Yeah, sorry this is so short, I've had a long few work weeks, but now my schedule is slowing down, I should have some more time.
I don't own Harry Potter.
As if his week wasn't already great, Harry had to deal with Neville being bullied by Malfoy and his cronies. Which sadly happened a lot.
Neville wasn't the only one being bullied by that sorry excuse for a gang, there were several first years falling prey to them, and the teachers could only do so much. The student or students being bullied would tell the teachers and for the most part, Draco, Crabbe and Goyle would get points deducted, detentions and then notes home. Rumor has it, that only Snape's influence over Dumbledore kept Draco and them in school, otherwise, they would have been suspended or expelled.
Harry felt that was a little unfair, if Harry had acted just a little bit like Draco, Snape would be screaming his lungs out to have him expelled and then handed over to Filch.
Sadly there was no real justice for their victims. First years, who had received care packages from home, didn't have them for long if they waited to take them up or down to their dorms. Crabbe or Goyle would scarf them down in a blink if they managed to get their fat mitts on them. Ron could swear they were able to smell chocolate or sugar from any part of the castle.
"I'm serious, Ernie Macmillian hid his stash of chocolate frogs behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy, and those two still found it." said Ron.
"How did you know that he put them there?" asked Hermione.
"I saw him put them there, no one else was around, and I didn't tell anyone." said Ron.
"Why not just keep them in his dorm?" asked Harry. "They wouldn't be able to get in there."
"Crabbe and Goyle have been bullying first years to hand over any candy they know about." said Ron. "Finch-Fletchely gave them Macmillians last horde of chocolate."
Neville, for an actual reason Harry couldn't figure out, seemed to attract most of the bullying onto himself. First it was the Rememberall, then almost daily, Neville would have to either hide behind Harry and Ron, run in a classroom that was occupied by a class, and get a point or two deducted for being in there when he wasn't supposed to...or run as fast as he could to the Gryffindor Common Room.
Ron had tried telling Percy about the bullying, but he seemed to preoccupied with...whatever he was doing. It was a little disheartening to see that their male Prefect was doing little to nothing to help Neville. The female prefect tried to reign in the unruly Slytherins, but they only laughed at her and ran off. Their Prefects couldn't be bothered to deal with them, having their own agendas.
This time, Neville had run into Malfoy at the library and Malfoy was in a "playing" mood.
"Hey, Longbottom!" yelled Draco.
"Oh no..." said Neville, putting his Herbology books down and tried to escape the library. The fellow students, knowing what was coming, gave all four of them a wide berth, allowing Neville to get a clear exit and not getting in the Slytherin's way.
"Locomotor Motis!" said Draco as Neville almost reached the door. Neville had fallen to the floor heavily, he struggled to get back on his feet, but realized his legs were locked together.
"Oh no." said Neville trying to claw away.
"Just learned it, thanks for helping me practice Longbottom." said laughed Draco. Neville struggled to get to his feet and hopped out of the library, he had last seen Hermione in the Common room, she would know how to remove it. Now he just had to get there.
When he finally reached the Common Room, his face almost burning with embarrassment, he looked for Hermione and just managed to catch a part of their converstation.
"I'm telling you, I've heard the name before!" said Harry.
"And we believe you." said Hermione not looking at her friend. Then they turned and saw Neville hopping over to them.
Thankfully Hermione took the spell off him instead of laughing. She urged him to go McGonagall, but he didn't want to. Every time that someone would report him, they'd go after them later and rough them up even more...he felt it wasn't worth it.
After some encouraging words, and a chocolate frog from Harry, he shuffled off, hoping that Draco and them had left the library so he could get his books. He was sort of shocked that Ron and Harry would laugh at him as he struggled to get help...but at least they tried helping him afterward. He wished he had half of Harry's courage. He was always so brave and so willing to help others, he just didn't have the spine it seemed.
Snape glared at the first years in front of him, attempting to concoct a Forgetfulnes potion for the first time. They were all struggling with it, which gave him the idea of putting it down for their end of the year exams. If they couldn't improve their potion making skills by that time, then it was their own fault.
His eyes scanned the room and locked onto Potter, once again, he was showing little to no talent in the field of potion making. No matter how determined the boy's face looked, he had even less than lackluster skills, he made his idiotic father look like a prodigy. He strolled over to where Potter was standing, pounding his mistletoe berries.
"How many berries did the potion require, Potter." said Snape standing behind the youth and sneering into the boy's ear.
"Uh...four..." said Harry, he jumped slightly at the closeness of the professor.
"Than why did you add five?" said Snape sneering down at the potion.
"I didn't sir, I only added four." said Harry.
"Don't lie to me boy. The potion is now purple, that tells me you added one berry more than what the potion required. Five points from Gryffindor for not following the potion formulae, and five points for wasting my potion ingredients, and another ten for lying." said Snape waving his wand over the cauldron and causing it's contents to disappear.
He didn't notice that Malfoy, who was standing next to the raven haired youth at a nearby table, pretended to toss a mistletoe berry into Harry's now empty cauldron. He only focused at the lie he figured the boy was telling him, just like his father...lying to a teacher to their face. He was going down the same path, and he was going to make sure the boy paid for every misdeed he did. It was a shame he didn't take after...his mother...no...this was Potter's little urchin, he could never be like his mother.
But there was something that was bothering him. Potter had seen the wounds on his leg. When he had seen Potter's eyes, there was a spark, a spark of recognition when he gazed at the wound...did he know about dog? Filch did tell him that he had caught a few students out of bed a few months ago and he had lost them around the third floor corridor. Could the students have been so foolish to hide in there, if they had, how were they still alive? And was one of the students Potter? Snape scoffed, of course it was Potter, who else in this school besides the twins would traipse around the school in the middle of the night, disregarding the rules. The twins would at least wait until the night before Halloween before sneaking about, setting up pranks that would (they hoped anyway) would terrify their fellow students.
He would have to see what Potter knew, and in order to do that, he would have to use Legilimency against him, hopefully, Dumbledore wouldn't hear of it. Using Legilimency against a student was against the rules and would surely get him in trouble not just with Dumbledore, but with the Ministry of Magic.
Invading a child's mind, was a disturbing thing to think about, but if it kept Potter from getting himself killed, he'd have to take that risk...not that he cared for the boy or anything of that sort.
Ron and Hermione would look over to Harry, with worry in their eyes, they knew that Harry was worried about the match, even if he never said he was. After Snape attacked him in the first match, and the news that he was going to referee in the upcoming one, they plotted to take precautions.
Neville had given Ron the brilliant idea of hexing Snape with a leg-locker curse while he was in the air.
"Ron! We can't attack a teacher!" said Hermione.
"C'mon Hermione, referees are attacked and cursed all the time during professional games." said Ron.
"Those are professional games, Ron, this is school...I think an attack is going to be noticed." said Hermione.
"It's either that, or watch Harry crash into the ground after Snape slaps him off his broomstick." said Ron.
"We'll practice the spell, once Harry goes to bed." said Hermione quickly.
Ron smiled, but then his grin faltered. "Ah...that'll be a problem..."
"What, why?" asked Hermione.
"Harry has...well...he doesn't go to sleep until everyone is in bed...and he's a really light sleeper." said Ron.
"Well...I guess...we'll have to practice when Harry has Quidditch practice." said Hermione.
"Yeah, cause that's the only time that I can think of that he'll be busy with his own thing." said Ron.
They'd run to an unused classroom, once Harry had left for practice, and worked on the leg-locker curse in private. Hermione was still a little nervous about cursing a teacher, but Ron had reminded her that she set him on fire, so a leg-locker curse that would force him down to the ground wasn't much different.
Almost a week later, everyone gathered on the Quidditch pitch, to see the game between Hogwarts two best Seekers. Despite the Gryffindor seeker only played once, he was pretty impressive, especially on a bucking broomstick. The odds were greatly changing in Gryffindors' favor.
Harry laced up his Quidditch boots and listened to Oliver as he planned out the strategy for the game.
"Alright, twins I want you two on your best game, no smacking any Bludgers towards Snape...the last thing we need is penalties every third minute." said Oliver.
"We'll play nice if he does." said Fred.
"Thank Merlin we aren't playing Slytherins, they'd use him as a shield." said George.
"Aye. Girls, I want you to use all your tricks to score as many points as you can...or...just bide us time." said Oliver, then his brown eyes turned to meet Harry's green. "I want you to find that Snitch, we don't want the game to last too long."
"Gotcha." said Harry with a smile.
"Now remember, Diggory is pretty good, you'll have to find that Snitch quick." pressed Oliver. "You and him are the only two Seekers in school that can see that thing when it's streaking around. It won't be like a match between us and Ravenclaw."
"He's never played against Ravenclaw." said Katie.
"But he's seen a game, and he knows how long it takes that Seeker of theirs to find the Snitch, she always tails the other Seeker, hoping they'll get close to it and lead her right to it." said Oliver. "But enough of that. I don't want to pressure you, Potter, but if we ever need an early capture of the Snitch it's now. Finish the game before Snape can favor Hufflepuff too much."
"We know, we know, get the snitch." said the twins groaning. "We get it, Oliver, now c'mon, we're going to be late and Snape will forfeit the match for us."
Fred walked to the door of the locker room and snuck a look out into the stands. "The whole school's out there! Even-blimey-Dumbledore's come to watch!"
When Harry ran to the door, his mind went into overdrive, Dumbledore was there. But why? The Headmaster was rumored to hardly ever attend a game that wasn't for the Championships...perhaps it was because that he was attacked during the last game and he wanted to nip any further attack in the bud...yeah, that had to be it.
Though...he could have sworn he had seen Dumbledore at the first game...he saw a flash of white in the stands...but it wasn't in the Staff section, this was in the Gryffindor section and he knew that the Headmaster wouldn't show favoritism like that. Hagrid yes, he could see him easily. There weren't many adults in the students stands, except for a pair, he saw them before the incident occured...
His gaze turned to the Gryffindor stands, there were Ron and Hermione, and even Neville...he didn't see Hagrid, but he remembered that Hagrid had told him that he was busy that day and couldn't attend. Scanning the student stands, he found them, the same pair from the previous game. He wondered who they were, maybe they were parent and grandparent of one of the girls or Oliver.
They exited the Gryffindor Locker Rooms and hurried out to the pitch, knowing that if they were even a second late, Snape would love to call the match off and declare the opposing team the winners. They clambered on their brooms as Snape strode out to the middle of the field. He glanced up to the Staff section and a visible scowl was on his face. He turned his furious gaze back to the students, and blew the silver whistle around his neck.
"Alright, get over here. Now, I want this game to be played fairly, I've got my eyes on you." said Snape, glaring for a few seconds longer at the Gryffindor team.
He blew the whistle a second time and tossed the ball into the air. Harry soared into the sky and circled around the middle of the pitch, awaiting the release of the snitch, once it had been released, he soared into the sky and circled the arena, his eyes peeled for the small winged ball.
He had to find the Snitch, he had to see it. The Hufflepuff Seeker wasn't looking for it nearly as hard as he was, Diggory was more than content with just letting the game take it's normal time, it was no secret that Hufflepuffs were better in Snape's eyes than Gryffindors...why not take advantage of it?
Up in the bright sunlight, Harry saw a flash of gold darting towards the ground. He twisted around in the air to go in the opposite direction and streaked down towards Snape, at breakneck speed. Several people yelled and stood up in the stands, he couldn't focus on them, he had to get to the Snitch.
Unfortunately, Snape picked the wrong time to fly slightly to the left. Harry couldn't stop, he knew with his small frame that he enough clearance to get past, he could get by Snape, and he wouldn't get into much trouble, later on in school, he'd have to cross that bridge when it got there.
Harry streaked right past Snape, he wanted laugh at the shocked look the Potion Master gave him, he actually looked frightened for a split second. He returned his gaze to the Snitch and his hand curled around it, trapping it tightly in his fist.
The game was over. They had won, and rumor had it, they just set a new school record in the process.
The crowd that was in the stands, came spilling out to the field and patted his back so many times, he thought for sure that he would either develop a bruise, or the imprint of a hand permanently placed there.
Then, a heavier hand lay on his shoulder, he turned and saw the Headmaster. "Well done," said Dumbledore quietly, so that only Harry could hear. "Nice to see you haven't been brooding about that mirror...been keeping busy...excellent..."
Harry beamed at the old man. Praise, it wasn't often he heard it, outside the circle of people that knew he the longest, for someone that had only known him for a short time, it was nice.
Thanks for reading!
Happy Easter!
