Chapter 28 – Goals, Goals and More Goals
Harry could tell that Ginny was not at all happy. She had burst through the hospital wing doors, robes billowing, with a face like thunder.
"You stupid little…" she started, looking furiously at Ron, "do you know how hard we've all worked towards this match, and YOU go and lose your fingers."
Harry had never seen Ginny talk to any of her family like this before, he decided that he had better keep quiet himself.
Ron's hand was being held in a pale cream bowl which was full of a strange green potion, which appeared to be bubbling slowly and noisily, emitting an acrid stench of scorched hair. Ron's nose was wrinkled up at the smell.
"Now now, I won't have all this commotion, out all of you now!" Madam Pomphrey came bustling over, looking irritated with all the noise and disturbance in her normally quiet ward.
Ginny stood her ground, "Will he be fit to play Quidditch in the morning?" she asked. Harry detected a slight note of worry in her voice.
"Mr Weasley will not be going anywhere for at least two days young lady. Fingers re-attached can drop off again if not given enough time to heal." Ginny looked like she was about to ask another question when Madam Pomphrey interrupted her, "and I might not be lucky enough to re-attach them a second time." She added, adding to Ginny's gloomy expression.
Hermione stayed in the hospital wing, reading her revision notes out loud to a flustered looking Ron. "Honestly Ron, this is fascinating stuff if you would just get into it!" she said, lowering her Defence Against the Dark Arts notes. "Banshees are some of the most mis-understood creatures in our world you know!"
Ron smiled weakly, and twisted his hand in the bowl. A plume of geen smoke issued as his fingers left the liquid briefly. His skin seemed to his as he pushed his barely mended fingers back under the surface. Ron wrinkled his nose again.
"This stuff stinks." He complained to no-one in particular.
Hermione shot him a reproachful glance, before raising her notes and continuing to read from the page. Ron slumped back into the cool thick pillows and sighed.
Harry doubted that he had ever had a worse nights sleep before a match. Over and over again he had dreamed of the match, he saw the unprotected Gryffindor Hoops assaulted again and again, to his dismay seeing every time a goal was being scored. In his dreams the hoops changed to live-snakes, hissing every time a Gryffindor player tried to defend them. The sky was dark and cloudy, the ground looked grey and lifeless.
Harry climbed out of bed and pulled his Quidditch robes on. He heard a faint rustling behind him as Ginny stirred in her sleep, obviously having the same sorts of dreams he had been suffering. Harry quietly picked up his broom and crept out of the room.
Ravenclaw were fielding the strongest team Harry had ever seen. All of them were relatively unknown to Harry, after all the past few years had given Harry other things to think about other than other house quidditch teams. Harry reflected that this was probably the reason why he had not been reinstated as captain of the team.
Harry trudged slowly down through the entrance hall and out into the outside air. The morning looked a little dark and dismal. Harry's hopes faded a little, he had hoped that with summer approaching the weather would be a little brighter. Looking up at the dark grey clouds Harry sighed. The wind was buffeting the tops of the trees as Harry mounted his broom and kicked off lightly into the air. Harry climbed higher and higher spiralling upwards before pointing his broom handle towards the quidditch pitch and putting on a burst of speed.
He thundered into the empty stadium screaming up to the goal hoops at the far end before turning sharply and thundering back up the pitch to the opposing goal hoops. He repeated this move a couple of times before he spotted a lone figure standing in the middle of the pitch. It was Hermione.
Harry flew down and landed neatly next to her. He said nothing, her face was long and tearful.
"You won't take it out on Ron if you lose today will you?" she started. Harry shook his head slowly, looking at his friend seriously.
Hermione looked as if she had been crying for some time. Harry was perplexed, it wasn't like Hermione to cry like this.
Seeing Harry shake his head Hermione smiled a little. Harry put his arm around her and walked with her off the pitch.
"We're going to have to make sure we score as many goals as we can ok?" Ginny looked around her team sat around the changing room with a fierce look in her eye. "and Harry, if ever we needed a quick catch it's now!"
Harry nodded and grinned. He didn't feel at all confident, but he had to keep face in front of the rest of the team. Ginny had failed to find a stand-in keeper for Ron and so the team was going out one man short. Not at all a good start.
The whistle blew and the team took to the air, rising in perfect unison. Harry shot up above the rest of the team and took off in a fast circle of the stadium, searching for the tiny winged snitch. Far below Harry could see that already their lack of numbers was starting to take its toll on the Gryffindor team. The two Ravenclaw beaters had sent a well-aimed bludgers towards Ginny, forcing her to execute a violent swerve, which made her drop the quaffle. A tall rangy looking Ravenclaw chaser caught the quaffle and threw it hard down the pitch to his counterpart who was hovering close to the centre hoop. Seconds later the Ravenclaw were celebrating their first goal.
Ginny recovered quickly and had soon passed the quaffle to Fiona who had passed to Demelza. Harry grinned and carried on searching for the snitch. Harry raced round the stadium franticly searching high and low. Harry heard the sound of groaning and looked down to see Ravenclaw celebrating yet another goal. Ron's absence was taking its toll.
There was a brief glimmer of gold high above the Ravenclaw goals, but as soon as Harry saw it, it disappeared again. Yet more celebrations rang in Harry's ears as Ravenclaw shot another goal through Gryffindor's hoops.
Harry grasped his broom handle and looked down to see where he could help.
One of the Ravenclaw Beaters hammered a bludger towards Demelza, the heavy ball finding its mark with a dull thud. Both Demezla and the Quaffle she was carrying fell to the ground. Demelza lay unconscious. There was a roar of delight from the Ravenclaw supporters as one of their chasers swept down and gathered up the quaffle, pelting up the field with it tucked under her arm before lobbing it through the left hand hoop.
Harry dived down towards the Ravenclaw captain, a short but stocky looking beater. His accelerated towards him screaming incoherently as he did so. The Ravenclaw captain looked alarmed at the attack. At the last minute Harry swerved out of the way and looped around the other player, revealing that a bludgers had been following him hard on his tail. The Ravenclaw captain had no chance to dodge as the bludger hit him hard in the shoulder. Harry heard the crack as the bone broke. Harry grinned and turned back to the match.
Ginny was shouting at the rest of the team, urging her beaters to keep the Ravenclaw chasers at bay. As she shouted at Coote a fast moving bludger hit his broom, spinning him violently round in the air. Ravenclaw shouted in delight as yet another goal soared home.
"Harry, for Merlin's sake find that snitch!" shouted Ginny angrily. Harry turned and scowled at Ginny, she blew him a kiss as an apology and flew off in pursuit of the quaffle, revealing a small golden ball hovering where her head had been a second before. Harry put on a burst of speed and pelted towards the snitch. A second later he punched the air with his fist clamped tightly around the fluttering ball. Ginny breathed a sigh of relief and winked at him. "Well done." She mouthed from across the pitch.
AN: Hi everyone, I'm really sorry for the delay in getting a new chapter up here. I'm afraid my life has taken a bit of a dramatic turn itself and has taken over for a while and I've not had the time to get a chapter posted for ages! I'm glad I got this chapter up as I'm trying to tie up some of the school bits before the end of the term. I've still got NEWTS left to go then schools out! Please forgive any continuity errors, I have lost my story note book so am trying to remind myself by re-reading what I've already written and remember some bits I may have forgotten. I promise by the next chapter I will be back up to speed and will have something really interesting for you to get your teeth into. (May take me a week or so to get right!) I hope you liked this chapter in the meantime, please leave feedback if you have any comments you would like me to read. Thanks again for reading my story.
