That's what I'm talking about!" Winslow had bellowed. "Keep that up, Potter! Let's see the other teams try scoring with you hammering Bludgers at them!" From the looks on Fred and George's face — the only two outside of Hufflepuff that had managed to sneak into the tryouts — they agreed with Winslow's assessment. Practices were three times a week and were as covert as Hufflepuffs could manage. Dobby had somehow gotten himself in the school undercover, posing as one of the Hogwarts house-elves. Thinking on it, the position was the best one for a house-elf playing bodyguard: he had free run of the school whenever he had time away from his wizards (which was quite often since Dobby was just one of many and not a favoured one) and none of the other elves would miss him during the time he was skulking around because there were already a butt-load of elves at Hogwarts. "Have you seen anything suspicious?" Heri asked him once. She had been off to the Slytherin common room for a bit and there was plenty of time for her to talk privately with Dobby. "Nothing yet, Heri Potter, Miss," Dobby replied. "But Dobby won't be taking no chances!" Heri thought Dobby was being excessively paranoid considering that she knew for a fact that the school wards and fail-safes had been updated (Professor Sprout had told Heri herself). And it wasn't like Heri didn't know how to take care of herself, she had taken care of more monsters over the summer — some of the wonky bird things that Hedwig helped her with and a huge snake with multiple heads — and none of them were exactly pushovers. Wait, it was supposed to be a Dark object, so not exactly something she could beat into submission, was it? Well, her box-cutter proved itself effective in monster-slaying, maybe she could use it to stab the whatever if it ever came around trying to kill her! Objects could be stabbed, right? So if it came right down to it, Heri would stab the shit out of the killer thingy, fuck waiting for a rescuer. Half running down a corridor, a smile split Heri's face as she bounced off to visit Hagrid for their usual tea time. She had only spent a few minutes cuddling with Enoch before she was pulled off for Qudditch practice the last time, and she was determined to have a longer stretch of relaxing with her large friend this time around. She had a bundle of pastries she had gotten from the school elves via the Twins and couldn't wait to share it with Hagrid. Spotting the opening to the courtyard that led to Hagrid's hut, Heri picked up her pace, her bag bouncing against her leg. She was almost full out sprinting when her attention was jarred. Heri screeched to a halt. What was that —? Hissss There it was again! She turned on the spot and scanned the corridor she had come from. Nothing. Completely empty save herself. She could have sworn . . . §Bite . . . Ssssoooo hungry . . .§ Heri blinked when she realised what she was hearing. Had some kind of reptile found its way into the school? It was a rather odd time for a snake or lizard to be out and about considering the weather and location. Had another student brought it along as a pet? Heri shrugged to herself. Well, it was none of her business. If a person couldn't keep up with their familiar, it was their own fault if they lost it. In any case, the school was teeming with critters that a reptile could eat so whatever it was that was hissing would be fine on its own. Heri put the hissing out of her mind and continued on her way. "Many people tend to think that the Switching Spell is actually swapping out one item for another," Heri told her friends as she showed them how to perform the spell by 'switching' an apple with a glass phial. They were not the only ones listening, some of the other nearby students were paying attention as well. "The truth is that you aren't actually swapping two things around; it wouldn't even be a Transfiguration spell if that was the case." She waved her wand and swapped her props again. "What we're actually doing is simultaneous Transfiguration, transforming the apple into the phial and the phial into the apple at the exact same time. That gives the effect of swapping. As you can imagine, this is a lot more difficult than just transforming the objects one by one. "Now, the reason it's called the Switching Spell is because of the method used to perform the spell. Instead of picturing the two objects transforming into each other at the same time, you picture them trading places. I find it easiest to imagine the two things sitting apart and then sliding toward each other until they overlap and then end up on the opposite side of where they started." "Excellent explanation, Miss Potter," praised Professor McGonagall. Heri looked up and smiled at the older woman. She continued, "Very few people realise the particularities of this spell, even when they study more in-depth on the subject." Heri earned ten points for her explanation, gaining thirty in total for Hufflepuff by the end of the lesson. Making her way down into the dungeon, Heri wondered if this was another instance of her usually good habits backfiring on her, like the time she didn't check the mail over when her Hogwarts letter was in the pile. This time, her sense of courtesy — the force that made her abhor impoliteness — had her agreeing to go to the Death-day party of the Gryffindor House ghost. She wasn't sure why a ghost would celebrate the day they died, but she had been invited by the host personally and it would be bad manners not to show up.
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