Author Notes and Disclaimer:

I don't pretend to own the Harry Potter franchise and make no money off this.

This story is NOT a sequel, prequel or otherwise continuation of my first story. It is NOT very similar either so be warned. This one is pretty much PG 13 or however you'd call a story that doesn't contain too mature themes and such.

It is not an epic saga, it will be pretty short (3 chapters), and doesn't really serve a purpose or lead to an ending that carries meaning or anything fancy like that, it's just a small story I wrote when I didn't have much work to do at my job. Basically an extended oneshot.

For the multiple request of making a sequel to "Too young to die", I will say that it might happen as I do enjoy writing, but I wouldn't count on it because I haven't even started to think about it as of now.

That said, please enjoy and review.

Update 27/01/2018: after receiving several complaints about the format, I was forced to understand that it's really terrible. So, I fixed it to fit the conventional story-telling format to the best of my ability. I haven't added or removed any content.

Chapter One.

First Episode.

Harry ducked under a flying, fuzzy slipper as he himself almost slipped onto the equally fuzzy carpet upon entry in the living room. He had been, and still was, running at full speed - following the swarm of blond hair and corks and metal caps in front of him, his good friend and important ally Luna Lovegood.

She grabbed the real-marble kitchen top and sprang herself over it like a culinary gymnast of some sort, gracefully avoiding the ham and ham pieces and ham knife, she landed and turned a sharp left, into the corridor. Harry followed with roughly the same finesse, or at least he didn't look at what he left behind, and set into the corridor, now limping due to a small miscalculation that had gotten his knee gently slapped against the stone.

The corridor had the same fuzzy consistence to it, the walls were of a crumbling dark green wallpaper - the Wizard type, the one made of cloth and left to mold behind several high-ceiling pendulums; the floor was creaking wooden planks covered with a dark red carpet and - too late, they were out of the corridor, flung through a door opened with either Luna's or Harry's shoulder, none could tell, and they were in the living room.

Soon enough, Luna had dived over the couch and rolled on the other side, Harry jumped it and its occupants - he noticed them mid-jump as the old man reading his newspaper took out his pipe and gave him an acknowledgment nod; "My good sir.", he added - and Harry landed on his feet, the momentum carried him forward too fast and he bowled into Luna. They both got back up quickly and started running again when the muggle electrical toaster tossed tasty toasts in the air with that "tchak" noise, as if it had been the cue they'd been waiting for. They barreled through the bathroom, then in another corridor, then about five guest rooms, and in another living room, this one with a fireplace, and back in a corridor again.

Harry was not feeling tired just yet, every stride he took, he could feel a jolt of adrenaline pushed into his system; they were in a room again, Luna stopped dead and snapped her head to the right door - a splendid teak double-door of intricate craftsmanship with bronze knobs.

"The Nure are catching up, this is a shortcut!" she yelled, before kicking them open and disappearing in the next room. Harry nodded, the Nure had been chasing them for several hours now, they indeed needed a shortcut to widen the gap, although...

"The Nure has the key to the Netherlands," he'd yell back, in between two gasps, "We need to go down several levels to find another key."

"I know that!", she didn't miss a beat, " - this is going to take us down!". They ran down the small spiraling staircase, the steps were incredibly thin and narrow, their rhythm echoed this new situation as their own steps echoed low thumps in the structure of this immense house.

"We've already gone down fifteen levels, I'd reckon we're good now!" he called after a moment of careful stepping down.

"We're running out of time!" she responded, which threw him off suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"Cookies are going to get cold if we don't hurry up!" she insisted.

He accelerated, pushing her down from behind, "Well, hurry up, will you?".

Pushing down? No, pushing up, they were going up; Harry stopped dead. Something was amiss. Something wasn't right, cookies? "The Nure..." he whispered, then, it hit him, like a full-speed hypogriff hits a rabbit.

Of course. Of course it was, how nonsensical was this whole situation, and Luna... he was here with Luna for a reason, he knew that. "Luna!" he shouted, "We've got to get out of the building, now!", he couldn't see her anymore in the staircase but knew she was just here. "It's going to blow up!"

They both ran out of the staircase and into a corridor with a great, shiny window at the end. They raced one another and reached it quickly, fighting for the latch to open it.

"Let me -"

"Let me do it!"

"Stop!"

"Argh!", she had bit him on the shoulder.

Harry pushed the window wide open and they both jumped out of it. Luna screamed a shrill scream shortly silenced by mouth and ears full of warm water as they sunk into a naturally-carved pool.

Harry rose out and scanned the horizon for signs of his friend, through voluptuous clouds of steam lazily drifting away from the surface, he could only see rocks and exotic vegetation, flowers - lotuses, white lilies and irises - in elegant Asiatic vases, stools and buckets of polished wood - a square, soapy sponge - and eventually, Luna, in a two-piece muggle bathing suit.

"This place used to be more... vain and uppity, but they've renewed to attract new customers - I like it very much - very... Feng Shui wouldn't you say? I dare even say they've gone for a Lamine protocol and eradicated all strains of Fallacious Shauberts."

"Fallacious what now?" he questioned, swimming toward the teenager as she dipped a toe in the hot spring bath.

"Shauberts. Fallacious Whatnows have been chased out of Britain long ago."

"Are we in Britain, though?"

Luna looked at him, amused, "Of course we are, you lunatic. Have you changed into your bathing suit?".

Harry realized his robes - or whatever he'd been wearing - had disappeared and until he thought about it, nobody could tell what he was wearing under the surface. "I haven't brought one, you know the tradition is to become one with the elements".

Luna nodded, "Natural, huh, I agree to that. To each his own I suppose but those muggle suits are strangely uncomfortable."

Without actually thinking anything over the line, Harry playfully jabbed that she was even more uncomfortable about going the natural way, to which she took offense. "You underestimate my self-esteem, Harry, I am a witch.".

She moved her arms behind her back, reaching for the middle of it, and started fiddling with the clasp or knot holding her top piece, Harry, instantly feeling wrong for having accidentally put himself in this potentially uncomfortable situation, also found himself accidentally very interested by how this situation would play out.

Finally, Luna had finished to undo the obstacle, and the piece of cloth fell down slowly - very slowly - extremely slowly - and Harry rose in his bed, a long inhalation of steam and flowery scent still in his nose and the silk sheets of Hogwarts tense in his gripped hands. His eyes wide open, he was staring at the very quiet drape closing his bed and, fell backwards with a sigh, startling his three pillows.

"Damn it." he whispered.

Second Episode.

Brow furrowed and pensively rubbing his chin, sullen Harry Potter lazily strolled through the Eight Corridor of Disenchantments - literally, this was the name of the corridor - his left hand on his schoolboy satchel and his mind exploring the ramifications of his last-late-night encounter. Those ramifications, at first, involving things of the flesh that a healthy fourteen years old boy could not blame himself to consider, were now touching more philosophical subjects; namely: was it right, or wrong?

"Just as a child, not knowing smarter, tricked into gambling their pocket money..." he mumbled mysteriously, nodding to his analogy. He had nudged, without a doubt, and in a larger sense, initiated the entire thing. He was liable and responsible for her actions, which was a strange thing to think, he understood, but true in many ways - and was this near-outcome acceptable? Considering Ginny was his one and only and had been for some amount of time, probably not - thank Merlin, he thought, she would never know about this.

He passed a suit of armor and returned its bow absentmindedly with a nod, turning his thoughts around. Lovegood was not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination, what she had in mind and what pushed her to say or do the things she did or said was a mystery most likely even to herself - he knew that, yet, he needed to explore at least what it could have meant, for her.

"Mmmmmh..." he said. "Well, I suppose at least I'm getting good at shaking it off." he smiled.

Indeed, recognizing a dream is no easy business due to the nature of dreams, and Harry was getting better at it - he allowed himself to drop morality issues for a moment and indulge in self-congratulation, it had been a near-success - no, he corrected himself and re-adjusted his goals, an actual success in terms of figuring out the dream. What went down in the dream was merely consequential, incidental even, and he would leave it at that.

"Hey Harry." said his friend from behind him as he caught up.

"Hey Ron."

They walked silently, Harry was still somewhat thinking about Luna without really thinking about her.

"What class do we have again?"

"Potions, Ronald, like every Tuesday morning. Four hours."

Ron groaned. "I think that's it for me, I've reached my limit. Harry, please kill me."

"Ask Hermione, here she is." he nodded at Hermione coming out of the Trophy Room - a shortcut from the second floor's girl's bathroom.

"Hermione, Harry won't, so please kill me, pretty please?" begged Ron loud enough for her to take notice of them.

"Hi." she said simply.

They caught up with some other housemates and mumbled some greetings, shook some hands and stepped into Snape's torture dungeon.

"Dean's still acting weird, uh." mentioned Ron.

"Yeah, I guess." said Harry.

Hermione raised her eyebrows, "Because of the dragon stunt you mean?", they nodded the affirmative. Dean hadn't been the only one to act weird around him since the first task - they were somewhat awed, perhaps not quite sure it had been real and the guy standing here was really that same guy that out-flew a dragon on a broomstick.

"Don't get me started on that, I cannot listen one more time to the girls rave about Harry, those hypocrites.", she answered.

Ron looked like he swallowed a quip - probably to avoid angering Hermione that early in the day - as they sat down and braced for the four hours lesson. Harry straightened up slightly, unusual for him, this time was different, he'd try to give off a somewhat okay impression to this tyrant of a professor.

The door slammed open, as usual, and Snape rushed in like they were not even here. He scribbled some stuff on the board and turned to the class to utter the usual words: "Two hours. Begin.", before sitting behind his desk to read a surely very dark book.

Harry had been focusing on doing a good enough potion setup for what seemed like hours - it was a multiple days preparation so obviously they only had time for the initial setup and would finish it some other time - and ultimately, slipped into boredom and sleepiness. He chopped garlic with his knife absentmindedly, staring at nothing and vaguely aware that he already had enough garlic but unable to be arsed to move to the next ingredient.

Longbottom sighed next to him, Harry had forbid him from putting anything to the cauldron and he had nothing to do but pretend to be busy and doodle on a hidden parchment. "Hey, wanna play pixie hunt?", he asked.

Harry shrugged, why not do that, it's not like he had any interest in actually finishing the potion at this point: "Sure".

As far as he could tell, pixie hunt was basically battleships and minesweeper combined, with smaller ships and more tags to one square - weirdly enough, those were probably one of the only muggle games he knew about. They set to draw their tables on a parchment expertly kept under their respective copies of Advanced Brews for Hogwarts Students and before long, were whispering coded instructions to each other.

"Kay ten."

"Tree, red hue, faint whiff. Bee nine."

"Tree, blue hue, good scent.", Harry turned a page and moved his knife, "Kay eleven.", and so, the clock ticked.

Eventually, Snape got up and wiped the board with a wave of his wand. Harry had lost several pixies and was down to two, but he had used his three lies cleverly and succeeded in misguiding Neville to hunt in a wrong portion of his table, but that wouldn't last for long and he still had four pixies. The professor picked up a stack of paper and moved toward the pupils, some of them groaning as the dreaded prediction of the second part of the lesson being a written test confirmed itself, and suddenly, panicked whispering sprang from a desk in the back.

Lavender and some other girl were arguing over what she had just dropped into the cauldron and quickly enough, it started glowing orange. "Fools, it's overheating, cut the fire." snarled Snape as he strode to them, but the fire was already cut and the cauldron simply melted and poured its hot content on the desk, which caught on fire immediately. Snape conjured a large amount of water on it with an expert silent spell.

"Fox hair instead of panther hair, you absolute brainless children. Why do you bother bringing your tome if you can't read. And none of your so called friend to save you from your own stupidity. Potter!"

Harry jumped slightly at his name. "Yes?"

Snape walked to him and peered at his own cauldron. "Had you been competent enough to get to this stage you could have warned her. But it seems even a third year's brew is too much for you. Some champion you make. Fifteen points from Gryffindor.", he then resumed to give a test parchment to each pupil.

Harry sighed.

"Vee one.", whispered Neville.

"You've got to be kidding me!", he spat. Here went another pixie.

Apparently two hours later, Harry really couldn't tell, test parchments were being stacked back together on the teacher's desk. He took his time and motioned his friends to go on without him.

"Professor?" he said modestly, and waited for an answer.

Snape sighed and started picking up the stacked parchments. "What do you want?"

"Sir, sorry but I'm running out of dream potion."

Snape sneered. "Dream potion, you say? The Soul Rest Draught is a concoction made to fight your insomnia, boy, dreams are only after-effect of a good rest for the soul, but an imbecile of your caliber will never understand this, I suppose. That doesn't mean you can use this infantile term in my presence."

Harry frowned slightly, so far the plan was working, Snape got riled up by the wrong denomination of his potion and hopefully that would keep him from wondering why he was out of it already. "Well, with all due respect, sir, soul rest draught sounds a lot more childish to me."

"It so happens that nobody cares about your opinion, however.", Snape countered with a malevolent smile. He looked at Harry right in the eyes and for a second they stared at each other in silence, then he snorted slightly. "I see. The last bottle you got was meant to last until December, what happened to it?"

Harry swore internally, the man was inhumanly sharp. He scratched the back of is head coyly. "I, uhh, I guess I used a bit too much... well I kind of spilled some of it."

"Clumsy idiot, I should have known. I would have you brew your own batch, if you weren't so useless. Go to madam Pomfrey, she has enough in storage."

Upon dismissal, Harry turned around and left the dungeon, sighing at the knowledge that too soon, he would have to set foot in again.

Third Episode.

"Absolutely, that's why they're so expensive.", said Ginny, she played with the golden snitch flirting with her hand.

"How expensive exactly?" asked Hermione.

Ginny thought about it, "I don't know, dozens of galleons probably, I think this is legit gold."

"But it's not like you can sell them." interjected Ron, "They become unsellable after being caught because they always escape and look for their master."

"They can trace their master back?" Hermione asked.

"No, they just get lost really." he shrugged.

Sunrays bounced on the golden, intricately engraved surface of the little ball, some of the last sunrays of the year, probably. They had all discarded their winter attire as they sit in front of the lake, it just wasn't that cold yet.

Luna spoke up from behind her magazine, "I used to think there were fireflies trapped in those, but it turns out it's a firehornet. They are more aggressive but also more loyal, it seems.", everybody looked at each other and shrugged.

"I guess we could open one up and check inside." offered Ron.

They all looked at the happy little snitch burrowing itself in Ginny's pocket and darting out playfully and generally just agreed that no, it wasn't worth the trouble.

"You know, there were some guys that tried to cheat this way -" started Ron, but Harry zoned out, still looking at the snitch; he started to wander in his thoughts. Was it time to go onto bigger things? Was it time to execute Operation Needletip? He shook his head. No, he should have another attempt first. He looked at Luna conversing with Ron, her blond hair swaying softly in the wind. She was a wonderful partner, really, she wouldn't mind another test, he knew, nor would he.

There was no harm in just another attempt, and obviously, he wouldn't try to make her do anything out of line - that had been a legitimate accident. His eyes hovered over Ron... no, that felt wrong in a way. Then Ginny, and against himself, he shuddered - he didn't want to feel that way about her but that one time... that one time he had done it with her - no, he didn't want to think about it. No matter, girlfriend does not mean dreamfriend, it doesn't mean anything, he reasoned. Hermione, maybe, but not really - it was somewhat boring and it made him uncomfortable to even think this way.

His eyes wandered further, upon the lake and the surrounding flora, as his mind crept back up to Lovegood, until he spotted another blonde in the distance. He raised his eyebrows. Who was that again? Wheatgrass, her name was? No idea about her first name, though.

His fist hit his palm, Luna and Ron looked at him. "That's it. That would provide experience in two ways, maybe even three."

"What do you mean?" asked Ron. "Harry, you don't need to do that sort of underhanded stuff at all, you already -"

"What? I haven't been listening to you."

"Oh.", they looked at each other awkwardly and Ron turned back to Luna, "Anyway -"

Harry looked at the quite beautiful girl behind the bushes and smiled an evil grin. The plot was building itself in his mind by the second. That'll do, he thought, that'll do just fine.

He brushed the painted pear with a large peacock feather, first its round bottom, then its thin tip, and finally, it started giggling in a way, and the entire not-so-still life artwork slid to reveal a small staircase and a wooden door. Behind, several large but very low mahogany tables, dozens of iron pans and pots hanging from the low ceiling, drowned in smoke and steam, hundreds of dishes stacked each two sides of a four-way sink isle with multiple faucets constantly running and providing background noise in the rare moments when oil and butter weren't sizzling and water and broth weren't boiling - stone ovens and furnaces, large slides heading underground to the second level, ropes and wooden flaps as a form of communication, it was as busy as ever, and once more, he had to wonder how the hell did they need this much ruckus to make three meals a day - back at Privet Drive it wasn't anywhere near similar.

Granted, it was only for four (three and a quarter) mouths, but even by scaling to Hogwart size, he couldn't figure it out. They must feed some other people somehow. The elves were running around constantly, cutting, frying, heating, cleaning, and singing. Singing loud, by aisle, each their own song overlapping with the other - there was probably somewhat of a competition as well, which would explain the volume.

"And ho, and ho, and here we go! Poor sod, poor sod, drained of his blood! This ox, this ox, we'll cook it in our woks!"

"Dobby!" Harry all but yelled, waving at the busy little thing.

"He'll die, he'll die, he'll die for our shepherd's pie!"

Dobby the elf reached him and brought him closer to the charcoal grills, at the moment unused and possibly the most quiet corner of the kitchen.

"Harry Potter sir! Dobby is very glad to see you! How generous to visit Dobby!"

"Well, um, yes. Anyways, I thought that you might know about something -"

"Anything Mister Harry wants, Mister Harry Potter."

"Yes, as I was saying, um, please don't cut me, Dobby, so -"

"Sorry, sir Harry Potter."

"- so, you know about some people, they get to their bedside table, every morning, some pumpkin juice."

"Oh yes, Dobby makes sure never to miss an order, Harry Potter can have the very best juice, Dobby will -"

"Wait a second, wait. I don't want it, I wanted to know if it's you that delivers it, so that's lucky."

The elf nodded. "Sometimes it is I, but if Harry Potter wants juice I will make sure he has it!"

Harry patted the brave little thing on the head. "Thanks but no thank you. I want to know about that Wheatgrass girl, you know her?"

Dobby searched his memories for a moment and its face illuminated. "Oh yes, of course, Dobby knows about the Ravenclaw who smokes wheatgrass. She is a bad girl, Mister Potter, sir, very bad."

Harry reeled back somewhat. "Smokes wheatgrass? Why? Wait... who? Why?", he shook his head, "Doesn't matter, no, I didn't mean that, Dobby, I meant, isn't there a girl named Wheatgrass in Slytherin?"

The house-elf thought about it again and nodded again. "Perhaps Mister Potter means Miss Greengrass?"

"Yes, absolutely, here it is, you're right, Greengrass. I mistook her name.", finally, he was getting somewhere. He glanced at his wristwatch but forgot to actually read the time off it and didn't bother to glance again. "Anyway, Greengrass, does she take pumpkin juice at her bed?"

"No sir, she gets tea."

"Well, doesn't matter, Elf D - that's your code-name from now on - I need you to spike her tea."

Elf D, to his defense, reeled back suddenly as if Harry had been made of clothes. "Sir, Dobby cannot sp- Elf D cannot spike students.", he corrected himself, clever enough to realize the point of a code-name when discussing shady businesses.

"No, no, don't worry about the potion.", Harry took out a small vial, "It's fine, I've used it plenty on plenty of people, it's fine. Besides, this is just a test run, Elf D, I'll need you for the real thing later on, it's fine, trust me. You trust me, right?"

"S-Sir, Elf D trusts master Ha..Horace P-Padlock, sir, but-"

"There is no but, Elf D, let me tell you; the potion is fine. Listen, the dangerous part, for me, is the spiking. I have done this a lot before, believe me, and there has been many missteps - one time, years ago, I tried to spike George and Fred Weasley with it and ended up spiking a whole pitcher in the great hall, by mistake. It turned out fine because so many people drank it that it basically lost its power entirely. Another time, I tried to spike my best friend Hermione Granger, you know I wouldn't hurt my friends, Elf D, and the whole staircase turned into a slide! I nearly broke my neck and came crashing down into the common room with my invisibility cloak all tangled about me, talk about a disaster." Harry ranted, using his hands to mime along his tales.

Dobby listened with his hands on his mouth and his eyes wide.

"And that's nothing compared to that one time I was trying to spike - it was a dumb idea in the first place, mind you - Severus Snape, and apparently the man uses some kind of anti-spiking magics on his stuff because the cup blew right up in my face. Thankfully I was able to erase all traces of my mistake so I didn't get into trouble, but I think you understand my point, Elf D. I get in danger to spike them, the potion itself is nothing that could possible go wrong, trust me.

"But-"

"You, Elf D, can spike much better than me and I trust you to do it without incidents, can't you?"

Elf D's resolve was set in stone the moment Horace had spelled the word "trust" and nodded strongly. "If Mister Horace Peddler trust Elf D then it is decided that Elf D shall aid."

"Yes, Elf D, I trust you, please trust me."

"Elf D trusts sir Penner moreso than Elf D himself, sir Polska."

"Alright, that's quite enough. Here.", Harry passed the small vial to the elf. "Use half of it, make sure the tea doesn't look too weird."

The painting slid back behind Harry, he buried his hands in his pockets, his ear ringing from the mayhem inside, he had gotten accustomed to it. "Well, I didn't lie at all, so really, I think I even convinced myself here.", he shrugged, the pangs of guilt not quite quieted yet.

"This is serious stuff, though." he whispered in his collar. "He wants to kill me, I can't sit down and feel sorry about the means to the end."

Fourth Episode.

The waves clashed against the wooden hull with a pleasant sound, accompanied by seagulls and a breath of salty wind. Harry moved his queen six squares forward, it was now angled perfectly to take out either the horse or the bishop. "Mmmh..." said Ron, his hand joining his jaw for a moment of deep strategical thoughts.

Very suddenly, a beachball smashed the table and knocked over the pieces, along with the glasses of fresh beverage and the anchovy-stuffed olives bowl. Ron slammed his fist on the table in pure, unaltered anger, and bellowed a feral shriek that would have frozen Harry's blood if it hadn't been boiling all the same.

"Show yourself!" was what came out of his mouth, as he turned around ready for murder. Before him, an apologetic look on her face, was student Greengrass. His anger faded a little bit at her sight, she looked truly sorry. Behind him, Ron was rapidly shaking and twisting on himself, his rage unbridled and his throat breaking octaves never broken before - he looked just about to detonate.

"I'm so sorry, it's all my fault!", she begged shyly.

"Mhhh'alright." grunted Harry, his temper switching targets as he started to get pissed off at Ron's antics in the background, "That's enough, Ron, she apologized."

On that, the boy stopped dead in his tracks, his back arched backwards in a inhuman pose - as if he was praying to some strange god. "She... apologized.", he muttered, then snorted, chuckled, and all of a sudden - he blew up: "YOU GOBSMACKING OOZEBALL OF A DAMNED SNAKE!"

"Enough!" said Harry strongly, putting his hand on his red-hot, sizzling friend's shoulder. "Don't cause such a commotion, or the mayor will -"

"Greetings, my dear citizens!" chirped a happy-go-lucky voice. Yellow suit, stripped with black to minimize the sheer girth of his guts, a top-hat and a large roll in his hand, the cruise mayor had strode in.

"Oh, um, sir, we -"

Harry was cut short by a lough clearing of the opulent man's throat and unrolling of his roll. "Mister Harry Potter and Mister Ronald Weasley hereby presently present, for your almost-repeated bullying and improper language toward a young, fair and innocent young - and fair, and innocent - woman; I henceforth sentence you to fifty five and eight hundred and nine seconds of serving the offended party in all matters deemed adequate by the very same party - and this, until the offended party deems itself rightfully satiated in such a manner that recidivism will be prevented - or else."

Harry and Ron gulped. "Or else?", Ron dared asking.

"I don't write these texts, young boy, take it with the legal department. Umph.", he snorted and left as promptly as he came.

"Servant to a snake, Harry, what's gonna happen to us?", Ron was legitimately shaken.

Harry looked at Greengrass who was leaving with her clique comprised of herself, Davis, Nott and some other girl. She couldn't be that bad, he reasoned, a cute girl couldn't possibly be so bad, could she?

"She'll gut us and use our entrails as kites! She'll feed our eyes to baby snakes; protein, lutein and vitamin - they'll grow in no time!"

"Well, whatever happen, we might as well get it over with."

Strangely easily, Ron nodded to that and they walked to uncertain fate together.

They met with Greengrass on the backside of the boat, she was talking with someone. "Oh yes, yes, one of my favorites too, ahah." she laughed in a strange way, Harry thought. "Oh, here are my slaves, just in time I suppose." she looked at them haughtily.

Ron opened his eyes wide at her interlocutor. "This dude!" he yelled, "Harry, this dude's the bloke from that band!"

"What?"

"You know it boy." snorted the cool-looking man. His arms were devoid of sleeves and there was a cockatrice tattoo on his muscled bicep, his chin was covered in stubble and he had an earring.

"He's Highstride Vince." explained Greengrass helpfully, "Don't you know anything?".

Ron nodded slightly, "Yes, yes, his real name was something like... Bernie Wu-"

"Oi! Shut it, kiddo, nobody's asking you!", interrupted the man angrily.

He was now visibly ticked off, and Greengrass scolded both Ron and Harry for their beastly behaviour. "You two worthless idiots shall be my shoes from now on!" she declared royally. "For I deserve to be as tall as I should be."

And thus, Ron and Harry bent down on all fours, Queen Greengrass precariously climbed on their backs and strapped her feet with belts. Here, as she and Mr. Highstride walked the promenade along the side of the boat, discussing various things from politics to sealife, Harry and Ron's shared bond of friendship and brotherhood shone at its utmost; their ability to coordinate with the other's movements and to communicate with swift, accurate hand gestures and carefully timed eye contact enabled them to simulate perfectly a gentle stroll.

Their little trek went on for some time, during which the feeling of Greengrass's foot between Harry and Ron's shoulderblades became a second nature to them, every little shift in weight or tap of a toe instantly translated into a complex set of procedures - as if her feet had been directly wired to their cortex - no, directly to their limbs, bypassing even their own control.

But when Highstride Vince suggested to the tall lady a dance, things took a turn for the worse. It was a waltz, an unknown thing to both Ron and Harry. They had to rely entirely on their Mistress's feet input and react instinctively, at incredible speed. Harry started sweating almost instantly as they started, his own limbs now moving faster than they ever had, he turned, switched, skidded, drifted, slid, flattened and jittered, his communication with Ron was getting worse and worse, signals were interrupted by sudden and unexpected changes, they had ditched the hands quickly when it was clear they wouldn't have time for any finger gymnastics, and relied solely on eye contact, deteriorating rapidly due to exhaustion and panic.

They hit their head once, they stepped on each other's hands, at some point it seemed as if Ron was getting pissed off at Harry falling behind, and as the pressure kept rising, the 3rd movement of Salazar's Fifth Concerto for Violins in E Minor came in full force - and Harry snapped.

He rose. "I refuse to suffer from this miscarriage of justice any longer!", he bellowed as he toppled - literally - his Master. His revolt sent her sprawling over the railing and she disappeared with a rapidly fading cry.

Harry swore and ran to the railing, bent over and saw her falling, far away, above the sparse clouds, and thousands of miles above the earth that would break her in a million pieces. He jumped off the flying ship and angled his body for decreased air resistance and thus faster descent.

The air rushed in his eyes, nostrils and ears, pulling tears away and filling the world with a loud whistle, they were so high in the sky that despite falling at terminal velocity - a term he had learned only recently - the continent under them wasn't even getting bigger. He reached Greegrass and grabbed her by the shoulders. Her throat was menacing to break but she was still shouting.

He thought of a way to help her. "She must wake up." he thought, "She must. Wake up. Wake up, wake up!" he started to shake her, "Wake up!", wake up, he thought, waking up... His eyes opened wide and he shut his mouth. He realized it now, he was dreaming - again. He took a moment to appreciate the reality of the air pushing back as they fell, the detail of the continent below - its forests, lakes, rivers and mountain ranges - he closed his eyes, hugged her and focused on a solution.

Easily, they landed on a huge bird that just happened to glide here, a big, fluffy white-feathered bird whose back was large enough to park a bus on. It was floating about; calm, slow and stable. They fell on their knees and gasped for a moment.

"Where's - where's Vince?", she asked, worried, getting up slowly.

Harry frowned, she still cared about this stupid band singer and his fake name even after he had saved her, how rude. He shook his head. No matter, he thought, it was now time to train his dream persuasion skills.

She looked at him worriedly, her jaw trembling slightly, "Where? Where?" she moaned.

Harry cleared his throat and approached her. "I am Highstride Vince, I am. I was all along."

"You? You were? Oh, of course... You saved me too, Potter."

"Yes I am, and yes I did.", he rubbed his chin, so far it was as easy as he imagined it to be, a dreaming Greegrass was dumb as a bag of rocks, he could have her believe anything. "Let's try that, Greengrass, I need to know your deepest secret. Yes, that'll do, you absolutely need to tell me your deepest secret, the deepest. Now.", he tried, realizing as he spoke that he really should have thought of a better way to demand this, such as making up a random danger to create a sense of urgency.

"W-Why?"

"Uhm, well, uh, if you don't, well... I guess this bird will eat us or something, we're in a bad spot." he tapped the bird's back, "It'll eat us just like that!" and he snapped his finger.

The girl jumped in terror. "I... I don't... Okay. Here it is, I, um..."

"Hurry up, we don't have time!"

"I like muggles!", she all but shouted. "I like how they do stuff without magic I think it's fascinating, there!" she buried her face in her hands. "Don't tell anyone!"

Taken aback, Harry smiled. That surely was a big deal to her, and it had been ridiculously easy to obtain it. "No inhibitions..." he muttered. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked straight in her blue eyes.

"Good, we're safe now.", and saw worry and shame leave her gaze at once, she had believed him fully.

He started to delve deeply in his understanding of the mechanics of the dream and her psyche in it, as well as her unexpected interest in muggles and the success of Elf D's mission and how much trust that meant he could pour into the little soldier - but was interrupted quite brutally as he felt her warmth on him - she had stepped in his personal space and rose her face to his - she had kissed him, and now, her lips were on his, moving ever so slightly as her whole body was trembling. Unable to think anything even less move anything, he stood there frozen, only his lips thawed by her soft breath.

She stepped back eventually, she muttered something like "It was my first, you know.", blushing and looking away, but Harry refused to stop there, she had given something that she didn't have the right to take away, he needed it back. He grasped her and leaned in, she closed her eyes and offered the pulpous, pink lips that he desired so very much, he went for them hurriedly, and as he almost touched them, his vision blurred, his body tingled, he gasped hard and open his eyes wide to see the dormitory's bland old ceiling staring at him in the face.

His heart was beating too fast, his body was aching, his throat was angry, his fingers were going nuts, he groaned, he yelled internally, he ached, so much - his desire was so overwhelming, and the object of it so out of reach. He blasted his way out of his bed and dormitory, into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, grasping the sink's edge as hard as he could, and groaned soundly.

When the housemates came in worriedly asking if he was alright, he told them "The scar's acting up.", naturally they all bought it and patted him on the back with serious looks, Harry had other thoughts in mind.

The day after, as he was putting marmalade on a buttered piece of toast, his eye caught a sparkle of platinum, he craned his head slightly to take a look at her, and his gaze fell right in her own, she'd been looking at him already - intensely. She broke contact, her face redder than its ever been, and pretended to be very interested by her fruit salad.

Harry positively melted.

Fifth Episode.

Tonight, the odds were all on his side. He watched Victor Krum and Hermione swirl around under everyone's gaze and steeled himself as he led Ginny and himself behind them, no choice, really, it was traditional procedure. Dancing was quite awful in his opinion and he stopped as soon as humanly possible once commoners started joining in the Champions' spotlight, marking its end.

There was simply not one part he enjoyed in this, he was sweaty from either or both physical or psychological stress, his muscles were clenched, he could not achieve coordination between the "beats" and his body to save his life, the music was loud and uncomfortable, Ginny was bad at it so she didn't help one bit, and worst of all - everyone was staring at him and judging his every moves. No thank you, never again, he thought bitterly when he finally swam out of the crowd and plummeted on a seat next to Ron.

"Sweet moves, mate.", the boy commented with snark, but he paled when whichever Patil he had with him got up and pulled him toward the music floor, practically begging him to give her at least that. Harry shrugged and sipped a butterbeer. He nodded twice at Ginny's unheard comments in the background noise, she stopped talking and started to sip a butterbeer too.

He looked at the crowd dully, getting bored by the second, he opened his mouth to make a comment to his date but closed it as he caught sight of Greengrass, wearing a green dress that was probably too much for such an event; she was holding some guy's hand and laughing; Harry was quickly enraged but he realized it was not some guy but that Davis girl, her friend; he sat down, satisfied. "What are you even doing, Harry?", Ginny asked with a funny smile, laughing at his antics, "You want to walk around?"

They walked and talked, they joined the other Gryffindors and laughed, talked to some other people they rarely talked to, Harry stole about twelve side-glances to Greengrass and half of them were met with her own stolen glances, and eventually, the people were getting drunk and the music got rawer. Young ones were led to their dormitories and some professors politely excused themselves to their private quarters.

Harry found himself absentmindedly massaging the handle of a large terracotta pitcher full of pumpkin juice mixed with rum or some other sort of ethanol based mixture, his thoughts exploring his earlier meeting in the laundry room, with Elf D, regarding his true target. He smiled greedily, cruelly you could say, the night was far from over for both of them - and hopefully, Elf D would never have to face such dilemma again.

In-between two backs facing him, someone slipped, without a doubt looking for the famous rum-and-pumpkin elixir he was the guardian of, her features now very familiar to him as if he had always stared at her, Greegrass stopped dead as she faced him.

"Hey." he started all too quickly, stumbling on his own tongue.

"Hey, Potter.", they both fell silent, she fidgeted a bit and pointed to the pitcher. She was so red it clashed with her green robes pretty bad, she looked like a salad and tomato arrangement.

"Yeah, sure, sorry.", he stepped sideways and let go of the pitcher as if it was scalding hot.

"Thanks." she said.

She served herself a glass and left as quickly as possible, leaving dizzy Harry to stand stupidly like a Quidditch pole.

It took him a few seconds to find his nerve back, but when he did, he did for good. That wouldn't do, clearly, that wouldn't do. He had important work just about to start, he thought, glancing at the time and realizing it was already past one in the morning, and he needed to get this over with. Beside, he couldn't take the tension anymore.

He followed her through the crowd and under the second story's balconies giving view over the great hall and providing some shadow and privacy to its edges. She thought she was safe to take a breather here before going back to her friends, she jumped slightly when she turned around and he was two big strides apart from stepping on her shoes, and he sure was taking huge strides.

"Greengrass", he started confidently, "I have caught your- I mean, we both know that we, uhh how to say it...", not so confident anymore, he started searching for words, "Well, you look at me and I... I look at you too, so-"

"Oh Merlin, Potter, stop it, for the love of magic.", she sighed her hand on her forehead in shame, still very red skinned.

Harry stopped talking.

"Listen, I know I have, I know, okay... I had a dream, you see, I dreamt about you. It was stupid and it doesn't mean anything, but it's been playing with my mind ever since, so please just forget it and it'll all go away. People are looking, Potter, go away."

He had been hearing all the words she was saying, but he hadn't been listening; her lips moved with such fluidity, her pearly whites glistened so gloriously, he inhaled sharply, stepped forward, "That's it, then." he said, having made his decision, he put his hand on her waist, and went right for it.

"Potter, wha-" she only had time to say in surprise before it was too late, and too late it was, dozens of people were watching what was unfolding, she was vaguely aware - eyes now closed - and her limbs had turned into soft noodles anyway, she couldn't do a thing about it.

It had been pretty great, all things considered, Harry concluded as he gently pushed her back for a break. The best thing ever as far as he was concerned, Greengrass seemed to agree for anywhere between one and three seconds until she slapped him right across the face, so soundly that he actually literally lost his hearing in his left ear along with his glasses that took flight toward warmer weather.

People all around winced and jeered, she was practically steaming through her nose and ears, she turned aorund and left quickly as tears made their way in Harry's eyes against his will - it stung like a firehornet - and yet, he couldn't help but smile. He couldn't be fooled, she had clung to him hungrily for as long as it lasted.

"Harry James Potter!" screamed Ginny, emerging from the group of onlookers. "Are you drunk?"

Harry couldn't think of anything, "Um, yeah?", and she slapped him on the very sensitive cheek, still pulsing from Greengrass's loving touch, hard enough that he almost stumbled.

"How dare you? How could you?" she was crying at this point, she sobbed loudly and left.

He mumbled a little nothing at her, not even sure what he was trying to say himself, and she turned about just before leaving the hall and screamed in a broken voice, "Nostro Sec Secura!" which was not the good old bat-bogey hex. Harry's hair started smoking, filling the air with a pungent odour, his eyebrows and eyelashes, shorter that his actual hair, consumed themselves and started burning his skin as their roots went into smoke as well.

Things were quiet, in the hospital wing. Madam Pofmrey was slowly turning the pages of the fourth large tome in the pile next to the bed. "No...no...mmmh not quite..." she voiced in between two hums and whistle of some tune stuck in her head.

"It hurts pretty bad, ma'am, you got anything for pain?"

"Of course, my dear, I got just the right thing for this; an advice: don't try flying on two brooms. I cannot believe how many times I've said this." she added to herself.

"I don't know what that means. Muggle uprising and such.", he tried to get some pity.

"Play smart with me, will you." she snorted, slamming the tome shut.

"Nothing in this one, maybe we're better off asking the girl herself.", she picked another and started flipping the pages.

Several books later, she harrumphed. "I suppose this is good enough." she taped the current book in her hand and nodded. Minutes later, she wiggled her wand at him, spat a weird incantation and managed to stop the burning of his scalp, now totally bald.

"So you found it, uh?"

She shook her head, "No, I cast another hex on you, one to stop natural hair growth entirely. I suppose the original hex died out without hair to consume."

"Mmmh" answered Harry, "What do we do about my hair then?"

The nurse stretched her limbs and yawned wide. "I am in pieces, Mr. Potter, drank too much punch I reckon. You still have a hex on you so don't move an inch, I'll clear that up tomorrow. Have a good night."

"Wait a second, my hair! What about my hair?."

"What about it?"

"I can't go to classes like this!"

She observed him blankly, but he could detect a hint of amusement behind, "Of course you can. Perhaps, there is a lesson to be learned here, but what do I know? Good night." she said cheerfully and left.

Harry stared at the blank ceiling and sighed. It had been well worth it. He swallowed his daily dose of soul rest draught and closed his eyes, revisiting Greengrass in his memories until artificial slumber took over.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and review if you can.

In this footer, I will put random facts about feet: In average, a human's feet is 8% bigger in the evening that it was in the morning.