Over a year since I last posted and I finally got this chapter done! I swear some of these scenes have been rewritten eight time.
Since I was already so horrifically late, I decided to take the time to review the entire story with some editing software I picked up recently, and have gone through fixing various things throughout the story. There have been no major changes to the plot, and the only minor change of note is that I switched a few scenes where Harry kept his wand under his pillow to him keeping it on his bedside table instead.
Harry stared up at the small patch of ceiling enclosed by the heavy red curtains of his four-poster bed and wondered when the sun had risen. It felt like he'd collapsed face-first onto his duvet only seconds ago, but now there was a wedge of sunlight creeping across the plaster ceiling.
"Are you awake now?" Basil asked, her tongue tickling his jaw as she raised her head to peer into his face.
Harry groaned and pressed an arm over his eyes, determined not to leave his bed for anything short of the tower burning down around his ears. "Two more hours."
"Will the angry man give you two more hours?"
"Who?" he asked blearily. He'd known far too many angry men over his life to pick one out of the crowd, and he had no desire to focus on such an odious topic when his mind was still drifting pleasantly at the edge of sleep.
"The angry man," she repeated. "The one who teaches you how to make that funny-smelling water."
Harry's spirits sank faster than a shooting star as he realised who she meant. It was Friday, and unless Professor Snape had grown a heart sometime this past week and cancelled his class, he had Potions at ten.
"Choke on a rat!" he growled as he reached under his pillow for his wand.
Basil huffed in indignation and lashed his stomach with her tail. "Do not be cross with me! I did not plan your course schedule!"
Harry's hand came back empty. He bolted upright, his heart lodged in his throat. Basil fell backwards with a startled hiss, landing upside down on his blankets. "What is it now?" she complained as she righted herself.
Harry tossed his pillow aside and began tearing through his bedding. "I've lost my—" He'd wedged his hand in the crack between the mattress and the headboard when he paused, bewildered. What was he doing? He never kept his wand under his pillow. It should be on his bedside table, like always. He sat back and tugged on the bed curtains, parting them enough to see the pale smudge of his wand lying next to his glasses. The wood gleamed like a mirror shard in the morning sunlight, stinging his eyes until they watered. He dropped his hands into his lap, letting the curtain swing closed, and absentmindedly stroked Basil's head.
What in the world had come over him? He'd been so certain…
"You are very strange this morning," Basil remarked unhappily.
He offered her a weak smile. "Sorry. I'm not mad at you; I'm just wishing it were Saturday."
It took a monumental force of will to push the curtains aside and swing his legs off the side of the bed. He shoved his glasses onto his nose, snagged his wand, and cast a quick Tempus. It was just past nine. If he hurried, he'd have time to stop by the Great Hall before class.
Pain lanced up his left leg as soon as he hobbled to his feet. He took a moment to centre himself before he stripped off the thin medical gown and trousers he'd worn out of the hospital wing the night before and tossed them onto the foot of his bed for the house-elves to collect.
It took him five minutes to unwrap the thick gauze bandages covering his hands, hampered as he was by the inability to grip the small metal hook closures binding them at his wrists. When he'd finally sloughed them off, he was surprised to find nothing overtly wrong, apart from the nails of his fingers having turned a deep black colour, as though he'd dipped them in tar. From the amount of bandages, he'd expected a laceration, or perhaps a broken bone, but the skin of his hands was unmarred. In fact, the only visible injuries he could find on his body were a series of long, faded scratch marks on his arms. Even his left ankle, which throbbed every time he shifted his weight onto it, bore no visible bruising or swelling.
These were not the injuries he expected to see on someone who'd found themselves on the wrong end of a troll's club. Nor were they likely to have been caused by the deathly cold veil-fire that had erupted around him before he'd lost consciousness. It looked more like he'd been dragged through a rosebush or mauled by a small, ferocious wild animal.
Basil lapped at his skin, but could not pick up any scent that would explain his injuries, and as she hadn't witnessed the troll attack herself, Harry pushed his curiosity aside and resumed his preparations for the day.
As he was pulling on a fresh set of robes, a high-pitched wail split the silence of the dorm.
Harry dropped his socks in fright and spun to face the rest of the room. The door and window were both closed, and the battered kettle Neville used to make tea on the weekends was nowhere near the hob of the old cast-iron stove that heated their dorm. Across from him, Dean's bed was empty, the curtains back and the duvet in a crumpled heap.
"Neville?" Harry called, turning to the only place he hadn't checked. "Is that you?" The curtains around his friend's bed rippled violently as a flailing arm struck them.
"No!" Neville whimpered. "Stop!"
Concerned, Harry hobbled over and pulled back the curtains enough to see Neville clearly. The boy was tangled in his sheets, his brow damp with sweat, and his eyes flickered beneath their lids as he struggled against an invisible enemy.
"Is the toad-boy in danger?" Basil asked, peeking out from beneath Harry's duvet. "He sounds like a dying mouse."
"No, he's just having a bad dream."
Harry leaned forward, intending to shake Neville awake, when the boy's frightened murmuring swelled into a scream of terror so acute it raised goosebumps up and down Harry's arms.
"No– Harry!" Neville shrieked. "Don't do it! Harry!" He shot up, his eyes flying open and skittering to where Harry's body was silhouetted against the window.
"Careful!" Harry warned as Neville yelped in fear and scrambled away— only to crash into the headboard of his bed and collapse in a heap, groaning pitifully as he rocked back and forth, clutching his head.
"Are you okay?" Harry asked. "You were having a nightmare."
Neville peered up at him, his eyes hazy and wet from pain. "They're green," he moaned.
"Huh?" Harry wondered if the blow to his head had knocked Neville silly. "What are green?"
"Your eyes."
"Of course they're green. What colour did you think they were?"
Neville whimpered and buried his head deeper into his arms. "It's good they're green. For a moment, I thought they were burning." His voice dropped into a murmur as he added, almost to himself, "It's scary when they're burning."
Harry was flummoxed. While he agreed that having his eyes lit on fire would be terrifying, he had no idea what had prompted Neville's confused rambling, and he eventually wrote it off as being part of his friend's dream. He shook his head and busied himself drawing the curtains around Neville's bed open and tying them off at the posts.
"Did I do something when my eyes were burning?" he asked, trying to tease some sense out of Neville's nightmare before it evaporated in the morning light.
Neville blinked rapidly as a shaft of sunlight fell across his face. He slumped, the tension flowing out of his body. "You…" He trailed off, a puzzled frown tugging at his lips.
"I…" Harry prompted, as he returned to his side of the room to fish his Potions text out of the pile of books on his trunk. He tossed it onto his bed and reached down for his bag.
"Are you feeling better today?" Neville asked suddenly.
Harry looked up in surprise. "Uh… yeah. I guess so."
"That's good. We were worried about you yesterday, you know?" Neville turned away and reached for his clothes. "When you ran into the middle of the hall, I thought the troll was going to hit you. It was scary," he admitted quietly.
"Is that what you were dreaming about?"
"Mm," Neville hummed in agreement as he pulled on a pair of thick woollen socks, reminding Harry that his own socks lay abandoned on the floor.
"You never told me what happened to the troll," he remarked as he slipped on his boots. "Did it burn to death in the end, or did the ghosts manage to subdue it?"
Neville jolted, his back going rigid. "Don't you remember?"
"No. Should I?"
Neville was silent, as though at a loss for how to proceed, and a cold weight settled in the pit of Harry's stomach. Neville had been the first to answer him the night before when he'd asked about the troll, so why was he suddenly hesitant to speak? Did something change in the last six hours?
When Neville finally turned to face him, his smile was strained and his eyes trembled as they met Harry's expectant gaze. "The troll died in the backlash of whatever you did at the ritual bowl. One moment it was alive and then flash" — he threw his arms out, miming an explosion — "it toppled over dead."
He's lying.
Harry's breath caught in his throat as the conviction seized hold of him. He couldn't explain how or why, but the longer he looked into Neville's eyes, the more certain he grew that Neville was lying about how the troll died.
But why? What could Neville gain from hiding the truth? There had been dozens of students at the Samhain ritual, any of whom could contradict him. Attempting to hide the truth was an exercise in futility, extending Harry's ignorance of the situation by an hour or two at most. So why even attempt it?
Neville hardly seemed capable of malice, especially considering everything he'd given up to repair their friendship. Besides, there was no guarantee the other Gryffindors would take him back, so turning against Harry now would only lead to further ostracisation.
The only plausible explanation Harry could come up with was that Neville was trying to protect him from something. Some truth so horrific it had left him twisting and turning in the throes of a nightmare.
"Are you sure?" he pressed. "You haven't left anything out?"
"N-no. That's really all that happened."
Harry rolled back the sleeves of his robes and held out his arms. "Then, do you know how I got these scratches?"
The blood drained from Neville's face and his skin gained a sickly green cast, as though he was about to be ill. He opened his mouth, hesitated, then closed it again and looked down at his fingers, which were curled together in his lap like the legs of a dead spider. His distress was palpable in the still air of the dorm, rolling from him like an acrid smog.
Harry relented, too unnerved to press him further. "Never mind. It's not important."
As Neville slowly resumed packing his school supplies, Harry sat down beside his bag, lost in thought.
Neville had lied about how the troll died, which meant it hadn't conveniently toppled over dead on its own. Someone must have killed it, but none of them had been able to use magic, and the ghosts had only slowed it down, so it couldn't be any of them unless… Harry's throat seized and he berated himself for having overlooked the obvious answer.
Voldemort.
Somehow, against all odds, Voldemort had answered his desperate call for help.
Hysterical laughter bubbled inside Harry's chest, and he bit the corners of his lips to keep it from spilling out. No wonder Neville looked like death warmed over. It was no secret he was frightened of the defeated dark lord. Almost everyone was — even the children of his former allies shrank from speaking his name. What must Neville have felt when the man's wraith rose out of the flames like a vengeful Fury?
Was that why Neville had called out to him in his sleep? Was he begging him not to cast Voldemort's name into the fire?
It must have been quite the sight. A pitched battle between a twelve-foot troll and the wraith of one of the most feared wizards of their time. It was a pity he'd missed it.
…Or had he?
If he'd been lying unconscious on the floor, his ignorance of how the troll died shouldn't have caught Neville off guard — but it had.
Harry scoured his memories for anything beyond the eruption of veil-fire, the incessant pounding in his head, and the haunting cries of a dead woman as she reached for his hand, but there was nothing. When he'd been overcome by that blinding flash of green light, the troll had still been alive.
He ran a hand through his hair, and was suddenly reminded of a severe concussion he'd suffered when he was younger. Apparently, he'd been struck by a car, but he had no recollection of being anywhere near the road before he woke up back in his cupboard.
Did something similar happen last night?
The loss of his memories would explain Neville's surprise, but it was hard to understand how he could have suffered an injury severe enough to knock the preceding minutes clear out of his head. It couldn't have been the troll, as it was unlikely he'd still have a head if it had clobbered him, and he doubted he could have hurt himself that badly from falling to the floor. There were also the mysterious scratches on his arms to consider. He pulled back his sleeve and studied them again. The lines were too broad to have been made by the claws of a cat or owl. He held a finger up to one of the more visible marks on his inner arm and shivered when the width of his nail was a near-perfect match.
So, he'd been attacked by a human — or something that had once been human.
Voldemort again?
It was reasonable to expect the man to extract some measure of vengeance against the person who'd stolen his life and destroyed the momentum of his cause in a single night. And while Harry knew nothing about black magic, Voldemort had been, by all accounts, a talented and knowledgeable wizard. If he could find a way around the veil to deal with the troll, Harry wouldn't have stood a chance. It was a miracle he hadn't been killed outright.
Harry nodded to himself, pleased with his deductions.
It didn't explain Neville's fear of "burning" eyes, but that could be written off as a remnant of his nightmare and probably wasn't important.
While Harry was lost in thought, Neville had finished getting ready. "Are you coming?" he asked, slinging his bag over his shoulder and waiting expectantly at the door.
Harry smiled and waved him off. "Go ahead. I'll meet you in the Great Hall."
Once Neville had left, Harry waited until he could no longer hear his footsteps on the stairs before he slid off his bed and walked over to Neville's trunk.
Basil slithered out from beneath his blankets and eased herself down to the floor, following him over. "What are you doing?" she asked as he knelt down and lifted the trunk's lid.
"There's something I need to check," he said as he picked up a bundle of spare writing scrolls and set them aside.
Basil nosed at them, her tongue lapping at the reed scroll rods before she lost interest and climbed up his back. She draped herself around his shoulders and watched with interest as he slid his hand between each layer of a neat stack of spare robes.
He found what he was looking for tucked inside an old pair of socks.
"What is it?" she asked as he drew Neville's Rememberall out of its hiding place.
The smoke was red.
He didn't know whether to be angry at the proof there really was a hole in his memories, or pleased that it seemed to confirm his suspicions on how it got there.
"It's a magic tool," he said. "It tells me I've forgotten something."
"What did you forget?"
"I'm not sure," he said as he slid the Rememberall back into its hiding place. "But it was probably exciting, and very painful."
"If it was painful, then forgetting is no great loss," she decided. "Now, I can feel your stomach growling, so put me in your bag and go hunting with your toad-friend. Unless you'd like me to fetch you some nice, crunchy spiders?"
"Thanks, but I'll pass on the spiders," he said with a laugh as he tidied up the contents of the trunk. Once he was certain Neville would be none the wiser, he threw on his bag and tucked Basil in the front pocket before hurrying out of the dorm.
The following week did its best to throw Harry's deductions into disarray.
By the end of his Potions class, the story of his mad confrontation with the troll had already wormed its way into the Hogwarts' rumour mill and taken on a life of its own.
In some stories, he was a hero, guiding the injured to safety and catching the troll's club with his bare hands to keep it from crushing the students protecting the altar. In others he was a dark sorcerer, riding on the shoulders of spectres while he channelled a storm of veil-fire to smite his foe. There was even one rather humorous story in which he killed the troll by shoving a butter knife up its nose.
Harry tried probing his friends for details, but they always deflected, defaulting to the story Neville had told him in the dorm. The spirit summoning backfired and killed the troll. End of story. They tactfully avoided mentioning how Harry had got his injuries and Harry, equally tactfully, avoided all mention of Voldemort.
While their reticence was frustrating, Harry couldn't criticise them. In Hogwarts, even the softest whisper spawned rumours like flies from a corpse. For there to be no stories featuring a small, desperate boy calling upon the Dark Lord Voldemort for salvation beggared belief, and Harry was forced to attribute it to one of three possibilities. Either he was mistaken about the events of that night, he'd suffered an extraordinary stroke of luck in hushing up the whole sordid affair, or the information was being actively suppressed by the other attendees as part of some massive conspiracy.
The second option could be dismissed immediately, as there had been too many witnesses for them to have evaded the perked ears and prying eyes of their fellow students purely by chance. Of the two remaining options, Neville's lies and the evidence of his own injuries and missing memories pointed to the latter as the most likely, though still baffling. Harry had expected a measure of loyalty from his friends, but he couldn't explain why the older Slytherins seemed equally unwilling to throw him under the bus.
Perhaps it was their way of showing gratitude, or perhaps Voldemort's presence had been enough to spook even the children of his former followers into biting their tongues. In either case, Harry was grateful for their silence, as it ensured the aurors wouldn't catch him in a lie.
Kingsley and his vice-captain had returned in a foul mood early Saturday morning, clearly unhappy that a second disaster had struck the school before the ink on the previous incident's paperwork could dry. A handful of wizards in silver robes and featureless grey masks accompanied them. The latter drifted through the castle like wraiths, and would have been frightening if not for their excited babbling at the prospect of studying the strange reaction the veil had to the disrupted ritual. Fred and George identified them as Unspeakables from the Department of Mysteries, but couldn't give Harry any specifics about what their department actually did. It seemed to involve magical research and development, but anything beyond that was privileged information. Not even their father, who'd worked at the ministry for over two decades, knew what went on behind that department's heavy iron door.
The aurors had set themselves up in an empty classroom before beginning the arduous task of calling students in for questioning. Harry was one of the first they summoned, and as he had no desire to be branded Voldemort's apprentice or spiritual successor, he avoided any mention of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
His own reputation had already proven fragile, and as one good deed would not sway the public opinion of Voldemort after his previous reign of terror, Harry didn't bother trying. There was no sense in sticking his neck on the chopping block when he could pin the feat on some other dead guy.
"I wasn't sure who to ask," he told the small black beetle sitting on his palm later that week, repeating the story he'd fed the aurors. The insect was apparently a reporter in disguise that some of the older Slytherins had smuggled into the castle. Harry thought it was rather brave to turn yourself into a beetle for the sake of a headline. If he closed his hand and squeezed… well, it wouldn't be pretty.
The beetle twitched its antennae at him expectantly, so he pushed his morbid thoughts away and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I don't know the names of many great witches or wizards from the past, as we haven't had time to cover them in our classes. But I know Hogwarts' founders, and since it was mostly Slytherin students attending the ritual, I hoped he would intervene on behalf of his house."
The beetle quivered with excitement, and the next morning the front page of the Daily Prophet was singing Salazar Slytherin's praises for the first time since his falling out with the other founders several centuries before.
This caused a great deal of discomfort in Gryffindor Tower, whose residents were unused to their founder's rival being known as anything other than a dastardly, muggleborn-hating prick, but what could they do? Without the services of a necromancer, which were both scarce and currently illegal, the only way to ask Salazar if he'd been involved was to wait until next year's Samhain and hope he graced them with his presence. They couldn't even ask the school ghosts who'd attended the ritual, as the lot of them had vanished without a trace, and were generally believed to have been sucked through the veil.
In contrast, the Slytherin students were ecstatic at this unexpected turn of events, and used the sudden upwelling of public sympathy and support to petition the school's board of governors for the return of traditional wizarding culture and values to Hogwarts. Harry wasn't certain of the details, but from what Draco told him, it seemed to be going well.
Most of the board members were from established magical families who'd grown up observing the old rites and had only allowed Dumbledore to phase out their practice because of his political influence and reputation as a war hero. They'd assumed he knew best, and had believed his claims that children didn't want to be burdened by the weighty, often austere demands of the old rites when there was fun and sweets to be had. Dumbledore believed children should have the opportunity to be children, and while that was true for a portion of the school's population, it had left the students from traditional families feeling as though their culture and religion were being erased.
Now that Dumbledore was being raked over the coals by the press for the second time this month for failing to ensure the safety of his students, the board was forced to admit that the headmaster was not infallible and they would not suffer an immediate social reckoning for challenging his decisions on how the school was run. Once they'd reached that conclusion, they were suddenly overflowing with ideas, ranging from the reintroduction of rituals and classes that had been cut over the years, to a relaxation of the policy around acceptable pets.
Whether any of those suggestions would manifest into actual changes was yet to be seen, but they left the students hopeful and excited to see what the future would hold.
Harry received several beautiful illustrated cards from the Slytherin students, thanking him for making their initial petition possible. Harry pinned them on the wall above his bedside table and reflected that it was nice to be appreciated.
He hoped their approval would survive the upcoming Quidditch match, which was today.
Not that his presence on the team guaranteed a win for Gryffindor, but he hadn't forgotten Professor McGonagall's fanaticism for the sport, and he had no desire to find out what she'd do to him if he failed to catch the Golden Snitch.
Besides, he owed her for the broom.
"Can we expect any spectral cavalcades at today's match, oh great Lord of the Dead?" Fred asked with a shit-eating grin, his eyes gleaming in the low light of the passage outside the Gryffindor changing room.
"You forgot 'evil'," George added helpfully.
"Quite right, brother mine! So, oh great and evil Lord of the Dead, can we expect any otherworldly assistance on this fine autumn day?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Sorry, I'm all out of ghosts." He glanced past the twins to where the corridor opened onto the Quidditch pitch. It really was a fine day. The morning had dawned cool but sunny, with only a few wispy white clouds drifting over the mountains. It was an auspicious start to the season, and the rumble of feet on the wooden platforms above their heads roared like a rainstorm. The entire school must have come out to make such a racket, Harry thought in dismay. He looked up at the thick beams supporting the seating area and hoped Basil had found a suitable spot to hide and watch the match.
She'd insisted on accompanying him, turning up her snout at his suggestion that it would be safer to wait in the castle until he returned.
"You were nearly squashed the last time I let you wander off on your own!" she'd retorted, wrapping herself around his arm. "And now you want to fly around on that stick again. You human hatchlings are too reckless! Who will catch you if you fall off?"
"I'm not going to fall," he'd grumbled, hiding a grin as he plucked at her coils. Rather than alarm him, her constant fretting left him feeling warm and silly — as though he could catch ten thousand Snitches in as many seconds.
He could do with some of that confidence now, he reflected as he tugged on his heavy leather gauntlets, pulling the sleeves of his scarlet Quidditch robes partway out from beneath them before he changed his mind and tucked them back in. Fred and George prattled on, oblivious to his restlessness.
"Pity that," said Fred. "I'd have given fifty galleons to see ol'Flinty piss himself in the middle of a match."
"You haven't got fifty galleons," George pointed out.
"Fine, twenty galleons."
"You haven't got twenty either!"
"Pipe down, you two!" Oliver Wood barked. He was standing close to the pitch, watching for the arrival of Mme Hooch, who would be refereeing the match. "We'll be going out soon, so let's go over the plan one last time."
Fred and George groaned. "We've been over it five times already this morning," they said. "Really Oliver, we can remember more than the last five minutes! Sometimes we wonder if you're managing a Quidditch team or a fish tank." In perfect sync, they puffed out their cheeks, held their hands up beside their necks like gills, and did their best goldfish impressions.
"Enough!" Wood snapped as the three Chasers tried and failed to hide their laughter. "We need to take today's game seriously if we're going to win. Slytherin has the wind on their side, which means—"
"Keep formations tight and don't overextend on passes," said the senior Chaser, a girl named Angelina Johnson.
"Target the Slytherin Chasers to break their momentum," Fred and George continued, knocking their iron-shod Beater sticks together with a bang. They looked at Harry expectantly.
"Catch the Snitch or die trying," he finished.
Wood gave him a searching look, not yet convinced that Harry wouldn't throw the match, when a shrill whistle sounded from the pitch. "We're going out!" he shouted. "Everyone, into your lines, quickly now. You all have your brooms? And your—"
Angelina groaned, giving him a light shove. "Just go!"
Harry hefted his broom a little higher up his shoulder and followed Fred and George out onto the field.
The spectators were crowded against the railings above them, waving banners and flags bearing the lion of Gryffindor or serpent of Slytherin over their heads as they raised a cheer that echoed over the foothills. Harry could tell the exact moment when the students in the stands recognised him by the way those cheers died down to a low rumble.
"What?" shrieked a voice that sounded a great deal like Draco. Harry glanced in its direction and spotted his friend leaning so far over the rail he looked in danger of toppling over it, his platinum hair shining in the sun and a complicated expression somewhere between outrage and exasperation on his face. Harry raised his hand in greeting, waving when he spotted a smiling Neville and flabbergasted Hermione sitting in the nearby aisle seats.
Further up, in the teachers' section, Professor Snape looked ready to blow a gasket. His sallow skin was flushed an ugly beet red and his eyes were bulging out of his head. He whipped around to glare at Professor McGonagall, who was sitting a few seats over with a smug, self-satisfied smirk splitting her normally stern face. Behind her, Professor Quirrell was huddled under a woollen blanket, his face ashen and drawn. He'd looked ill in their Defence classes earlier that week, and Harry was surprised the man had dragged himself out of the castle rather than grab a few extra hours of sleep.
The staff is full of fanatics, he mused while he scanned the rest of the staff boxes as the teams lined up in the middle of the field and Mme Hooch went over the rules.
The headmaster was absent.
Harry let out a sigh of relief, and his spirits lifted a little. He could bear the stares and the noise of the crowd as long as Dumbledore was nowhere in sight.
Wood and Flint stepped forward to shake hands — or possibly break them, judging by their tight grimaces and white knuckles. They held their ground for a full twenty seconds, and Harry imagined he could hear their bones groaning in agony from the pressure. He couldn't tell if the competition ended with a clear victor or in a silently agreed upon stalemate, but when they broke apart, he caught them both surreptitiously trying to rub the feeling back into their fingers.
"I expect you all to play a nice, fair game," Mme Hooch said. She was frowning at the two team captains, clearly doubting their willingness to abide by anything as restrictive as rules when the glory and reputation of their houses was at stake.
At her signal, they mounted their brooms and kicked off the ground. The Keepers flew to their team's goal posts while the rest of them levelled out to hover ten feet up. The Chasers were facing off in the middle, waiting for Mme Hooch to toss the large red Quaffle into play. Harry hung back as far as was allowed. He had no desire to get caught in the inevitable scuffle for the Quaffle and end up dismounted or with a damaged broom.
According to Wood, his Nimbus Two Thousand was an order of magnitude better than any of the brooms in either team's possession. Not only was it faster, but its manoeuvrability put the older brooms to shame. As the Seeker not only ended the game but also won their team a massive number of points upon catching the Snitch, the Slytherin team would need to either trust that Harry's inexperience would negate the advantage he gained from his broom, or take the more direct route of knocking him out of the sky.
"Ready?" Fred asked as the Bludgers and Snitch were released. Harry tried to keep his eyes on the tiny golden ball, but it darted up and out of sight, lost against the glare of the morning sun.
"Ready as ever," Harry said.
Mme Hooch gave a sharp blast on her silver whistle and tossed the Quaffle into the space between the teams. They were off!
Both Harry and the Slytherin Seeker, a lanky boy named Terence Higgs, broke away immediately, heading in the direction the Snitch had flown. Behind them, the Chasers were a blur of red and green as they charged and wove around one another.
"And the Quaffle is taken by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor!" boomed the voice of Fred and George's friend Lee Jordan, who was doing the commentary for the match. "She's closing in on the goal posts — a pass to Chaser Katie Bell of Gryffindor and — no, intercepted by Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint!"
Flint had barrelled through the centre of the Gryffindor formation, knocking Angelina aside and slapping the Quaffle straight down, where it was caught by one of his teammates.
"Slytherin Chaser Adrian Pucey gains the Quaffle and off he goes! He's really belting along up there, taking full advantage of the prevailing winds — Gryffindor Keeper Wood dives to block — it's a feint! Pucey tosses the Quaffle backwards — caught by Flint — can Wood reach him in time? No!"
A bell rang through the stadium as Slytherin scored the first goal of the match.
"First ten points to Slytherin!" Lee shouted as the Gryffindors in the stands erupted into pained howls.
Harry forced his eyes away from the Gryffindor goal posts, where Katie Bell had recovered the Quaffle and was racing towards the far end of the field, and focused on his own task. The wind was no joke. It hadn't felt all that strong down on the ground, but at fifty feet up Harry was having a hard time holding his broom steady as he flew in slowly widening circles in search of the Snitch.
The bell sounded again as Angelina slipped a shot past the Slytherin Keeper, Bletchley, evening the score. Harry decided the Snitch must not have lingered after being released and put on a burst of speed, rising high above the pitch. He flew a loop around its outer rim, keeping his eyes peeled for the tiny golden ball. Across from him, Higgs was doing the same, though even at his top speed, Harry could easily lap his older broom.
On his second circuit of the field, he decided to have a little fun and dived towards the bleachers where his friends were sitting, pulling up at the last moment and passing close enough to whip their hair around their faces. Draco, who was still gaping at him from the railing, collapsed back onto the bench amidst a chorus of startled laughter and screams from the surrounding students.
As Harry levelled out, he caught sight of the Slytherin Seeker pelting towards him from the far side of the pitch. His heart leapt into his throat as he pulled his broom around and flew to intercept, looking frantically for the Snitch. They passed each other with inches to spare, and when Harry glanced over his shoulder, he saw Higgs wheeling around to chase after him. Harry shook him off with another burst of speed, and was wondering what Higgs was up to when Lee Jordan inadvertently provided him with the answer.
"Gryffindor retakes the Quaffle after an excellently timed diversion by Gryffindor Seeker Harry Potter! This is Potter's first official Quidditch game, and despite being the youngest player on the field, he's certainly shown he knows how to fly!"
They thought I'd seen the Snitch, Harry realised, shaking his head as Higgs broke off his pursuit and flew away in a huff at being deceived.
He knew there were several diversionary tactics that could be used in Quidditch, but as he'd never even seen a Quidditch match before making it onto the team, Wood had spent their practice sessions teaching him the rules and how to avoid some of the more common tactics used against Seekers by the opposing team. As their first match would be against Slytherin, who played fast, aggressive games, Wood had deemed that ensuring Harry's survivability trumped any utility he might provide.
I didn't expect they'd all stop and watch me, he thought as the Chasers scrambled to resume play now that the Snitch was no longer in immediate danger of being caught. It's a good thing I didn't accidentally cost us the Quaffle.
Resolving to be more mindful of his actions, Harry was rounding the Gryffindor goal posts when another downside of drawing attention to himself became apparent. He caught a flash of green out of the corner of his eye as one of the Slytherin Beaters cut in behind him. There was a sharp crack, and then the distinctive chattering whine of an approaching Bludger forced him into a defensive barrel roll. The black ball shot through the space his head had been a moment before and came around for another pass. Harry straightened up and led it over to one of the twins — he couldn't tell which — who sent the Bludger soaring towards a Slytherin Chaser, scoring a hit on the boy's ankle that startled him into dropping the Quaffle.
"Watch yourself. Don't let them corner you!" the twin called before moving to protect the Gryffindor Chasers' flank as they made a rush on the Slytherin goal posts.
Having no desire to risk being bludgeoned to death, Harry pulled back on his broom and fled into the sky.
He ascended until he was certain the Beater wasn't following him before he slowed and looked down. From this height, the players below looked like brightly coloured beads rolling back and forth in a large oval tin. There was a flurry of movement at the Slytherins' end of the field, followed by a roar from the crowd, but Harry was too far away to tell if anyone had scored.
The wind at this height was fierce and cold enough to sting his unprotected ears and nose. It buffeted him from side to side, tearing at the trailing ends of his robes as he slowly made his way along the field. He huddled down on the handle of his broom, determined to give the Beaters a few minutes to forget about him before he returned to the fray.
When he reached the Slytherin goal posts, he tried to bring his broom around— only for it to give a sudden, frightening lurch.
Harry, who had already been holding the shaft tight against his body, nearly melded himself to the wood in alarm. "What are you doing?" he shouted.
The Nimbus trembled harder before it bucked its tail and rolled over like an angry wild stallion.
Harry tried to wrangle it back under control, but the broom was having none of it. It began to zig-zag through the air, flying in loop-the-loops and flicking its tail as though determined to unseat him. All he could do was hold on and curse it for choosing now of all times to malfunction.
"What's wrong with you?" Harry shrieked, his arms and legs shaking with terror as the broom pointed its nose straight down and spun like a top. His glasses tore from his face and tumbled away, transforming the ground into a mottled blur that swallowed the small scarlet figures of his teammates.
Robbed of his sight, Harry grit his teeth and pressed his cheek against the polished handle even as his back arched, the speed of the broom's rotation threatening to fling him from his seat. Like clinging to the bars of a speeding playground carousel, Harry wrapped his arms and legs around the shaft, locking his ankles together behind the metal stirrups flanking the broom's sleek tail.
Pressure built in his head, throbbing in time with his racing heart, until it burst in a stream of blood that caught in his throat. He hacked and snorted, spraying a froth of blood and mucus from his nose. Stars danced across his vision, blotting out the whirling line of the horizon as his consciousness began to slip away.
Furious at his helplessness, he bit down on the gauntlet of his leading hand; his teeth creaked as they sank into the boiled leather. Don't faint! Someone will come. Just hold on a little longer… Just a little longer…
Harry gasped, his eyes flying open. He had no recollection of closing them, and for a moment, he struggled to recall where he was. Wind buffeted him, whipping his hair into his face, where it stuck to a film of blood trickling from his nose. Shaking, he pried one hand off the handle of his broom and wiped his lip.
He was alive. He'd held on.
The Nimbus hung motionless in the air, as though acknowledging they'd reached a stalemate. Harry nudged the tip of the handle and the broom levelled out obediently.
Was it over?
He flexed his fingers — the joints stiff and curled like claws — and risked a glance down. The pitch was still below him, a dark splotch of colour against the burnished golds and greens of the Scottish highland in autumn. As the pounding in his head subsided, he heard the ding of the bell, followed by a roar as the crowd erupted in cheers.
His shoulders slumped. It seemed no one had noticed his absence.
Sensing an opening, the Nimbus shot backwards as though it had been fired from a cannon. Harry pitched forward, his hands flying off the end of the broom. He slammed chest-first into the handle, knocking his chin hard enough to rattle his teeth. Dazed, he slid off the end, only to be jerked backwards as his left ankle glanced off the stirrup and stuck, wedged between the thin metal bar and the broom's tail.
The Nimbus thrashed wildly, barrelling from one end of the pitch to the other in an effort to dislodge him. Harry felt like a fish on a line behind a speeding motorboat. He fought to regain his grip on the handle — was shaken off once — twice — the wood battering his knuckles until they bled. The tension on his leg slackened as his foot slid free and Harry knew he was out of time. Gathering the last of his strength for a desperate lunge, he pulled hard against the stirrup, his body contracting like a rubber band stretched past its breaking point. Twisting in midair, he slammed his palms against the broom hard enough to knock it off course.
The Nimbus froze, as if startled, and Harry took advantage of the brief reprieve to gasp for breath. He tried to pull himself up, but he had no strength left. His arms twitched weakly, the muscles burning as they began to cramp.
Tears pricked the corners of his eyes. He'd done his best, but it hadn't been enough. Even if the accursed broom surrendered now, he could feel his grip weakening and knew he had only moments before it failed.
He heard the Snitch before he saw it — the drone of its wings close enough to be audible over the wail of the wind. The ball flashed past his cheek, its golden body glinting in the bright morning light. It paused in front of his chest and turned to face him, as though assessing his predicament.
Harry laughed, high and breathless, uncertain if it was in despair at his situation, fury that the Snitch chose now, of all times, to appear, or hysteria at what he was planning to do next. He grit his teeth, battening down the wave of nausea that threatened to swamp him.
When he'd promised to catch the Snitch or die trying, he hadn't meant it quite this literally!
The broom jerked hard to one side, and Harry let his body swing, gaining momentum. Then he let go.
If it was inevitable he would fall, at least this way it might serve a purpose.
He reached in the direction he'd seen the Snitch, spreading his body out as wide as he could to scoop it out of the air. Something struck his sternum, the impact almost imperceptible through the protective layers of his robes. He clasped his hands to his chest and felt the cool, embossed surface of the Snitch beneath his fingers. The ball beat its gossamer wings wildly against his wrists, but Harry would not relinquish his hold, cradling it against his body as they plummeted headlong towards the earth.
He didn't struggle, his mind having blown past the point of fear to enter a state of numb disbelief. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he gazed at the distant outline of the castle with unseeing eyes, the tall peaks of its towers nothing more than shadows against the scattered reflection of the sun on the surface of the loch. The howling of the wind dropped away to a whisper and in the sudden silence came the distant tolling of bells. They rang and rang, their deep brassy voices growing faster and more frantic with each passing second.
The world around him dimmed, texture and colour bleeding away as the division between earth and sky sharpened, changing from a ragged, blurry outline to a straight edge that cut his vision in two. Above him stretched a featureless black plane, while below the sky transformed into an endless white void.
He knew this place. He couldn't say from where or when, but he was certain he'd been here before.
Take my hand.
The command came from everywhere and nowhere, as though it had been born inside Harry's own head; a wayward thought intruding in a moment of idleness. He craned his head back, his body spinning slowly as he looked up into the darkness.
A man knelt above him, his outline wispy and insubstantial. Shadows coiled around him like a second skin, obscuring his face but for a pair of crimson eyes, which burned like coals.
One of the man's hands was outstretched, crossing the strange boundary that separated them.
Harry didn't hesitate.
As their hands clasped, the monochromatic realm dissolved and Harry was thrust back into the reality where he was hurtling towards the Quidditch pitch. The stands were close enough now that even he could see them swarming with colour as students waved house scarves and homemade banners. On the field, the players wove through the air like a flock of swallows.
A line of warmth blossomed against his inner arm as his wand heated in the basic holster he'd strapped beneath his gauntlet. It trembled, fighting to free itself as Harry's fingers traced a pattern in the air. His lips moved, whispering an incantation he'd never heard.
The edges of his robes blurred, wrapping around him like a thick red fog— and then he was flying.
It felt as though he'd become part of the wind itself — his body weightless as he blew along the pitch, effortlessly sliding through a knot of startled Chasers. He was a few feet from the ground when the surreality of the situation struck him.
He didn't know what spell he'd cast; he hadn't even known witches and wizards could fly without brooms. The incantation lingered on his lips, but when he tried to recall it, the magic supporting him vanished, dumping him onto the grass. He'd been moving at a good clip, and rolled several yards before coming to a stop, battered and winded but somehow still alive.
Twin scarlet blurs descended on him, shouting: "Harry!"
"Don't crowd him!" ordered Mme Hooch, following close behind them. "Mister Potter, can you hear me?"
Harry raised his hand in confirmation before rolling onto his back and coughing. "I'm fine… I think."
"What in the world happened?" Mme Hooch asked, echoing his own confusion. "Where did your broom go?"
"I don't know," he replied honestly. So many inexplicable things had happened in the last minute that he had no idea where to start unravelling any of it. Why had his broom malfunctioned? What was the Snitch doing so high above the game? How had he stopped his fall with a spell he had no recollection of learning? And perhaps the most mysterious of all: who was the man wrapped in darkness and why had Harry been able to see him so clearly when the ring of people around him now were little more than vaguely human-shaped blurs? The encounter had been so strange that Harry would have written it off as a hallucination if he didn't remember the feel of the man's hand closing around his own. He flexed his fingers, trying to recall whether the hand had been cold or warm, and felt something wiggle against his left palm, which was still clasped to his chest.
"Oh, I almost forgot," he said belatedly, holding up the Snitch for all to see. "I caught it."
It took Harry several minutes to extract himself from his teammates who, regardless of their personal feelings towards him, wouldn't snub the Seeker who'd cinched victory over their bitterest rivals and were determined to drag him into the celebratory party erupting on the field as the Gryffindors made their way down from the stands. He begged off, claiming he'd come back as soon as he changed out of his grass-stained robes, and escaped to the changing room.
Once he was inside, he leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes, and let out a deep sigh of relief. Now that his feet were safely on the ground, the reality of his brush with death hit him like a truck. He stumbled across the room, tracing the walls with his hands until he bumped against a sink. Turning on the faucet, he splashed his face with cold water before leaning heavily against the sink's rim.
The door creaked open behind him and Harry's heart leapt into his throat. He spun around and called, "Who's there?"
"Really, Mister Potter," huffed a familiar voice. "Your habit of running off while injured is too much!"
"Not you again!" Harry groaned, realising that Mme Pomfrey had cornered him. It was bad enough she'd tracked him down the morning after his late-night escape from the hospital wing and corralled him into one of her small satellite offices on the main floor to run diagnostics on him. Now she hadn't even waited until he'd returned to the castle to spring an ambush.
"Manners, Mister Potter," chided a second voice with a distinctive Scottish brogue. It was Professor McGonagall. "Madam Pomfrey wishes to check whether you were harmed when you fell from your broom. You took quite a tumble, you know — nearly nine yards! It left several gouges in the turf, so I don't imagine you fared much better."
"Only nine yards?" Harry asked incredulously, then jumped as he felt the telltale tickle of a diagnostic charm against his skin. He turned to Mme Pomfrey and grumbled, "Could you give me a little warning next time?"
The mediwitch sounded distracted as she said, "My apologies. I thought you saw me raise my wand."
"Well, I didn't," Harry said. He waved a hand in front of his face. "I can't see anything without my glasses, and they fell off while I was flying."
"While you were flying?" Professor McGonagall asked, her voice high with amazement. "Not after you hit the pitch?"
"Yeah. They fell off right before I spotted the Snitch."
"You mean to tell me you made that dive half-blind? Winning the match is important, but you could have been killed! If you'd pulled up even half a second later— But you did not, for which we can all be thankful!"
Now it was Harry's turn to be amazed. What 'dive'? What 'pulled up'? Had she missed the part where he jumped off his broom after it tossed him like a salad? He'd been free-falling; there was nothing for him to pull up with!
"You appeared so abruptly," she continued. "By the time I spotted you, it was all over."
"So you didn't see what happened to my broom?" he asked.
"I assume it continued on into the risers, but you were moving so fast it was hard to tell."
Harry leaned back against the sink, stunned. Had she really not noticed? It was true he'd been up pretty high when his broom went out of control, and with the ferocity of the ongoing game it was unlikely anyone would choose to watch a Seeker who wasn't pursuing the Snitch, but still!
He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it would have looked like to the spectators in the stands.
Before he'd lost his glasses, his teammates had been little more than red dots against the field, so he could assume he appeared the same to them. At such a distance, the position of his body on the broom would have been imperceptible, and even the broom's violent bucking could have been misread as him swaying back and forth, fighting the wind. After he jumped… the broom's thin profile would not have been visible against the bright sky, so no one would know he'd abandoned it until he'd nearly reached the ground, at which point he was moving so fast they couldn't tell if he had a broom with him or not.
It made sense; especially if, like Professor McGonagall, most people had only spotted him a split second before he hit the ground. He ran a hand through his hair and opened his eyes, unsure if he felt put out that no one had noticed how close he'd come to dying or relieved they wouldn't kick up a fuss over it.
"Is there some way to recover my glasses?" he asked Professor McGonagall, deciding that for the time being, it was best not to correct her assumptions. "I'm not sure I'll be able to find them on my own."
"Of course," she said. There was a rustle as she drew out her wand. "They were round with gold frames, correct?" When Harry nodded, she intoned, "Accio glasses."
It was the same spell she'd used to summon his shoes the night she'd caught him following her and Filch into the third-floor corridor, and a minute later Harry heard the soft whoosh of something flying into the room.
"Here you are," she said, moving towards him.
Harry held out his hands and was relieved when she pressed the familiar frames into his palms. He unfolded the arms with a flick of his wrist and slipped them onto his face, sighing in relief when the world came back into focus.
The changing room was brighter than it had been earlier that morning and the house-elves must have been by during the game, as their robes had all been neatly folded and placed into the cubbies along the right wall. Mme Pomfrey was sitting on one of the benches running down the middle of the room, staring at the floor and moving her wand in tight little circles. Both she and Professor McGonagall were wearing long wool coats over their robes, though Professor McGonagall had accented hers with a scarf and pair of fingerless gloves in the Gryffindor house colours of red and gold. There was also a small flag poking out of her pocket, and Harry could just make out the forelegs and nose of a roaring lion.
"Thank you, Professor."
"You're quite welcome," she said before her brows furrowed into a puzzled frown. "Is your eyesight very poor without your glasses?"
Harry shrugged. "It didn't use to be, but it's been getting worse ever since I started wearing them."
Mme Pomfrey glanced up from her contemplation of the diagnostic spell's results. "Your eyesight isn't worsening. You only notice a difference now because your eyes are no longer straining to focus. If you go without your glasses long enough, your vision will revert to its previous level of clarity."
"Which wasn't very clear at all," Harry concluded.
"And you lost them before you caught the Snitch?" Professor McGonagall repeated, as though she still couldn't believe it.
"Yes," Harry said. Then, deciding that since she'd been willing to help with his glasses, he might as well ask her for one more favour, added, "Actually Professor, I was also hoping you could look at my broom. It was acting a little funny during the match."
"How do you mean?"
"Like…" He took a moment to mull over his options. He didn't want her alarmed to the point of scrapping the Nimbus outright — as it was still an expensive, high-end broomstick and a major asset to the team. However, he also needed to make sure that whatever had caused the broom to go rogue was fixed before he used it again. "It started lagging during turns and wouldn't always respond when I tried to slow down or stop. There was also one point where it started trembling so bad I thought I was going to fall off."
Professor McGonagall's brows shot up in alarm. "That is concerning," she agreed. "Did you notice anything wrong with it before today's game?"
"No, it was fine during our last practice."
She hummed, tapping a finger against her arm. "I will ask Madam Hooch and Professor Flitwick to strip it down on the chance someone has tampered with it. If they can't find anything wrong, I'll need to send it back and request a replacement."
Harry nodded, relieved she was taking this seriously. "I'll use one of the school brooms in the meantime."
Mme Pomfrey finally rose from the bench. "Fortunately, regardless of whether Mister Potter's broom was malfunctioning, he avoided sustaining any major injuries."
"So you're letting me go?" Harry asked hopefully.
"I said major injuries," the mediwitch chided, walking over and motioning for him to raise his left arm, which he ignored. "You have abrasions on your hips, back and elbows; a sprained wrist and ankle; and will be black and blue tomorrow unless we treat that bruising."
Harry edged away from her. He rolled his wrists and was surprised when the left one twinged. "It's nothing that won't heal on its own," he decided.
Mme Pomfrey protested, "Mister Potter, you're bleeding!"
"Barely! Besides, it's probably stopped on its own by now and it's not like my wrist hurts."
"At least let me give you a potion for the worst of the bruises."
"NO!" he shouted, backpedalling away from them as the hot acid bile of nausea surged up his throat. "No potions!" He bumped against a bench and nearly fell. "No potions," he repeated weakly, covering his mouth as his mind churned with confusion. "I can't…"
What in the world was happening to him? He'd had no problem brewing his hair-thickening potion in Snape's last class, so why did the thought of drinking one make him feel like he was about to vomit?
He missed the two women exchange matching looks of alarm at his reaction, and how Professor McGonagall leaned in as though to whisper something to Mme Pomfrey, only for the mediwitch to cut her off with an abrupt slicing gesture.
"Okay, no potions," Mme Pomfrey said. She raised her hands placatingly and inched towards him, as if he were a small wild animal she was frightened of scaring off. "But I am still worried about your injuries. Would it be okay if I cast one small charm to clean and heal your cuts? Just one, and then I'll let you go."
Harry watched her warily. Behind the mediwitch, Professor McGonagall was standing rigidly in place, her eyes averted as though she feared the smallest flicker of movement would spook him into fleeing. "Just one and then you'll leave?" he confirmed.
"Yes. I give you my word."
"Fine," Harry growled, considering it a fair exchange to have the mediwitch leave him alone.
Mme Pomfrey raised her wand. "Then in three, two, one— Episkey!"
Harry hunched his shoulders and gripped the lip of the bench, bracing himself as he felt the spell roll over him like tepid bathwater. The skin of his back and legs heated, itching slightly before the sensation vanished with a snap like static. He jumped, losing his grip on the bench, and glared at the mediwitch. "That's it?" he asked. It didn't seem to have done much; his scrapes still stung and when he tried flexing his sprained wrist, he couldn't move it more than a few degrees without the joint aching.
Mme Pomfrey's face fell in confusion. She looked between him and her wand, taken aback. "Did you pick anything up just now?" she asked, looking at his hands as though she might find something in them that would explain her spell's failure. "A pendant, or perhaps a polished stone with small engravings carved into it?"
"No?" Harry didn't know where this was going, but was certain it would end with him taking the blame for… whatever that was.
Mme Pomfrey pursed her lips, looking thoughtful.
Behind her, Professor McGonagall was frowning. "You suggest Mister Potter possesses a magic repelling amulet or charm?" She looked at Harry. "Have you ever received such an item?"
He shook his head. "I've never heard of them before."
The mediwitch raised her wand again. "May I—"
"You promised only one spell," Harry cut in. "It's not my fault it didn't work."
Mme Pomfrey sputtered in protest, but before she could argue, there was a commotion outside the door and the rest of the team barrelled in, arms slung over each other's shoulders as they laughed, still in high spirits.
"Oh, Professor!" Wood beamed, raising his hand in greeting. "Did you come to congratulate us?"
In the commotion, Harry stood and hastened to his cubby, not meeting Mme Pomfrey's eyes as he passed her. She turned to stop him and bumped into the Weasley twins, who were looking up at her with tears glistening in the corners of their eyes.
"Missus P, we finally found you!" Fred wailed, throwing himself at her feet with one hand pressed dramatically to his brow. "I'm dying! Bole walloped me with his club and now I've got a terrible aching all over!" He grabbed hold of her robes, tugging them insistently. "I think my spleen's burst!"
"And I think I've pulled something in my groin!" George added, pressing his hands against his hip and hunching over as though in pain.
"And I've twisted my back!"
"And one of my toes is broken!"
Mme Pomfrey looked ready to explode. "Oh, really — you two are too much!"
George winked at Harry over his shoulder, who mouthed, "Thank you," before ducking into a free shower stall and locking the door.
He dropped his robes on the three-legged stool in the corner and leaned back against the partition, taking a moment to relax before he started peeling off his Quidditch robes. The abrasions from his rough landing weren't bad, he thought as he studied them in the tarnished mirror hanging on the inside of the door. They'd bled a little, but the robes had done their job and kept out the dirt and grass, so there was no reason to pay them more than a passing glance. The only deep cut was on his left hip, where he must have hit a rock, as there was a small triangular puncture in the skin that stung when the water from the squeaky faucet overhead struck it.
Outside, the twins were still pestering Mme Pomfrey, while Wood was begging Professor McGonagall to let them order Butterbeer from the nearby village for the celebratory party in the common room later that day.
He waited until he was certain both Mme Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall had left before he turned off the shower.
While trying to wring water out of his hair, Harry noticed something odd about his reflection. He leaned close to the mirror, peering at his forehead as he probed his lightning-bolt scar with a cautious finger.
For as long as he could remember, the scar had been a livid red gash on his face — ugly and eye-catching. But now it was… faded. The swelling had gone down and the once raw skin was transforming into shiny white scar tissue. There was still a slight indentation marking its shape, but it was subtle and would be difficult to see except in the right light.
"When did that happen?" Harry wondered, rubbing it again in amazement. He hadn't done more than glance at his reflection in passing for a while, so he didn't know when it had started to heal.
After a final bewildered look at his reflection, Harry let himself out of the stall, dumped his Quidditch gear in the nearby hamper, and made his way outside.
After a quick check to ensure the passageway was empty, he peered up into the canopy of wooden beams supporting the mezzanine. He'd set Basil down in one of the staircases, whose open risers granted easy access to the uppermost layer of supports, but there was no telling where she'd gone from there.
"Basil?" he called.
"Over here!" came the distant reply.
Harry walked towards her voice and smiled when he spotted her perched on a crossbeam overlooking the passage. "Are you stuck?"
"Of course not! I was just waiting for the other two-legs to leave," she said as she slithered down the diagonal face of a brace to a nearby support pillar. There she paused, flummoxed by the polished vertical surface. She lowered her head as far down as she dared, but there was nothing for her to grip, and the sharp, blocky corners made wrapping her body around the perimeter of the pillar problematic. She looked down at him plaintively. "Okay, I might be stuck."
Harry laughed and raised his arms. Standing on tip-toe, he was just able to touch her nose. "You could have met me back at the stairs," he said as she dropped into his arms.
"Too busy," she grumbled, shoving her head under his collar. She burrowed straight into his robes, her scales like a river of ice flowing down his back. He squirmed in discomfort as she wrapped around his body, obliterating the lingering warmth of his shower.
"What did you think of the match?" he asked, hoping to distract himself long enough for her body to warm up.
"It was cold. And there was a great deal of screaming."
"But what about the flying? Were you able to see any of— ah!" He flinched as her tail brushed across the scrape on his hip. "Careful!"
Basil stilled, and he felt her tongue flick against his skin. "You are hurt again?" she exclaimed, sounding exasperated by his perpetual misfortune. "Who hurt you this time? Was it that stick of wood?"
Harry grimaced. While he dreaded her well-deserved: "I told you so," he couldn't bring himself to deceive her. Slowly, he walked her through the start of the match, his mid-air battle against his broom, and his final, terrifying plummet towards the earth.
She listened patiently, silent apart from a low hiss as he recounted clinging to the Nimbus as it bucked and rolled. When he'd reached the end of his story, she poked her head out of the front of his robes and said, with all her typical bluntness, "I told you not to trust that bundle of sticks."
"But what about the rest? How could I have used a spell I've never learned, and who was that man in the shadows?"
"I do not know about your man, but you have used magic without spells before."
"Not like this," he insisted. "It was more than convincing myself I could fly. It had an incantation — hand gestures — everything! Even my wand reacted, and I wasn't even holding it!" He raised his right hand and waggled his fingers experimentally, but the pattern they'd traced so decisively as he fell eluded him. "I wonder… did he help me?"
"Who?"
"The man in the shadows. He grabbed my hand, and right afterwards I could cast that spell." He sighed. "I wish I knew who he was."
Basil stretched her head towards his hand and he moved it closer, allowing her to lap his skin with her tongue. "I taste soap and running water."
"There's nothing else?"
She tasted his skin again. "No. If any trace remained, it has been washed away."
Harry cursed himself for lingering in the shower. If he hadn't been so determined to avoid Mme Pomfrey, Basil could have learned the man's scent, which would make identifying him much easier if he were someone from the castle. He rapped his knuckles against the pillar, accepting the mild pain that shot down his fingers as penance for this lack of forethought. It would have hurt more if his gauntlets hadn't protected most of his hands from his broom when it had clobbered them— his gauntlets!
He turned on his heel and darted back to the changing room. Throwing open the door, he ran to the hamper and reached inside— only to come up empty.
The school elves, efficient as ever, had beaten him to it.
He slammed his fist against the hamper's rim. "I was too slow."
Basil looked between him and the bin. "Has this hollow stump wronged you?"
"It's not the stump— uh, hamper. I was looking for my gloves, but the elves have already taken them away."
"Then you will just have to wait until he helps you again."
Defeated, Harry heaved a sigh and trudged towards the exit. "Let's just hope I won't need to throw myself off another broom."
Stepping onto the gravel path ringing the pitch, Harry shivered and pulled his robes tighter around himself. Without the added weight of his Quidditch gear to protect him from the wind, the cold sunk its fangs into his skin and made his damp hair feel like icicles on the back of his neck.
"Hurry back," Basil urged, wedging as much of her body as would fit beneath his arms to keep warm.
Harry agreed wholeheartedly and was jogging to the head of the trail winding down towards the castle when he heard someone call his name. He looked back at the pitch and saw a small knot of figures huddled in the shelter of a staircase. One of them was waving frantically at him, and he slowed to a stop as he recognised Hermione's mane of frizzy brown hair poking out from beneath her tuque.
He waved back and was nearly bowled off his feet when Hermione ran over and threw her arms around his neck. "Harry! Thank goodness you're okay!"
"Hah?! Who is squeezing us?" Basil asked in alarm. Her head shot across his shoulder blade and up towards his collar. "Let me at them!"
"Hermione, please let go. You're squishing Basil."
Hermione must have felt Basil's coils shift under his robes because her eyes flew open, darting down to his chest, and she took a quick step back. "Oh! Sorry."
Harry reached back and caught Basil's head before she could line up a strike.
"What? Can't I bite her?"
"No. She didn't mean any harm. She was just worried about me."
Basil grumbled something inaudible before relenting and retreating into the depths of his robes. Harry pulled up his collar and hunched his shoulders as a sharp gust of wind ran its icy fingers across his neck.
Noticing his shivering, Hermione tutted at him for wandering around with wet hair. She took off her hat and passed it over to him. Smiling sheepishly, he pulled it down over his ears and offered her a quiet, "Thanks."
The crunch of gravel underfoot announced the arrival of the rest of the group. Neville was grinning, a small red and gold flag dangling from his fingers. The Slytherins were more subdued, trailing behind him like mourners after a hearse — all except Draco, whose wide eyes and pink cheeks made him look ripe to explode.
"You!" Draco stammered, jabbing an accusatory finger at Harry.
Harry pointed at himself. "Me?"
"Why didn't you tell me you were named the Gryffindor Seeker?"
"Because Professor McGonagall told me to keep it a secret. Not even Hermione knew."
Draco swung his arm to point at Neville. "But he did?"
Harry blew on his hands before tucking them into his sleeves. "Well, about that…"
Now that the cat was out of the bag, there was no harm in regaling them with the story of Ronald Weasley's theft of the Nimbus and his subsequent capture by one of the Slytherin prefects — with Harry and Neville's help, of course.
Time had lessened the sting of Ron's hatred, and Harry could now look back at the boy's outrage while he struggled to stand on the magically softened bleachers with genuine amusement. He even had to bite back a laugh as he described Ron howling soundlessly as he was hauled off to Professor McGonagall's office by the ear.
"So that's why the weasel got a howler," Pansy said, snickering into her scarf. "I wondered how he got his hands on a broom. Aren't they locked up when not in use?"
Harry wiggled deeper into his robes and hummed in assent.
"You still could have told me," Draco said, his lips compressing into a tight line.
Hermione turned on him. "Oh, stop pouting! Harry's already explained it was a secret, so you shouldn't hold it against him. I'm sure he would have told us if he'd been able to."
"But—"
Harry jumped in before an argument could erupt. "Of course I would have. Though, I'm not sure how good keeping quiet did in the end, as I'm pretty sure the Slytherin team knew from the start, and they were the ones the professor wanted to hide it from." He looked up at Draco. "You're not mad at me for catching the Snitch, are you?"
"Fuming," Pansy drawled. "All our hopes for an early lead snuffed out just like that." She snapped her fingers. "Now we've got no choice but to clobber the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs — not that we'd have done otherwise, mind you. It's just we'll need to pound them like puffskeins to make up the difference."
Beside her, Millicent Bulstrode nodded, while Crabbe and Goyle's faces lit in anticipation of seeing their team emerge victorious. Only Theodore remained silent, his eyes bleary and downcast. He stood a little apart from the others, his shoulders hunched beneath his cloak, and didn't appear to be following the conversation.
"It was an impressive catch," Neville said. "You were flying so fast, all I saw was a blur!"
Hermione shuddered. "I didn't think brooms could fly that fast. Is it safe for you to be on the team? I swear you were a full head shorter than everyone else on the field. What if they'd tried to ram you off your broom?"
"You can't go around ramming Seekers!" Draco protested.
Pansy rolled her eyes. "Of course you can. I'd rather eat a penalty shot than lose outright." She looked at Harry. "Isn't that why you took off when our Beaters targeted you?"
"How did you even see the Snitch from up there?" Draco asked. "You were barely visible from the stands."
"You were watching me?"
He scoffed. "And miss seeing our Chasers run yours into the ground?"
"It was rather exciting," Hermione admitted.
Draco squinted at her. "I never thought you'd enjoy Quidditch."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"I figured you'd be like Theo." He tilted his chin towards Theodore. "Staring into space the entire game." He grimaced. "Or reading some musty old tome."
Harry studied the quiet boy. He'd been staring up? Did that mean…
Theodore roused at the sound of his name, blinking slowly as his eyes focused on Draco. Then, as though sensing he was being watched, his gaze slid to Harry.
"Did you see anything interesting during the match?" Harry asked him.
Theodore's brows drew together. He frowned. "I'm… not sure what I saw."
So, Harry thought, I was right. Not even someone who saw my broom go out of control could tell what was happening. He grimaced. If that man hadn't stepped in… the thought chilled Harry more than the wind whipping through his robes. He would have died on that field, splattered across the grass like an overripe watermelon.
I wish I could thank him.
Pansy patted Theodore's shoulder. "We're just glad you came out. It's not good to stay cooped up inside all the time."
Theodore shrugged. "You wouldn't stop nagging."
"Ugh. You make me sound like a crotchety old lady."
"Aren't you?" Draco asked.
She opened her mouth to retort when she was interrupted by a pair of voices calling out to them from the pitch.
"Hoy!"
They turned to see the lanky figures of Fred and George jogging towards them.
"Better hurry back to the castle, Harry," Fred said as he passed by without slowing. "Madam Pomfrey's hot on our tails."
"And boy, is she mad," George added over his shoulder. "I think we might have overdone it a bit this time."
Harry winced and beckoned to his friends. "Come on. Let's get going."
They hurried to the mouth of the narrow track down the hill, where they were forced to slow and spread out. Harry used the moment of confusion at the trailhead to fall into step with Theodore at the end of the column.
"I wanted to ask you something," Harry said as they picked their way down the slope.
"About what I saw?"
"Yes. Was there— that is, did you see anyone else in the sky with me?"
"With you?" Theodore stilled, his feet dragging to a stop. Harry pretended not to notice and continued down the path alone. After a moment, the scrunch of boots on gravel announced the boy following. He caught up at the next switchback, a question swimming in his dark eyes. Harry could feel the shape of it, like a stone nestled against his tongue.
Theodore blinked, his eyes darting away. "I didn't," he said, his voice little more than a whisper.
Harry tilted his head back, the scent of sun-kissed earth and mossy heather tickling his nose as he took a slow breath. "I see."
Theodore was telling the truth. He knew it in the same inexplicable way he'd known Neville was lying about the troll. He'd seen no one, just as Basil had smelt no one.
Disappointment carved a hollow in his chest. He flicked a pebble with the toe of his boot and watched it bounce down the hill, gaining speed until it flew beneath Crabbe's foot and was trampled.
Where did this leave him? Was it possible to hide your presence from all but a chosen few?
He traced the lines of his palm with his thumb, trying to bring back the sensation of long fingers folding around his own.
It seemed he'd need to make another trip to the library.
Poor Harry. No one noticed his near-death experience!
I have two extra mini-chapters finished that I will post over the next few days. They were originally meant to be part of this chapter, but they felt a little out of place since they follow Pomfrey and McGonagall, and Quirrell and Voldemort. So I hope you'll look forward to seeing those soon!