Harry settled back into Hogwarts within a few days of the year starting again. It definitely took some readjusting, having to keep in mind which staircase went where, and which paintings could be ignored when they called for the students who walked past them. There were some new things to get used to though. Like the Gryffindor first-year who took way too much pleasure in taking photos of Harry. It had been kind of funny at first, but now the brat was just making himself into a constant annoyance. Harry had even found him waiting right outside the Slytherin common room one afternoon, and had been really ticked off. The boy's constant stream of questions was enough to make a saint lose his temper, and Harry was no saint.
"Just leave me alone! Get a life! For Merlin's sake, I can't walk at all without hearing your nonstop gibberish. Just shut up and go away!"
The boy had fled at that and had started taking his pictures from more of a distance. Theo had taken to waiting around corners and casting a bright flash as Harry turned it. Eventually, though, Harry had lashed out without thinking, and Theo was left in a petrificus totalus, that Harry almost decided not to lift. After that, he got no more surprises.
It was still very early in the year, but Harry was finding lessons to be easier than the previous year. He decided it was probably due to all the extra reading he had done. The practices he and Draco had been doing definitely hadn't hurt either. They had decided to postpone their extracurricular training until after Halloween. Draco had been adamant about wanting to settle into their new timetable, and besides- "There's gonna be Quidditch training as well. Matches too!"
He was right about that, Quidditch would probably keep them quite busy. Harry and Draco had made the team, of course. Marcus Flint, their captain, had almost choked when Draco told him about his father's donation, and the conditions attached to it. The burly fifth year would probably have agreed to let a mermaid onto his team, in exchange for seven Nimbus 2001's.
Their first practice would be the following week, but Harry had been introduced to his teammates. There was Marcus, the captain. He, Adrian Pucey and Harry would be the chasers. Lucian Bole and Peregrine Derrick were the beaters, Miles Bletchley the keeper, and Draco would be the seeker. Harry was pretty excited to see how they would all play together, he had watched the Slytherin team practicing and playing before, and it was an amazing thought to be part of that whirring, hypnotizing motion.
A thorn in Harry's side proved to be his new defense against the dark arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart. The man had already cornered Harry twice before their first class. It had started after the man had seen Colin taking Harr's picture, and he had decided to give Harry an impromptu lesson on how to make the most of fame without coming off as arrogant. The next conversation came after he had somehow learned that Harry was on the Slytherin Quidditch team, and he felt it necessary to offer Harry some pointers. Harry left both of these conversations in a severe state of confusion. He felt certain that if he actually tried some of the flying moves Lockhart had suggested he would fall off his broom. It was beyond bizarre. The man seemed to like nothing better than to talk about himself.
Any hopes Harry had that Lockhart would possibly prove to be a decent teacher, were dashed quite spectacularly by his first lesson. After a test, which was really nothing more than one hundred questions about the wonders and miracles of Gilderoy Lockhart, the man pulled a sheet off a cage to reveal a single Gnome. It was even more disappointing when he pulled the cage open, and the gnome did nothing more than turn over in its sleep.
Apparently, he had tried a similar stunt with the Gryffindor's, who had been his first class. Except with them, he let loose fifty Cornish Pixies and ran away leaving the students to deal with them.
"My father will remove that idiot from the school!" Draco said furiously, causing one or two of the girls to give him horrified looks.
That was the worst of it. Even some of the most intelligent and level-headed girls seemed to fall completely under his spell, and in their eyes, the man could do no wrong. Harry was unsurprised to see this behavior from Pansy, but Daphne and Tracey? It was so unlike them! But nothing he could say would convince them to look at the man as the fool he so clearly was. He could only hope that with time, they would come to see that Lockhart wasn't the great wizard he made himself out to be.
Other than Defence, and the abysmal boredom that was History, Harry found that he was quite enjoying all his classes. He was still holding his place in the top few students of the year and was settling back into a good rhythm of juggling library and social time. He found that he was mostly hanging out with Draco, Daphne, and Theo, with Blaise, Tracey, and Pansy flitting in and out of conversations and games. Crabbe and Goyle were a near constant presence, but Harry mostly just ignored them. When one of them spoke, it was quite the momentous occasion indeed, and everyone else would fall silent to listen to them. Admittedly, it usually wouldn't be something particularly relevant, but it happened so rarely that nobody even bothered to mock them about it.
Quidditch training began, and it was awesome. Their first training was slightly marred by the Gryffindor team arguing that the pitch was theirs, even though Flint had a signed note from Professor Snape saying that the Slytherins had booked it. It was worth it to have that whole situation though, just to see the looks on the Gryffindor's faces when Flint told them about Lucius' donation. Things had almost gotten ugly then, when Dean Thomas, the new Gryffindor Seeker, made some comment about Draco having to buy his way on onto the team. There had been a swishing as suddenly all the players from both teams were drawing wands to hands, and for a few minutes, it looked like a serious fight was going to break out. Harry had been extremely glad for all the extra time he had put into reading up jinxes and practicing them. Luckily, the crisis had been averted when the Gryffindor Captain, Wood, called off his team and decided to leave the Slytherins to the field. The Gryffindors left, shooting dirty looks behind them. The Weasley twins, in particular, had evil looks on their faces, and Harry was certain they were planning some vengeance. Lucian had shouted after them "Brave of you to know when you're beaten", and for a moment Wood had stopped. Harry fancied he could read the debate in the burly Gryffindor's mind before they carried on their walk of shame.
Playing Quidditch with an actual team was almost a totally different game to just playing with a few friends. The guys who had been on the team for a while already knew each other, and Harry was starting to get the feel of the plays the other chasers had gotten used to using. Their training mostly focused on them learning to play as one unit.
There was much more than just that though. They had exercises and training drills to run. They had to fly around, dodging the Bludgers that Lucian and Peregrine knocked furiously towards them for what felt like hours. The chasers would fly around, throwing quaffles to each other from different positions and at different speeds. They practiced trying to score and taking penalty shots. And all the while the Golden Snitch was flying around, tiny wings buzzing furiously, as Draco dove and spun around, searching for it. Every time he caught it, it would be released again. By the time the team had finished their first practice, they were all sore from sitting on brooms for almost four hours and getting pummelled by bludgers, and Draco had caught the snitch three times.
Marcus gave them all a short pep talk in the locker room after the practice.
"We've got an amazing team, amazing brooms and we all work well together. Screw this up and I'll eat your fucking hearts"
They left the locker room shortly after that, having showered and changed. As they were about to enter the Castle, the Weasley twins got their revenge.
They were walking together, joking and talking, and the next thing balloons were exploding on their heads, spraying them with foul smelling water.
"Good thing you guys have a field to yourselves" Came a call from above
"Yeah, I don't think anyone would be able to share with them, phew"
The team ran, arms over their heads as they weaved and dodged the barrage.
"I think it's the stuff from inside Dungbombs," Adrian said, choking the words out through retching noises.
"I'm-going-to-kill-those-fucking-twats" Marcus growled, as they went through the entrance hall.
The stench was indescribable, and what was worse, is that it seemed to grow with every passing moment. It wasn't like a usual bad smell that you got used to. No, this was setting deeper into Harry's nostrils and choking him. He managed to hold back from throwing up though.
Draco didn't.
One second he was standing still, eyes closed and taking deep breaths, and the next he was bent over with a torrent of vomit coming out.
"Shh!" Miles said harshly. "Listen!"
Everyone fell silent. Dimly, they could hear footsteps and a voice coming nearer.
"We'll find them, dear one. They won't be able to set off those foul smells anymore when I'm done with them, no they won't"
"Filch" Draco gasped, looking much paler than usual. Then he took off running.
There was a moment of stillness, and then the whole team had started running. Harry was standing at the back, and he ran too, looking nervously behind him. The stink causing his stomach to roil, he didn't really look where he was stepping.
And he slipped.
And that's how Filch came to find Harry lying in a puddle of vomit on the floor, stinking of Dungbombs.
"Defiling my halls! Do you know what it takes to get this stink out of the walls? IT SETTLES IN!"
Harry tried not to look at the enraged caretaker.
"It wasn't me" He mumbled, trying not to add his own stomach contents to the floor.
"WASN'T YOU! FOUND AT THE SCENE OF THE CRIME!"
Harry cringed back from the bulging eyes that were now only a few inches away from his own. He wanted to wipe the spittle he had just been sprayed with off of his face. ' It'll probably just piss him off more'
"I swear, it wasn't me, it was the Weasley twins"
When Filch next spoke, it was in a low voice, trembling with rage that was far scarier than his screaming.
"That's exactly what everyone says. I wasn't befouling the Castle, it was the Weasley's. You are caught red-handed, at the scene of the crime. Detention"
"But-"
"Detention. Tomorrow night. You will be in the trophy room at ten to polish the trophies. No magic" He ended with malice in his voice.
And that's when Harry lost control of his stomach and vomited on Filch's legs.
It had taken a full week to get the horrific stink out of his skin. He still caught wisps of it every so often and would feel bile rising, but it was gone. After he told the rest of the team what had happened with Filch, they had convinced him to go to Snape. Reluctantly, Harry had told the whole story to Snape. The upshot of it was that the Weasley's lost one hundred points for Gryffindor, and each had a month's worth of detentions, with Snape.
The downside was that Filch was furious about how Harry had so 'disrespected' him, that he would not let Harry off his detention, even at Snape's insistence.
Snape had been furious about it but told Harry he would have to do the detention. "The man has his rights as a member of staff to assign detention. He should not have that right, but he does"
"Can't something be done about that?"
"The headmaster believes very strongly that if people are shown respect, they function better and work harder. He will not strip the caretaker of rights he believes the fool should have"
' It always comes back to Dumbledore being stupid'
So Harry had done the detention. The actual work wasn't so bad, although his wrists and fingers were extremely sore by the time Filch judged he had finished polishing, at around midnight. It was just much more a humiliating experience, being forced to work like a house-elf, as punishment for something that wasn't really his fault. It also left him quite exhausted the next day.
He had sat down with the rest of the team, and begun planning their revenge on the Weasley's. They decided to wait till after Christmas break, because-
"By then, they'll think we forgot about. Think we just decided that we were even after all their detentions and points. But we won't have forgotten, will we?" Miles said, in a low voice.
The team, seated in armchairs around the fireplace in their common room nodded or muttered "no". Marcus just sat hunched over, with a murderous expression on his face. Usually being the Quidditch captain was a glamorous position, which gave the one holding it a place of respect within the house. At the moment, however, the team as a whole was being studiously avoided by their housemates. Even after having showered three times at least by that point, the smell remained.
Time marched onwards, and before they knew it, it was Halloween. Once again, the Castle had been festooned with "spooky" decorations, and once again they were walking down to the Great Hall for an incredible holiday feast.
"Think there'll be a troll this year?" Blaise asked nonchalantly. It took Harry a few seconds to remember what the hell he was talking about.
"Na. My money's on a vampire. Fits more into the theme of the time you know?"
The joke fell flat. It seemed they didn't really know. Harry had forgotten how much of things like Halloween he had picked up from the muggle world.
Like the previous year, the Great Hall was richly decorated for the season. The skeletons were singing, the pumpkins floating with candles within. Bats flying around. Harry noticed more spiders crawling around than he had the previous year. ' In fact, I don't think there were any spiders last year'
Unlike the previous year though, the feast was not interrupted by news of a rampaging troll. There was no vampire either. There was delicious pumpkin soup, succulent roast beef and boiled chicken, and a whole host of dessert.
There was also the sounds of a piano, seeming to emanate from the very walls, to which the skeletons sang along. They sang hauntingly, but it was difficult to make out the words. At one point, Harry thought they were saying something about killing and blood, but he dismissed it when no one else had heard that.
Shortly afterward, they were leaving the hall, with full stomachs and heavy heads. The press of students meant that the one, usual shortcut to the Slytherin dungeons was impossible to take, and so the Slytherins went with everyone else.
' First, we go up some steps, then we go down more' Harry thought drowsily to himself. He was shocked out of reverie by a startled shriek.
There was a cat hanging on the wall, outside of the bathroom.
It was Mrs. Norris. The lamplight reflected in the puddle below her, casting strange shadows up onto her stiff body.
Below her, was written this enigmatic message:
" THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED, ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE"
"Enemies of the heir beware" Harry looked over to Draco, who was shouting out into the hushed silence. He had a flushed look on his face and was staring right at the Weasley twins as he spoke. "You'll be next, mudbloods and traitors"