This chapter has been mostly done for a while, but I keep going back and tinkering with it. I'm roughly 85% happy with it now, which is going to have to be good enough, because I'm something like three chapters ahead and this is going to be holding me up forever if I don't put it out there.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

'All right, let's hear it,' said Harry that night in the Room of Requirement. 'What's your idea?'

'Hold your hippogriffs,' said Ginny. 'It's just a passing thought. I don't want to put it out there until we have some more information. First I want you to tell me about everything that happened today with Hermione's Time Turner. Every detail you can remember.'

Harry told her about the pulling feeling in his gut, the twisting, sqeezing sensation as the whole world seemed to spin around him, and his various deductions after arriving on the Entrance Hall floor.

'It definitely sounds like being close to Hermione is what causes it,' Ginny agreed with his assessment. 'Otherwise why wouldn't you have been caught up when she used it after Divination? And why did I never get caught in it?'

'Do you think you would?' he asked her.

'Assuming we're both back in time for the same reason, it only makes sense, doesn't it?' she asked. 'There's really no way to know without experimenting, but I wouldn't ask you to go through that unless it was necessary. It wasn't pleasant.'

'All the same, we really should try to find out more about what we're dealing with so we aren't caught off guard in the future,' Harry said. 'We should try and get you sent back and see what happens. Do you end up in the Entrance Hall too? Do I feel ill? What happens if we're both too close? Do we both get pulled back? Do we both feel pulled apart?'

'You really have thought a lot about this,' Ginny said. 'But I don't disagree. We should also try and see if we can't reason out just how close we have to be in order for this to happen. Figure out a range of sorts so that we can make sure we're outside or inside of it as needs be.'

'Why would we ever need to be inside of the range?' Harry asked.

'Well, that was another thought I had this afternoon,' Ginny said. 'All this being sent back in time physically, it results in us literally being in two places at once, right?'

'Well, yeah. That's sort of the problem. Awful things are supposed to happen if you have an encounter with your past or future self.'

'That's not what I'm talking about,' Ginny said, shaking her head. 'I meant, if we could arrange it properly, and it doesn't make us all woozy, we could find ourselves in a situation where both of us can be in class where we're supposed to be and also somewhere else at the exact same time with literally nobody on Earth knowing about it.'

'What exactly are you getting at?' Harry said.

A gleam appeared in Ginny's eye. The kind that always meant either something amazing or something he was going to heartily regret was about to be suggested.

'Well, we've been wondering how exactly we're going to get at that horcrux in Gringotts, right?'

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

They spent the rest of that evening designing a list of experiments they could carry out and what they hoped to learn from each of them. Each of these involved potential sacrifices on both of their parts, but there was no getting around that.

'Let's at least try and avoid it for the first few days of term until we get into a rhythm,' Harry suggested. Ginny agreed that this was probably a good idea.

Avoiding it proved easier said than done, however, owing chiefly to the fact that they couldn't always predict when Hermione would use her Time Turner. The obvious instances were when she had two lessons scheduled simultaneously, but she also would occasionally use it – as she had that first day in the library – as a means of squeezing in some extra study time.

Harry first realized this would be a problem on Thursday morning during a session of double potions. Snape was bullying Neville, as usual, and threatening to poison his toad at the end of the lesson. Hermione offered to help, which of course Snape prohibited. Unfortunately, neither she nor Harry were sitting close enough to Neville to help him discretely. And yet somehow, at the end of the lesson, Neville's potion worked as it was meant to and Trevor was spared. Snape was furious, not least, Harry suspected, because there was no one he could plausibly punish for helping after he'd forbidden it. Neville, for his part, looked just as mystified as anyone by the outcome.

'Maybe you were worried about Trevor enough that it motivated you,' Ron supplied as they were packing up.

'Can't be,' said Neville, shaking his head. 'I was so terrified I practically froze up. I barely even remember what I did.'

Ron volleyed between trying to cheer Neville up and seething at Snape on the way up the stairs after they were dismissed, which was fortunate, because he was too distracted to notice when Harry hung back, a now familiar sensation gnawing at his insides.

Bloody hell, Hermione! Harry just had time to think before the world spun around him. He was halfway through pulling out his invisibility cloak.

He appeared at the top of the staircase just beyond the one he'd just disappeared from, pulling the cloak over himself quickly, hopefully before anyone noticed anything.

Well that answers one question, he thought, taking in his surroundings. He still was relatively close to the Entrance Hall, though.

After his planning session with Ginny, Harry was in the mood to collect some information. And right now, the first thing he wanted to know was where Hermione had appeared. He suspected it would be somewhere nearby. The cellar and dungeon corridors were devoid of traffic, as everyone was in class an few people had any other reason to be down there this time of day, so he crept back down toward Snape's classroom, keeping an eye out for Hermione. She'd likely be heading toward whatever she'd come back in time to do, and given that she had no other lessons scheduled for this time, her goal was likely to just get some work or revising done.

Assuming she appeared around here, she'd likely want to stay nearby so that she could join the throng leaving Snape's class later. After their talk the other day, she'd want to be careful about Ron or anyone else noticing too much out of the ordinary.

There were a few unused classrooms down here, but they were unused for a reason. For one thing, nobody except Snape and perhaps a few of the other Slytherins liked spending any time in the dungeons if they could avoid it, and for another, most of them looked as though even the Hogwarts house elves had given up cleaning and/or maintaining them a very long time ago.

Of these rooms, there were perhaps one or two that could be conducive to revising. Harry checked them first. The first was empty, but in the second he saw what he'd been expecting: Hermione with her books and scrolls spread out around her as he'd seen her in the library the other day. This meant that she had indeed appeared somewhere down in the dungeons, because he hadn't crossed paths with her on his way back down.

One mystery solved, he turned his attention toward what else he could learn. He hadn't exactly had time to plan this excursion, but there had to be something useful he could do. It took him several minutes to come up with an idea, and even when he did he wasn't sure it was a good one. It was certainly against his better judgement, but he was feeling annoyed, and he was always at his most reckless when he was annoyed.

He crept along the corridor, silenced the door to the Potions classroom, opened it the smallest amount he possibly could, slipped in, and closed it again. It was a double lesson, and he'd only gone back an hour, so they were already more than halfway through. Snape was in the middle of berating Neville.

'Orange, Longbottom!' he bellowed while Neville cowered in front of him. Harry longed to do something – to rig something to harrass Snape when he returned to the front of the room – but there was being reckless and then there was just being stupid. He was already pushing his luck as far as it could go by being in the same room as his former self – something he had thus far explicitly worked to avoid – but he needed to understand as best he could not only the limitations but the potential applications of this latest inconvenience. What would happen if he got close to his past self? Theoretically, as long as the Harry from an hour ago didn't know he was there, there would be no problems. But it would certainly be better to know this than to assume it.

Once Snape was done making his threats, Harry crept over to the table where Neville was working, all the while keeping half an eye on himself to ensure no unexpected encounters. He didn't remember seeing or hearing himself, but could that change? Could something he did now alter past events in some way? Everything he knew about the Time Turner told him it couldn't, but then everything he knew about the Time Turner was only slightly more than nothing at all. Why would there be so many restrictions if such things weren't at least a risk?

All Neville's ingredients were out on the table, but he was looking at them in a panic as though he'd never seen them before. And yet somehow he'd managed to make a passable shrinking solution. In some kind of fugue state, perhaps? Harry didn't know what was driving him to find out, but perhaps it was something he'd be able to use to help Neville later. He knew his friend never really did get the hang of potions, even after working hard enough to scrape the passing grade necessary to enter the auror program. Maybe it was purely psychological and deep down he could do it all along?

Several minutes went by, and Neville had yet to do anything. The potion was about to spoil if left unattended any longer. But obviously something had to happen, or…

Harry felt like smacking himself in the head. The solution was obvious. It maybe even explained his odd compulsion to come in here in the first place. Had he understood subconsciously from the start what he needed to do?

Unable to make the potion himself (people – and his past self – would surely notice it stirring itself or ingredients throwing themselves in of their own accord), Harry cast a mild confundus charm on Neville and began whispering him instructions. The sound of everyone else's work covered him well enough.

He had to recast the confundus a few more times before the work was complete. He felt bad about it, but told himself he was sparing Neville a much worse fate by making sure his potion was at least passable (it would take a far greater potioneer than Harry to completely salvage what Neville had already done).

During the scene Snape made when testing Neville's brew, Harry snuck back out of the room and bolted for the stairs, wondering what had come over him. He'd found some of the answers he wanted – parts of them, anyway – but he'd wasted time and risked being seen by going back into Snape's classroom. Sure, he'd helped Neville out of a jam, and he'd proven he could be near himself without causing a catasrophe, but in the grand scheme of things, had it been it worth it?

But then, he asked himself, what if he had been right, and he'd known nothing would go wrong, because he hadn't seen his future self appear when sitting through Snape's lesson the first time. Did that not mean it was essentially predetermined that he would not reveal himself? And Neville's potion needed to have been corrected somehow. It had obviously been him doing it. He'd had to go in there. He just hadn't known why at the time.

Developing something of a headache from thinking about all this, Harry made sure to hide out at the top of the stairs leading into the Entrance Hall. This should surely be far enough away.

Then again, he thought, and scurried to the opposite end of the hall, just in case.

He made his way back over when he heard his classmates approaching, pulling off his cloak right before rounding the door into the corridor leading down to the dungeons.

'Harry!' Ron cried upon seeing him. 'How did you get up there so fast? I thought you were behind me! And where's Hermione?' he added, looking around. 'I could have sworn she was with us when we left the classroom.'

'I'm here!' called Hermione, hurrying up the staircase and tucking something down the front of her robes. Harry gave her a pointed look and she turned away, looking sheepish. Good. Let her think he'd just been covering for her.

'Seriously, what is going on with you two?' Ron asked.

'Nothing, Ron,' said Hermione. 'I just had to go back for – oh, no!' Her bag had split open, though fortunately not enough to spill the half dozen or so books she'd crammed into it onto the floor.

'What are you carrying all these around for?' Ron asked. 'You haven't got any of these subjects today!'

'I'm planning on going to the library later,' she offered as an explanation. She cast a hasty reparo on her bag that likely wouldn't last so much as a week. 'I hope they're serving something good for lunch; I'm starving.' She trooped off ahead of them, forcing them to catch up.

No wonder, Harry thought. How many hours has it been for you since you ate breakfast this morning, Hermione?

He saw Ginny at lunch and sat down next to her. She gave him an annoyed look. He didn't have to wonder what it was about.

'Sorry!' he whispered. Ron and Hermione were bickering about something and for the moment not paying him or Ginny any attention. 'She caught me by surprise! She doesn't have any overlapping lessons today so I thought we'd be safe.'

Ginny sighed. 'It's all right. Well, it's not, but it's not your fault. There wasn't really anything you could have done, I suppose. At least I wasn't in class this time. Though a few of the girls were starting to wonder if I'm all there.'

'How are you, Ginny?' asked Hermione, sitting across from them. Whatever argument she'd been having with Ron (his mouth already full of pork pie) was evidently over. 'I haven't seen much of you yet this year.'

'I hear you're awfully busy,' said Ginny, trying her best not to sound irritated with the older girl. Harry was probably the only one who picked up on it.

'Well, I am taking a lot of classes, it's true,' said Hermione. 'But it's worth it! I'm learning so much!'

'Even in Muggle Studies?' Harry asked. 'Have they explained what a toaster oven is yet? Or is that considered too advanced?'

'Har har,' said Hermione. 'You're as bad as this one,' she added, jerking her thumb at Ron. 'Honestly, is it so bad to want to know how wizards learn about muggles?'

'On the face of it, no,' said Harry. 'But I wouldn't think it would be a priority, what with everything else you're trying to do.'

'I'd have thought you of all people would understand, Harry,' she said, frowning sadly. 'You're top of the year in everything after me.'

'Hermione, just because I understand the material doesn't mean I love learning about it as much as you do,' he said. 'There's nothing wrong with enjoying school of course, but that's not me at all.'

'Hmph,' she pouted. 'You say there's nothing wrong with it, but you're saying I'm trying to do too much, just like everyone else.'

'Because you are. You're going to work yourself to death. Enjoying something isn't a good enough reason to overextend yourself. If I played quidditch every day until I collapsed of exhaustion, you'd say I was going too far, and you'd be right.'

'Hmph,' she said again, crossing her arms. She didn't speak to any of them for the rest of the meal.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Professor Lupin wasn't there when they arrived for their first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Harry had to strain not to smile; he knew why that was.

Everyone had started chatting by the time he arrived. He smiled vaguely as he placed his things on the teacher's desk, then addressed the room.

'Good afternoon,' he said. Now that there wasn't a dementor present sucking all the happiness and joy out of everything, Harry had a chance to bask in just how good it felt to hear his old teacher's voice again.

Professor Lupin had them leave all but their wands behind and led them out of the classroom and down the corridor to the staff room. This lesson was another of those indelible memories stamped forever on Harry's mind. He was caught off guard when they did not encounter Peeves on the way; he had a definite recollection of Lupin foiling him in some prank or another. It had been the beginning of his almost legendary status among Harry's classmates.

Everything else seemed to play out as he remembered it. Lupin first taught them about boggarts, the spell to repel them, and had Neville prepare to go first. If Harry were honest with himself, he was looking forward to seeing Snape dressed as Neville's grandmother again, and was not disappointed. It was just as hilarious as it had been the first time.

When it was Harry's turn, Lupin jumped in front of him just as before. Harry couldn't believe how they'd all (save Hermione, of course) missed that Lupin's boggart took the shape of a full moon. It was impossible to miss. Though perhaps that was simply because Harry knew what he was looking for.

'Context is always the best thing for deciphering seemingly nonsensical information, Potter,' auror Whitenack had once told him. That was on his very first case outside of training, when he'd been stuck following a lead that didn't seem to go anywhere. He'd known the information he had was relavent; he just couldn't see how.

'Something that makes zero sense to an outside observer can make perfect sense to a person experiencing it in the right context,' Whitenack had said. 'The trick is to try and put yourself in the position of that other person. When something happened, when they did something, what else was going on around them? What information was available to them at the time? Sometimes we have more context than they did, which can make their actions seem illogical to us in hindsight. Never lose sight of context, Potter, and never assume that other people know what you know, or vice versa.'

His old instructor's voice echoed in his mind. To everyone else (except the ever-observant Hermione), Lupin's boggart was just a bright white ball, because they had no reason to expect it to be anything different. To Harry, it was obviously a moon, because he knew what Lupin was, and because he had no reason to assume it would be anything else.

What else was he interpreting differently because he lacked proper context? Or, as in this case, because he possessed more than the others around him? He and Ginny had often circled back to the hypothesis that they had been deliberately sent back in time, perhaps even by themselves, only to have forgotten about it when they arrived. But they never got very far beyond that. They would casually speculate on why this might have been done, but had yet to put together any truly plausible scenarios. Was this the context they were lacking?

Or maybe, Harry thought, his missing context lay with his limited understanding of the rules of time travel. Perhaps this entire thing had been an accident of some kind. An experiment gone wrong or the unexpected by-product of something completley unrelated. If that were the case, they had almost no chance of ever solving the mystery because the inciting incident could have been almost anything at all. Not a comforting thought.

He wanted to share these thoughts with Ginny. He wanted to propose the idea of mapping out possible futures, and how they could have led to this type of result. He knew her objections to the idea would be similar to the ones even now cropping up in the back of his own head: it was yet another side project when they had yet to make any progress on their real goal of getting back to their proper time.

But that was just it. They hadn't made any progress. The way they'd been going about things hadn't gotten them anywhere. It was time to try something new, even if it might not work, because the only thing they could be sure of now was that their repeated searches for curses and enchantments definitely wasn't working.

So lost in his thoughts was he that Harry nearly forgot there was something else he was supposed to be doing, and he and the rest of the class (excitedly talking about the best Defense lesson any of them had ever experienced) were halfway out the door when he remembered.

'You two go on ahead,' he told Ron and Hermione. 'I want to ask Lupin something.'

'We can wait,' said Hermione. Ron nodded.

'It's all right,' he told them. 'But could you get my bag for me back at the classroom? I'll meet you upstairs in the common room.'

'Sure,' said Ron, and though he did have to tug Hermione by the elbow for a second, they headed off without him. Now at least he knew he wouldn't be surprised if Hermione decided to jump back suddenly again.

'Something on your mind, Harry?' Lupin asked, noticing he had not yet left.

'Er, yes,' he said. It was still difficult talking to Lupin directly and controlling his emotions. More than two years of practice with Fred and then Dobby and Colin hadn't made him any better at it. 'Sir, I wanted to ask you –'

'Why I didn't let you face the boggart?' Lupin finished for him. 'I would have thought that would be obvious, Harry.'

'No, I understood what you were probably thinking there,' Harry told him. 'You probably thought the boggart would turn into Voldemort, didn't you?'

Lupin's eyebrows rose just a hair.

'Indeed that is what concerned me,' he said, 'though I now surmise those concerns were perhaps baseless?'

'It's probably still for the best that you stepped in,' Harry told him. 'I'm almost positive it would have turned into a dementor, and it probably wouldn't have been good to have one of them floating around in here either.'

'Certainly not,' said Lupin, chuckling. 'Well then, this suggests that what you fear the most is...fear. This is very wise, Harry.'

Thirteen years later and Harry was still trying to work out what Lupin had meant by that. Then it occurred to him that he could simply ask.

'What do you mean, sir?'

'Come and sit, Harry,' Lupin said, indicating one of the staff room chairs and sitting in one himself. 'If we're going to have a discussion, we may as well be comfortable.'

Harry sat, and waited for Lupin's explanation.

'Fear is, at its core, nothing more than a natural defense mechanism,' Lupin explained. 'It is our bodies way of telling us that we are in some kind of danger, and we had better do something about it. There is nothing wrong with fear when viewed like this; it is natural and indeed useful. Those who claim to fear nothing are foolish, for there is always that which can do us harm, and to have no fear of it would make us less wary, and thus more vulnerable.'

'But isn't Gryffindor house supposed to be known for being fearless?' Harry asked.

'Not at all,' said Lupin. 'To be sure, some of the more foolhardy Gryffindors may be so, or at least pretend to be, but Gryffindors are primarily known for being brave, which is something entirely different from being fearless. Bravery cannot exist without fear. It means facing our fears, rising above them and doing what must be done, even – especially – when we are afraid. What you fear is that paralyzing terror, that all-consuming dread that makes you unable to act. What you fear most of all, Harry, is letting fear conquer you, and preventing you from acting when you must. It is very admirable of you.'

Hearing this description of his own anxieties from Lupin had a much more profound effect than even hearing it from Dumbledore could have done. Harry felt a sense of validation and even pride that he'd rarely experienced in his life. He was glad he'd decided to ask.

'Oh,' he said. It was time to get down to what he'd stayed behind for. 'Er, with that in mind, sir, I wanted to ask you about dementors.'

'Ah,' said Lupin, his eyes lighting up. 'Well, yes, naturally you would want to know more about them. Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this Earth. Though of course they don't actually walk. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, the drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presence, though they can't see them. Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory, will be sucked out of you. If it can, the dementor will geed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself – soulless and evil. You'll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.'

'Can't imagine why they would affect me so badly, then,' Harry joked. Lupin managed a small smile.

'That you can joke about it speaks to your strength of will and character, Harry. Yes, the worst that has happened to you is enough to make most people go so far as to pass out in a dementor's presense. I was impressed by your fortitude on the train.'

'I wasn't,' Harry said. That much was true. 'If Voldemort himself had come into the compartment at that moment, I wouldn't have been able to do anything.' That part wasn't.

'You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, Harry,' Lupin said kindly. 'Much older and more experienced wizards than you have reacted far worse to the presence of a dementor, much less one they didn't know was coming.'

'That's...sort of what I wanted to talk to you about, sir,' Harry said. 'You're the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Isn't there some way of fighting them off, or at least standing up to them so I don't feel like fainting or sicking up every time I have to walk past one?'

It would definitely be a lot less hassle if he could develop – as soon as possible – a plausible explanation for his ability to cast a patronus. He wasn't so concerned with the secrecy of his real identity that he'd forego its use in a true life or death situation, but knowing he'd have an answer (with someone to corroborate it) for any questions that would inevitably follow would certainly take a load off his mind. Merlin knew he could do with lightening as many of those as possible.

'Hmm,' Lupin said. 'Well, there is a way to fight them, but it's very difficult. Even many fully qualified wizards have trouble with it.'

'I don't care!' said Harry with the vehemence of a thirteen year old who believed they could take on anything. 'I need to learn, sir. If I can fight them, I won't need to be as afraid of them anymore.'

'Very well,' said Lupin. I shall need to think first on how we are going to do this. I can't very well bring a real dementor into the castle. Even if Dumbledore hadn't expressly forbidden it, it would be a terrible idea.'

'What about a boggart, sir?' Harry suggested. He wanted to get the wheels rolling on this as soon as possible, and knew that Lupin's transformations as well as the added frenzy of the holidays would be a delay. He distincly remembered not starting until second term before.

'A boggart?'

'If the boggart turns into a dementor when it sees me, I can practice on it, and then we can just banish it or lock it back up when we're done.'

Lupin looked impressed. Harry almost laughed; it had been Lupin's own idea originally.

'That's not a terrible idea, you know,' said Lupin. 'Give me a week to round up another boggart and we'll see if we can't get started next Thursday evening.'

'Is there anything I can be practicing in the mean time, sir?' Harry asked. I really just want to hurry this along. So what if I'm a prodigy who can conjure a corporeal patronus before Christmas?

'You really are serious about this, aren't you?' said Lupin. 'Very well. I can teach you the incantation now, but I warn you that practicing it on its own will do you very little good. This is because it is a spell that can only be cast when you are concentrating with all your being on a single very happy memory. I don't need to explain why this will be much more difficult with a dementor present than without.'

'No,' Harry agreed. 'But it's better than nothing, right? Maybe if I can start to get the feel of concentrating and saying the incantation, it won't be so bad with a dementor there. Well, a fake one, anyway.'

'A fair point,' said Lupin. 'All right, then. The spell I am going to try to teach you is extremely advanced magic...'

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Ginny was just as frustrated with Harry's plan to shift focus yet again as he'd imagined she would be, but once he explained his reasoning, she conceding that coming at the problem from a new angle at the very least couldn't hurt anything. They began mapping out all sorts of scenarios for what could have happened in the future to have them sent back to the past. They opted to do this separately, so their ideas wouldn't influence each other, and then compare notes after a few months to see if anything sparked any new ideas.

While this did free up some of Harry's evenings, as he wasn't spending so much time in the Room of Requirement now, it also meant less time spent with Ginny, which he wasn't particularly happy about.

The rest of Hogwarts life was progressing much smoother than he could ever remember. Hagrid's lessons were a lot more fun than he recalled them being (it was hard to get more dull than flobberworms). Hagrid was building up a lot of goodwill with his third year students which would be put to the test the following year if he still intended to go forward with his Blast-Ended Skrewt plans.

Arithmancy and Study of Ancient Runes were proving to be just the challenge Harry had been craving, meaning he actually had to put effort into his homework again. He'd almost forgotten how. He was not competing with Hermione for top student in either of these subjects, which both surprised and baffled her.

'I mean, I'll grant that Arithmancy in particular is rather challenging,' she said one afternoon when she was helping him undrstand a new concept for his latest essay, just like the old times, 'but I don't know that I've ever seen you have this much trouble with something.'

'Maybe my brain just isn't built for it, Hermione,' he said. 'I think I'm finally starting to get it, though. It might have helped if my maths teacher in primary school had spent a little more time on prime numbers.'

'Yes, that is useful knowledge to have,' said Hermione wryly.

Of his two new subjects, Harry could concede that Arithmancy was more fascinating, but he definitely preferred Runes, which amounted to little more than learning a new alphabet at this early stage. He was sure that would change before too long.

Defense Against the Dark Arts had, like before, quickly become most everyone's favorite subject. Harry wished he knew how to break Voldemort's jinx so that Lupin could stay on indefinitely. And also so that he'd never have to deal with Dolores Umbridge, but mostly for Lupin's sake.

True to his word, Lupin had found another boggart and begun practice sessions with Harry on the Patronus Charm. Like he'd grown so accustomed to doing, Harry had to hide his aptitude for the spell, which was difficult when every cell in his body cried out for him to banish the fake dementor as far away as possible. Harry thought even allowing himself to produce the fine silvery mist on his first attempt might have been pushing his luck – Lupin was astonished – but he wanted this over and done with as quickly as plausibility would allow.

The best thing to happen however, came in the last week of September. It was something Harry had been hoping for but was still delightfully surprised to hear about.

'Oliver's holding tryouts!' Angelina excitedly told him on Wednesday morning, plopping down across from him at the breakfast table. Katie and Alicia soon joined her. 'He just told us. Put up a notice in the common room and everything.'

'It's about time,' said Harry, reaching for another slice of toast. 'He's been saying he's going to do that for ages.'

'He should have done it last year,' Katie said.

'What if this means one of us gets replaced, though?' Alicia said, sounding worried.

'If there's someone in Gryffindor who can play better than any of us, they should be on the team,' Angelina said firmly. 'And that's our bad luck for not practicing hard enough. Anyway, what's really good about this is that we'll be able to build up a reserve team for once. And hopefully whoever our reserve keeper ends up being will be up to scratch for when Oliver leaves next year.'

'Fred and George keep talking up their little sister,' said Katie. 'They say she's as good as Harry.'

'I still don't know if I believe that,' said Angelina, 'but if she's even half as good as they say, that'll be great for us.'

'You've played with her, right, Harry?' Alicia asked. 'Is she as good as you?'

Harry shook his head. But before they could respond, he said, 'Better.'

'Whaaat?' all three girls exclaimed at once.

'You can't be serious,' said Angelina.

'There can't be two of you,' said Katie. 'That's just insane.'

'"Better"?' Alicia repeated to herself in disbelief.

'To be fair, I'd say I probably still have the edge on her as a seeker specifically,' said Harry. 'That's always sort of been my thing. But if we're just talking about flying, and a head for quidditch, she's better than me, yeah. No question.' It doesn't hurt that she has over five years of professional training and experience under her belt, he added in his head. People always called him a natural flyer, and maybe he was, but no amount of raw talent could compete with that.

'You've got to be having us on,' said Katie.

'Oy, Ron!' called Harry, for he saw his two friends entering the Great Hall.

'Why didn't you wait for us?' Ron asked, sitting down. Hermione sat on his other side.

'You were taking forever and I was hungry,' Harry answered. 'But never mind that. Who would you say is better at quidditch: me or Ginny?'

'You want me to judge between my best mate and my sister?'

'Just settle an argument, Ron,' Harry said, inclining his head toward the three older girls on the other side of the table.

'Well, given that she's as good as you in a pick-up match, and that she's never played on a real team or in a real match before, I'd say probably her.'

'No way,' said Alicia.

'This is all just her brothers talking her up,' said Angelina.

'Hermione?' Harry asked.

Hermione's head jerked toward him, her mouth full of pumpkin juice, which she took a moment to gulp down before answering.

'I don't know why you're asking me; I've never seen you play together and I don't know anything about quidditch beyond where the balls go and that the team with the most points wins.'

'Just tell us what you think,' said Harry.

'Well, if I'm being honest, I'd say that given none of her brothers even wanted to let her play with you lot just over a year ago, the fact that they're all talking her up so much now has got to mean something. I don't think they'd say it if it wasn't true.'

'There, you see?' said Harry, turning back toward his teammates with a satisfied look on his face. The three of them exchanged a glance.

'Maybe it'll be one of us on the reserve squad after all,' said Katie. Alicia frowned. Angelina, however, looked thoughtful.

'If that's the way it is, that's the way it is,' she said. 'We should try to make our team as strong as it can be, no matter what.'

'Hang on, is this about that notice on the bulletin board?' Ron asked.

'Of course,' said Angelina. 'You play too, Ron? Planning on trying out?' Harry could see the hungry gleam in her eye. Most everyone expected her to be the next captain after Oliver left, and he knew she was already building next year's team in her head. She must be wondering if Ron shared the talent of his younger sister and many older brothers.

'I mean, I've thought about it...' said Ron uncomfortably, looking down at his plate.

'You should give it a go!' said Harry encouragingly. 'We were just talking about how we need to train up a reserve keeper; you're good at that.'

'Are you, now?' said Angelina, actually leaning across the table slightly.

'Well, I'm all right...'

Angelina opened her mouth to say more, but was swatted on the arm by Alicia.

'Don't pester him, Angelina,' she said. 'Let him decide for himself if he wants to try out.'

'Fine, fine,' said Angelina. 'I'm off to interrogate Fred and George. See you lot later.' She stood and left, popping a half slice of toast into her mouth as she did.

The rest of them stayed and talked about quidditch until the bell rang for lessons (Hermione had pulled out a book), speculating about who might show up for try-outs. They were mostly names Harry did not know, or know well. A few he did, and he was hoping they wouldn't show up.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Equal parts plot meat and faff in this chapter, I'd say. The good kind of faff, though. The kind that's fun to read (I hope).

Please leave a review with your thoughts; I'll see you next time!