Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Please don't sue.
Needless to say, Harry's mind was not completely focused on Quidditch, and Ron noticed Harry's flagging attention with worry.
"Hey, Harry! Snap out of it! We need to beat Ravenclaw!" Ron whispered insistently. Harry took a deep breath and nodded.
"And the first game of the season!" shouted the announcer, which Harry realized was Dennis Creevey, "is Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw! Madame Hooch steps out and… the game begins!"
Harry cut through the air, but didn't get as good of a start as usual. Still, he reached his perch above the game before the Ravenclaw seeker, who he absently noted was a 5th year he remembered from last year's ancient runes class.
Dean and Seamus seemed to being taking their first game with zeal, and already one Ravenclaw chaser was down due to injury. Harry shook his head – he hoped the Ravenclaw would be alright – and resumed looking for the snitch.
However, he quickly grew exasperated. Apparently the snitch was hiding, and doing a very good job of it. Harry began to wonder whether the snitch was even let out at all, until he caught a flash of gold from the other side of the pitch. Harry took off on his broom, and the opposing seeker followed closely behind.
When he got to the other side, Harry couldn't catch sight of the snitch again. He turned around, and saw the other seeker was still coming towards him, since she couldn't traverse the pitch as fast as he could. Harry smiled, as he realized he had a very nice advantage with his firebolt, but grew alarmed as the other seeker's face suddenly jerked to the right and became filled with determination.
Harry didn't think twice. He zoomed to the right as well, and was close behind the other seeker, chasing after the now visible snitch. The snitch dived; so did the Ravenclaw. Harry didn't like his odds of being able to get around the other seeker during a dive, and he decided to stay level for an extra second.
As Harry dived, he saw the Ravenclaw close behind the snitch, behind him and many meters below. Harry steeled himself – he was only going to get one shot at this. Both the Ravenclaw and the snitch were flying level, and Harry was trying to intercept them going straight towards the ground! Harry flew at the snitch at alarming speeds, and darted his hand – and barely managed to catch the snitch.
However, the Ravenclaw tailing the snitch didn't see what he was doing, and skimmed the diving Gryffindor. Harry tried to pull up in his out of control broom, but only partially succeeded. His broom tip hit the ground at an angle, and Harry was tossed off and rolled along the ground at incredible speeds. When he finally stopped and took stock, he gladly noted that it only appeared to cause a few bruises and a small cut on his hand.
Harry looked up, and saw the Ravenclaw was in far worse shape. Her broom was spiraling out of control, and she was dangling from the end of it, holding on by only her two hands. Harry gasped as the broom spun upwards again and the seeker lost hold. Harry threw his arm in front of him, and somehow stopped Ravenclaw's fall. Harry trembled as he slowly let the seeker down to the ground, and finally collapsed due to exhaustion.
Harry shook off all the congratulations from the Quidditch match. He was feeling a little guilty still about the win, since he used a strategy that could have easily hurt both himself and the other seeker. Fortunately, a note delivered by Hedwig diverted his attention, and he beckoned Ron over.
"What is it Harry?" Ron asked.
Harry was too excited, and simply pointed to the parchment.
Harry,
That Divination professor wouldn't happen to be Sibyll Trelawney, would it? That old foolish woman has caused enough trouble for me alone – don't get me started about how Divination went for me at Hogwarts – and now she's mocking other professors based on physical deformities?
Consider her haunted – she won't go a day without seeing ol' Snuffles. And I don't doubt that any son of James Potter would be able to deliver a perfect end to the prank…
Dumbledore has told me about your dreams. I never would have seen this coming, but I'm sure we'll triumph over the situation.
- Snuffles
Ron looked like he wouldn't be able to contain himself, and excitedly said, "Divination… Monday… Trelawney… Grim…"
"Calm down, Ron," Harry said, laughing.
"Oh, this is good!" Ron said, finally speaking coherently. Harry laughed; he too couldn't wait for Monday to arrive.
Sure enough, as Ron and Harry entered the North Tower, Trelawney looked in a slightly panicked state. As she sat down at her poof, she even knocked over her teacup, spilling liquid all over the table.
"Let's do it now!" Ron urged quietly.
"Patience, Ron," Harry whispered back. He then remarked in a slightly raised voice, "I went to see Nurse Pomfrey about my cuts after the Quidditch game. She said I looked rather grim." Trelawney overheard and accidently spilled her tea again.
Ron caught on and said, "Harry, you did what you had to. Quidditch is a dog-eat-dog sport." Harry smiled slightly as Trelawney involuntarily coughed.
"Still," Harry shot back, "don't you think it's a bad omen?" Ron didn't say anything, barely able to keep his face passive, seeing as how Trelawney gasping loudly. Harry continued, "I'm still haunted by the specter of the other seeker's out of control broom!" Harry and Ron had to control their laughter as Trelawney's hands began to tremble slightly.
Harry imperceptibly nodded and mouthed, "Now."
Ron nodded and suddenly went rigid. "The grim," he intoned in a monotone voice, "has haunted. It will continued to haunt until… until…"
"Until…?" Trelawney burst anxiously.
Ron finished, "Until… the two teachers of the future combine again." Ron then sat up and asked in a normal voice, "What happened? Did… Did I just say something? Why are you all looking at me?"
"Class dismissed!" Trelawney called.
"But class just started!" Lavender and Parvati complained. Trelawney didn't even seem to hear them, and took off down the trapdoor. Harry and Ron burst out laughing and began heading back to the Gryffindor commons.
After settling the problem in Divination, Harry turned his attention back to his dream; he occupied his time by searching the library for any reference to the Obsidian Tome that Voldemort had mentioned. His close friends were eager to help, but he doubted that anyone could have kept Miss Granger from the library, anyway.
Despite having Hermione on their side, the group couldn't find anything at all about the Obsidian Tome all week, not even a passing reference to it. Harry even resorted to looking for synonyms, but still couldn't find anything about 'Black Book', 'Black Tome', 'Obsidian Book', 'Dark Book', or 'Dark Tome'.
They would look longer, but the week after they had the Charms co-op. Harry was personally torn. He really wanted to visit the Weasly Wizard Wheezes. But he really wanted to finally find out what Voldemort was up to.
The first difference between this coop and the earlier one, Harry noticed, was that there was no fancy transportation to the charms co-op. Since it was just at Hogsmeade, Flitwick insisted on walking. 15 minutes later, the Gryffindors finally entered the town, and made their way to the new shop.
"YES!" called Ron, "I've been looking forward to this all week!" Harry snorted. Obviously Ron wasn't torn between visiting the library and visiting the WWW shop. Indeed, Ron looked positively giddy.
"OK, everyone!" called Fred, as the last Gryffindors entered the store, "We're going to keep this interesting. Today, we're going to take you through the creation process. The other four days we will be working on a project – each of you will have to try to create a new Weasley Wizard Wheezes creation. And there will be prizes for anyone with a viable product."
"First step," George continued, "is the design. Design is the most important step in creating a product like this. You have to think creatively. Fred and I find we do our best while imagining the Slytherins."
Fred coughed, "Snape." Most of the Gryffindors laughed. Harry remembered that Snape's respect for him since his 5th year didn't apply to the rest of Gryffindor.
George shot Fred a grin, and said, "We're going to take you through the creation of two new products we thought of: Cushion Crusher and Rhetorical Responder. The Cushion Crusher is pretty simple. It's just a simple ring, but when someone puts it on, it summons pillows from all around to surround the wearer. So how would we do this?"
Hermione appeared like she was overlooking the fact she would be making prank objects and responded intellectually, "We would do a chain effect spell which would summons pillows whenever the condition of it being worn was met."
"Ah," George sighed, "we've missed you, Hermione!"
"That's absolutely correct," answered Fred, "Now, let's go to the work room and make a few." Harry and the group went into another room, which he hadn't seen his first Hogsmeade trip. He wondered why Fred and George didn't show it to him, until he remembered that they wanted to show him their 'red' products.
The charms class first watched as George made a simple brass ring become a cushion crusher, and then handed out several brass rings to each person. After everyone got the hang of it, Fred said, "Ok, it looks like you've got the hang of this one. Let's try the Rhetoric Responder. It's a little bit trickier. What we want it to do is charm a pendant, so if a rhetorical question is asked while it is worn, it answer the question. Anything else, it does nothing. Any ideas?"
The charms group thought a minute, and Harry actually beat Hermione by saying, "Couldn't we do a chain effect spell for this, too? Just think of someone asking a rhetorical question?"
Fred grinned and said, "Close!"
"What about its answer?" George asked, "It has to answer the question. How are you going to do that?"
However, no one could come up with the answer, so Fred said, "Ok, what we need to do is put a little of ourselves into the pendant. That way, it will answer however we would, like we were part of the pendant." Harry noticed that Fred seemed to be purposely avoiding mention of Tom Riddle's diary his second year.
"So," Hermione asked, "we think of someone asking a rhetorical question while we're putting a bit of ourselves into the ring?"
"Exactly!" beamed Fred and George.
"But," Hermione asked back, "how do we put a bit of ourselves into something?" Harry sat forward, wanting to know the answer as well. Despite the fact he got a diary from his godfather last year for him to fill, he had no real idea how to do it.
"Erm," George said, "I really don't know exactly. You just sort of put your hand on it, and go calm. I really can't explain it."
Fred looked lost as well, and said, "It's hard to put into words. You just kind of relax and let yourself go."
Hermione looked a little skeptical, but took one of the pendants the twins started handing out. Harry almost laughed at how easy it was to fill it with himself. The twins were right – words couldn't describe how to do it – but it felt almost natural, and gave him a slightly giddy feeling in his head.
As Harry finally completed the charm, Fred said, "After you're done with the charm, you can go. Just remember, the next four days, you'll be working on a new product. You should probably think about what you're going to do."
As Harry was about to leave, George sidled up to him and softly said, "I've got a challenge for you, Harry. I want you to develop a 'black' product." Harry slowly grinned, and George patted him on the back.
As he left the shop, he heard Fred whisper, "I wonder what he'll come up with…"
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