Stupid Gryffindors. What did they have that he didn't have? He knew all about quidditch too. And sure, he wasn't on a team, yet, but he would be. And he would be the best…whatever position he ended up playing. Not beater, though. Maybe seeker or chaser. Keeper if he must. Of course, he was determined to get Ivy on the team too, and she would undoubtedly be seeker, so maybe he would go for chaser. And he would be brilliant. Much better than those stupid Gryffindors and their stupid grins and stupid ability to get Ivy to play their stupid game. Draco paused and offered a quick prayer asking forgiveness from whatever deity was over quidditch. But still, stupid Gryffindors.

And stupid Weasley, whichever one it had been, with his stupid grin and his stupid names for Draco (didn't he know that only his mother was allowed to call him that?), and his stupid comments about his supposed crush on Ivy. DRACO MALFOY DID NOT HAVE A CRUSH.

Feeling slightly better, Draco now concentrated on ridding his face of what he was sure was a pinkish tint he did not want. Ever. Stupid Weasleys. Stupid Gryffindors.

So focused was he on utilizing his extensive vocabulary to eloquently describe the stupidity of the color red and everything it represented (mainly Gryffindors and undesirable blushes in this case), that he failed to hear his name being called until he was suddenly faced with an irritated older student practically towering over him.

"Malfoy!"

Draco blinked. Why was he being yelled at?

"Malfoy, are you even listening?"

"Sorry, what?"

The older student huffed. "Were you even listening to me? Were you at the Gryffindor tryouts?"

Why did this student car… Oh, wait. Slytherin. Fifth Year. Surname Flint, given name Marcus. Quidditch Captain. Slytherin Quidditch Captain. Draco's thoughts turned to a couple of those French words his father had made him promise never to let his mother hear (or know where he had learned them in the first place).

Draco nodded. Flint gestured for him to continue. Not knowing what he was supposed to be continuing, Draco verbalized his response.

"And?" Flint was clearly agitated.

"Sorry?" The Gryffindor stupidity had obviously rubbed off on him. That was the last time he let Ivy drag him to a group of Gryffindors.

"What happened? Who's on the team? Who'd they get as seeker? What's their strategy?"

Draco could only utter a very eloquent "umm" in response.

Flint didn't take kindly to the (non)response.

"Come on, what did you see? What happened?"

"Well, Ivy found the snitch."

Flint stared at him for a moment. "Ivy…as in Potter? Potter found the snitch? What was Potter doing playing with the Gryffindors?"

So Draco found himself obligated to tell the entire story of what had led to Ivy retrieving the snitch for the Gryffindor tryouts. He left out a few parts, such as Weasley accusing him of having a crush right as he was leaving, or the Gryffindor Captain going on and on about how Ivy just "had to play quidditch" because her talent was "too good to pass up." Well, he tried to leave all that out, anyway. It didn't work out. He thought a couple more of those French words as he felt his face heat up again.

Marcus Flint had been excited to learn that a couple Slytherin students had been at the Gryffindor tryouts. Not only had they shown up, but they had stayed. Wood must have been very distracted to have not kicked them off the field right when they showed up. Oh well. His gain. On the downside, they were both first years. But he had heard that Malfoy at least had a bit of a head for quidditch, so he had hoped to gain at least some useful information from him. Except not only had the kid not even noticed him until Flint was practically shouting his name, but he hadn't been able to give much description of the tryouts at all. Except for the part about Potter. Now that had been interesting.

At first, Marcus had been incensed that a member of his house had, in any way, shape, or form, helped out Wood of all people. He mentally spit out that name in his thoughts as per usual.

But the longer he thought on it, the more he decided there was a great deal to be gained by this. First of all, it meant that he had a potential spy among the Gryffindors. Malfoy was obviously useless when it came to that, But Potter was apparently in the good graces of the Lions. Everyone knew she hung around the Weasley twins, but they didn't count. Now that she had been accepted in some way by other Gryffindors, there was a good chance she'd be able to tell him what happened with their quidditch team.

The second piece of useful fact he was able to extract from this information was that Gryffindor was unlikely to have a good seeker. That in and of itself was fantastic news.

Then, of course, there was the fact that Potter was evidently good at quidditch. That would have been a bit more exciting if Malfoy hadn't gone on to complain about how Potter didn't actually like quidditch and how Wood had apparently been heard saying how he was determined to get her interested in the sport.

Neither of those would do at all.

Potter would have to be convinced to play quidditch. She didn't even have to like it, for Merlin's sake. She just had to be good at it. But if she was to become interested in quidditch, it would absolutely not do to have Wood be able to take the credit. Marcus honestly hadn't been sure about Potter getting sorted into Slytherin in the first place, but by Merlin she was in his house, so if anyone was going to get her interested in quidditch, it was going to be him.

*thump*

Percy banged his head against the table. If he heard one more person ask him why his brothers had invited two Slytherins to the Gryffindor quidditch tryouts, he was going to lose it. This was going to be it. This would be his end. He always knew the twins would somehow be the death of him. And yet people kept coming up to him, assuming that because he was their older brother he was able to exercise some amount of control over them. Ha. As if. He was the last bloody person in this bloody school they were likely to listen to.

He had been a prefect for all of two weeks and already he had given up on those two. Sure, he would continue to put up the token protests to their…shenanigans…but in his heart of hearts Percy Weasley had given up. He had at least hoped to be able to stop them from continuing their ridiculous quest to confuse everyone in the school. They were already identical. Why on earth did they need to try and confuse everyone further? Most people couldn't tell them apart anyway, but they still insisted on answering to the wrong names switching places. It had gone on all last year, and as soon as Percy saw his prefect badge he had been determined to put an end to it. But that, along with any other plans he might have regarding the twins, quickly fell to the wayside. He was a failure. An absolute failure. Two weeks and he had already given up on putting a stop to the twins' schemes.

Percy's internal rant of despair was rudely interrupted by Oliver. Literally the last person he wanted to see right now (as he conveniently ignored the fact that they shared a room and he was thus more likely to see Wood than most other people on the planet right now). He prepared himself for the inevitable quidditch question.

"Perce, I need your help."

That wasn't what he had expected. Knowing this would probably end in disaster, but frankly too tired at the moment to care, Percy answered, "With what?"

"I need you to talk the twins into getting Potter to let me teach her quidditch."

Percy took a full minute to process that sentence. "I'm sorry, you what?"

Oliver repeated himself but it did absolutely nothing to help Percy.

"Let me get this straight." Oliver was practically bouncing on his feet by this point. "You want me, to convince the twins, to talk to…Potter was it?" Oliver nodded. "Right. So you want them to talk to Potter, a first year, in Slytherin, because you, Oliver Wood, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, want to teach her about quidditch. Am I missing anything there?"

Oliver shook his head. "No. That 'bout sums it up."

Percy felt his eye twitch. "Right. First of all, why do you think I'd be able to get the twins to do anything? And second of all," he said, ignoring Oliver's attempts at answering his first (mostly rhetorical question), "why?"

Oliver looked confused. "Why what?"

"Why do you want to teach quidditch to some first year Slytherin anyway? You do realize that you'd be essentially handing a player to Flint for next year, right?"

Oliver waved him off. Percy wondered if he should take his friend to Madame Pomfrey to get checked out.

"That's not important. What's important is that I get her interested in quidditch."

"Why?"

Oliver stared at him. "Because…well, because it's quidditch."

Percy had heard that answer many times over the past few years, but never in this particular sort of situation.

"And I won't let Flint beat me again," Oliver continued.

Percy tried to connect that statement but could find no logical connection whatsoever. "Again, you do realize you'd be handing him a player, right?"

Oliver shook his head. "No, you don't get it. If I don't get to her first, then he'll be the one to show her how great quidditch is. I can't let him beat me again."

"How is he beating you at anything? How is this anything to win?"

Oliver reiterated several of his previous points. "So, will you help me?"

*thump*

At the same time, in another part of the castle

Ivy nudged Draco. "Did you feel that?"

Draco looked up from his book which was most definitely a very serious read related to very serious academics and not at all a novel about dragons that he had brought from home. "Feel what?"

Ivy paused. "I think it was the kind of feeling like when someone's eye twitches."

"What are you going on about?"

Ivy rolled her eyes. "No, I mean it. I felt something. And it feels like someone's eye twitched."

"Why on earth would you be able to feel that?"

Ivy shrugged her shoulders. "I always feel it when Henry's eye twitches."

Now Draco rolled his eyes. "Well then maybe somewhere someone's eye is twitching because of you."

Ivy thought about that for a moment. "Fair enough."

And with that, Draco turned back to his dragons…er, I mean studying.

September 18, 1991

Fred watched as Ivy practically skipped towards Hagrid's hut. When she had asked them if they knew Hagrid, and if they could introduce her, they had both readily agreed. Then she had started talking about how the Cerberus she and Malfoy had found belonged to Hagrid, and she wanted to learn all about it. Fred supposed it was only natural to want to learn all about the thing that had almost killed you. Still, her enthusiasm had come as a bit of a surprise.

The little Malfoy had absolutely refused to come, and as much as Fred had enjoyed teasing him at the quidditch tryouts, he wasn't at all saddened at his absence.

Reaching Hagrid's hut, George stepped forward and knocked on the large door. The door soon opened, and the gamekeeper looked down at them with a smile.

"Well, if it isn't the Weasleys. Come in, come in."

Fred noticed Hagrid's smile fall just slightly as he caught sight of Ivy and the green on her robes. He quickly intervened.

"This is Ivy Potter. She was very excited to meet you and has some questions so we thought we'd do the honors."

Hagrid's smile lit back up. "Oh, of course. And what kind of questions do ya have for me, young lady?"

Ivy beamed up at him.

Forty minutes later

This was not what Fred had planned this morning. When Ivy had said she wanted to ask Hagrid about the Cerberus, he had assumed she meant she wanted to know because she had been scared of the one she had seen, or because it was a cool magical creature that could rip people apart. Either was fair. He liked large creatures from hell that could tear you up just as much as the next person, but she didn't seriously want one, did she?

He ventured a glance at his twin. Well, at least he wasn't the only one thinking along those lines.

To be fair, his first indication of the direction this visit would take should have been when Hagrid compared Ivy to their brother Charlie.

His thoughts were interrupted by the two unconcerned individuals in the room laughing loudly. Fred watched as Hagrid brushed tears from his eyes.

"Ya know, I haven't seen ya since you was a baby. Wee little thing you was too. And now look atcha. All grown up and pretty as a picture, you are."

Ivy's eyes shot up. "You knew me when I was a baby?"

"Course I did! Why, I was the one to deliver ya after… well, after it happened. Took ya up in the motorcycle myself, delivered ya all the way to Surrey."

Fred wondered if anyone else caught the way Ivy's face froze at that statement. A quick glance showed that his twin at least did. Hagrid didn't seem to notice though.

"You were the one that brought me to the Dursley's?" Ivy was trying to sound happy but was failing miserably, or at least that's what Fred thought.

"Yeah. Never knew their names, though. Just followed Dumbledore's directions of where to take ya."

Ivy tensed further. "So Dumbledore was the one that sent me there?"

Hagrid nodded. "Yeah. Great man, Dumbledore."

"Why'd he send me there, do you know?"

Hagrid shrugged. "Said you'd be safe. Said it was best if ya stayed with family. Out of the wizarding world for a bit. Less people to bother ya, I suppose."

Ivy nodded at that. She smiled, but Fred could tell it was forced. "Well thank you for helping me, Hagrid. It was nice to meet you."

They continued to exchange pleasantries all the way to the door. As they began walking back to the castle, Fred took a moment to take in Ivy's face. She was deep in concentration, and she seemed to be bothered by something. What was it about what Hagrid had set that was bothering her?

As they continued walking, Ivy's face went from concerned to contemplative to something Fred recognized very well. He had seen it often on his twin's face after all. Ah. The beautiful look of someone scheming. Turning to his twin they exchanged a look and then nodded at each other. Someone needed to look out for Ivy make she didn't get into too much trouble. And they were obviously the perfect pair to do that.