Challenges and Complexities
The school started again a few days into January after two weeks of holidays. Harry and the other first years were now getting used to having to learn more spells. The first four months had been more or less to get them used to constantly using their magic. Now that they were at that point, the teachers increased their workload. In Charms there was rarely an hour where they didn't practice a new charm. The concepts in Transfiguration were becoming more complex and even Harry needed more than one attempt to get a spell. Potions was like always. Snape expected them to be prepared for the lesson and let them brew the potions. The first fifteen minutes he always tried to find somebody who didn't properly prepare. But by now, the Hufflepuffs had worked on their overall preparation. Susan had told Harry that they all had got the books he had recommended and built study groups in their house to not fall prey to Snape's vitriol.
The Ravenclaws didn't have any problems with preparing; it was in their nature to study hard for their lessons. Astronomy was like always learning constellations and what they meant for witches and wizards. History turned to the time of Merlin, which was really interesting. Professor Tonks just knew how to keep her students involved in the class and impressed on them the importance of the time period for the development of the magical world as it was today. Defence Against the Dark Arts was still a joke. Quirrell was a stuttering idiot and they had problems understanding him. Harry was convinced the guy was fake, but couldn't put his finger on it why he thought that.
Over the next month until the date for the Dursleys' trial, Harry exchanged at least one letter with Sirius a week and he also kept contact with Remus Lupin. Sirius had gone to Potter Manor to see what needed to be done before he and Harry could move in there. To his delight only a few things needed to be done as the house elves had kept everything maintained. With a few orders from Harry through a letter to the elves, the old manor was gleaming again. Sirius had decided to return to his position as an auror. He and Harry had discussed it and come to the conclusion it would be good if they knew what was going on inside the Ministry. Additionally, if Sirius was proving his worth there, he could gain a lot of political influence.
From what they had seen of Cornelius Fudge so far, the man was doomed to fail in the long run. The most probable candidate to become his successor would be either Amelia Bones or Rufus Scrimgeour. While Amelia probably didn't want to position, she would take it if she needed to. Which meant Sirius had good chances to advance in the DMLE either to head auror or head of the department. And the DMLE was the most important department of the Ministry. While they still were order bound by the Minister, he needed to have really good arguments for his orders. And with Rita Skeeter being on the warpath against the Ministry, the Minister was really careful what he did. After all, he could be the next one she wrote an article about.
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Early in February the Quidditch training started again. While the field under them was still covered in snow, Barkaim and the other captains were convinced their teams needed to keep in form. Harry suggested just having the team do exercises inside the castle. There had to be a place where they could train without having to fear falling ill with the temperatures outside. That led to Professor Flitwick and Professor McGonagall changing one of the big, unused classrooms on the fourth floor into a training room for all Quidditch teams. Harry had explained the concepts of basketball and football to his captain and now the team played a modified version of Quidditch in the training room regularly.
They had three smaller hoops than outside on each side of the field, the beaters were trying to hit them with fake bludgers which they threw at them instead of hitting the bludgers with clubs. Each team had a keeper, a beater and three chasers. The reserve chaser and the seekers were made chasers for this training. The chasers were trying to get the ball over the field towards the hoops, where the keeper defended. If a chaser was hit by a bludger he had to return to the middle circle before being allowed to run towards the hoops again. If a beater hit his own chaser accidentally, the same rule applied. If a chaser with the quaffle was hit, the other team got the quaffle. Of course the opposing chasers could also try to steal the quaffle. It turned into such a popular game that soon not only the Quidditch teams played the game, but also other groups that liked Quidditch but didn't make the teams.
In the end the Professors needed to change another room into a playing field. Not that they really minded. It was good for the students to have an outlet for their energy. The incidents with fights in the corridors had lessened as most grudges were solved on the field in a game to prove who was superior. Indoor Quidditch became really popular. Nobody knew if the trend would hold once they could go outside again, but until then the students had fun. Some of the purebloods complained about having to run around and not flying on brooms, but with the limited space flying was simply impossible. And the game was so much like Quidditch otherwise that nobody else really cared.
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