Chapter Seventy-Six: De-Escalating Escalation
"Thanks for helping me with my homework," Harry said the next morning. "I don't think I'd have gotten it done without you."
"Ginny helped too," Daphne said. "She wrote most of your dream diary. And she did part of my Muggle Studies work so I could work on your Potions."
"And yet, you want to repay that by going to practice Quidditch," Hermione said pointedly, not looking up from her own breakfast.
"After the week Harry's had, I think he deserves to unwind a bit," Daphne said with a shrug.
"But now you're doing his work for him! How will he learn his O.W.L. material?" Hermione asked.
"That's up to Harry. I just want to make sure he doesn't get into more trouble with Umbridge. I mean, if she finds out Harry's behind on his homework in the second week, she'll be able to use that as ammunition against him somehow, I'm sure. And given he's been in detention with her all week, she'll have a good reason to think he's behind," Daphne said.
"Well…I'm sure Ginny wouldn't–"
"Oh, I don't mind either," Ginny said from behind Hermione, where she'd been for a while. "If Harry doesn't keep up with his Quidditch practice he might get kicked off the team, and if he gets kicked off the team Daphne's mum is going to kill him anyway," she said with a wink at Harry, who grimaced.
"She probably will. She was already pretty annoyed with me for not being able to practice over the summer. In her own words, 'the alleged return of an evil wizard is no reason to shirk your practice'," he said, and Daphne laughed.
"That sounds like her, yeah." She looked at Ron. "And you should probably get plenty of practice in as well. Mum might mostly be interested in Harry, but that won't stop her from berating you if you underperform. She takes Quidditch seriously and she expects everyone else to do the same if they play at all."
Ron looked a bit intimidated by that prospect, and his expression made even Harry laugh.
The morning mail arrived and Hermione, as usual, leafed through the Prophet looking for anything interesting.
She didn't seem to spot anything, but Harry, who was looking over her shoulder, said, "Hey, look at this!"
He pointed at a small article beneath a large advertisement, which had the heading 'Trespass at Ministry', and was about a man called Sturgis Podmore being arrested for attempting to get through a locked door at the Ministry.
"Sturgis Podmore? But he's that bloke who looks like his head's been thatched, isn't he? He's one of the Ord–" Ron said, before Hermione cut him off.
"Six months in Azkaban," Harry said disbelievingly. "Just for trying to get through a door!"
"Wasn't he one of the people who was supposed to have gone with us to the station?" Daphne asked.
"Yeah," Harry said, his eyes widening in realization. "But he never showed up and Moody was really annoyed by it."
Daphne frowned. "Wouldn't he already know what's being guarded? He wouldn't need to break in, if so…" She shook her head. "I think there's more to it than this, and I don't think it's good."
"What if he got framed?" Ron asked. "If the Ministry suspects him of being one of Dumbledore's lot, they might have just made something up to get to him."
"Do you know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were true," Hermione said thoughtfully.
"I'll ask Dad," Daphne said. "Maybe he'll know more about it."
Daphne spent the rest of the morning doing her homework, and at lunch she sat with her S.I.N. friends, still sticking to her promise of spending more time with them.
"Malfoy and some others are going to watch the Gryffindor Quidditch practice after lunch to mock Weasley — Ron — for being the new Keeper," Tracey said when Daphne sat down.
Daphne sighed. "Of course they are," she said in an annoyed tone. Malfoy wouldn't be Malfoy unless he was as aggravating as possible, of course… Then, though, she had an idea to make it a bit better. "Hey, why don't we go as well?"
"What, to the Gryffindor practice? Yeah, they'd love to have me there," Adrian said sarcastically.
Daphne shrugged. "Malfoy and his goons are going, apparently. Might as well do it just to spite them, right?"
Adrian didn't look convinced. "Look, I'm all for not bullying people, but the Gryffindor team is our biggest Quidditch rival. Even if I respect their players, I'm not going to be supporting them. You could ask Terence, though. He really hates Malfoy for buying his Seeker position out from under him. By this point, he might even be willing to join this little group. Want me to ask him?"
Daphne nodded. "That'd be great. We could use some more people, anyway, especially now…"
After lunch, Daphne went down to the Quidditch pitch, accompanied by Tracey, Hallie, Hudson, and Terence Higgs.
"Never thought there'd be a day where I'd willingly support Gryffindor," he said as they walked. "But Malfoy made sure I wouldn't get back onto the team, so I'm not feeling particularly loyal to them…"
"Wait, he doesn't want you on the team at all? I thought he just wanted your Seeker position," Daphne said.
Terence shook his head. "He thought that if I got another position on the team somehow, I'd rile people up against him, so he paid off Flint to ban me from any future tryouts."
"Montague's not Flint though, is he? And isn't he the captain now?" Tracey asked.
"He is, but Malfoy paid him off as well," Terence said angrily.
"He really is a moron," Hallie said with a shake of her head.
They arrived at the pitch, where they could already hear Malfoy's sneering drawl shouting insults at the Gryffindors. They quickly made their way up to the stands opposite from Malfoy's group.
"Go Gryffindor!" Daphne shouted once they were all up there.
Harry heard her voice and looked down in surprise, and Daphne happily waved up at him, and then at Ron, Fred, and George in turn.
The practice session began, and when Ron dropped the Quaffle, Malfoy and his group roared with laughter. Daphne and her S.I.N. friends, however, cheered him on.
"Come on Ron, you've got this!" Daphne shouted.
"You can do it, Weasley, just keep up!" Tracey added.
"Thanks, we'll try!" Fred and George shouted back in unison, wearing identical grins.
"Potter, you better show Malfoy how a real Seeker plays!" Terence yelled.
Harry grinned and raised his hand, and then deliberately let the Quaffle pass him by, watched it fall for a few moments, and then dived after it, caught it easily, and shot back up, passing it to George and pulling back into the formation with a loop.
Daphne saw Angelina shaking her head reprovingly, but even from the stand it was hard to miss her indulgent grin.
"Showoff," Terence muttered, but he seemed impressed nevertheless.
Perhaps buoyed by the presence of S.I.N., the Gryffindors soon got into stride, and while Ron's performance was a bit hesitant and shaky in the beginning, he got a lot better as time went on.
Then, the practice became more focused. Fred and George were beating a single Bludger at the Chasers, who attempted to score on Ron's goal while Harry chased the Snitch, occasionally hindered by Fred and George sending the Bludger his way.
Daphne really only had eyes for Harry, who seemed to be completely back in his element now that he was in the air. He blew through the sky, swirling and diving, but Daphne saw that he was scanning around for the Snitch even as he showed off his flying skills.
"Y'know, I'm almost glad Malfoy kicked me off the team. Now it'll be his fault when Potter inevitably finds the Snitch ten minutes into the match," Terence said as he watched the practice.
"Do you think you could beat him if you had a Firebolt too?" Hudson asked.
Terence shrugged. "I don't know. I might be able to, sure, but I think in a straight-up flying match, where we're both equally far from the Snitch and where we've spotted it at the same time…he'd probably win most of the time. I hate to admit it, but he really is freakishly good. He might be nearly as good as Krum."
Daphne felt a rush of pride at Harry at hearing his flying being praised and grinned, which resulted in Tracey giving her a sly look, which Daphne pointedly ignored.
Malfoy and his gang jeered whenever Ron missed a shot, but because S.I.N. was right behind the rings, the jeers were drowned out by the supportive shouts, and the practice essentially went off without a hitch.
As the Gryffindors made their way back to the dressing room — most of them raising their hand at Daphne and the others in greeting as they flew by — Malfoy and his gang made their way down with dark expressions on their faces.
When Daphne made her way down as well, she was already preparing for a confrontation, and sure enough, Malfoy was waiting for them, accompanied by Crabbe, Goyle, Warrington, Montague, and Bletchley. Pansy, who'd been with them in the stands, had apparently chosen to go on ahead.
"I should throw you all in detention for being House traitors," Malfoy said.
"You could, but I'd do the same to you," Hallie said with a shrug. "You're not the only Prefect here, Malfoy."
"Then shouldn't you teach Greengrass and her friends proper House pride, Knight?" Malfoy asked.
"House pride doesn't necessarily mean you need to tear others down, Malfoy, yet you seem to go out of your way to antagonize people. That might've been fine before, but as a Prefect you should be held to higher standards, and this sort of behavior reflects very poorly on you, and by extension the House you claim to be so proud of," Hallie said.
"Ah, so supporting liars and blood traitors is the pinnacle of being a Slytherin, then?"
"Slytherin prized cunning and ambition in his students. He never said friendship with others was a bad thing. Or have you forgotten that he and Gryffindor used to be friends themselves? We supported the Gryffindors solely because you sought to harass them at their own training session.
"As much as the Gryffindors hate us — and as many confrontations with them we might have had over the years — I don't recall them interrupting team practices to unnerve new members. And they're the House known for being reckless and impulsive, to boot."
For a moment, the two groups faced each other. Daphne was glowering at Malfoy and his group, who were scowling at them in return. Terence and Tracey looked as angry as Daphne felt, Hudson looked defiant but a bit uncertain, but Hallie just seemed entirely disinterested.
When she seemed satisfied that Malfoy wasn't going to say anything, she turned around and said, "Let's go back inside. And put your wand away, Warrington, or it's detention for two weeks."
Warrington, who had indeed drawn his wand, angrily put it away again.
"He is so predictable," Hallie said with a shake of her head as they began to walk away. "Last time I docked points from him for bullying a first-year Ravenclaw he tried to curse me when I turned around as well. And the time before, and the time before. You'd think he'd learn at some point…"
The next morning, Daphne heard that Percy had written a letter to Ron, congratulating him on becoming a Prefect, and advising him to cut ties with Harry because Dumbledore might not be at Hogwarts much longer.
Ron had burned the original letter, so Daphne couldn't be sure, but the fact that Percy had sent a letter at all hinting that Dumbledore might be removed from Hogwarts seemed to her to hint at him wanting to warn his brother of something other than what he seemed to be warning him about.
According to her friends, Percy had called Umbridge a 'delightful woman', which Daphne doubted even Percy would say, and he'd said that Harry hadn't come out of his hearing looking too good — except the Wizengamot had cleared him quite handily, the way Mum and Dad told it, and Amelia Bones had even called the entire trial a farce.
The whole thing felt like a coded message more than anything else, but with the letter gone it would remain speculation. The letter had mentioned an article to appear in the Daily Prophet on Monday, however, and Daphne was anxious to find out what it would say.
In the meantime, she wanted to get in touch with Percy herself. Even if his initial fight with his parents had been real, she just couldn't imagine that Percy, pompous though he might be, would willingly side with the Ministry when it was so obvious what they were doing. If he remained there, then surely, surely he'd be doing it as a spy, right?
Or was all of that wishful thinking, and had his letter been meant to be taken at face value? Ron had certainly thought so, and he knew Percy far better than Daphne did. On the other hand, Ron was very straightforward and often expected others to be like that as well, even though he was clearly capable of thinking more subversively, like his theory about Sturgis Podmore being framed showed.
It was just too hard to tell, so getting in touch with Percy directly might shed some light on the situation…but she wasn't supposed to know about the letter in the first place, and she didn't want to get Percy in trouble if he was in some capacity a spy, even if it was for himself and not the Order of the Phoenix.
For now, she couldn't risk it, but depending on what the article he'd referred to in his letter turned out to contain, she might be able to use that as an opportunity. For now, she'd just wait and see…
A bit of a short chapter, but the chapter breaks would get really awkward if I kept going. Also I noticed that in the book, they either have classes on Sunday, or JKR screwed up the duration of the weekend, because everything from the Quidditch practice to Percy's letter to their talk with Sirius seemingly takes place on Saturday, while the article in the Prophet appears 'the next day' and has Hermione mentioning they've got classes.
Also I know that Adrian is on the team again this year, but in this reality, he's not, because he joined S.I.N. after getting kicked off the team and Malfoy won't let him back in because of it. That's the Watsonian reason, anyway. Doylist is that I wrote this chapter before reaching the match in the book again and I'd just assumed he never got back on the team, and it's just not important enough to go back and change.
