Chapter 24 – The First Match

McGonagall and Pomfrey stormed Dumbledore’s Office. The Headmaster groaned inwardly and said, “Good morning. I hope the Ladies are well on this fine morning. Care for a lemon drop?”

#You need two with a strong calming and Obliviating Potion in it I suppose,# Fawkes trilled giggling.

“Albus, don’t play the innocent with us – you know everything that’s going on in this castle, don’t you?”

“Ah, but no, my dear Minerva, I’m afraid not. What can I do for you?”

“Have you by any chance met your grandson this morning?”

“I have not met Harry – why?”

Poppy glanced suspiciously at Minerva and asked, “Albus, have you perhaps met Harry in his phoenix form?”

Albus sighed. “Ah, Icicle I have met, yes.”

“ALBUS!”

“Why, Minerva, in fact, Icicle came to talk to Fawkes this morning.”

Minerva and Poppy both gave a very annoyed sigh, before Minerva asked, “And where please, might your grandson have gone afterwards?”

“He said something, but I didn’t understand; Fawkes did you by chance understand, what Harry said before he flashed away?”

#He said ‘f… off, I don’t want to be found today.’ I’ll tell you the rest after they are gone.#

Poppy and Minerva looked questioningly at Albus.“He doesn’t know either.”

Poppy glared at him annoyed. “Albus, this child will cause me a heart attack. He is so irresponsible, nearly every week he purposely puts himself into danger, gets ill and runs away from us, so that we can’t help him, but instead have to worry all the time. I’m really fed up with him this time!”

Minerva nodded her consent. “I think so too Albus. And I don’t think he should get away with it. I’m so angry I would like to just order him to go back to the future, but…” She swallowed hard…

“But you would miss him too much and want to keep him here as long as possible, right?” Dumbledore added, his eyes twinkling happily.

Minerva blushed. “I won’t deny that, but I really want to come to his senses this time.”

Dumbledore sighed. “I must contradict you. This time, he didn’t get himself into trouble on purpose. He flashed too many of his friends at the same time, but he only did this because he didn’t know his limits, otherwise he would have flashed twice like he did before in Hogsmeade. Then later he transformed back because he noticed he was feeling better as a phoenix. And this morning you threatened to have him transfigured back against his will by someone else. I can’t say that I don’t understand him, and I’m sure he is somewhere in the castle, only resting and not in any danger and will come back to his room when he feels better.”

“Then maybe we could agree on a punishment, for example a weeks worth of detentions in the Hospital Wing every evening from after dinner until curfew?” Minerva suggested and glanced at Poppy who hesitantly agreed.

“All right. But after his next stunt it will be a month of detentions!”

-----

Harry had flashed back straight in front of Merlin House and told Tori he would like to agree a password with him.

#All right, so you suggest a password,# Tori told him.

#Let’s make it ‘Harry’s room’ for the mument, all right?#

#Of course. Are you going to spend some time here today?#

#Yes please.#

Tori opened the portrait hole and let Harry in, who then flew up to the 7th year’s boys dormitory and slept through the day. When he woke up it was already dark outside, but he didn’t know if it was only late in the evening or early in the morning. As he felt much better now he tried to transform back into his human form and when he succeeded, looked at the wall and thought ‘Tempus’. The time now displayed at the wall showed ‘5:36’ and he considered for a mument what to do next. Deciding to flash to his room in order to change into his school clothes and grab his bag he transformed again, flashed away and was back in just under five minutes. Afterwards he flashed over to Fawkes’ perch in order to beg for a breakfast, because after eating nothing for 24 hours he realized that he was very hungry. Dumbledore was already sitting at his desk, smiling when Harry arrived as Icicle.

“How are you today, my dear boy?”

#Fine, Granddad, and you?#

“Are you able to transform back now?”

#Yes sir.#

“Then how about changing back and having an early breakfast with me?”

#Oh that would be just great, I’m starving.#

Dumbledore laughed and Harry flew down to the floor and transformed back quickly. While they were eating breakfast, the Headmaster told Harry how upset and concerned his Grandmother and Poppy had been and that they had decided on a full week of detention for him.

“Oh, maybe I have to reconsider whether I should go back to my room today,” Harry groaned.

“But… Harry, tell me something… do you really want to get into even more trouble?” his Grandfather asked sincerely.

“No, especially as the full moon will be at the end of next week,” Harry mumbled.

“What does that have to do with the full moon?” Albus inquired with a surprised, but mischievous look on his face, and Harry couldn’t prevent himself from telling his Grandfather about the Marauders’ fun excursions into the forest and his bad luck of always catching a cold afterwards. Both of them enjoyed their early morning talk a lot, but when 6:30 passed, Harry was beginning to get afraid of his Grandmother or Poppy appearing in his Grandfather’s office, so he said good-bye and flashed back to his dormitory in Merlin House. After reading ahead for the next lessons in his Potions and Charms books, he transformed and flashed back in front of the Potions classroom just in time for the first lesson.

“Harry! Where have you been?” his friends asked all at the same time.

He grinned and whispered so that nobody else would be able to hear, “In Merlin House. I’m hiding from McGonagall and Pomfrey.”

James and Sirius were roaring with laughter, but Severus asked him, “Are you alright Harry?”

Harry smiled at his friend and nodded as they entered the Potions classroom. They didn’t have time to talk during the lesson, but on their way to the Charms classroom he told Severus where he had been and what the Sorting Hat had told them about Merlin House.

“Have you already talked to McGonagall or Pomfrey?” Severus asked innocently.

“Of course not, but Dumbledore told me I have detention with Madam Pomfrey for a full week.”

Sirius who had heard the last sentence roared with laughter again, until Severus reprimanded him annoyed. “Do you think it’s so funny, that Harry will be punished? He got himself into this trouble by flashing all of us to the other end of the school and back. Maybe you should actually think before you show a reaction to something.”

Sirius looked affronted but apologized immediately. “You’re right, Severus. I’m sorry Harry, I really didn’t think and I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s okay,” Harry said and sighed. During the Charms lesson, he considered skipping lunch instead of undergoing the danger of capture by a dragon and a wild cat, but as he would have to leave lunch quite early to be at Hagrid’s hut in time for his Care of Magical Creatures lesson, they couldn’t do a lot to him, could they? He didn’t have much of a choice anyway, because as soon as he left the Charms classroom, Lily and Remus appeared on both sides of him and dragged him down to the Great Hall.

“As you seem to have missed all meals yesterday, now you will have to come with us to lunch,” Remus said sternly and Harry didn’t make an effort to resist.

Harry ate his lunch as fast as he could, and when James, who was sitting opposite of him, whispered, “Be careful, your Granny’s coming this way and she is on the warpath,” he got up immediately and left the hall without even looking left or right. He ran down to Hagrid’s hut as fast as he could, sat down and waited for the others to come and the lesson to begin. Fortunately, he didn’t have Transfiguration that day.

At dinner, he was not so lucky. He had just started to eat, when McGonagall approached with a very offended look on her face and said, “Mr. Pane, after dinner you will accompany me to your room, have you understood?”

“Yes Professor” Harry replied tiredly. As he could have guessed, the two women threw a temper tantrum when they arrived in Harry’s room. Madam Pomfrey gave him his week’s detention, and Harry saw his chance to end the discussion and asked eagerly, “Alright; may I start immediately? What do I have to do?”

But Pomfrey countered sternly, “No, you may not. You will go to bed NOW and rest and start your detention tomorrow evening directly after dinner.”

And McGonagall added angrily, “That was Poppy’s punishment; from my side you are grounded for the week, which means you are not allowed to play Quidditch or to go to Hogsmeade during this time.”

Hearing his Grandmother’s words Harry exploded... “You cannot do that! I have to train my team!” he shouted at his Grandmother angrily.

“Oh, I can do that and I will. You – will – not – play – Quidditch – for a week!”

“No! Do you think that is an easy way to prevent my team from practising properly so that the teachers can win the match in two weeks time? I’m sorry, but in this case I will cancel the game!”

“You will do no such thing.”

“I will! We can only practice on Sunday morning, which means once a week. Last Sunday the whole school was watching so that we couldn’t practise properly, and when we can’t practise this Sunday, we only have ONE practise as a team at all before having to play a match against the teachers. All right, I’m going to resign as captain.”

“You will not resign and your team will be fine!” his Grandmother said calmingly.

However, by then Harry was so upset that he only saw red. He couldn’t breathe anymore, threw himself on his bed, and silently began to cry. Pomfrey motioned to McGonagall to leave the room and whispered, “I will look after him.” She went to sit on his bedside and talked to him in a quiet, calming voice.

After a few minutes, Harry had cried himself into a light sleep. In his slumber, he noticed two fingers trying to hold his mouth open and a phial pressed to his lips, he swallowed the liquid, and his breathing returned to normal.

-----

At breakfast, he talked to his friends who were nearly as upset as he was. It was good that McGonagall was sitting far enough from them not to hear the names Sirius was calling his Head of House. Finally, he agreed with James and Sirius, who were the two Gryffindor players in the two Hogwarts teams along with Harry, that a team meeting would be held on Saturday afternoon to discuss practise on Sunday without Harry. He didn’t know if he would be allowed to watch and commentate the practise session but they had to be prepared anyway.

After the Transfiguration lesson, in which Harry did not even glance at his Grandmother while looking at his transfiguration book waiting for the lesson to end, for to meet with Severus in the Potions class to tell him about his unfair punishment. Pomfrey who had checked on him in the morning had forbidden him to do any magic for two days, so he really couldn’t do anything during this stupid lesson. ‘It must be the first time in my life that I prefer a Potions lesson to Transfigurations,’ he thought while he watched the stunned pink rabbit on Remus’ desk and absentmindedly wished it to be a cute little cat in Slytherin colours.

“Oh my…” Remus was stunned and threw an amused glance at Harry.

“Very good Mr. Lupin, but maybe you have to revise your choice of colours a little,” McGonagall said annoyed.

“Um… sorry Professor…I…um….” he glanced at Harry, but he was looking down at his desk.

“I think that was not Remus’ doing,” Lily helped her friend quickly and frowned at Harry, who hadn’t once noticed what he had done.

“I see,” the teacher said sternly and looked at Harry with an exasperated gaze on her face.

At dinner, Harry was only playing with his food. He dreaded the detention with Pomfrey. Would she lecture him again? What was he going to have to do? He had never before had detention in the Hospital Wing but he had heard stories from Ron who once had spent three evenings in a row cleaning bedpans. However, as is often the case, it was much different than he had imagined. Pomfrey had thought very well about what she was going to let him do. She thought they still had to test Harry’s abilities to see if he really was a Natural Healer, but it couldn’t do harm to teach him several things about Healing anyway. So in fact Harry gained, in the contrary to what he had expected, a week of Healing classes, and he enjoyed the evenings with the Mediwitch so much that he was almost a bit disappointed when the last evening of his detention was over. Of course, he would never admit this to the dragon or his Grandmother.

-----

Finally, Quidditch practise went well, and Harry, Severus and the four Quidditch Captains of the House teams had agreed on skipping all House Quidditch practises for the week before the match in favour of daily practises for the Hogwarts team, which took place every evening after dinner. On Friday evening, Harry told his team members that there would be no Quidditch practise on Saturday, instead he expected all members to go to bed early in order to be fresh and fit for the game on Sunday.

The same Friday evening was also the night of the October full moon, and as always, the Marauders spent the night together in the forest. It took Harry only until lunch to know that he – as usual – had caught a cold playing around in the forest. Oh no, why had he been so stupid to spend the night outside just a day before the important match? As he didn’t want anyone to know at least until after the game, he decided to go to the Chamber of Secrets – maybe he could have a look at the Potions lab. Having transformed into Icicle he flashed directly into the Slytherin library, trying to recall what had been written in the book about the Potions lab. Oh yes, he remembered.

One of the bookshelves in the far corner could be moved aside to reveal the entrance to the Potions lab. And there it was! It was a perfect Potions lab, complete with everything, which you could imagine. There were even more Potions ingredients in the shelves than Harry had ever seen before. This lab was so inviting that he thought about brewing a Potion. However, what could he brew? Maybe something for his cold, but the only things he remembered how to brew was Pepper-up and Fever reducing Potion, because they had studied them with Severus. The easiest way of course would be to go to Poppy said a little voice at the back of his head. But he knew she would put him to bed and that was not what he wanted, especially as she would not care at all that the first Quidditch game of the Hogwarts team – students against teachers – was going to take place on Sunday morning, and he wanted to play.

So he tried to brew the two Potions, one after another, and was very pleased to see that they looked right the way they were supposed to look.

‘Maybe Severus is right, and I’m not completely stupid at Potions,’ he thought and looked for some phials to bottle the Potions; he even found a whole shelf filled with clean, empty phials, bottled the Potions, cast an unbreakable spell on them, slipped five of each in his pockets and put the rest neatly in one of the empty shelves. Whenever he needed them, he could just flash here and get them. After drinking one phial of each of them, he felt much better and proceeded to cleaning up the room. Afterwards he sealed the room as it had been before and proceeded to sit in the room with the fireplace; maybe it would be a little warmer. He lit a fire in the fireplace, sat on the sofa and did his homework until it was time for dinner. Once transformed into Icicle he flashed directly in front of the Great Hall for dinner.

-----

On his way back out of the hall after dinner, Severus caught up with him and asked sternly, “Harry, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Harry giggled. “I shouldn’t tell you, because you’ll be angry at me…”

Severus sighed. “Harry! What have you done now? Please tell me, or do I have to take points from Gryffindor?”

Harry glared at him. “Would you really do that? I mean… take points from me?”

Severus glanced at him sternly. “To prevent you from putting yourself into danger I would, yes.”

Harry looked down to the floor and said in a small voice, “IwentdowntothechambersPotionslabandbrewtwoPotions.”

“Harry! Can you speak normally please?”

Harry mumbled, “I went down to the chamber’s Potions lab and brewed two Potions. But I want to go to bed now, I’m very tired.”

Severus was stunned. “Wait! YOU… BREWED… POTIONS…??? You must be really sick; I…”

“Severus, sorry, I’m dead on my feet, and you know we have our game directly after breakfast. I’ll tell you tomorrow, okay?”

“Alright Harry.”

Harry was lucky because he had just drunk another two Potions before Pomfrey came to check on him for the night, so that she didn’t notice that he was sick, and nothing else could prevent him from playing Quidditch in the morning. After a very quick breakfast, he went to the Gryffindor changing rooms to change into his Quidditch outfit and quickly gulped down his last two Potions thinking, noticing that at least the Fever reducer worked.

When he was ready he went on to the pitch and sat down on the Gryffindor bleachers to wait for the other players and for his Grandfather, Harold Potter, who would referee the game, as Madam Hooch who was normally refereeing the games would have to play herself. Weeks ago, he had sent an owl to his Grandfather and asked if he would like to referee for the students – teachers’ game and his Grandfather had accepted immediately. By the time both the teachers and the students had arrived on the pitch, his Grandfather had arrived as well, and Harry presented him with a parchment with the names of each player and their positions.

-----

Mr. Potter took the microphone. “Welcome to the first game of the Hogwarts Quidditch Team in their match against the Hogwarts Teachers’ Team.

Here come the players of the students’ team: Deborah Molloy (Ravenclaw, Keeper), Roger Burke (Slytherin, Beater), Donald Quirke (Ravenclaw, Beater), Amelia Bones (Hufflepuff, Chaser), Severus Snape (Slytherin, Chaser and Deputy Captain), James Potter (Gryffindor, Chaser) and Harry Pane (Gryffindor, Seeker and Team Captain).

And here are your teachers: Professor Sinistra (Keeper), Pamona Sprout (Beater), Albus Dumbledore (Beater), Filius Flitwick (Chaser), Minerva McGonagall (Chaser and Team Captain), Poppy Pomfrey (Chaser) and Rolanda Hooch (Seeker and Deputy Captain).

I wish both teams good luck and hope for a fair and nice Quidditch game.”

With this, he released the Snitch and the game began. Compared to games Harry had played against Slytherin this game was very soft. The teachers were playing much better than Harry had expected, based on the fact that they were not really a team with fixed practises, but nevertheless soft, because they were very careful not to hit students with their Bludgers. Both Keepers were really good, and it took thirty minutes until the teachers scored to bring the score to 10 – 00. Now the students woke up and scored twice in a row, but there was still a long way to go. Harry was hovering over the pitch desperately looking for the Snitch. He knew he had to catch the Snitch before Madam Hooch caught it because otherwise the students had no chance of winning. Only once, he caught a glance of the snitch but was distracted by a Bludger that Dumbledore had sent in his direction, and the Snitch was gone. It took another hour and even began to rain before Harry finally got another glimpse of the snitch, and he raced downwards until he nearly crashed into the ground with Madam Hooch on his heels. She had watched his stunts so often that she should have known better, because he pulled up just in time to snatch the Snitch out of the air. He held his hand up and showed the snitch, and Mr. Potter announced, “Mr. Pane has caught the snitch. The Hogwarts Student Team wins. Congratulations, students! The final score is 220 students – 200 teachers.”

Dumbledore took the microphone from him. “Congratulations to the Hogwarts Team! As it is time for lunch anyway, let’s have a victory party in the Great Hall for the winning team!”

Harry was surrounded by his teammates and thanked the team for their very good play before they went to the changing rooms.

The Party lasted the whole afternoon, and everyone had much fun. Fortunately, the teachers seemed not to mind that they had lost the first match against their students.

-----

During the afternoon, Severus was sitting next to Harry and asked, “Yesterday you told me something about brewing a Potion. Care to explain?”

“The Potions lab down in the Chamber … have you been there?” Severus shook his head and Harry went on to whisper excitedly, “It is beautiful, and there are more Potions ingredients than I’ve ever seen. Anyway I wanted to brew a Potion, just because the lab was so great, so I made Pepper-up and Fever reducer, because I couldn’t think of anything else and I needed it at the time – and I succeeded, I got it right.”

“Very well, Harry,” Severus commended him. “You have to show me the lab Harry.”

“Sev! We can go now – I can’t wait for you to see it. We can make all Potions there, it’s much better than the Potions classroom!”

Severus was as delighted as Harry had been when he visited the hidden room for the first time.

-----

On Monday, McGonagall approached Harry at dinner. “The Headmaster wants to speak to you Harry, directly after dinner please.”

Harry nodded and said, “All right Professor.” He finished his meal quickly and climbed up the stairs to the Gargoyle. He groaned; McGonagall had not told him the password. Considering to just sit down and wait for Dumbledore to come looking for him he started to guess the password ‘lemon drops, chocolate frogs, Quidditch, Hogwarts team wins… etc., and finally the Gargoyle opened to ‘Merlin House’.

“Hello Harry, Lemon drop?”

Harry declined and wondered what his Grandfather might want to talk about when he heard a knock at the door and the door opened with a wave of Dumbledore’s hand. Harry blinked in surprise. McGonagall had just entered the room with Sprout and Flitwick in tow.

“Harry we have come together in order to talk about the Merlin House. I have already spoken with the three Professors here, and we have agreed to revive Merlin House as fifth Hogwarts House as soon as possible. The Board of Governors has already approved my suggestion, so it is up to us how to proceed. Today I have called you together to discuss this. Shall we open the House at the beginning of the next school year or maybe even earlier on Halloween/1st of November or the 1st of January? I would like to hear your opinions.”

“Albus, do you want to re-sort all students? Or what do you intend to do?”

“We have three possibilities.

1. We start with Merlin House at the beginning of the new school year, and only the 1st years, which will be sorted anyway, can come into the House.

2. We re-sort all students, which I would not recommend.

3. We ask the Sorting Hat who actually knows each student at this school, whom of our students he would place in the new House; and the students among those named by the hat can choose if they want to change.”

“Um…”

“Yes, Harry?”

“Sorry, but just one question in advance. If we went by your third suggestion, what would happen about the students’ former status? I mean, if I for example changed to Merlin House, would I still be able to play Quidditch for Gryffindor?”

“Yes, I think we should go by Albus’ third suggestion and let the students who actually change Houses have a kind of double House status, at least until the end of the school year, so that they belong to both Houses. There won’t be that many students to change to the new House immediately, will there?” Flitwick asked.

“That we have to ask the Hat,” Albus said and addressed the Hat. “How many of our students would you recommend to put into Merlin House?”

“Oh, a difficult question indeed. I would probably recommend about 20 students.”

“So there will be about 10-20 students, which will be all right for the beginning, but they need their old Houses as well I think. For Quidditch of course, and they will need to have the possibility to meet with their friends in their old common rooms, and they will also need their Head of Houses to confide in and to talk about their problems. As I told you, only an heir of Merlin can become Head of Merlin House, and as I am the only one who is currently at Hogwarts as a teacher, it will have to be me at first, at least until Lily is ready for a teaching position. And I don’t think I would make a good Head of House like the three of you.”

Flitwick jumped into it. “I have a suggestion concerning Lily. In fact, I am keen on taking over the position of History of Magic whenever you would like to abandon the ghost. And I would propose Lily as my successor in Charms, because she is the best student I ever had.”

“Thank you very much Filius; this is a very valuable suggestion, and I am ready to agree to make the change directly next summer, however I have to speak to Lily about this before we can make a decision.”

“Now back to the decision about Merlin House,” Minerva said; “I would also agree to the third suggestion in the combination old House/Merlin House for the students. I tell you, I’m not going to lose Harry as a Quidditch player for my House!”

Everyone laughed and Dumbledore asked, “Pomona, what do you think?”

“I agree with Filius and Minerva.”

“Harry?”

“I agree as well, although in fact I think I don’t have much to say as I sort of live in my room in the Hospital Wing anyway. So I won’t belong to the few lonely students staying in Merlin House except for maybe staying there sometimes in the evening.”

Minerva smiled fondly at her grandchild. “What do you think of the date?”

They agreed on the 1st of January, provided that the Hat would announce his decision during the first week of December and that the students had time to decide until the beginning of the holidays.

-----

It was about three weeks later, and Harry was sitting between Severus and Lily in their Charms lesson, when suddenly the classroom door opened and Professor McGonagall stormed in.

“Sorry Filius; I need Harry. Harry! You have experience in battling dragons, don’t you?” Harry’s face turned white.