IT CAME FROM THE PUNCH BOWL: HARRY'S GRADUATION STORY
By Professor Odysseus
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Harry walked around Hogwarts campus during the last week of school. It was a freak thing. It was snowing. In June. He knocked on Hagrid's door, causing snow to fall down from the beams, burying him, Ron and Hermione in a neat little pile.
"Hullo?" Hagrid said, opening the door.
"Mmmmm!" Harry muttered from under the snow.
"Harry? That you?" Hagrid said, digging them up. Harry, Hermione and Ron were soaking wet from head to toe.
"Oh no!" shrieked Hermione.
"What?" Harry said.
"The ball!"
"We have five HOURS!" Ron said, still wiping snow off of his robes.
"WE'RE WET!"
"That's a problem!" Harry said, sarcastically.
"OF COURSE IT IS!" yelled Hermione.
"Okay. OKAY!" Harry said, trying to calm her down.
"Maybe yeh should go" Hagrid said. "Still have a lot to do before the ball. We're havin' duck! I still have to uhhh prepare them for the kitchen." Just then, a live duck came running through Hagrid's hut and out the door.
Harry, Ron and Hermione said goodbye to Hagrid and walked through the snow back to the castle. The seventh year graduation feast was coming for Harry, Ron and Hermione, as they were ready to get their Wizarding degree.
"You STILL didn't tell me what your jobs are!" Ron said impatiently. Hermione flashed a look at Harry and Harry flashed the same look back at her.
"Come ON!" Ron said.
"We can't!" Harry said. "I'm not allowed. It was in my contract. It was in Hermione's too"
Hermione nodded. "You'll find out soon enough"
"I told YOU!!" Ron said. "I already said that I'm going to work as a Quidditch announcer for England games! Give me a HINT!"
"No!" snapped Hermione.
They reached the castle and returned to their dormitory to get ready for the graduation ball.
"Can you believe that we've been at this castle for seven years? And we're graduating! PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU GUYS ARE DOING!" Ron said.
"Okay. One hint. That's all!" Harry said. "For Hermione, what is should good at?"
"What? Should I make a list?" Ron said, scowling.
"And for me, it has something to do with you. That's IT!" Harry said, changing into his navy blue silk dress-robe with a high white collar. It was one of the best that Madam Malkin made and it was a present from Sirius. Although Harry told him to stop giving him expensive presents, Sirius insisted on it. Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, had just purchased a small house in Hogsmeade, since the dementors found "Wormtail" or Peter Pettigrew, who framed Sirius for murder of a dozen Muggles and three wizards. As Harry took off his new glasses and cleaned them on the high collar of his robe, he walked down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room. The fire suddenly lit up, ashes flying around. Out came Sirius, dressed in dark green satin robes. He said hello to Harry, and then walked out of the common room to the Great Hall. Mr. & Mrs. Weasley came next, wearing shabby dress-robes. They, too, walked down to the Great Hall. Harry paced up and down, waiting for Ron or Hermione to come down. As Ron came down, wearing Harry's year-old sea green dress-robes, which Harry had only worn once, but it was forgotten at the sight of his new expensive silk robes.
Hermione came down next wearing a dark red robe. They proceeded to the large corridor behind the Great Hall. The corridor was already littered with 7th years like themselves. They waited for their dance partners to come down the corridor. Peeves was teasing everyone.
"Who did you pick, Hermione?" Ron asked.
"Now don't be nosy!" she said in a sweet tone.
Ron grumbled something under his breath.
A large group of students came, chatting. Harry spotted Ron's date, a girl named Kate Krystal. He nudged Ron, who then went over to say hello, before they both went back to their friends. Harry leaned up against the wall. Suddenly, he felt a shake at his legs. Darting forward, he saw the vent trying to come loose. Harry grabbed the vent and pulled with help from Ron and Hermione and it flew off and hit Peeves on the top of the head. He flew dizzily out of the corridor. Someone coughed from the inside the vent. Cho Chang, Harry's date stuck her head out of the vent.
"Pull me, please!" she said. "I'm stuck!" Harry began pulling.
"How did you get inside the vent?" Harry laughed.
"It wasn't easy. See, we tried to get over here, but Mrs. Norris squealed, so Filch came running in, and sent us outside and told us to go to the Great Hall. Then we saw the vent and we-" Cho began.
"Wait a minute. What do you mean, we?" Harry asked. In answer to his question, a deeper cough was heard from the vent. Cho was out of the vent. She dusted off her white velvet robes. Her robe was long, so it dragged on the floor.
"We met outside of Hogwarts. He had to get in too-" Viktor Krum stuck his head out of the vent, like Cho did.
"Long vait, huh?" he laughed.
"Viktor!?" Hermione shrieked with joy. Cho, Ron, Hermione and Harry grabbed around Krum's neck and pulled as hard as they could. No use. Harry pulled out his wand. "Expandioxious!" he bellowed. The hole got bigger and Krum stepped easily through.
"Why didn't you apparate?" Harry asked.
"How many times do I have to tell you? You can't apparate on Hogwarts grounds!" Hermione said. "Honestly. You'd think I was the only one to read Hogwarts, A History!" Ron, Harry, Cho and Krum nodded.
"The Graduation is starting in five minutes!" said Professor McGonagall, sticking her head in. She cast a dirty look at Harry for the hole in the wall, for he was still clutching his wand. She scowled and walked away.
"We better get going!" Cho said, walking through the tunnel with Viktor behind her. "We'll see you after you get your diplomas!"
Ron pushed up to Cho and Krum. "Do you know their jobs?" Ron whispered. Cho and Krum both shook their heads in unison.
"Wouldn't tell us" they said together. They left. Ron punched his fist, then squeezed it because of the throbbing pain.
"Line up!" rasped McGonagall. They lined up in their spaces. She left.
"Go RAVENCLAW!" a voice rasped from McGonagall's wand. It was only audible from the corridor. Dumbledore began calling names of the students. They got their diploma from Dumbledore and shook the hands of every teacher in the line. Then they sat down in their assigned seats.
"Go GRYFFINDOR!" McGonagall's wand rasped. The Gryffindors walked down the stairs to the Great Hall. She called the names of the Gryffindors in their standing order. Hermione received her diploma, followed by Ron. Then Harry took his. Once everyone had graduated, Dumbledore began the announcements.
"I regret to announce that Professor Binns of History of Magic is retiring after 203 years. His slot will be filled next year by Miss Hermione Granger."
Ron, Harry, Cho and Krum looked at Hermione, who beamed at the applause. Dumbledore finished his announcements, so then snapped his fingers. The chairs moved from their rows and lined up at tables, which popped up from the floor. Parquet dance floor rose from the center of the Great Hall. After dancing slow, fast, waltzes and foxtrot, Harry and Cho walked over to the table. Harry was holding his forehead.
"What's wrong?" Cho asked.
"Nothing," Harry replied, despite the intense pain in his head. "Let's get back up. I have to tell you something important!" They walked onto the dance floor and began dancing.
"You-Know-Who is here!" he rasped in Cho's ear. She gasped. "Look natural!" Harry whispered again. They danced up to Ron and Kate.
"You-Know-Who is here, but look natural!" Harry said. They followed suit by going up to Krum & Hermione. Soon, they all left the dance floor.
"What kind of a joke-" Ron began.
"Its no joke!" Harry said. Changing the subject he added, "I'll go get some punch!"
He walked over to the buffet table and began filling glasses of punch. The orchestra stopped. The laughing stopped too. So did the tinkling of silverware. Everyone had his or her eyes fixed on Harry. You could here a pin drop. Then, everyone began screaming. Harry looked at the bowl of punch. The punch had turned blue and yellow, the it was a green whirlpool. Green smoke was coming out of it. Then, a man in black hooded robes appeared.
"Hello, all!" the man bellowed in a cold, harsh, evil voice. It was Voldemort.
"Everybody get out!" Harry screamed, facing the tables and taking steps towards them. With that, everyone began running out of the Great Hall from all exits. The students screamed as they ran to their common rooms. The guests screamed as they ran to the nearest fireplace to get home.
"Going somewhere?" Voldemort asked Harry, grabbing onto Harry's high collar. Harry could feel the disgusting breath on his neck. Spinning around, Harry ripped the collar off and it was still in Voldemort's hand. Harry took out his wand and pointed it at Voldemort. Voldemort followed suit. Voldemort stuck his wand up in the air, collapsing the chandelier onto Harry. Harry was trapped between bars. His wand was on the floor in front of him. As Voldemort lifted up his foot to smash it, he went flying into the wall, knocking off a wall sconce. Cho, Ron, Hermione and Krum stood in the doorway. Harry tugged free of the chandelier, with his right sleeve missing and a huge gash in his right arm. He grabbed his wand just in time, for Voldemort was getting up, charging at Harry. Harry jumped up and Voldemort went sliding into the stairs.
"We could play this game forever or you could face me, coward!" Voldemort yelled. He sent the body-bind at Harry. "Now. The game ends here." Voldemort said, laughing evilly.
Cho ran up to Harry, the hem of her robe barely touching the ground. Voldemort send a blade at the bottom of her robe. She collapsed on the ground, screeching with pain as her feet landed next to her. Hermione shot the counter spell to the body bind. Harry sprung up and sent a blade at Voldemort. It cut off his head.
"You did it, Harry!" Ron yelled.
"Not so fast!" Voldemort said, his headless body getting up and his head hopping along the Parquet. Cho stopped screaming and got up and began running behind Voldemort.
::STOP THE STORY. If you were reading carefully, you would have noticed that Cho's robes were long, so they dragged on the floor. She levitated and used her wand to make fake feet next to her and pretended to scream. Back to the story...::
"Stay here!" Harry cried, as he watched Voldemort jump into the punch bowl. Harry followed him. It was as if Harry was swimming through a red swimming pool. At last, he came to small room. Voldemort was evilly cackling as he watched Harry stagger into the room, dripping with punch. Then, Ron, Hermione, Krum and Cho came into the room, dripping with punch as well.
"I told you to stay in the Great Hall!" Harry said.
"We came to help you-" Hermione began.
Harry lifted his wand and then sliced it downward towards the ground. Voldemort's head sliced in half. The body ran over to the head. Harry lifted Voldemort's head towards him and lifted the brain out of it. Using his wand, the brain exploded like a bomb, shattering the glass of the punch bowl. Voldemort's body collapsed onto the ground, followed by Harry, Ron, Cho, Hermione & Krum falling on top of the floor. The hall was flooded with punch, the decorations being torn down by the flooding. Peeves came rowing by on one of the tables, dressed in a blue sailor suit.
"He's gone!" Harry panted. Like himself, everyone was covered in blood, brains and punch.
"I'll go get everyone!" Ron said. He, Krum and Hermione swam out of the Great Hall. Harry sat down next to Cho on the platform, the only surface above the punch. His robe was ripped up completely and soaked with blood and spotted with fragments of Voldemort's brain, as was Cho's. Not to mention being soaked with punch. His black hair was plastered to his head with sweat and his glasses hung loosely off his nose.
"That was brilliant!" Harry said. "To pretend to get your feet cut off!"
"I knew I would only get one chance to move, so this way, I got two!" Cho replied. People began slowly swimming in.
"Is it gone?" someone asked. Dumbledore stood up on the teacher's platform.
"Voldemort is indeed gone, in answer to everyone questions!" Dumbledore said. Everyone shuddered at the name, but gradually broke in a loud cheer.
"Forever?" someone asked.
"Ask Harry!" Dumbledore said, as Harry, covered with blood and brains and a completely torn robe, stood up.
"First, I sliced off his head, but he kept coming. Then I sliced his head open and blew up his brain." Harry said, proud of his achievement, although he was standing in front of a mob of people with robes cut to his knees, without a sleeve and a collar and he was covered in blood and brains from head to toe.
"Then, indeed, Voldemort is gone," Dumbledore said. Once again, everyone shuddered at the name, then burst into applause. "Now, back to normal!"
He waved his wand, then punch disappeared. The tables stood back up and the white, linen tablecloths shook the punch out of them, turning back to pure white. With another wave, everyone began levitating, then slowly went back to the ground. Harry's robes were now at their regular length and color. The collar was even back. The blood, punch and brains were taken out. Cho's robe, which had turned pink, became white and long, once again. The dance floor set back up again. It looked how it had before Voldemort had even come. Suddenly, the punch bowl shook violently once again. Out spat Voldemort's head.
"Gross! Now why did that happen?" Ron said.
"Who knows? It was really weird!" Harry said, deep in thought. The orchestra started up again and they all began dancing again. After an hour, the orchestra stopped and Dumbledore stood up on the platform.
"Now, after this- errr- interesting banquet, I would like to end it with a toast." He lifted up his goblet. "To the 7th years. May they find success and good fortune once they leave!"
Everyone applauded. But, unlike Dumbledore's plans, the orchestra started up again and so did the dancing. It went long into the night and into the morning. At 1am, Dumbledore, in a polite way, booted everyone out. Harry said goodbye to Cho, as he climbed into Gryffindor tower. Everyone in his dormitory was already asleep, except for he and Ron.
"I'd better pack!" said Harry, as he began stuffing things in his trunk. Ron's faced dropped as he ran up to his trunk and began stuffing stuff in his trunk. He and Ron began talking as they packed their trunks. The soon fell asleep, their heads slumped onto their trunks. As they awoke, Hermione was humming to herself as she opened the curtains.
"Hello!" she said. "Train leaves in an hour! I already put my luggage on the train."
Harry and Ron, at full speed, shoved stuff in their trunks and closed them. Running out of the dorm and out the portrait hole, they bumped into Cho in the corridor. Actually, Harry had tripped over her; she was tying her shoe. Harry said hello as he ran down the hallway. They got to the marble staircase in the entry hall. As they began running down, Ron tripped and they both rode their trunks down the staircase running through Peeves.
"Sorry Peeves!" Harry said, as he tried to steer the trunk. If you thought that was bad, then it was nothing until what happened next. McGonagall was walking up the stairs and they came at full speed on their trunks and knocked her off the stairs and into the large fountain below. She was not pleased. Riding out to the train, they stopped and loaded their luggage. Hermione and Cho came down laughing.
"We saw- McGonagall in the fountain!" Cho said, laughing. "Boy was she mad! You guys would be in really big trouble if you still went to Hogwarts!"
They boarded the train as it was leaving. Once on the train, Harry reclined in his seat. Still wearing his dress-robes, he quickly changed into a black robe, but put his bright green traveling cloak on to keep out the cold. Hermione was taking notes on "Hogwarts, A History" for her class next year in the seat across the row.
"Harry!" Ron said. "You still didn't tell me what you're doing!"
"Oh. Are you STILL bugging me about it? Guess!" Harry said.
"Does it have something to do with Quidditch?" Ron asked. Harry nodded, taking a large bite out of his chocolate frog. "Okay.. Let's see.. Could it be a seeker for England?" Ron asked.
Harry swallowed the rest of the frog in surprise, and began gagging on the card. He spit out the card, as he nodded. "How did you know?" Harry asked.
"Lucky guess!" Ron said sarcastically. The train screeched to a stop and Ron, Harry, Hermione and Cho got out.
"Is it true that you're playing for England?" Cho & Hermione asked. Harry nodded.
"We should get going!" Harry said as the four of them walked back to the Muggle world.