Harry Potter and the Sisters Three

Chapter 8 - Reaching a Resolution

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    Hermione's face showed her crisis of fear. Her mouth opened, and closed again as she stared at the smeared Mark on the bandages.

    "How did you know to look there?" she asked at last, her eyes still riveted on the ragged mess in her hands. Harry shrugged somewhat uncomfortably.

    "Another dream," he replied. He cast his eyes about anxiously, regarding all the other Gryffindors as they yawned their way through the bottleneck of the common room and into the corridor towards breakfast. "I saw it the same way as last year, when I WAS Voldemort, except this time, I was Malfoy. I saw his face in the mirror, and then I woke up."

    She nodded, eyes still downcast. After a moment she looked up, and Harry was startled to see that her eyes were swimming in tears.

    "Ron," she choked out, and swallowed hard. The tears subsided a little, and she squared her shoulders. "We ought to go and tell him," she said. Harry stood up in affirmation, shaking his head a little to clear it of both the events of the night before and his lack of sleep. Yawning broadly, he followed Hermione ought of the common room.

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    "Hullo!" Ron called out brightly as his two friends entered the infirmary. He was straightening his robes across his shoulders and grinning, despite the white patch that still clung to the left corner of his forehead. "Madam Pomfrey told me I'd be alright to come back to class today, so it looks like I'll have to wallow through Potions after all." He grimaced jokingly, even the prospect of a double-length class with Snape unable to trip him out of his cheerful mood.

    "Glad to see you're feeling better, mate," Harry replied, shooting a warning glance at Hermione. He willed his thoughts to enter her head: 'Don't say anything yet, wait until he's got some food in him, just wait.' Whether by his will or her own perceptiveness, Hermione said nothing of Malfoy's new decoration or the impromptu wizard's duel fought on Ron's behalf.

    "I guess we'd better walk you to breakfast then," she suggested, sounding nearly as chipper as Ron himself. Harry shook his head at the two of them as Ron stooped to pick up his bag and Hermione linked her arm through his. He was beginning to notice something rather peculiar about his friends, although they themselves seemed to be rather oblivious.

    'When will they ever learn?' The Boy Who Lived thought to himself, and followed Ron and Hermione to breakfast.

    The Great Hall was thronged with people when they arrived, breakfast having begun nearly a half an hour previous. They squeezed carefully through the aisles toward a gap in the Gryffindor table and sat down. Ron promptly poured himself a glass of pumpkin juice before passing the pitcher to Hermione. Harry spooned porridge into a bowl and covered it with treacle, and Hermione filled her plate with toast and sausage as she watched Harry carefully. He shook his head almost imperceptibly, and gestured toward Ron, who had begun to eat his Belgian waffle with gusto.

    "Madam Pomfrey said I recovered remarkably quickly, considering the hit I took," Ron related, his face darkening somewhat as he remembered the means under which he received said hit. "And seeing as I'm feeling so much better, I think perhaps I ought to go and sort Malfoy out." At this point he made to stand up, and Hermione grabbed his sleeve.

    "No, Ron," she said, a pleading note in her voice. Ron looked shocked.

    "I can't just let him get AWAY with it, Hermione! I know you've got great faith in the discipline system of this school, but a detention has never stopped me from doing anything, and it's surely not going to stop Malfoy! If I don't face up to him, I'll never hear the end of it!" He pushed his way further from the table when Harry cut in.

    "She's right, Ron. Don't." Ron looked at Harry as if he had dropped from another planet.

    "You can't be serious! I know you've been playing things a bit safer this year, but that smacks a bit of a coward, Harry." Ron regarded his friend with an intense gaze. Harry nettled a bit at the 'coward' part, but kept on.

    "It's not that, Ron. It's just not a good idea to organize a huge rout on Malfoy -- yet," he amended at his friend's murderous look. "We sort of discovered something while you were in the infirmary, and-" Harry was interrupted by Hermione's snort.

    "What Harry means to say," she explained scathingly, "is that HE challenged Malfoy after you got hit, and decided to fight a duel against him with no seconds. Malfoy hit him a good one, but I guess you gave as good as you got," she huffed, displeased to make any concessions that perhaps the fight had been a good idea. "Anyway, they both land in the infirmary with you for the night, after some rather hazy circumstances involving a Fleur Delacoeur lookalike bringing them there, and Harry had a dream." Hermione's narration ceased at this point, and both she and Ron looked expectantly at Harry. He sighed.

    "It was like the first one I had of Voldemort last year, when he attacked your dad." Ron paled a bit at this statement, and nodded tersely. "I was walking through a fire in a damp dungeon when I saw myself in this mirror at the back of the fireplace. It was Malfoy." Ron's face looked somewhat incredulous.

    "Harry, you yourself have said that the dreams you've been having might not be entirely...accurate," Ron said after some deliberation, "so how can you really know what this means? I know that Malfoy is an ANNOYING prat and all, but is seeing him in a dream, looking in a mirror with green fire hard evidence that he's gone all 'Scary and Abhorrently Evil' prat?" In response, Harry tossed the tangled clump of wrappings on the table in front of him. Ron looked at him, nonplussed.

    "Bandages?"

    "Look," Hermione directed, spreading the white cotton out flat so the grisly smear of black ink could be plainly seen. "What does that look like to you?" Ron furrowed his brow and stared.

    "An octopus?" he offered hopefully. Hermione stared at him. "I suppose that's a no." He studied the bandages a bit more, lifting the wrappings and placing them against his skin. On the more substantial field of his flesh, the Mark stood out- less like a smudge than a television image interrupted by static. His face blanched. His eyes rose stricken to Harry's face.

    "How did you-"

    "I don't know, really," Harry interrupted. I just felt compelled to look. When I unwrapped his arm, it was there." Harry shuddered involuntarily, remembering the sense of cold that had washed over him when he had seen that Mark. The only thing comforting about it was that there had been no fear at that point- just a dread sense of terrible purpose.

    "So he really has become an evil git," Ron said softly, letting the bandages fall back to the table. His head snapped up again to look at Harry. "So now what?" Harry squirmed uncomfortably.

    "Malfoy isn't the biggest problem we have right now," Hermione broke in, methodically chewing her toast. "We still don't know exactly why those three whatever-they-are have come here. They weren't the ones that put you in the infirmary, Harry, but Malfoy wasn't the one who made you spontaneously start bleeding in the middle of a class, either."

    "I don't exactly get that reasoning," Ron snorted. "Sounds like they're about equally-sized menaces to me."

    "I just think that we know how to handle Malfoy, to a degree, that is. Nothing like these others has ever happened before. We should concentrate on finding out what they're after," Hermione explained.

    "Well, we've never encountered a Malfoy quite as potent as this one, either," Harry countered somewhat sardonically. "Why don't we just divide and conquer, or something to that effect." He tossed some canned peaches into the bowl still crisscrossed with the streaks of porridge his spoon was incapable of capturing.

    "Right!" Ron agreed. "You keep swotting in the library to figure out what the baddies are up to, and Harry and I will put Malfoy a little out of sorts." He grinned maliciously. Hermione rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

    "So I just stay in the library while the men go to fight the big battle? How charmingly medieval." Hermione grabbed up her books and threw an irritated look at her friends. "When you two decide to join the rest of us in this century," she simpered acidly, "I'll be waiting in the Potions dungeon."

    "Wait up, Hermione," Harry said, dragging Ron up from the table. "We're coming."

    The three friends walked together down the narrow staircase, slowly entering the room that already rang with the coarse laughter that accompanied any group that numbered over five Slytherins. Ron's face looked like a storm cloud.

    "If Malfoy pushes me ONE INCH," he threatened, twisting his hands over his wand as though it were Malfoy's neck.

    "Don't worry," Hermione reassured him. "He wouldn't dare do anything in front of a teacher." Harry shook his head wryly.

    "That's where your wrong. Snape has always let Malfoy get away with murder, and that goes double if it's something to do with bringing down Gryffindor House."

    "Well, yes, I suppose that's true." Hermione glanced at the congregation of green in the back of the room. "And do you really think murder is the most appropriate word to use?" she asked somewhat anxiously. "Anyway, Snape doesn't just have it in for Gryffindor House, Harry, but you as well. What reason could he possibly have to hate you this much? It just doesn't seem logical that he could be holding so tightly to some old grudge he held against your father, does it?"

    "Hermione, when have we even known SNAPE to be a logical person? Honestly!" Ron exclaimed. They entered the dank Potions dungeon, awash with the low murmurs of pre-class conversation. Harry thought it rather unusual that class hadn't yet started. Snape was particular about starting his classes early, whether all the Gryffindors were there or not. And Harry, Ron, and Hermione were by no means the last three Gryffindors to enter the room. Behind them came Seamus Finnegan, who trotted to his place; followed by a couple of Slytherins who obviously knew their tardiness would not lose their House points; and then Neville Longbottom slunk in, trying to stick to the shadows and remain unnoticed. Harry thought that if he could, he would have melted into the floor and crawled to his seat.

    "No need, Neville!!" Dean Thomas called out, causing the boy to jump what looked like two feet in the air. "He isn't here yet." But Dean’s words were quickly negated by the sound of Snape's voice from the corridor outside. He was holding a very low conversation with someone just outside the door. Now, none of the students, Slytherin nor Gryffindor, dared put and ear to the door to find out what the surly Potions master was saying. But all them were quite curious. The

room went silent as the grave and several people tilted their seats towards the door to hear what was being said. But the talk was still unintelligible. It was almost as if Snape was trying to be as quiet as he could.

    The entire class was leaned forward with bated breath, listening hard for some inkling of what was transpiring on the other side of the door, when it suddenly flew open with a BANG!

    Pansy Parkinson let out a little scream. All the tilted tables banged to on the floor. Everyone tried very hard not to look guilty, sure that the ax was about to fall.

    But Snape had not even noticed. He strode up to his usual place at the lectern, cast a sourly stern glance around the room, and began to teach.

    "Jimson weed. I have just received a large supply of jimson weed, and since you are all now in your sixth year, enrolled in a N.E.W.T. Potions class, I believe you to be capable of making a decent Giggle Elixir." He raised one eyebrow and surveyed the pale faces of his pupils, who sat in complete silence before him. "Or perhaps I have overestimated your abilities." He turned briskly from the lectern, his robes billowing behind him. He proceeded to sort through and lay out what looked like Goyle's spiky eyebrows on the table in front of them. Still rummaging through the plants, he began to call out instructions.

    "Turn to page eight hundred and forty-six in your textbooks," he ordered, "Then assemble the rest of the ingredients

that may all be found in your personal store. What is it, Miss Granger?" he snapped. Hermione's hand had gone waving frantically into the air.

    "Professor Snape, shredded liver of a laughing hyena wasn't on our list. It's not in our personal store, sir." Hermione looked proud that she had 'averted disaster' for the entire class's Giggle Elixir. Snape was looking more treacherous than ever.

    "Alright then, Miss Granger," he said with fake syrupy sweetness, "then YOU may distribute shredded liver of hyena to the whole class." Hermione leapt up and rushed to the supply locker in the rear of the room, and quickly began sifting through its contents. Ron shook his head.

    "You'd think that she'd learn," he moaned, as a disgusted cry issued from inside the supply locker. Hermione emerged, holding two large buckets. As she walked up to the front, people began to realize why she had cried out. The buckets let off a putrid stench, which put Harry in mind of rotting garbage, spoiling meat, and Uncle Vernon's dirty socks all rolled into one. Hermione held the buckets at arm's length and then set them down near Snape's lectern. One by one she

handed out pinches of the shredded liver, which dripped a foul oil to accompany its foul stench. Once she'd reached Harry and Ron, her arms were covered in the smelly stuff from reaching into the buckets so many times.

    "Hermione, why didn't you just let him forget about the stupid liver? Then all our potions would have been failures and would have had only himself to blame." Ron chastised, wrinkling his freckled nose as he reached out to take his and Harry's liver. Hermione rolled her eyes and placed her befouled hands on her hips.

    "Because you KNOW what would have happened. He would have wanted to know why, and somebody would have piped up that we didn't have hyena liver in our personal stores, and then he would have turned on me, 'Miss Granger, why didn't you say earlier that there was no hyena liver in your personal store? Eleventy-billion points from Gryffindor!'" Hermione intoned in a near-perfect imitation of Snape, who was currently belittling Lavender and Parvati's potion by comparing it to Malfoy's. Draco, Harry noticed, was looking quite smug.

    "Eleventy-billion? Hermione, that's not even a real number!" Ron exclaimed.

    "That's not the POINT, Ron. Ugh!" Hermione whirled about, throwing off a few spatters of smelly hyena oil, as she returned to finish her rounds. Harry and Ron both shook their heads.

    "Girls," muttered Ron as he began to shred his hyena liver.

    After adding all the ingredients and allowing the potion to brew a bit, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had achieved a lovely clear purple potion. Ron flipped through the textbook.

    "It looks just like the book said it should," he confirmed, his head bent over the tiny print.

    "Ought it to smoke like that?" Hermione asked, flipping through her own book to affirm the answer to her question.

    "I think that's just a little of it boiling away where we spilled that bit on the side, remember? And there's not much of it, anyway," Harry said. He leaned forward to sniff at the smoke. His head grew a little lighter, and an uncontrollable urge to laugh came over him. He tried to suppress it, succeeding in limiting it to a dopey smile. Ron

grinned at him.

    "Rather potent stuff, eh?" he teased. He opened his mouth to say more, but was stopped by Snape's ascension to the lectern once again.

    "By now you should all have finished," he said. "If your potion is clear and purple in color, with or without smoke," he looked pointedly at the trio with a superior smile, "then it is fit to be tested. Its result is similar to that of an overdone Cheering Charm, which I believe you have some experience with. After you have sufficiently 'tested' your

potions, approach the front and I will give you a drop of the antidote. WHAT IS IT, Miss Granger?!?" Hermione's hand had begun waving wildly again.

    "But Professor, I thought that the effects of this potion are temporary, it says so right here on page eight hundred and forty-seven!" she exclaimed. Snape's face grew as threatening as a thunderstorm. He smiled evilly in a manner that reminded Harry of that Muggle movie he had watched with Dudley, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".

    "Well, Miss Granger, if you are so fond of Giggle Elixir that you wish to bear its effects for the next fourteen hours, then don't take the antidote. However, I might understand if you change your mind and decide to spend the rest of your evening in a more somber attitude." He narrowed his eyes at the rest of the class. "Now drink up," he said through his teeth. With many a nervous look, the class downed their potions. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Harry heard Pansy

Parkinson begin to bark with laughter as she pointed at Seamus Finnegan.

    "What is it?" he asked, he himself beginning to cough with the effort of holding in his own chuckles.

    "It's you!" she sighed between not-so-girlish guffaws. "You're Irish!"

    The simplicity of this statement was the drop that broke the dam. The entire class began to laugh like banshees, peal after joyful peal, screaming and gasping and coughing for air. Harry, through his loud belly laughs, noticed that even Professor Snape was smiling, though he was trying to twist his thin lips back into their usual surly frown. But he could

not hide the smile flickering in his black eyes as he surveyed his class cutting up. Harry wondered what was wrong with Snape, that he should actually be enjoying someone else having fun. Or maybe he was just amused that they were all making such fools of themselves. Everyone was in rather a pathetic state. Neville Longbottom was so overcome that he was rolling in the floor, clutching his stomach as tears rolled down his plump cheeks.

    Harry turned his eyes around the rest of the class, coming to rest on Draco Malfoy. He was grinning placidly, the occasional hiccoughing movement of his shoulders belying the laughter inside. Harry thought it was the only time he had ever seen Draco look any sort of happy that had nothing to do with something malicious. He was clapping Crabbe on the back for having tripped up Goyle, and both of the big goons were laughing like fools over it. Harry grinned now, his laughter having quieted through his concentration. But something he saw now caused his smile to waver.

    Aracelis, in her customary position next to Draco, was yawning. She wasn't laughing at all, nor even smiling. She was making a vain attempt to cover her mouth with her hand as it stretched wide, casting her eyes about to make sure that no one was seeing her little indiscrepancy. Her eyes fell on Harry.

    He was awash. Her beautiful violet eyes smiled at him, and her lips turned up to show her straight white teeth. His mind whirled under her gaze, their eyes locked together. He closed them slowly, wanting with all his strength to break the tie that bound them, yet his body was too weak to answer his mind's command.

    'What is she doing to me?' he thought to himself, clenching his fists against his forehead. He shut his eyes tight, brow furrowed in an effort to shut off the connection. Images of his blood seeping from every part of his body flashed through his mind. Although this feeling bore no resemblance whatsoever to his dream from History of Magic, he had no desire to experience anything that could qualify as a repeat performance. And then it came again, a flash like a burning knife across his scar. He felt air hiss out of his inner ear as he struggled to keep his balance in the whirling pain that engulfed him. It felt as though all the muscles in his face had wound tight as bowstrings. He traced his fingers over his brows, confirming their smooth, relaxed feel. It was all in his mind. He forced his eyes to open now.

    Both Aracelis and Draco were looking at him now, her smile still lovely and serene, Draco's decidedly poisonous, but still broken by the intermittent burst of laughter. Their expectant gazes, trained on him, seemed to show them working in tandem. What were they doing to him?

    "Harry." Hermione had shaken his shoulder. His gaze broken with the two Slytherins, his head had already begun to clear. He looked up at Hermione hazily. She smiled, a few giggles escaping as she did.

    "Some people have already gone to get the antidote. Are you ready?" Harry could only nod, resting half his weight on Ron as they approached Snape and his dropper. Even as the bitter draught touched his tongue, he felt the laughter subside, replaced by an empty hollow feeling which he was already learning to abhor: fear.

    Draco and that girl had somehow entered his head, cast a spell on him that felt like a mental Cruciatus. He had no retreat. He turned his head back over his shoulder to look at Draco, sitting princely among his Slytherin horde. Two images of the silvery boy seemed to float in Harry's consciousness. They both turned to smile at him, the same evil smile that had broken his defenses earlier, but the one raised his hand to point at Harry, and seemed to whisper,

    "I know where to find you Potter, alone when you sleep. Fear me."

    Harry flinched as another flash of pain like a shard of white-hot glass slid across his scar, and quickly turned his face away. Ron was looking at him with concern.

    "Are you alright?" he asked, brow furrowed. Harry nodded, rather weakly. He squared his jaw and pushed past Ron and Hermione through the door. Hermione looked after him, eyes wide. She turned to Ron.

    "What do you suppose is the matter with him?

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    Harry was sitting again in the Great Hall, again in a position that he was beginning to hate. His hands were clenched tight around a mug of hot cocoa, and he was staring into it intently so he could avoid the gazes of his two friends: one worried, the other perplexed. He had just recounted the events that had transpired in Potions for the second time.

    "He was actually IN your head? IN it?" Ron asked, leaning forward over the table and speaking in a low voice.

    "Yeh," Harry replied softly, pausing to take a sip from his lukewarm cocoa. Ron whistled.

    "Sounds like he has grown up more than a bit, eh?" Harry's hand tightened convulsively around the mug as his jaw clenched.

    "Yeh," he repeated. Hermione had said nothing all this time, but sat next to Harry very still. Now, she placed a hand on his arm.

    "Harry, you've got to do something about this. Malfoy has obviously been enlisted as some sort of... inside menace, or something. He might have just been an annoying little boy once, but he's something different now. He's-" she broke off mid-sentence, shuddering. Harry turned on an instinct, just in time to see Malfoy's head turn quickly away from the Gryffindor table as he took a seat with the Slytherins. He set his mouth in a hard line and patted Hermione's hand.

    "I know, Hermione. But there's nothing we can do about it right now, other than try and figure out what he's up to."

    "Looks to me like he'd like to see you dead, mate," Ron said somberly. He pushed peas around on his plate. "The question then becomes how to stop him." Harry waved his hand as a signal to let the subject drop, although he knew that neither of his friends would be satisfied with it.

    "Ill think of something," he said. He looked sideways at Hermione, who was shifting in her chair uneasily. Harry sighed, knowing full well that she had something else that she wasn't willing to leave unsaid. "What?"

    "You're sure that she, you know, didn't have anything to do with it?"

    "I dunno. It didn't feel like it did. In History of Magic. The pain wasn't her fault. But I can't be sure." Harry took off his glasses, grinding the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, trying blot out the tired, gritty feeling of them. "Can't we talk about something else?" he asked plaintively.

    "Well, we have got Quidditch practice this afternoon," Ron proffered. He picked up a large red apple from the bowl in the middle of the table and set it to peeling itself with a tap from his wand.

    Harry smiled wanly. He had nearly forgotten. While the prospect of Quidditch was certainly more comforting than that of Malfoy, he was still a little concerned about the state of the team this year. With so many new and inexperienced members, would the Gryffindors be able to hold off Slytherin in the competition for the Cup?

    "We'd better get to class. Herbology's next, and that's quite a walk." Hermione had stood and was gathering all her books.

    "I meant to ask you, Hermione," Ron began, shoving more books her way, "why you're not taking all N.E.W.T.s this year? I thought McGonagall had agreed to let you do it." Hermione made a disgusted face.

    "She had," she said pointedly. "But something apparently changed her mind. She's letting me take more than the rest of you, but I still have to take regular Herbology and History of Magic. I did talk to her about Care of Magical Creatures, though. I told her that I really didn't want to fall behind in Muggle Studies, so she's going to let me drop it too. I really had to talk her into it, though! She mentioned something about not wanting me to get too overworked, especially since I'm a prefect. I think it's all rubbish, actually. She was all excited about my schedule until right before school started." Having finally assembled her personal library, Hermione left the table, confident her friends would follow her. The two boys also rose and collected their books, but Harry reached out and grabbed Ron's robes before they could join her.

    "I wonder if she's given it any thought," he mused, half to himself and half to his best friend.

    "What's that?" Ron inquired, brow furrowed. Harry turned and looked him in the face.

    "What if the reason McGonagall wanted her to take those classes was so she'd be with us. Think of what's happened in those classes already, Ron. It's almost like McGonagall is-"

    "Trying to protect you," Ron interrupted. "Do you think she really is on your side, then?" he asked. His eyes were wide as he regarded Hermione, who was tapping her foot impatiently.

    "It's possible," Harry replied, and shrugged. He still didn't want to mention anything about his private talk with McGonagall, especially since the book on Occlumency that she had given him was the first thing that had leapt to mind when Hermione had called to him to action against Malfoy. He needed more time just to sort things out. He pulled Ron in Hermione's direction, and the three of them walked to class together.

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    Herbology passed without mishap. Harry studiously ignored Aedain and Muirgen while he and Ron and Hermione were untangling the new shoots that had grown off the Coiling Creepers and planting them in their own trays. The three friends parted ways then, Hermione trailing off to her Muggle Studies class as Ron and Harry walked down the sloping lawn to Hagrid's hut for Care of Magical Creatures.

    "Going to be a bit odd without Hermione, eh?" Ron asked as they approached the squat little building and the smattering of benches and tables that Hagrid had assembled around it.

    "She would have dropped it sooner or later, you know. She never much cared for it, really," Harry replied, shifting his bag from one shoulder to the other.

    "I know. Not much of a hands-on kind of girl, that one," he joked back. They sat at one of the tables closest to the empty patch of grass Hagrid had taken for his podium while teaching, and waited on the great man to appear. The rest of the class trickled over the hill and sat down, and before long they could hear the grunting of Hagrid'd laborious approach. He was carrying a huge crate, and his progress was hindered by Fang's lumbering path in front of his feet. He finally reached the clearing and set the crate down gently, albeit relievedly. He grinned at Ron and Harry.

    "Give us yer hands, lads, and we'll get it started," he pulled the nailed-shut lid off the crate as if it were the cardboard top to a shoebox and pulled several straw-lined trays, handing one to Harry, one to Ron, and keeping one for himself. The three passed out what looked like miniature robin's eggs. Harry noticed as he distributed them that the aqua-colored shells were growing more and more iridescent, especially as they were handled. They had just sat down with their own tiny eggs when they heard a gasp from one of the Ravenclaw girls. Hagrid broke into a beaming grin.

    "Egg-cup fairies," he said proudly. "The more yeh handle em, the warmer they get, and they hatch, so to speak." Harry cupped his own fairy in his hands and watched as the shell shimmered like the surface of a soap bubble until it became entirely transparent. A tiny yellow-haired fairy was crouched in his palm. Her wings unfurled, like the slick, wet new wings of a butterfly. She looked up at Harry, a smile spread across her freckled face. He smiled back.

    "They watch over bird's eggs and the like." Hagrid was continuing his explanantion. "They make sure that naught happens to the littluns 'afore they're born. Jes' look at em a bit, and then we'll turn em loose." The class observed as the fairies flitted about from tabletop to tabletop, gathering up the hollow wooden eggs that Hagrid had set out and assembling them in a cozy nest with bits of straw and grass they managed to pilfer from the box and the ground when no one was looking. Harry smiled, delighted. Apparently, his impending marriage had calmed Hagrid down quite a bit.

    Class concluded, and the students walked back up to the castle in the gathering dark to dinner. Ron was casting nervous looks about.

    "Seems a little darker than usual. Won't interfere with play, will it?" he inquired.

    "Not unless it starts raining. I have a feeling we might need all the practice we can get," Harry replied, not without a touch of bitterness. He hoped he could pull a team together this year. He had no desire to lose the House Cup to the Slytherins.

    The boys joined Hermione, who was already seated at the table poring over a large book. She waved at them noncommitally and resumed her reading, taking intermittent bites of shepherd's pie from the plate at her elbow. Ron rolled his eyes.

    "Looks like we're on our own, Harry."

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    An hour later, Ron and Harry were on the Quidditch pitch, surrounded by the rest of the new Gryffindor quidditch team. They were all standing about their brooms rather nervously, awaiting Harry's words of wisdom.

    "Right," he began, painfully aware that he had neither Oliver Wood's gift of intensity nor Angelina Johnson's straightforward manner in speaking to groups of people at once. "This is our first practice, so don't expect too much of yourselves. Let's just," he looked around the assembled group, most of whom were paying him little to no attention, and sighed. "Have fun. Ginny, take up the Quaffle and wait for my signal. Ron, take the posts at the west end over there, we'll play with as much light as we've got left. Alright, everyone up!"

    The Gryffindors became airborne. Ginny whizzed off towards the center line, her red hair and the red Quaffle leaving a trail with her speed. Ron flew leisurely to the set of rings at the far end of the pitch. Harry waited until all the brooms were hovering, and Ginny's eyes were on him. He knelt down, strategically out of the way, and released the catches on the chains holding the Bludgers. They sprawled into the air and zagged out of Harry's sight. He squinted after them rather nervously, hoping that it wasn't too dark for them to be seen. He waved his arms over his head, and he watched Ginny begin play.

    Harry mounted his broom, his attention focused on the activity above him. For a fledging team, he thought with no small amount of surprise, they weren't that bad. Hargrove Spinnet was just as agile as his sister had been, but Harry could tell from the fancy way he flew that he didn't have as much of her modesty about it. Katherine and Seamus were hitting every Bludger that came their way, but they were flying too close together. Ginny was having a little trouble hanging on to the Quaffle against the larger Dean Thomas, but Harry thought that might have more to do with the crush she had on him than her own rusty skills. He grinned, a twinkle of hope igniting in him for the first time since the lineup had been cast.

    "To Earth!" Harry called out a heated hour later, once the light really had deteriorated too far for their efforts to be worthwhile. The team dropped exhaustedly to the ground, but Harry was thrilled to hear them chattering happily and cracking jokes. He waved Seamus off the Bludgers that were still careening around the pitch.

    "Later. Right now, just a few notes for next time." Harry looked around at the red-faced team. "Not too bad, all. There's a lot of potential in what I saw out there tonight, but we have a lot of work to do. Ron," he pointed at his friend, whose hair was stuck up off his forehead in windblown tufts. "You did well, but you did better when you didn't let yourself get nervous. Don't start back at the same place you did last year, right?" Ron nodded, grinning. Dean clapped him on the back and began a rousing chorus of 'Weasley is Our King.' Harry laughed as they all joined, and somewhat reluctantly waved his arms for quiet.

    "Let me get finished or we'll be here all night," he joked. "Dean, try to anticipate a little more. You've got great force, but that's not going to help you at all if you don't follow closely. And speaking of close, Seamus and Katherine..."

    Harry continued through his observations for the whole team, most of whom nodded and looked quite serious. Hargrove Spinnet, whom Harry addressed last, listened to his corrections with a raised eyebrow.

    "That's all well, but what are YOU going to do to improve this year, captain?" he asked snidely. Harry could almost feel Ron's ears get red behind him.

    "Well," he pondered, "I think I'll try not to fall off my broom and break anything, let dementors affect my concentration, or get a lifelong ban from playing. Will that suit well enough, or are there any other suggestions?" Hargrove glowered as the rest of the team laughed. Taking it as understood that they were finished, they began gathering their gear. Harry had made ready to recapture the Bludgers when he felt a sudden quiet.

    The Gryffindors had gone silent to stare at the eastern edge of the pitch. Like a creeping shadow, the Slytherin team had appeared. Draco stood at their head, swathed in dark green robes. The rest of the Slytherins were shooting condescending looks at the disheveled Gryffindors. Harry approached Malfoy, conscious of the rest of his team not far behind him.

    "Light?" Malfoy asked softly. He brought up one black-gloved hand, and Harry saw the air above it quaver with a tiny flicker. He launched the spark high above the pitch, where it exploded into an enormous white globe that bathed the field in a sickly pale light. Draco looked back at Harry, his face a challenge. "We brought our own light."

    Harry paused. He watched Malfoy's face, sure of what was coming. He could sense it, building up behind the dead sterling eyes. The memory of the intrusion from Potions that morning swept over him, and he could feel his anger begin to stir. 'How dare he?' he thought to himself. He stared Malfoy directly in the eyes, and thought one word to himself... 'no.'

    A wall dropped inside his head. He could still see Draco, and he saw the confusion momentarily seize over his narrow features. His mental attack was reduced to beating its feeble fists on the wall Harry had lifted around him with that one word... no. Draco's brow furrowed as he frowned, and concentrated harder. Harry almost laughed a little to himself, and repeated the word within his head, 'no!', the way one might tell a stubborn child still reaching for the sweets it had been denied. He was gratified to watch Malfoy stumble back a step, the rest of the Slytherin horde moving with him to preserve their ranks. Their faces showed a thread of shock.

    Ron made to step forward, but Ginny smartly trod on his foot as Harry replied, "How thoughtful of you. We'll leave you to it." He cut a superior smile at Malfoy and cocked his head at his team, commanding them away from the Slytherins, who hadn't moved an inch. The Gryffindors all looked sour, but left the field without a fuss. Once they had made it far enough away, Ron seized Harry's arm.

    "What were you doing? You looked like you were going to kill each other, and then nothing. We leave. What's going on?" he asked somewhat excitedly. Harry glanced at him sideways. His friend's face was flushed, his hair in disarray, and his eyes wild and bright, as if with fever.

    "Dunno," Harry shrugged. "I guess the moment just passed. Fighting wouldn't have accomplished anything. Malfoy knows that." Ron snorted.

    "Knows he still couldn't beat you in a fair fight, you mean, even with his new-- whatever." Ron's voice dropped to a more quiet tone on this last phrase. "But he didn't try to get inside your head? I wouldn't have put it past him." Ron wrung his hands around the handle of his broomstick as if he had Malfoy's neck instead.

    "Maybe he did try, but nothing happened. Just let it go for now, Ron." Harry was suddenly very tired. His head reeled a little as he kept walking up towards the twinkling lights of the castle. He blinked hard to clear his vision, grimly aware that his shutting out of Malfoy's attack had cost him more dearly than he thought. Ron put a hand under his elbow to steady him. He looked at Harry with a knowing stare. A smile twitched at the corner of his lips, then disappeared.

    "Yeah. I suppose we'll have plenty of opportunity, right?" he conceded. Harry nodded. His head felt like two tons of wet cement. They made their way into the castle, the warmth bringing the cold damp in their clothes to their attention. The team trudged wearily up to Gryffindor tower, branching off to wend their separate ways up to their beds. There were only a handful of people still thronged about the fireplace in the common room. Hermione wasn't one of them. Ron and Harry climbed the steps behind Seamus and Dean to their room. Ron tossed his shedded gear onto the floor beside his bed and collapsed onto it with a groan.

    "No more Double Potions and Quidditch in the same day, all right, Harry?" he pleaded. "I can't take it!"

    "Come on, it's good for your stamina, Ron!" Seamus joked, placing his hands on his chest as he mocked taking a deep breath of air. He let his chest drop, also grinning tiredly.

    "To bed, you. Quit moaning and sleep!" Dean growled from under his covers. He had gotten into bed fully clothed.

    "Where are you off to?" Ron asked suddenly. Harry, who had been undressing like the others, was now creeping towards the stairs with a slim little book in his hands.

    "Just a little last-minute studying. I won't be long." Ron stared after his retreating back, then shrugged and tumbled into bed.

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    Harry padded into the common room, in which only the most dogged students still remained, clustered around the table nearest to the fire. Harry piled into one of the squashy armchairs in the corner, and looked down at the book in his lap.

    Occlumency.

    The incidents with Malfoy and the strange sisters over the past few days had more than convinced him that it was a good idea. He rubbed his fingers over the flaking gold leaf. Until that night, he had been uncertain if he could handle that sort of magic, his useless lessons with Snape flaring back into his brain with clarity. He wasn't sure if he would ever be able to muster the concentration necessary to perform the spell.

    Until that night.

    The memory of Malfoy's smirk sliding off his face when he realized that his prey wasn't as easy as he had first imagined was all the incentive he needed. Not to mention the languour that had dropped on him like a stone afterwards. Harry tensed his jaw. If you were going to do something, he supposed you ought to at least learn to do it correctly.

    He opened the book and began to read.

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**A/N: Pansy's "You're Irish!" Line is a rewording of a very funny line from the

movie "Saving Grace". And all that lovely rot about "eleventy-billion" is from

the Celebrity Jeopardy skit with Keanu Reeves on Saturday Night Live. :)