Disclaimer: The characters (well, most of them…I might have a couple oc's here and there) in the story do not belong to me. All credit goes to the all powerful and talented J.K. Rowling.
Summary: Why is it that tragedy is the one thing that can pull people together? What is there when tragedy strikes that no one can see any other time?
A/N: I am in the process of updating this story, along with editing the previous chapters to make it a little more concrete than before. Please bear with me while I do this. Thank you.
~*~
~Crooked Hearts~
*by: Eowyn Black*
Chapter Two
"Welcome to the first ever Global Quidditch League Tournament match! Today's match is between Britain's own Montrose Magpies and Australia's Woollongong Warriors. Hold on to your hats, folks. You're in for an exciting game! And here come the players!! First, from the Magpies: Wood, Mendosa, Gerando, Marsti, Capin, Hackenbury, and Potter! Now, the Warriors: Surling, Clark, Precklen, Austin, Hurth, Larls, and Paulen! The players take the field as the referee for today's game steps onto the pitch to start the game! Ref. Sampson releases the balls and the game begins!!"
Okay. As you can see, the highlight of the day was the first Global Quidditch Tournament match that my team was participating in. And as you can also see, I decided to tag along. Let's face it: What would I do without Quidditch?
Throughout my career with the Magpies, I had been neglecting the other things and people in my life. Even though most of my close friends came to the matches, I usually didn't stick around long enough afterwards to talk or even say hi. Occasionally, I would get an owl from one of them, but lately, I hadn't gotten any at all.
Now, back to the game. The game had been going on for only about five minutes when a bludger took out one of our chasers, Amy Marsti. Grant Thorpe, one of the reserve chasers, took her place. Then, another ten minutes passes when another bludger took out Louis Gerando, another one of our chasers. It was starting to look like that game we lost about a year prior.
I had been flying up above everyone else to keep a look out for the snitch and to keep out of the way. Paulen, the Warriors' seeker seemed to have a developed a plane that involved staying on my tail, considering that whenever I flew more than five feet, Paulen would race to "catch up" and nearly crash into me. After at least five times of this, I decided to try the Wronski Feint on him. I had done it dozens of times during other matches and even more during our many practices. But, for some reason, it didn't work that day. Well, I guess, in a way, it did work. It worked on me instead of Paulen. Instead of Paulen slamming into the ground, I crashed head first into the field. As I felt unconsciousness coming on, I heard a whistle blow and then there was darkness.
~*~
The next thing I knew, I was in the Hospital Tent in a bed near the back of the tent. I could still hear the crowd roaring, so the game was still in play. I glanced around the tent and saw Amy and Louis in the two beds beside mine. Other than the three of us, there was no one else in the tent.
I lay back down onto the bed, banging my head on the bedpost in doing so. Reaching up to apply pressure on the already forming bump on the back of my head, I realized that for the first time in my career, I wasn't able to finish a game. The expression on my face was overcome with a wave of disappointment.
Not long afterwards, there was a bustle of feet outside the tent. Two bodies emerged into the tent, shortly followed by the Mediwitch, though I couldn't see their faces to tell who they were.
"Out! My patients need rest! Out now! Both of you!!" the Mediwitch said. She reminded me of Madam Pomfrey in a way.
"We just want to talk to Harry. It'll only be a few minutes."
"Two minutes. Mr. Potter needs his rest," the Mediwitch replied before she bustled out of the tent again.
As soon as she said this, the two came closer to where I was, and I then could clearly recognize Sirius and Remus. I quickly pulled myself into a sitting position, wiped off my disappointed expression, and murmured a hello.
Sirius and Remus pulled up chairs and sat down.
"You want to talk about anything?" asked Remus.
I shook my head and turned the other way.
"Harry, I know you're not going to like hearing this, but if there's anything wrong, anything, you have to tell us. I'm your family, for heaven's sake!" Sirius said.
"Just in case you haven't noticed, Sirius, I am old enough to know what to tell people. Or haven't you notices that I've made a new life for myself, in which both of you aren't in the picture," I yelled. "And no, you are not my family! My family's dead!!"
Remus started to say something, but Sirius shook his head.
The Mediwitch hurried over to see what the problem was. "I must insist that you leave now. Mr. Potter is upset already. Please leave before I have to call security."
At this, Sirius and Remus got up and started to leave, but not before I could see the hurt look on their faces.
Seeing that, I started to feel guilty about what I had said. Through blood, Sirius wasn't my family, but deep down inside, I knew that he was.
Just before leaving the tent, Sirius looked back at me. With a look of disappointment, he lifted the flap of the tent and disappeared from my sight.
Not long after Remus and Sirius left, there was a large roar from the crowd. The snitch had been caught and the match was over.
Slowly, the roar of the crowd died down and soon afterwards, my entire team came into the Hospital Tent to see how Amy, Louis, and I were doing. What surprised me was that they all had smiles on their faces. It turned out that the reserve seeker, whom I didn't really like because of a prior acquaintance with him, had caught the snitch for our team.
Bet you can't guess who the seeker was. Draco Malfoy. How he got onto the team as the reserve seeker is beyond me. I never really talked to him during practice and I usually left before anyone else on the team. All I had really heard about him was that he had gone against his father and turned over to the light side.
Something that I never thought would happen happened when the rest of the team, including Amy and Louis, left the tent. That is, everyone except Malfoy. He waited by the opening of the tent until the Mediwitch let me leave.
As I left the tent, Malfoy followed me out.
"Is there something you want, Malfoy?"
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you, but I guess Black and Lupin beat me to it."
"What are you talking about?"
"They did talk to you, right?"
"Yes, they did, but what does that have to do with anything?"
"Well, I was just wondering, figuring that you and Weasley were so close, if you were going to come into London tomorrow for the funeral."
I stopped right there in my tracks. "What funeral?"
"Weasley's funeral. It's scheduled for tomorrow."
It took me a while for that to sink in. When it finally did, I grabbed my Firebolt and raced away from the quidditch pitch and got back to my flat as soon as I could.
As soon as I got inside, I tore my flat apart to try and find the Daily Prophets from the past couple of weeks. There had to be something in at least one of them if Malfoy was telling the truth.
'Maybe Malfoy was just being his old, curt self,' I tried to convince myself. 'Ron isn't dead. He can't be!' After five minutes of tearing my flat apart, I had accumulated Daily Prophets from the past two weeks.
Searching vigorously through them at the kitchen table, I tossed the ones aside that I knew for sure that I had read through fully, leaving a small pile of Daily Prophets in front of me.
I grabbed the paper on top and frantically flipped through, page by page, searching for a story that matched the description. Nothing. I tossed it aside with the other ones and moved on to the next paper.
As I got down to the last two papers, I kept one telling myself, 'Ron isn't dead; what was I thinking?'
The second to last paper also had nothing. Lifting up the last paper on the table with a bundle of hope, I scanned the front page. It was the paper that announced the new quidditch league.
Checking the rest of the front page, my eyes snapped to the bottom right corner of the paper, where a short, undetailed story was. The title: Ministry Auror Dead. Quickly reading the article, I realized that Malfoy was right.
~*~
The next day, I sat at home, staring out the window. I couldn't go into London for the funeral. I just couldn't.
I don't know how long I had been sitting there, but sometime in the afternoon, there was a knock on my flat door. The first time, I didn't even notice that someone was at the door. Unfortunately for me at the time, they were persistent and kept on knocking.
Coming out of my trance, I walked over to the door and looked out the peep hole. Surprise, surprise. It was Sirius.
I opened the door and stared at him. I moved out of the way to let him inside. As he came in, he looked at me with a funny glance.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Draco told me he spilled the beans yesterday after the match. Remus and I were going to tell you yesterday in the Hospital Tent, but you were acting like you wouldn't be able to take the news."
"Oh?"
"I'm serious, Harry!"
"Of course you are."
"Now, don't start that again. That's how we got into that argument last year."
The argument. I remember it like it only happened yesterday. Sirius and I were trying to have a civil conversation when Sirius brought up that I was always so disrespectful of him. I kept on telling him that he needed to respect me and my wishes if he wanted respect from me, and so on. I was pushed out of the door of Sirius's flat and told not to come back until I had learned to respect my elders. That only lasted seven and a half months before Sirius couldn't stand it anymore.
Thinking about that, I just stared at him, squinting.
"Now, don't do that. I hate it when you do that."
So I stopped. Instead of trying to avoid looking at him, I decided to let him talk while I cleaned up the kitchen, which was still stricken with Daily Prophets.
As I was walking into the kitchen, Sirius said, "Harry, I'm talking to you. Don't walk away from me when I'm talking."
"I'm listening. Keep talking."
"Harry. Will you just look at me for a minute?"
"Why? I can listen just fine when I'm doing something that doesn't take much talent," I said, continuing my cleaning.
"Because I said…What were you doing in here?" Sirius asked once he saw the Daily Prophets askew in the kitchen.
I quickly put them all in a pile, not intentionally leaving the paper with the article about Ron on top of the pile.
Placing the pile on the kitchen table and going over to the sink to "wash the dishes," I left Sirius standing in the doorway. Sirius looked at the pile curiously before saying, "You didn't believe Draco when he told you yesterday, did you?"
'How does he always do that?' I whipped around with a wet dishrag in my hand, spraying water everywhere.
"What makes you say that?"
Wiping the water off his cloak, Sirius looked at me with compassion. "I can tell."
I absolutely hate it when he says that. Not only because he means it, but because he always gives me this creepy look, almost like he can see right through me.
"Can you?" I said.
"I know this is hard on you. That's the reason why I'm here right now. Remus and I went to the funeral this morning and I can tell you this much. Hermione could've used your shoulder. And you hers."
"She didn't want me there."
"How would you have known? You haven't seen her since…well, before Ron's accident."
"I know both of them better than that. Hermione wouldn't have wanted me there because she wouldn't have wanted me to see her breaking down or anything."
"You don't know that for sure, though, do you?"
"Yes, I do."
Sirius gave me a strange look.
"I know because I overheard her and Ron talking in our seventh year at Hogwarts. She said that if I ever got killed, she wouldn't have wanted Ron to go with her to the funeral because she didn't want him to see her all broken up over me or she just wouldn't go at all."
Sirius looked down at the ground, not knowing what to say.
"That's why I didn't go."
I started walking out of the kitchen, leaving Sirius behind. As I got to the doorway, I turned around and mentioned, "You can let yourself out," and left him to ponder.
~*~
After a vigorous walk to blow off the steam and right before it started to rain lightly, I returned to my flat. I was glad Sirius had taken the hint and left me alone for once.
I quickly made a snack for myself and flung myself onto the sofa for a good movie on the telly. I pushed everything in my head to the back of my mind and told myself that I would deal with it all later.
Turning on the telly to look for a good show, there was a knock on the door. I went over and looked out the peep hole. There was no one there. I opened up the door only to find it now pouring buckets.
But, before I could start to close the door, a figure stepped out of the shadows, dripping from head to toe.
"Hermione?"
~*~