Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Harry Potter, I'm not making money with this story, etc.
Hermione was right.
The next morning, after an owl had dropped her copy of The Daily Prophet on her plate, Hermione read an article from the front page out loud to Harry and Ron.
Members of the Ministry of Magic have been working around the clock trying to determine the circumstances behind an attack on a Muggle village early Saturday morning. At approximately 6:18 am Saturday morning, a fire broke out in the small Muggle village of Alendale. By 7:00 am, the entire village had burned to the ground, killing 59 Muggles and two wizards living in the village under Muggle identities. After careful examination of the surrounding area, wizards from the Ministry of Magic announced the fire appeared to have been started by the Fuocorous Spell.
A Ministry representative disclosed that Muggle law enforcement (police) have released a statement to the Muggle society, claiming the fire ignited after an explosion in one of the homes. The police state that the remains of a firework (a type of Muggle explosive) were found just outside the house where the fire appeared to start. However, Ministry workers identified the evidence as the charred remains of a wand, presumably thrown into the fire. The Prior Incatem spell cannot affect damaged wands, so Ministry workers must find another way to identify the wand and its owner.
Head of Ministry of Magic Cornelius Fudge was not available for comment on the situation, but a representative for the Ministry assured the public that the Ministry has begun an ongoing investigation.
"Is that what Dumbledore brought Moody back for?" Ron asked incredulously as Hermione finished the article. "I would have reckoned it was something bigger."
"Honestly Ron." Hermione paged through the rest of the paper. "Dumbledore obviously thinks that You-Know-Who is behind this. Look at the number of people that were killed. Not very many wizards would be capable of that."
Harry agreed with Hermione. Who else would be responsible for killing 61 people with one spell? Unless it was Pettigrew. He had blown apart that street of Muggles, but some how Harry couldn't picture him doing it again.
Harry's thoughts were interrupted by a commotion from the Ravenclaw table. In the midst of it, Harry saw Cho, looking very frightened, leave the table and walk toward the entrance hall. Telling Ron and Hermione he'd meet them in the common room, he left the Gryffindor table and ran after Cho. He found her in the entrance hall, sitting on the bottom step of one of the many staircases, a worried expression on her face.
"Cho?" Harry said quietly, approaching her. "Are you okay?"
"Harry. I-…I-" she stammered, took a deep breath and started again. "Did you hear about the village?" Harry nodded.
"Well," a scared look came over her face, "I saw it happen."
Harry shook his head; had he heard Cho correctly? "What?"
Before Cho could answer, students began pouring out of the Great Hall, talking loudly as they headed towards their common rooms. Cho stood, and with a shaking hand, motioned for Harry to follow her. They climbed the stairs and turned in the direction of the library.
Cho led Harry to the table they had occupied almost two weeks ago. As she sat down across from him, Harry noticed Cho looked calmer and she had stopped shaking. "Harry," she began, staring straight at him, "what happened the last day of the Tournament? What happened when you and Cedric disappeared?"
Harry was surprised at her question, but began to talk. He told Cho about their encounter with the giant spider, arguing over who should be the winner, and he realized she was the first person he had talked about this with since that day in Professor Dumbledore's office. He continued, telling her about the Triwizard Cup being a portkey, his fight with Voldemort, and even about seeing Cedric and his parents come out of Voldemort's wand. He felt his voice catch as he finished, feeling like he had just relived the nightmare over again.
Harry raised his eyes to look at Cho; she looked pale again and was playing with the dragon hanging around her neck. In a small voice she said, "That was my dream." and Harry suddenly understood.
"Did you see the village in your dreams?" he asked her gently, afraid she was going to start crying again. She nodded.
"When?" he prompted her.
"Last week." Her voice slowly got stronger as she spoke. "I've had it twice. I saw a little village; it was barely more than some houses and a small store. The sun was just coming up over the hills surrounding the village. There was a little spark from one of the houses, its roof caught fire. Then, it was like the sun exploded over the village, everything was on fire." She shuddered, as if trying to shake off the memory, and was quiet.
"Did you see anyone?" Harry asked her, remembering Hermione's thought that Voldemort was behind the fire.
Cho shook her head. "I didn't see anyone in the village, or anywhere surrounding it." she answered, almost as if knowing what Harry was thinking. "I didn't see anyone the entire time. It was as if the whole village slept through it."
Harry wasn't sure how to react. He had come across many strange matters in his almost five years as a wizard; this, he knew, was very close to the top of that list. The fact that Cho's dreams were real events was weird enough, but it seemed like Voldemort had ties to both events, if Hermione was right. Harry was jerked out of his thoughts as he heard his name.
"Harry? Harry?" At the sound of Cho's voice Harry shook his head, hoping to shake some sense into things. "What do you think?" she asked.
"I'm not quite sure what to think." Harry said slowly. "Have you had any other dreams?" he asked, hoping the answer would be no.
Cho shook her head and Harry sighed. Just knowing about Cho's dreams would be hard enough without having to worry about another catastrophic event.
Just then Harry saw Fred and George sprint into the library at full speed and skid to a halt just before colliding with a table of first years. They both looked around the library, gasping for air as if they had just run across the grounds. George saw Harry, nudged his twin in the ribs and raised his eyebrows. Still breathing heavily, they walked over to the table where Harry and Cho sat.
"Harry, c'mon, Angelina's called an emergency team meeting." Fred said, half wheezing. Harry shrugged his shoulders at Cho, who smiled, and followed the twins out of the library.
The twins were silent for a few minutes as the three of them walked through the corridors. Suddenly, George burst out, "Harry, what were you talking about with Cho?"
Caught off guard at the question, Harry quickly searched for an answer. He couldn't tell them about Cho's dreams; they were way too bizarre. Luckily, before Harry could think of an answer, George continued. "You weren't talking about Quidditch, were you? You didn't tell her about Ginny?"
Harry shook his head, wondering what George was playing at. Fred elbowed his twin. "Quit giving him the third degree. It's not like it was a Ravenclaw that did it."
"Did what?" asked Harry. He had no idea what the twins were talking about, but he had a sinking feeling in his stomach.
Neither twin answered. Instead, Fred opened the door to the Transfiguration classroom. A huddle of people at the front of the room turned. Professor McGonagall, tight lipped and furious looking had one arm comfortingly around Ginny, whose face was streaked with tears. Next to them were Katie, Alicia and Angelina, all who looked more enraged than Professor McGonagall, if that was possible. That sinking feeling in Harry stomach intensified with each step towards the front of the room.
"Harry." Professor McGonagall faced him, her face stern. "Did you tell anyone about Ginny making the Gryffindor team?"
"No." he answered, shaking his head.
"You're sure?" Angelina asked him, frowning.
"I didn't tell anyone." Harry told her. "The only ones I would have told were Ron and Hermione, but Ginny told them herself. Why?"
"The Gryffindor Tower was broken into this morning." Professor McGonagall told him.
"What?" Harry asked, dumbfounded.
"They broke into my dorm." Ginny's quiet voice startled everyone. "I found that on my bed." She pointed to the desk Fred was standing next to. In a small pile on the desk sat what looked like small twigs. Harry stepped closer and realized the pile was the battered remains of Ginny's broom. Next to the remains sat a scrap of parchment. Harry leaned closer and saw the writing.
GRYFFINDOR BETTER FIND A NEW KEEPER OR YOUR BROOM WON'T BE THE ONLY THING LOOKING LIKE THIS.
At the bottom of the parchment was a crude drawing of a snake.
"It looks like a Slytherin did this. Why else would they draw a snake?" Katie spoke up. "Can you think of anyone who would do something like this?" she asked Ginny.
Would Malfoy do something like this? It certainly seemed like the kind of stunt he'd pull. But before Harry could open his mouth, Professor McGonagall interrupted. "Before you start accusing anyone, Dumbledore needs to be informed of this. And I will talk with all the heads of Houses. This event needs to be confined to the seven of you. Is that understood?" The entire team nodded and Professor McGonagall left the classroom.
"Harry, where were you?" Alicia turned on him. "We were looking for you for half an hour!"
"I was in the library." Harry said quickly, before Fred or George could mention he was there with Cho. Alicia cast him a strange look, but before she could say anything, he asked, "Why doesn't McGonagall know who was in the Tower? Why didn't she just ask the fat lady in the portrait?"
"They don't know how whoever it was got in." Angelina told him as she leaned against McGonagall's large desk. "It happened while we were all eating breakfast and the fat lady swears she didn't let anyone in during that time, especially any Slytherins. That's why McGongall was so worried. She doesn't know how they got in." She half smiled at Harry's surprised expression and continued.
"First thing we've got to do is get you a new broom." she told Ginny.
"I've got some Quidditch magazines in my dorm. They've got order forms in them for nearly every broom you could want. C'mon, I'll let you borrow them." Alicia volunteered. Ginny went red but kept quiet as she left the classroom with Alicia and Katie. Harry knew the Weasley's probably couldn't afford to buy Ginny a new broom and was about to make a suggestion to Fred and George when Angelina spoke up.
"You three are closer to Ginny than the rest of us. I need you to make sure she doesn't go anywhere alone. I'll talk to the professors about watching out for her in the halls, but we need to make sure not else happens to her." She said as the four of them headed towards the Gryffindor Tower.
Harry and the twins nodded. "Do you really think something else could happen to her?" Fred asked, both twins looking worried.
"No." Angelina told them, "but now that everyone knows she our new Keeper, some kids may give her a hard time. Especially the Slytherins. Remember Harry's first year? The one thing we don't need right now is Ginny getting tripped and pushed around in the halls."
When they reached the Gryffindor common room, Angelina joined Ginny, Katie and Alicia who were huddled over several magazines on the far side of the room. Harry started toward his dormitory, but Fred and George pulled him aside.
"We're gonna make it clear right now that we still don't like that you gave us your winnings from the Tournament last year. But we bought Ron his new dress robes and we used some for a few new, er, inventions," Fred and George grinned mischievously, "and we thought- Would you mind if we spend the rest on buying Ginny a new broom?" George asked him.
"I was going to make the same suggestion to you." Harry smiled. "But, just like with Ron's dress robes, you can't tell her where you got the money."
"Agreed." Fred grinned. "Let's go 'borrow' one of those magazines."
Harry and the twins spend the next several days paging through Quidditch magazines, searching for brooms. The twins had bought Ron new dress robes and had spend a bit of the money on some new "creations" of theirs they wouldn't tell Harry about, so they didn't have enough money to buy Ginny a Firebolt like they wanted. They finally settled on a Silver Lightning, a new broom made by the company that made the old Silver Arrows. It didn't have the speed and agility of a Firebolt, but it had the ability to leave the newest Nimbus model in the dust.
The following Monday, as a flurry of owls announced the arrival of the mail, three owls dropped a long package on the table in front of a stunned Ginny, who was sitting across the table from Harry, next to Hermione. A fourth owl dropped an envelope on top of the package. Ginny sat staring at the package for several minutes before Fred reached across Hermione and shook Ginny's shoulder.
"What is it, Gin?" he asked, winking at Harry.
"I-I dunno…" she stammered.
"Well, open it already!" George prompted her.
Ginny slowly opened the envelope and pulled a piece of parchment from it. She read the message, threw the parchment on the table and ripped the package open. She gasped and pulled from the ripped paper a magnificent looking broom.
"Wow." Ron's eyes went wide when he saw it. Even Harry and the twins were impressed with the broom. A brilliantly polished mahogany handle ended in a neat bunch of twigs and the words Silver Lightning were stamped along the length of the handle in gold letters.
"Wow," Ron repeated, "where'd it come from?"
Ginny dug the parchment from underneath the wrappings and read it out loud.
"Congratulations on making Gryffindor Keeper. We have a feeling this may come in handy. Use it well." She shrugged. "And it's signed 'Three friends'. That's it."
Harry, Fred and George shared a grin as Angelina, Katie and Alicia came from the end of the table and surrounded Ginny and her broom. Harry and the twins joined the rest in admiring the new broom, Ginny exclaiming, "I can't wait to try it out!"
Ginny didn't have to wait long to try her new broom, as the Gryffindor team had practice scheduled that night. Harry joined the other players in a couple of laps on the brooms around the field before practice started. As he flew by Ginny, he saw a look on her face of pure joy and smiled. He knew exactly how she felt and remembered his first time flying his Firebolt.
"Okay everybody, let's get started!" Angelina called to the rest of the team, who landed in a circle around her. "Okay, it's the same as last time. Alicia, Katie and I will take the Quaffle and take our shots on Ginny. Fred and George will be flying around, hitting the Bludgers and Harry–"
"Will be looking out for the Snitch." George interrupted. "We know the drill. Let's fly."
The Gryffindor team took to the air. Harry saw Madam Hooch, who was overseeing practice, let the Bludgers and the Golden Snitch out of their box. He saw the Snitch speed toward the far end of the field but lost it when one of the Bludgers came right at him. He sped forward to avoid it and narrowly missed Fred, who came darting after the Bludger. Harry positioned himself high above everyone else and began to look for the Snitch. It took only ten seconds for Harry to find it hovering over a goal near Ginny. He raced to the end of the field and before it could move, he had it in his hand. The Chasers cheered and Harry let the Snitch go, giving it a head start. After catching the snitch five times in less than five minutes, Harry let the Snitch go and turned his attention to the goals below him. Angelina, Alicia and Katie had improved their teamwork since his third year, Harry noticed as they zoomed below him, tossing the Quaffle between them almost effortlessly. They moved almost as one, working their way through the new plays Angelina had created. And Ginny, who looked like she was thoroughly enjoying herself, was able to block every shot. Suddenly the Snitch whizzed by Harry's ear and he took off after it, taking pleasure in the chase.
At the end of practice, the team landed, breathless but grinning. "Excellent work." complimented Madam Hooch. Even Angelina, who had become as demanding as Oliver Wood, had no complaints. The entire team left practice in good spirits.
R/R!