Chapter Five: Snitching

The Quidditch season had begun, and the first match of the season would be between Slytherin and Gryffindor. It would be an interesting match for Daphne. Of course, she was wearing the Slytherin colors, but she really wouldn't mind if Gryffindor won, either. In fact, she was pretty sure that she was supporting them, even though she wouldn't be able to openly show it.

She was a bit late getting to the pitch, and when she arrived she saw that people weren't sitting according to team. Rather, everyone had grabbed whatever seats they could get. That was good, because it allowed her to grab an open seat next to Hermione and Ron.

"It's too bad," Ron said by way of greeting. "We've only just become friends, and now we're already enemies again."

"Oh, relax. I won't be cheering either way," Daphne said. "I'm here more because I want to see Harry flying than that I really care about Quidditch."

"That's even worse!" Ron said, aghast.

"Well, your scowl and shocked expression will surely make the other Slytherins think I'm taunting you, or something, so keep it up," Daphne said.

She turned to Hermione. "How's Harry?" she asked.

"Nervous, but I think he'll be fine," Hermione said. "Though he's probably still a bit worried about what happened with Snape…"

"He had a run-in with Snape?" Daphne asked.

"It…" Hermione exchanged a glance with Ron, who shrugged and nodded. "We think it has something to do with the trapdoor beneath the dog. If you've seen…?"

"I saw it," Daphne confirmed. She'd all but forgotten about it over the past weeks, but now her curiosity was piqued once again.

"Well, Harry says he saw Snape sneaking off to the forbidden corridor when that troll was attacking, and last night when he went to get a book back from him, he saw that Snape's leg had been injured, so he thinks Snape tried to get past the dog."

"Snape is trying to steal something from within the school?" Daphne said incredulously. She wouldn't necessarily put it past Snape to steal something, of course, but to do it in such an amateurish way…

"He's evil, who knows what he's thinking?" Ron said.

Daphne wanted to laugh, but she saw that Ron was serious. "He's a bully and a jerk," she said, "But I don't know about evil."

Hermione turned to Ron with a small smirk. "See? I'm not the only one who thinks it's bunk," she said.

"Well, Daphne's a Slytherin, isn't she?"

"Who hates bullies," Daphne reminded him again.

Before they could continue their conversation, however, the teams came out onto pitch, ready for their first match. They kicked off from the ground, and the game was underway. Daphne had never attended a Quidditch match before, though her mother had attempted on several occasions to get her interested in it.

She had to admit that it was easy to get caught up in the excitement of Lee Jordan's somewhat biased commentary and the shouts and groans of the crowd around her, while peering at the colorful specks that were the players through binoculars. Even so, she knew she vastly preferred being on the ground to being in the air. She wasn't scared of heights, but she definitely didn't like to fly.

Gryffindor had just scored the first points of the match when someone absolutely massive arrived.

"Budge up there, move along," the huge man, whom Daphne now recognized as Hagrid the groundskeeper, said as he attempted to join her, Hermione, and Ron on the seats.

She squeezed together with the others to give Hagrid some space.

"Bin watchin' from me hut," Hagrid said. "But it isn't the same as bein' in the crowd."

He looked at Daphne. "I don't think we've met, Miss. Rubeus Hagrid," he said, extending a hand towards with some difficulty on the cramped seats.

"Daphne Greengrass," she said, shaking Hagrid's hand and feeling like he could've tossed her out onto the pitch with ease if he'd wanted to.

"Yer also a friend of Harry's, then, that yer sittin' with this lot?" Hagrid asked, indicating Hermione and Ron.

"Yep. We're in Potions together," Daphne said. She figured she probably shouldn't mention the extracurricular adventures they'd been on.

Hagrid nodded appreciatively. "Good to see yer not lettin' House prejudices get to yeh," he said. "Yer folks were like that, too. Good people, them."

"You know my parents?" Daphne asked. She knew shouldn't have been surprised — Hagrid had worked at Hogwarts for years and years, after all. But for some reason, she'd never really thought about it.

Hagrid nodded. "Sure do. Some o' the nicest Slytherins I ever met."

Loud gasps and roars went through the audience, and Daphne quickly looked up to see what was happening in the game. She saw a speck in red — Harry, presumably — diving down at breakneck speed, followed closely behind by Slytherin's Seeker, Terence Higgs, in green. Harry was focused on something ahead of him, so he couldn't see a second green streak barreling towards him from the side.

Daphne winced when Marcus Flint slammed into Harry and knocked him off course, and the Gryffindors in the stands roared with rage. She wasn't far from joining them. Cheating in a school sport was pathetic.

Another reason why everyone hates Slytherins, she thought angrily.

She watched Gryffindor take the penalty shot and felt a wave of satisfaction when the Gryffindor Chaser scored.

She tried to spot Harry, who'd flown back up above the other players again after the foul, and saw that he was flying a bit erratically. She grabbed her binoculars and tried to get a closer look. Harry seemed to be fighting against his own broom, which bucked as if it were trying to throw him off. She shuddered. Yet another reason not to get on a broom unless she really had to. Still, what could be causing that weird behavior?

"Dunno what Harry thinks he's doing," Hagrid, who'd also spotted Harry's troubles, said. "If I didn' know better, I'd say he'd lost control of his broom…but he can't have…"

Daphne kept her eyes focused on Harry, whose broom had now begun to roll over in an attempt to throw its rider off, and she gasped when a particularly fierce jerk flung him off, leaving him dangling by only one hand. Wasn't anyone going to help him?!

"Did something happen to it when Flint blocked it?" Finnigan asked from a row in front of them.

"Can't have," Hagrid replied. "Can't nothing interfere with a broomstick except powerful Dark magic — no kid could do that to a Nimbus Two Thousand."

As soon as Hagrid said that, Hermione grabbed his binoculars from him and started scanning the crowd.

Realizing what she was looking for, Daphne quickly began to do the same thing. She spotted Snape the same moment Hermione did, gazing intently at Harry and mumbling continuously under his breath.

"He's jinxing the broom," Hermione whispered urgently.

"What should we do?" Ron asked.

"Leave it to me."

Without another word, Hermione took off.

Daphne kept switching her gaze between Snape and Harry, trying with all her might to rationalize what she was seeing. Everything indicated that Snape seemed to be trying to jinx Harry's broom, but that just didn't make any sense. She could understand a bullying teacher being allowed to keep his job without repercussion. It was sad, but she knew the way the world worked well enough from all her lessons in Noble House politics back home. But for a teacher to try and outright kill a student in plain view of everyone? That made absolutely no sense at all, especially since the apparent would-be killer was the Potions master of the school and thus in a very good position to dispose of someone more discreetly.

She saw Hermione pushing and shoving her way through the crowd, forcefully pushing over Professor Quirrell, who fell headfirst down into a lower row.

Daphne winced. Maybe her speech about rule breaking for the greater good had worked a bit too well on Hermione.

Hermione reached Snape, pulled out her wand, and muttered a spell, causing bright blue flames to shoot from her wand onto Snape's robes.

Daphne waited with bated breath until Snape would notice that he was on fire, and the second he yelped in surprise, she swung her binoculars up to Harry, to see if it had worked.

By the looks of it, it had, because Harry, helped by his Weasley teammates, had climbed back onto his broom. While she was happy and relieved that Harry was okay, she did have to reluctantly admit this was another blow against Snape. What could have possessed him to act in such an obvious manner?

Harry, meanwhile, had now begun a steep dive, and for a moment Daphne thought that his broom was acting up again — but then she realized that this dive was real, and entirely under Harry's control.

Suddenly, he clapped his hand over his mouth like he was about to puke, and he threw himself off his broom onto the pitch, coughing something small and gold into his hand.

Daphne could barely hear him shouting "I've got the Snitch!" at the distance she was at…and then the entire stadium erupted in cheers from the Gryffindors and boos from the Slytherins, minus Daphne, who had to put her hands over her mouth to hide her grin.

"It was Snape," Ron said. He, Daphne, Hermione, and Harry had been invited over for tea after the match had ended, and were now seated on the couch.

Daphne was warily eyeing the massive boarhound next to Hagrid's chair. She wasn't usually afraid of dogs — unless they had three heads, anyway — but this one was very, very big.

"Hermione, Daphne and I saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn't take his eyes off you."

"Rubbish," Hagrid said.

He'd been looking at Harry the entire time, even without binoculars, and hadn't caught the quick conversation between Hermione and Ron right next to him.

"Why would Snape do somethin' like that?"

Harry, Hermione, and Ron exchanged a glance, and then Harry said, "I found out something about him. He tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it's guarding."

Hagrid dropped the teapot. "How do you know about Fluffy?" he asked.

"Fluffy?"

"Yeah — he's mine — bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year — I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the–"

"Yes?" Harry said eagerly.

"Now, don't ask me anymore," Hagrid said gruffly. "That's top secret, that is."

"But Snape's trying to steal it."

"Rubbish," Hagrid said again. "Snape's a Hogwarts teacher. He'd do nothin' of the sort."

"So why did he just try and kill Harry?" Hermione asked. "I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them! You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking at all, I saw him!"

Daphne could see that Hagrid was about to protest, so she said, "Look, I don't know about Snape trying to kill Harry, but Hagrid, he really does have it in for Harry. He doesn't like Gryffindors in general, but with Harry it's almost like some sort of blood feud. That's how we became friends in the first place; I thought he was going too far with his bullying, so I stepped in."

To her surprise, Hagrid actually laughed at that. "Yeh sound just like Harry's Mum, yeh do," he said.

"I do?"

"She does?"

Daphne and Harry exchanged a look after speaking up at the same time and burst out laughing, along with Hermione and Ron.

Hagrid nodded. "She couldn't stand bullies, that Lily Evans. Always telling 'em off, and ain't none of 'em dared to cross her. Well, except yer Dad, that is, but she and him didn't really get along at first."

Harry's expression darkened. "My Dad was a bully?" he asked.

Daphne could feel the temperature in the small cabin drop, and Hagrid clearly picked up on it.

"He and that friend of his, Black, were a bit like yer brothers, Ron. Troublemakers, but everyone loved 'em. Except they sometimes…let it get to their heads a bit."

"So they bullied people?" Harry said through a clenched jaw.

"Well, yer Mum didn't usually let 'em," Hagrid said uncomfortably. "What with her being good friends with Snape, an' all."

"MY MUM WAS FRIENDS WITH SNAPE?!" Harry looked like his world was collapsing.

"Yeah, before they came to school, even," Hagrid said.

"But if my Dad was a bully and Mum hated bullies…how did they ever get together?" Harry asked.

"Yer Dad grew up," Hagrid said simply.

"But…before that…he bullied Snape?" Hermione asked timidly.

"James Potter was popular an' Snape wasn't."

"That doesn't make it okay to bully someone," Harry said stubbornly.

"No, it doesn't," Hagrid agreed. "But Harry, yeh gotta believe me that yer Dad was a good man."

Harry shook his head. "It's not that simple," he said, putting his face in his hands.

Then he looked up again. "Is that why Snape hates me? Because I look just like my Dad? That's what everyone always tells me, anyway."

"If Harry's Mum hated bullies, why did she allow Snape to do it?" Daphne asked before Hagrid could answer Harry's question.

"She didn't. She didn't play favorites with anyone. She and Snape had some big rows over him and his friends, just like she had big rows with James and Black," Hagrid said. "And somewhere at the end of their fifth year or somethin' they stopped bein' friends at all. She and yer Dad got together late the next year."

"Had he stopped bullying people by then?" Harry asked stonily.

"Harry, what yer Dad did…"

"Isn't right," Harry finished firmly. "There's no excuse to bully people."

"Well, c'mon mate, we're talking about Snape here," Ron said with a grin, but when he saw Harry's expression his grin quickly faded.

"You don't get it, Ron. I've been bullied for my entire life, by my uncle, my aunt, and my cousin, and all of their friends and relatives. Before I came to Hogwarts, that was all I knew. I know how it feels to be powerless to stop them while everyone around you just laughs. I can't wish that on anyone, not even Snape."

He groaned. "Do you know how sick it makes me feel that in a weird way, I understand why he hates me so much?"

"For Merlin's sake, mate, he just tried to off you," Ron said disbelievingly.

Daphne gave him a look. Ron had probably grown up pretty sheltered, if he wasn't able to understand why Harry took this so seriously.

"I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong about Snape," Hagrid said. "I get he's not the nicest teacher out there, but there's no way he'd try an' kill a student. And for yer own sakes, stop worryin' about that dog and what it's guardin', because that's somethin' between Professor Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel–"

He quickly stopped talking when he realized what he said, but from the looks that went around his cabin, he knew it was already too late.

"Are you okay?" Daphne asked when they were walking back to the castle.

Harry shrugged. "It's a bit of a nasty shock to find out that my Dad turned out to have been a bully, and that my Mum was friends with a man who apparently wants me dead."

He shook his head. "I don't know what I was expecting to happen today, but this wasn't it."

"Well," Hermione said uneasily. "At least we have something new to go on, now. I know I've seen the name Nicolas Flamel somewhere; I just can't recall where it was. Do you know him?" she added, with a look at Daphne.

Daphne shrugged. "Not off the top of my head. Maybe my parents do, though. If he's someone important, they probably do. I could write them about it, if you want, but I'm not too sure we should be advertising the fact that we know he's involved with…something…at Hogwarts," she said.

"Better not," Harry said. "If Snape somehow finds out what we know… Better to keep this to ourselves."

"Well, when you want something done right, you have to do it yourself," Daphne said.

Yeah, this is where I'm beginning to change things up a bit. In canon, of course, Harry doesn't learn about these things until OOTP and DH, but I wanted to move it forward. In all honesty, I think the transition at the end of that scene is a bit clunky, but eh, it does its job.