The new day dawned, and with it, came a beak tapping at the window of Harry's dorm room. Luckily, all of the boys inside, other than Ron, were already awake. Harry opened the window quickly for Hedwig, and grinned in delight at the sight of the official-looking letter tied to her leg.
Dear Mr Potter-Black,
Your request for a restraining order against one Gilderoy Marvin Lockhart has been approved. The memories you provided have been forthwith returned to your guardian, Lord Sirius Orion Black. The restraining order does not allow Mr Lockhart to come within 150 feet of yo u, and stands for the time period of seven months. If you desire renewal of the order, please explain your reasons in a letter, and we will get back to you.
Kind regards,
Amanda Urquart
Department of Magical Law Enforcement
Harry showed the letter to his friends, and they congratulated him. "Wait, how is Defence going to work for you now? I mean, there's a magical barrier that he can't get past, so if you were still being taught by him, he wouldn't be able to enter the classroom." said Draco.
"Oh, Remus has been having a bit of a problem with getting jobs lately, and in my letter home, I asked if he could be my tutor," Harry explained nonchalantly.
"So you're just going to leave us to deal with him?" asked Neville, horrified.
"Of course not. You're all coming too, and Hermione. I'm pretty sure that if I ask, Fred, George, probably Lee, and most likely Ginny, Luna, and Colin will all want to have their lessons with him instead. Sirius got it all approved by the Board last night, and let me tell you, Dumbledore isn't happy. Be prepared for some revenge from him," said Harry.
Dean was the designated wake-Ron-up person that morning, so after he'd done his job, and Ron had rolled out of bed and gotten as ready as possible, they made their way down to the common room.
"Hey, kiddos," said George happily when he caught sight of them.
"Quidditch tryouts is this morning, during lunch. You all up for it?" asked Fred.
"Yes!" exclaimed Harry, Draco, and Ron.
"Good. Harry, you're already much better than Tate, so I'm pretty sure you'll get the spot. Draco, we're sorry but the most you'll probably get is joint reserve chaser and seeker, and Ron, it'll be reserve keeper for you. Wood's the captain, and he wouldn't give up his spot for anything."
They all nodded, showing they understood, and then Harry showed Fred and George the letter, causing them both to break out into identical evil grins.
They rushed down to the Great Hall, where they waited impatiently for the owl post to filter in. Harry made sure to sit so that Lockhart was just outside the boundary, so he wouldn't realise what had happened until he read the order.
Finally, a tawny owl flew directly to Lockhart, and he opened his mail happily, probably expecting fan mail. As he read it, his expression became an odd mixture of fear and anger, although the latter emotion disappeared almost as soon as Harry saw it. Having already eaten his breakfast, Harry stood up, catching Lockhart's attention, and strode to the doors of the Great Hall, where Remus had been watching the scene unfold. All of Harry's friends followed him, and they left to go to their respective classes; Fred and George to Potions, Ginny, Luna, and Colin to Transfiguration, and Harry and his yearmates followed Remus outside. "I decided that since today was a nice day, we could have our first class outside," he said.
*
"All right, people!" Oliver Wood called out. "The only way you're going to get on our team is if you can prove you're better than the person in the position you want. First off, let's eliminate some people!"
Wood had all the hopefuls run two laps around the Quidditch pitch, and then take up their brooms and fly five laps. By the end of it, most of them were sweating heavily, although five people had dropped out. "This is what the Gryffindor team does every practice. If you can't do it, you won't succeed. Now. We'll start with the Beaters."
He separated all of the potential Beaters into random pairs, gave one pair some bats, and had them hitting bludgers at assorted targets, then put them up against the Weasley twins. As expected, Fred and George won each and every round, and they retained their spots, although Wood chose a third-year called Sean Madeley and a fifth-year called Dennis Chapman as their reserve Beaters.
Next were the Keepers. He had the current Chasers, Katie, Alicia, and Angelina try to score against the three who wanted to take his place. Out of ten shots, one didn't stop any, a third-year called Cormac McLaggen stopped three, and Ron managed to stop four. Wood congratulated all of them, and said that Ron had earned a spot as the reserve Keeper.
After that, he called up the Chasers, and right away, Harry knew that none of them were anywhere near as good as the current trio. The only one even remotely close was Draco, since he'd talked it over with Wood beforehand, and had explained that he was going to try out for both Chaser and Seeker. As expected, Katie, Alicia, and Angelina kept their spots on the team, and Draco was chosen as the sole reserve Chaser.
Finally, it was Harry's turn. Wood had him go against the current Seeker, Warren Tate, and try to catch the practice snitch first. As soon as Wood released the snitch, Harry kicked off and flew high into the air. He'd previously come up with a routine which he was rather proud of; he'd start in the middle of the pitch, turn in one full circle, then zig-zag across the pitch at differing speeds to throw the other seeker off, and stopping to look around every two or three zig-zags. Within five minutes, Harry spotted it right next to the left-most goal, and he zoomed towards it. Having already been going that way, he managed to mask the fact that he'd seen it until he'd caught it. He returned to the ground and showed the snitch to Wood, who looked dumbstruck. Harry grinned cheekily, and sat back down to watch Draco have his turn at humiliating Tate. Once that was over, Wood had Harry and Draco go against each other, this time setting the difficulty of the practice snitch higher, and the two of them sped off on a merry chase after it. In the end, though, Harry beat Draco because he spotted the snitch twenty inches above the ground, and dove down in a Wronski Feint. Draco, having been quite a ways away, had seen the snitch just after Harry had started his move, and gave chase, even though he knew that he had no chance of catching it. Wood, having gotten over his awe, was vibrating with excitement when Harry handed him the snitch, and shook his hand vigorously while exclaiming, "Oh you are most definitely on the team! This is going to be an awesome season!"
*
Harry sat in the Room of Requirement a week and a half later, reading a book on undetectable potions and poisons as Blaise left the room after having finished catching up with Draco on what they'd done since the last time they'd met. It had been decided that every time Blaise could get away from his housemates and chat with Draco, at least one of the Recruits would escort him to the RoR with Harry's Invisibility Cloak so that it was more difficult for anyone to follow them, and so that Blaise wouldn't get lost. The twins, Neville, and Hermione were due in ten minutes so they could start planning the first prank of the year. It was only about an hour until the second-years' curfew, and they wanted to pull an all-school prank the following morning, a Sunday.
Finally, the other members of their inner group trickled in, until they were all there. Harry handed out a copy of his notes to everyone, then said, "Okay, so this is the potion George was talking about yesterday. However, in the application section, it says it gives off the slight smell of molten plastic, and tastes like overcooked cabbage. So then I figured out that if you add two strands of shredded dipsweed after step three, then stir twice anticlockwise, it smells like boiled eggs, and then adding one more strand after step seven, it'll taste like it too!"
Fred hugged him. "You're a genius, Harry! What would we do without you?"
Harry blushed, but shook his head. "Draco was the one who found the correct reference book, so he deserves some credit as well."
This time, it was George who did the hugging. "Draco, you ol' rascal, you!"
They all laughed at Harry and Draco's red faces, and then Hermione piped up. "I think it's a good idea if Draco and I work on the first four steps, since that'll take until just before our curfew, then you two," she said, pointing at the twins, "finish off the rest of the potion, then sneak the vials into Neville's trunk. Neville, tomorrow you need to set a silent alarm for five o'clock, since that's when the house elves start making breakfast. Hand it over to them, tell them what it is, and remember to mention that it's only a bit of harmless fun, then rush back into the common room, where I'll have left a Herbology book out for you to read. For anyone who asks, you just woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. Since everyone knows you're brilliant at Herbology, no one will question what you tell them."
"Right," said Fred. "Now that you've made all the plans, breathe!"
Now it was Hermione's turn to blush, and everyone laughed.
Harry's laughter was cut short by a voice, a voice that chilled his bone marrow, filled with breath-taking, ice-cold venom. :Come... come to me... let me rip you... let me tear you... let me kill you...:
"What?" he said loudly, interrupting Draco saying something about not being able to wait for breakfast.
They all turned to look at him. "I-I heard a voice... It was talking about ripping and killing something," Harry insisted.
Draco looked at the others. "I don't think any of us heard anything, Harry. Are you sure you heard it?"
"Yes!"
"Okay, okay, calm down," said Neville. "We believe you."
"I think what Draco was trying to say," Hermione started, "was whether you knew if it was your Magesight giving you a Vision, or if it was actually happening in the present."
Harry strained his ears, trying to hear the voice again, but there were no sounds except for the other kids in the room, breathing. "The few true Visions I've had have always included visual representations, and all the other aspects I've encountered of my Magesight have just been really strong gut feelings. I haven't read anything about Magesight that would explain hearing random homicidal voices, or voices of any kind for that matter, so I think I actually heard it."
They all thought over why none of them had been able to hear what Harry had, but were unable to come up with anything. "It's no use thinking about it now," Fred said. "Harry and Nev, you need to get back to the common room, and Draco and Mione, you need to start on the potion if you want to get it finished before your curfew."
Agreeing with Fred, they all went about doing as he'd suggested, and Harry went straight to bed, trying to sleep, but his mind kept pulsing with what he'd just heard, and he wasn't able to get to sleep until he heard Draco stumbling about in the dark, getting ready for bed, an hour later.