Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and make no money with what I write here.

Beta: Trish Tavor, PoetOfBabylon, BlackMoon08 and [she-who-shall-not-be-named] all worked their way through different versions of this - Thanks girls! :D

A/N: Written for this year's Quidditch League, Round 2 of the Little League, as Beater for Hufflepuff. Topic: "Getting Those Feelings Out - Your task is simple: to write about whatever you want whilst portraying your given emotion in your fic. […] You CANNOT explicitly tell the reader what the character is feeling." - So, write about an emotion without ever mentioning the word itself (emotion: see A/N at the end). Additional prompts chosen: 8. (dialogue) "I've never felt this way before.", 9. (word) skip. ...Since I'm a member of the Hufflepuff team, I figured I'd write a Hufflepuff POV this time.

Joy Ride

by Dime

"Fünf... vier... drei... zwei... eins..."

The floor dropped out from under her.

With a piercing scream, she fell. Bright rings of light flashed past her along the dark tunnel. The fall through the hollow darkness seemed endless.

Suddenly, her body was smoothly guided into a curve, sliding along on the warm, wet surface and ever so slowly loosing speed. Water rose around her hips, embracing her, softly bringing her to a halt.

Getting up on wobbly legs, Hannah sloshed towards the exit.

She was still pretty dazed when she arrived back outside where Neville was lying on a lawn chair. Neville appeared to be enjoying himself immensely while doing precisely nothing. At her approach, he looked up with a smile. "Good?" he asked.

"I can't believe that thing is legal," was all she could say before she collapsed into a chair at his side.

He cocked his head in question. "Not good, then?"

Slowly, a smile crept across her face until she was beaming like mad. "Best water-slide ever!"

"Harry's already been four times," Neville said. "I assumed you'd like it - you are nearly as crazy as he is."

Hannah gave a very unladylike snort. "No-one is as crazy as Harry."

"Did I hear my name?" the man in question said, throwing himself down into the lawn chair on her other side.

"Neville here called me as crazy as you for going down that free-fall water slide, which I protested against. I couldn't possibly compete."

Harry's eyes were sparkling with laughter and excitement. Totally ignoring the talk of craziness, he seemed ready to compose a sonnet to express his love for that water slide. "...so much like flying, but without a broom, and without any risk of kissing the ground. The countdown is fun, too - I think I'm getting the hang of German numbers by now... And that loop! Isn't it just the greatest thing ever?!"

"Wait. What loop?"

Harry's jaw dropped, and Neville started laughing uncontrollably. "The vertical loop. In the Hurricane Loop slide," Harry said slowly. "I know the explanation is in German, but surely the name was a bit of a hint?"

"That was a vertical loop?!" Hannah couldn't believe it. Yes, it had curved. But it couldn't possibly have gone all the way up and around - surely she would have noticed?

But then again, it had been dark. And she'd gone fast!

While Hannah was still trying to puzzle it out, Ron and Hermione joined them. "We lost Ginny to the café," Hermione confessed.

"Black forest cake again?" Harry asked with a crooked smile.

Hermione nodded, while Neville's laughter just kept coming.

"You had no idea?" Harry asked Hannah for confirmation once more; he clearly couldn't believe it.

"I... I suppose," she said lamely, deciding on the spot to examine the thing closely from outside the park when they left. "It's just... I've never felt this way before. Shouldn't there be a sense of up being down when you go around a loop?"

Harry beamed. "Usually, yes. There certainly is in Quidditch. That sense of your stomach seeming to be above you all of a sudden, or maybe beside you, is terrific! But when your ride guides you smoothly around as this slide does, not so much. You can feel that you are being pressed down against the slide, but that's about it... Do you think this could be used to cure people's fear of going upside-down on a broom? We could install one at Hogwarts, as a training facility for Quidditch players."

"Harry!" Hermione scolded, "Hogwarts is a school, not a fun fair! One would think that after the Chamber of Secrets, you know better than to hop on any slides in Hogwarts."

Ron liked the idea, though. Very much. "It would have to start at about the level of the Gryffindor common room, and end up in the Great Lake." Seeing that his wife was throwing her arms up in mock-despair, he tried to reconcile her: "It's a boarding school. Fun outside of classes is absolutely essential for any child's development - and for the teachers' relaxation, of course. Or what do you say, Professor Longbottom?"

Neville had finally stopped laughing, but an easy smile still played around his lips. "I don't much like the sense of falling, but maybe we could have more than one slide? I'd like a simple one, but starting all the way up at the top of the North tower..."

Hermione gave up and joined in the group's laughter at the mental image of Trelawney going down a long, winding water slide, shawls and all. "I seeeee - the end is neeear...!"

"Dumbledore would have loved it," Harry said fondly. "Don't ever let his portrait hear of this, or he'll badger Minerva until she implements the idea just to finally get some peace."

Harry, Ron and Hermione shared a reminiscing smile, never noticing the questioning glances and conspiratorial nods exchanged between Neville and Hannah at the mention of some promising badgering.

Looking around at her friends, Hannah merrily joined in their smile. "Being here is fun, isn't it?"

Hermione beamed. "I haven't been to a park like this in ages! I used to go with my parents as a kid, but that was a long time ago..."

Ron had a shit-eating grin stretched from one corner of his mouth to the other. "So you've already worn such a flimsy bit of swimming gear years ago? Where was I, back then?"

"Oh, you!" Hermione bumped her arm against his, brushing her hand lovingly down his side at the same time.

Hannah's eyes drifted over to Neville. He was looking at her with that intense look he sometimes got that seemed to shout out: I am so very, very much in love with you!

Her heart skipped a beat and she unconsciously leant forward, falling into a soft, warm kiss with her husband. Their friends' playful teasing and the dull roar of the children and adults splashing around in the background faded away and all that was left in her little world was her and Neville.

Harry apparently did not question their intentions at all when Neville asked to borrow his invisibility cloak a few weeks later. Nor did anyone spare the Herbology professor's wife a second glance when she came to meet him in the castle; she frequently did so anyway. Hermione had some very concrete suspicions when Hannah asked for her holiday pictures, her eyes lingering unduly long on the water slides. But she cheerfully kept her lips sealed.

It was only later, once the damage had been done, that people started noticing.

First, Headmistress McGonagall began to look increasingly grumpy and harried. Next, Professor Flitwick was seen smiling widely as he tested the walls and added charms for stability in various parts of the castle.

Then, construction wizards were called in.

No more than a month later, Hogwarts was the proud owner of four shiny new water slides.

The Third Eye spiralled down towards the lake from the North Tower.

The Basilisk Slayer started in a certain girls' bathroom that was always flooded anyway, rushing down towards the Chamber of Secrets, through the mighty doors and into the newly created thermal bath in the centre of the Chamber.

The Unity went from outside the Gryffindor quarters past Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, discharging its riders into the Great Lake right next to the Slytherin dorm entrance.

And finally, there was the Dumbledore Memorial, which started with a free fall from the Astronomy Tower, a tricky bit of magic wrought by Professor Flitwick making sure that after the fifty foot drop, the slide safely caught everyone who jumped, reducing their speed by way of several loops, and finally spitting their passengers out into one of the other slides - different ones on alternating days, of course.

Neville and Hannah had been anxious about mentioning that last slide to Dumbledore's portrait in one of their cloak-and-badger meetings. But he turned out to love the idea, only swearing them to secrecy towards one Severus Snape, for his peace of mind.

Of course, Severus had done the exact same thing when he'd suggested the ride the previous day while Dumbledore was out on an adventure with Sir Cadogan. One did not hang out - literally! - next to Albus Dumbledore for nigh on a decade without developing an acute sense of humour, if only out of self-defence.

Neville invited all his friends to the opening. Never had Hogwarts been the site of so much laughter shared by students and parents of all four houses. Fawkes was later said to have been crying tears of joy. Or maybe that was laughter.

Later, the slides were no longer open to the public. However, if a parent had a good reason to visit the castle anyway, no one begrudged them a ride or two.

Hannah knew from reliable sources that ever since the construction of the slides, Harry Potter had never again missed a single parent-teacher conference.

Overall, the slides were well-received, but soon forgotten again by the majority of the adult witches and wizards in Great Britain.

Hogwarts rumour had it, however, that noises could sometimes be heard from the direction of the slides late at night - a man's voice whispering half-hearted protests with a woman's encouraging, loving words nullifying every single one, until finally, with a great splashing and peals of laughter, the two voices shot down towards the lake.

Hannah might not be one of the great heroes of the Second War. But she was, for sure, one of its greatest winners.

~ The End ~

A/N: My assigned emotion was happiness. Certainly not what I usually write, but I think it works. ^^