Disclaimer: Harry Potter is catnip to JK Rowling (or at least to Warner Bros.—money and all that).

A/N: And this is what happens when you go to a monthly update schedule: you wind up losing track of when you need to update. Fortunately, I only fell a day behind. Mea culpa, etc.

Chapter 7

The first week of classes was uneventful for Harry except for one thing: the whispers behind his back were back with a vengeance. This was somewhat to be expected. He was Harry Potter, after all. But something didn't quite seem right. By the end of the week, he had begun seeing other students, especially girls, staring as him with strange, disappointed, and oddly sympathetic looks, then looking away quickly when he looked in their direction. A number of Slytherins began smirking at him whenever they saw him, which was a suspicious change from that set's usual scowls.

It came to a head that weekend. They had just finished a very successful Quidditch tryout. The starting squad was the same as last year and was poised to dominate the pitch. Even Ron, who had been their weak link last year in the Northern European Academic Tournament, had hit his stride quickly.

Harry was just meeting Luna for a lazy afternoon in the sun when he saw her talking to one of her roommates. Since this was one of her roommates who didn't actually like her, he was immediately on alert.

"—too bad you can't get a real man to date you, Loony, instead of being stuck with that—" She whispered something Harry couldn't hear.

"You shouldn't believe every rumour you hear, Melanie," Luna told her.

Melanie laughed derisively. "You're saying that, Loony? Why? Have you ever actually seen them?"

"No, but I trust Harry. He wouldn't keep something like that from me."

"Of course not," Harry spoke up, making Melanie jump a little. "Hello, Luna. What's up?" He kissed her lightly.

"Hello, Harry," Luna said. "I was trying to help Melanie with a serious wrackspurt infestation, but she doesn't seem interested."

"Hmm, not much you can do for someone who doesn't want to be helped," Harry said.

Melanie sneered—not at Luna, but at Harry, as if he were beneath her. "Don't come crying to me when you figure out the truth, Loony," she said as she walked away.

"Is there something I should know?" he asked with concern.

"It's not important, Harry," Luna assured him. "Let's go for a walk."

However, the whispers continued, now accompanied by snide remarks, mostly from Slytherins like, "Give it up, you're not fooling anyone, Potter," which Harry honestly had no clue what they were talking about.

Then came Eddie Carmichael, a fifth-year Ravenclaw who was very bright, but apparently short on street smarts, who decided to make a pass at Luna in the Entrance Hall before dinner the next day, right where Harry could see him.

"So, Lovegood, I heard your boyfriend's coming up a little short," he said. "If you want to ditch him as a bad job, I might be persuaded to show you a real good time."

Harry quickly stepped between Luna and Carmichael, his face flushed with anger. "Uh, hello, I'm right here!" he said. "Stay away from my girlfriend, Carmichael."

Carmichael gave Harry a condescending look and replied, "I think it's Lovegood's business whether she wants to stay with someone who used to be a muggle house pet just for his money, Potter."

What? "What the hell are you on about?" he demanded. He glanced around and saw people gathering around and whispering to each other.

"Look, do I have to spell it out for you?" Carmichael said. "You're an animagus. And you were raised by muggles. In fact, you say you were found by a muggle family…as a cat. You were a pet. Don't you know what muggles do to their pets…? They neuter them."

A few people gasped, but half the crowd already seemed to know. Harry twitched. A storm of emotions welled up in him, and he involuntarily released a pulse of magic so powerful that the torches flared with sparks, and the entire crowd took a step back. He was about to blast Carmichael into the wall without thinking when he heard a soft sigh behind him and felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see Luna looking up at him sadly.

"I was hoping there wouldn't have to be any trouble from these rumours, Harry," she said.

So she knew, too. That was just like her to bottle it up. He sighed in return and took her hands in his. "Luna, I know you don't like causing confrontations like this, but this is a matter of house honour," he told her. "I lose a lot of face politically by not answering this, not to mention exposing my family to potential revenge attacks for supposedly ending the House of Potter. I'm sorry, but I have to do this." He whirled around and drew his wand. "Edward Carmichael, I demand satisfaction!"

"Mr. Potter!" came the voice of Professor McGonagall, and Harry noticed that several of the teachers had now joined the crowd.

"Professor," he said, not lowering his wand. "Mr. Carmichael has insulted me with the most scandalous of rumours. As Lord Potter, I cannot let them go unanswered. Also—" He scanned the crowd. "—if this hits the Daily Prophet, an honour duel will be the least of your worries."

"Point of order, Potter," a smarmy voice called out, and Draco Malfoy stepped forward. He glared at him, but Malfoy didn't seem to care. "Isn't it a valid question?" he asked. "You admit to spending time as a muggle house pet, and that is standard practice amongst muggles, isn't it?"

"I showed my family I was human the first day I met them, Malfoy," he snapped. "There wasn't time to take me to a vet."

"But we only have you're word on that, Potter, and as you said, you have an interest in protecting your family."

"Dumbledore will vouch for me, too." Harry made his voice sound as manly as possible and added, "Besides, I think my tone of voice would answer that question on its own." Some of the girls around him giggled.

"Lord Potter, Heir Malfoy," McGonagall used the formal terms to get their attention. "I don't think this conversation is appropriate for school."

"I'm just trying to resolve the dispute amicably and by the book, Professor," Malfoy said.

"Amicably my arse, Malfoy," said Harry. "How do I know you didn't start those rumours?"

Malfoy flashed a grin that told him he totally did it, but would never admit it. "You don't have any proof of such a claim, Lord Potter," he replied, "just as we have no proof of your grievance. After all, just speaking hypothetically, if you suffered from that problem, a Healer could fix your voice, and add muscle mass, and even repair the…cosmetic damage. There would just be that pesky issue of producing an heir."

Harry glared at him: "Well, I guess you'll just have to wait a couple decades for me to have some kids to prove you wrong."

"Don't have to wait that long!" a voice called.

"Romilda!" Hermione yelled.

"Miss Vane!" McGonagall said.

Harry grumbled under his breath about stalkers and turned back to his original opponent. "As I said, Mr. Carmichael, Dumbledore will vouch for my story. My grievance stands. Do you apologise?"

Carmichael narrowed his eyes at him, trying to determine his chances. Harry knew there was some risk here. If Carmichael accepted the duel and called for no wandless magic, he'd lose some face, but he might be the better duellist under those conditions. Harry could probably still beat him by using both wands, but while it wasn't exactly a secret that he had a backup wand, but he didn't want to reveal it publicly so soon.

"Dude, don't do it," Marcus Belby told Carmichael. "He duelled You-Know-Who and lived."

Carmichael's eyes widened, and he paled a shade or two, and new whispers swept around the Entrance Hall. Another moment's consideration, and he conceded: "I apologise, Lord Potter, for accusing you of such scandalous rumours."

"And for trying to steal my girlfriend." That was a slight breach of etiquette. A mere girlfriend didn't have the House protection that a fiancée or wife had—at least not unless he formally extended her house protection, which would effectively be a declaration of intent. But Harry was too annoyed to care right now.

"Fine, I'm sorry for trying to steal your loony girlfriend, too," Carmichael said.

Harry heard people murmuring about that, but he looked to Luna, who subtly shook her head. They both knew he couldn't issue another grievance for that. "Apology accepted," he said reluctantly.

Many of the onlookers relaxed, especially the teachers. "I'm glad to see we could resolve that," McGonagall said. "Mr. Carmichael, ten points from Ravenclaw for provoking a fight. Miss Vane, ten points from Gryffindor for highly inappropriate behaviour. And I'm not happy with you either, Mr. Potter, but you did technically follow protocol. Now, I suggest you all get to supper before anything else happens."

The crowd entered the Great Hall. Harry went quietly, but he did look back at Malfoy and make an "I'm watching you" gesture at him.

"Alright, everyone," Hermione said, "welcome to the new Ricochet Club." Since most of the committee that had invented the game of Ricochet last year were starting Quidditch players, Hermione, to her own surprise, had found herself running the new club. She wasn't entirely comfortable with her role, but she would do her best. "I think most of you saw the exhibition game last spring between Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang, but for those of you who don't know, Ricochet is a new broomstick game that a group of us created during the Tournament last year. It was inspired by Swivenhodge and muggle tennis, but we really built it from the ground up—no pun intended—and it's a lot different from both of them."

They had a pretty good turnout—about twenty people. Unsurprisingly, they were disproportionately younger students who couldn't get on the Quidditch teams and muggle-borns who were more likely to see the appeal of a racket game and who were interested in any kind of flying.

"A lot of you might be familiar with Swivenhodge," Hermione continued, "but Ricochet is quite a bit different. For one, it's much, much faster. And for another, you don't use your broom bristles to play. You use one of these." She held up a long-handled racket for them to see. "For muggle-borns, it's a lot more like tennis, but the largest difference is that you have two hits to get the ball over the net."

People nodded in understanding at the analogies, and Hermione motioned Harry forward. "So today, Harry and I will explain the rules and give a demonstration, and we'll start working with you on some of the skills you're going to need if we have time."

"Right," Harry confirmed. "Now, Ricochet is played with a racket and a small rubber ball like this one." He tossed the scarlet-orange ball they had designed in the air.

"What's it called?" someone called out.

He stopped and stared at them. "…a Ricochet ball?"

"That's boring."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Well, you can name it something else if you want. The game definitely isn't boring." Several people who had seen the exhibition game last spring nodded in agreement, though a few were sceptical. "Now, we won't really do any flying today. I know, I know," he said to their protests, "you came for the game, but for one, we only have one court right now, and for another, we wanted to start by showing you how to handle the rackets before we got in the air so we don't have people flailing after balls all over the place. They're a little trickier than Beaters' bats."

"Right," Hermione agreed. She began handing out rackets and balls to the group. "Now, the rackets have to be custom-made as yet, so we don't permanently have enough of them for everyone yet, but we had Cho, Fred, and George help transfigure some, so we should be set for this meeting." The club began trying them out, bouncing the balls off the ground and off the rackets, surprised at how bouncy they were compared with a Quaffle or Bludger. "Keep in mind, you're not hitting heavy iron balls around, so the club-like swings you use for Bludgers don't really apply here. You still need power, but it's much less stress on the wrist, so you can swing more for speed, like this." She tossed a ball in the air and served it at a speed few Beaters could hope to match, to cheers from the club. She wandlessly summoned it back. Any doubts about the boringness of the game were largely forgotten.

The club went well overall, despite the fact that they didn't really get to do much flying. Harry and Hermione played an exhibition game for them, which Harry won thanks to his cat-like reflexes and superior flying skills, although Hermione put up a good fight. They then helped their friends learn how to handle the rackets and started a few badminton-like practice games. Harry thought Hermione was doing a good job of leading it, and he thought they would probably have enough people to hold a tournament at the end of the year. It was nice to get off to a normal start for the school year, he thought, especially with the war on.

If only the rest of his week could go as smoothly.

Harry was used to getting some correspondence by now from his friends, but most of his post still went to his Wizengamot office in the care of Andromeda Tonks, who then forwarded anything she thought he needed to see directly. He almost never received packages at Hogwarts. His family were the only people who would send him packages at school, and they usually gave him anything important during breaks or Hogsmeade weekends because it was safer that way.

So when a large box was delivered to his spot at the Gryffindor Table on Tuesday morning, Harry was naturally suspicious.

"It doesn't say who it's from," he said. "Who would send me a package?"

"How did you even get a package," Neville asked. "I thought you had them all forwarded."

"Not if it's sent from inside the school, remember? But I don't know who would send me something—at least when it's not Valentine's Day."

"Better check it for traps," Hermione pointed out.

Harry nodded and stood up, as did Hermione, and they both cast multiple charms at the box to detect any kind of magic or potions, and they all came up empty. "Huh, that's strange," he said. "It looks like it's completely non-magical."

"It could be hidden with a spell our charms can't detect," Hermione pointed out.

"But it was an internal delivery. None of the students would know how to fool those charms…Stand back, everyone." Neville, Ron, Ginny, and Colin all rose from their seats and took a step back. Harry waved his wand slowly, and the package began to open…

Pop! Some spring-loaded mechanism burst open and spewed a cloud of finely-chopped green leaves all over the table. Harry jumped back, but some of them landed on his face, and an unmistakable scent reached his nostrils.

"Oh no," he whispered in horror.

"What?" said Hermione.

"Catnip!"

"Oh, crap! Harry, you need to go to the—"

"Ha. Haha. HahahaHAHAHAHAHAAAA!" Harry started laughing uncontrollably and rubbed the leaves all over his face.

"Infirmary," she groaned.

"Bloody hell!" Neville exclaimed.

Harry jumped on the table and dumped the entire box over his head, still laughing maniacally. To make matters worse, Professor McGonagall had taken notice and was hurrying to the Gryffindor Table.

"Mr. Potter! What on earth do you think you're—?"

"Professor! Stay back! It's catnip!" Hermione yelled, holding out her hand to stop her.

McGonagall paled and immediately conjured a handkerchief to place over her face and backed up to a safe distance. "Miss Granger, your brother needs to go to the infirmary immediately," she said.

"I know!" Hermione yelled. She ran after Harry as he began jumping and spinning up and down the table, sending half of Gryffindor's breakfast crashing to the floor. "Neville, Ron, help me!" The two boys tried to outflank Harry and pull him down, but he kept slipping through their fingers.

"You said he was allergic to catnip," Romilda Vane said.

"Well, what do you call this?" Ron demanded. He tried to snag Harry by the arm, only for Harry to spit in his face. "Argh! What the hell is he doing?"

"Catnip is a powerful euphoriant and a hallucinogen," Hermione said. "He's high as a kite right now. There's no telling what he could do. It also makes him drool."

By now, Remus had also caught on to what was happening, and he joined Ron in finally getting hold of Harry and pulling him down, sending all three of them sprawling on the floor.

"What, has this happened before?" Neville said.

"Once, when he was seven," Hermione said as Harry squirmed on the floor. "We thought it would be fun to get him to try catnip, but it didn't end well."

"You've never told me about that," Luna said, coming up by her side. "What happened?"

But before Hermione could answer, Harry jumped to his feet, reacting to his girlfriend's voice. "Luna!" he slurred. He took a standing leap back onto the table, then back down on the other side, right in front of the girls. "Loopy-Lu-Lu-Loony-Luna!" He promptly lifted Luna up off her feet and planted a wet, slobbering kiss on her mouth whilst reaching around and flagrantly groping her arse. Luna let out a muffled squeak.

"Oh no, Luna! Neville, help me before he starts stripping!"

"Stripping?" Neville said worriedly. Seeing how he was pawing at his girlfriend, he didn't want to guess which of them Harry would try to strip first. They quickly pull the couple apart. "Did he do that last time?"

"Among other things." Hermione said. "We agreed not to talk about it." She finally got Luna away from Harry. "Luna, are you okay?"

"Nargles!" she exclaimed breathlessly.

"I'll take that as a yes. Neville, hold onto him!"

"I'm—oof—trying!"

"Why don't you talk about it?" Ron asked. "What happened?"

Suddenly, Harry broke free and grabbed Hermione's arm. "Hermy!" he said with a grin, and he attempted to plant a slobbering kiss on her as well.

SMACK!

Hermione slapped Harry so hard that he spun all the way around and flopped down to the floor. "That's what happened," she said. She waved her hand and cast a wandless Petrificus Totalus on him before he could get up. "Remus, help me get him to the Hospital Wing before breaks out of it. With our luck, he probably can."

She surveyed the scene as they levitated him out. Half of Gryffindor were wearing their breakfast, Luna still looked dazed, and she, Neville, and Ron all had drool on them. The rest of the hall was staring at them in shock, with many of the Slytherins openly jeering. And two redheads who were conspicuously absent from the fray were looking on with wide eyes and poorly-hidden grins.

"You two!" Hermione exploded at the Weasley Twins. "You're behind this aren't you?"

"Why Hermione, you wound us!" Fred exclaimed theatrically. "Accusing us without evidence?"

"What would make you think we were behind such a spectacular prank?" George asked.

"We know it came from inside the castle. And who else would send Harry a giant box of catnip?"

"I quite agree. Don't try to deny it, Messrs. Weasley," McGonagall said through her handkerchief as she carefully approached. "You've gone too far this time."

"Et tu, Professor? Now, what makes you think it was us?" Fred said innocently.

"Only the fact that you did the same thing to me in your first year, and Madam Pomfrey had to sedate me to stop me from creating a similar display." Many students gasped and snickered around them. "Forty points from Gryffindor and detention cleaning up this mess!" She turned to the rest of the table and added. "Anyone with food or catnip on them is excused from their first class to clean up. And if I smell any catnip in my classroom, it will mean a detention."

Harry woke up in the Hospital Wing with a whanging headache. What was he doing there? He groaned, disoriented; then he tried to shift himself and was instantly wide awake. He was tied to the bed.

"Diffindo!" he cast wandlessly, and his hands and feet were freed all at once. He tried to sit up, and his headache hit him again. He moaned and fell back onto the bed.

"Madam Pomfrey he's awake," he heard Hermione call, far too loudly, and he saw her face appear over him.

"Ow. Not so loud," he said.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Harry, cats don't get hangovers."

"What? Hermione, what happened? Why was I tied up?"

Hermione frowned at him, and Madam Pomfrey waved her wand in his face. "What's the last thing you remember, Mr. Potter?" she asked.

Harry tried to remember. "I was at breakfast, I think," he said. "I think maybe the mail was coming in?" He jerked up in bed again. "Did I get whammied by a cursed letter?"

"Worse," Hermione said. "Fred and George mailed you a box of catnip."

"Catnip?" he gasped. "Oh, no. I didn't take my clothes off, did I?"

"No, we stopped you before you did that. But you did try to snog me. Again."

Harry raised his hand to his cheek where he could feel the sting from where Hermione had presumably slapped him, and the memories started coming back to him. "Oh, God, I remember," he groaned.

"Mr. Potter, you've tried catnip before?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

"Once. I was seven," he said.

"What were your symptoms at that time? I've only seen Professor McGonagall under the influence once without stunning her, so I'm not certain what's normal."

"I cartwheeled around the house in my underpants, drooled everywhere, tried to snog Hermione, she slapped me, and a few minutes later, I passed out. I woke up two hours later with an awful headache."

"I think that might be psychosomatic, ma'am," Hermione pointed out. "Cats don't get hangovers from catnip."

"Catnip also only affects cats for ten minutes at a time," he shot back. "Ugh, how long was I out."

"A couple of hours, Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said. "Your symptoms today seem quite consistent with your description, except that the…erm…snogging response was increased, likely because of teenage hormones."

Harry tried to make sense of that statement, and he hid his face in his hands when he remembered: "Oh, no. I kind of molested Luna, didn't I?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Hermione agreed. "She's okay, though. She understands you were drugged."

"Where is she?"

"Just outside, actually. First period classes were cancelled so everyone could clean up. Do you want to talk to her?"

"Argh, no."

"I really think you should, Harry. You shouldn't let a stupid prank get in the way of a healthy relationship."

Harry glared at her. "Fine, fine, bring her in."

Hermione rose and brought Luna in from outside the door. His girlfriend approached him slowly much more reservedly than usual. He couldn't meet her eyes. "Hello, Harry," she said softly. "Are you feeling better?"

"I'm feeling sober," he said. "I don't know about better. Luna I'm really sorry about…you know…I know I was out of my mind, but I feel bad about being all over you like that. I…hope I didn't make you too uncomfortable."

"Um…" Luna said. He looked up and saw she was blushing redder than he'd ever seen her. "It really wasn't unpleasant," she said sheepishly. "Except for you drooling on me."

Now, Harry blushed. "Um…well…I'm glad to hear that, Luna…I think," he said.

"And we can always practice your snogging later," she said.

"Luna!" Hermione gasped.

"Miss Lovegood!" Madam Pomfrey said.

Luna just giggled at them. That was one more reason why Harry liked her so much. She actually had a wicked sense of humour.

"Harry, you're a prefect," Hermione scolded, deliberately taking her comment literally. "You have to set a good example for the younger students."

"Then I'll be sure not to get caught," he said, winking at Luna.

"Harry!"