Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Not making ANY money off this, though I wish I was.
Sorry the last 2 chapters were weird. This one should be a lot better.
Last chapter I said that 60 and 61 took place at the end of March, but I was looking at the wrong chart. 60 and 61 were mid-April and this moves on from there.
Replies:
Kraeg001—Thanks for all your reviews!
Shehryar—I know, this chapter gets the story back on track. Chapter 60 was an attempt to break my writer's block and chapter 61 was an attempt to clean up the mess left in Chapter 60. I hope you like this chapter better. I like Harry/Luna too!
Spiffycool—Thanks. I tried to think of a pet Luna would like and that was as close as I could come to. Kittens are my favorite.
Padfootgurl—Thanks. :-)
Femalefredngeorge—Thanks. I like happy endings too. I'm a sap too, but ssh! don't tell anyone. Hehe.
Hrei-siesn—Thanks
Chappy—Thanks, yeah, I know it was kind of funky. This should be better. That one was rushed because I was just trying to get through it and on to this chapter (plot bunny attack, you know). Thanks.
Lord of Darkness13—Thanks
Hpfanficluvr—Thanks so much for the compliments, Jess. :-)
AthenaKitty—Yes, Harry being deep for once. Of course Dobby gives in to Harry's pleadings; it's what Dobby does. A kitten for Luna because I love cats. No, the boys aren't really jealous. Their girlfriends are.
Dnd4ever—Young love, precious isn't it?
Oxi-Nu—Thanks!
Panuru4u—Talking silverware, yes, unorthodox but I tried to be creative. Yes, yes, fluffiness, but nothing to be done about it except hope for a better chapter this time.
Jbfritz—Thanks.
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CHAPTER 62: The Flaming
Match
The next two weeks passed swiftly and for the most part pleasantly (after Harry being cornered by some older boys who demanded to know why he had to go and do something so sweet for Luna and make them look bad in front of their girlfriends). The third week however, brought problems.
The last Quiditch match of the season was only a week away. Gryffindor vs. Slytherin. The air was tense enough to cut with a knife. Members of the D.A. walked almost always now with one sleeve rolled up (guess which one). Even the latest joining members had phoenixes now and the others had long since had touch-ups and preservation spells done on their arms (all the phoenixes still looked brand new). Gryffindors not in the D.A. (and some Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws as well) began wearing scarlet and gold bands on their foreheads with a small blue stripe and a small yellow stripe. The Slytherins mustered behind their house colors of green and silver, wearing their own headbands. Poor Slytherins. They were fighting against the rest of the school.
Jinxes, hexes, curses, punches, and kicks flew when they thought the teachers weren't looking. People were sent into the hospital wing by the half-dozens eventually, each with a lamer excuse than the one before as to how they'd gotten into their current state. All the medical and counter-curse books were checked out from the library in an attempt to avoid some visits to Madam Pomfrey.
Five days before the match the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws had forbidden anyone on the Gryffindor team to be anywhere outside the Gryffindor common room without an escort of at least a half-dozen trustworthy students. Slytherins had adopted the same rule for their team; they were taking no chances. Things continued to get worse.
One day that week at lunch, Ginny drank her pumpkin juice and her arm went limp with no bones (she spent a very painful night in the hospital wing for that). The Slytherins had put a potion in one of their own drinks and then it was a simple matter of a switching spell. After that particular incident, the team's food was taste-tested (and it wasn't always safe). The HAS (Houses Against Slytherin) retaliated. Several Ravenclaws came up with a clever charm that they used on Malfoy to make him say, "I love Muggles" whenever someone said his name. It took him 2 days to remove the charm.
Younger students as well as those not particularly skilled with curses (or who were particularly skilled with art) made signs and banners and put them up around the school. One of the most popular said, "Chase the snakes back in their holes!" and featured a rearing lion watching a snake disappear into a hole (with just its tail showing). The work was exquisite (Terry's though no one knew it) and often duplicated. Some of the duplicates were charmed to roar when someone walked past. The Slytherins' posters had a snake coiled around a lion's neck and choking him. The lion in the Slytherins' pictures was portrayed as weak and nearly starving.
To avoid questions or anyone following him, Harry had to skip his Legilimency lesson with Luna on Wednesday. He skipped Friday's Occlumency lesson too, but he skipped that so that he could go talk to Luna. Everyone was so caught up in the pre-game excitement that the other Gryffindors in Occlumency skipped it too. He left Gryffindor Tower under his invisibility cloak and met her at 7 in McGonagall's room as they'd arranged.
"It's just crazy, Luna! I can't get a minute to myself. Things are always bad before a match between Gryffindor and Slytherin, but never this bad before."
"Why do you think they that they are this bad this year then?" Luna asked. Whenever Harry had a question that she knew he already had the answer to, she sharpened his reasoning skills by making him figure it out himself.
"Because…because things have already been bad in the last couple of months with the Slytherins and the D.A."
"And why else?"
"And it's all out in the open this year. About Voldemort being back. Thanks to last year, everybody knows. They can't be safe and deny it anymore."
"And…?"
He furrowed his brow in thought. "They're realizing they've got to take sides. That they won't be able to stay safe and keep out of it forever. Their safe time is just about up. They are starting to realize that just because they don't fight or pick a side doesn't mean they won't get caught in the crossfire. So they figure now it's getting time that they have to choose."
"Anything else."
"Not that I can think of."
"Me neither. I can sense your fear though. What are you afraid of?"
"At the moment? I'm afraid that someone will be hurt tomorrow at the match. And that too many innocent people will be hurt before things end, before they really end. More than that even, I'm afraid that there will be no end. Even if I kill Voldemort, I don't think it means it'll be the end. If he dies, if he can die, someone else will take his place. Killing an evil man, doesn't kill Evil. Evil will endure until the end of time. It's part of this world."
"And Good too. As much as Evil is a force of this earth, so is Good. Whenever one man is oppressing another, there is yet another who will stand up and say to him, 'No, that's wrong! You can't do that!' There is still Good in this world, Harry. There is."
He smiled fondly at her. "That's why I need you, Luna. To remind me that not everything on this forsaken planet has gone to rot. To remind me that there's still stuff out there that's worth fighting for, even when we think we'll lose." Hope. Faith. Light. Trust. Innocence. Friends like Ron and Hermione. People like Luna. Those were all worth fighting for, weren't they? Yes, they were. Harry knew they had to be worth it, because if they weren't, nothing was.
"You'd better be going back, Harry. I'm sure your housemates have a good luck celebration planned for you tonight."
"I should walk you back to your house. Has anyone tried to hurt you this week?"
"Not really. Ridiculed as I still am sometimes, people have learned not to push this starry-eyed Ravenclaw too far."
"Alright then. Goodnight, Luna."
"Goodnight, Harry." She kissed him on the cheek. "Good luck tomorrow."
Harry donned his invisibility cloak and went back to Gryffindor, hidgin the cloak in his robes before entering the common room.
"Where having you been?" scolded someone, seizing Harry's wrist.
"We've been looking for you forever."
"We were afraid some nasty Slytherins had gotten to you."
"We were about to send out a search party."
"I went for a walk after dinner," Harry said. "I didn't think anybody would miss me."
"We can't bloody well beat Slytherin tomorrow if we don't have a Seeker, you know."
"Right."
Ron was in the limelight, receiving much attention and good luck for the next day. Both versions of "Weasley is Our King" had been heard throughout the corridors all week.
Hermione was not the sort who liked to be in the center of something like this. She wasn't overly fond of crowds. Harry found her sitting in a comfortable chair on the outskirts of the party.
"Did Luna help calm your mind about tomorrow's match?" she asked.
"Yeah."
Hermione smiled. "She always does."
"She reminded me that there's still stuff worth fighting for."
"I think we all need that reminder sometimes." This week, Hermione had been submitted to all the same precautions as the Gryffindor team (bodyguard/escort and taste-tasters) because everyone knew that if something serious happened to her this week, the other 2/3 of the "dream team" would be useless with grief.
They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments, the kind of silence that wasn't awkward among close friends. "I think I'm going to bed. Tell Ron and Gin and everybody goodnight for me."
"Ginny's already asleep. She said that she wanted to be at her best for the match tomorrow and that she would party after Gryffindor wins. I'm just waiting for the fuss around Ron to die down a little so I can tell him goodnight, then I'm going upstairs too."
"Okay. Goodnight, Herms. Tell Ron that he shouldn't stay down here too late if he wants to be in top form for the match tomorrow."
"I will. Goodnight, Harry."
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Harry wake up with the sun in his eyes. It was going to be a bright day and they had a Quiditch match to win! Harry poked Ron in the stomach. "Up!"
"Nnnng." He groaned and rolled over.
Harry dumped a pitcher of cold water on Ron's head and Ron was suddenly very awake.
"WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?" he yelled, sitting up.
Harry grinned. "Glad to see you're awake. We've got some Slytherins to humiliate on the Quiditch pitch, if you'd forgotten.
Ron's eyes glowed. He'd been waiting for this match all year.
When they got down to the common room, it was as though they were looking at a fire. Nearly everyone was wearing red or gold, very in house spirit. Others carried banners or signs. Harry knew that Luna would be wearing her giant lion's head to the match; she'd told him so.
There was a cheer as Ron and Harry came downstairs. They, Ginny, and the other 4 members of the team (as well as Hermione) were given a guard of honor to escort them down to the Great Hall and the Gryffindor table.
Their food was tested thoroughly prior to their eating (there wasn't actually much left once the tasters were done, but it didn't matter as most of the team didn't have much appetite that morning). The Slytherins were all decked out in green and silver. The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs weren't completely decked out in red and gold, but nowhere among them was any silver or green. More people than ever wore the headbands and every member of the D.A. (except Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione) had their sleeve rolled up.
The teams were escorted to the locker rooms (though there their guards left). They changed into their Quiditch robes and Harry gave a pre-game pep talk.
"Look, we know what to do out there. You can already hear the cheers, but don't be overconfident. The Slytherins are out there and they'll do anything to win, including play dirty. Be careful. We can do this. This is what we've been working for all year. Let's go get 'em!"
The team cheered and walked out onto the field at the same time as the Slytherins.
The noise from the crowd was deafening, absolutely deafening.
Ron nudged Harry, "Dumbledore's out there. Is he refereeing the match instead of Hooch?"
"Maybe it's so the Slytherins can't cheat," muttered Ginny.
"Maybe," Harry agreed. Harry and Malfoy stood beside Dumbledore, looking daggers at one another.
The crowd had gone silent now, waiting for the start of the game.
"I have an announcement to make. There will be no match," Dumbledore's voice boomed.
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Thanks. I hope you review and keep reading! Hee! Did you see that one coming?
The next chapter will go up Sunday at the earliest. I'm going out of town. Realistically, we're looking at later in the week.