Erised's Bane
Author's Note: I think I've let you suffer long enough. I'm really sorry guys, I didn't mean to keep you waiting for this long but I've been doing the whole marching band thing and Sir Doran has been running us ragged! I've only had Wednesdays and Sundays off for the past month and on Wednesdays I have to help my mom at work. So in between that and homework, I've been drowning in responsibility.
But anyway, I have dedicated myself to working on this chapter for you guys, even though it is one in the morning and I probably won't be able to finish it for a few days. So here, lassies and laddies! The great and wonderful Megx has written another glorious chapter! (Yes, I do think that highly of myself :)
The Quidditch Scout
Sun glinted off of Harry's glasses as he glanced out over the field. Ravenclaw was particularly speedy today...they looked like nothing more than streaks of blue across the field. He shook his head and rose higher on his Firebolt to survey the situation.
Ravenclaw in possession...and nearing the goals...and then, out of nowhere, Bole slammed a bludger straight towards the Ravenclaw chaser and in an attempt to dodge the strike, the quaffle was dropped straight to Ginny Weasley, who snatched it up and made a speedy departure back to the opposite side.
"GOAL! GRYFFINDOR SCORES FOR TEN POINTS, BRINGING THE TOTAL FOR THIS GAME TO FORTY RAVENCLAW, FIFTY GRYFFINDOR!" cried a new voice from the stadium speaker. Lee Jordan, who had left Hogwarts the year before, no longer stayed to cheer on Gryffindor...and nobody else. It was now Dean who manned the speaker and, to the amusement of the Gryffindors and nobody else, it appeared the tradition of favoritism continued.
He felt a slight tingling on his back but resisted the urge to turn. No doubt it was that scout watching him. His mind turned over the details as he scanned the field. He might not be going for a position on the British Quidditch team...definitely not...but he had to admit it would feel awfully nice to be accepted. But Ron on the other hand...
Well, it was Ron's dream to do something his brothers hadn't. To be Head Boy and Quidditch Captain...and besides that, to play for the national team, something his brother would have done if it hadn't been for his desire to study dragons in Romania. That was why Harry kept sneaking glances over at his friend--and probably why, despite the fact that Ron was playing well and had given an Oliver-esque speech in the locker room earlier, Harry could steal see the fear firmly written all over his face.
But then again, even if he wasn't that anxious over the scout...Susan was still watching. Harry refused to admit to himself that he kept glancing over at the Hufflepuff side of the field looking for her. He just had a feeling the snitch would pop up over there...that was it. After all, they had only gone out the one time. And spoken to each other every day since whenever they had free time. But still, it was only once.
And Harry knew that he was just kidding himself. He took a peek and saw the girl sitting on the front row glance up and grin--despite himself, he blushed. She wore typical yellow robes, but he could clearly see that on the front of her robes she wore a scarlet ribbon. He turned back around just in time to see Ravenclaw score.
"GRYFFINDOR AND RAVENCLAW ARE NOW TIED!" cried Dean before he also muttered a slightly muffled statement that was followed by the faint sounds of a struggle for the speaker.
Harry ran a hand through his hair in exasperation, still holding on to the other tightly, and scanned the field for a glint of gold. He had to get it...this was his first game back, he didn't want to lose from the start...
As he turned to the right he saw another player in blue hovering over the ground. Cho put her head up and met eyes with him for a brief second before averting her glance back to the field. Harry kept his eyes on her a second longer, wondering what she was thinking, before looking back down.
And they saw it at the same time. The snitch, perhaps an inch or so over the ground. And Cho was definitely closer. But...he was on a Firebolt.
With a sudden movement that made everybody in the crowd begin to cheer loudly, he and Cho started forward for the glinting snitch, Harry well-aware that he was coming closer and closer to a collision with the hard field. He reached out and the tips of his fingers closed on the surface of the winged walnut-sized ball...
And then, just as suddenly, with Cho's fingers. He gulped as he crashed into the ground and lay there, with his broom safe at his side. The crowd went silent for a moment before rising into a slow roar.
He heard faint thumps on the ground as members of both teams landed and began running over, shouting so that he could barely hear them. He and Cho, both uncomfortable, made to stand, but they suddenly heard Ron's voice over the crowd.
"You idiot! Don't move! They'll be able to prove who got to it first but don't...move...a...muscle."
Harry and Cho stilled. A second passed before McGonagall came running. "My word, I've never seen the likes of it." she gasped, clutching her hat to her windswept hair. "A...a true and honest tie like I've never seen it." she said. "Where is Madam Hooch? She should be able to settle...this...Madam Hooch...MADAM HOOCH!"
"I'm right here, Minerva!" said the frazzled witch. Harry, in the rather awkward position of being sprawled on the ground with his hand over that of his former girlfriend, craned his neck so that he could see the action going on around them. "Don't get your bedclothes in a bunch." She snorted. "I do believe I remember hearing how you're supposed to determine...which is first...and which...was last..." she said. Harry heard the flipping of pages in a book and rolled his eyes.
"This is going to take forever." He muttered.
"Tell me about it." Cho replied with a snort. Harry glanced at her and she blushed, turning away.
"So...we haven't talked in a while." Harry said.
"Yeah...guess we haven't." Cho said. An awkward silence followed.
"I'm sorry about last year." They then both said in unison.
"You? What are you sorry for?" Cho said with a frown.
"Well...I guess I might not have understood you very well...I mean, what with all the crying...it was very hard, you know, having seen..." he trailed off.
"Well, I shouldn't have expected you to relive that just for my benefit." Cho said, biting her lip. "I mean, you've been through some pretty bad things. I might have been acting...a little selfish."
"Yeah. Well." Harry shook his head. "It doesn't matter. It's all over, anyhow." He said. "You going out with Michael Corner still?" he asked.
"No...we broke up. Ernie MacMillan asked me out." She said.
"Oh." Harry said, feeling stupider by the minute. He was quiet for a moment as he listened to the still arguing teachers above them. Not surprisingly, he now heard Hermione's and Snape's voice in the fray.
"And you're going out with Susan Stone?" Cho asked.
"Susan Bones." Harry corrected.
"Oh." Cho said. "I talked to her once. She seems...nice." she volunteered.
"How you holding up Harry?" Making the best attempt he could, Harry turned his head to see who was behind him. It was a tall man in bright blue robes. He grinned broadly. "I came out here expecting a show from James Potter's son, but I certainly never expected this." He said. He knelt down and extended a hand towards Harry's free left one. "I'm Luke Young." He said. "Pleased to meet you." Harry shook his hand before the man turned to Cho and extended another. "And you too, Miss Chang."
"You too, sir." She said.
"Are you the recruiter?" Harry asked. "I thought it was somebody else..."
"He left the team. His position...everything." Luke said with a bitter voice. "But anyway, that puts me in charge." He said. "So I get to come up here and meet you fine young people...and I get to see my sister."
"Your sister...Professor Young?" Harry asked.
"That would be her...little Sabrina." He said. "You two played a good game. I especially liked your strategy early on with the Chasers...it's awful when a Seeker doesn't really do anything for the rest of the team. But you sure helped...cleared out those other chasers like they were nothing."
Harry nodded but said nothing...he didn't want either Cho or Luke knowing that had been purely accident. It wasn't his fault, anyway...he had been going after something that had looked like the snitch, but had only been the top of somebody's watch that had fallen onto the ground.
"Ah, what's all the fuss?" said a familiar voice. Relief washed through Harry. Dumbledore had come...surely he could get off the ground soon enough. He was starting to get a cramp, lying there in that position.
"We can't figure out what to do, sir." Said McGonagall. "If we should do a reversal spell...or a possession, to see who rightfully has the snitch...or even if we should reanimate the snitch and ask it itself..."
"We're sure to get an answer now." Said Harry as he tried to tuck his other arm under to get more comfortable.
"Hmm...a simple measuring charm could suffice..." said Dumbledore.
"Thank you professor." Said McGonagall. "I'll just..."
"No, no...ahh, maybe we should let the ball choose..." he said slowly...
"But you have no assurance the snitch would be honest." McGonagall said sternly.
"Do you think Veritaserum would work on an inanimate object?" Dumbledore queried.
Harry let out a sigh of disgust and laid his head down on his arm.
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One hour later, Harry emerged from Dumbledore's office...hand no longer attached either to Cho's or to the snitch. It had finally been decided with a replicate spell...Harry and Cho had been conjured onto their brooms and just as they went for the snitch, Dumbledore slowed the whole thing down to see what had really happened. He had gotten it first...Gryffindor won.
That had taken twenty minutes. Dumbledore hadn't yet given the official announcement of the game because he had thought it best the team seekers be there for it, and the after effects of the slowing down, which had kept him thinking, acting, and speaking at half his normal speed for a while.
The team was waiting there expectantly. "We won guys." He said, jaw still feeling a tad heavy. The team let out a whoop of excitement, Hermione jumping along with the rest of them.
"Good job, Harry." Said McGonagall, who was looking as sternly as she could at the boisterous merry-makers.
"This is great!" Ron said. "It'll be the third year running we've gotten the cup. With this team, the championship is in the bag!"
"Oh, don't be so arrogant Ron." Hermione said sternly. "You did well, but you can't tell the future." She said. "Lord knows certain people try." She mumbled.
"Thanks, Professor McGonagall." Harry said belatedly.
Ron gave him a strange look. "Uhm...wasn't that a tad after the fact?" he said.
"That's just the effect of the Velocitous Hinderus." Hermione said. "He'll be back to normal soon."
Ron looked over at Harry and rolled his eyes. "No...I don't think that's it. He's just naturally that slow on the uptake."
"It's the Velocitous Hinderus Dumbledore put on me." Harry explained, making Ron snort. "Slows me down."
His friends began moving down the hall. "Think he'll eventually start after us?" Hermione asked, looking over her shoulder.
"He better. They're having a party in the common room and I don't want to miss out on the Butterbeer."
"You're an idiot, Ron." Harry said wisely.
It took a while...mostly, a lot of stops and starts, but the three finally made it back to the Gryffindor common room. Finally back to normal, Harry reclined on the sofa and popped open a butterbeer. Ginny, who was sitting next to him, raised her bottle in salute.
"To Harry Potter! Because it just isn't right to suspend a player with a Firebolt forever." She said.
"Here, here." The rest of them replied gravely.
"Here, here." Harry said.
"Still slow." Ron snorted.
"I was doing it for effect." Harry sneered, poking Ron in the stomach with the neck of his bottle.
"Yeah, yeah, I believe that." Ron said.
Harry replied with a sardonic look. He leaned backwards and listened to the party, quite content himself not to join in, when he suddenly felt a sharp tingling on his chest. He ignored it for a moment...when suddenly it occurred that the source of the sharp feelings were the medallion on his chest. "I have to go." He hissed.
"What...why...oh." Hermione said, as she saw that Harry was clutching the neck of his robes. "Say hi to Moony for me." She said as she turned back around.
Harry nodded and stood, telling his friends he was going to the lavatory when they pressed him to join them in a game of poker with Exploding Snap cards.
He slipped through the door and pulled up the chain of his pendant. HARRY, COME IMMEDIATELY TO THE WHOMPING WILLOW. He frowned, but only a moment passed before he woke Lord Hornswaggle and retrieved his Invisibility Cloak.
He made his way slowly down the hall, avoiding the students that were still milling about, and went out on the grounds. Mist was covering the ground, rolling like the sea. He saw a faint figure standing beside the Willow and squinted. It was Remus.
He walked slowly towards him, freezing when Remus turned quickly and aimed his wand directly at his heart, making his heart jump out of his chest.
"It's me!" Harry said, throwing down the cloak so that his head was revealed. Remus looked at him for a long moment and then sighed. "Yes, of course. I'm on guard tonight. Go on in, Harry. I've already frozen it for you." He said.
"Why are we meeting here?" Harry asked.
"To be closer to...the members." Remus said. "I'm staying here as well...for your protection." Remus added needlessly. Harry saw that his face had gone even grayer than it had been. And then he realized...Remus must have been in the Shrieking Shack for a long time, already.
And it was doing the same thing to him as it had Sirius in his ancestral home...the place of his greatest sorrow.
He shook the thought from his head and nodded before slipping in through the hole at the base of the trunk, remembering vaguely that it had been a lot roomier three years before, and then reminding himself that three years earlier he had been thirteen, and not sixteen. He clambered through the tunnel until emerging into the Shrieking Shack, which definitely looked less shabby than it had three years before.
"Amazing what a few Repair charms...some color charms...can do." Remus said with a sigh.
"That you, Lupin?" Grunted a voice from upstairs. Harry looked up the stairs just as the door banged open, revealing Moody in his horrific glory. "Aye, and you've got the boy with you. How's it going, Potter?" he said.
"Fine, Moody." Harry said. "You're staying here, too?"
"Yeah...and Tonks and Lupin here. Quite the threesome, ain't we?" he said with a laugh. By the look on Remus's face, Harry thought it quite obvious only Moody found it amusing.
"Where is Tonks?" Remus asked after a moment.
"Oh, she went out to Hogsmeade to pick up a few things...preferably some Firewhisky." He said with an added wink for Harry.
"Will she be back soon? Dumbledore should be here in a moment to talk to us..."
"I'm here now, and perfect timing I must say."
Everybody spun around as Dumbledore stepped over the hearth. "What...?" Remus began, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him before he could continue.
"Open connection to my fireplace. Closed it off every other way, however." He said seriously. "Ah Harry, good to see you've gotten here quickly. I trust you had a hard time getting away from your party?"
Harry, unable to help himself, grinned. "It was, sir, but I think the other Gryffindors had enough Butterbeer handy to compensate for me."
Dumbledore laughed heartily. "Good spirit, Harry, glad to see it." he complimented.
"What party?" Remus asked with a slight frown.
"Quidditch. We won...but just barely." Harry said.
"Good to hear it." Remus said. "Not as if I'm trying to be biased...but seeing as we're all Gryffindors here..."
"I would like to remind you that I am headmaster of the school...but for the time being I will turn a deaf ear to your sentiments." Dumbledore said.
Everybody was laughing when Tonks finally entered. "Ah, the gangs all here." She said, setting a large bag down. She had entered from somewhere upstairs...it was explained to Harry that there was a secret door on the second floor, but it was only accessible from outside...and only if one knew the secret charm to convince it to open for you.
"And now that everybody has arrived," Dumbledore stated, "I think I should tell you why I've gathered this little group together. We all know, of course, the things that Voldemort has been doing as of late...little things, mostly, but little things can turn into big things..."
"And big things can get the boy-who-lived killed quicker than that." Said Moody with a snap of the fingers.
"Appropriately...if a little intensely...put, Alastor." Dumbledore said serenely. "But the thing is...I think it would be best if Harry here had somebody outside the school he could go to. Somebody staying right here in the Shrieking Shack. This way...well, you understand."
"This way when Voldemort starts putting images of my dead relatives in my head I have somewhere I can go and...let off steam. After all...isn't that what the Shrieking Shack is for?" Harry said, turning a sly look at Remus.
Dumbledore sighed. "Yes, yes. You are perceptive as always. But it is also a sort of outside eye...seeing things that might somehow be obstructed by our castle walls."
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All in all, it was a trying evening for Harry, but he was nonetheless pleased to see one final face before heading off to bed. "Ah, I came to see you Harry, but Ron said you'd had to go somewhere in a hurry..." Susan slid away from the wall as Harry neared.
"Oh, hi." He said. "What are you doing up this late?"
"I didn't get to see you after the game. I was just wondering if you were all right."
"Oh." Harry blushed. "I'm fine."
"I'm really glad to hear Gryffindor won. Well not that glad." She winked. "That means I'll have to embarrass my boyfriend by having my house team kick his arse."
Harry grinned before the expression faltered. "B-boyfriend?" he stuttered, turning red at his tongue's inconvenient time to stop working."
Susan frowned. "Well...I was thinking maybe...I mean, if you're not sure..."
"No, I think I'd like that." He said. "I've never been a boyfriend before. I mean, I've never had a girlfriend, just a girl friend. I mean, Hermione and all...she's just a friend of course, and..."
"Shut up, Harry." Said Susan, who was caught between annoyance and amusement. "I know what you mean. And for the record, I've never had a boyfriend either."
Harry was surprised at this statement, which sent an odd sort of dancing up through his stomach and into his chest. He smiled at Susan for a moment, before something took over him and he nervously leaned in and kissed her as Cho has kissed him, except suddenly it was ten times better than it had been before, and he forgot all about the fact that any other girl in the world other than Susan existed.
Both were lazily smiling when they pulled away. "I...guess I'd better go now Harry." She said breathlessly before hurrying away.
And Harry knew that the little golden stars dancing around Susan's head weren't just a figment. Just as he knew the little stars were dancing around him as well.
As he passed into his room Lord Hornswaggle chuckled his usual grunt. "Kids. Never understand just how magical first love is."
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Tee-hee...I think I've made you wait long enough for this chapter. But don't you think it was sufficiently cute? It ended very cute indeed. I love it all...so adorable, you know? I'm in a lovey-dovey mood though...*giggles*.