Diff for "HPPT/TheFirebolt"

Harry Broods

Harry Potter was wandering the halls of Hogwarts. The reason for this was that his best friends were fighting again. This time they were fighting over him. Wait that didn't sound right Harry thought, it made it sound like they were fighting over who got to date him. Harry didn't swing that way, not that there was anything wrong with that, but given how out of date the wizarding world was it probably wasn't a good idea to explore options in that direction.

So his best friends were fighting about him, yes that sounded ok. The reason for this was that Harry had received a Firebolt for Christmas, the terribly expensive broom had no sender attached and with the mass murder Sirius Black on the loose and supposedly after him Hermione had found the whole thing suspicious and had reported it their Head of House, Professor McGonagall, who had confiscated the broom until it could be checked for curses.

Ron was upset with Hermione because Professor McGonagall had mentioned that they strip the broom before it could be returned. This meant that he had been the owner of the best broom in the world for a few short hours and now might never see it again. To Ron this was nothing short of criminal. The way he was acting you would not be mistaken to believe it was his broom that had been confiscated.

Harry agreed with Hermione that it was suspicious that the broom had no card or other sort of message. But he was upset that she had told McGonagall without telling him that she was doing so first.

So in summary Ron was pissed at Hermione and not talking to her. Hermione was not taking this well and was cooped up in the library. And Harry was wondering the corridors the Hogwarts because he wanted some time to him self.

From an unused classroom up ahead he heard the sounds of a pair girls sobbing. Stopping to investigate he poked his head in the door to see the Patil twins holding onto one another, not exactly crying but tearing up a lot.

Deciding to see if there was anything he could do to help he called out "Girls, is there anything I can help you with?"

"No Harry, not really" came the reply from Parvati (he could tell by the ties).

"We got a letter this morning saying that our father is going to die sometime before the start of the school year" continued Padma.

"So Harry, there's nothing you can do to make things better, but we could use a shoulder to cry on" Parvati again, moving away from her sister and patting the bit of bench between them.

Harry sat down between the twins, who then scooted up next to him, moving his arms out of the way in the process. Wrapping his arms around them as he had seen people do when comforting others he realized that the shirts worn by the girls were a little on the thin side and this made him feel uncomfortable.

Some time later the twins stopped crying and lifted their heads up off of Harry's shoulders. "Feeling better now?" he asked.

"Yes, thanks." Came the reply from Parvati "We knew that it had been coming for awhile but to read that he's actually going to die hit us hard."

"Known for awhile?" inquired Harry "Can I ask what you mean by that or is it to personal?"

"No, not at all." Responded Padma "Father was hit by a Dark curse in the last war, it wasn't enough to kill him but he was hurt badly enough that he had to leave the Arour Corps. Since then it's only been a matter of time until he died. In a way it's sort of a relic, fathers suffering will be over soon, but it did come as a shock and we will still miss him."

"Enough of this depressing talk sis. Harry what are you doing here?" Asked Parvati.

"Hermione and Ron are fighting again. I got a Firebolt for Christmas without a card or anything. Hermione told Professor McGonagall thinking it might be from Sirius Black and McGonagall agreed and confiscated it to check. Ron lost it and Hermione retreated into the library. I just wanted some space, I mean I agree with Hermione but she shouldn't have gone behind my back."

"I'll talk to her about that next time I see her. She's a wonderful friend and roommate but she tends to think she knows what's best for everyone." replied Parvati.

"Now we should start on our homework sis, we don't want to have any outstanding when we go home tomorrow."

"Your going home tomorrow?" Asked Harry.

"Yes, or trying to. With daddy as sick as he is we really didn't want to go home for such a short time but with this news we want to a least spend one night, just in case." Answered Parvati.

"Enough chatting, on with your homework."

With that the girls got up and sat down at a table, pulling out their books, parchment, quills and inkwells.

"I should go" said Harry

"Oh, why?" asked Padma

"Well I don't have any homework to do and I'd just be disturbing you two if I stayed" he responded.

"Then why don't you go get yours and come back?" inquired Padma.

"When I said I didn't have any, I meant that I didn't have any at all. I've learnt that if I get it done early then Hermione can't bug me about doing it. Ron hasn't figured this out yet and keeps bugging me to stop, I think the amount of work he gets done has actually dropped since I figured this out has dropped." explained Harry.

"Ooh, good boy Harry" came Parvati

"I was sort of surprised that Padma hadn't finished her homework yet"

"Oh that's simple, when ever we have a bit of homework that will span a decent break or we've got a lot of time to do it we try to save it for when we can get together. We don't get much time to spend as sisters and this is a good way to get it with drawing too much attention." Answered Padma.

"You know, Harry with your new attitude and the trouble that seems to follow you I'm surprised that you didn't take Arithmancy and Ancient Runes." Continued Padma.

"Well, when we were picking subjects we didn't get any sort of advice on what to pick" he said before being interrupted by Padma

"I know it's horrible"

"So in the end I picked the same subject as Ron, figuring that if I was rubbish at them at least I wouldn't be alone in that." He finished

"That's just silly Harry" returned Padma, "Let's see now your taking Divination and Care of Magical Creatures right?" she queried.

"Yes" he replied.

Parvati continued her interrogation "Okay then, let's start with Care. Care deals solely with Magical Creatures, things you won't have encountered before now but Ron will have at least heard about, especially with him having a Dragon Handler for a brother. Now does that sound like the two of you are on a even footing?"

"No" was the sole boy's response.

Padma now entered lecture mode, something Harry had seen from Hermione from time to time. "Now, as for Divination, the word, as applied to magic, these days refers to spells that find out any sort of information and these days is divided into four parts. Now Trelawney only teaches stuff that falls under the classical definition, that of seeing into the future, which if you lack the gift of Foresight you can't use at all, so the entire subject is a worthless if you don't have the gift."

This last earned her a growled from Parvati.

"As far as I can tell Trelawney actually has some sort of gift in that regard, but given all the fortune telling stuff she teaches it's probably not all that useful" Padma said in an attempt to placate her sister.

Continuing her lecture Padma said "Now the other area of Divination are: The actual art or act of divining which is used to find things in or associated with the Earth, like water, minerals or lay-lines; Scrying or seeing things from afar, if you have a good enough magic link to a person or to an object you can see it, I'm actually surprised that the Ministry hasn't used it to find Sirius Black yet; finally there is the nebulous grouping of spells that inform us of information, these are normally covered by Charms class and include things like Point Me, which points to the North, medical diagnoses charms and various detection spells."

Having finished her lecture she paused for a moment