Thirty-Seven: Quidditch Discussions
Disclaimers: I do not own any D. Gray-Man or Harry Potter characters/settings. They rightfully belong to Mr. Hoshino (D. Gray-Man) and Ms. Rowling (Harry Potter). Also, some conversations between the Harry Potter characters are direct quotes from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and that also does not belong to me!
Due to a request in one of the reviews, I have decided to add recaps and previews from this chapter and on!
Recap:
"I don't suppose I've got any choice, have I?"
"Daddy will be pleased," Luna said cheerfully.
"Okay, Harry?" Hermione asked. "Ready to tell the public the truth?"
"I suppose," Harry muttered, watching Rita balance her quill on a piece of parchment.
"Fire away, then, Rita," Hermione said, fishing a cherry out of the bottom of her drink.
"People are now going have to pick, eh?" Lavi asked mischievously as he followed Allen, Lenalee, and Harry out of the Three Broomsticks. Hermione and Luna hung back with Rita Skeeter, discussing final details about the interview.
"Pick what?" Allen asked curiously.
"Choice one is that Harry is totally cuckoo-"
"-which is likely the most popular choice," Harry muttered.
"Choice two is that Harry is right after all and the Ministry's got big problems," Lavi finished.
"What is right is not always popular; what is popular is not always right," Lenalee said wisely.
"I'm sure there will be a lot of people who believe you, Harry," Allen assured. "It's just hard for them to be honest about it, especially people who are deeply influenced by the way the Ministry treats them."
"Yeah, if we weren't so chicken about the possibility of persecution, I would most likely be joining Fred and George with the anti-Umbridge jokes all the time," Lavi chortled. "Oh, but the other reason I don't do it is Komui and mission and Panda."
"Panda?" Harry repeated in confusion.
"His master," Allen shrugged. "He- er- kicks Lavi whenever he does something out of line."
"Yu finds it rather entertaining when I fly five feet," Lavi grumbled. "He's cruel, you know? Both of them, actually."
"He tried to burn Umbridge one day," Allen said with a chortle. "I stopped him, but if she does anything cruel I might just end up like you and George."
"Don't," Harry shook his head, remembering his life time ban from Quidditch. It made his stomach turn, but something hit him just then. "If you end up like me and George, what will you be getting banned from?"
"Hm?" Lavi raised an eyebrow. "Me, I dunno. I don't have much interest in anything but being Bookman and Exorcist. Oh, maybe girls. Allen would be eating, gambling, and being an Exorcist, right?"
"If I don't eat, I'll die," Allen said seriously. "I could survive without gambling, but then I'll be so deep in debts that I might get kicked out of society, which, I assure you, won't be a good thing. And if I'm not allowed to be an Exorcist, then it's either I go insane or you will have a harder time defeating the Earl."
Harry rolled his eyes. "You won't be getting banned from anything by Umbridge," he told them. "Maybe that Komui person, but not the magical government. You're none of their concern."
"Thankfully," Lavi sighed.
"So what do you want to do now?" Lenalee asked cheerfully. "It's still early in the day, why don't we walk around and have some fun? Chances are, we're going to be starting missions again soon."
"Yeah, let's do that!" Lavi exclaimed and wrapped his arms around Allen and Harry. "I'm in agreement with Lenalee. What about you two?"
"Alright," Harry said.
"Let's," Allen nodded.
And the four walked off, down the street, and it wasn't until he reached the boys' dormitories in Gryffindor Tower that Harry recalled the reason why he didn't spend the day with Cho Chang.
"Can't wait to see what Umbridge thinks of you going public," Dean Thomas said at dinner on Monday night. Sitting on the other side of Dean, Seamus Finnigan was (supposedly) having an eating contest with Allen, but Harry knew they were both listening.
"It's the right thing to do, Harry," Neville said with a slightly pale face. Lowering his voice, he said, "It must have been...tough...talking about it...Was it?"
"Yeah," Harry mumbled a reply, "but people have got to know what Voldemort's capable of, haven't they?"
"That's right," Neville nodded, "and his Death Eaters too...People should know..."
"Well, night," Dean said after a few minutes, and he, Seamus, and Neville left for the common room.
"How much did you eat, Allen?" Lavi asked.
"A fair amount."
"You call that a fair amount?" Hermione said in disbelief, gesturing to the several empty dishes and bowls nearby.
"Parasite type correspondents of the Innocence can easily eat ten times as much as a normal human," Lavi explained. "Hey look, there's Cho...Lenalee, I see your twin."
"She's not my twin!" Lenalee said heatedly as Harry's stomach gave an unpleasant flip.
"Oh, I forgot to ask you," Hermione said cheerfully, following Lavi's gaze, "what happened on your date with Cho? Hoe come you were back so early?"
"Er...well, it was..." Harry said in a nervous tone, subconsciously dragging a dish of rhubarb crumble toward him, "a complete fiasco, now you mention it."
And he launched into the story of what happened in Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop. During his story, Lenalee and Hermione's eyes seemed to become colder and colder, until Lavi and Allen had to scoot away several inches to keep themselves warm.
"...so then," Harry finished after a few minutes, completely oblivious to the cold atmosphere around him, "she jumps up, right, and says, 'I'll see you around, Harry,' and runs out of the place!" He slammed down his spoon and looked at Hermione helplessly. "I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?"
Both girls sighed deeply. "Oh, Harry," Hermione said sadly. "Well, I'm sorry, but you were a bit tactless."
"Me, tactless?" Harry said loudly. "One minute we were getting on fine, next minute she was telling me that Roger Davies asked her out, and how she used to go and snog Cedric in that stupid tea shop- how was I supposed to feel about that?"
"Well, you see," Hermione said slowly and patiently, "you shouldn't have told her you wanted to meet me halfway through your date."
"But, but, but- you told me to meet you at twelve and to bring her along, how was I supposed to do that without telling her?"
"You should have told her differently," Lenalee put in.
"You should have said it was really annoying, but I'd made you promise to come along to the Three Broomsticks, and you really didn't want to go, you'd much rather spend the whole day with her, but unfortunately you thought you really ought to meet me and would she please, please come along with you, and hopefully you'd be able to get away more quickly" Hermione said. "And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am too."
"But I don't think you're ugly," Harry said, blinking confusedly.
At that, Hermione and Lavi laughed.
"You're so adorably innocent, Harry," Lavi teased.
"You're worse than Ron," Hermione chuckled. "Well, no, you're not," she sighed as the boy in question came stomping into the Great Hall, splattered with mud and water and looking very disgruntled. "Look- you upset Cho when you said you were going to meet me, so she tried to make you jealous. It was her way of trying to find out how much you liked her."
"Is that what she was doing?" Harry asked irritably as Ron sat down heavily beside Lenalee and pulled every dish that held food toward him. "Well, wouldn't it have been easier if she'd just asked me whether I like her better than you?"
"Girls don't often ask questions about that," Hermione said.
"Well, they should!" Harry sighed dramatically. "Then I could've just told her I fancy her, and she wouldn't have had to get herself all worked up again about Cedric dying!"
"I'm not saying what she did was sensible," Hermione said as Ginny joined them, sitting next to Allen. "I'm just trying to make you see how she was feeling at the time."
"You should write a book," Ron grunted, "translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them."
"Yeah," Harry said.
Allen pulled out his wand and flicked it in the air, producing two towels. Dropping one on Ron's head, he placed the other on Ginny's. "So, how was Quidditch practice?" he asked.
"It was a nightmare," Ron said sourly, rubbing his head roughly with the towel.
"Oh come on," Hermione said. "I'm sure it wasn't that-"
"Yes, it was," Ginny said darkly. "It was appalling. Angelina was nearly in tears by the end of it."
"I'm going to go take a shower," Ron said after dinner, and he and his sister went the opposite way down the corridors.
"We'll meet you in the common room!" Allen called after them and ran to catch up with his friends.
In the common room, Harry and Hermione pulled out their piles of homework, one more reluctant to do so than the other. The Exorcists joined them at their table, each of them holding the file they'd been given at the beginning of the school term. None of them had ever read it to the end, but even now, none of them felt like reading it through. Allen and Lenalee were merely flipping through it, while Lavi made enchanted paper cranes that flew around the common room until Harry pointed out how distracting it was. It was around that time when Fred and George swooped down on them.
"Ron and Ginny not here?" Fred asked with a quick glance around as he and his twin squeezed into the chair on either side of Allen, effectively sandwiching the white haired boy between them. "Good. We were watching their practice. They're going to be slaughtered. They're complete rubbish without us."
"Come on, Ginny's not bad," George said fairly. "Actually, I dunno how she got so good, seeing as we never let her play with us..."
"She's been breaking into your broom shed in the garden since the age of six and taking each of your brooms out in turn when you weren't looking," Allen explained.
"Oh. Well- that'd explain it," George said an impressed air about him.
"Has Ron saved a goal yet?" Hermione asked over the top of Magical Hieroglyphics and Logograms.
"Well, he can do it if he doesn't think anyone's watching him," Fred said with a roll of his eyes. "So all we have to do is ask the crowd to turn their backs and talk among themselves every time the Quaffle goes up his end on Saturday." Standing up, he restlessly moved to the the window and stared out into the night world. "You know, Quidditch was about the only thing in this place staying for."
"You've got exams coming!"
"Told you already, we're not fussed about N.E.W.T.s," Fred said. "The Snackboxes are ready to roll, we found out how to get rid of those boils, just a couple drops of murtlap essense sorts them, Lee put us onto it..."
George yawned widely and leaned his head against Allen's. "I dunno if I even want to watch this match. If Zacharias Smith beats us I might have to kill myself."
"Kill him, more like," Fred corrected seriously.
"That's the trouble with Quidditch," Hermione said, "it creates all this bad feeling and tension between the houses."
"Hermione look up," Lavi said warningly.
"Well, it does!" Hermione said indignantly when she did as Lavi said and caught the hostile looks Harry, Fred, and George were throwing at her. "It's only a game, isn't it?"
"Hermione, you're good on feelings and stuff, but you just don't understand about Quidditch."
"Maybe not," Hermione replied darkly, "but at least my happiness doesn't depend on Ron's goalkeeping ability. Right, Lenalee?"
"Hmm?" Lenalee said, looking up from a doodle she and Lavi were making. Blinking, she shrugged. "Everyone has their values, I guess, and Quidditch isn't something that creates tension between houses. After all, it's a game, games are supposed to create bonds. Besides, it's fun, isn't it?"
"She understands!" George said truimphantly.
"But that doesn't make me feel better about Saturday," Fred said. "I swear on Merlin's beard, we're going to wish we never tried to kill Draco Malfoy, and that's saying something."
A/N: Because I want to finish the other story I am writing, it may be a while before I update on this one. My apologies!