If they won their next match against Slytherin, the house of snakes would be knocked out of the Quidditch cup for the first time in seven years. The Slytherin team had a lot of their experienced players graduate the year before, so Harry had high hopes.
He did not envy the Gryffindors in their upcoming game against Hufflepuff. Snape was supposed to referee. He could only imagine that it would end in disaster for the lions. That was all very well, but he had another reason for not wanting Snape near him while he was playing Quidditch. When he had told Daphne that, she had hit his other arm.
Quidditch training had another upside, in that it helped Harry fall asleep, or, at the very least it prevented him from staying up all night reading Subtle Legilimency Techniques. His obsession had become somewhat dire; so much so, that all his friends had commented on it.
Even Lisa had said, "What happened to you? You must feel awful!" in Charms, before promptly turning pink. He couldn't exactly tell her that he was trying learn how to break into other people's minds. He thought she might react poorly to that. She suggested that he get more sleep when he told her it was just Quidditch training.
Daphne, Neville, Hermione and Tracey had disagreed. When he mentioned that it was Quidditch that was bothering him, they ran with it and had offered suggestions.
"Don't play," Tracey recommended.
"Say you're ill," Neville tried
"Pretend to break your leg," Hermione offered.
"Really break your leg." He took a step away from Daphne at that suggestion. "What? You don't think they would check?"
Less fortunately, the return to school and the resuming of classes also meant Malfoy was back. Once, Neville was almost thirty minutes late to a study session with Harry, eventually hopping over to their usual table in the library. Malfoy had used a Leg-Locker curse on Neville, and he must have hopped all the way there.
"He said he'd been looking for someone to practice that on," Neville informed him glumly.
Harry was furious that not one person had applied the counter curse on his friend. He was so angry, parseltongue had almost slipped into his speech when Harry told Neville he shouldn't worry.
"Malfoy is nothing but a pale shadow of his criminal father, and you're the spitting image of yours, a hero."
He performed the curse over and over on Neville after teaching him the counter curse so that it wouldn't happen again. He also taught Neville the knock-back hex, actually wanting to teach him the piercing hex. Neville had thought that might be a little extreme. Harry disagreed.
Malfoy reminded him too much of Dudley.
Daphne, who had never seen him angry, had left early during their practice that day. He was too angry to even bother reading her to find out why. It took him to the end of the day to calm down, but by that time he'd thought of a sufficient revenge.
Arrogant twat.
He, none too gently, took hold of the memory of cursing Neville and pushed some of that pain into Malfoy's head the next few times he saw the blond git. He aimed to form an association Pavlov would be proud of.
When you don't take the carrot, you get the stick.
Malfoy had needed several headache draughts from Madam Pomfrey to make it through the week.
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Harry didn't know whether he was imagining it or not, but he seemed to keep running into Professor Snape wherever he went. At times, he even wondered if Professor Snape might be following him, trying to catch him on his own. The man seemed somehow suspicious of him after Malfoy's pains and ever since their first lesson Harry suspected that the man also knew legilimency. He strongly considered warning his friends, but didn't know how he would explain his suspicions.
Potions lessons were becoming more bearable, though. His hours spent studying materials meant that he was more than able to improve on the recipes Professor Snape provided. Professor Snape seemed to have allowed a begrudging respect for his dedication.
Harry's probes were getting stronger, but they were still pitiful for finding particular memories. They seemed to only cause his targets pain, since he struggled to direct his way through other people's minds by sending impressions or emotions. However, memories he did receive were a now substantially longer and, sometimes came with brief moments of both sound and image rather than one or the other.
After Gryffindor's triumph over Hufflepuff in their game, seeing them play had made him more excited for his own upcoming match. Their flying foxes had run away with the score so much that Hufflepuff had no hope of keeping up. Even with Professor Snape calling questionable fouls, Gryffindor would be in the house cup.
On the day before his match Harry was walking to Charms, early, as he usually did, and Lisa decided to join him. She would sometimes come down from Ravenclaw tower with her friends, or when she wanted some advice before Charms, or any other class. Harry knew that it was just an excuse to talk to him; she would be too nervous otherwise. They were now able to talk more casually, and Harry found he didn't have to carry the quite as much. A relief, for somebody like him. She considered him a friend now, even if she never said so, and she was easily the most skittish out of the two of them.
"Michael Corner used the debate podiums last night with Terry Boot. He argued using historic examples that parseltongue isn't evil, and several wizards from the Gaunt family were never dangerous. Of course, someone pointed out that the Gaunt family tended to have a penchant for going mad. I thought that it was the exception rather than rule, though. I wonder if…" It was very Ravenclaw of them, and of her.
He looked to see why she had stopped talking.
There was a group of people huddled around something, all first years. Harry heard a voice stammering out.
"Y-y-your just a sh-sh-shadow of your f-father, a-a c-cr-riminal." It was Neville and Harry could imagine who he was talking to. Harry began to walk towards the huddling group of first years. Lisa looked at him, wide eyed, and followed behind, clutching her books close to her chest.