Chapter 39

"Professor Flitwick? Why?"

"I need to see him about granting you an official Prefect's Merit."

"A Prefect's Merit," Padma repeated "And what exactly would one of those be?"

"Pretty much the opposite of a strike." answered Harry "You did an excellent job, so you get a merit."

"And what if I get a strike after gaining a merit?" asked Padma.

"Then you lose the merit, but don't gain a strike. Think of it as basic addition and subtraction. You start at zero, a merit adds one, and a strike subtracts one."

"So if Pansy did something good, rather than gain a merit, she would lose her strike?"

"Correct."

Padma nodded thoughtfully for a few moments before asking "And what do three merits get you?"

"What do you mean?" asked Harry.

"Well, if three strikes mean that you lose you your prefect's badge then I imagine that something must happen when you get three merits."

"Good point," said Harry "I hadn't really thought of that."

"Then why give merits at all?"

"So people can lose their strikes."

"Ah. Got ya."

Harry thought for a few moments before saying "Maybe I should get vouchers or something. How about book tokens?"

"That might work for the Ravenclaws, but few others." replied Padma.

"Damn. Well, I'm sure I'll think of something."

"You'd better or we'll stage a coup."

"You wouldn't!"

"Wanna bet?"

"Don't you somewhere to be?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just keep it in mind Potter. We want to know what three merits get us, and we want that decision made by the end of the week."

Harry rolled his eyes, chuckling to himself as Padma left the compartment.

Once she was gone, Harry suddenly realised that that was the first proper conversation he had ever had with Padma, and yet he had felt completely at ease with her. More at ease, in fact, than he yet felt with either Susan or Hannah, and he had spent three weeks with them.

He supposed that it was down to the fact that Padma strongly resembled her twin sister, Parvati, whom Harry had known for four years.

But then… did he really know Parvati at all? Sure they had shared the same common room and many lessons together over the years, and he had even escorted her to the Yule Ball the previous Christmas, but he had hardly ever actually spoken to her at all, and the Ball had been a disaster.

Come to think of it, he had warmed up to Hannah surprisingly quickly as well. Although he knew her about as well as he did Susan, he had spent much more time with the red haired Hufflepuff…

This warranted further investigation, but not now though.

Deciding that he had done enough patrolling for now, Harry decided to head back to the compartment that he had been sharing with Susan and Hannah earlier. Susan deserved to know where he had sent her best friend, after all.

After the fiasco with the Slytherins, the rest of the trip was comparatively calm. Harry patrolled a few times, but there were no incidents. He came across Ron twice, but each of them ignored the other. Hermione tried several times to talk to him, but always seemed to lose her nerve and would leave without uttering a sound.

Apart from the odd stroll up and down the length of the train, Harry's only other job during the rest of the trip was to switch around which prefects stood guard over the four troublesome Slytherins. A good number of students appreciated Harry coming down hard on Draco, and that included a good few Slytherin students as well. They didn't yet understand Harry's new role, but were more than happy that it allowed him to knock Draco down a couple of pegs.

Beyond that the only interesting thing to happen was when Susan and Hannah had to physically restrain Harry from going and picking a new fight with Ron and Hermione.

It had started innocently enough, with Susan simply asking if he had used any diagnostic spells to determine that everything was okay with Hedwig.

Everything came up fine. Or at least it did until Harry discovered a myriad of tracking charms placed upon her. This caused him to wonder aloud if the Dumbledore Worshippers Club had tried to use Hedwig to track him down. Harry had always said that Hedwig was an exceptionally smart owl, and she proved this to be true when she bobbed her head in confirmation to his voiced thought.

Harry had, of course, gotten angry. And this came with a desire to punch Ron in the face and shout at Hermione.

Seeing his mood, Susan and Hannah both grabbed him as he made for the door and pulled him down onto the seat and wrestling with him until he calmed, something which was achieved by Hannah reminding him that he was punishing the Slytherins for exactly the same thing, so to do so himself now would be wildly inappropriate.

Harry had relented, but was still in a bad mood when the train finally pulled in at Hogsmeade Station.

On the platform Harry joined Hannah and the other prefects in making sure that all the first years made it towards the crowd gathering around Hagrid, who would lead them down to the boats that would carry them across the lake to the castle.

Once that was done Harry and Hannah made their way over to where Susan was waiting on them and they headed off towards the carriages which took the older students up to the castle.

As they went, Harry looked back over his shoulder and saw two pairs of Aurors stepping onto the train. Madam Bones had apparently come through on his idea to have a few Aurors do a security sweep of the train before the students' luggage was brought up to the castle.

He also picked out Pansy, being escorted by two prefects. Behind her Goyle was in a similar situation. He could not see where Malfoy or Crabbe were though.

As he turned back towards the carriages, he heard the voice of Professor Grubbly-Plank shouting out over the heads of the students "First year students, gather over here please!"

Wondering where Hagrid was, Harry made his way over to the carriages and was soon sitting comfortably between Susan and Hannah. They were quickly joined by Ernie Macmillan, Megan Jones, Justin Finch-Fletchley and, surprisingly, Cho, who squeezed in next to Harry and seemed to find the tight fit to be a perfectly good reason to push her body right up against Harry's, and rest her left hand on his right leg.

Despite his crush on Cho, Harry was actually uncomfortable being in this position with her. His discomfort must have shown on his face, because Susan and Hannah, who were sitting opposite to him, both wore matching smirks all the way up to the castle.

To be honest, Harry did not know how to respond to this new side to Cho. She was being very forward, and he was finding the situation rather awkward. He couldn't help but wonder if there was more to it than just her letting him know that she was interested in him.

The carriage was drawn up the winding path until, at last, they could see the castle that was their school, and would be home for them until next June.

Harry felt himself tense up. The train ride had been the opening round. The real fight was about to begin.

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