A/N Sorry this took so long, I really didn't like the quidditch match but
after sitting on it for weeks and not coming up with anything better, I
decided to just let it past. Hopefully the next one will be better *nudge
nudge wink wink* Well, here's the quidditch match. Enjoy!
Chapter 19
Harry had suspected that it wouldn't be a good day today when he had woken that morning to the sound of a window slamming open and a wailing banshee racing around the room.
His thoughts had only been confirmed when he walked into the Great Hall. The high ceiling of the room displayed an unenthusiastic grey sky overhead. If he looked closer, he could see the tiny black specks that were the few valiant post owls that had made it through the destructive winds. And although it wasn't raining, he knew it was going to. It was just one of *those* days.
He grimaced and made his way to the Gryffindor table, careful to sit as far away as possible from Fred and George who had been whispering together excitedly at dinner last night. Ron beamed at him around a mouthful of toast as he sat down. Chewing hurriedly, he finished his breakfast and turned to Harry with a bright smile.
"I wouldn't touch the eggs. They're hexed."
Harry nodded and loaded three slices of bacon onto his plate. He listened only half-heartedly as Ron rambled on about something-o-other, as he found himself watching Cho Chang. The Ravenclaw Seeker was sitting quietly at her table surrounded by friends who were good-naturedly trying to force food down her throat. But Cho wasn't listening and, like him, she had found her gaze drawn to her opponent Seeker.
Cho watched him for a brief moment before she blinked hurriedly, eyes suddenly downcast and turned away from him. Nope, today definitely wasn't going to be a good day. Harry sighed as he chewed miserably on his bacon.
It didn't help when, thirty seconds later, said bacon turned him a lurid shade of pink.
* * *
The winds last night had certainly managed to do a fair amount of damage, Harry thought as he stepped outside into the frosty morning air, thankfully depinkified. Several of the trees at the edge of the Forbidden Forest had fallen in the night, one only narrowly missing Hagrid's hut. Even the Whomping Willow had suffered, losing three of its precious branches, now lying scattered about it, as it had thrashed the ground in anger.
Harry couldn't help but grin when he spied a diminutive Professor Flitwick desperately trying to evade the still writhing limbs of the tree while, at the same time, perform a spell that would return them to the main body. Currently, the tree definitely had the upper hand.
Turning to the Quidditch Pitch, he frowned as he saw the state of the stands. Several of them had lost various railings and one had been destroyed completely by a falling tree. The three golden hoops at either end of the Pitch were leaning at dangerous angles, hap-hazardly strewn in different directions so that the Keeper had no hope in hell of defending all three at once. Several of the Professors, including Madame Hooch were darting around the pitch correcting fallen posts or ripped flags. Harry smiled at the sight of a scowling Ignia wrestling a particularly stubborn beam back into place. He glanced at his watch. The game wouldn't start for two hours yet.
Plenty of time to get back at the twins for the pink incident.
* * *
"And here we are at the beginning of what is sure to be another exciting match. It's wet, it's windy, it's wintry but who cares? It's quidditch! It's Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw!"
Harry winced as the booming voice of Lee Jordan sounded throughout the grounds. His voice had been magnified by more than the usual amount to account for the screaming winds and the result was nothing short of deafening.
He had to admit that the professors had done an excellent job with restoring the pitch to its former glory, even if a couple of the poles were still a little wonky. The house banners waved gaily in the ferocious onslaught and every so often a random hat or scarf would detach itself from its owner and float upwards.
The noise of the crowd, which Harry was relatively sure was fairly large, was all but drowned out by the raging winds. As it was, he had a difficult time hearing Madame Hooch as she addressed the players above her.
He did, however, hear the whistle perfectly. Harry was up like a shot, soaring high above the spectators' stands until he was little more than a dark speck to his team-mates. Harry was so far up that he couldn't hear what was being said by Lee and thus he had no idea of how the game was progressing.
Peering downwards, through the fine mist of rain that had finally started to fall, Harry could just about determine the ant-like movements of the players as they raced towards the Ravenclaw end of the pitch. In no time at all, Alicia had put the quaffle through the centre hoop and Gryffindor stepped into the lead. The sound of the bell that signified a successful goal sounded and carried up to Harry's ears as he rose a little higher. The Ravenclaws responded with a heightening of their teamwork and before long Tony was inundated with the quaffle at the Gryffindor end of the pitch.
The game continued at a furious pace below him and Harry hovered in the air, searching in vain for the snitch. The rain increased steadily over the next ten minutes and Harry had still had no sighting of the snitch and nor, he belatedly realised, of Cho. Harry dropped a little lower, still scanning the immediate area and keeping a wary eye out for the bludgers which delighted in sneaking up on him unawares, especially in this sort of weather.
As far as he could tell, from Lee's muffled shouts and the muted roars of the crowd in the direction of what he thought (or rather hoped) was the Gryffindor end, his team was currently in the lead but not by much. The outcome of the game depended entirely on the capture of the snitch.
Right now, Harry thought it highly improbable that that would occur in the near future, considering he could see no more than a few feet in front of him. And he couldn't see Cho anywhere, although that was hardly surprising. Harry was sodden through, and his robes were plastered to his body like a wet-suit. He felt (and no doubt looked) like a drowned rat.
Harry decided to give up his bird's eye view of the game and descended slowly by twenty odd feet. Although there was a higher danger of colliding with players or balls at this height, the snitch would at least be visible. A roar went up from the crowd and this time, Harry was close enough to hear the score.
"And Gryffindor pulls ahead 50-30. Twenty minutes into the game and neither side is planning on losing today's match. Still no sign of the snitch as Gryffindor Seeker Harry Potter comes down in order to search more easily. Chang remains at the Gryffindor hoops and neither player seems to have a clue as to where that ball might be. That rain must be a pain right now."
Harry tuned out the rest of Lee's commentary as he focused on peering around for the snitch. The rain had surfaced with a vengeance now and that, combined with the low level of light, was making it incredibly hard to see *anything*, let alone a tiny flying ball. To his right and what he judged to be a good ten feet away, Harry could see the Teacher's Box where each professor sat happily sheltered by various spells. He frowned darkly and muttered profanities under his breath.
The wind picked up in intensity and Harry's robes flapped around his head obstructing his vision. After a brief moment of panic, he managed to right them and hastily took off into the wind so his robes billowed behind him rather than in front. Unfortunately, that led him straight into the pelting rain- fat, hard bullets of the stuff- but that couldn't be helped. Even more unfortunately, it led him straight towards the Gryffindor hoops and, indirectly, Cho.
Harry's broom shuddered to a halt a few feet away from Cho's. "All right?" he asked nervously.
Cho turned to him with a frown. "What?" she screamed. "I can't hear you!"
"I said 'All right?'" he yelled back.
Cho looked at him as if he were mad. "What? In *this* weather?" she bellowed back incredulously.
Harry felt like a fool. *Stupid question you wanker!* Cho turned to him and gave him a small smile. Harry's heart skipped a beat and then thudded with relief. His brief moment of relief was interrupted rudely and suddenly in the form of a large angry ball. The bludger appeared from nowhere, materialising from out of the rain and missing him by mere millimetres. Harry executed a hurried barrel roll in mid-air to avoid it connecting with his head as it whizzed back again. Not far away, he heard the unmistakeable sound of another coming his way. Time to beat a hasty retreat.
Harry zoomed away from the hoops back into the middle of the pitch, ploughing straight through the Ravenclaw chasers on his way and accidentally causing them to drop the ball. *Not that I'm going to complain*, he thought as the quaffle was snatched up by Katie. The bludgers attached themselves to the Chasers and Harry seized the opportunity and sped in the opposite direction.
Glancing down at the Gryffindor stands, Harry's breath caught in his throat as he spied a shimmer of gold above the first years' heads. He scanned the area briefly to see if Cho had spotted the snitch as well, but for all he knew she could be three feet away and he wouldn't know it. Harry pulled his broom around sharply and went into a spectacular dive that was headed straight for the stands, and consequently (although his brain hadn't registered it yet) to a rather nasty collision with said stands.
He could hear the sound of Lee's voice as he plunged further downwards towards the first year's who were clambering away from the golden ball as if it were a bomb.
"And Potter's making a headlong dash for the stands! Is this a Wronski Feint? If so, it's a rather stupid one-but no.it must be the snitch! Chang's seen it too-"
*What?* Harry's head whipped upwards at the mention of Cho's name and he saw her speeding towards the same spot as him from below. Harry urged his broom on faster but he instinctively knew that Cho would be doing the same.
What followed next happened in a confusing flurry of movement that had professors and students alike dredging the memories up for years after it had occurred.
As Cho and Harry raced forwards, it became clear that, unless one of them pulled away, they would crash. Clearly, neither of them was going to let the match go that easily and so the crowd readied themselves for a spectacular collision.
Only, to the great disappointment of the crowd and undoubtedly the intense relief of the two Seekers involved, that collision never occurred.
At the last second, Cho dropped downwards to avoid Harry. Unfortunately, as Cho moved, Harry leant forwards and his broom also descended, clipping hers as it swung to avoid the impact. Cho's Nimbus barrelled over suddenly and her head narrowly missed Harry's foot. As she began to right herself, a particularly violent gust of wind caught them both and Harry slipped sideways, losing his grip and he ended up hanging by one arm onto his shuddering broom, the other arm entangled in his flapping robes. The wind pushed Cho back into her upside-down position and she clung by all fours, head drooping.
The scene froze for perhaps a second as each Seeker viewed the other's precarious position and hastily whispered his or her prayer for survival. Then, as if in a dream, the Golden Snitch floated to a halt in between them, wings weighed down by the rain and exhausted by such a long game.
Cho's eyes crossed as she tried to focus on the ball right in front of her nose. Harry's hand twitched. The crowd watched in riveted silence.
Abruptly, each Seeker made a grab for the ball, which was not a good idea on either of their parts. Cho's lunge pushed her broom off balance and pitched her forwards, tumbling earthwards with a shriek, broom still several feet above her. Harry, whose left hand had been occupied in disentangling itself from his robes, made a snatch for it with his right which had been connected with the broom. Belatedly, he realised his mistake and hurriedly reached for the handle again. He caught it but only just and his wild swing carried him into the side of the Stands with a dull thump. The banner flared outwards and wrapped around him as he slowly tumbled towards the ground, rolling down the side of the Stands.
Tony, being the nearest player aside from Harry (who was currently occupied with rolling safely to the ground) leapt into a magnificent dive and succeeded in catching Cho inches from the ground.
The crowd held its breath. Harry tumbled out of the banner and onto the ground, staggering drunkenly. Harry stared at his hands after he had sorted his robes and then, very slowly, as if inebriated, raised his right hand high above his head.
The snitch fluttered feebly in his grasp.
The crowd burst into a great roar of approval as Lee announced excitedly down the loudspeaker that that *had* to have been the best catch ever. The noise only increased in decibel level as Tony did something very unexpected.
He leant forwards and kissed Cho full on the lips.
* * *
Harry sat staring moodily out of the only window in the Gryffindor Common Room, deriving some sort of insane pleasure from watching the wind rip the trees to shreds. Gryffindor Common Room was currently in the throes of a massive party at which Tony seemed to be the guest of honour. Not that that was what was bothering Harry. He was currently sulking in the corner, when he could be enjoying the party, reflecting on the unfortunate detail that Cho was now utterly smitten with Tony.
Although he had long given up hopes on her, especially after the Tournament, it was still horrendously unfair. As if he didn't already have enough on his plate.
He was interrupted from his musings when one of the Weasley twins (he still couldn't tell them apart) made a beeline, albeit a slightly intoxicated one, for him. Fred (or was it George?) collapsed beside him and regarded him with a look that could be considered concern but was most likely ill- concealed apprehension due to the revenge Harry had taken for the pink incident.
"Hey, Harry," he started waving a lazy, unsteady hand in the air, "why aren't choo joining in?"
Harry turned to face him with an unreadable expression and eventually, after a few moments of squinting, Fred (or George) sighed and returned to the party, complete with his neon-green mohican.
Harry mentally berated himself for moping over losing someone that technically hadn't been his in the first place. He glanced back out of the window, peering into the dark. He hadn't forgotten what had happened last night, but nor had he thought about it in great detail. The most logical explanation for his sudden perfect night vision seemed to be something to do with the Summoning. If it had been a Summoning.
He sighed and realised that he would get nowhere tonight; his mind kept returning to Tony and *that* kiss. Harry cast a speculative glance out of the darkened window before getting up and stretching lazily.
Locating Ron amongst the throng of party-goers was easier than one might have expected and he was soon on his way upstairs, having informed his friend of his intentions to go to sleep.
Climbing into bed, his thoughts were not focused on Cho, but instead on the recent events. Everything had happened so quickly that he was still a little confused concerning everything that had taken place over the last few weeks. Still, things seemed to have calmed down and Harry hoped that that situation would remain so for some time to come.
The annoying voice in the back of his head, however, took great pleasure in informing him that this was most likely the calm before the storm.
* * *
It is well-known among all circles of wizarding folk, that Azkaban is quite literally hell on a big rock in the middle of the sea. Which is in the middle of nowhere. It is also common knowledge, that said rock is 'home' to the most nefarious criminals and Death Eaters of the times. And a few hundred Dementors.
Peter Pettigrew was currently the inhabitant of cell One Nine Seven Eight of the 'Bowels', as the level was referred to by the long-time residents. Aptly named for several reasons, mostly the foul stench surrounding the area, the 'Bowels' were the cells commonly assigned to known Death Eaters or other such beings the Ministry refused to recognise as human.
Cell One Nine Seven Eight was a nondescript room with dripping bricks and an iron door. Just the same as all of the other cells. Cell One Nine Seven Eight, just like all others, held a convicted inmate. What was different, however, about cell One Nine Seven Eight was that the aforementioned inmate currently happened to be a rat. A rat which was in the process of squeezing under the aforesaid iron door.
Upon reaching the other side of the locked iron door, the decidedly skinnier-than-it-used-to-be rat paused in the hallway and crouched low, whiskers quivering. The noises of shrieks and moans reverberated off the wet walls, causing the sounds of misery to permeate the very air. The rat shivered.
By the time the next Dementor shift had swept by, cell One Nine Seven Eight was now empty and the corridor outside was in a similar state.
Peter Pettigrew, known Death Eater, was no longer in Azkaban. And by the end of the night, every Death Eater within the prison's walls would be released by none other than the prison's guardians, the Dementors.
A/N Again, sorry for the delay. Also sorry to everyone who is on my mailing list and didn't receive notification of the last update. My computer screwed itself.
Thanks for all the review, I really appreciate them. And BIG hugs to all nine people who have me on their favourites lists. I feel loved.
Thanks to: Buffynick6, Storyspindler, Romeo Dunn, butterflygirl, Lome_Roquen, Shadowhawk, Irish Rose, kat, Chaos' Dragon, Bob, trunksgrl182 and Suna.
Chapter 19
Harry had suspected that it wouldn't be a good day today when he had woken that morning to the sound of a window slamming open and a wailing banshee racing around the room.
His thoughts had only been confirmed when he walked into the Great Hall. The high ceiling of the room displayed an unenthusiastic grey sky overhead. If he looked closer, he could see the tiny black specks that were the few valiant post owls that had made it through the destructive winds. And although it wasn't raining, he knew it was going to. It was just one of *those* days.
He grimaced and made his way to the Gryffindor table, careful to sit as far away as possible from Fred and George who had been whispering together excitedly at dinner last night. Ron beamed at him around a mouthful of toast as he sat down. Chewing hurriedly, he finished his breakfast and turned to Harry with a bright smile.
"I wouldn't touch the eggs. They're hexed."
Harry nodded and loaded three slices of bacon onto his plate. He listened only half-heartedly as Ron rambled on about something-o-other, as he found himself watching Cho Chang. The Ravenclaw Seeker was sitting quietly at her table surrounded by friends who were good-naturedly trying to force food down her throat. But Cho wasn't listening and, like him, she had found her gaze drawn to her opponent Seeker.
Cho watched him for a brief moment before she blinked hurriedly, eyes suddenly downcast and turned away from him. Nope, today definitely wasn't going to be a good day. Harry sighed as he chewed miserably on his bacon.
It didn't help when, thirty seconds later, said bacon turned him a lurid shade of pink.
* * *
The winds last night had certainly managed to do a fair amount of damage, Harry thought as he stepped outside into the frosty morning air, thankfully depinkified. Several of the trees at the edge of the Forbidden Forest had fallen in the night, one only narrowly missing Hagrid's hut. Even the Whomping Willow had suffered, losing three of its precious branches, now lying scattered about it, as it had thrashed the ground in anger.
Harry couldn't help but grin when he spied a diminutive Professor Flitwick desperately trying to evade the still writhing limbs of the tree while, at the same time, perform a spell that would return them to the main body. Currently, the tree definitely had the upper hand.
Turning to the Quidditch Pitch, he frowned as he saw the state of the stands. Several of them had lost various railings and one had been destroyed completely by a falling tree. The three golden hoops at either end of the Pitch were leaning at dangerous angles, hap-hazardly strewn in different directions so that the Keeper had no hope in hell of defending all three at once. Several of the Professors, including Madame Hooch were darting around the pitch correcting fallen posts or ripped flags. Harry smiled at the sight of a scowling Ignia wrestling a particularly stubborn beam back into place. He glanced at his watch. The game wouldn't start for two hours yet.
Plenty of time to get back at the twins for the pink incident.
* * *
"And here we are at the beginning of what is sure to be another exciting match. It's wet, it's windy, it's wintry but who cares? It's quidditch! It's Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw!"
Harry winced as the booming voice of Lee Jordan sounded throughout the grounds. His voice had been magnified by more than the usual amount to account for the screaming winds and the result was nothing short of deafening.
He had to admit that the professors had done an excellent job with restoring the pitch to its former glory, even if a couple of the poles were still a little wonky. The house banners waved gaily in the ferocious onslaught and every so often a random hat or scarf would detach itself from its owner and float upwards.
The noise of the crowd, which Harry was relatively sure was fairly large, was all but drowned out by the raging winds. As it was, he had a difficult time hearing Madame Hooch as she addressed the players above her.
He did, however, hear the whistle perfectly. Harry was up like a shot, soaring high above the spectators' stands until he was little more than a dark speck to his team-mates. Harry was so far up that he couldn't hear what was being said by Lee and thus he had no idea of how the game was progressing.
Peering downwards, through the fine mist of rain that had finally started to fall, Harry could just about determine the ant-like movements of the players as they raced towards the Ravenclaw end of the pitch. In no time at all, Alicia had put the quaffle through the centre hoop and Gryffindor stepped into the lead. The sound of the bell that signified a successful goal sounded and carried up to Harry's ears as he rose a little higher. The Ravenclaws responded with a heightening of their teamwork and before long Tony was inundated with the quaffle at the Gryffindor end of the pitch.
The game continued at a furious pace below him and Harry hovered in the air, searching in vain for the snitch. The rain increased steadily over the next ten minutes and Harry had still had no sighting of the snitch and nor, he belatedly realised, of Cho. Harry dropped a little lower, still scanning the immediate area and keeping a wary eye out for the bludgers which delighted in sneaking up on him unawares, especially in this sort of weather.
As far as he could tell, from Lee's muffled shouts and the muted roars of the crowd in the direction of what he thought (or rather hoped) was the Gryffindor end, his team was currently in the lead but not by much. The outcome of the game depended entirely on the capture of the snitch.
Right now, Harry thought it highly improbable that that would occur in the near future, considering he could see no more than a few feet in front of him. And he couldn't see Cho anywhere, although that was hardly surprising. Harry was sodden through, and his robes were plastered to his body like a wet-suit. He felt (and no doubt looked) like a drowned rat.
Harry decided to give up his bird's eye view of the game and descended slowly by twenty odd feet. Although there was a higher danger of colliding with players or balls at this height, the snitch would at least be visible. A roar went up from the crowd and this time, Harry was close enough to hear the score.
"And Gryffindor pulls ahead 50-30. Twenty minutes into the game and neither side is planning on losing today's match. Still no sign of the snitch as Gryffindor Seeker Harry Potter comes down in order to search more easily. Chang remains at the Gryffindor hoops and neither player seems to have a clue as to where that ball might be. That rain must be a pain right now."
Harry tuned out the rest of Lee's commentary as he focused on peering around for the snitch. The rain had surfaced with a vengeance now and that, combined with the low level of light, was making it incredibly hard to see *anything*, let alone a tiny flying ball. To his right and what he judged to be a good ten feet away, Harry could see the Teacher's Box where each professor sat happily sheltered by various spells. He frowned darkly and muttered profanities under his breath.
The wind picked up in intensity and Harry's robes flapped around his head obstructing his vision. After a brief moment of panic, he managed to right them and hastily took off into the wind so his robes billowed behind him rather than in front. Unfortunately, that led him straight into the pelting rain- fat, hard bullets of the stuff- but that couldn't be helped. Even more unfortunately, it led him straight towards the Gryffindor hoops and, indirectly, Cho.
Harry's broom shuddered to a halt a few feet away from Cho's. "All right?" he asked nervously.
Cho turned to him with a frown. "What?" she screamed. "I can't hear you!"
"I said 'All right?'" he yelled back.
Cho looked at him as if he were mad. "What? In *this* weather?" she bellowed back incredulously.
Harry felt like a fool. *Stupid question you wanker!* Cho turned to him and gave him a small smile. Harry's heart skipped a beat and then thudded with relief. His brief moment of relief was interrupted rudely and suddenly in the form of a large angry ball. The bludger appeared from nowhere, materialising from out of the rain and missing him by mere millimetres. Harry executed a hurried barrel roll in mid-air to avoid it connecting with his head as it whizzed back again. Not far away, he heard the unmistakeable sound of another coming his way. Time to beat a hasty retreat.
Harry zoomed away from the hoops back into the middle of the pitch, ploughing straight through the Ravenclaw chasers on his way and accidentally causing them to drop the ball. *Not that I'm going to complain*, he thought as the quaffle was snatched up by Katie. The bludgers attached themselves to the Chasers and Harry seized the opportunity and sped in the opposite direction.
Glancing down at the Gryffindor stands, Harry's breath caught in his throat as he spied a shimmer of gold above the first years' heads. He scanned the area briefly to see if Cho had spotted the snitch as well, but for all he knew she could be three feet away and he wouldn't know it. Harry pulled his broom around sharply and went into a spectacular dive that was headed straight for the stands, and consequently (although his brain hadn't registered it yet) to a rather nasty collision with said stands.
He could hear the sound of Lee's voice as he plunged further downwards towards the first year's who were clambering away from the golden ball as if it were a bomb.
"And Potter's making a headlong dash for the stands! Is this a Wronski Feint? If so, it's a rather stupid one-but no.it must be the snitch! Chang's seen it too-"
*What?* Harry's head whipped upwards at the mention of Cho's name and he saw her speeding towards the same spot as him from below. Harry urged his broom on faster but he instinctively knew that Cho would be doing the same.
What followed next happened in a confusing flurry of movement that had professors and students alike dredging the memories up for years after it had occurred.
As Cho and Harry raced forwards, it became clear that, unless one of them pulled away, they would crash. Clearly, neither of them was going to let the match go that easily and so the crowd readied themselves for a spectacular collision.
Only, to the great disappointment of the crowd and undoubtedly the intense relief of the two Seekers involved, that collision never occurred.
At the last second, Cho dropped downwards to avoid Harry. Unfortunately, as Cho moved, Harry leant forwards and his broom also descended, clipping hers as it swung to avoid the impact. Cho's Nimbus barrelled over suddenly and her head narrowly missed Harry's foot. As she began to right herself, a particularly violent gust of wind caught them both and Harry slipped sideways, losing his grip and he ended up hanging by one arm onto his shuddering broom, the other arm entangled in his flapping robes. The wind pushed Cho back into her upside-down position and she clung by all fours, head drooping.
The scene froze for perhaps a second as each Seeker viewed the other's precarious position and hastily whispered his or her prayer for survival. Then, as if in a dream, the Golden Snitch floated to a halt in between them, wings weighed down by the rain and exhausted by such a long game.
Cho's eyes crossed as she tried to focus on the ball right in front of her nose. Harry's hand twitched. The crowd watched in riveted silence.
Abruptly, each Seeker made a grab for the ball, which was not a good idea on either of their parts. Cho's lunge pushed her broom off balance and pitched her forwards, tumbling earthwards with a shriek, broom still several feet above her. Harry, whose left hand had been occupied in disentangling itself from his robes, made a snatch for it with his right which had been connected with the broom. Belatedly, he realised his mistake and hurriedly reached for the handle again. He caught it but only just and his wild swing carried him into the side of the Stands with a dull thump. The banner flared outwards and wrapped around him as he slowly tumbled towards the ground, rolling down the side of the Stands.
Tony, being the nearest player aside from Harry (who was currently occupied with rolling safely to the ground) leapt into a magnificent dive and succeeded in catching Cho inches from the ground.
The crowd held its breath. Harry tumbled out of the banner and onto the ground, staggering drunkenly. Harry stared at his hands after he had sorted his robes and then, very slowly, as if inebriated, raised his right hand high above his head.
The snitch fluttered feebly in his grasp.
The crowd burst into a great roar of approval as Lee announced excitedly down the loudspeaker that that *had* to have been the best catch ever. The noise only increased in decibel level as Tony did something very unexpected.
He leant forwards and kissed Cho full on the lips.
* * *
Harry sat staring moodily out of the only window in the Gryffindor Common Room, deriving some sort of insane pleasure from watching the wind rip the trees to shreds. Gryffindor Common Room was currently in the throes of a massive party at which Tony seemed to be the guest of honour. Not that that was what was bothering Harry. He was currently sulking in the corner, when he could be enjoying the party, reflecting on the unfortunate detail that Cho was now utterly smitten with Tony.
Although he had long given up hopes on her, especially after the Tournament, it was still horrendously unfair. As if he didn't already have enough on his plate.
He was interrupted from his musings when one of the Weasley twins (he still couldn't tell them apart) made a beeline, albeit a slightly intoxicated one, for him. Fred (or was it George?) collapsed beside him and regarded him with a look that could be considered concern but was most likely ill- concealed apprehension due to the revenge Harry had taken for the pink incident.
"Hey, Harry," he started waving a lazy, unsteady hand in the air, "why aren't choo joining in?"
Harry turned to face him with an unreadable expression and eventually, after a few moments of squinting, Fred (or George) sighed and returned to the party, complete with his neon-green mohican.
Harry mentally berated himself for moping over losing someone that technically hadn't been his in the first place. He glanced back out of the window, peering into the dark. He hadn't forgotten what had happened last night, but nor had he thought about it in great detail. The most logical explanation for his sudden perfect night vision seemed to be something to do with the Summoning. If it had been a Summoning.
He sighed and realised that he would get nowhere tonight; his mind kept returning to Tony and *that* kiss. Harry cast a speculative glance out of the darkened window before getting up and stretching lazily.
Locating Ron amongst the throng of party-goers was easier than one might have expected and he was soon on his way upstairs, having informed his friend of his intentions to go to sleep.
Climbing into bed, his thoughts were not focused on Cho, but instead on the recent events. Everything had happened so quickly that he was still a little confused concerning everything that had taken place over the last few weeks. Still, things seemed to have calmed down and Harry hoped that that situation would remain so for some time to come.
The annoying voice in the back of his head, however, took great pleasure in informing him that this was most likely the calm before the storm.
* * *
It is well-known among all circles of wizarding folk, that Azkaban is quite literally hell on a big rock in the middle of the sea. Which is in the middle of nowhere. It is also common knowledge, that said rock is 'home' to the most nefarious criminals and Death Eaters of the times. And a few hundred Dementors.
Peter Pettigrew was currently the inhabitant of cell One Nine Seven Eight of the 'Bowels', as the level was referred to by the long-time residents. Aptly named for several reasons, mostly the foul stench surrounding the area, the 'Bowels' were the cells commonly assigned to known Death Eaters or other such beings the Ministry refused to recognise as human.
Cell One Nine Seven Eight was a nondescript room with dripping bricks and an iron door. Just the same as all of the other cells. Cell One Nine Seven Eight, just like all others, held a convicted inmate. What was different, however, about cell One Nine Seven Eight was that the aforementioned inmate currently happened to be a rat. A rat which was in the process of squeezing under the aforesaid iron door.
Upon reaching the other side of the locked iron door, the decidedly skinnier-than-it-used-to-be rat paused in the hallway and crouched low, whiskers quivering. The noises of shrieks and moans reverberated off the wet walls, causing the sounds of misery to permeate the very air. The rat shivered.
By the time the next Dementor shift had swept by, cell One Nine Seven Eight was now empty and the corridor outside was in a similar state.
Peter Pettigrew, known Death Eater, was no longer in Azkaban. And by the end of the night, every Death Eater within the prison's walls would be released by none other than the prison's guardians, the Dementors.
A/N Again, sorry for the delay. Also sorry to everyone who is on my mailing list and didn't receive notification of the last update. My computer screwed itself.
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