9 The Dog Room

With the Gringott's break-in on everyone's mind, the walk out to the castle grounds to start their flying lesson with Madame Hooch. Unfortunately, the Gryffindors were paired up with the Slytherins, on top of that, Nicholas was constantly hearing Hermione mutter to herself about flying techniques off a book. He was trying to control himself before he explodes.

Even so, he was excited for the lesson. Flying was one of the things he was most looking forward to. Besides magic, flying was pretty high in his list of what he wanted to do at this school. He even looked up Quidditch, which was a sport magical folk played. Sort of like soccer, but with brooms.

Hooch has instructed her students to form lines facing one another. Gryffindor on one side and Slytherin on the other. There each student stood with a broom laid out on the ground to the right of them.

"Good afternoon class," Madame Hooch spoke as she walked down the middle gap in between the students.

All the students spoke together, "Good afternoon Madame Hooch."

"Welcome to your first flying lesson," the professor began, "Well? What are you waiting for? Everyone step up to the left side of your broom stick, stick your right hand over the broom and say up!"

Nicholas listened to the other students say "up" over and over again. He could see that some were struggling but he was surprised when Harry said 'up' once before the broomstick was in his hand.

Ron had congratulated Harry and so had Nicholas, but it was Hermione that looked at Harry with a jealous look. Then, it was Nicholas' turn say, "Up!". The broom lifted off the ground two feet before flopping back to the ground. Nicholas realized that the way he spoke to the broom was the key. The second time, Nicholas commanded the broom with much more determination and it flew up straight to his hand. He felt satisfied with this as a voice broke his thoughts,

"How did you do that? Nothing I try works!" Hermione asks with envious look.

Nicholas smiles slyly in response and says, "Hmm...I think it had to do with the big breakfast I had today...Also not everything can be learned from books."

Hermione opened her mouth to retort before a loud smack rang across the field. Ron tried to catch his broom but it hit him on the face instead. The rest of the class laughed uncontrollably and Nicholas was on the floor. Even Hermione couldn't stop the chuckles that escaped from her.

Ron groaned painfully, "Not one word Nicholas."

Nicholas sat upright and said, "I was going to tell you that you're supposed to catch with your hands and not your face." At this Nicholas started laughing again while Ron turned red and yelled, "NICHOLAS! WAIT TILL I GET-"

Before he could finish, Madame Hooch interrupted him by telling the class to mount their broom sticks and lean forward slightly to lift off the ground.

To everyone's surprise, Neville's broom had lifted off the ground a little too much. Without warning, the clumsy boy was now flying all around the pitch uncontrollably. Nicholas, seeing the danger of the boy falling dropped his broom and raced to where he could see Neville was hanging off a statue.

'Please let me make it in time!' Nicholas thought as he raced over and with horror he saw the robes that was holding Neville up tear off and he saw Neville falling to the ground at a fast rate. At this point Nicholas slid on the ground right before Neville hit the ground to cushion his fall.

"OOF! You weigh a ton mate!" Nicholas groaned as Neville quickly slid off of him he saw Harry and Ron running towards him.

"You okay mate? While that was bloody amazing it looked like it hurt." Ron commented while Harry was looking over Nicholas in concern.

"Aah, I'm fine. Just a couple of bruised ribs I reckon. Professor? May I go to the Hospital Wing?" Nicholas asked.

"Of course Mr. Ward. 5 points to Gryffindor for helping a classmate from greater harm. Here I'll take you there."

"I'll come with you! It was my fault that this all happened anyways." Neville said from his side.

And with that the three of them started to walk towards the Hospital Wing.

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Nicholas met up with Harry and Ron again in the Hallway and as the were walking, he was surprised to find out that Harry was named Seeker for the Gryffindor team. He smiled at Harry, proud of him before he heard Ron speak, "Seeker! Woah, but first years never make the house teams! You must be the youngest Quidditch players in over-"

"A centry! At least that's what McGonagall told me." Harry finished for him.

As the three boys walked beside one another, Fred and George approached them, "Well done, Harry! Wood's just told us."

Harry looked at the two ginger twins confused, before Ron explained, "Fred and George are on the team too. Beaters."

"Yup! Our job is to make sure that you don't get bloodied up too bad. Can't make any promises of course, rough game Quidditch." Fred joked.

George joined in, "Brutal! But no ones died in years! Someone will vanish occasionally,"

"But they'll turn up in a month or two!" The twins said together before continuing down the hall laughing.

The young Gryffindor boys walked into the courtyard and Nicholas spotted Hermione sitting on a bench reading a book. He looked at her wondering why she was studying so hard. Is this the reason why she's so good at school? The brown haired girl looked up to meet Nicholas' eyes which caused him to look away quickly not wanting to be caught.

"What if I make a fool of myself?" Harry asked.

Then Hermione joined in as she began walking with them irritating Nicholas, "You won't make a fool of yourself. It's in your blood."

Nicholas was confused and looked at Harry who also looked dumbfounded. She continued, "Come here, I want to show you something."

The brown haired girl walked off, and the three boys followed closely behind her. She took the three of them to the trophy case, where the Gryffindor team plaque for 1969-1971 was located. There it was;

"James Potter: Seeker"

"Wow Harry...At least I know you have at least some talent in you. I thought that the fame helped you out." Nicholas joked which in turn Harry smacked him again.

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The four young Gryffindors starting walking back to their common room. Nicholas led the group as they walked up the staircase. That was when he heard the freckled boy speak to him and Harry, "Don't you think it's a bit spooky? She knows more about you than any of us do!"

He, of course, was talking about Hermione. Who had just rolled her eyes at his comment. Nicholas laughed before looking at him and saying, "Well if you're as famous as Harry who wouldn't?" Hermione looked at him shocked thinking he was defending her. He continued, "Even so, if she keeps finding out these kind of secrets about Harry, it's borderline stalker level!"

Harry looked at Nicholas angrily, and then looked to Hermione a bit suspicious. She quickly shook her head side to side denying Nicholas' claims while she thought, 'I can't believe I thought he was defending me!' she huffed turned to walk away from them but before that could happen the staircase suddenly began to shift.

"What's happening?" Harry asked in a panicked tone.

Hermione was quick to explain, "The staircase change, remember?"

As the staircase came to a stop and positioned the four of them in a different direction, Nicholas spoke quickly, "Come on! Let's go this way."

"Yeah, before the staircase moves again." Ron said, as he, Harry and Hermione followed behind Nicholas.

The four Gryffindors opened the door blocking their path, and walked through. They entered a dark and dusty room. Harry looked around the room, "Does anyone else feel like we shouldn't be in here?

Nicholas looked around before answering his friend, "That's because we aren't supposed to be in here. I think this is the third floor."

Hermione gasped, "But Dumbeldore said that this floor was forbidden!"

"No, I think he said it was pretty safe in here!" he replied sarcastically while Harry said, "Yeah, we should probably head back then. Let's go."

The four turned back towards the door which they once came from, but thats when Nicholas spotted Mr. Filch's cat who was now blocking their path.

He cursed, "It's Filch's cat!"

"RUN!!" yelled Ron as he ran in the opposite direction.

Nicholas, Harry, and Hermione all followed after him quickly. The stormy eyed boy was the fastest and so he reached the end of the hallway first. Once again, there was another door that was blocking their path.

Nicholas tried to open it before saying, "It's locked!"

Harry and Ron looked nervously behind them before the ginger haired boy spoke, "That's it. We're done for."

Hermione, who was standing at the back, pushed her way past Nicholas to reach the door, "Oh move over!" She took out her wand and pointed it at the door, "Alohomora!"

The door quickly unlocked itself so she and Harry and Ron quickly went in but Nicholas stayed back for a bit looking at the door. 'How did she know that spell?' he quietly cursed again, 'She's seems to always be a step ahead of me!'

"Nicholas hurry up!" Harry quietly yelled at him allowing Nicholas to break out of his thoughts to join them in the room.

Nicholas closed the door behind them to make sure that Mrs. Norris would stop chasing them. That's when he heard, Harry ask Hermione a question, "Alohomora?"

"Standard Book of Spells, Chapter 7." She explained while smirking in Nicholas' direction with a 'I'm better than you look'. He quietly fumed while Ron rolled his eyes at her, "Why am I not surprised?"

They pressed their ears up against the door to make sure that they were safe from Filch, "I don't hear anything. I think Filch's gone."

"Probably thinks the doors locked," Ron suggested.

Hermione rolled her eyes at him once again, "That's because it was locked."

"And for good reason." Harry gulped.

"What do you mean Har-" Nicholas turned to see what his friend was talking about. Out of all the possible ways this scenario could have turned out, the last last possibility was a three headed dog. He wasn't expecting that one, and clearly none of his friends were either.

"AHHHHHH!!" They all yelled simultaneously, before running out of the room and all the way back to the Gryffindor common room.

As soon as they were safe, Ron spoke, out of breath, "What do they think they're doing! Keeping a bloody thing like that locked up in a school!"

Hermione huffed a response, "You don't use your eyes, do you? Didn't you see what it was standing on? It was a trap door!"

"Yup...Let's do the logical thing to look at its feet where there happened to be a trapdoor instead of its three heads." Nicholas commented while Ron yelled back at her, "I wasn't looking at its feet! I was a bit preoccupied with its heads!"

"Maybe it's guarding something" Nicholas commented again, halting the argument ensuing by Hermione and Ron.

Harry turned to Nicholas, "Guarding something? Do you think it could be the thing that Hagrid retrieved from Dumbledore's vault? They're protecting it since someone is clearly looking for whatever it is, that's why they broke into Gringotts!"

The stormy eyed boy simply shrugged in response.

The brown haired girl had clearly enough of this whole situation, "It doesn't matter! Now, if you three don't mind, I'm going to bed before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed. Or worse, expelled."

The three boys were taken aback by the girl's sudden outburst as they watched her walk up the stairs towards the girl's dorms.

Nicholas huffed in exasperation, "That girl needs to sort out her priorities."

The other two boys nodded in agreement before they too, scurried off to their dorms.