Because what he does he does so well
Makes me wanna yell
Let's hear it for the boy
Let's give the boy a hand

"Let's Hear It for the Boy"
Deniece Williams

HARRY:

The morning of my first Quidditch match was freezing. I had barely slept I was so nervous, and I struggled to eat, too.

"You've got to eat some breakfast," Ron said, just before eating half of a slice of bacon in a single bite.

"I'm not hungry," I mumbled.

"Just a bit of toast, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"I'm not hungry."

Seamus had heard the conversation, and added his two cents as he drowned his sausages in ketchup. "Harry, you need your strength. Seekers are always the ones who get nobbled by the other team."

"Thanks, Seamus." I waited for Lucy's concerned input, but none came.

"I can't eat when I'm nervous either," she said, shrugging.

Lucy had started spending more time with us now that Hermione had decided to talk to Ron and me again after the troll incident. She still largely kept to herself, more often than not just sitting silently with us as we all worked on homework and offering help whenever Hermione couldn't answer a question. When Skye asked her to start coming to every practice instead of just every other practice, we walked there and back together, and she would talk a little then.

One day, we were walking to the Pitch together when we heard a high-pitched scream. Lucy and I both jumped, but we relaxed when we saw Katie Bell sprinting away from the twins, fingers held to her nose as she squawked profanities at them.

"I had lots of fun planning the haunted house with those two," Lucy had said, "and after Halloween, they offered to 'show me the ropes' of pranking. I almost said yes, but, holy Helga Hufflepuff, if I got into as much trouble as they do, my parents would be furious. As Cedric Diggory's little sister, I don't have much room for making mistakes."

"I understand," I found myself saying.

"I had a feeling you might." She sighed. "I guess we'll have to come up with our own ways of finding adventure, huh?"

"Like fighting a troll in the bathroom?"

She flashed a rare smile. "Something like that."

Now that I was mere hours away from my Quidditch debut, I understood what she said better than ever. Even as I stared at my empty plate, I felt dozens of stares as people gestured subtly at me and whispered behind their hands. I was Harry Potter, after all.

"Harry Potter!" the twins chorused in unison as if they'd read my mind, sitting across from me on either side of Lucy and immediately beginning to fill their plates with whatever food they could reach.

"How's our star Seeker feeling about today?" Fred asked.

I shrugged, not wanting to admit just how nervous I was.

"You're going to be great, Harry, you really are," George assured me.

"After all those hours of practice Parkin put us through-"

"Blimey, she must have dueled every single Quidditch captain to get all that time on the Pitch uninterrupted-"

"Actually, George, Skye strikes me as more of an arm wrestler," Fred chuckled. "Anyway, Harry, you've got nothing to worry about. Just keep looking for the flying golden thing with wings and get it before the bloke in green does, and you'll be set!"

"Oh, and," George added in a wink, "try not to die."

"But other than that, nothing to worry about!"

I managed a fake smile. "Thanks. I guess when you put it like that, it doesn't seem quite so bad."

"Like we said, nothing to worry about! Stay on your broom until you catch the Snitch, and we're golden. Ha! Get it? Golden? Golden Snitch?"

"We get it," Ron and Hermione groaned in unison.

A few minutes before eleven, Fred and George walked with me to the changing room. After Skye gave a short but spirited pep talk, we stepped into the stadium and surrounded Madam Hooch. Up in the distance, I spotted a brightly flashing sign that read "POTTER FOR PRESIDENT" with a Gryffindor lion below the words. I smiled, feeling less worried. Even if we lost, I'd have my friends. Right?

"Mount your brooms, please," Madam Hooch said. I obeyed immediately, feeling better with a broom beneath my hands. When she blew her whistle, I soared out of the fray and waited, trying to tune out Lee Jordan's colorful commentary but failing.

"And she's really belting along up there, a neat pass to Alicia Spinnet, a good find of Oliver Wood's, last year only a reserve – back to Johnson and – no, Slytherin have taken the Quaffle, Slytherin captain Marcus Flint gains the Quaffle and off he goes – Flint flying like an eagle up there – he's going to sc– no, stopped by an excellent move by Gryffindor Keeper Wood and Gryffindor take the Quaffle – that's Chaser Skye Parkin of Gryffindor there, nice dive around Flint, off up the field and – OUCH – that must have hurt, hit in the back of the head by a Bludger – Quaffle taken by Slytherin – that's Adrian Pucey speeding off towards the goalposts, but he's blocked by a second Bludger – sent his way by Fred or George Weasley, can't tell which – nice play by the Gryffindor Beater, anyway, and Johnson back in possession of the Quaffle, a clear field ahead and off she goes – she's really flying – dodges a speeding Bludger – the goalposts are ahead – come on, now, Angelina – Keeper Bletchley dives – misses – GRYFFINDOR SCORE!"

A cacophony of conflicting emotions rose from the crowd. Everyone in red cheered, whereas everyone in green groaned. I hazarded a glance toward the "POTTER FOR PRESIDENT" sign. I saw Hermione, and Ron, and Lucy, and Seamus, and Dean, and Neville, and even Hagrid. Lucy was the only one to notice that I was looking their way. She smiled and waved, and I waved back quickly before returning my attention to the game.

Just in time, too. A rogue Bludger had decided to target me, but I managed to dodge it before Fred beat it away.

"Alright there, Harry?" he asked, not waiting for a reply before sending it flying toward a Slytherin player and rejoining the main game.

"You're small," Skye had said bluntly. "You need to stay out of the way, especially in this game. Don't want you getting attacked before you even have a chance at the Snitch. But as soon as you see it, you better haul arse and catch it. The faster this game, the better. I don't want anyone getting hurt."

Suddenly, a glimmer of gold. The Snitch! I immediately headed towards it. To my disappointment, the Slytherin Seeker had spotted it too. He snarled when he saw me, and he looked downright murderous when he realized I was on the faster broom. I started to extend a hand to the Snitch when I was struck from the side and nearly knocked off my broom.

I quickly regained my composure, cheering when Skye easily sent the Quaffle through the hoop on the penalty shot. I headed back upward to get out of the fray, and I had narrowly missed another Bludger when my broom bucked beneath me, nearly sending me off. I clutched it as tightly as I could with my hands and knees, but it was completely out of my control. I looked for Skye, considering asking her to call time-out, but another lurch made my heart drop. I had to focus on holding on.

"Harry!" came a piercing scream. Soon, the whole stadium turned to watch as my broom tried to throw me off. I held on as tightly as I could, but after one particularly harsh jolt, I was left hanging on with a single hand. I strained to pull myself up, but I couldn't. It was moving too violently, and my fingers were slick with sweat.

"We're coming!" one of the twins called, zooming up to me. But every time they got closer, my broom inched higher and higher. They dropped lower and began circling, hoping to catch me if or when I fell. But after a couple of minutes, it stopped, and I clambered back on my broom. As soon as I did, I saw the Snitch again, far below me. I dove towards it, hand extended. But I misjudged the distance and the angle, and suddenly, I felt something cold and metallic and feathery all at once in my mouth. I flew off my broom, rolling a couple of times on the grass. I stumbled to my feet, spitting into my hands.

"I got the Snitch," I said to myself, staring at it in disbelief. I held it firmly in my hand and raised it high above my head. "I got the Snitch!" I announced for everyone else.

While the Slytherins headed off to argue with Madam Hooch, the twins hoisted me on their shoulders and carried me to the changing room as all of the Gryffindors in the stadium (as well as most of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs) screamed.

Each of my teammates came by to clap me on the shoulder or ruffle my hair before they headed up to the common room. Fred and George were the first to leave, promising me some sort of surprise at the party --- I hoped it was a pleasant one, and not just a Dungbomb. I was on my way out when I nearly bumped into Lucy.

"Sorry!" she squeaked. "I thought I had missed you leaving and that it was empty so I could go in and change."

"It's alright," I said, smiling when I saw she was in her Quidditch robes for the first time. "Thought you might get some action after my broom spazzed out?"

Her face flushed a brilliant red as she pulled a small Golden Snitch from her pocket. "Skye gave this to me, and I have to keep it in my hand at every match. She has an identical one that she keeps in her shoe. If she needs me to suit up and be ready to come in, she moves her foot in a certain way so that mine vibrates. The second she saw you, this one started vibrating like crazy so I came down and changed. But I'm dreadfully claustrophobic, so I was waiting until everyone had left."

"I'll wait outside, if you want to head up to the castle together."

"You don't have to wait unless you'd like the company."

"Fred and George promised me a surprise, and I'd rather not face whatever it is alone."

She laughed. "I understand completely. I'll be out in a minute."

"Cub! Harry!" the twins called as we headed up the stairs. We turned around to see that the twins were struggling under the weight of several bags of food. "Would you mind lending a hand, or two, or three?"

Lucy and I exchanged an amused look before going to help.

"How did you get all of this?" I asked, grunting as Fred plopped a heavy bag into my waiting arms.

"The kitchens, of course. Getting the food is easy, but getting it all the way up here without getting caught is a struggle."

"Have you ever considered a shrinking charm?" Lucy inquired, also sounding like she was struggling slightly with her massive bag. "Would it work on food?"

"Bloody hell, Fred, she's done it again," George chuckled. "Our little Cub, outsmarting the both of us."

"This is why we need you to help us out with pranks!" Fred declared.

"I want to," she said softly, her face growing red, "but I can't. My parents would be livid if they ever found out. Cedric would never."

Just then, we arrived to the common room. George panted the password, and we climbed through the portrait hole. Everyone there cheered, though if it was for me or for the food, I couldn't tell. I had never seen the common room so crowded. The twins dragged Lucy away, and she promised me she'd be back in a minute.

Ron found me as she left and immediately began gushing about how well I had played. Hermione was more reserved, keeping her voice low as she told me about the Snape situation.

"But let's not worry about that for now," Ron said quickly. Just as the words left his mouth, Lucy and the twins cast a spell on the candles all at once, making the flames flicker red and gold and grow until they nearly touched the ceiling.

"Let's party!" the twins shouted. "Take it away, Dom!"

A boy standing in the corner flicked his wand, and the record player in the middle of the room burst to life. Soon, the room was about to explode. Ron dragged me off to the food table, Hermione walking over to Dom to take a closer look at the record player.

"What happened with your broom, mate?" Skye asked.

"Hagrid said it was some sort of powerful Dark magic," Ron answered for me. "He said no student would have been capable of doing something like that."

Skye scowled. "Bet you it was Snape. He never has liked Gryffindor. Never thought he'd care so much about Quidditch, though."

"Er, maybe," I stammered. "We were kind of thinking the same thing. But you won't tell anyone will you?"

"As long as it doesn't happen again, I'll keep my mouth shut. I once turned half the school inside out when my mate's broom disappeared, so I'm trying to learn to control my impulsiveness. But if Snape messes with us again, all bets are off." Just then, a very tall seventh-year girl named Isabelle took Skye by the shoulders and led her away, whispering something in her ear that made Skye giggle and blush.

Hermione soon took her place, her eyes wide. "Harry, what was your mother's maiden name?"

"Um... Evans," I said after a moment. "Why?"

Without answering, she grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the record player.

"Dom! Dom! That belonged to Harry's mum!"

The boy smiled. "That's wicked. Your mum was Lily Evans?"

I nodded, staring at the record player with new fascination. Surely enough, the name "Lily Evans" was engraved in neat cursive on the arm of the record player.

"I found it in the corner of the common room as a first-year. An older kid told me she had left it behind for other Muggle-borns to use after she graduated. The charmwork on this is bloody brilliant. I could explain it, if you'd like, but I understand if you'd rather not listen to me go on and on about it."

"No, it's okay," I said, excited to get to learn more about her, however little it may be. Dom's face lit up, and he launched into an enthusiastic discussion of what my mum had done to it. Ron and Hermione left to go talk to Seamus and Dean, but I reckon I stood there twenty minutes listening to him talk before a couple of girls came forward with a vinyl and handing it to him.

"The Footloose soundtrack?" he asked. "Didn't this movie come out, like, ten years ago?"

"Just play it!" one of them begged, giggling.

"Nobody's dancing yet," another pointed out. "This will get the party really started!"

"Alright, alright," he relented with a shrug. I took this as my cue to leave, and found Ron and Hermione laughing at the "SLYTHERIN STINKS" sign Dean was helping a couple of older kids paint. After we had watched for a while, Hermione turned to me, suddenly serious.

"Do you want to go with me to tell Hagrid what we think happened to your broom?"

"Er... if you're going to go, sure, I'll go with you."

"I think an adult should know until we can prove it for sure. Do you want to come, Ronald?"

He shrugged. "Sure."

"Wait, where's Lucy?" Hermione asked, looking around. "We should see if she wants to come."

"I don't see her," I said after a moment, "but she said earlier she's claustrophobic. Maybe the party was too much for her."

"Oh, alright. Yeah, probably. If I'm being honest, the party is getting to be a little too much for me too."

"Let's go, then," Ron said, leading the way out the portrait hole and down to Hagrid's hut. When we knocked, we found the answer to our question. Lucy was already there, cup of tea in hand.

"Where'd you go, Lucy?" Ron asked as we joined her around the table.

She blushed. "The party was too overwhelming. I was only there for about ten minutes."

"I found her lookin' spooked under a tree an' asked if she'd want to come have tea with me," Hagrid added, setting three more cups of tea on the table. "We've just been talkin' about dragons. Say, Ron, yer brother is a dragonologist now, isn't he?"

Ron nodded. "He studies them in Romania."

Lucy's whole face lit up. "I didn't know he worked in the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary!"

"Anyway," Hermione interjected, "we can talk about dragons later. Hagrid, we think we know --- well, actually, we do know --- what happened to Harry's broom. It was Professor Snape!"

"Rubbish," Hagrid replied. "Why would he do somethin' like that?"

I exchanged a glance with everyone else at the table. They knew what I had seen the night before. I cleared my throat. "I found out something about him, when I tried to ask for my book back yesterday. He tried to get past that three-headed dog at Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it's guarding."

Hagrid's jaw dropped. "How do you know about Fluffy?"

"Fluffy?" Ron asked incredulously. "That monster is named Fluffy?"

"Yeah, he's mine. Bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year. I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the..."

He hesitated.

"Yes?" I urged, trying to look as innocent as possible.

"Now, don't ask me any more. That's top secret, that is."

"But Snape's trying to steal it," I insisted.

"Rubbish. Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort."

"Then why would he try to kill Harry?" Hermione demanded. "I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them! You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking at all, I saw him!"

"I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong! I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn' try an' kill a student! Now, listen to me, all of yeh: yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel-"

I jumped in my seat. "Oh! So there's someone named Nicolas Flamel!"

Hagrid grew very red in the face, and to my surprise, so did Lucy.

"Was that supposed to be a secret, Hagrid?" she asked, looking down at her hands.

He grunted in response. "Not anymore, I s'pose."

A couple of seconds passed in tense silence before Hermione straightened up in her seat. "Does anybody want to go to the library with me?"

"I'll go," I said immediately. "Ron? Lucy?"

Ron shrugged. "I guess. But honestly, Hermione, the library on a Saturday!"

Lucy shook her head, glancing up shyly. "I'd rather stay here, if that's alright. Hagrid was just about to show me his favorite book about dragons when you arrived."

A couple of weeks later, we were in the library after our flying lesson looking for information about Nicolas Flamel when Fred and George entered.

"Hi Fred, hi George," Lucy said. "I didn't know you two even knew where the library was."

"We know Hogwarts like the back of our hands!" George protested.

"What, do your freckles make a map?" she teased.

"Pfft, no. Since when do you study here?" Fred retorted. "We thought you preferred to study in the stairwells of the Quidditch Pitch by yourself."

Lucy's face, which had already been more red than usual the past couple of days, turned an even darker shade of red. "I'm helping with extra research." She smirked. "Are you two here to set off a Dungbomb? Maybe set a flock of birds loose in the Restricted Section?"

Ron and I snickered, but the twins' faces were unusually serious. "Actually, Lucy, we came up here to find you. Cedric's in the Hospital Wing."

Lucy's smirk vanished as all of the blood drained from her face. "What happened?"

"It was strange, honestly," Fred said. "We were working with boggarts today, in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Everyone was really excited, because it's the most practical thing we've done all year."

"Then when it was Cedric's turn, it turned into a werewolf, and he just completely froze up. Henry was right behind him, and cast the spell to get rid of it, but Cedric was still pale as a ghost and nearly fainted. Quirrell told Henry to take him to the Hospital Wing, and Henry told us to get you as soon as class was over."

"Thanks for coming to get me." Lucy trembled violently as she rose from her chair. "I'll see you later," she said to us as she practically ran from the library.

"Should we follow her?" I asked.

Hermione shook her head. "Lucy likes to be alone when she's upset. She'll come back when she's ready."

"If she's not back by dinner tonight, we'll check on her, mate," George said, "but Hermione's right. When she got an A on that last potions test, not even Cedric could find her, and he must have been looking half an hour."

"Fortunately, we're Lucy-finding experts," Fred added, "so we eventually found her sitting in a tree -- yeah, really, in a tree --- but we got the feeling she didn't really want to be found."

"Anyway, she'll be alright, and so will her brother. Cedric wasn't doing all that badly, but considering he's normally Mr. Confident, we were all taken by surprise when the boggart was so debilitating."

With that, the twins left, and the three of us remaining got back to reading, but it was hard to focus as more time passed without Lucy coming back. She wasn't at dinner either, so, as promised, the twins went to the Hospital Wing to see if she was there. When they returned with confused expressions and no Lucy, we knew something was wrong. Hermione checked their dormitory after dinner, but she wasn't there either. The twins disappeared, saying they would definitely find her this time, but when they came back an hour later, there was still no sign of her.

"So much for Lucy-finding experts," Ron sighed as they headed up to their dorm, thoroughly discouraged. "I'm sure she's fine, though, right?"

Hermione echoed his sigh. "I'm sure she is. About a month ago, her parents came to visit her in Hogsmeade, and she ended up staying there overnight. Maybe they came to visit Cedric, and the same thing happened."

But even as the words left her mouth, I could tell she was unconvinced. We shared the unspoken fear that she had wound up in the Forbidden Forest again, unreasonable though it was.

"You don't suppose she could have gone to see Fluffy for herself, do you?" Ron asked softly after a moment. "I mean, she wasn't with us the first time. Maybe she wanted to see for herself."

"She's not stupid," Hermione snapped. "She wouldn't do that. I think there's something she's not telling us. Remember how red she got when Hagrid told us about Nicolas Flamel? I think she has a secret, and Hagrid somehow knows about it."

"I wouldn't go quite that far," I said slowly, "but I'm worried for her too. If she's not here in the morning, we'll go straight to Professor McGonagall."

Hermione closed her book with a snap. "I have half a mind to go right now. I don't want her getting hurt again."

"Me neither," Ron and I said in unison.

We sat in silence for a moment. Hermione checked her watch and sighed. "It's getting late. I don't want to bother her, or wake her up."

I nodded. "Morning it is, then."

"Staying up waiting and worrying won't make her come any sooner," Ron said slowly.

"You're right, Ron." Hermione sighed. "See you two in the morning."

With that, Ron and I headed up the stairs to our dormitory in silence.

The next morning, Lucy was one of the only Gryffindors in the Great Hall when Ron and I entered. We hurried over and sat down across from her.

"What happened last night? Is everything okay?" I asked.

She nodded, pulling her Gryffindor scarf tighter around her neck. "I'm fine, nothing happened, why do you ask?"

"Well... you never came back," Ron said. "Fred and George checked the Hospital Wing and said you weren't there. We were afraid something happened to you."

"Oh, they must have checked the Hospital Wing right after Henry came in. I figured I'd let them be alone for a bit. When Henry left, I went back and spent the night with him."

Before we could reply, Hermione ran over and tapped Lucy on the shoulder. "Can I talk to you? In private?"

She nodded slowly, looking straight at me. I noted with sympathy how utterly exhausted she looked. It must have been a long night for her, too. "If Fred and George ask about me, would you mind telling them what I told you?"

"Of course," I replied.

Hermione grabbed Lucy by the arm and practically dragged her from the Great Hall. The twins entered as they were leaving, and apparently tried to talk to Lucy, but Hermione glared at them and continued to march Lucy away.

"What was that all about?" Fred asked as they sat across from us.

"Is Lucy alright?"

I nodded. "She said she spent the night with Cedric, and that you must have been in there while Henry was there with Cedric."

"Henry was there," George confirmed. "Madam Pomfrey wasn't, which was thought was odd, but Henry was there."

"Why did Hermione need to talk to her so badly?" Fred asked.

I shrugged.

"Guess we'll find out later," Ron said, diving into his eggs. "In the meantime, I'm starving."

"When are you not?" the three of us exclaimed in amused unison.