Chapter 085

"Great," Harry said with a relieved smile. While Daphne presented a bit of a problem, at least Blaise and Tracey had hopped on board easily enough. "I'll see you guys then."

"Right, bye Harry!" Tracey offered him a parting smile while Blaise gave him a silent nod. The two soon walked off, Harry watching as they moved out of sight. before he turned around and heading to the Gryffindor common room.

While he walked through the hallways, Harry let his mind wander to his plans. His first plan to gain allies in each of the four houses was coming along nicely. Daphne posed a problem, but he felt that with some time and effort, she would become his ally eventually.

It was a good thing he had come to them only a few days after school started. He figured at least part of the reason they were so willing to join him was because they hadn't been given enough time to conform to the ideals of their house. Granted, he didn't think hating everyone in Gryffindor simply because they were in Gryffindor was an original ideal for the house of snakes, but something that had simply developed from long years of intense rivalry. However, the fact remained that most everyone—except for him it seemed—was of the belief that Gryffindors and Slytherins couldn't be anything but intense rivals at best, and bitter enemies at worst.

He hoped to eventually dissuade people of that belief. One of his goals while studying at Hogwarts was to gain the respect of everyone, not just the teachers and those in his house, but the respect of every single student of every single house. If he wanted to make inroads in this particular goal, he needed to have allies in each house. Slytherin would be the hardest to earn respect from because he was in Gryffindor.

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"I'll probably end up falling off my broom and breaking something," Neville moaned miserably as he and Harry walked into the Great Hall for breakfast. The young, round-faced boy had been like this ever since the morning began, when they had first noticed the post on the bulletin board claiming they would have flying lessons after Herbology. Apparently, he was not looking forward to their flying lessons.

Not that Harry could blame him. The boy's lack of confidence and general clumsiness definitely made the idea of putting him on a broom seem like a bad one. It didn't help that Neville's grandmother never let her grandson even make an attempt at learning to fly for fear that he would kill himself.

Again, this was understandable. Neville was clumsy enough on land, Harry could only imagine how bad he would be in the air.

Of course, he was sure that most of the boys clumsiness coincided with his lack of confidence. People who had no self-confidence tended to be more clumsy than those who did. Still, it would not do for Neville to begin putting himself down after all of the progress he had made thus far.

"Have you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy, Neville?" asked Harry, his voice just as mild as always, his tone laced with minor curiosity. Neville stared at him.

"What?"

"A Self-fulfilling prophecy," Harry repeated, sitting down at the Gryffindor table. Neville sat down beside him and they began piling food onto their plates. "It is the act of creating a prediction that comes true simply due to the fact that the prediction was made in the first place. For example; if you tell yourself that you are going to injure yourself during our flying lessons, you will, simply because you are so sure that this event will happen that your mind and body responds accordingly to make it so. By telling yourself that you will do horribly in something, you are already making it happen. Belief is half the battle when it comes to accomplishing anything. Particularly, belief in oneself. If you do not believe you can do something, you won't be able to do it because your mind is so set on believing you cannot accomplish your task that it works against you."

Harry paused, watching Neville looking at him with the same gaze he always did when Harry gave him advice of this nature. Letting Neville take a moment to think about his words, Harry let his eyes take a quick scan of the Great Hall to see if any of their other friends had arrived.

A little ways away from them, Seamus was telling Dean Thomas about how he had spent almost all of his childhood flying around the countryside on his broom. Idle boasting. Harry knew for a fact the boy was lying by looking at his tells. Whenever Seamus lied, he made grand gestures with his hands as if conducting an orchestra. Little things like that let Harry know who was a braggart and who was being honest.

And Seamus wasn't the only one boasting. Over at the Slytherin table Draco Malfoy was telling anyone who would listen about how he had been chased by muggle helicopters. Quite frankly, Harry was surprised the boy even knew what a helicopter was.

While many students from Slytherin and Gryffindor bragged about how exceptional they were on their brooms, just as many looked nervous.

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