Chapter Seven: Quidditch and Suspicions
(Recognizable portions of this chapter come from Chapter Eleven of Harry Potter and the Philosophers/Sorcerers Stone by J. K. Rowling.)
As October faded to November, the scottish winter began to creep in. The mountains around the school became an inhospitable icy gray and the lake like chilled steel. Frost coated the ground every morning like clockwork. From the upstairs windows, Hagrid could be seen on the Quidditch Pitch, defrosting the brooms while bundled in handmade coats and furs.
For Danny Fenton, the weather was perfectly fine. He had taken to wearing his winter cloak, but the truth was that the lowering temperatures did not affect him the same way the did everyone else, save maybe Scandinavians.
For the students of Hogwarts, there a buzz in the air, as Quidditch Season had begun. Saturday, November ninth was the first game of the season, the always-sensational Gryffindor-Slytherin match.
Danny had gotten his own copy of Quidditch Through the Ages, and could only shake his head at some of the seven hundred fouls. 'Attempted decapitation of a Keeper with a broadsword' was apparently a separate foul from 'attacking an opponent with an axe.
Of course, his cousin had to be playing the most dangerous position in the game. While there were no recorded Seeker fatalities on the pitch, there was more than a disturbing number of injuries among them. For having made the house team, Danny's parents had bought Harry a brand new Nimbus Two-Thousand, with which he was a natural.
While Harry was having Quidditch practice in anticipation of the big game, Danny had taken to exploring the castle. Checking on Fluffy showed the cerberus was on high alert, likely in response to the colder temperatures.
Sneaking a glance in the staffroom, he caught Professor Snape having his leg bandaged with the help of Filch.
"Blasted thing", the Potions Master was saying. "How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?"
Danny slipped out before either of them could take notice of him, and headed back to the Gryffindor tower. Snape had apparently had a close encounter of the Fluffy kind, and had come off the worse for had clearly left their situational awareness in the dungeons, and it rhymed with 'cape'. He knew from conversations with Hagrid that the teachers were protecting something hidden in the third floor corridor, and that Fluffy was the first line of defense.
He got back to the common room, and noticed that his cousin had gotten engrossed in his book, most likely to cope with his anxiety. He decided to tell Hermione about what he had seen. The bushy-haired girl still hadn't ratted him out about his prank in the trophy room. Despite all her talk about following the rules, she seemed surprisingly willing to bend or break them, and after the incident with the troll, they had banded together as friends. (He realized that the trolls last swing would have most likely hit Hermione, so Ron had probably saved her with his levitation charm.) Right now she was going over their Charms homework. She would never let them copy ("How will you learn?" she said in an unintentional imitation of Jazz.) But asking her to read through it let them get the answers right anyway.
He told Hermione what he had seen, and Ron had joined the conversation, as had Harry, who had put down Quidditch Through the Ages. It elicited a snort from Ron.
"So, he tried to get past the cerberus on Halloween. He was limping when he showed up after Ron knocked the troll out." Harry said. "He must be after whatever it's guarding!"
"I don't think he's after it. Why would he be talking to Filch about it if he was trying to steal it? From the sound of it, Professor Snape was caught off guard trying to check the protections." Hermione shot down.
"There is another suspect." Danny said, his voice foreboding.
"Who?" asked Ron.
"Quirrell." Danny said plainly. "Every single time I'm in the same room as him, I get this sense of wrongness. And have you noticed his stutter? No one stutters on every single word they say."
He turned to Harry, "And why would a Potions Master use a troll for a distraction? If he wanted a distraction he could have knocked everyone out with a sleeping draught and waltzed in and out with whatever's being guarded. Oh, Snape's a piece of work, that's for sure," He recalled an incident in Potions where Harry had accidentally put too much honeywater in their Wiggenweld Potion, and Snape had dismissed it as a complete waste, vanishing the contents of the cauldron.
"But I don't think would try to steal something from under Dumbledore's nose." he finished.
They all went to bed after that, and as he was drifting off to sleep, a memory flitted through his head.
"That's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicholas Flamel." Hagrid had said when he asked about the cerberus.
'Oh, he did not hide that in a school.' was Danny's last conscious thought.
~~AWS~~
The dawn the next morning was bright and cold. The only conversations in the Great Hall at breakfast were about the Quidditch match. Harry wouldn't touch his breakfast, and it took the combined work of Seamus, Hermione, and a few drops of a Draught of Peace that Danny had nicked from the Potions classroom to get him to eat.
By eleven o'clock, the stands around the Quidditch pitch were filling with what seemed like the whole school. Many of the students were carrying binoculars to see the action.
Danny was sitting in the top row of the Gryffindor stands with Ron, Hermione, Neville, Seamus, and Dean the West Ham fan. The latter two had painted a banner as a surprise for Harry. The banner said "Potter for President", and Dean had painted a Gryffindor lion underneath, which was flashing red and gold thanks to some charms work courtesy of Hermione.
The match started, with the third year Gryffindor Lee Jordan, Fred and George's friend, commentating. Gryffindor scored first, filling the air with cheers from the lions and moans and howls from the Slytherins.
"Budge up there, move along"
"Hagrid!"
Ron and Hermione squeezed together to give Hagrid enough space to join them.
"Bin watchin' from me hut," said Hagrid, patting a large binoculars around his neck, "But it isn't the same as bein' in the crowd. No sign of the Snitch yet, eh?"
"Nope," said Ron. "Harry hasn't had much to do yet."
"Kept outta trouble, though, that's somethin'," said Hagrid, raising his binoculars and peering skyward at the speck that was Harry.
A sudden feeling of unease wormed its way into his gut. He had only ever felt it once before, and he knew it meant trouble.
The feeling did not go away when Flint was given a foul for blocking Harry's line to the Snitch, and Dean called out, "Send him off, ref! Red card!"
"What are you talking about, Dean?" asked Ron.
"Red card!" Dean shouted furiously. "In football you get shown the red card and you're out of the game!"
"But this isn't football, Dean," Ron had to remind him that the rules were different.
Hagrid, however, was on Dean's side.
"They oughta change the rules. Flint coulda knocked Harry outta the air."
Lee Jordan let his Gryffindor bias show.
"So - after that obvious and disgusting bit of cheating -"
"Jordan!" growled Professor McGonagall.
"I mean, after that open and revolting foul -"
"Jordan, I'm warning you -"
"All right, all right. Flint nearly kills the Gryffindor Seeker, which could happen to anyone, I'm sure, so a penalty to Gryffindor, taken by Spinnet, who puts it away, no trouble, and we continue play, Gryffindor still in possession."
Danny saw Harry dodge a bludger and suddenly lurch, nearly falling off his broom. The unease in his gut became a dagger of warning as Harry's broom jerked and bucked.
"Dunno what Harry thinks he's doing," Hagrid mumbled. He stared through his binoculars. "If I didn' know better, I'd say he'd lost control of his broom … but he can't have…."
Suddenly, people were pointing up at Harry all over the stands. His broom had started to roll over and over, with him only just managing to hold on. Then the whole crowd gasped. Harry's broom had given a wild jerk and Harry swung off it. He was now dangling from it, holding on with just one hand.
"Did something happen to it when Flint blocked him?" Seamus whispered.
"Can't have," Hagrid said, his voice shaking. "Can't nothing interterfere with a broomstick 'cept powerful Dark magic - no kid could do that to a Nimbus Two Thousand.
At those words, Danny's eyes flashed green, and could see the magic affecting Harry's broom. An inky black tendril was grabbing the broom, warring with a silver thread that was trying to break its hold. He tracked the spells back to their source, the teacher's box.
"Quirrell" Danny growled. Before anyone could notice, Danny slipped down and across the stands to underneath the teacher's box.
"Okay Quirrell, why don't you try this on for size." He whispered, clasping one hand around Quirrell's ankle, he yanked it down and under the bench, sending the Defense Professor pivoting out of his seat and tumbling into the row in front of him, sending Snape to ground as well.
Up in the air, Harry was able to regain stability and remount his broom.
A couple minutes later, Harry nearly swallowed the Snitch, and the game was over, Gryffindor winning one-seventy to sixty.
At Hagrid's hut, Harry was given a strong cup of tea. Ron, Hermione, and Neville were with the cousins.
"It was Quirrell. I can't exactly explain it, but for a second there, I was able to see the spells being cast. There were two spells. One was a jinx, and I'll bet you anything the other was a counter-curse."
"Rubbish," said Hagrid. "Why would Quirrell do somethin' like that?"
"Every time I'm near him, I get this sense of sheer wrongness coming from him."
"You can sense magic!" Hermione exclaimed. Sensing magic without using spells was a rare trait.
"Yeah, and if I'm right, our timid Defense Professor is after the Philosophers Stone.
"How did ye learn about the stone?" Hagrid looked furious.
"You said that the deal with Fluffy was between Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel. You know, the immortal alchemist?"
"How could it be Quirrell, though, he just doesn't seem like he would be going after the stone. And didn't you say Snape had gotten bitten by Fluffy?" Hermione retorted.
"How long has Snape been teaching?" Danny asked.
"About eleven years, give or take." Hagrid answered.
"How long has Quirrell been teaching?"
"He taught Muggle studies for about six years, then he went abroad last summer 'fore taking the Defense position."
"Went abroad? Who knows what sort of Dark magic or creatures he encountered?" Harry asked rhetorically.
