Pride Crushed, Dignity Rising
By: CNJ
PG-13
4
Harry:
The day of the Quidditch
game was clear, cold, and windy. I was the first in our dorm to awaken
and I lay there in the purplish sunrise, mulling silently over the last
few days and stroking Hedwig, my owl. From a distance, Hedwig appears
all-white, but up close, you can see that she has tiny gold specks.
The game was starting at two. I knew I wasn't going to be able to
sleep again, so I read a while, then slowly got up just as I heard soft
stirring down the room. Neville had been snoring softly and his snores
petered out, telling me that he was coming awake. I had to pee, so
I quickly got dressed and headed to the loo.
At lunch, all of us in our
group sat talking and eating. I was mostly quiet and McGonagall passed
by our table at one point.
"Harry..." she said softly.
"I just wanted you to know how sorry I am about...your album. You've
handled yourself well with Mr. Malfoy's bullying. I let him know
that we will be watching him closely today and from now on."
"Thank you, Professor McGonagall,"
I whispered, touched by her caring. My friends were also hearing
this.
"And it's twenty points
awarded to Gryffindor for your courage and dignity," she told me with a
smile before moving on to the teachers' table.
"Wow, great!" Ron grinned.
"Way to go, Harry," Hermione
added. I smiled his first real smile in days.
"Thanks...all of you..."
I told everyone. "Hey, it's getting late, let's head on over
and change." The lunch crowd was thinning out, so we got up and headed
upstairs to get ready.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once we got out on our broomsticks
and were centered in the Quidditch field, I saw Malfoy's eyes widen when
he saw me, then his lip lifted in disgust. I think he was hoping
I'd be too crushed to show up on the field. Look out,
Malfoy, I am going to play and play my best, I thought, filled with a fresh
determination. Yes, you got the brief high of seeing me in tears
and humiliated, but I'm not going to let you destroy my will and my life.
I was still nervous facing him and very embarrassed about everyone seeing
me cry, but I was able to look into Malfoy's cold gray eyes this time without
wincing. I heard snickering somewhere in the stands and was worried
that I was the one being laughed at. I looked around nervously a
minute, then forced myself to concentrate on the game once I saw the source,
Crabbe and Goyle.
"Looks like you didn't knock
Potter down!" I heard Goyle jeer. Malfoy glared over at them and
opened his obnoxious mouth to I guess tell him off, but Madame Hooch tossed
the Quaffle into the air, starting the game. We all plunged into
it except Malfoy for a minute, who was yelling something at Goyle.
"MALFOY, pay attention to
the game!" roared Slytherin's Captain, Berle Pauce. I was concentrating
on beating the bludgers away from players while Ginny peered around for
the snitch. So did Malfoy eventually. Ron and Cheria played
their end. Cheria managed to score one. Then Slytherin scored
and Ron groaned, rolling his eyes. I must have batted
away a dozen bludgers including one from Ron. I could also see Hagrid,
there bouncing around and whooping it up along with the rest of the crowd.
An hour later, Slytherin was twenty points ahead and Ginny and Malfoy had
gone head-to-head for the snitch. Malfoy naturally tried to knock
Ginny off her broom, but she clamped on. We really needed this
win; last year, Gryffindor lost two games in a row at the end of the season.
A niiingk sound told me that someone had scored and I looked up
and groaned softly when I saw that it had been Slytherin. Now they
were thirty points ahead. A bludger headed toward me and I barely
batted it off, wobbling on my broom a minute. Then I saw another
bludger headed toward Ginny and Malfoy. I swooped down and saw that
it was on the way to knocking Ginny's shoulder, which could break her concentration,
since the snitch was fluttering right in front of her. Malfoy was
edging up as well and I guess heard the swish of my broom because he looked
up and gave me such an evil glare that I had to suppress a shudder and
just raise my bat, standing up to take aim. Maybe it was a mistake
to stand because Malfoy pulled his broom upward so it was headed right
towards me and before I realized what was happening, he'd rammed into me
and I was falling toward one of the towers by the stands. As I lost
my balance and fell, I felt my bat contact the bludger. It was just
a ten-foot fall, thank the stars of Merlin, but I felt a sharp pain in
my mouth as my face hit the broom, then a hard jolt as I hit the ground
below the stands. I vaguely heard people gasp and someone yelped.
The next few minutes was blurred, but I could tell the game was over.
I sat up, feeling a bit dizzy and flopped back down, feeling warm blood
drip out of my mouth. I couldn't see anything but a blur and I fumbled
around until I found my glasses. Oh, dear, I thought seeing that
they were bent.
"Gryffindor wiiiiins!" I
heard Madame Hooch bellow and I heard cheers rise up and smiled weakly,
even though it hurt. So Ginny caught the snitch after all.
"Harry, are you all right?"
I heard Ron call as a crowd gathered around.
"Trying to be..." I wiped
more blood off my mouth and hoped I hadn't knocked out any teeth.
So far it didn't feel like any had been. My arse was sore also and
Madame Hooch rushed over and slowly got me up.
"Nothing seems to be broken..."
she told me. "Mr. Weasley, get some ice for Mr. Potter's lip.
Swell play, Mr. Potter." she smiled at me.
"Is he all right..." I heard
voices from the stands murmur. "Oh, God..." "His mouth was
bleeding..."
"Mr. Potter just has a cut
lip; he will be fine," Madame Hooch called up to the stands as she kept
an arm around me.
"Great shot, Harry!"
"Swell!" "Bloody brilliant!" My teammates took turns congratulating
me and Ginny, who held onto the snitch. "Found his broom..." Cheria
handed me my broom and I nodded thanks to her. Ron brought the ice
and I put it on my lip. The bleeding had slowed by then and we slowly
trekked back into the field where there was more cheered.
"Way to go, Gin!" someone hollered.
Ginny and I smiled at each other, silently congratulating each other.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was a mess, being spattered
with mud and a bloody lip, so I went over to the hospital wing to get cleaned
up. Madame Pomfrey fixed my glasses and gave me a potion to
ease the pain on my lip. As I headed back for dinner, other students
called their congratulations...even a couple of Slytherins.
Later on, us Gryffindors had an informal little party to celebrate our
victory.
"Knew we'd blow them out
of the water," Ron grinned in satisfaction as he sipped his butterbeer.
"Malfoy was blasted big-time
by Pauce," Mintra McGonagall put in. Mintra is Professor McGonagall's
great-niece and is a first-year. "Ginny caught the snitch just
as Harry landed on the ground."
"I noticed Malfoy suddenly
veered upward and I wondered why until I caught the snitch and saw Harry
on the ground," Ginny put in.
"Malfoy was smirking at
Harry falling until he saw that you caught the snitch, Gin," Mintra added.
"You wiped that smirk off his face fast."
"I think he also got into
a fight with his yes-men," Will Beavers, a third-year, put in.
"Oh, wow, what happened?"
Ron's freckled face lit up.
"Crabbe said something about
how he had to admire the little dork, meaning Harry, saying that it showed
a lot of grit to show his face on the field after being so badly embarrassed
on Thursday." Will grinned.
"I heard that too," Beverly
Kinney, a fourth-year, added. "Malfoy got mad and started yelling
at Crabbe about his loyalties being mixed up and all and called him a stupid
idiot. A bunch of us saw it. It was after you'd gone to Madame
Pomfrey, Harry, and most of us were still out by the field."
"Oh, and Harry..." Beverly
leaned back, peering at me. "I think...some of the other students, the
ones that were jealous and said those nasty things about you the last couple
of years...they feel kind of bad about saying them and see you with more
respect now. I don't think they'll be gossiping about you anymore."
"That's good..." I smiled
in relief. It was true...in my fifth and most of my sixth year, some
Hufflepuff and a few Ravenclaw students said some awful things behind my
back...like that I buttered up teachers and used the fact that my parents
were well known around here to gain favors, all of which was untrue.
Of course Malfoy fanned that gossip with his imput. My friends
say it was because they were jealous, but it didn't make it any easier
to bear. Sitting with my dormmates, I felt better than I had in a
long time. Maybe now Malfoy would back off, knowing that I'd gotten
back up again after he'd knocked me down. I smiled ruefully, remembering
that he'd knocked me off my broom today, but I'm back up again. I
guess that is the best way to deal with enemies and people who try to tear
you down. And even if Malfoy kept up his stupidity, I knew now I
could survive it and go on with my life. I'd still ache for
the photo album, but I had other mementos of my parents. Best of
all, I had their love and courage deep in my heart which could never be
taken away or destroyed.
~~Storyline Copyright By CNJ~~