Thursday morning
"Ah, Mr. P-P-Potter. I'm g-g-glad you c-c-came toc-c-class early," said Professor Quirrell.
"Yes, sir?"
"I w-w-wanted to inform you th-th-that I haveth-th-thought about y-y-your offer and it appears I c-c-can use an assistant tog-g-grade p-p-papers and even t-t-teach the y-y-younger c-c-classesth-th-theory and w-w-what have you. Those dunderhe… er, s-s-students justaren't g-g-getting w-w-what I'm t-t-teaching. It's l-l-like th-th-they'ven-n-never heard of m-m-magic before."
"Yes, sir," Harry replied neutrally since itwas common knowledge some students hadn'theard of magic before.
"A-a-anyway, p-p-perhaps they m-m-might understandy-y-you a little b-b-better th-th-than me. Start t-t-today. I'll b-b-be in theb-b-back office, g-g-grading p-p-papers. C-c-come ask me any q-q-questions youm-m-may have. Here is the c-c-course outline for the r-r-rest of the y-y-yearfor f-f-first th-th-through th-th-third years. Also, here's th-th-theirr-r-recent p-p-papers. You c-c-can g-g-grade th-th-them as well."
Harry immediately knew this was going to take someserious time away from him, but he thought at least the first years couldbenefit from some competent instructions. Harry noticed the bloody dark lorddidn't say anything about coming to him if Harry were suddenly overworked andoverwhelmed.
Jerk.
Thursday afternoon
The thought of the upcoming Quidditch class was nerve wrackingfor some first years, but not all. In fact, most purebloods would boast thenumber of times they'd ridden brooms, participated in aerial maneuvers, andeven won the game at the last second thanks to their own heroics. Harry calmlyshook his head at their imagined antics - had he ever been like this himself?Obviously not about Quidditch since he'd been muggle raised.
Other students were nervous wrecks when it came to thethought of flying without mechanical engines and huge aluminum wings. And aqualified pilot other than themselves at the controls. Harry found himself allthroughout lunch calming fears of flying. What amazed Harry the most was notthe wizard Blaise Zabini coming up to him and asking him flying questions, butinstead the witch Blaise Zabini asking him questions.
During Harry's seventh year, Blaise and he had spoken afew times outside of the common house rivalries and he had come to know thisman's wit, intellect, and more importantly, where his loyalties laid. It waswith neither Voldemort or himself: instead, it was a loyalty to his family. Heand his family skirted by on neutrality and as much as he avoided confrontationwith anything that could jeopardize his family, he took a few minutes toappraise Harry of what he'd heard concerning the dark wanker. His intel hadbeen one of the reasons Harry had proposed to Ginny the day he did. If he weregoing to die shortly (and at the time he thought he would as there were, afterall, no guarantees on the final battle), he didn't want Ginny to think hewasn't in love with her enough to spend the rest of his life with her.
In the greater scheme of things, it wasn't much thatBlaise did - but Harry recognized it was: it was the sense of doing the rightthing. Harry wasn't family, yet here a Zabini was doling out useful informationto impede the progress of the other side. That was getting down off thatneutrality fence.
Blaise was also one of the very few Slytherin's toactually come forward and publicly acknowledge where his family sat once Harryhad taken out Voldemort. The fact he had done so at Ginny's wake, in full viewof those assembled (including a few reporters) only served to enhance theseriousness that he took his loyalties.
But now in this world, Harry had met a pretty young witchnamed Blaise Zabini who he'd spoken to a few times only to find her attitudethe same as her counterpart's. Aloof. Quiet. Reserved. One thing he couldsense, however, was that she was not enamored with Malfoy one little bit. Itprobably had something to do with the betrothal contract between his and herfamilies. Harry knew he'd have to take any sort of friendship with her slow andeasy if he wanted her as an ally. And helping calm any fears she had of flyingwas a good first step in that direction.
His soothing words were at least better than Longbottom'sbragging of how good he was on the broom, or his snotty remarks to otherstudents (like Hermione) who were visibly nervous about flying for the firsttime. Harry was about to stand up for Hermione when she suddenly stood up,calling him a rude boy and walked over to the Hufflepuff table and sat next toPam and Edward.
All too soon, it was time to fly. Harry wasn't lookingforward to it for several reasons. The first and foremost was that since he wasan apprentice, he represented all houses and therefore wouldn't be playing forGryffindor on the team like he had before. Not that he wanted to play forGryffindor and that lout, Longbottom.
Still… it would have been nice to be able to playQuidditch.
The other reason was that he wasn't sure if he was goingto be able to hold back how good he really was on the broom. He really wantedto cut loose and fly. It had been months since he'd been on the broom properlyand his muscles were dying for some aerial release.
"Mr. Potter, a word if you please," MadameHooch requested as he came out to the pitch with the rest of the students.
"Yes, ma'am?"
....
Read ahead by more than 60 chapters on my p@treon.
Link: pa*treon.com/GalaxyWonder (Remove the *)
Free members an get up to 2 free chapters.
Have a great day....