"Impedimenta! Expelliarmus! Give up yet, Graile?"
"Where are his shots coming from?" Max asked his compatriots.
"We can't see!" Flint answered.
"Track the color of his spells!" Jenkins offered.
"That's just it, there aren't any!" another voice supplied.
And indeed Harry had been firing his spells from his wand and keeping an aura of darkness around each spell fired if only to see if he could do it. And seeing as how his vision wasn't affected by the darkness in the room, he started picking off each caster one by one.
Max had had enough. "Check fire! Check fire!"
"What's that mean?" Flint asked in confusion.
"It means to stop firing everyone. Potter!"
"Yes, Max?"
Max grumbled for a moment and then said, "….Pax!"
"Hazing is over then?"
"Yes."
"No!" Flint put in. "What about what he did to us in the game?!"
"Get over it, Flint. He has the superior tactical advantage over us. How about it, Potter?"
"I'm going to spend a couple weeks here. If you want to have some more duels, let me know. This was kind of fun."
Suddenly the room was lit again and everyone blinked away the spots in their eyes, looking for the apprentice. Max noticed him first standing on the ceiling, looking down at everyone.
Flint was next to see him and raised his wand to take a shot.
Graile noticed this and shot a body bind at the Quidditch captain. "I said pax, Flint. The fight is over. Got it?"
"For you maybe…" Flint ground out, struggling.
"For everyone. He's in. Or do you want to go a couple rounds with me later on?"
"… fine, he's in. But if he steps out of line," Flint tried to be menacing. His breath was more menacing than his glare.
"Then he's yours," Max replied, releasing him. He then turned to the descending Harry. "Welcome to Slytherin, Mr. Potter."
"Thanks, Mr. Graile. A pleasure to be here."
And as Harry found out, not all Slytherins were idiots or maniacally bent on serving a dark lord. Contrary to a Weasley's belief, there were some who actually wanted a better life and to make a name for themselves. The house was for the ambitious, the cunning. It wasn't necessarily for the evil. Sometimes ambition went hand-in-hand with evil, as it did for the other houses.
In the next couple weeks, Harry found that his prejudices against the house mostly started with his original negative assessment of Malfoy, and the bias felt against Slytherin from Ron. Now that he had a chance to see what was what and make up his own mind, he found that there were people he liked from every house… and consequently people he didn't like from every house.
Max Graile was someone he grew to like. Not quite a friend, but definitely not an opponent. They dueled several more times, this time in specific conditions set to improve each of them. Harry enjoyed himself during these duels and Max found himself learning a trick or two from the apprentice and his arsenal of household charms that he used. Especially the one where after sending a potentially harmful spell his way, he used a quick charm to wax the floor so Max would lose his footing. After the second time, Max got the hint and became a little more careful with his footing thereafter.
...
Sunday, November 17th, the Owlery
"Stupid bird," Harry muttered as he trooped up to the aviary, located in one of the furthest towers from the Great Hall. Just 30 minutes earlier Lost had brought him his letters from his family and he'd instructed the owl to remain behind while he dug his letters out of his bag so he could take them home. But did the bloody owl listen to him?
Of course not!
Ruddy thing caught wind of another owl and off he flew in chase of her. Harry could have sworn that owl had the mating instincts of Sirius when he was younger. The blasted bird certainly didn't listen to him or heed any of his commands, suggestions, or pleadings like Hedwig did.
Man, he really missed that bird.
"Whuh!" a voice yelped ahead of him.
So engrossed in his own grumbling, he had failed to take in his situation and consequently was unprepared when a body came falling towards him.
Fortunately, the steps leading up zig-zagged and he was on a landing. Thinking fast, he wandlessly threw up a cushioning field on the platform and then braced himself for the impact. Moments later he caught the person.
Or more like the person caught him and they both went down in the cushioning field. And even with good Quidditch reflexes, the problem with bodies meeting that way means body parts don't always normally end up where they should be for proper young ladies and gentlemen.
Harry didn't know who knocked him onto the ground, but he definitely knew it wasn't a boy. Parts of Harry were stinging, and those parts not stinging were feeling something fairly soft. And bumpy.
As his thoughts came back to rational thinking, he could detect the two things were familiar somehow, and kind of bouncy.
Uh oh…
Harry removed his hands from the girl's upper body.
"Sorry about that," they both said at the same time.
"Why are you sorry?" replied the girl before Harry could open mouth and insert foot any further.
"Er… um," Harry started, then just pointed to her body.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, trying to get to her feet and dislodge the human pretzel they'd become.
Part of Harry was mortified that he'd caught her… there. But another part of him wasn't sure if he wanted her to move, or to fall over some more so he could catch her a few dozen times. He just hoped that no one was watching them at this moment. It was a little embarrassing for both of them. They were, after all, in a compromising position.
Harry snapped out of his thoughts when the girl had pulled away for him to get a good look at her. Instantly, he froze.
It was Tonks.
She was blushing a furious red and looked like she wanted to hide in a hole and never come back. But it was still Nymphadora Tonks.
Harry immediately took a deep breath, and spoke like nothing happened. Which, when he thought about it, nothing did. Other than he touched her body. Hoo-boy. "It's okay, but can you get off?" Harry asked.
....
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