Chapter 13 - 13

Chapter Four: Back to the Old Life

The next morning Harish woke up early and walked up from the dungeons all the way to the Owlry, which was a tower on the south side of the castle. He had heard rumours that it was actually quite close to the Gryffindor tower, but he never really cared. The boy attached his letter to a Hogwarts owl and sent it off. After watching it fly until it seemed like a mere black speck, Harish headed down to breakfast. There, he found the twins already waiting for him.

"Where've you been?" they whispered.

"Sending a letter to my dad," he replied, sounding and looking completely casual. This seemed to satisfy the twins, because they proceeded to fill Harish in on the conversation they had been holding.

The trio, after finishing their breakfasts, waited patiently for Snape to come around with their schedules. When the boys finally received them, they headed off to their first class, Defense Against the Dark Arts. Their new Defense professor was an old man named Professor Dobbins, who admitted to planning on staying there only a year before he retired. It was a good thing too. Though the man knew a lot about defending himself against the Dark Arts, he was really scatter-brained. He kept forgetting what he was talking about or forgot which year he was teaching. Even though he was dotty, he was quite funny.

He had started off the class by calling role, occasionally commenting on a name or a child whose name he had called. Then he swayed for a moment before pointing to a boy sitting in front.

"You!" he had barked, causing the whole class to jump. "You want a job?" he asked loudly, as though he couldn't hear himself (he probably couldn't, he was that old). The boy's eyes bugged and he didn't say anything. The old professor must have taken that as a yes, though because he began prattling everyone's ears off. "—And every morning I want you to come and check my pulse. If I'm still alive, wake me up or anything, but if there is no PULSE!" –he shouted that last word—"Then you don't have to have class!"

The class laughed at his joke before he continued on with his lesson. Maybe it wasn't so bad that he was only staying for one year, because he had forgotten to assign homework at the end of class.

Their next class was Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall was as strict as ever and she piled on loads of homework even though it was the first day back. The three boys reluctantly trudged down to the common room to get started on their homework after lunch. Harish zipped through all of his which caused both of the twins' eyes to gravitate towards his paper. After sitting of a few moments, trying to relax while Fred and George copied off his work, asking what a word was every other sentence, Harish hopped up and exclaimed, "That's enough! Do your own work!"

"Aww, c'mon!"

"That's no fair!"

They both darted forward and tried to grab the paper out of Harish's hands. He ended up running out of the common room and into the library where he sat down in a window seat, sighed, and closed his eyes. He sat there in peace for several minutes before his homework was yanked out of his hand. He slit one eye open just in time to see a pair of robes whip around the corner. He made to get up, but sighed reluctantly and leaned back against the window. What did it matter if they copied off of him? At least they weren't pestering him anymore.

HARISH-IS-A-LAZY-BUM—HMM-THAT-DEFINITELY-DIDN'T-COME-FROM-LUCIUS

Lord Voldemort sat in his study, arranging his plans for Yaxley, who was his minion in the ministry. Suddenly, a Hogwarts owl swooped in and dropped a letter in his lap. He picked it up slowly and with concern. A letter from Harish already? 'This must not be anything good,' he thought.

The man ripped the letter open and quickly read through it. So Harish had finally found out about the prophecy. The Dark Lord knew that the boy would have to learn of it eventually. "The sooner the better" maybe wasn't quite the appropriate saying for this situation, but he was glad that he didn't have to tell Harish himself.

This raised the question of when to tell Harish, or rather—Harry, who he really was. The pale man had always planned on the boy knowing eventually, but now that he already knew of the prophesy…well, now he actually had to think about it. Voldemort sat thinking before finalizing that he would tell the boy in a couple years or so—after he heard the rest of the prophesy. He knew that Severus hadn't given him the whole prophesy, so he also knew that he needed to hear the rest of it. Then, he would be able to figure out how to tell Harish about why he had stripped the boy of his family that night.

Even though he felt sure that Harish wouldn't make a big deal of it, he couldn't help but feel uneasy. What if, when he did tell the young man, the boy in question became angry and abandoned his cause. After thinking this, Voldemort quickly banished the dark thoughts from his mind. The boy adored him. As well as that, he also had a very rational way of thinking and would see the logic behind the man's choice.

Voldemort shook his head and instead started figuring out how he could get the prophecy for himself.

SWEET-HARISH-NICE-HARISH—HE-ALWAYS-UNDERSTANDS

Harish, Fred, and George eagerly bounded to the Quidditch pitch where try-outs were currently being held. He had a Nimbus 1999 slung over his shoulder which he had had for several years. It was now starting to look slightly beat up, but luckily he had heard that a new model would be coming out in a year or so. Fred and George both had ancient Shooting Stars, but their playing skills made up for the lack of speed. This didn't really matter though, as they were trying out for Beaters, and they needed a lot more arm strength than they did speed or agility like a Seeker would need.

They lined up with other students who were going to be trying out as well, and waited for the team captain, Marcus Flint—a fourth year—to stride out onto the field. Instantly, he began giving orders out the first people to try-out were the chasers. Terrence Higgs, Adrian Pucey, and Pierre Bole were made chasers (Flint was a one as well). Then the keepers tried out. Out of the three, Marius Bletchley was made keeper. Then, it was Fred and George's turn to try out. Flint had them fly around and whack a few bludgers at targets. Then he pulled out measuring tape.

"What's that for?" the twins asked.

"Oh, we just try to go for a certain size when it concerns our beaters."

So he measured them from shoulder to shoulder. Finally, after writing something on his clipboard, he shook both of their hands and said, "Congratulations, you're on the team." Then he turned to look at Harish, who was the only one left standing there. "You want to try out for Seeker?" he asked.

Harish stepped forward and smiled, "I guess I do."

He heard one of the twins snigger from behind him. Of course they had told the entire year that Harish was going for Seeker, so that there wouldn't be any competition. Flint squinted at him, taking in his slim frame and small stature. Then Flint grunted and commanded him to fly around the stadium for a bit. Harish did so, zooming around and making spectacular dives. Finally, Flint waved him down and he stood there excitedly. "Since you're the only one who tried out," Flint growled. "I guess I'll let you on the team." Then the boy stalked off and Harish re-joined the twins to walk back to the castle.

"I think he liked you, mate," George said as they walked off.

"Really?" Harish asked skeptically.

"Yeah, he definitely gasped during that one dive," Fred replied, grinning. Then one of them mimed flying a broom while the other pretended to swoon.

"You keep up that good flying—"

"And you'll have him eating out of the palm of your hand."

Harish shook his head, but grinned anyway.

YAY-FOR-JAMES-POTTER—CATCH-THAT-SNITCH!

"So," Harish started, spread across his bed on his stomach, looking at the twins who were sitting on Fred's bed together, facing him. "What kind of prank should we pull?"

"Well," George said, "I've been thinking…have you ever heard of that Muggle prank that involves cups of water?"

Harish looked at him blankly, but Fred caught on instantly. "George, you're brilliant!"

"Why thank you, Fred."

"What prank? What are we going to do?" Harish asked, clueless; he knew nothing of Muggles.

"Well, the water goblet prank involves—"

"Filling the hallways of schools with water goblets—"

"So that you can't step anywhere without spilling all of the goblets!"

Harish nodded, catching on now. "We'd have to do it at night," he supplied and the twins nodded thoughtfully. "How about you two get the water goblets and we'll hide under the cloak and levitate the cups into the corridors."

The red-head boys nodded. "We'll also have to start—"

"After prefect patrols end."

"So midnight tonight, then?" Harish asked. The twins grinned identically.

"Midnight tonight," they agreed.

MIDNIGHT-TONIGHT…OOH—THAT-RHYMES!

They day passed entirely too slow for the Slytherin trio. They went to all of their lessons and rushed through all of their homework. Then, they spent the rest of the evening planning their prank until it was nearly midnight. The three boys, deciding that that was the night to test the Invisibility Cloak, slipped underneath it and headed to the kitchens. Once they got there, they convinced the elves to lend them nearly half a million goblets.

The goblets were filled with water and levitated in a great, shiny, dripping mass out of the kitchens. Then, they started placing them directly outside of a classroom door on the first floor. They continued placing the goblets, careful to place them evenly. The boys went on and on until finally, they reached the last floor, where they had stashed brooms.

After they placed the last goblet, the three second-year pranksters climbed on their brooms and zoomed down to the corridor that led to the common room, which miraculously didn't haveany goblets outside of it, unlike the Gryffindor Tower, Ravenclaw Tower, and Hufflepuff Commons, which were near the kitchens.

Then, they trudged exhaustedly to their bed and slept the last dwindling hours of the night away. The next morning, even though they were eager to see what would happen, they also didn't want to get up. Finally, Harish convinced the twins that they needed to get up early enough to put the rest of their plan into action. So Harish, followed by a surly Fred and George, walked up to the common room and out to the corridor where they had first planted the goblets.

There they found a mass of unhappy students, eager to get to class. "I bet it was the Gryffindors that did this, Marcus grumbled. A couple other students nodded.

"Now no one will be able to get to classes today because of them!" Hubert Warrington agreed.

This got a chorus of agreements as the other Slytherins got stirred up as well. Finally, Harish stepped up, grinning and clutching his broom. "Hey I happened to have my broom in the commons because the twins were planning on pranking me with it. Would anyone want rides to their classes?"

All of the students looked at him interested. Finally, Adrian Pucey spoke up. "How much do we have to pay to borrow your broom?" Yup. That was a Slytherin for you. They never didanything without expecting something in return.

"Five galleons."

The other students nodded and eagerly began coughing up. Slowly, the mass of students dwindled and it was getting close to time for Potions, so the three boys hopped on the broom and flew up to their classroom as quickly as they could. This looked to be a promising day.

The rest of the day Harish loaned his broom to fellow Slytherins and Dumbledore spent it spelling every single goblet away and it took…well, let's just say he spent all day doing that one task, along with the help of a couple teachers of course. Also time was added due to the fact that someone had tried to get through a corridor on the second floor and ended up flooding the whole level. All of the teachers weren't very happy with this particular prank, McGonagall in particular had been livid, her nostrils flaring as she stared at their trio from the teacher's table that evening at dinner.

As a result, they made a total of 600 galleons, which they put on a jar in the bottom of Harish's trunk that was labelled, "Funds for Joke Shop"