Disclaimer: Anything familiar to JKR's books probably comes from there and is hers not mine. Also, Harry Potter, Hogwarts, the Wizarding World, and anything else that has to do with it belongs to the lovely JK Rowling, not me. I'm just playing in her sandbox and building my own Hogwarts in it.
Chapter Seven
Harry sat down in the box the Ministry had given Sirius and just stared around the stadium. It was huge! Even more, there were advertisements, thousands of people, and just so much to see. He used his Omnioculars he had bought earlier that afternoon to look around the stadium.
"This is amazing," Harry told Tracey as he turned away from looking around the stadium.
"I know," she said with a smile in his direction. "The match will be even better, though. Professional games are faster paced than Hogwarts ones."
"You're really going to love this, Harry," Blaise agreed from the other side of Tracey as he looked around her to grin at Harry.
"You know, Harry, you could probably go Pro after Hogwarts," Maya said from Harry's other side, turning away from the conversation between Graham and Natalie to join theirs.
"Are you serious?" Harry asked, a bit shocked.
"Harry, you can do a bloody Wronski Feint without even knowing it!" Blaise exclaimed, as if scandalized Harry didn't already know this. "You're probably the best Seeker Hogwarts has seen in years!"
"I heard Oliver Wood saying that you were at least as good as Charlie Weasley back in your first year, and he could have played for England," Astoria added out of nowhere. "He was telling one of the Gryffindors in my year when I was there," she said with a shrug as they all stared at her. "They were wondering why they felt Gryffindor had no chance against Slytherin."
"Bloody Hell, Harry, he said that about you in first year, and you've only gotten better since then!" Blaise said with wide eyes. "If there's one thing Wood knows, it's Quidditch, and he just paid you an amazing compliment there!"
"Do you have any idea what you want to do after Hogwarts, Harry?" Daniella asked him, and Harry turned around to see that the adults were also listening in on the conversation.
"I haven't really thought about it," he admitted. "I'm not even all that sure what there is to do in the wizarding world after Hogwarts."
"Well, keep Quidditch as a possibility for after Hogwarts, but you don't really have to worry about it until fifth year when you talk with your Head of House about it," Samuel told Harry, though he was also talking to the others about the meeting.
Harry nodded and turned back to the stadium just as Mr. Bagman, Head of the Department of Games and Sports at the Ministry, started the commentary from the Top Box right above them.
In his opinion, the leprechauns were cool enough, but he took the advice of Remus over the advice of his godfather when he said to close his eyes and plug his ears when the Veela came. It made it amusing to see how Sirius had walked right up to the edge of the box and was beginning to climb out of it when the Veela left.
When the match started, Harry paid more attention to the Seekers and searching for the Snitch than to the Chasers, though he did enjoy paying attention to the commentary and looking at the Chasers once in a while.
"Has Krum seen the Snitch?" Tracey asked Harry when she saw Krum going into a dive, and Harry shook his head once.
"He's Feinting really well," he told her. "The Snitch is over on the other side of the stadium, but neither he nor Lynch has seen it," he said almost absentmindedly as he looked between the two diving Seekers and the Snitch on the other side of the stadium, barely staying still for a moment before moving again.
"Harry?" Tracey asked, and he raised a hand to acknowledge her so that she would continue without him having to stop chasing the Snitch with his eyes. "Can you really see the Snitch?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, it's actually coming our way right now," he said. "And that had to hurt Lynch… crashing like that. Too bad Krum is looking in the wrong direction to spot the Snitch," he continued, more to himself than to Tracey.
"Tracey, is Harry actually watching the Snitch?" Harry heard Blaise ask.
"I think he is," she replied, and Harry could tell that their gazes were on him instead of the match.
"Bloody Hell, Harry, you found the Snitch faster than the Pros did!" Blaise exclaimed, drawing the attention of the rest of their friends to him, but Harry just kept on tracking the Snitch as best he could while keeping track of the other players.
"Are you really tracking the Snitch, Harry?" Sirius asked him excitedly as Lynch finally stood up and the Irish supporters cheered.
"Uh-huh," Harry replied absentmindedly, really just trying to keep an eye on the Snitch so that he could tell the others when the Seekers had spotted it.
The others must have realized that he wasn't going to say much right now as they stopped questioning him and went back to watching the game. They all cheered as each of the next ten shots was scored by Ireland in fifteen minutes, but Harry barely paid attention other than to smile.
Lynch seemed to be a little disoriented by his crash, and Krum was looking around as much as he could. If Harry had to wager a guess he would say that if Lynch saw the Snitch first, Krum would still get it, even if he had been further away from it. Being disoriented like he was would make it harder for Lynch to fly his best, and Krum was already better than him. Lynch seemed to be flying a bit recklessly to Harry, but he put it down to flying against a better Seeker.
Harry's attention was finally captured by something other than the Seekers and the Snitch when the Veela, a race of beautiful people that were classified as magical creatures and have an allure that attracts the opposite sex that were the mascots for Bulgaria, started acting up, but he didn't pay much attention when he realized that it was the referee being stupid around the Veela.
"Harry, are you even paying attention to this?" Hermione asked loudly, but he just shook his head.
"Why should I watch him make a fool of himself when I can figure out which Seeker is going to catch the Snitch?" he replied.
What he knew his friends didn't understand was that he was studying the Seekers, trying to learn from them. His friends had figured out that he had better eyes than the Seekers when it came to finding the Snitch if he only concentrated on it, but he was trying to learn from the Pros right now.
Just then Krum took a Bludger to the face, and Harry could see that his nose was broken by both how it was bent and the amount of blood flowing out of it. His friends were screaming for a time-out for Krum, but Harry saw something they didn't.
"Lynch has finally found the Snitch!" he screamed to his friends, making them all turn to look at Lynch long before they would have otherwise.
Lynch was diving towards where the Snitch was headed, but Krum was on his tail. Harry, watching very closely, could see the excitement on their faces as they flew, but he also saw something else on Lynch's face, something like recklessness.
"They're going to crash!" Hermione shrieked, but Harry was shaking his head as he figured it out.
"Only Lynch is," he called to her just moments before Lynch plowed into the ground again.
In the confusion of seeing Lynch crash, Harry saw Krum reach out and grasp the Snitch tightly in his hand before he sat up, pulling out of the dive with time to spare.
"Where's the Snitch?" Blaise was asking, and Harry finally turned to look at his friends with a smile on his face.
"Krum's got it; the match is over," he told his friends.
…
"That was amazing!" Graham exclaimed as they all headed back to the tent.
"It really was," Maya agreed, smiling at her younger brother.
"I still can't believe you managed to follow the Snitch for over half the game!" Blaise told Harry as he slapped Harry on the back.
"Oh, I lost it over and over again," Harry said with a chuckle, trying hard not to laugh at his friends' faces, "but I found it again every time."
"Lost the bloody Snitch and kept finding it…" Blaise muttered under his breath as the others tried not to laugh at his disgruntled look.
"That match was bloody amazing!" Ginny said as she rushed over to their group, walking alongside Harry once she caught up to them. "The twins actually bet that that would be the final result. A bit shocking they bet it so well."
"Gin, you should know your brothers better than that," Harry said mockingly. "They wouldn't bet unless it was a sure thing."
"It's nice to know we're appreciated," a twin said; Harry saw that it was Fred when he turned to look. He hadn't even heard them catch up to their group.
"But it's saddening to know that our dear little sister doesn't trust us," George added with his head looking down towards the ground before looking up again.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ginny said with a wave of her hand. "Anyway, the match was amazing, but did you see what happened with the Veela and the ref? That was hilarious!"
"It was," Daphne agreed with a laugh, everyone but Harry nodding in agreement as he hadn't really paid much attention to it.
"Harry, my friend, you don't seem to understand what's so funny about it," George noted as they walked into the tent and sat down on couches and chairs.
"Did you not see one of the most noticeable parts of the match?" Fred asked.
"He barely saw anything," Natalie said with a snort that surprised the three Weasleys.
"How did you miss anything?" Ginny exclaimed, unable to believe it.
"He didn't take his eyes off the Snitch or the Seekers the entire match," Maya informed the three redheads.
"Wait, you actually saw the Snitch during the match?" Fred asked with wide eyes.
"Followed the thing for most of the match," Sirius called to the group as he headed into the kitchen to find Butterbeers for them all.
"Harry, do you not know how amazing that is?" George asked as he saw that Harry wasn't really all that impressed.
"Not really," he said with a shrug. "It wasn't that hard to find, and tracking it was easy enough once I had found it." Harry accepted a bottle of Butterbeer from his godfather with a smile that Sirius returned.
"I watched him track the bloody thing and I'm still amazed by it," Blaise said to no one in particular as he shook his head and opened his own drink.
"I think we need to reaffirm what Patricia said on his birthday, brother dearest," Fred said as he turned to face George, who was nodding in agreement already.
"We're never going to win another match if this boy can track the Snitch at a pro game," George agreed.
"Especially with him on a Firebolt," Ginny added with a bit of a sigh. "And I was thinking I might try out for the team when the girls left as a Seeker because we'll need one. I guess I'm going after a Chaser position instead."
The twins stared at her in a bit of shock while Harry smirked slightly. He alone of the group, except perhaps Hermione, knew that Ginny had been stealing their brooms since she was six and flying at night. One thing he was sure of, though, was that he was the only person she had told that she wanted to be a Chaser but could also be a Seeker if need be; this was just her way of breaking the ideas to the twins.
"You play, Ginny?" Maya asked when the twins didn't do anything but stare at her in a bit of shock.
"Yeah, but these gits don't even know that I can fly," Ginny told the others with a gesture in the direction of her older brothers.
Harry broke out laughing at the looks on the face of the twins, and he knew having them over in the tent would make the talk about the Quidditch match a lot of fun. Maybe he'd even hear about what had actually happened to the other players and the mascots.
…
BANG!
Harry sat up wide awake in his bed as he heard a tent go flying. Looking around, all of his friends were waking up, all of them except Maya, Graham, and Natalie awake almost instantly.
Jumping out of bed, Harry grabbed trousers and a T-shirt, changing as fast as he could before slipping his shrunken Gryffindor Sword, his shrunken broom, and his Journal into his pockets before slipping the Dagger, another two daggers, his throwing knives, and his other sword onto his body with their sheathes, making them become invisible almost instantly. Wand holster and wand were strapped on moments later.
All of his friends who had been training were doing the same, though he had been the first to react so he was the only one ready. Soon enough, his friends were dressed and ready for anything that might happen.
"Good, you're all up," Sirius said as he rushed into the hallway that had the rooms of the kids. "We've got to get out of here, now."
Everyone followed Sirius instantly and rushed from the tent, only to freeze as they saw people in black robes with white masks on their faces, some levitating the Muggles from the entrance to the campsite while others launched tents through the air or burned them. All of the people in black robes were laughing laughs that showed enjoyment of the fear and chaos they were causing as well as what they were doing to the poor Muggle family, which consisted of a man, a woman, and two children, all of whom were being treated like puppets.
Remus yelled at them to get moving, pointing towards the forest. Harry got the message and began leading his friends to the edge of the forest while most of the adults went towards the hooded people, wands out and ready to use.
"They're going to try and help the Muggles," Harry told the others. "We need to wait near the edge of the forest so that they can find us when this is all over."
Everyone nodded solemnly as they realized this wasn't something to argue about. They all headed to the forest and stood there, wands out in case something or someone came towards them.
"Not hiding in the forest like the rest of them?" a voice drawled from Harry's right, an amused tone to it. "Can't say I'm surprised, knowing all of you like I do, though I'd think you'd be at least a bit further in."
"Some of us know how to fight if we need to, Draco, so we're staying near the edge in case they come near here," Harry told his blond friend as he came into view, stepping out of the shadows.
"Has your Gryffindor side come out again, Potter?" Draco asked, his use of Harry's surname showing that he was truly perplexed as it only happened when he was thinking too hard about something else.
"Maybe a little, or maybe I'm just too curious for my own good and knew you'd be hanging out around here and wanted to know if your father is among those people out there, enjoying themselves," Harry replied, turning back to the campsite and watching the chaos.
"And there's my real answer," Draco said with a laugh.
"Is he?" Tracey asked Draco quietly. Harry knew that she understood he was looking for the adults and wanted someone else to take over talking with Draco.
"If they are, I wouldn't go telling all of you, would I?" Draco asked, but they all knew that he was saying in his own way that they were there.
"'Course you would," Blaise said. "You allied with Harry, remember?"
"Besides, do you really need to keep the act up right now, Draco? Your father is out there with a mask on and not behind you listening to this whole conversation," Daphne added, and Harry turned to see that she had an eyebrow raised.
"True," Draco sighed, and Harry watched as he relaxed from his Pureblood arrogance into a more normal teenager. "I've been keeping up that look for too long, and being in the Top Box with a bunch of important people as well as the Weasleys didn't help matters."
"Understandable," Hermione said. "Sometimes it's hard to remember when you're among friends and when you're among just allies or your father."
"Theo is so lucky he doesn't have to act around his father like I do; his father's given up on him," Draco said before sighing deeply. "Oh well, at least it isn't all the time."
"That's only because I showed you a second path and you took it, remember?" Harry reminded Draco. "If I hadn't, you'd still be acting like a Pure-blood and would probably find this," he gestured out to the campsite, "amusing."
"Most of us would," Maya said softly for all of the Pure-bloods of the group except Neville.
"Well, I've got a question, if we're done talking about Pure-bloods and all," Natalie said when no one said anything. "What are those guys and why are they doing that to the Muggles?"
"They're Death Eaters, followers of the Dark Lord," Astoria told the to-be-first-year, also informing Harry about something he hadn't known.
"Death Eaters are known for torturing and murdering Muggles more than wizards, yet they killed Muggle-borns and Half-Bloods as well," Maya finished, looking down sadly at her brother's friend. "I really wish none of us had to see this, especially you two."
Before anyone could say anything to that, a green light flashed into the sky high above the trees deeper into the forest. Slowly, it began to form a shape. It became a large green skull with a serpent for a tongue that seemed to be made of green stars, and it rose higher and higher until everyone could see it.
Turning quickly, Harry watched as the Death Eaters all Disapparated quickly, the Muggles falling and barely being stopped in time by the Ministry workers and other helpers.
"The Dark Mark," Draco muttered darkly, and Harry turned to see that he was still staring at the skull in the sky, an unreadable expression on his face.
"What is that?" Harry asked his friends, seeing that most of them recognized the skull.
"It's the Dark Mark, Harry," Tracey told him quietly, "his mark."
That made Harry look up at the skull with a whole new view of it. If that skull was Voldemort's mark, then that could only mean trouble. He knew that just a mark wouldn't scare his friends as much as that skull was, which meant it had a meaning to it that he didn't know just yet.
"Harry, that mark was only used when someone died," Tracey whispered into his ear, obviously recognizing the confusion on his face. "Imagine going home and finding that mark floating above your home and knowing you were coming home to something terrible. That one skull caused so much fear in the first war with Voldemort that seeing it now… it's no wonder the Death Eaters ran."
Now Harry understood. Something as terrible as meaning a death had occurred… Anyone would be scared out of his or her mind.
Harry was just worried about the fact that someone could have died in the forest because of that sign. It didn't help that the fact the Dark Mark was being used for the first time in years – probably thirteen, if it hadn't been used since Voldemort had "died" – probably meant that his dream was true and he would be having problems this year. That could be a problem.
…
"Sirius!" Harry called as he spotted his godfather looking around the edge of the forest.
"Harry!" he replied, rushing over to where all of them where waiting, though Draco had disappeared from the group not long after the Dark Mark had appeared. "Are you all okay? Is anyone hurt?"
"We're all fine, Padfoot; we're all just fine," Harry assured the worried Marauder. "Everyone is here and accounted for. All we did was stay here and watch the chaos as if it was a movie."
"Come on, you lot, we're going back to the tent and heading home now instead of in the morning," Sirius finally said when he was satisfied that all of them were in one piece and without a scratch on them.
Harry turned and looked at the emerald green skull still floating above the forest for a few more moments before turning and following his godfather back to the tent.
…
Ginny: Harry! Ron got accused of setting the Mark off along with Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan!
Harry: No way! How did that happen?
Fred: He was right by where the Mark was launched from, and he had lost his wand earlier on, but he doesn't know when.
George: The Ministry officials attacked the three of them, dad says.
Tracey: Is he okay?
Ginny: Just a bit shaken right now; he'll be fine. He'd talk on the Journals but he doesn't get how to use them very well and dad is watching him more than the three of us, since we're usually writing in these things at odd times.
Daphne: Tell Ron not to use the Journal in front of anyone who doesn't know about them.
Ginny: *Blinks* Why?
Blaise: Because if they don't know he's actually friends with us instead of just allies, we might be able to use him at a later date.
Fred: What are you lot talking about?
Harry: If Voldemort comes back soon, who will your parents go to?
Weasleys: Dumbledore.
Harry: If you're stuck with Dumbledore and he's trying to get to me, who would he not trust if I was near you or talking with you?
Ginny: Oh… You guys are saying to use him as a back-up plan just in case.
Maya: *Shrugs* It's not a bad idea.
Fred: You all are such Slytherins…
George: Thinking ahead like this and all…
Both: It's amazing!
Slytherins: *Laugh*
Harry: Thanks guys. Please, let him know that he can talk with us, just not where anyone without a Journal can see him except in classes. Basically, he can't use them often during the summer, just in case.
Ginny: I'll let him know later on.
"Guys, put the Journals away please, we've gotta get going," Sirius told the kids sharply as they all sat around the dining table, writing. They were all ready to go and had sat down to write with the Weasleys for a bit, but now Sirius was done and making it seem like it hadn't been him who had been holding them up.
"Sirius, you were the slow one, so be quiet," Harry told him with a bit of annoyance seeping into his voice. "We'll be there in a minute." Sirius glared at his godson for a moment before turning on his heel and storming out of the room.
Tracey: I'm sure you all saw that.
Ginny: Go. Talk to us when you get home. Actually, dad wants us to go to bed now, so we'll let you know when we get home.
Harry: Talk to you three later.
…
Harry watched his friends all leave Grimmauld Place with their parents before slumping into a seat at the table in the kitchen, tired yet full of energy at the same time. He knew he wouldn't be getting to sleep any time soon.
"Are you okay?" Remus asked him quietly as Sirius left the kitchen to go to bed.
"Yeah," Harry said. "It's just… hard. Staying on the edge of the forest was easy, yet I was fighting against my instinct to get out of the way all the same. It was as if two sides of me were fighting for control of me."
"They probably were, Harry," Remus said as he took a seat beside him. "You've said it yourself that you've got the heart of a Gryffindor somewhere inside of you, and it was probably fighting with the Slytherin in you. This probably won't be the last time you have an internal fight with your two most prominent sides for control in moments like this. You'll just have to decide which side to let take the reigns while the other takes a backseat and helps while it can."
"You're basically saying I'm going to have to decide whether or not to let the Gryffindor in me push me to fight instead of thinking first sometime in the future, right?" Harry asked to clarify.
"That's a nice summary of it," Remus told him with a half-smile. "Now, what else is bothering you?" Remus asked, suddenly serious again.
"That obvious right now?" Harry asked wryly, knowing that the reason was his exhaustion and the fact that he needed to raise his Occlumency shields back up. "The Dark Mark and the Death Eaters," he said after sighing deeply.
"What about them?" Remus asked, looking curious, and Harry thought he might just want his opinion on them both.
"The Death Eaters were there to have fun and just bring out a bit of fear," Harry began, speaking slowly as he sorted out his thoughts. "They just wanted to remind people that they were still out there and would still bring about fear and cause chaos. It wasn't anything more than a gathering of old friends having a laugh.
"The thing is… the Dark Mark didn't seem to be from their group. They all saw the Mark and fled right away, as if they were afraid of it. There must have been another Death Eater there, working solo. Everything about it just says someone wanting to really cause fear and really bring about trouble."
Harry looked up at Remus and saw that his face was thoughtful, but there was an edge to it that told Harry he had gotten most of that for himself already and was just thinking it over again. He didn't mind as he wanted Moony's opinion just as much as the Marauder wanted his opinion.
"That's what I had gathered from watching everything that happened," Remus finally admitted. "You said it a bit differently than I would have, but the basic idea is the same."
"So we should be worried by my dream," Harry mused. "Got it."
"These things might be connected, so we should remember it," Remus agreed. "Don't worry too much about it, but don't forget about it. Now, you should try going to bed. If you really can't sleep, go run around on four legs again in the attic to waste some energy."
Harry smiled at the reference to his wolf form before transforming and running up the stairs to his room, Remus laughing after him. He loved doing that with his wolf form, so he did it at random times just to make Remus and Sirius laugh.
Turning back into a human, Harry stripped off his weapons and changed back into his pajamas before slipping back into bed, his Journal under his pillow.
He had thought it would take a while to fall asleep, but moments after closing his eyes, Harry was drifting off.
First and foremost, I LOVED the comments about Ron. Quite a number of them had me laughing as I read the reviews. On that note, sorry for such late replies. I've spent most of this week sick, and I'm not the best person to talk to when sick. Nor am I very clean, if my mess of a room is anything to go by... Anyway, I'm better than I was, but now I just want summer already.
If you lovely readers want to know what happened at the Quidditch World Cup, be slightly active and go pick up that copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire I know almost all of you own and turn the pages to the correct chapter. You have the perfect match right there. *Smiles sweetly*
I know a lot of you wanted Harry and the others to fight the Death Eaters, but my view (And I'm staying with it, even if it wasn't my original idea when I wrote this as I really hadn't thought of them seriously fighting the Death Eaters yet) is that they willingly went to the forest just in case the Death Eaters got that far and people needed protection. You all can change it in your minds if you wish, but this is my standpoint of this.
Otherwise, more Ron at a later point with the chapter that will show his true attitude being Chapter Fifteen, at least in my opinion. Please, leave a review and tell me your opinion. In fact, I'm VERY curious about your views on how the Tournament will turn out. I've been getting comments on it being different, but what do you all mean by different? I'd love it if some of you would let me know. :)
Posted: 5/29/11
