Survivor

Watching the quaffle he threw as it spun through the air and went right through the center of the left hoop, practice officially ended. As with most of his bi-weekly practices, he felt that it went well. With nothing much on the line besides learning and improving his skills, there wasn’t that “do or die” pressure or the feeling of freedom he got from overcoming a challenge like there was during tryouts, but he loved flying either way. 

He flew to the ground and dismounted his new broom while Flint activated the runes on the ball case and summoned the different practice balls back to their designated positions. His team created a circle around the case and relaxed in different positions. Some of them sat against the ground, others knelt or remained standing, and Harry, along with a few others, decided to lean against their gently hovering brooms. 

What was the point of carrying around a floating stick if he wasn’t going to use it?

With the case closed and locked, Flint stood up and addressed the team. He seemed quite confident about their ability to win their first match of the season. As it turned out, Slytherin had the first game of the season in general, and it was against Hufflepuff. As the date of their game approached, Harry could literally see the castle get more lively and intense.

“Okay, team,” Flint said to them all. “I think our chances are good. Hufflepuff is strong, but they aren’t us. The game is at the end of the week, but this is the last practice we will be having. Don’t overexert yourself in any capacity between now and then unless you want to regret it come game time. No fights, no duels, and no strenuous flying.”

Harry had to chuckle at the various groans from their different members. Unsurprisingly, the people who liked to play quidditch were also the type of people who enjoyed doing intense and possibly injury-inducing activities. Harry thought that he would have problems with such a command once he got to his third year and became eligible for the dueling club too. 

“Keep in mind the strategies we're using for the match,” their captain continued. “Anthony Rickett is a menace with a bludger. He’s accurate, and the amount of power he can put on his hits with those beater runes can be very scary. Remember what I told you about his style. He doesn’t hit to break up formations, but to target individuals. Potter, he will probably be gunning for you specifically once he realizes that you're the cornerstone of our passing game. 

“We practiced evasive positioning, and our beaters can handle a lot of the pressure, but the thing everyone here has to remember is that we can’t let Rickett put us on our back foot. He’s scary if we remain aggressive, but he’s absolutely demonic if we let their offense gain momentum because Malcolm Preece is probably the most aggressive chaser in the school right now. If we keep them on defense, we have this match down pat. If they manage to get attacks in, then our victory is questionable.”

With that said, everyone was dismissed, and Harry began walking to the castle. Most of the guys went to the showers next to the stadium, but Harry personally preferred to use his private shower back at the dorms. With exactly that destination in mind, he was walking back to the common room with Natalie, and it was about halfway through their walk that she gave him a warning.

“Marcus probably didn’t say anything because it's common knowledge for most students, but just make sure you watch yourself until the match.”

Harry was very confused, and his expression made it clear, “Why would I need to watch myself?”

“... It isn’t that serious, but things get a little intense around quidditch time. Has anyone actually explained to you how quidditch works with the house point system?” she stopped until she got a shrug and continued patiently. “You were told about how both in-class performance and out-of-class behavior can affect house points, but you’re a first-year, so nobody thought to tell you about how athletics and extracurricular activities affect the house points because first-years didn't participate in them before you and Longbottom made the quidditch teams.”

“I wasn’t made aware, no,” Harry told her with disappointment written all over his face.

Seriously, they should’ve been made aware even if it wasn’t going to matter until later.

“Well, clubs like the chess club, sports like dueling and quidditch, and extracurricular activities like after-school herbology or runes competitions all have the potential to give points through performance just like school does. All of them are a little different, but quidditch awards house points based on wins and the quidditch cup. Every game we win earns our house 40 points, and the two teams with the highest win-loss ratios play for the house cup. If we win that, we get an extra bonus of 100 points on top of our wins.”

Harry’s eyes shot wide, and he realized exactly what he was being told. They played every team three times, which meant 360 house points could be won in total with an extra 100 on the top. Even with his outstanding performance in Transfiguration, Harry had only gained about 30 points in all over nearly three months of classes. Quidditch could easily gain just as much as his stellar performance in class, and that was if the team in question was only decent. A really good team like Slytherin’s last year could outperform his current collection of house points many times over. 

“But how is that fair? A good quidditch team makes the points I gained in class almost irrelevant.”

Natalie gave that same ringing laugh she always used upon hearing his complaint, “You’re only a first-year, Harry. Of course, your contributions in class aren’t going to outclass an entire quidditch team! Once you progress further in school and start getting into more advanced subjects, you’ll get your chance to earn serious points academically. The point is, Harry, that we are about to play a game for forty house points this week. We are already in the lead, partially thanks to your academic ability. Don’t forget what all of these points are really for.”

Of course…

The winner of the house cup got twenty extra credit points to split between their final exams. Professor Snape wasn’t lying at all when he said that all aspects of a student’s life would be intimately intertwined. His performance in a school sport had the potential to significantly improve his academic standing. Coming from a muggle school where these things were kept separate with a passion, this was an odd but invigorating change. Quidditch wasn’t just a hobby anymore; it was a way to make his grades better as well. 

…and when grades were on the line and a certain person was contributing a lot to the cause.

They became a target.

Harry gave a simple nod to his older friend and split from her to go to his shower. Inwardly, though, he was shocked to find how pleased he was at that information. He felt as though he was the king of the hill, and everyone in the school wanted to knock him off. That appealed greatly to the beast as well. It relished the challenge and felt good about its envied position.

“Be careful, Harry. You wouldn’t want to take pride in your superiority, would you?” the stranger smugly whispered in his ear.

It was a rather new development for him, but ever since he broke out of the Great Hall, defied the wills of his superiors, and met Gemma Farley, he had begun to see things in a slightly different light. He still disagreed with the stranger, but he also started to see the difference between being ostracized and being envied. Being different in muggle school meant being a freak, being isolated. Here, however, his differences made him special and useful. People didn’t scorn him or want him to leave; they wanted him close where he could use his talents in their favor. 

“We shall see,” the stranger told him. “Betrayal is so much worse than overt aggression. Eventually, you will realize that ascending above the fickle people you wish to appease is preferable to gaining their worthless approval.”

As always, Harry ignored the stranger’s warped and twisted advice when it came to his own desires. Just because they were partners now didn’t mean he had to respect all of the things the stranger said. For once, he was finally fitting in. Among the Slytherins, he was actually fairly popular! He was the top scorer for his year, and people gave him respect and courtesy the likes of which he would have never imagined just a year ago. 

Eventually finishing his shower, Harry got dressed in his usual Slytherin robes and left the bathroom to find Daphne sitting on the couch facing the fire. It was a Monday, so most students would inevitably be hoarding desks at the library to either start their homework for the week or rush to finish the homework they were assigned last week to be turned in on their first class of the week. For normal people who weren’t school freaks or stupidly lazy, that meant Sundays and Mondays were generally accompanied by a barren common room. 

Plopping onto the couch next to his blonde friend, he pulled out a little book on charms he found in the library a few days ago. He was dismayed to discover that such a thing as an unlocking charm existed. Of course, magic could accomplish pretty much anything a wizard could come up with so long as they used enough expressions of intent and had the creativity to make a spell that could actually work without using so much energy it became dangerous. That was the entire reason spell books existed. People made processes that combined certain expressions with certain intents that created specific results that were both optimized and consistent. 

No, Harry wasn’t surprised that unlocking stuff was possible with magic; he was shocked to find that someone optimized such a spell and advertised it to school children. Anyone third-year or above was taught a lesson on how to unlock any door they wanted. Obviously, that meant Harry was almost obliged to find a way around that. He felt vulnerable and threatened that such a large portion of the school could reach him anywhere he went. 

Unfortunately, that brought him into an entirely new realm of magic in which he had zero expertise: counter-spells. It made sense on an intuitive level that magical effects could be countered by one’s own magic, but the rules were complicated and intricate. Like all magic, counter-spells were all based around an exchange of power. If someone wished for an effect to stop, then all they had to do was direct enough magical power of opposite intent toward the affected object.

Case in point: If someone wished to unlock a door he magically locked, they would need to put more power into unlocking the door than he put in to lock it. 

It was such a simple concept, but it expanded into an entire field’s worth of strategy. For example, the levitation charm was taught to him with two expressions of intent. He had to say the incantation, and he had to swish his wand before flicking it in rhythm with the words. Those two expressions managed to make the charm one that was easy to cast, especially for very light or very tiny objects. If he removed the wand movements, he then only had one expression, and it would cost more. 

Assuming that a counter-spell was cast with the same amount of expressions as the original spell, then the power ratio was 1:1. The potential unlocker of his doors would need to put in exactly as much as himself. The problem was in the expressions themselves. Much like casting a spell was made easier by using more expressions, countering a spell was made easier by knowing the expressions used by the original caster.

That completely fucked his entire plan because, apparently, everyone knew about the colloportus locking charm. If they encountered his magically locked door, they would probably suspect that charm first, and casting the unlocking charm with the intent to counter a locking charm performed with the incantation “ colloportus” would allow them to break his spell with much less power than he put into it. If they were also knowledgeable about the wand movements used in it, then the power required to break his spell would be negligible compared to the power he would need to put into it. 

“That’s very true, Harry,” the stranger told him. “If only you weren’t thinking so two-dimensionally.”

Two-dimensionally? What the hell did that mean? The only thing he could possibly think to do would be to create his own locking charm, find a more obscure one, or add more expressions to the colloportus charm until it became a natural part of his casting ritual and aided in the ease of his casting. 

“Did you forget the properly locked door we encountered before?”

Of course, there was that door blocking their entrance to the third-floor room. It was apparently so strong that not even the stranger could properly deal with it. That meant almost nothing to him though. He didn’t even know what “sacrifices” were in terms of casting magic.

“A sacrifice,” the stranger said with a grin. “Is exactly as it sounds. You sacrifice something of value in exchange for a more powerful cast. The door we encountered was made with runes, not charms. The basic methodology, though, is the same. Albus Dumbledore made a password for his locking rune. Figuring out this password opens the door with no magical power required and ignores all of the security features he added to it. That is a glaring flaw in his spell-work, but sacrificing that efficiency made the door’s locking and fortifying runes immensely powerful. Getting through without the password was made impossible without a massive amount of effort, study, and power.”

As with every time the stranger told him something about magic, it was as if he had been introduced to an entirely new world. This was yet another aspect of spellcasting that he had been completely ignorant of. How did these sacrifices work? Did it work for all magic? What counted as a sacrifice? Was it objective?

“Of course, it isn’t objective, Potter!” the stranger sneered. “The sacrifice is traded based on how valuable it is to the caster. What one finds valuable may be worthless to another. What matters is how much it means to you. You can sacrifice practically anything so long as you deem it important enough to gain magical power from it. In the case of our locked door, the fact that a password exists is evidently a fairly large sacrifice for their spell-work.”

Harry’s horizons were just broadened almost infinitely. It made so much sense that it hurt. If a person’s knowledge of his expressions made the power ratio tilt in their favor, then he simply had to sacrifice something with enough value to even the playing field or even tip things back into his favor. 

“that would certainly work, but there is so much more you could be doing,” the stranger drawled with no small amount of disappointment. “Don’t just be okay with sacrificing things to even the playing field. If your sacrifices are so easily given, they are obviously not that important to you, and they will give you weaker returns because of it. Think broader; think harder. Don’t just cast one spell if it is so easily broken. 

“Look through the library. I’m sure there are tons of security spells in there. Find the ones you like and cast multiple spells on the things you want to protect. A sacrifice may not even be necessary if you can combine enough creative spells together. I personally know of a spell that gives off an electric shock if a person touches the item I put the charm on. It doesn’t matter if they can unlock my door when touching the handle incapacitates them. 

Get a book on runes too. Casting spells on objects are good in the short term, but magic leaks from objects over time. If you want your protections to last for any legitimate amount of time, then you have to put your magic into a rune instead of into the object itself.”

Daphne cleared her throat next to him, and it knocked him out of his pondering. That was honestly a good thing because his head was starting to hurt. There was so much that went into shit like this, and he didn’t even know about the subject at all until he stumbled across an unlocking charm that happened to bother him. It was like chess if the game was given steroids and cursed by a Dark Wizard. He would have to dedicate a long time to become even slightly proficient in the field, so he would put it aside for a day or two and then begin in earnest. 

Looking over to his friend, he noticed her staring at him oddly. He hadn’t realized how he might’ve looked to the outside world when the stranger demolished his entire understanding of magic. Giving her a small shrug, he saw her huff just a little before going back to whatever she was doing. 

Daphne, as it turned out, was quite cross with him for leaving like he did. She lied for him, and she made sure all of Natalie’s friends lied for him too, but she was still being moody around him. As he understood it, she wasn’t angry that he left to do whatever he did; she was angry that he left without notifying her. She didn’t even care about what he left to do. It made him feel like a bit of an arse for worrying her when she so clearly cared only about his safety in this situation instead of his rule-breaking, but it was a spontaneous decision.

“I’m going to lunch. If you’re coming, I suggest you put your book away and follow.”

Harry sighed to himself and gave her retreating back the most exaggerated eye-roll he could create. It seemed he would have to endure her attitude for a little longer. Slipping his book into the left pocket of his school robe, he stood up and began his trek to the Great Hall. 

When they arrived at the Great Hall, it was to find an only scarcely filled room. That was expected, and it was one of the reasons he enjoyed lunch more than breakfast or dinner. The meals at the beginning and end of the day were communal affairs. There was as set time for them, and students either showed up or didn’t. 

Lunch was different. As many students in differing years had classes at varying times, projects to work on (sometimes all the way out in the greenhouses or near the outskirts of the forest), studying to do, and extra-curricular activities to practice, lunch was instead given a time-span of about five hours in the middle of the day. Students would come and go as they pleased, and the school elves would make sure that food would be there for the kids when they arrived. 

Harry took his seat in the usual spot. There were a few upper-year Slytherins around, but he knew none of them either way, his tentative, secretive camaraderie with Gemma aside. A few Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors were grouped together at their own tables, and about a quarter of the Ravenclaw table was present as well. He supposed that there was either a club meeting or some sort of intentional matching of schedules involved for so many of them to be present at the same time during lunch. 

It was of no concern; Harry usually ate lunch with his friends too if they were available. What was of concern would be the way everyone’s eyes slowly found him as he gathered food onto his plate. They were subtly watching him; Harry could tell. Slytherin was already up in house points, and this game had the potential to push their lead even further.

Hufflepuff was their opponent, but it was Ravenclaw who was closest to Slytherin’s spot at the top of the point game. They knew this game might end up pushing them behind, and he already knew how much Ravenclaws probably hated the fact that sports could affect their grades. The stares of the intellects of the school bored into his skin, and he relished the attention as he pulled out his book to begin reading more about counter-spells. 

They were afraid of what he could do to the point system, wary of his ability to compete.

He sat comfortably and unworried through their hardly veiled stares, and even his still-silent friend stood by him through it. He couldn’t help but feel strong and important as he finished his meal. Once he was done, he put his book away and gave Daphne a look.

“I’m going to the dungeons to get a few books on runes I bought while school shopping. If you would like to come with me, I plan to go to the Great Lake afterward to read them outside before it gets too cold.”

The girl shrugged before standing up and following him away from the table. They walked down the halls to the staircase that would lead them down to the dungeons. Daphne began to lag behind them in order for the two of them to descend the staircase without taking up too much space. He was rather excited to go down to the lake. The weather was beginning to cool to a point where it didn’t feel nasty to remain outside for long periods of time, and he estimated that he had a mere few weeks before things got a little too cold to remain outside for long periods of time without suffocating himself in his winter clothing. 

“Threat!”

Harry almost jumped out of his shoes when his wand vibrated violently inside of his pocket, and his pupils elongated as he swiftly examined his surroundings. 

Was it Quirrel? Dumbledore? Did someone discover his snooping and come to end his interference in their game?

He saw no one around him, but that was when his left foot found purchase on the stone floor right before the staircase made its descent into the dungeons. A flash of blue light beneath his shoe made his eyes go wide, and his foot was unceremoniously yanked from under him.

“Harry!” came the voice of a panicked female from behind him before he was greeted to the feeling of getting bodily tossed by his left ankle.

Fur sprouted from Harry’s body, and his bones began to thicken and elongate in order to facilitate his change. It wasn’t even a conscious decision on his part. The beast was about to come out and take the impact, but his change was viciously interrupted by his furred back smacking against the stone stairs about halfway down the set of them.

Blinding pain tore through his body even as darkness overtook his vision. Consciousness left him mere seconds later, and his limp body tumbled and flopped down the remaining steps until he rolled across the floor of the dungeon hallway. 

A pained, hoarse groan accompanied his return to the waking world. His vision was swimming, and his entire body ached, especially his head. His weak noise was followed by the muffled stumbling of multiple people, and his eventually focused vision allowed him to see a multitude of Slytherins surrounding him.

“What the fuck happened?” he asked as his hand lifted to cradle the side of his pounding head.

“That, Harry,” the stranger said with a hint of annoyance and anger coloring his voice. “Was a rune.”

“You stepped on a rune,” a male in the room calmly told him. “Then you had a nasty fall.”

Harry gave the comment a laugh, “Yeah, down a flight of stairs. I remember now.”

So that was a rune? 

He guessed it made sense. His wand would have certainly responded to a spell if it was shot at him as he originally suspected. It seemed that this was a weakness of his wand’s supposed omniscience. Its reactions were instinctive, fast, and simple. It most likely couldn’t dispel something like a rune, so all it could do was warn him of the possible danger. 

Hence, of course, he got chucked down a bloody staircase. He should’ve read those books on runes weeks ago. Who would even take the time to draw such a thing on the stone flooring? Was that actually Quirrel?

“No,” the stranger scoffed. “If he wanted you dead, there would be much better ways than throwing you down the stairs with a rune. Notice that you are still alive despite your fall.”

“Did they find out who drew the damn thing?” he asked the male voice.

“No,” the boy said with a sneer. “Not like it takes a genius though. Everyone knows it was the ravens. The cowards probably wanted to knock out the first-year wildcard in case you turned out to be as good as you are.”

“We don’t know that, Flint,” corrected a feminine voice. “It could’ve been a claw, but all three of the other houses lose if we earn the forty points that come with a win. It could be Hufflepuff for all we know. They're the ones with something to gain if we can't compete.”

It was a kid?

Harry almost wanted to laugh at the very thought of it. He was worried about schemes involving the overarching plot going on around Hogwarts only to be defeated by the petty squabbling of children fighting over extra credit on their final exams. Of course, that would be what got him.

Would he never be free of arrogant, malicious adolescents? 

He could still remember how it felt to get shoved around by Dudley and his worthless, trashy friends. Now, here he was, laying in a hospital bed as the tradition continued. Unacceptable, every part of it.

Never again, was what he'd said when he arrived at Hogwarts, and he fucking meant it. 

Oh, God, what about Jason!?  

His hands frantically patted at his robes only to find out that he had a very agitated snake sitting underneath his clothing. It popped its head out of the top of his collar to stare at him, and it gave a very loud hiss to top it off.

“Holy shit!” exclaimed two voices from his left and right respectively. 

“I did not enjoy that, Harry,” was all that Jason had to say.

Ignoring his companion for the sake of saving face in front of everyone standing around him, Harry answered the stares, “This is my familiar, Jason. Don’t worry; Professor Snape already gave me his approval.”

He saw the startled looks of everyone around him begin to fade, all but the slightly betrayed face of Daphne Greengrass sitting right beside him. Of course, she would be here to look after him when he'd fallen down the stairs on her watch. He wasn’t exactly sure why his secretiveness about his familiar would offend her, but it still hurt that it did. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to show her Jason; he just wasn't ready to see the look she'd give him when she inevitably found out about his ability to speak with serpents. It seemed that his waiting had actually backfired on him. He was going to have to tell her much sooner than he'd hoped.

“Attachments are weaknesses. Don't tell her about your abilities if revealing your secrets serves no purpose.”

Shoving away the stranger’s particular brand of useless advice when it came to actually getting along with other people, he stayed in the moment and weathered the stares until Pomfrey bustled over and made everyone back away a bit.

“Once again, Mr. Potter, I find you in my care. Does your misfortune know no bounds?”

Harry chuckled as he gave Jason a look that told the snake what he wanted. “I ask myself that all the time, Madam Pomfrey. Can you check up on Jason? He was in my robes when I got thrown.”

“Of course, of course, let me see him!” the woman kindly exclaimed, and Jason slithered from inside of his robes to coil on top of him. A few diagnostic spells later and a wave of her wand, she was ready to give him the news. “Your snake suffered no serious damage from the fall. He was slightly bruised - nothing I couldn’t take care of.” Harry nodded with a relieved expression until the woman cut off his relaxation with a sharp stare. “You, on the other hand, are a different story. Three broken bones, a bad wrist sprain, and a severe concussion. Even after my spellwork, it doesn’t look pretty. Luckily, I don’t need your guardian here to give permission for the potions necessary to fix you in this case, but that doesn’t make your condition any less serious.”

His eyes trailed over to his blonde friend, and she looked absolutely furious. “If I find out who did this, they will pay.”

“I daresay, Miss Greengrass, that you'll have to get behind Professor Snape in such a case,” Madam Pomfrey informed the girl. “He was livid when I gave him the diagnostic report.”

Harry felt something flutter inside of him. That was right; despite the similarities, this wasn't his muggle school. Vengeance would be his eventually, but the bastards who did this weren’t going to simply walk away like Dudley did. There were adults here who actually cared about upholding the rules and keeping students safe. Yes, he was attacked, but he was no longer going to be left hanging like he used to be.

“Will I be able to play in the game?”

“Play in the game!? Did you not just listen to the list of injuries I gave you, child!?"

A hard stare was his only response, and he found himself facing down against both his nurse and his best friend at the same time. The Slytherin team supported him and his desires, but even the combined might of his entire quidditch team was barely holding up before the ire of two very determined witches. 

"When the time to play comes," Harry asked again. "Will I meet the requirements to be cleared for the game?"

Madam Pomfrey looked, for all the world, like she wanted to tell him no, but she was a medical professional, and her personal wants wouldn't be able to sway her diagnosis. "Yes… if you rest for the week and follow your potion schedule to the tee, you may be able to pass the minimum requirements necessary to play in the game."

"You can't play in that game!" Daphne told him dangerously. "This is stupidity, Potter. You were hurt; you could've gotten off even worse. Cut your losses and win in the next three games, but don't throw everything away to play while you're injured."

Some of the team looked hesitant; Harry could see it in their eyes. They knew she spoke sense, and some of them were seeing the light. The only one who mattered at this point though, Flint, was looking only at him. The captain could keep him on the bench for nothing more than the fact that he didn't want Harry to play. Unlike Madam Pomfrey, Flint had no professional limitations or requirements when it came to clearing him for play. 

"You don't understand, Daphne." Refusing to elaborate further, he Looked at his captain. "If I get cleared by Madam Pomfrey, I want to play."

Flint stared at him with eyes that couldn't be an ounce more serious. "Are you absolutely sure?"

When Harry gave a nod, the captain's decision was silently made, and he left the room. The rest of the team sans Natalie and Terence followed close behind. The two who stayed were the closest members of his team to him, and Daphne looked practically ready to have a fit. Once Madam Pomfrey left with a huff too, the girl let her anger out.

"I cannot believe Flint is letting you play! Did you hit your head so hard that you lost your brain!?"

"Leave him be, Greengrass," was the snappy reply of a surprisingly defensive Natalie. "If he thinks he can play, then you need to respect his decision."

The blonde girl more than stood her ground. "I would respect his decision if he wasn't currently laying in a hospital bed with a severe concussion!"

"Enough," Harry commanded with quiet but firm finality. "If I'm not cleared for the game by Friday, then so be it, but I will be playing if Pomfrey tells me I can."

Harry saw how aggravated Daphne was, but he meant what he'd said. This was about so much more than the forty points he could gain by winning or even about spiting the bastards that tried to knock him out of the game. This was about freedom, about standing up for himself and doing what he wanted.

Certainly, he wanted to make the students who did this to him pay, but his primary concern was making sure that no one held the power over him that Dudley used to in primary school. He wouldn't - couldn't - allow himself to be pushed around by some students in his new school. He would show everyone in the entirety of the seven years at Hogwarts exactly how unwavering and unstoppable Harry Potter was by playing this game despite his injuries and winning it along the way.

Just like that, he felt the internal click that signified the stranger's sudden and drastic change of heart. Quidditch might not've been his cup of tea, but the desire to prove himself as above the influence of others most definitely was. They were of the same mind now.

Daphne looked about on the edge of a meltdown when she turned around in a billow of blonde hair. "On your own head be it, then."

With Harry's decision to play if the nurse cleared him by Friday came yet another round of even more stringent silence from Daphne. He wasn't sure exactly what she was hoping to accomplish, but if she was attempting to make the week before the game even more stressful for him, then she was succeeding.

The stares from the rest of the school moved from envious and worried to joyous and relieved. They were keeping tabs on his condition and finding satisfaction in what they saw. All of the other three houses were secretly reveling in the thought that Slytherin would soon be falling from the top of the house point race. Forty points would be almost enough to place Hufflepuff in second, and Ravenclaw's match would come soon after. 

It angered him beyond belief, and that anger simmered within his very core and drove his will to new heights. To make it worse, light was almost unbearable. Every time the sun caught him with its blinding rays, he felt as if his head was being thrashed by a metaphorical whip. His winces and cringes during such occurrences only made Daphne more cross with him, and that, in turn, worsened his mood further. 

As the days passed, the tension only increased. Harry found himself marveling at the sheer amount of competitive drive dividing the school. He should’ve taken Natalie at her word. She wasn’t exaggerating things; she had, in fact, underplayed them. Students here were almost viciously determined to win the extra credit that came with the house cup, and that extended to how much they cared about quidditch. 

Sports were already something that was treated with reverence. The group dynamics, the “us versus them” mentality, was brutally efficient at developing loyalty to a certain team and inciting conflict because of their attachments. He remembered all of the times his uncle had broken things, sometimes broken him, after the unfortunate losses of his favorite teams. With the sports teams at Hogwarts directly aiding in their supporter’s grades, Harry was honestly surprised that he was the only one with injuries so far.

At the same time, his own house was giving him support on a level that exceeded anything he had received or witnessed before. Every ounce of animosity he had experienced due to the arrogance of his housemates was reversed with interest when it came to the unwavering surge of encouragement and silent devotion during the days before the match. He was part of their team, and his ability to play or not would directly affect their chances of a win. 

Slytherin, he found, was a dysfunctional family of the highest degree. They were competitive to the point of malevolence, hated being upstaged by even one of their own, and actively fought to push their housemates beneath themselves in order to shine brighter; but during these magical moments when all of their goals were aligned as they currently were, it was as if their den of infighting snakes and untrustworthy, backstabbing bastards transformed themselves into an ultra-efficient war machine. 

Harry was convinced that none could stand up to them if his house wasn’t constantly snapping at one another during the times when cooperation wasn’t in their best interest because their Slytherin personalities made for naturally terrifying opponents when their heads were put together, and the feeling it inspired within himself to suddenly be graced with such unanimous loyalty only bolstered the way he felt about absolutely demolishing the team that everyone else wanted to win. 

It was the three other houses vying to take down the one on top, his house, and the methods some of them used to knock him from the competition drew an ire from him that he had only ever felt when dealing with the Dursleys. The only difference was that he wasn’t kept from retaliating against these fucks. It was upon that tsunami of unquenchable fury, indomitable will, and the unquestionable support of his peers that he walked in front of Madam Pomfrey with a small limp, sore body, newly healed bones, and barely healed brain with Professor Snape standing by as his Head of House and his team at his back.

Madam Pomfrey performed her diagnostic spells and sighed with immeasurable reluctance. She didn’t know how he managed to do it, but Harry Potter was healed just enough to get her official checkmark. Be it by accidental magic or something else, the boy’s concussion had been completely fixed while his body remained almost as injured as it was when she healed him after the incident. She'd lied to him when she originally told him that recovery was possible so quickly. She had wanted to inspire him to stick to his potion schedule, but it seemed as though his magic had other plans.

His body might not have been totally healed, but it was most definitely healed enough to let him play if he wished, and his concussion was no longer present to hold him back. She considered lying anyway to keep him off of the field, but lying on the medical papers she was going to have to fill out post haste was impossible to do with the intent to lie nestled within her mind. Resigned to the stupidity of children, she gave nothing but the nod of her head before walking back to her office in order to give her official go ahead on paper.

Upon her nod, Severus Snape watched his Slytherin team cheer, and he watched a smile grow on Potter’s face that sent chills down his spine. That smile held behind it the kind of cold, calculated rage and promises of vengeance that could only be produced by a very particular type of person. Particular people like the Tom Riddle he saw while delving through the Dark Lord’s past with Albus. It was contagious like a plague and intoxicating due to its surety and strength. Even now, he could see how the child's pure and intense desire to win and his sheer confidence was subtly affecting the rest of his team.

As innocent and childish as it may have seemed when directed toward something like a quidditch match, Severus knew what it might look like as it evolved, and he suddenly found it not quite so insane that the headmaster would be wary of the boy. He was young now, but he could feel the potential and power coiling within the child, and, knowing what he knew about how Tom Riddle turned out, he was rightfully scared of it as well.

The students watched as the snakes left the hospital wing disheartened and defeated, not noticing the sinister, simmering smoke of quiet confidence and promised retribution hovering around the team. They smiled and snickered to their friends, celebrating their approaching victory. The snakes stood so proudly and dominated the field for the past few years. Their team was always so strong, and it was so very difficult to knock the Slytherin bastards off of their podium and claim the points that almost always went to them as of late with a quidditch team like that.

That was when they were arrogant enough to choose a little, ignorant firsty. Oh, surely, most of them would never have the bollocks to actually hurt the kid, but that didn’t mean they would complain when someone did. He stumbled into something beyond him, something only the boy-who-lived accomplished in the last hundred years or so, and with his injury came the almost sure loss of the Slytherin team.

The snakes were wounded and vulnerable now. They could, perhaps, bring in a replacement for poor Potter, but who would they choose? Who could take the mantle? 

Adrian Pucey? HA!

If Potter made it, he was the best they had, and the second best would surely be the starter from last year, but he was old and predictable. They didn’t train with the old starter, and that meant all of their plans were down the drain. Every other team spent their time solidifying plays and developing their teams while Slytherin wasted all of it attempting to fit in a player who was now unable to play. Pucey would come in, and the only thing they had would be a clunky team with no practice, no new plays, and only the stuff everyone else had already seen to work with.

Slytherin would lose, and that would be the beginning of the snake’s downfall from the top. The rest of the teams would gain more points while the firsty recovered. Perhaps he would be in the next game, but momentum would be on their side. They feasted on the joy of gaining a free head start, and they all inwardly cheered for the crippling of Slytherin’s team. 

Rumors traveled the halls of a strong Hufflepuff line-up too. They had a new seeker, Cedric Diggory, and he was said to be good, very good. The night passed with giddy students resting in their bed and a confident team of Hufflepuffs gathering their strength for a win. The sun rose to a school full of vindictive children. The Hufflepuffs gathered together to show their support, but they were hardly alone. Even the Ravenclaws joined in on the fun, painting their faces with the black and yellow colors of Hufflepuff house, and the Gryffindors jeered at a sullen and downtrodden Slytherin house. 

Even the snakes thought they would lose.

The Weasley twins, in particular, went even further by losing their shirts to don a matching pair of badgers that danced and ran across the twin’s chests together in a swirling mass of charmed body paint. As breakfast came to an end, the time to head to the stands came. The quidditch teams were already long gone. It was customary for the players to eat breakfast as a team in the common room before heading down to the field, so it was the spectators alone who filtered out of the castle and down to the pitch.

They climbed into the stands with their flags, pom-poms, and bullhorns. They shouted among each other in a storm of exuberance and excitement. The time ticked down minute by minute until, finally, it was time.

They sat with their veiled smiles and smirks as the student commentator called the names of the Hufflepuff team.

“For the Hufflepuffs!” the announcer, Lee Jordan, shouted. “We have the captain, Sarah Malcovy! We have Malcolm Preece and Jonathan Trenski, Hufflepuff’s two chasers! The two beaters, Anthony Rickett and Violet Manson! The keeper, Herbert Fleet!” 

One after the other, students in canary yellow and midnight black quidditch robes zipped into the air from underneath the stands in order to float around the starting area. The more popular players from the previous year even did a lap around the field to thunderous applause. As the team settled into position, the stands bubbled with anticipation.

“And, starting this year as the Hufflepuff’s seeker, Cedric Diggory!”

The crowd exploded. It was new blood, and he would be the one to hammer in the final nail of the Slytherin team’s coffin. The chasers would gain enough lead, and then the new seeker would end it all with the capture of the snitch. The young man, fit, lean, and determined, flew into his spot above the rest of his team.

“Now!” Jordan shouted to the stands. “We have the much anticipated Slytherin team! They won the quidditch cup the last two years, but can they win it again!? We have the team captain, Marcus Flint! Their seeker, Terence Higgs! Their two beaters, Brian Lasiter and Drew Fenwick! Coming in last, we have the hornet herself, Natalie Parker, and…

"What? Wait, is this roster right, ma'am? It is!? Alright... and our final chaser on the Slytherin team today is the mysterious, the unknown, the second first-year to grace the Hogwarts pitch for over a hundred years: Harry Potter!”

A dropping pin could be heard throughout the entirety of the stands. Even the Slytherin students weren’t aware that their third chaser was cleared to play. A mere spatter of applause came from the Slytherin students who managed to snap themselves out of their surprise as a small, short boy with wild, black hair slowly flew into the air from under the stands. 

Whispered exclamations of shock and quietly transferred questions were shot between the students. 

How was he cleared?

He couldn’t be in top shape already.

Didn’t he have a concussion?

Look at his arm though. It still seems kind of busted.

All reasonable questions and astute observations. Harry’s arm was busted, and the stranger told him it would be. For a magical, healing was all about where the magic was concentrated. Potions were their own thing, but there was a reason wizards and witches healed faster than muggles, and it was because their own magic aided in their recovery. For a wizard with enough skill, it wasn’t so difficult to channel that magic consciously instead of letting it roam free. 

That, of course, meant some injuries were left to heal at the muggle speed, but it also meant that more serious injuries could be prioritized. Yes, Harry’s left arm and wrist were healed, but they were also in a fragile, delicate state. It was the same with his right leg. A day or two of recovery after the potions would return it to peak condition, but he had to use that time on his head if he wanted to play. Still, he absolutely refused to let that stop him. 

Hovering over to the chasers of his team, Harry let them whisper about him and only let their words of doubt egg him on further. They still thought that his injuries would stop him, that he wouldn’t be good enough to truly sway the game back in Slytherin’s favor. He would show them; it was only a matter of time.

It was a mostly silent arena that hosted the two hovering teams as Flint and Malcovy floated toward the middle of the circle and grasped each other's hands. The quidditch start was particularly unique to Harry in comparison to the sports he knew of, but he could appreciate the complexity. There was a circle in the middle of the stadium, and the teams had to start around it. The chasers were confined to the circle, kept equidistant from the center, where the balls would be released. So long as they stayed on the circle, though, they could go where they wanted. 

Usually, this resulted in the right forward and the left forward sitting closest to the right and left side of the circle with the middle forward hovering right between the center of the circle and the goal. The center forward was customarily meant to retrieve the quaffle upon release while the two side forwards either flew upfield to receive a pass or backward to defend. 

The two beaters were allowed to be anywhere outside of the circle so long as they started on their side of the field. The bludgers, however, were released at the same time and position as the quaffle, so their distance from the center would directly affect how quickly they could get to their ammunition. Watching them, according to Flint, was a good way to discern how aggressively they planned to start the game. A closer beater was indicative of a more aggressive start. 

Of course, Rickett was right behind Malcom Preece, so they were going to go hard and fast at the beginning. In comparison, Harry’s beaters were a bit closer to quarter-field, a more neutral start. The seekers were allowed to start anywhere on their side of the field, but they were forced to start above the chaser’s max height. Their positioning could mean lots of things, but Harry assumed that Diggory’s position hovering right above where the ball would be released was meant to signify further aggression.

The seekers were high enough that competing directly for the starting ball was basically impossible, but Diggory sitting right at midfield meant that he could receive a lightning fast pass from the forward if they won the “kickoff”. The keepers were, of course, confined to the hoops, forced to start the game behind the line that signified the chaser’s required shooting distance. 

Harry was hovering almost exactly across the circle from the center forward, Preece, and Harry could almost feel the hostility from the other boy. He was raring to go, and he was going to go fast. As the center forward for his team, Harry would usually be expected to compete for the ball. Considering he was injured, that was a poor decision on the captain’s part.

Fortunately, that was where the complexity came from. The center forward might’ve been the traditional start, but everyone was equidistant from the starting toss, and Harry wasn’t planning on competing for the first toss at all. He was center forward for the purpose of being right in between all of the players because that meant it would be him who would hold together the passing plays and keep the offense connected. Getting to the ball first wasn't a priority, not for him. 

Madam Hooch stood at the center of the field, looking up at the waiting teams, “I want a clean match! Excessive roughness will not be tolerated.”

Flint and the Hufflepuff captain split from the center of the circle, and Harry’s captain took his place as the right forward. Harry sat with deadly stillness as Hooch crouched next to the game case and unclasped the lid. Opening it, she released the first ball.

The golden snitch fluttered from its container and zipped around for a moment before dashing straight into the air, through the center of the circle, and into the sky above them. It was going to remain hidden for quite a bit longer if statistics were to be believed. 

“Three!” Hooch shouted as Preece tightened his grip on the front of his broom. 

“Two!” She said, and Harry closed his eyes to take a calm, deep breath. 

“One!” 

The metal bars containing the balls burst open, and all three of them flew into the air. A bludger was on either side of the quaffle, facing each team respectively. As the balls approached the very apex of their ascent, the bludgers took off toward opposite sides of the field, temporarily avoiding the chasers until the game started. Harry’s startlingly green eyes reopened and latched onto the quaffle as the ball’s ascension stopped right at everyone’s head level, and the very air exploded with the force of multiple brooms taking off.

Malcolm shot from his spot on the circle, and he was at the ball in an instant. He was absolutely floored that Potter didn’t even attempt to seize the ball. Was this really the kid that Flint brought onto his team? 

He expected more. 

His fingers were a hair’s breadth away from wrapping around one of the ridges between the indents on the ball when a small feminine hand just barely got between his own skin and the surface of the quaffle. Malcolm’s wide eyes shifted to his right to see the outstretched form of Natalie Parker, and a scowl barely managed to form on his face as the girl swatted the ball away from him and his team.

Her form blurred away from him even as he dashed through the spot where the ball used to be. The pitch was overcome by a chaotic mess of movement. The beginning of quidditch games were always like this. With possession so sloppily won and everyone so closely packed together, intelligently designed offensive attacks were hard to establish, and his aggressive style of play only exacerbated the situation. 

Dashing at Flint, Malcolm utilized the Slytherin’s hasty acclamation of the quaffle to his advantage. Flint was just able to toss the ball up to Higgs, the Slytherin seeker, and Diggory was still fresh enough at the game to not read the pass. Higgs caught the ball, but he wasn’t able to get more than a few meters away before Anthony managed to cut him off with the bludger that flew over to their side of the field.

Malcolm smirked and stuck himself to Flint like glue. Higgs was forced to a stop by the bludger only a second into his three second time limit with the quaffle. He wasn’t going to get to do anything else unless he wanted a penalty, so he was going to have to pass from a standstill. With Flint covered, Higgs chucked it to Parker. She was, of course, more than fast enough to stay ahead of her trailing mark. 

She caught the ball with one hand and tucked it against her side. Malcolm knew what she was going to try to do; she was predictable, but she was also good enough at her niche that it didn’t much matter whether or not he knew her plans. She was going to take off toward the goal, and once she was gone, few could catch her. Fortunately, Anthony was close, and beaters didn’t just go for the bludgers. They were also the defensive line.

Diving from above, Anthony grasped the broom with the same hand that he used to hold his bat and prepared to punch the ball right out of her hands. She saw the approaching beater, but it was far too late to dodge the attack. Instead of allowing it to get stolen from her hands, she tossed the ball at the ground and bolted toward the Hufflepuff hoops. 

Malcolm was… confused.

Why was she flying at his posts? Flint was right by him, and Higgs was far above the chaser’s max height. Perhaps they could've been trying for a more aggressive play with a beater, but both of them were still back. That signified the intention of retreating back to defense, but Parker was very apparently preparing to go on offense despite the fact that he himself was about to grab the ball and go in the opposite direction.

Dashing for the falling quaffle, he noticed that Flint wasn't with him either. The Slytherin captain was falling back too, which once again begged the question of why Parker was still flying toward the other end of the field.

That was when wind buffeted his shoulder like a cannon had gone off to his side. Looking to his right, he saw two predatorial eyes staring back at him. Malcolm couldn't be sure if it was a mistake of the eyes or if his mind was playing tricks on him, but the pupils of the glaring boy were vertical diamonds, and his irises were a poisonous yellow to boot. 

Malcolm felt, for all his life, that those eyes gazed into the very depths of his soul, but they were gone in a flash. The green robes of Slytherin billowed in the wind as the smallest player Malcolm had ever seen brushed past him like a phantom gliding through the air, and his mind smacked him with the force of a train the size of the Hogwarts Express.

It was Potter.

He had forgotten in the chaos of the kickoff; how had he forgotten?

When he'd rushed for the initial toss, the small, inconsequential, young chaser had faded into the background. It had been Parker who contested him, and it was Flint and Higgs who'd played the game of keep away. Everyone's participation and opposition had been steadfast and sure, everyone's except for a single chaser. Malcolm hadn't even seen the tiny bastard, hadn't registered him a single time in the short few moments they'd been playing. 

And the second the ball was left unattended, unaccounted for, he struck from the outside. 

The Comet 320.

He hadn't gotten the chance to ride it yet, but the pro players had already categorized it as a trick broom. The broom was rather niche and, ironically enough, wasn’t supposed to work well in the hands of an inexperienced rider. Its disadvantages were notable. The broom had a relatively low max speed compared to the other brooms, so low, in fact, that even a few of the brooms from the previous generation outstripped it. Where the broom shined was in acceleration and handling. 

The comet company wanted to make a broom with unparalleled bursts of movement and top notch levels of control. It sacrificed so much speed potential, but it used that extra space to create the runic schemes necessary to throw acceleration through the roof. For a few seconds at the start of its movement, just a few, the comet was faster than any broom to date. Combined with a small body that didn't need much force to move, its acceleration was pushed even further.

That was why Potter, on a broom that was technically slower than his own, was able to blow past him like it was nothing. He had probably been prowling around the edges of the play, waiting to strike as his other teammates drew all of the attention and brazenly placed themselves in his way. Malcolm's broom would soon outstrip the Potter brat's, but the space left to the ball wouldn't be enough. He should've been waiting for it in order to start his run sooner.

Malcolm pushed even more magic into his forward thrust, hoping that he might be able to catch Potter and steal the ball when he had to slow down slightly to adjust after catching it. That would be when he could strike. Watching and waiting for his moment, the Huflepuff's star chaser witnessed the first-year reach his right hand, his uninjured one, out to meet the ball. 

It was falling to his right, and he smirked as Potter twisted his arm to catch the ball backhand. It was a legitimate move, but it was going to be more awkward for the boy than if he had attempted to catch it normally. Potter placed his fingers against the surface of the ball, but Malcolm's eyes shot wide when he saw the small runes engraved upon the face of the quaffle turn blue. 

Potter wasn't trying to catch it.

He tried to push faster, but his magic was giving him increasingly insignificant returns due to the soft cap on the forward thrust rune capacity. Potter's fingers dug into the right edge of the leftmost indent in the quaffle, and he swung his hand out to the side, dragging the ball with it and flicking his wrist on the release. 

The boy had contact with the ball for less than a second, maybe less than a half, and he'd redirected it with ease. Several calculations had to be made at the same time. There was still a beater and a chaser immediately between him and the Parker girl. The ball shot far wide of the beater directly in front of him, and the chaser flew to intercept the quaffle only for the extreme amount of left spin on it to drag the ball away from him. 

The chaser reached, but it brushed just wide of his outstretched hand and sliced through the air like a bullet. 

There was just no way… a chaser so young shouldn't be that good!

Parker was still streaking through the air, but the ball was leading her position, coming in from her right due to the spin, and she caught it with a ringing laugh literally a meter in front of the Hufflepuff's backmost beater. Fading off to the right in an attempt to circumnavigate the beater in her path, she pulled back her arm and tossed to the bottom left of the rightmost ring with an ample amount of back-right spin on the ball. 

The Hufflepuff keeper was expecting her to aim far left, so he had some distance to go if he wanted to stop the shot to the right. He was so very close to the ring, but he was unable to claim it as the ball curved upward and to the right in order to careen through the very edge of the inside of the hoop. 

The stadium was almost silent.

How had that happened? Wasn't Potter injured? He'd  barely touched the ball; how did he manage to redirect it like that with so little contact?

The Hufflepuff team was supposed to win, damn it!

Flint flew up to pat Harry on the back as the Slytherin stands went wild. That play… It was so fluid that it looked borderline professional to students used to highschool play. The Hufflepuff team didn't exactly know how to respond as the quaffle floated up from the ground to fall into the hands of the keeper who couldn't catch it. Malcolm flew back to their post for a regroup, and he caught a glimpse of Potter's face as he retreated.

The savage grin on his lips was sharp enough to cut him through his padded robes. 

Malcolm felt as if his own magic was suffocating him. How was this possible? What did Potter do to him? What was that feeling clawing right through his chest? Had he somehow discovered the plan Malcolm and Anthony hatched with a few of the Ravenclaws who excelled in their house's runic competitions?

Impossible. 

There was no way he could know. Surely, he couldn't have figured it out. The way he was being cut apart right now, though, made him feel as if Potter did know it was him for sure. The Slytherin team was picking him apart with their eyes as he turned around at the goal posts, ball in hand. 

This was just quidditch, right?

This was just a game for 40 house points.

Why, then, did it feel as though he was being hunted on the pitch like a deer who had stumbled into a forest full of wolves?

Harry floated on his broom with a smile almost as genuine as he could make on his face. The Slytherin crowd roared around him, and he felt an intoxicating sort of elation rising within him in response to the praise. It felt good to hear them cheer; it felt good to see the looks on the faces of his opponents. He, with his team, was powerful and dangerous. It was a feeling he had never truly known before, to face a group of people who were pitted against him and have them know that they stood no chance. 

School was one thing. He was above his classmates in transfiguration, sure, but it wasn't the same as this. Here, his superiority would be the direct result of another team’s failure. They attempted to hurt him to win this match, and he loved every second of watching the other houses realize that he was going to peel away their chances of winning house points from quidditch one agonizing goal at a time.

Yes, the Slytherins deduced the plot against their young chaser. It wasn't even too hard.

They were literally the house of plotting. Scheming against them was like trying to trick Loki or outrun Hermes. Whoever dared to step into their arena was bold, indeed, to assume that they would get away unscathed. 

On the first day that he'd spent outside of the hospital wing, he and the stranger schemed. The rune that'd tripped him was different, custom. The stranger viewed it time and time again through what he called "a subset skill of occlumency". 

The rune was a delicate and clever combination of the runes for ice and force. Runes, according to the stranger and his few books, were all about relations, just like incantations. What mattered wasn't the specific design, but what the designs meant to the user. 

Some runes were mere drawings, others were languages, some were even as vague as simple shapes. The students used that knowledge to twist a rune to perform a different task than most would assume. The ice rune was normally used to cool things down, freeze them, or slow them. They, however, made a clever connection between ice and its tendency to make people slip or fall. Using that, they combined it with the rune for force, and voila. 

A rune that made someone lose their balance before slinging them in the direction of their slip. It was an ingenious little scheme, and it also required a deft hand. When combined with the fact that the rune was totally erased during the time it took to get him to the hospital and a professor to the scene, the perpetrators were obviously meticulous and smart. Not anyone could've pulled such a stunt off without a hitch like that.

Going to Flint with his suspicions, the young man went to his friends and asked for a favor. The injured player was a first-year, hardly worth anything serious, but that first-year was also important if they wanted those tantalizing points for winning games. Many Slytherins cared about winning the cup, and having someone cheat to take it from them made them very angry.

It wasn't just hurting a first-year; it was taking away the Slytherin house cup, their pride, their grades, and their reputation. With such things in mind, a few of the upper-years asked around. See, there weren't many students advanced enough in runes to perform such a work of magic, so it was only a matter of time before they found a few Gryffs in the advanced classes to talk.

The Ravenclaw Runic Team was very competent, and even though the Gryffindors cared about gaining an advantage in winning the cup, they cared about galleons more. With their tongues loosened by money, his upperclassmen discovered that rumors were going around the lion's den of a few Ravenclaws on the Runic Team who were up late at night working on some kind of special project in the library. Coincidentally, a few Hufflepuffs who wouldn't normally be found in such an environment were working there as well. 

Late at night, Harry took that information and presented it as a mutually beneficial deal to Gemma Farley. The stranger said it would be good to give their alliance a test and prove to the older Prefect that he was more than a mere child, so he allowed the stranger to disillusion him and caught her on a patrol. She was friends with a Rosier, and those guys were deeply rooted in the ministry if the stranger was to be believed.

The potential of neutering the Ravenclaw team with the leverage they'd gained and possibly getting an almost assured forty points as a deal sweetener was promising enough for her friend to have a little chat with one of the more nervous members of the Ravenclaw Runic Team. What they did was illegal, and it wouldn't take too much to find proof if they really started digging. The kid broke like a twig, and the Slytherin quidditch team was given such curious information. 

Malcolm Preece was in on it, and Harry made sure to impart his knowledge to the young man.

He saw how it shook him, how his ire made him nervous. The boy was aggressive and confident, but he'd overextended in his arrogance. Harry had him by the fucking scruff of his neck, and he was dangling the chaser out of a window. The boy's entire school career hung in the balance of a temperamental first-year's self control in the face of a personal, physical attack. 

The stranger's presence allowed him to hear the boy's frightened thoughts as their eyes met after the first goal. 

"This is just quidditch, right?"

Harry was amused, feeling much like a cat playing with a mouse that already knew it was doomed. No, it wasn't just quidditch. This wasn't about points or winning a game. This was about dominance and freedom; it was about standing up for himself and not allowing bullies to push him from the position he'd earned. 

He watched with playful eyes as Malcolm approached with his offense, and he could tell the chaser was off his game. Harry's magic was oppressive with the stranger there to help. The things that man could do with magical power was mind boggling. The rest of the Hufflepuff team was expecting relentless offense, but Harry knew that Preece wasn't quite on the same page. 

Rickett flew up and over to intercept a bludger, and he sent it at the boy who'd managed to set off the events that led to the first score. As far back as he was, though, Brian was easily able to strafe in front of him and hit it back. 

"Hit it at the captain," Harry quickly urged under his breath.

Brian nodded and took the suggestion. He changed his target from Preece to Malcovy. As Anthony was their forward beater and already disposed due to how far he had to move to hit the bludger over in the first place, the captain was forced to weave to the side in order to avoid the hit. 

The second the captain was out of position, they struck. Flint was the bigger body, so he went first and attempted to intercept Preece or block his path. The chaser passed up to his seeker, and Diggory caught it well. Hill was flying beside him, keeping the boy from breaking away with the small time he had to pass. 

Malcovy managed to get herself close enough to retake her position in the play, so Brian, one of their beaters, moved over to mark her as they flew toward the Slytherin goal. They didn't want Natalie to waste her talents by marking someone when they needed her ready to score. 

The whole time, Harry slowly maneuvered himself around the outside of the play. He wasn't marking anyone, and he wasn't going for the ball. They had plenty of defense already. As the center forward, he had enough freedom on defense to do what he wished, and he used that freedom to prowl the edges of the play. 

His untransformed but still amazing eyes tracked the ball as Diggory passed it to the third chaser, Trenski. The third-year was flying along the edge of the stadium and continued on course, easily extending his arm and tucking the ball safely away against his body. Harry moved closer to the ground, underneath the play, and watched as Natalie dove toward the grass and matched Trensky's pace, containing him between the wall and herself. 

She matched him move for move. He attempted to fly up and over, toward the center of the field, so she moved along with him. Back and forth, across the wall, they battled, Trenski restlessly searching for some sort of opening. Finally having enough, he rammed into her, pushed her smaller form out of the way, and veered toward centerfield. Fenwick, their beater and a much larger opponent, descended in his path, so the ball was passed back to Malcolm.

The boy was laser focussed on the posts, and Harry grinned widely. 

Now was the time. 

Surprisingly (or, perhaps, completely predictably), he struck much like a snake. In a burst of speed, he matched the flying Malcolm from below and pulled up hard on the top of his broom. Perhaps he was hidden before, but the crowd was paying attention now. They were gasping or holding bated breaths as he ascended on a path that would directly intersect with the Hufflepuff chaser. Preece was unaware still, and Harry was rising faster and faster by the second.

Harry let go of the thrusters and pulled back even further on his comet 320. For a few seconds, there was absolutely no power keeping him afloat, just the velocity he already had throwing him higher into the air. This wasn’t a play or some kind of planned maneuver; it was freedom.

With a wide, elated, slightly demonic smile, he flew in front of Malcolm's path for a second time. Harry’s momentum petered out as he yanked back on his broom until it tilted so far backward that the tip of it was facing the grass. Preece was approaching with the ball contained in his left arm, and the chaser was to his left based on his upside down position; Harry only had a split second to see it, extending his left arm and cringing as his newly healed wrist took the impact created by jamming his hand in between the quaffle and Preece’s armpit to scoop it out of its confines. 

Preece zipped past him as gravity overcame his momentumless broom, and Harry tucked the quaffle safely away with his uninjured arm as he began his descent toward the pitch. Down he fell, allowing his broom to remain without his magic all the way. He could’ve dashed away the second he took the ball, turned his broom back on before pulling out of his dive and immediately starting the offense. 

The problem with that was the Hufflepuff defense. They were ready for him now, and Rickett along with the second beater were paying attention to him in a way the occupied Malcolm wasn’t. They were both hanging slightly back, blocking him from making any direct approach to the posts. If he wanted to get past them, he would have to go below.

Pulling his broom from between his legs, Harry spun around in the air to face the sky instead of the ground. He spread his body wide open to catch the wind and analyzed the scene above him while holding his broom out to the side. He didn’t have much time. Twenty meters wouldn’t take long to travel even without his broom’s power aiding in his descent. 

The captain, Malcovy, was currently pushing her broom into a dive. Harry’s steal was so swift that he had a bit of a head start, but she would catch up to him soon. Preece was in the midst of pulling a tight u-turn in the hopes of returning to the hoops in time to stop the Slytherin approach, and Trenski was currently attempting to mark Natalie as she blasted across the field. 

Natalie was leading her mark by a bit, and a pass might work, but the beaters were, once again, directly blocking a high approach to the hoops. Flint was currently unmarked due to the lagging Malcolm Preece, but Higgs was toe to toe with Diggory. If he passed to Flint, he would be stuck in the center of the field with no good options than to pass backward toward the Slytherin beaters. That could work, but it would also take Harry’s hardwon momentum away. 

He was almost halfway to the ground from his almost eighteen meter flight, and Malcovy was gaining on him more by the second. His best option at the moment was clear to him; Harry had to draw the defense toward the ground in order to open up a path to approach the hoops from Natalie’s high altitude. 

Taking a deep breath, Harry relished the feeling of the wind blowing through his hair and beating against the edges of his green uniform. He took even more joy in the annoyed face of Hufflepuff’s captain. His smile only seemed to stoke her anger. He could imagine how frustrating it would be to have a firsty steal the ball from under their noses twice before dismounting his broom completely in what seemed to be an act of egregious disrespect. 

That was, of course, the entire point of doing it.

He was pulling her toward the ground with him, and his slow descent due to refusing the help of his broom was beginning to tug a few of the Hufflepuffs along for the ride as well. One of the beaters moved to hover above the grass in an attempt to stop him, and Natalie’s mark was moving further away from her as he continued to fall. The team was instinctively moving to smother him against the ground, isolate him from his team and steal the ball once he was completely smothered, but moving toward the bottom of the field was also a bit risky because it created more space for his other teammates, and they would have to actually trap him before their risk would pay off. 

Harry’s broom was held out to the left of his body, and he threw his left leg over the top of it in order to rest it against what was technically the broom’s right foothold, pulling it close to his body with his leg and trapping the stick behind his slightly bent knee. Still gripping it underhand with his injured left hand, he placed his right foot on the left foothold, and he smiled viciously at the diving Malcovy because what else was he supposed to do while in a freefall, facing away from the ground completely.

She saw his plan a second too late due to the unorthodox way in which Harry loved to fly. Making sure that his broom was completely parallel to the ground, he pushed so much power into the forward thrust and upward strafe that it was practically leaking with excess magic. It was a feeling like no other as his broom suddenly jerked into motion and yanked him along with it as it suddenly began to zip horizontally across the field instead of into it. 

The unfortunate laws of physics threatened to throw Harry off of the broom and into the ground due to the sudden change of momentum, and it was only due to Harry’s firm grip on the underside of his broom and his left leg, which was wrapped around the top of it, that he was able to cling to his Comet 320. Even still, his back was dangerously close to brushing against the grass, and it was only due to the subtle strength granted to him by the zouwu that his left arm and leg found the ability to hoist him up and over the broom to lay across it normally instead of hanging from it like a monkey on a tree branch. 

With his stomach finally laying flat on the top of his broom as it was meant to be, he glanced behind him to see Malcovy pulling up on her diving broom with all that she had. See, he knew that not aiding his fall was a good decision. Instead of attempting to keep his speed while falling and transforming that into horizontal speed by pulling out of the dive, he fell with comparatively little speed and forcefully activated his broom at the last second, basically turning the smooth curve of a dive into a right angle.

Now facing the ground instead of the sky, he had a harder time figuring out where everyone was. Quite a bit of space existed above and behind him for both his allies and opponents to occupy. He craned his neck to find a teammate or two and determine their individual situations. Natalie was found to have switched places with Flint. She was middling the field, still leading her mark, and Flint was flying higher while attempting to keep his lead on Preece. 

Unfortunately, Harry’s speedy acquisition of the ball ended up leaving more than just his enemies behind. The Slytherin beaters were nowhere near close enough to defend any of them. Beater brooms were designed very differently than either chaser or seeker brooms. They were built to be sturdy, not fast. They normally had a lot of handling to make it easy for the one-handed flying often utilized by their bat-wielding riders. They were usually a bit bigger, bulkier, to help minimize the chances of damage should the bulgers always flying around them actually make contact, and a lot of their runes were dedicated toward holding momentum instead of building it. Much like a train, trying to push around a beater’s broom was not usually a good strategy unless the one doing the pushing was on a beater broom as well. 

A sharp whistle in his ears forcefully drew his attention.

Oh, shit…

A ball of condensed iron smashed against the only hand Harry had on his broom thanks to the fact that his other hand was occupied with a quaffle. Now, quidditch robes were runed to be impact absorbent. They were powered up by the players the night before a game, and they could take a lot of damage. Still, an iron ball cracking against it was going to hurt like a motherfucker, and it almost brought tears to his eyes.

Considering the kind of damage Harry could take on a regular basis, that reaction was telling.

His hand was ripped from his broom by the offending ball of metal, and it was even thrown all the way out to his side as the iron ball sped past him and into the wall quite a distance away from him. Harry wasn’t sure if anything was broken, but it felt uninjured enough for him to be tentatively confident in its ability to be used, even if his already injured hand hurt like hell at the moment. He fell flat across his broom in a desperate attempt to keep himself from being dismounted, and he wrapped the arm holding his quaffle around it as well, cradling the ball to his chest. 

Forcing the pain out of his mind just like he'd learned to do at the Dursley household, he wrapped his left hand around the broom handle once again despite the agony that accompanied the action. He pushed himself back up and brought the ball to his side just in time for Anthony Rickett to descend from above and snatch it violently from his hand with a dangerous smile.

Of course, it was Rickett. 

Flint warned him about the bludgers hit by Anthony Rickett. The kid was a fucking menace. Those runes that multiplied force on the quaffle, well, they were on bludgers as well. The only difference was that beaters had a bat, which was a force multiplier in its own right due to simple physics. The bludgers could be hit with serious force by the right person, and Rickett had some brilliant accuracy to accompany his ruthlessness. He was known to target weak spots like arms and legs, and he had a tendency to target the same arms and legs on the people he was able to hit, sometimes even managing to make a team use all of their timeouts to heal an injured teammate only to then send them out of the whole game by mercilessly attacking them in the same spot again. It made him slightly predictable, but it also made him scary.

And that was why Harry thought the house system stereotypes were a load of bullshite.

Hufflepuffs were Hard-working, fair, patient, just, modest, and loyal. Notice how only one of those traits necessitated moral “goodness”, and only two were pointed toward a sense of duty when it came to keeping things over the table. Any of those traits in excess would warrant a Hufflepuff sorting, and a hard-working, modest, patient, or loyal person could still be a heartless bastard, especially toward strangers or enemies. Preece probably had a ton of loyalty, enough, in fact, that he was willing to throw a first-year down a set of stairs to grasp points for his own house. Rickett was a very hard-working beater according to the Slytherin team, yet he had no trouble using the rather underhanded tactic of injuring the most dangerous players into being forcefully benched throughout the course of a game.

Hufflepuffs could be kind and caring, but they didn't have to be.

Cursing himself for not paying more attention to the bludgers on the field, Harry pulled up on his broom and corkscrewed until he was flying in the opposite direction. That was when his broom showed its biggest weak point. When he was able to circle plays and strike while the enemy team was in a bad spot, he excelled; but once the other team was already past him, he had little to no chance of catching up. Even at max-speed, he had to watch as Rickett passed down to Malcovy, who then threw the ball up to Preece, and the absolute prat of a Hufflepuff tossed the ball into the air and practically jammed it into the left hoop with a punch. 

It was a tactic lacking in finesse but excelling in power. The runes on the quaffle multiplied the force put into it. That was amazing for turning throws into something extraordinarily fast, but impacts allowed a person to crank the speed up even more. The spin on the ball might’ve been useless with such a method of scoring, but the speed was unparalleled. 

His anger simmered as he flew back to the hoops to regroup with his team, and Flint was right there next to him the second he arrived.

“Are you okay?” his captain asked.

“I’m fine,” Harry said back. “I’m pissed that it hit me. We were about to score.”

“Yeah,” Flint responded with a grimace. “I told you Rickett was a bitch to play against. Don’t take it too hard. We were out-of-system. This is where our game plan actually starts. Don’t let up on Preece. He’s already off his game. Keep messing him up, and he’ll crack eventually. He's the center of their offense; take him down, and we win the game.”

Natalie swooped over to them even as Flint and Harry began to advance across the field slowly, and Flint tapped the front of his broom once. 

It was the signal for their first formation: the triangle.

Harry gave a nod and glanced up at their seeker to confirm that Higgs knew their plan. The first formation was their bread-and-butter gameplan. It was simple but efficient. The seeker ran interference, and their more aggressive beater, Brian, flew ahead of them while the chasers played a passing game between the three of them. The real sticking point of their formation was him. 

The Slytherin team kept the pace slow and steady on purpose because Harry’s broom was at the center of their strategy. He had the most specialized broom, so he was also the most limited of their team. They had to build around him, but it ended up working well. They kept their offense at a pace just slow enough to invite opposition until they found an opportunity that would then lead to explosively fast attacks. If Natalie and Marcus went full speed from the beginning, Harry would be left in the dust. 

Flying down the field, the enemy chasers pulled up to match their pace. The speed of brooms, the amount of space on the field, and the ease of movement meant that static defense from the chasers was a very bad idea. They would end up getting passed around or circumnavigated if they attempted to fly straight at the attackers, so the basic strategy was to shadow the offense, fly alongside them and block their approach, funnel them to the outside, or set them up to encounter the beaters and their bludgers to create an opportunity to steal. 

Malcovy, their captain, seemed to like shadowing him. She pulled up alongside him and kept herself a bit ahead of his broom, forcing him further from the center of the field. That was very bad for them because Harry was the center of their passing game. If he was kept to the outside, things could get rough. Preece pulled up next to Flint, attempting to pressure him into making a mistake, and Natalie was currently getting trapped by the third chaser, who was flying on her side and the female beater, Violet Manson, who was flying above her. Both of them together were trying to corral her against the wall and toward the ground where she would be useless. 

It was time.

Most quidditch players were skeptical or even stringently opposed to trick-based flying. They felt that positioning, solid teamwork, and strong tosses were preferable to attempting some kind of outplay. That was a good philosophy, but it also meant that they were always straightforward in their flying, especially in school where the flyers were generally less adept on a broom. Harry, though, found flying the straight and narrow to be boring, and he was of the opinion that creative flying had the opportunity to produce more opportunities to score. 

That was why he decided to ram his shoulder into Malcovy without reprieve. He was small, though, and didn’t put in enough force to truly jostle her. That was, actually, why she was probably so keen on marking him instead of someone like Flint, who could actually throw her from her broom. That was fine by Harry because he didn’t want to jostle her; he wanted to piss her off.

Malcovy scowled at him as she kept her broom from wiggling due to the impact, and she veered slightly away in preparation to shoulder him back. 

Good.

She pulled her broom away and slammed it back to the left only to find her broom flying through thin air. Her target had learned a maneuver by watching Malfoy fly his broom against Longbottom and decided that it was possibly a bit more useful than he'd originally thought. Tipping his body over to the left, he flipped upside down on his broom and came back up on the right side of Malcovy.

Coincidentally, or not so much, he also came back up in a position where Malcovy couldn’t intercept a pass. He was on the inside of the field now. Crouching low over his broom, he kicked things into full gear and blasted away from Malcovy, who was still going at their slower pace.

She stood no chance if she waited for him to speed up. Reactivity was a poor strategy when dealing with a broom like his.

He pulled up and to the right, and he smirked when he saw that Flint noticed him. His captain was holding the ball in his right arm, keeping it on the opposite side of Preece, and the Hufflepuff chaser was between Flint and the speeding first-year. Harry wasn’t going to be a fool this time though.

He glanced around him and noticed that Rickett was sitting in the center of the field with malice shining in his eyes. He swung his bat at the bludger that occupied the Hufflepuff side of the field, and it soared at him once again. Harry only smiled back because this was the reason they had Brian leading in the first place. His beater swooped in front of the bludger before it could even begin to approach Harry’s fragile left arm, and he smacked it at just the right person: the third chaser trapping Natalie.

The hunk of metal flew toward the right side of the field, and a shouted warning from the beater flying overtop Natalie was the only reason the chaser could yank her broom away in time to avoid the bludger. Natalie saw her opening, and the beater did too. Violet Manson flew down to intercept Natalie before she could move, and that was when Higgs saw what he needed to do. 

Diving from above the seeker line, he flew right between Manson and Natalie with Diggory swooping down behind him. By the time the two seekers were gone, Natalie was too. She kicked it into max speed and left the slower beater far behind. She went all the way to the max altitude and leveled out to approach the hoops from above. 

Harry knew that this was the moment. He needed to do things now, and Marcus realized that too. Preece, though, was still in the way, and Harry was quickly approaching the veritable wall of a student known as Anthony Rickett. Preece was glancing between the two of them while Harry’s previous mark continued to gain on him. If Harry caught the pass now, he would still have to contend with Rickett before he could pass to the freed up Natalie, and he would have to do it with quaffle in hand too. 

No, he had a better idea for the bastard who'd bludgered him right on his injured arm.

Flint spent a second to look at him, and Harry took his right hand off of his broom to point ahead of him, right at Rickett. Flint understood, and a devilish grin grew on the captain’s face. Rearing his right hand back, he tossed the ball and rolled his hand over the top of it, swiping it all the way across his body on the release to add the left spin it needed. Preece saw the pass, but he was between Harry and Marcus, not in a position to stop a ball pass ahead of them.

The ball flew forward, and its left spin made it veer off from center field. It was also heading to a point about seven meters behind Rickett, right where Harry needed it if he wanted a clear shot on goal. Harry watched the beater’s eyes move to the ball, instinctively analyzing the thing he needed to stop, and it was then that he struck. Harry grasped the broom with both hands and shut off the forward thrust completely. He was sure to be sent twirling into the ground if he had the forward thrust on while manipulating the tail of his broom.

Pushing the tail away from his body with his hands, Harry lifted his right leg over it and placed his foot on the left footrest while pulling the broomstick to his chest and extending his right leg completely in order to lock the broom in place perpendicular to Rickett. By the time the boy looked back to the approaching chaser, his eyes were met with a boy who wasn’t sitting on his broom.

It was as if time came to a near stop for Harry when he sent a burst of intense power to his forward thrust. It was a lot of magic, but it wasn’t continuous. He needed power, but it had to be just a short release, or he wouldn’t get the result he wanted.

His braced right foot felt the intense pressure of his broom jerking to the left, and he felt an elation like no other as the tail of his broom pushed him just to the side of the beater even as his previous velocity sent him past the veritable wall blocking his path. Having used the manipulation of his broom’s tail to make a brief but intense change of direction, he swung his foot back over the broom and mounted it while pointing himself back toward the goal. 

Harry went left around Rickett while the quaffle came in from the right, and Harry threw himself into overdrive, extending his hand to catch the ball as he stormed past the last defender in his way. He cringed as the ball slapped against his injured hand, but he pushed on despite that.

His eyes locked onto the hoops right in front of him, and he analyzed the keeper who was intelligently hovering in center post. It was just the keeper now, and Harry felt as though he had an eternity.

Where should he shoot?

His arm was already in a position to fling the ball, and he had nothing to do but choose its direction. 

Perhaps he should shoot to the left full speed? He was already a bit left field, and he was shooting with his left hand, so it would be the speediest, most direct option. Would that speed be enough?

Maybe he should fake the shot to the left and add some extra spin to actually send it into the middle hoop. Would the keeper fall for it? If he stayed where he was, the ball would go right to him.

He could even throw it to the right hoop, curve it to the left, seemingly choosing the worst hoop only to have it curve back into the most optimal route but in the least efficient way. That would be a tricky way to make the keeper hesitate. 

Maybe he was thinking too much. Overthinking things wouldn’t help. He didn’t even know any of the keeper’s habits. 

That was when it came to him in a billowing mass of long, tied back hair. Ah, yes, that was what he was missing. This wasn’t a one on one. Harry had an extra chaser, and she was at max altitude. The keeper was staring at Harry for good reason, attempting to read the shot to the exclusion of all else. It made sense. Who in their right mind would pass when the shot was right in front of them?

Harry did.

Swinging his left arm across his body, Harry dragged his hand across the ball, releasing it in such a way that it had a vicious amount of left spin on it, but the keeper didn’t notice the way he brushed his fingers down the ball with the throw to give it a bit of backspin too. He applied a lot of power to the spinning rune, and the keeper smirked at him as the ball flew at the right hoop while very obviously spinning heavily to the left. 

The keeper read it like a book and flew straight to the left hoop, at least from Harry’s perspective, and prepared to catch the ball that was sure to be headed toward the post opposite of its original target. Its spin caught the wind due to the rune and sliced left like a knife, but it also careened toward the sky, shooting higher than the posts mere meters before it crossed the scoreline.

Right to an approaching Natalie.

She pulled her arm back as the ball crossed in front of her broom and right into her pocket. Swinging her bent arm with a flat hand, she spiked the ball toward the right post with a nasty amount of forward spin on it. The ball dropped drastically even as it split the air with its speed, dropping right through the center of the hoop.

Harry flew up to Natalie while they dashed back to their side, and she gave him a high five in the air. As they approached their hoops, the Slytherins went wild, cheering their names with vehemence. He smirked over to his captain, and they all glanced toward the Hufflepuffs. Preece and Rickett were both frustrated, he could tell. They had both been humiliated by that play. Rickett for getting played and Preece for being helpless to stop the toss from the chaser he was supposed to be marking. 

To be fair, no one expected Harry to dodge Rickett like that, so Preece had no reason to block a toss that went behind his last player. It was an ingenious plan they came up with because it allowed for them to pass the ball through the backline only to break past the last defender right after to avoid the off-sides penalty. Whether it was the Hufflepuffs’ fault or not, however, did nothing for their wounded pride. They weren’t used to teams playing like Flint’s, and they weren’t prepared to deal with the tactics they were casually employing. It was like taking candy from a baby.

That was the beginning of the end of Hufflepuff’s first game.

Things only went worse for the badgers from there. Everytime Preece and Rickett got beaten, they only got angrier, and their angrier plays only got more sloppy. Flint never even decided to break out the alternate plays they had because the Hufflepuffs were unable to adapt to their basic strategy in-game. Harry was the hinge of their passing plays, but none of them could stop his momentum, and they couldn’t stop his passes if they couldn’t contain him. 

Harry could admire them for sticking to their guns, kind of, but adaptation in game was critical to winning. Continuing to do what didn’t work wasn’t going to suddenly change the result. The enemy's defence simply couldn’t stop him from maneuvering around them; it was as if he were immaterial, unstoppable.

As the game continued, so too did the praise from Slytherin’s students. They could feel the points coming in, and they loved every second of it; and the more they cheered, the more Harry pushed himself to further demolish his opponents. 

Finally, gloriously, Preece snapped. 

The Hufflepuff’s aggravation ascended to a point that his play turned from offensive to violent. They started getting penalty shots around every turn, racking up the points further than even they thought possible. Diggory, surprisingly, turned out to be the biggest threat. When Malcolm shut down, Cedric took the offensive lead. He wasn’t flashy, and he was a bit by the books, but he was also patient and observant. He even managed to score a few goals with his team while Preece was fucking around due to the sheer efficiency with which he read the Slytherin defence. 

Harry was impressed, but it wasn’t enough. With a gleeful smile on his face, he watched Higgs dive to catch the snitch when it finally showed its golden face, and his team found victory among the thunderous applause of their housemates. When all of them landed and Preece ended up tossing his broom against the pitch, Harry couldn’t help but send the boy one last smile full of malevolence and superiority. 

He had met his first true enemy in his new school, and he had crushed the boy beneath his feet.

The stranger laughed all the way to the locker room, and Harry couldn’t help but chuckle along. He didn’t believe the stranger at first, and he still wasn’t sure if the man had anything worthy of merit when it came to life philosophy. There was one tiny thing he did have to admit, though…

It felt good to be the best.