Credits: All the references to Harry Potter, the world
of Hogwarts and the magical community are J.K. Rowling's. All the rest
are mine.
Author's note: Hey, well, things'll start getting better, okay, so please read and review and I'll be happy! You will find out about Nirry and all this stuff, just wait. Homework, oh homework, I hate you, you stink! I wish I could wash you away in the sink! Arg, tests! Quizzes! Ninth grade is very annoying.
Chapter 6
With each day that passed by, Nirry felt more mixed up than
ever before.
On one hand, she loved Hogwarts and everything about
it. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were the best friends she had and could ever
have, and everyone else was great, too, except, of course, for Malfoy, who was
avoiding her gaze and brushing past her roughly every time her saw her in the
halls. Her friends were great, that was for sure. She'd even had
little conversations with her new father, Dumbledore, and found him to be wonderful.
The one other feeling she'd felt was despair. The
teachers had all given her extra work so she could catch up to where the others
in the fifth year would be, if she worked hard, for Christmas. It had
helped that, over the years, she had somehow accumulated a bit of magical
experience (how, she didn't know) and was familiar with the magical words, as
Dumbledore told her, but even with that bit of a boost, she still had to work
far into the night every day with Hermione in the library and sometimes even
stay after school hours with her teachers for extra help. Dumbledore had said that he would be
overseeing her O.W.L. examinations, since she was so far behind, and would do
them later, possibly in the summer or sometime then.
Nirry remembered the time she had had to get help from Snape
for a particularly complicated potion that used some of the ingredients she
wasn't sure of. She could have asked Hermione, but felt like maybe
Hermione should do her own work without Nirry interrupting every second with a
question. So she'd had to endure an hour of Snape's greasy voice sneering
at her for not knowing the right ingredients. When Nirry had retaliated,
she'd gotten a detention. Two hours of sticking her hands into grimy worm
intestines was enough for her to start hating Snape with the zest that she'd
felt against Malfoy in the train.
By far the easiest and the funnest class she had was Care of
Magical Creatures, with Hagrid. She always loved animals even as a small
child, and here all the animals she'd encountered so far were interesting and,
though Hagrid would have preferred something else, harmless and fun to take
care of. She'd even groomed a Tallieta, a deer-like creature with timid,
soft eyes that lived mostly in forests and mountains.
Nirry sighed. She rolled up the parchment she'd been
writing on for an extra homework assignment for Charms and scanned the emptying
common room for Harry, Ron, or Hermione. She saw Harry sitting in his
favorite armchair near the fire, but there was no sign of either Ron or
Hermione. She headed toward the fire.
"Hey, Harry. What's up?" She leaned
her head against the soft velvet of the cushion and sighed again.
Harry was frowning slightly, but there was no sign of
textbooks or quills in his lap, so Nirry hoped it wasn't school related.
"Have you seen Ron and Hermione lately? There's been no sign of
either of them at all tonight."
Nirry blearily opened one eye. "Don't know, maybe
they're out somewhere." Nirry had been noticing that Hermione spent
more time than usual alone with Ron the past week, and she supposed they had
come up with a surprise for her and Harry.
"Well, yeah, but where could they-" he was
interrupted by a loud giggling of Hermione and Ron's voices as they came
through the portrait hole.
Hermione spotted them first in the empty room, sitting by
the fire. "What are you all doing here?" she asked in
surprise. Ron's ears were now a bright pink, but neither Harry nor Nirry
could figure out if it was from the fire or his own blush.
"Oh, nothing," said Nirry, "but where have
you guys been? We were just talking about you." At this, even
Hermione's cheeks turned a bright pink.
"Oh, we, we were just walking around," said Ron in
a squeaky stammer. Both Nirry and Harry burst out in laughter. Ron
gave a small sputter of igndigation, and then stopped. Hermione shook her
head, apparently too embarrassed for words. Nirry suddenly had an
inspiration.
"Oh, my god, were you guys out there, well, you
know..." Then she bent up in total hysterics, laughing off some of
the stress of the past three weeks. She only stopped to find that Ron ws
starting to look mad and that Harry and Hermione both were staring at her
strangely, Harry more so. Nirry wondered what the matter was. The
first time Harry had looked at her was when she'd shown her wand to everyone
back in Diagon Alley. Nirry stopped abruptly.
"What do you mean?" asked Ron cautiously.
"We were out- oh, you mean, well, that?" He stole a glance at
Hermione. She spoke up.
"Oh, nothing, nothing, we weren't doing anything at
all, don't worry." Harry doubted this, as Hermione was still pink, and Ron
was looking as if the dusty bottle of ink on a table was the most interesting
thing in the world. However, Nirry bought it and just barely was able to
drag her tired body out of the chair and up the stairs.
"Good... night, everyone," was all they could hear
before a soft shutting of the door. Harry looked quizzically at Ron, but
he just muttered something that sounded like, "good night" and went
up the stairs. Hermione left shortly after that, with a stricken smile at
Harry.
He was left totally alone in the common room, left to dwell
on Nirry. He'd seen her in his dreams before he'd even met her.
What did it mean? He'd hoped this year would be uneventful, but there was
a lurking mystery to her. And what was Hagrid up to? He'd been
acting very weirdly lately, first with Nirry and then when he caught up with
them in Diagon Alley.
Harry remembered with a jolt that tomorrow would start
Quidditch practices. He would have to introduce Nirry to Quidditch.
Ron had nearly had a heart attack when he'd found out she didn't know about
Quidditch, and Harry had started to explain about it, but then had to go into
Transfiguration, so the subject was dropped.
Brain still raging with thoughts, he climbed the stairs and
off into bed. If he hadn't been so preoccupied, he'd noticed that Ron was
awake and would steal quietly out of the room.
* * *
Nirry's eyes looked like huge, brownish
grey sapphires. "So that's Quidditch?" she asked, awed.
Harry swooped down to her and handed her his Firebolt.
"Go on, have a try," he offered
generously. They were at the first team practice of the week.
Katie, Alicia and Angelina, the Chasers, were in the air with the Quaffle,
while Fred and George raced each other in dives. The team's new Keeper
and Captain, Russ Haffaway, was a blond fourth year that nobody had noticed at
all noticed last year, but had been practicing all summer and was excellent now
at Keeper. He'd spent most of his time today getting his team to do
different, whacky drills with the balls and improving their speed.
Nirry mounted the Firebolt and rose off into the air.
"Oh, my GOD!!!!!!" she yelled in delight. In a few second's
time, she was fifty feet up in the air and going higher.
"So, do you think she likes it?" asked Ron
rhetorically, squinting in the air to where Nirry had been. Her dot
became larger and larger until Nirry came racing toward them so fast they
all ducked, and then went on, skimming the trees in the Forbidden Forest with
her shoes. Harry watched her with a surprised look. She was a
natural, much like Harry had been in his first year. He studied her form
carefully like a professional Quidditch player.
"Nirry! Come down for a moment!" he yelled
suddenly. Nirry came racing toward them breathlessly, only stopping a few
feet from where they stood. Wind ruffled her hair and her cheeks were red
from the cold.
"Oh, my God, that was the best time I've ever
had! You know what it reminded me of?" she rushed on without waiting
for an answer. "Riding my horse, Cinamonne, through the
fields! That was just so- thanks, Harry."
Wistfully she turned the Fireblot back to him. He
turned the magnificent broomstick in his hands, smoothing the polished
wood. "You know what Nirry? You would definitely make the
team." Nirry turned to him, shocked but a smile creeping up on her
lips.
"Oh, come on, I haven't even seen Quidditch before
this, now you want me to play?" she said, mocking her own ability.
"No, really, you could," insisted Harry.
"Come on, I'll go talk to Russ." They set off to the Captain,
and Harry started explaining to him about Nirry. Before he could suggest
looking at her in action on the broom, she spoke up quickly.
"I couldn't be on the team, just look at all the work I
have to do, Harry!" she said in a half-hearted attempt to look as through
making the team would not make her deliriously happy and satisfied. Harry
sensed this, however, and pleaded again with Nirry and Russ.
"Oh, come on," he said exasperadly, then
brightening up. "I've got it! You can be a replacement, if
anybody is sick or anything, come on! You could be, think of how much fun
it would be." Russ's face showed distinctive signs of excitement.
"Yeah! Oh, wait, let me see you fly first, I'd
better." Nirry clambered up once again on the smooth, polished
surface of the Firebolt and zoomed off again, relishing every moment on it, replendescent
and exhilarated. She'd barely been on for five minutes when she saw both
harry and Russ gesturing wildly at her. When she got closer, she could
hear harry say in an excited tone, "YOU MADE IT!!!!!!!!!"
With a broad grin, Nirry landed and after arranging to be at
every other Quidditch practice, she set off to the Great Hall with Harry, glowing
brighter with every step.