November came, and with it the Quidditch season. Harry's exercise regimen conflicted with practice times or he'd have tried out, but as it was he'd be content with watching the games. He did need to root for the Gryffindor team after all: Malfoy had bought his way onto the Slytherin team with a set of Nimbus Two-Thousand-and-Ones, and Harry felt he could do with a good humbling. He had tried to get Hagrid in trouble last year, to say nothing of the way he spoke about muggleborns all the time.
The match began and Harry immediately picked out the Golden Snitch. He wished that he could communicate that to the Gryffindor seeker, but there was just no way to do so without cheating.
He'd have liked to keep track of it as a challenge, but his senses – trained from years on Monster Island – detected danger, and he instinctively dodged.
An iron ball – the Bludger, Harry remembered – smashed through the bleachers where he'd been sitting just a moment ago.
The audience around him panicked and started moving away from him. Bludgers weren't supposed to be able to enter the stands after all.
Harry looked into the hole leading to the scaffolding that held up the stands.
Malfoy – apparently the Slytherin Seeker now – stopped playing the sport to mock Harry.
"What's wrong Potter, never seen a hole on that savage island?"
Harry ignored him to dodge the Bludger that came zooming out of the darkness.
It crashed into Malfoy's gut and nearly knocked him off his broom. Harry didn't care for the little bigot, but what if that had been someone who mattered, like Hermione or Neville, or an innocent bystander?
As the Slytherin team called a time-out to make sure Malfoy could stay on his broom, Harry made an impulsive decision. The only way to avoid casualties was to go where there was no one around to get hurt. He dove into the scaffolding below.
It was dim, but not overly so. Harry could see just fine – he'd navigated darker parts of the jungles of his island home – but it was all sharp angles rather than smooth transitions like the trees he was used to. He heard the telltale whooshing sound and jumped to the next "branch." There was probably another word for what he was climbing, but he was thinking of them as artificial branches for now.
He couldn't outpace the Bludger, but Harry noticed that when it missed him it stopped to launch itself back towards him. That gave him a moment to decide his move between attacks. Harry heard it coming at him again and dropped down, catching himself on the next layer of scaffolding. If he could get to the ground he could dodge it indefinitely. The problem was that Quidditch was played extremely high up… he had a long way to go.
Harry leapt sideways and dropped down. The Bludger got closer that time because his planning had made him mistime the jump. It wouldn't happen again. He dropped down and leapt backwards, allowing the bludger to crash behind him. It occurred to Harry that he needed to keep it from destroying the entire scaffolding or the stands might collapse with people still up there. He needed to gamble…
Allowing it to break one more wooden beam, Harry climbed up so he was standing atop of another. This would be riskier, but cause less damage if it worked.
The iron ball rushed at him again and Harry quickly pressed himself to one side, nearly losing his balance, but stabilizing in time to leap down to the next level before the Bludger could launch at him. He did this again, and again, and again until he lost count and finally arrived on the ground floor.
He stepped out of the decorative stand cover onto the Quidditch pitch. He took a moment to scan his surroundings. Apparently the game was still on even down a Bludger.
A buzzing by his ear caught his attention and Harry looked over to see the Snitch fluttering by his head.
"MOVE POTTER!" cried a voice Harry didn't know.
Both the Gryffindor seeker (a sixth-year Harry didn't know) and Malfoy had seen the Snitch and were racing towards him. Harry dove out of the way–
–Directly into the path of the rogue Bludger!
There was a sickening crunch as Harry felt his arm snap, but Harry did see a swell consolation prize before he passed out: as he did his best to use his other arm to deflect the Bludger to avoid hurting him more, he inadvertently sent it at Malfoy, destroying his precious Nimbus 2001 and his hopes of catching the Snitch.
Harry woke quickly as he heard a lot of shouting.
"He interfered, that shouldn't count!"
"The Bludger left the game and we continued. Then it came back. If anything, that's the only part of the game that counted!"
Harry almost grinned despite the pain. Of course the Slytherins were complaining now that they'd lost. Then he heard a voice that chilled his broken bones.
"Move aside," Lockhart yelled, "out of the way, I'm here to save the day!"
"Oh no, not you!"
"He's delirious from the pain! I'll fix him up in a jiffy!"
And then the nominal professor tap Harry's arm with his wand. The pain proceeded to vanish, and then Harry's arm sagged at an odd angle.
"Whoops, got the angle wrong," the professor shrugged.
Harry flopped his arm around, momentarily stunned by what had happened.
"You idiot! I have no arm bones now!"
Harry started huffing and puffing flames, the arrival of Madam Hooch – who'd only just finished settling the Quidditch teams' dispute in Gryffindor's favor – prevented him from doing anything rash as she ushered everyone away and sent Harry off to the hospital wing.
Madam Pomfrey was just as upset as Harry, but she was also upset at Harry.
"You should've come straight to me! I can heal broken bones in a snap, but regrowing them will take all night!"
She threw some pajamas at him and with nothing better to do, Harry struggled into them, angling his rubbery arm down a sleeve first and then putting everything else on.
When he finished, Madam Pomfrey came back with a jar labeled "Skele-Grow" and told him to open up. When he did, she stuffed a spoonful of foul tasting powder into his mouth and told him to try to sleep, and that with any luck he'd be out through the worst of it.
Harry felt the first twinges of sensation in his arm, but he'd felt worse during his training regimen, so he went to sleep easily.
Once more, he awoke to the sound of someone creeping about nearby. Harry sat up, snarling and found himself staring at a pair of large eyes that could only belong to Dobby.
"Harry Potter broke his promise!" the house elf hissed.
"First, I had my fingers crossed, and second, how would you know if you weren't spying on me?"
Dobby first looked confused, and then like he wanted to say something, only to start bashing his head against the bedside.
"Stop that!" Harry snarled, "Do you want to wake the entire hospital wing?"
"Dobby must not say bad things about Dobby's master!"
"Oh, so your master said something bad about me? Maybe about me sending a Bludger at him? Or perhaps his son?"
Dobby's eyes appeared to grow wider.
"How did Harry Potter know?" he asked in awe.
Smirking, Harry replied, "You just told me."
Dobby hit his head against the bedframe even harder this time.
"I'm guessing that was your bludger. Were you ordered to kill me?"
Dobby gasped in what looked like genuine horror. "Dobby is here on to save Harry Potter, not kill… only maim or seriously injure."
Harry suddenly remembered what the house elf had said those months ago. His eyes narrowed, "You know who's behind the attacks, don't you?"
Dobby looked nervous and nodded.
"And I'm betting your master told you not to tell anyone, right?"
Dobby nodded again, seeming encouraging.
"Think of his exact words. Did he say you could not tell anyone, or that you could not say anything?"
Dobby smiled, but before he could act on this newfound knowledge he heard something and disappeared with a soft popping sound. Harry immediately lay flat on his back pretending to sleep. He kept his eyes slightly open and saw Pomfrey, McGonagall, and Dumbledore wheeling in another bed.
Harry didn't even need to hear them say the name; he knew that camera anywhere by now. Colin Creevy had been petrified.
"Do you think he may have captured a picture of his attacker?"
Without a word the headmaster pried the camera from the junior paparazzo's hands and opened it to extract the film, only to be met with a loud hissing sound and a cloud of acrid smoke. Any film had been utterly destroyed by whatever had petrified Colin.
There were some hushed whispers that Harry couldn't quite hear, only catching Dumbledore saying, "I fear that the Chamber of Secrets truly has been opened again…"
Notes: I'm back! Did you miss me? Because I missed you. I know a lot of you must be wondering where the hell I've been. The short answer is hell. The long answer is a soul draining job that I am now quitting in pursuit of a better one. But that's enough about me.
I apologize for the low quality of this chapter, especially after such a long wait, but between my job and writers' block, this chapter gave me enormous headaches and I just want to be done with it. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good that the next chapter will be much, much better.
I'd also like to direct you all to my Tumblr, (Gojirahkiin dot blah blah you know how to use the Internet, right?) because I can't beg for money here but I can over there.