Note: I am very excited to post this chapter ;-)

Chapter 13: The vanishing boy

"Still sulking, Sloper?"

"Sod off." Sloper quickly opened The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, swept the salad of parchment sheets covered with edgy strokes and ink splotches closer to his chest, and chewed at the end of his quill, frowning at chapter one.

The Rosier boy, who Harry had met at Madam Malkin's, let his copy of The Dark Forces slide from under his arm onto the table with a dull thud and slumped into the empty chair next to Sloper.

Sloper was the other boy Harry had seen in Madam Malkin's shop that day. Now they were sitting in the Slytherin common room, all three of them. Wasn't that absurd?

"Done your Transfiguration homework?" Rosier kept throwing sidelong glances at his classmate.

"Yes."

"Can I copy?"

"No."

If they were in the Gryffindor common room, no way Harry would be able to overhear that from across the table and half a sofa. But the level of noise per head per square foot was way lower among the Slytherins. Many kept to themselves, bowed moodily over their homework, and talk drizzled reluctantly from one unsmiling mouth to the other. Eavesdropping was plain unavoidable.

Rosier and Sloper didn't seem to be bothered by Harry listening. They must have taken the cue from older Slytherins, Draco Malfoy was basically an empty space. Not that Harry minded. After the overdose of attention he'd had in the summer there was a lot to be said for being invisible. He was half-ashamed half-amused to realise that he did not even miss Ron and Hermione that much. As for Ginny, their abrupt yet unclear break-up was still gnawing at his self-esteem, and he was grateful for the excuse not to have to deal with it.

"Come on, don't be such a sourpuss! You think I'm overjoyed to have landed here?"

"You're not?"

"Fuck, no!"

Sloper eyed Rosier with distrust.

"Aren't your parents—? I thought you were—"

"I'm not a death sucker, if that's what you thought!"

Death sucker? Someone had dropped the phrase when Vaisey was giving a lecture on the third coming of the Dark Lord, and Goyle was listening with his mouth open, as if his ears weren't enough to catch every word. The nickname had stuck, apparently. Death suckers were a thing.

"All right." Sloper shrugged, turned back to his reading, and his frown deepened.

Rosier opened his book and flipped through the pages, his eyes firm on Sloper's notes.

"You know, when I was sorted, I asked the Hat if it was true that you could ask it to put you in the house you want."

"You did?" Sloper looked up from his book, his frown gone. "What did it say?"

"It said it depends on how you ask."

Sloper gaped.

"If you say 'please', then it's Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff." Rosier leaned back in his chair.

"And if not?"

"Then if you phrase it as a full sentence, then it's Slytherin. Otherwise Gryffindor."

"You're kidding me."

"No. Dead serious."

"What did you say then?"

"I said 'that's ridiculous'."

"That's a full sentence, I suppose." Sloper sighed, and his face fell.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing! I didn't even know you could talk with the damn thing."

"I didn't know that either, but you know who told me?" Rosier switched to conspiratorial whisper.

"Who?"

"Hey, guys! Interested in ballroom dancing?" A girl (third year?) barged in between the two. She flapped a long roll of parchment onto the table. "Parkinson and Zabini are giving dancing lessons for newbies."

Parkinson and Zabini had actually followed McGonagall's advice. At least, that was a more constructive way to deal with the post-war depression than playing militant martyrs on a sacred mission.

Rosier and Sloper's faces were blank.

"For the Yule Ball! Are you interested or not?"

"No," they replied in unison.

Harry craned his neck. It was hard to read upside down, but there were already quite a few names on the list. Before he inhaled to speak, the girl was gone.

The boys blinked after her. Rosier turned back to Sloper, and a mischievous sparkle returned to his face.

"Remember that time in the shop, when we first met?"

"Well?"

"There was this bloke. When you left, he told me that you could ask the Hat to put you in a house you want. You know who that bloke was?"

"Who?"

"Harry Potter!"

"No shit! Harry Potter?!" Sloper stared at Rosier, wide-eyed.

"Yup." Rosier turned his quill playfully between his fingers. "My parents recognized him."

"My brother used to play on the Quidditch team with him!" Sloper straightened his back.

"Really? Cool!"

Sloper... Sloper... Oh right! Jack Sloper had been a substitute beater, but had not survived two seasons.

Rosier's eyes wandered to Sloper's notes again.

"Can I at least have a look at your Transfiguration homework?"

Sloper junior's face fell again and his shoulders slumped.

"That hat's gone senile."

The first whiff of hope came in the form of a sheet of paper pinned to the door of Slughorn's study:

Tryouts for the Slytherin Quidditch team to take place on Saturday, the 26th of September, 10 a.m. Please sign up with your name and desired position!

'D. Malfoy, seeker,' Harry wrote on the yet empty page, and headed downstairs, his stomach growling urgently for dinner.

He arrived too early. The Great Hall would not open for another ten minutes, but the Entrance Hall offered an unexpected distraction from his piercing hunger. Three girls were decorating the walls with pictures. Harry came closer and saw myriads of dancing couples in old-fashioned dress robes, not unlike those Ron wore for the Yule Ball four years ago. The couples were swirling, the musicians were blowing their trumpets and waving their bows in the old black-and-white photographs.

"Those are the Hogwarts Yule Balls in the fifties," a deep female voice sounded above Harry's head. On the top of the ladder stood Astoria Greengrass, looking unusually comfortable. Her hands were busy unrolling another picture, so she wasn't adjusting her braids and tightening her hair clips all the time.

"I wonder why they discontinued them." Harry tried to locate the newest photos. A row labelled 1967 was as far as he could get.

"Slughorn says it's because Dumbledore hated dancing." She chuckled, swinging her braid aside. A hair clip unclasped and fell on the floor. She uttered a tirade that featured a stunning assortment of Merlin's body parts, and blushed. Harry pulled his wand.

"Reverte!" The clip returned to its place behind Astoria's ear and clasped shut.

"Thanks." She pointed at the opposite wall. "The nineteen ninety-four pictures are over there. There is a nice one of you and Pansy."

This was the longest conversation Harry had had with a Slytherin girl so far, and certainly the friendliest. He briefly contemplated how Greengrass would do as Yule Ball date material, but when he arrived at the 1994 part of the exhibition and his eye fell on a close shot of his fourteen-year-old self dancing with Parvati, he promptly dismissed the idea. No girl in the world deserved such disgrace.

He didn't find Malfoy and Parkinson's picture, but the dinner bell chimed and food was more urgent.

Harry devoured a steak with baked potatoes and got lost in the issue of the Daily Prophet that someone had left lying on the table. The Goblin Bottleneck was a heading in huge letters on the second page. An article on the prolonged total strike of Goblin metalworks stretched over six columns. The negotiations had stalled after the Goblins turned down two versions of the Authorship and Ownership Bill, and the Wizengamot fell apart on the third one. In the meantime, wizard industries which had relied on Goblin metalsmiths started investing in substitutes. Two whole columns speculated about the fate of Firebolt broomsticks. 'Will mainstream wand magic provide the same stability to the unbeaten racing broom? Will our alchemists beat the Goblin strikers and give us new fully equipped Firebolts for the next Quidditch World Cup?' Since the next World Cup was no sooner than in four years and this was still a question, it was clear that Firebolts were not to be expected any time soon.

When Harry looked up from his newspaper, the Great Hall was emptying. He suddenly felt a presence somewhere on his left. He turned and saw an unfamiliar boy sitting on the Slytherin bench, leaned back against the edge of the table. How long he'd been sitting there, Harry had no clue. The boy looked at him and smiled.

"Hi, Draco. How are you?"

The boy was wearing Hufflepuff colours.

"Hi," Harry said vividly, wondering who the hell that was.

"I'm sorry about your parents."

This was the first time someone was sorry about Draco's parents. Among the death suckers there might have been a couple who'd gladly see Lucius Malfoy back, but none of them would ever admit it to his fallen son, let alone with this comforting note in their voice.

"That's all right. Life's going on. How are you?"

"Life's going on for me, too." The boy relaxed a little. "I'm applying to the Auror Office for an internship."

"Oh, cool!" Harry stopped himself just in time from sharing his impressions of the job.

"Everyone's telling me I should go to Mysteries, but I don't want to."

"Mysteries is a great place, too. And in dire need of good people!" He was probably in the seventh, thought Harry, if he was already applying for jobs.

"Too mysterious for my taste." The boy mocked a mysterious face. "What about you?"

Right. Although they had met for a thorough briefing a few times by now, it was always Harry briefing Draco. Ron and Hermione kept trying to make sense of him, and he kept coming back with questions. He'd even been trying to squeeze him out on Half-blood Prince's book. But the book had perished in the Fiendfyre, what was the point of talking about it now? In the end, it all boiled down to Harry either answering or not answering Draco's questions, and he never had to ask any. Now he was unprepared, to say the least.

"I don't know yet. We'll see."

The leftovers of the meal disappeared, and there were only a handful of late eaters who were still finishing their dessert. The boy gave Harry a long questioning look.

"Draco?"

"Yes?"

"Would you care to do me a favour?"

"Like what?"

While the boy hesitated, Harry wondered what kind of favour someone could ask of Malfoy, and hoped it was not some dangerous dark mission that involved homicide.

"Could you practise some dancing for the Yule ball with me?"

"Er, me?" Harry had not seen that coming. Murder, yes, but dancing? "Why don't you practise with your date? Wouldn't it—"

"I don't have one yet. Wouldn't even dare to ask anyone before making sure I can still put one foot in front of the other. Do you have a date yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Well, we still have plenty of time to find dates, don't we? We could already get going with the practice and pep up our self-confidence. My self-confidence, that is. Not that you need anything like that." He winked.

"Oh well, I could do with some self-confidence!" Harry said, only half-realising that he was basically saying 'yes'. "I'm not exactly popular right now, if you know what I mean."

"Okay then. Our self-confidence." The boy laughed, but then went back to a businesslike tone. "Tuesday next week in the fifth period? Room of Requirement?"

Harry pulled out his schedule and checked. Tuesday fifth period was the only free period he had in the afternoon. How had he guessed?

"Okay, that's fine," Harry said, still staring with distrust at his schedule. He was suddenly unsure whether that free period had been there all the time, or had just been created by some unknown charm.

"See you then."

When Harry looked up to reply, the boy was gone without a trace.

Harry did not expect that getting Malfoy back on the Slytherin Quidditch team would be easy, but unlike Malfoy, he did not believe it impossible. At the beginning of the third week he started to appreciate the challenge. On Monday, Slughorn stopped him on his way to class.

"I'm glad to see your Quidditch ambitions revived, Mr Malfoy," he said in a tone of voice reserved for non-members of the Slug Club. "But are you sure seeker is your true place on this team?"

"Yes, sir," replied Harry.

"We have a few promising seekers on the list, while beaters and keepers are still a rare commodity. Wouldn't it be the right moment to try something new?"

"No, sir," replied Harry.

Slughorn gave him a pitying look, whose meaning became clear to Harry when he walked in on a meeting of the Quidditch team in the common room a few hours later.

Harailt Urquhart, chaser and captain, who was now in the seventh, sat in the middle of the biggest couch. Next to him sat Harper. For what Harry had figured out so far, he had not been promoted from substitute seeker to seeker upon Malfoy's departure from the team, but rather to substitute everything. If they lost a bludger, they'd probably use Harper instead. Blaise Zabini was still chaser number two. The third chaser was Vaisey. And then there was beater Goyle. That was it. In its current composition, forty percent of the team were death suckers.

They fell silent when Harry entered the room. He was tempted to show his teeth and join the circle as an old alumnus, but thought better of it. With Vaisey and Goyle, who were already clenching their jaws, it was sure to end in violence.

Harry took a seat in earshot and opened his transfiguration homework.

"I've conducted a brief inspection of our storage room," Urquhart said. "We're missing three broomsticks. Never mind the old Cleansweep, but two Nimbus 2001s are a loss."

Harry felt inexplicable sharp pain in his left palm when he heard this.

"Anyone any idea where the brooms could be?"

Vaisey hissed something in reply.

"Potter? Are you sure?" Urquhart sounded sceptical.

Vaisey delivered a lengthy monologue. Harry could only make out occasional mention of blood-traitor Weasley in the blurred stream. By the sound of it, Vaisey was accusing the Gryffindors of stealing their dear Nimbuses.

"That's one of your conspiracy theories," Urquhart cut him off. "Let's not make fools of ourselves, but think of throwing some sickles into the basket. Or see that we get new members that bring in valuable equipment along with talent."

"Hey, Malfoy," Vaisey turned around and spoke over the back of his armchair. "Since you're eavesdropping anyway, how about some valuable equipment without talent? You replace the two Nimbuses, and we take you back on the team as broomstick cleaner. Wouldn't that be a fair deal?"

The verbal altercation that followed escalated to a point that five green dots appeared glowing on various parts of Harry's body, two projected by the wands of Vaisey and Goyle, and another three from other death suckers scattered around the common room. Urquhart ended it by disarming all the five, and casting a Silencio on Vaisey and Harry. For the next ten minutes, Harry was sighing about the third advantage of non-verbal spells as he tried to unsilence himself in the bathroom.

"Finite!" uttered Zabini, entering, and Harry groaned with relief. "Before you say anything— perhaps I should have waited with my 'finite'." Zabini's reflection in the mirror stared at him. "Draco, get your name off the list. This is my friendly advice."

Harry didn't answer.

"You can catch fifteen snitches out of three in the tryouts, you won't be seeker. No one wants your face on the front page. Slughorn was very specific about it."

"Okay," Harry indicated his understanding, but made no promise whatsoever.

"If you remove your name from the list, and replace those two broomsticks, and if I have a nice friendly chat with Urquhart, and with Slughorn, then we might smuggle you in quietly through the back door. A substitute for Harper or similar is what you can hope for. And mind you, I risk everything if I speak up for you. You can already start thinking of how you will express your gratitude."

"Thanks."

"That won't be enough."

"Thanks for the offer. I'm not removing my name." It was a lost cause, that much was clear, but now it was a matter of honour.

"Are you mental? They'll— we'll bury you under bludgers!"

"Thanks, Blaise," replied Harry. Zabini was actually trying to help. "You will, but I won't make it easy for you."

"You're an idiot. You want to lose the rest of your face, go ahead. I don't want to be seen with you. Have a good life." Zabini headed for the exit, but stopped, opening the door. "Get yourself a broomstick at least. Don't expect they'll— we'll let you borrow any of the Nimbuses."

"Thanks," Harry said to the closing door.

To get a broomstick was good advice. Harry cursed himself for not going back to Diagon Alley for one of those Thunderbolt Vs or a new Nimbus. There were only four days left till the tryouts, no way he would get one delivered in time. Harry weighed his options. His Gryffindor connections were probably his best bet.

When he presented Draco with his problem and mentioned that a Gryffindor had allegedly been seen with a stolen Nimbus 2001, Draco's absent expression did not suggest innocence. But his response to Harry's problem was just outlandish:

"If you could get out of the Hogwarts grounds..."

"I can."

"There is a spot in the mountains behind Hogsmeade—another Nimbus could still be lying there under the rowan trees."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Let's put it this way: Some equipment got scattered in the last blows of the war. If kids haven't found it yet, it's yours."

Harry felt like the biggest fool in Britain when he put on his Invisibility Cloak and took the secret passage to Hog's Head after classes on Wednesday. But great was his surprise when he found the spot following the map Draco had scratched for him. It was not quite up to the Marauders' standard, but effective enough to lead him to a Nimbus 2001 abandoned on the west slope of a mountain ridge some half a mile north of the village. It had lost some of its colour and its twigs were soaked, but the water repellent charms on the handle had kept it in reasonable shape. Harry kicked off the ground. A few drying charms and he was a match for Goyle with his bludgers.

When Harry entered the Quidditch pitch on Saturday, his suspicion was confirmed. The girl who had purchased the last Firebolt under his nose, Sabrin Gibbon, was to contest the Seekership. The third contestant was Harper. He stared at her Firebolt with a doomed expression.

Goyle released the bludgers and Urquhart released the snitch, and the three of them whooshed after it. Immediately, Harry got to feel what Zabini had meant. A bludger came swerving his way as often as Goyle could swing his bat. Being the tallest of the three he was the easiest target, and the bludgers gravitated towards him like bees to a honeypot. He ducked a few times, but the next bludger attacked his broom, and the next one did too, forcing him out of the optimal course. Goyle was not completely stupid.

The snitch went on a broad elliptic orbit around a set of goal posts, and the source of raging bludgers moved to its centre. Harper must have got the same idea as Harry, but wasn't quick enough to wisely dismiss it. He darted inside the circle. On second thoughts, Harry followed under his cover. They cut the curve. Harper's hand was about to close on the snitch. Bang! Harry pulled quickly out of the way of Harper's falling body. A dive, half a second, and the snitch was his. Gibbon braked and spat angrily onto the distant ground.

Urquhart released the snitch again. This time, it made a point of being unpredictable. It rushed from one corner to another, as if bouncing off invisible walls, so even the bludgers got confused.

Harry and Gibbon moved as one. She was good. Her reaction—damn! The snitch dived and jumped up like a rubber ball, Gibbon curved after it. Now, that was a lost chance, her Firebolt could do better. Harry's battered Nimbus followed along. They were abreast, shoulder to shoulder, but Harry's arm was longer. He got the snitch a second time, descended into a pool of silent hatred, and delivered his catch to the captain.

The snitch was released for the third time. It immediately left the Quidditch pitch as if it had had enough of this ridiculous power play. Harry and Gibbon waited. She had to dodge one bludger out of twelve, Harry the other eleven. He moved closer to her to share the onslaught as much as possible. They circled, monitoring the space around them and each other's gaze. Their eyes met, and Harry saw a golden sparkle in her olive green iris. He turned one hundred eighty degrees and darted forward. The snitch had been behind him, now it was in front of him, and he had a head start of two broomstick lengths over Gibbon.

The snitch dashed in a straight line a couple feet above the ground, Harry after it, Gibbon in his wake. They zoomed past Goyle. Harry heard the bang of bat on bludger somewhere behind them. That one was for Gibbon. He stretched out his arm and opened his hand... and a thousand golden snitches flickered before his eyes as a load of solid iron crashed into his backside. Harry flipped over and slid a couple of dozen feet on his back over the grass. The thousand golden snitches dissolved in a dark blur. Everything stopped.

The first thing Harry felt next to the pain in his entire body was a nudge on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw Gibbon standing over him, the snitch struggling to free its wings from her uncomfortable grip.

"You're better than I thought," she said, looking down at him.

'I bet,' thought Harry.

"He's alive!" she shouted, marching away. No one came hurrying. They cheered and welcomed their new seeker.

The clouds were running fast in the sky above him. The ground behind his back was hard. He heard steps and soon saw his own scared face hanging over him. It was Malfoy.

"Can you move your feet? Move your feet!" he said. "You get me crippled, you can keep the body, no swapping back, is that clear?"

That was the most caring comment Harry heard that day. He moved his feet. Draco breathed out, pulled his wand and whispered something. Harry only hoped he knew what he was doing. The pain eased a little. Harry moved his feet again. Slowly, muscle after muscle, he regained control of his ankles, knees and thighs. His spine felt like his vertebrae had been shaken in a lottery drum and fallen into the same position as before by sheer accident. Harry stretched his neck. A couple of minutes later he ventured a turn to his side and propped himself on his elbow.

"Pomfrey?" Draco said.

Harry shook his head. He was about to sit up. The bludger must have slid through. If it had been straight impact, he wouldn't be so mobile now.

"What happened?" he finally managed to pronounce.

"Oh! It was fantastic!" Draco was absolutely serious. "You were after the snitch, the girl was after you, and the bludger was after her. So what does she do? She lifts the back of her broom, the bludger slips under it, then she flips back, and sweeps the bludger forward with her broomstick straight into your— This is ground-breaking, Potter! This is history of Quidditch written on your behind!"

"Your behind," murmured Harry. If this were to enter history books and they should bother to mention the pioneer on the receiving end, luckily, it would be Malfoy.

"Slytherin got some seeker!" Draco peered at the cheering Slytherins.

"Her name is Gibbon." Harry was slowly getting back to his feet. "Sabrin Gibbon."

They walked back to the castle. Walking felt better. He might just as well pay a short visit to the hospital wing, he thought, when they were crossing the Entrance Hall and he started doubting whether he'd be able to sit down again, let alone— Now that they were surrounded by black-and-white dancers in the old photographs, Harry remembered it.

"Malfoy!" He stopped. "I was approached by a bloke, a Hufflepuff, who asked me to practise some dancing for the Yule ball with him."

"Oh?"

"Erm. Apparently he knows you, and I have no idea who he is. I hadn't even seen him before."

"What does he look like?"

"Short brown hair, brown eyes," Harry said, and realised that the description would fit at least a half of the male population of Hogwarts. Even Vaisey. "Wants to become an Auror."

"Auror?!" Draco sounded like no one in his right mind, and certainly no one in his circle of acquaintances would ever want anything like that.

"But everyone wants him to go to Mysteries."

That seemed to make more sense to Draco. He searched the photos on the wall, and then pointed to one of them—to a boy standing on the side of the dance floor and looking happy. Four years ago he still looked like a child, but there was no doubt.

"Yes, that one."

"That's Ewen Arling. Hufflepuff, indeed. One year under us."

"How well d'you know him?"

"A little. His mother works at the Department of Mysteries. A mediocre witch, but a good mother. He," Draco pointed at the boy in the picture again, "is really talented, especially in Divination. When Trelawney was still occupying North Tower, his mother managed to get him private lessons with a real teacher. And guess who that teacher was?"

"Who?"

"The new Head of the Gryffindor house, Professor Benveniste. The two have known each other for years. She's a kind of a father figure for him."

"A father figure? What about his real father?"

"He's never met him. Some Muggle drunk, he reckons."

"And why is he asking you, of all people, to practise for the Yule ball?"

Draco turned to Harry with the biggest smirk he could fit on that face.

"Because, Potter, I can dance." Draco gestured towards the picture again. "And he knows it." And indeed, the boy in the picture was not just happy, he was glaring with admiration for a particular couple on the dance floor—Malfoy and Parkinson caught in an adventurous pirouette. "He'd asked me once before. I even gave him a few lessons back then."

"When?"

"In the fifth. In spring, you know," Draco let out a nostalgic sigh. "We'd just disbanded your DA thing, and I'd discovered the Room of Hidden Things. Could just as well put it to good use."

"With a son of a Muggle drunk? That's not like you, Malfoy. What was your interest in it?"

"Investing in talent? Seers are rare."

"Right." Speaking of talent, Harry looked at the picture again and a worrisome realisation crept into his mind. "But that means— he expects from me, er, some high standards?"

"I suppose so."

"But I can't dance at all!"

"Did you actually say 'yes'?"

"In fact, yes, I did."

"Well then, Potter, you have a bit of a problem." Draco gave him a condescending clap on the shoulder, and Harry felt each and every one of his vertebrae again. "Go give it a try and blow it off. You just say that you were obliviated in the war. Or that a bludger destroyed crucial parts of your anatomy. He will understand. He's a sweet Hufflepuff."

Harry was trying to digest it. Something in this picture still didn't fit.

"But isn't it strange that we've been in the same school for so many years, and I had not even noticed he existed?"

"Oh, that's another talent of his, or perhaps, a handicap really. He's pathologically inconspicuous. It's like a Disillusionment charm, but for him it's a natural state. He will be there and he won't be there. You'll see him properly only if you both want it."

Draco turned to go, but stopped.

"Oh, by the way, just so you know. I've introduced myself to him as Potter, in Divination class."

Harry should have asked what the heck Draco was doing in Divination, but golden snitches started to flicker in his eyes again, and by the time he noticed the flaw in this last piece of news, Draco had left for the Gryffindor Tower. Harry threw another quick glance at the picture. It seemed that the boy had vanished.