally, after an hour, he called a halt and explained that after the Holidays they'd see about learning the Patronus Charm. Everyone started to clear out, but Terry stayed behind again to chat with Harry.

Harry's stomach was tying itself into knots as they talked and he finally noticed that they were alone. Terry seemed to notice this as well and he gave a small sheepish grin to Harry.

"Sorry." Terry mumbled, his cheeks a little pink. "Didn't mean to...if you have to go..."

"No." Harry said quicker than he should have. "No. I...we're good."

"I noticed the mistletoe." Terry motioned upwards at it in an awkward swing of his hand as he moved closer.

Harry licked his lips, but his mouth was dry. "Oh, yeah...it's probably full of nargles, though."

"What's a nargle?" Terry's hand had pressed against Harry's chest.

"No idea." Harry whispered, watching Terry pulling closer to him. "You'd have to ask Loony. Luna, I mean."

Terry laughed lightly, his smile drawing Harry's eyes straight to his lips. "I like you, Harry."

Harry's mind had blanked, his hands had come up to place themselves on Terry's waist and his entire body was tingling excitedly. All he could do was watch Terry advance...

:P