Card the moon

Chapter 18 – Thunder and Fear

…

The winds rose steadily through the night from foul to gale. Harry lay awake, staring at the canopy of his bed, listening. Fickle sleep had abandoned him in his hour of need and try as he might, she would not be found.

"This is a sign. I know it is." Who said he had no inner eye?

He crawled out of bed sometime around three; tiring of his fruitless efforts; dressing, he went down to the common room.

Luna sat on a coffee table fiddling with something muggle looking. She looked up, startled, till she saw it was him. "Why're you up so early?"

"Couldn't sleep. What're you doing?"

"Failing."

Now, it is scientifically proven fact that everything is funny at three in the morning, so we can forgive Harry for laughing, even though it wasn't that funny.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Not unless you've got a big hammer."

Okay, that one was kinda funny.

"So, what is it?" he asked, flopping into the nearest chair.

"It's supposed to be a communicator," she said, glaring sourly at the device. "I was trying to contact—oh, whatshisname, wherever he is."

"I see those memory holes aren't filling in."

The cat shook her head, "I should be grateful I haven't developed anymore."

"Kinda wish I could have a few."

The cat looked at him quizzically, but he made no attempt to elaborate. How could he tell her, when the dementor had come, the scream he'd hear was his mother's.

He wasn't sure at first, but he'd had ample time to think about it. More than ample time to wish he could forget it; the only real memory of either his parents; his mother begging for his life the moment before she was murdered.

Fate had a twisted sense of humor. Destiny totally agreed with that.

A flash of lightning lit the night and the following thunderclap shook the tower. "My goodness!" the cat exclaimed. "What beastly weather."

"That's a good word for it," it raged like an angry beast.

"And you're still going to play this, broomstick game of yours? In this?"

Harry nodded, slowly. He wasn't keen on the weather, but it'd take more than a hurricane to stop a game of Quidditch.

"Well, have fun with that. It was nice knowing you."

Harry smiled, remembering Hermione saying something similar but a few hours prior. "Going to come watch my ultimate demise?" There he went, tempting fate again.

"In fact, I will not. I plan to use the opportunity to search the castle for clues to how and where these youma are getting in."

"Watch out for rogue Clow cards," he joked, sort of.

"Don't you worry about that," she said mysteriously, like a typical cat.

…

Luna evacuated the common room when the rest of the team wandered down, far earlier than they normally would have. None looked surprised to see him there already. They didn't look much of anything really. Funeral parties had more life in them than the Gryffindor Quidditch team that morning.

They sat around the common room till breakfast, which none of them did more than pick at. Wood's usual speech in the locker room never came, something they would have been glad for if it didn't mean they had to go out and play.

But the weather wouldn't stop Quidditch, the game would go on. The stands were packed as they always were, and Harry couldn't help an uncomplimentary thought on the sanity of the people watching them. He had to be there, they didn't.

"Bloody nutters," he grumbled.

"Them or us?" asked George, standing on his left.

After thinking for a moment, "Both," he decided.

"Just find the snitch Harry," said Wood. "I don't even care if we win. Just find the snitch so we can be done."

Such a statement from Quidditch mad Oliver Wood; he never thought he'd see the day.

The wind howled fierce and loud as they stepped out and were immediately drenched. The Hufflepuff team looked no better as they approached, and Madam Hooch ordered them into the air. They all wobbled a bit as the wind tried to take them; Harry in particular felt its grip most solid, but he clung to his broom and was off like a shot the moment Madam Hooch threw up the quaffle.

He circled the pitch like a starving hawk, awaiting the next bolt of lightning to illuminate the arena and give him a glimpse of the snitch. This was complicated by his glasses which were not resistant to the rain and were very nearly useless because of it.

The situation improved when Hermione put what she called an Impervious charm on them, but it only allowed him to see. It didn't change the fact he was hunting for a tiny ball in the pitch-black pouring rain.

He kept circling. He could have no idea what was going on with the rest of the game and by the sound of Lee Jordan, he wasn't so sure either.

He was starting to lose hope when he saw something that nearly stopped his heart. At the edge of the pitch, it sat watching. Big, black, invisible in the darkness but for the flash that lit the world a brief instant. When the light was gone, it too vanished but there was no denying it was there.

But something else was there too. Before the light fled, there was the tiniest glint. Fears warred in his head but Diggory had no such quandary and had seen the snitch as well. He shot after the elusive golden ball.

A moment's hesitation; should he? Of course, he should, it was Quidditch.

Diggory saw Harry coming and poured on the speed. His broom was clearly the inferior, but the wind was against them, and his larger size gave him an edge. Harry pushed his broom for all it was worth, pulling even with the Hufflepuff seeker.

The snitch zipped and zagged, sensing their pursuit. It went low, then shot straight up, heading for the clouds. His broom came through for him, pulling a turn the Hufflepuff couldn't match and Harry took the lead, set to catch the snitch as it shot into the sky.

Then it happened, he heard it, his mother's scream.

"No, not Harry! Please! Not Harry!"

He saw them coming in a flash of lightning, their black cloaks whipping savagely in the wind. They were all in the clouds, the dementors nearly on him when he saw it. The beast. A monstrous creature of pure light. It looked at him. He stared back till the cloaks blocked off his view and he was falling.

Desperation took over, a single hand reached out and he screamed into the storm, "THUNDER!"

There was a pause, a long moment when nothing seemed to happen, then the dementors exploded as lightning surged to his hand and tore through everything within a hundred feet.

Freed of the dementors, did not however change the fact that he was falling, and even if he'd been carrying his wand, everything up to that point had drained him entirely. He blacked out as his body plummeted earthward.