As November rolled in, so did the extremely cold and chilly weather. Frost lightly dusted the grounds and everyone could be seen wearing layers of clothing underneath their uniforms. The dungeons, being underground, felt the same as if you were standing outside. The cold weather made Harry feel quite ridiculous by the amount of clothes he had to pile on for Quidditch practice and he really hoped it would be slightly warmer on Saturday when they had their first game against Gryffindor.

Flint made sure nobody knew that Harry was on the team and threatened anyone who already knew not to tell. He really wanted everyone to be shocked at the first game and for the opposing team to let their guard down slightly due to the fact that Harry is a first year. There were bets going around the school of who's the new Slytherin seeker, but only a handful of people betted on Harry.

When Harry wasn't getting 'proper etiquette' lessons from Draco, wasn't being drowned in a mountain of homework, and wasn't freezing his butt off at Quidditch practice, he was in the library studying with two new friends he made.

"Harry, have you completed your reading on chapters four and five of your Herbology textbook?" A voice asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

Harry smiled up at her and nodded.

"Yes, Hermione," he replied.

Harry didn't know exactly when, but he had somehow made friends with Hermione Granger. They both would show up at the library at the same time to study and they eventually formed a mini study group. Hermione eventually dragged an awkward boy named Neville Longbottom into their group and the three of them have been friends ever since.

"And I assume you have read both chapters as well, Neville," Hermione said.

Neville nodded shyly and plopped his textbook on the table they were sitting at. Although they've all been seeing each other the past week, Neville was still very hesitant to warm up to him. Harry wondered if Neville was nervous because of all the bad things said about Slytherins. He wondered what kind of person Neville saw him as.

"Well that's good," Hermione said, "Then we'll start today's assignment by taking notes from our transfiguration textbook. I'd say start at the beginning of chapter three and then stop at page fourty-three to do a self assessment."

When they finished, Hermione suggested that Harry should take out a book called Quidditch Through the Ages, which she said would help him learn more about the sport. He ended up telling her about his placement on the Slytherin Quidditch team during their first study session. Harry found that he was able to trust her and was glad to have a friend outside of his House- not that he was tired of his housemates, he just didn't see why it was considered 'taboo' to associate with people from other Houses.

When Harry entered his dorm, he was met with a crossed-armed Draco standing in the doorway.

"Tell me why I go into the library to give you a book you dropped, and I find you hanging around with two Gryffindors!" He demanded.

Harry shrugged and tried to avoid making eye contact with the fuming blond.

"We were having a mini study session," he told Draco, "Is it apparently against the rules to talk with other Houses? They're nice to me, so I'm going to hang out with them. I don't see why you seem so angry with this."

"Well, maybe because one is a mudblood! Or maybe the fact that the other is from a disgraceful pure-blooded family! Not to mention the fact that we're playing against their team this Saturday!" Draco practically yelled.

Harry pushed past Draco and set down his books. He turned around when he heard Theo gasp.

"Jeez, Draco, can you not use that term? It's highly offensive and makes me uncomfortable," Theo said.

Draco rolled his eyes and sat on his bed. He looked up at Harry and raised his eyebrow.

"Well? Are you going to dump them and continue hanging out with your kind?" He asked.

Harry sat down on his own bed and faced Draco, giving him an annoyed look.

"Draco, I honestly don't care what their background is along as they themselves are good people," he said before adding, "and what's a mudblood? Why does it sound like it's a bad thing?"

Theo shook his head and laid back down as Draco began to speak.

"A mudblood is someone who is born from a non wizarding family. Ya know, muggleborns."

Theo scoffed and came over to stand in front of Draco.

"You do realize that Harry's a halfblood, right? Do you treat Harry any different because of his background?" He asked accusingly.

Draco bit his lip and shook his head.

"Well.. I know he's a halfblood, but I don't treat Harry badly because I know who he is as a person. But it's different with muggleborns! They're all a disgrace!"

"No, Draco." Theo shook his head. "You can't treat anybody differently because of their background. Think of it this way: By saying you hate people without purity in their blood, you're basically insulting a big portion of Harry! His mother was muggleborn so his blood isn't pure. You really need to stop judging people based off of what your father says, Draco."

Theo walked back over to his bed, leaving Draco pale. He looked up at Harry and saw he had a sad look on his face. He sighed very loudly and put his hands up.

"Fine. Hang out with whoever you please," he said, but when he saw that Harry still looked sad added, "I'm sorry, okay? I guess it is quite rude to judge based off of roots.. I mean everyone looks at me as if I were my father.. I won't say anything to the Granger girl or Longbottom, but if they ever do something to you I will come after them."

Harry immediately lost his sad look and nodded with a big smile. Draco smiled back and they both shook hands.

"I'm glad to be your friend Draco," Harry said.

"I'm glad to be your friend, too."

~le time skip~

On Saturday morning, Harry was a nervous wreck. He was shaking like crazy and the butterflies in his stomach were on a full rampage. He was so nauseous that he couldn't even look at the breakfast display without feeling sick. Draco, however, didn't care about his friend's weak stomach, and kept badgering him to at least eat some toast and drink a glass of milk.

Harry eventually gave in, despite the protests his stomach were giving him, and ate some toast with marmalade and even managed to drink two glasses of milk.

"Don't worry, Harry," Daphne said reassuringly. "I'm sure you'll be marvelous out there!"

"I hope we win," Vince said.

"If I heard correctly, you're the best flier on the team!" Tracey told him.

Harry smiled and thanked them all. He wasn't sure how great he would perform in the game, but at least he knew that there will be people cheering him on. It made him feel instantly better about the game and he felt determined to win for his friends.

Before he even realized it, Harry was listening to Flint's before-game speech. He had a hard look on his face and he really felt as if they were going to win.

"Okay, team," he said, "I want a good play out there. Pucey I hope that leg of yours isn't going to interfere with your performance. I know you took a pretty hard hit last practice. Gryffindor may be a tough match, but we have a weapon they don't have; we have Potter. Now Potter, I want you to catch that snitch as quickly as possible or die trying. Okay, let's win this! For Slytherin!"

"FOR SLYTHERIN!"

When they walked onto the field, there was a mixture of boos and cheers from the crowd. Harry noticed a banner being held up in the Slytherin stand that flashed Go, Harry! over the crowd. His heart skipped and he felt braver than before.

"-And their new seeker, who is a second year, Cormac McLaggen. Out on the field comes the Slytherin team. We've got Marcus Flint as their captain and- Holy tattered pants that's Harry Potter!" Announced the match's commentator, Lee Jordan.

As soon as he said that, the crowd went into an uproar. People were shouting out all kinds of things. Some of which weren't very nice at all. Harry just ignored it and continued walking.

"Now, I want a nice fair game, all of you," Madam Hooch said, speaking particularly to Flint. Harry wondered if her biasedness would affect her refereeing.

"Mount your brooms, please."

Harry clambered onto his Nimbus Two Thousand and shot into the air when Madam Hooch blasted her whistle.

"And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor- what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too-"

"JORDAN!"

"Sorry, Professor."

"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, the Slytherins have taken the Quaffle-"

Harry decided to tune out the commentary and try to find the Snitch. He didn't see it anywhere and just continued to fly around the field.

"Slytherin in possession," Lee Jordan was saying, "Chaser Pucey ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys, and Chaser Bell, and speeds toward the- wait a moment- was that the Snitch?"

A murmur ran through the crowd and Harry started to look around frantically for the Snitch. He spotted it and then dived downward after the streak of gold. The Gryffindor Seeker, Cormac McLaggen, had spotted it too, and now the two of them were hurtling toward the Snitch, neck and neck.

Harry was faster than McLaggen and was almost within reach of the fluttering ball. He pushed his broom to go just a little faster and he lost it when his broom gave a sudden, frightening lurch. He gripped his broom tightly as it continued to try and buck him off.

It kept happening, and he tried to redirect the broom to fly in the direction of his Captain. The broom didn't agree, however, and just about flung Harry off of it.

Down in the Slytherin stands, Draco was frightened by the sight and alerted the rest of the Slytherins. Soon, they were all looking up at Harry with wide eyes.

"His broom looks as if it's gone out of control!" Blaise shouted.

"I can't bear to watch!" Pansy yelled, burrowing her face into Draco's arm.

Draco looked into his binoculars and his eyes fell on the teachers' stands. He saw Quirrell standing, his eyes fixed on Harry, and was muttering nonstop under his breath. Draco gasped and told his friends what he saw. They all looked into his binoculars, seeing what he was pointing at, and all started to freak out.

On the other side of the stands, Hermione and Neville were just as frightened for Harry. Hermione took Neville's binoculars and looked up to see if she could spot what was going on. However, something else caught her eye in the teachers' stands.

"There! I knew he was off, oh Neville look at what Snape's doing!" She gasped, shoving the binoculars to Neville so he could see what she saw.

He took one look at Snape and started to shake even more. Snape was in the middle of the stands opposite them. He had his eyes fixed on Harry and was muttering nonstop under his breath.

"He's jinxing the broom!" She declared loudly, shaking Neville's arm.

"What should we do?"

"Leave it to me."

Before Neville could say another word, Hermione had disappeared. Neville turned back to Harry and looked through the binoculars again. The rest of the crowd had noticed by now, and were all standing on their feet, watching, terrified, as some of the other members tried to pull Harry off his broom. It was no use, as every time they got near him, the broom would jump higher and higher into the air. The Gryffindor teamed stared in shock at the flailing eleven-year-old and stared at him, giving the Slytherins the advantage of scoring a few more points.

"Come on, Hermione," Neville muttered, finally taking his eyes off Harry and closing them.

Hermione had fought her way across to the stand where Snape stood, and was now racing along the row behind him; she didn't even stop to say sorry as she knocked Professor Quirrell headfirst into the row in front. Reaching Snape, she crouched down, pulled out her wand, and whispered a few well-chosen words. Bright blue flames shot from her wand onto the hem of Snape's robes.

Draco was still looking at Quirrell through his binoculars when he noticed Hermione racing towards him. She knocked him over and he heard a cheer from beside him. He tore his eyes from Quirrell, looked up, and saw that Harry was in control of his broom again.

"So Quirrell was using some sort of Dark Magic on Harry's broom... But why?" He asked Theo next to him.

Theo shivered and shrugged.

"I don't know, but it is quite worrying."

After Snape noticed he was on fire, Hermione scooped the fire into a little jar in her pocket, and scrambled back along the row. She silently cheered when she saw that Harry was back in control of his broom.

Harry, back in control, sped off towards the sparkle of gold that shimmered below him. The rest of the players immediately went back up the game to get a few more points added when they saw that Harry was okay. He went down vertically with his arm stretched out, and immediately regretted that decision as he felt himself falling. He closed his hand around something and landed hard on the grass, which was about six feet below him. He felt the wind get knocked out of him and clutched his fist to his chest.

In an instant, the whistle was blown. Teachers and the Quidditch teams crowded around Harry as he laid on the ground. He smiled up at them, barely able to keep his eyes open, and put his fist in the air. He opened his fist and displayed the Golden Snitch.

"I've caught it," he declared weakly, passing out a second later.

"I don't believe it! Harry Potter has caught the Snitch, which means- which means Slytherin wins this match against Gryffindor," Jordan stated rather blandly. He didn't seem at all happy about Gryffindors loss against Slytherin.

All of the students then flooded the field as Harry was lifted off on a levitating stretcher. Hermione rushed straight up to Draco and shook him by the shoulders. He glared at her and pushed her hands off of him.

"I don't know if you realize this or not, but Harry's broom was being jinxed!" She breathed out.

Draco nodded and lowered his voice.

"Yeah, I saw Quirrell jinxing it. I saw you knocked him over. Good idea, by the way. By breaking his eye contact, Harry gained control of his broom again," he said.

Hermione screwed up her face and looked at him.

"Quirrell? No, it was Snape that was doing it!" She argued.

Draco looked annoyed from being argued with and stuck his pointer finger up at her.

"I saw it myself, Granger. Quirrell was doing some kind of magic casting at Harry. And why would Snape try to hurt Harry? It doesn't make any sense, you dunce," he argued back.

Hermione was angered from being called a dunce and stuck her nose up. She sighed loudly and shook her head, trying to calm herself.

"When Harry wakes up, I need you to be there while I explain to Harry what happened. I may not like you, Malfoy, but Harry needs a Slytherin friend to keep watch for him. I'll explain to you both my theory about Snape. See you then, I suppose," she said before walking off.

Draco walked off as well and went over to where the Slytherin first years were standing.

"We won, Draco," Greg said while Vince nodded behind him.

Draco rolled his eyes and they all walked up to the infirmary together. When they got there, they saw that their Quidditch team was surrounding Harry's bed and he was beginning to stir. They all rushed over to the other side of his bed and stared down at him.

When Harry woke up, he was greeted with many faces looking down at him. He blinked a few times and sat up slightly, groaning as he did so. The silence that filled the room didn't last, however, as Flint started half yelling, half lecturing.

"Potter! When I said 'catch the snitch or die trying,' I didn't actually mean die trying!"

Harry sank back into the bed and chuckled nervously. Flint shook his head and ruffled Harry's hair, earning an agitated groan from him.

"Out! The boy needs his rest, c'mon then, out with you!" Madam Pomfrey yelled, coming out of her office.

She retreated back into her office when she saw everyone start to walk out of the infirmary. Hermione and Draco stayed behind, however.

"Well, Granger. Are you going to tell us your pointless theory about Snape then?" Draco said.

Harry looked between the two with a questioning look.

"It's not pointless! Okay so, a little before Halloween, Neville and I were walking back to our dormitories before curfew. Except, Neville really had to use the loo and couldn't wait until we arrived back, right? I waited for him to use the one boys' toilets on the floor we were on when I checked my watch and noticed it was six minutes past curfew. When Neville came out, we tried to hurry back, but we ran into Peeves. He shouted out that we were out of bed past curfew so Neville and I booked it up a staircase and down a corridor we've never been to before.

"When we were creeping down that corridor, we heard footsteps and ran into the nearest room that we could find. But we only realized we were in the third floor corridor when we turned around a saw a huge Cerberus snarling with it's teeth out at us. Before we ran back out of there, I noticed that the Cerberus was standing on top of a trapdoor," she told them.

Draco looked from Harry to Hermione with slightly wider eyes.

"So? Okay, I'll admit, that's very weird, but what does this have to do with Snape?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips.

"I'm not done yet. After Halloween, Snape was limping a lot and after doing a little bit of spying, I saw him constantly pacing in front of the room with the Cerberus on the third floor! So if you put two and two together, Snape was trying to get whatever is under the trapdoor and obviously he tried to get past the dog on Halloween by getting a troll in the castle, but he failed and was bitten by it. All we need to do is figure out what the Cerberus is guarding and why Snape felt the need to jinx Harry's broom today. Do you think that whatever it's guarding has something to do with Harry?" She told them, making them question everything.

Harry was in complete shock. Draco was thinking deeply to himself and looked up at her, shaking his head.

"I still stand by Quirrell being the person who jinxed the broom. Isn't it weird how as soon as you knocked him over, which made him break his eye contact, Harry immediately gained control of his broom? The thing you said about Snape is kind of weird, but I still blame Quirrell for all of this," he said.

"No, Harry gained control of his broom because I set Snape's robes on fire! He looked down at the flames, which made him lose eye contact, which made Harry gain control of his broom again. You just saw wrong."

Before Draco got a chance to argue back, Harry gasped, causing both of his friends to look at him.

"What if Snape was trying to stop Quirrell from getting under the trapdoor?" Harry asked.

Hermione and Draco both stared at Harry with wide eyes.

"Wow Harry, that's the smartest thing you've said all year!" Draco exclaimed.

"Thanks! Wait- hey!" He said, smacking Draco's arm.

Draco chuckled while Hermione crossed her arms and shook her head.

"Although it does make sense, I'm still going to keep a close eye on Snape. He's still very shady even if neither of you want to believe it or not," she said.

Before the conversation could continue any further, Madam Pomfrey came bustling into the room with her hands on her hips.

"I thought I told you to get out! Go on now! Off with you two!" She yelled, pointing her finger in the direction of the door.

Once she saw they were actually gone, she tucked Harry into his sheets and took off his glasses.

"After a fall like that, you need some rest," she told him, turning off the lights in the infirmary and heading back into her office.

Harry closed his eyes and tried to relax. Although he was exhausted, the conversation from before kept replaying in his head. He wondered if he was in any danger or not and if Hermione's theory was right or not. He eventually drifted off to sleep, but he didn't sleep as peacefully as he would have liked.

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Wow, okay. That was a mighty long chapter. I'm trying to write as many chapters as I can before I head off to summer camp and it's proving to be very stressful. I played guitar and piano all day today, which made my wrists hurt, and now that I sat down and typed this chapter for like four hours straight, my hands are about ready to fall off. Yet, I'm still typing this stupid AN... Well I hope you enjoyed it. You know the drill with grammar. I'm really tired so I didn't really check through to make sure everything is correct soooOo I hope it all makes sense. Also, I couldn't help but add Jordan's commentary. He's hilarious. I pulled like two paragraphs from the actual books so that's why if you notice a paragraph that looks familiar. Also, I had no idea on who to put as the Gryffindor Seeker, so I put Cormac McLaggen. I don't know if there was somebody else I should've put, so do tell me if any other characters would be a better suited choice or if I should ditch McLaggen entirely and add in my own character. I really don't know. So what do you think will happen next? I'd love to hear your guesses and thoughts on the chapters. Have a happy whatever. Love ya.

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