DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter and anything related belongs to JKRowling.
Amber Potter and the Traitor Within.
Blurb …
Follow the antics of 11-year-old cousins, Amber-Leigh Potter and Rosemary Weasley, during their first year at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, along with their new friend, Alice Longbottom.
Find out what happens when you mix an evil plot, an invisibility cloak and two girls with extraordinary powers and a world full of magic.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Mid-game suspicions.
Amber woke up the next morning, wishing that the match could just be over, and her heart sank when she could still hear the rain, if possible, coming down even harder than before.
As popular as Quidditch was, everyone turned up in the great hall, wearing house colours as usual. Yellow and black for Hufflepuff and red and gold for Gryffindor. But the cheering could hardily be heard over the fresh rolls of thunder.
"And that's saying something!" Rosemary half-shouted over the rain, "Sounds like it's a cyclone out there!"
Amber was feeling too nervous to eat, along with Andy and Josh. So she sat there, trying not to open her mouth as she felt like she'd throw up if she opened her mouth. Andy was wearing one of the umbrella hats that Alice mentioned and Josh looked ready to resign.
"Come on team, changing rooms!" Tania yelled 10 minutes later, and the whole house cheered as the team got up, while the Slytherin's booed and hissed as per usual.
Equipped with umbrellas, the team ran down to the changing rooms at full pelt, yet still getting soaked and Amber actually felt afraid. What if she was struck by lightning like Daphne said?
By the time they made it into the changing rooms, they were all saturated to the bone, but had no time to get dry-people were already starting to come down to the stands.
Amber peeled off her school robes and pulled on her Quidditch ones with trembling hands. What if she couldn't see the Quaffle and it hit her in the head and she fell to her watery doom?
"Don't worry Amber." Andy said, picking up his new beater bat. "We'll make sure nothing goes wrong."
"Right!" Tania yelled as a flash of lightning struck through the room. The rain was so thick that it was almost like night time. "I know these aren't good conditions, but Quidditch matches aren't called off for something as trivial as thunder storms! We need to get out there! And show Mother Nature that even in bad weather, Gryffindor can still WIN!"
Amber thought she was sounding slightly hysterical. Amber honestly couldn't see how they were going to play in this. She was light and the wind would surely pick her off course and send her flying through the air?
"Ok! Let's go!" Tania screamed over more thunder and she led the way out onto the pitch.
Amber was soaked after she'd walked nearly a dozen paces. The ground was flooded with water and mud, and couldn't even hear the crowd if it were cheering-now it just looked like a sea of umbrellas.
She swerved as another fork of lightning flashed overhead and saw madam Hooch mouth "Mount your brooms!" and Amber gripped her new broom very tightly and swung her leg over.
Amber only just heard the shrill blast of the whistle and they were off-well, sort off. Practically everybody was blown off course. Amber was soaked within seconds, and nearly took a bludger to the head because the rain was so thick, she never saw it coming.
They tried to play for about 10 minutes in the rain and howling wind. Try as Amber could tell that either side wasn't doing well. By this point they had dropped the Quafle 6 times and Amber could only tell where Tania and Josh were because they were two red blurs. She had no idea what the score was, only that they weren't doing as well as they had hoped. Amber kept flying into other players, as she could never see them properly.
15 more wet and soggy minutes later, they were all soaked to the bone and Amber was freezing cold.
"Tania!" Amber screamed, and hurling the Quaffle in the direction of Tania screaming back. Amber supposed she caught it as she could hear her screaming "JOSH!" over the newest rolls of thunder.
Suddenly, a fork of lightning came flashing down and struck the tail of someone's broom. Amber couldn't tell who it was, except for the fact that it was someone on their team. They were screaming and Amber saw them falling through the rain.
Amber pushed her soaking hair out of her eyes and was nearly thrown off herself as Thomas came hurtling out of no where. Amber spun around and saw a tiny golden glimmer flicking through the rain-the snitch was feet below.
Amber sighed with relief that the match was soon to be over, when another fork of lightning illuminated the stands, which Amber realised she was very close to. She looked up and saw something that made her head spin with curiosity-Malfoy was looking disgruntled and wet, but talking animatedly to Professor Lyra.
Ok, why in the name of Merlin, was Malfoy talking to Lyra, of all people? Was Malfoy in on the plan? Or was he just talking about homework?
You idiot! Said a voice in her head, Why would he be talking about homework in the middle of a Quidditch match? In fact, why would Malfoy be talking about homework at all?
It was a bit dodgy-what wold be so important that it had to be discussed in the middle of a raging storm at a Quidditch match? Did he know something about the plan to kill Alice's dad? Was he in on it also? His dad was a death eater after all-
"AMBER!" She heard Tania scream from over head "GET PLAYING NOW!"
Horrified that she'd been stationary in mid air for over a minute, she turned round and began to fly up to the goal post, where Josh was trying to get past the Hufflepuff Keeper, Lance.
But as she flew up, a black ball which was a bludger came pelting out of no where. Amber tried to duck but wasn't quick enough.
She didn't have time to scream. The hard sickening pain that hit the side of her head made her slip off her broom. She felt herself grow unconscious as he fell down … down … down …
"Is she going to be ok?"
"Of course she is Alice … I mean; I hope she'll be ok."
"I'm sure she will be-hey! Look! She's waking up!"
Amber opened her eyes to see Rosemary, Alice, Josh and Andy standing over her, all looking as if they had climbed out of a swimming pool.
"You lot all right?" She asked and sat up as the side of her head twinged painfully.
"We're fine." Rosemary said, looking scared "You on the other hand took a bludger to the head! We thought you would have died if Josh hadn't caught you."
"Oh, thanks." Amber said, thanking her cousin. "Who got struck by lightning?"
"Oh, that was Cecilia. But she's ok-she's over there." Alice pointed over to the bed next to her, where Tania and Thomas were standing.
"That was quite some game." Andy exclaimed "But we won Amber!" he added, sounding jubilant.
"We did?" Amber asked, feeling that this game was worth something after all.
"Yeah! Just after you fell, Thomas caught the snitch, the Hufflepuff seeker not even knowing that Thomas was going after it!"
"Bet they're not happy." Amber said.
"Not at all." Rosemary agreed. "Actually, they were-"
But what they were, Amber never found out. Madam Pomfrey had come bustling in, yelling over the thunder "OUT OUT OUT! THESE PACIENTS NEED REST! OUT!" And the others had no choice but to leave.
Rosemary and Alice remained behind however. They moved forwards onto chairs, both trying to dry themselves with towels that madam Pomfrey just gave them with a disapproving look. It was then Amber remembered-
"You guys-" Amber began and Rosemary and Alice turned their attention on her.
"What?" Alice asked.
"During the match-I saw Malfoy talking to Lyra in the stands." Amber said and Rosemary and Alice exchanged a look.
"We know." Rosemary said, turning back to Amber. "We saw him. You don't think he's involved, do you?"
"Why else would he be talking to her?" Amber said.
"We can't go jumping to conclusions-though it would be nice if he got expelled." Alice added as an after thought.
"I guess we'll have to wait and see." Amber said, and the other two agreed.
"Happy Birthday Amber!"
Amber woke up on April 6th, to see Rosemary and Alice standing over her, grinning and holding a parcel each.
"Hey! Thanks." Amber took the parcels and sat up. "And Alice, if it's a homework planer like you got Rosemary, you can take it back!"
"Uh …" Alice began and Amber laughed. It was Amber's 12th birthday today. Rosemary's birthday was yesterday, and had received a homework planner from Alice, Alice claiming that Rosemary's mum had given Uncle Harry and Uncle Ron a homework planner for Christmas, because they would never do their homework-like Amber and Rosemary.
Sure enough, when Amber opened her present, Amber found the diary, along with a box of chocolate frogs. Rosemary-A golden-brown scarf, same colour as her jumper she got for Christmas, except it had her name written on it.
"You've got to be matching!" Rosemary said in moke outrage when Amber held it up questionably.
Later on that day, once Amber had gotten dressed and headed down to the great hall, they saw all the Gryffindor's looking miserable.
"What's happened?" Amber asked Carley as they sat down, and realised that the Slytherin's were jeering.
"Snape, that's what." She replied gloomily.
"What's he done?" Alice asked, pouring marmalade onto her toast.
"Taken a whole load of points from us for no apparent reason." Geraldine answered.
"What?" Rosemary asked. All five of them turned to look at the giant hourglasses in the corner, which displayed the amount of points each house had. Whoever had the most at the end of the year would be awarded the house cup-something that most of the houses fought for.
Sure enough, yesterday, Gryffindor had been in the lead, due to the outstanding performance from the Gryffindor Quidditch team during the storm, which had thankfully persisted so much rain that their seemed to be no more left. Now there the grounds were soggy and wet, making it difficult to trudge through the mud whenever they went to visit Hagrid.
Now however, Gryffindor seemed to be coming in dead last, with Slytherin on top, something Malfoy seemed to be very smug about. He was laughing and waving mockingly at Amber.
"I can't believe him." Rosemary was saying. "What did we supposedly do?"
"Apparently, we wrote 'Snape loves Moaning Myrtle' on the wall outside our potions class, when everyone knows it was the Slytherin's who did it." Carley replied.
Rosemary gave a slight snigger. "Well that would have been funny."
"Filch is trying to get rid of it as we speak." Geraldine said. "It's proving hard to remove. Snape took away 60 points because no one would own up!"
Amber dropped the porridge. "60?!"
"Yep." Carley replied.
"I don't believe him." Alice said to Amber and Rosemary.
"Me either." Amber agreed.
"You know …" Rosemary began. "We do have something on him …"
"The Snape-Lyra convo's?" Alice whispered, glancing around to make sure they weren't being overheard.
"Yep." Rosemary said.
"But he won't believe us!" Amber protested. "Your dad I mean-we don't have any proof!"
"Our word has to count for something." Rosemary said, shrugging. "Maybe he'll believe us. We don't know until we try."
"Ok, but remember, today's my birthday!" Amber reminded them. "Today-let's have fun."
The other two agreed and they all decided on going straight to Alice's dad after breakfast. Once they had finished, they saw him up at the teachers table, standing up and looing ready to go back to his office.
"Dad!" Alice called and they hurried towards him.
"Oh hello Alice." He said as they stoped short in front of him. "Enjoying Hogwarts so far?"
"Not now dad, we have to tell you something." Alice said and she glanced around. "Could we go somewhere we won't be overheard?"
Neville Longbottom looked slightly surprised, but nevertheless, he said "Er, ok." And led them all the way up to the seventh floor and stoped outside an ugly looking gargoyle.
"Chocolate frogs." He said and the Gargoyle sprang to life and leapt aside.
Amber barely had time to be surprised, as he was already leading them up a revolving staircase, going upwards. Professor Longbottom stepped onto it and the three followed him. Amber looked round to see the Gargoyle step in front of the wall again.
They stayed on the staircase until Amber felt slightly dizzy, then he led the way through an oak door and into a circular office.
Out of all of the office's Amber had been in for numerous amounts of detentions, this had to be the best. It was so pretty, a big desk sitting in the middle, with a large winged armchair behind it. All around, their were pictures of old headmaster's and headmistresses. Amber saw the picture of Albus Dumbledore waving at her. The light coming from the window gave the colourful objects in the selves around the walls a bright glow and Professor Longbottom conjured up three more chairs and gestured to Amber, Rosemary and Alice to sit.
"Now." He said, seating himself in his own chair. "What is it you want to tell me?"
The three of them started talking at once.
"It's Snape and Lyra-"
"-They're trying to kill you-"
"-we heard them talking-"
"-three times! Well, Amber overheard one-"
"-We don't want them to kill you-!"
"Hold it!" Professor Longbottom said, holding up a hand. "You overheard Professor's Snape and Lyra plotting to kill me?"
"YES!" all three of them yelled at the same time. Professor Longbottom looked at them for a moment-and burst into laughter.
"Oh dear, I knew something like this was going to crop up-"
"Dad, i don't think you get it." Alice said, looking annoyed. "Snape. And. Lyra. Are. Trying. To. Kill. You."
"Look." Professor Longbottom said, leaning forward. "I appreciate you telling me this, but I do not think it's anything to worry about-I find it unlikely that two of my staff are planning to kill me!"
"They aren't doing it for them, dad!" Alice cried, "They're doing it for Damaan!"
"Damaan?" Neville said. Then he gave another little laugh. "Look-I know what you three are thinking-your parents were like that. I can tell you this-many times Harry, Ron and Hermione were wrong about their suspicions about Snape. He was on our side all along. Lyra's on our side too-they wouldn't be out to kill me. I think you overheard wrongly."
"But that's not all!" Amber interjected. "During the Quidditch match in the storm, we saw Kyle Malfoy talking to Professor Lyra, sir! We think he's-"
"In on it too?" Professor Longbottom put in gently, and three of them nodded.
"Look, I appreciate you three telling me this, but I think you may have misunderstood."
"But-" Alice began.
"No." Professor Longbottom said. "Now I think you ought to be getting along now. Oh and Amber-happy birthday!"
"Thanks professor Longbottom." Amber muttered as he chivvied them out of his office.
"Well that was a waste of time." Amber said grumpily as they stood in a windy courtyard, huddled together against the wind.
"Yeah-I told you he wouldn't believe us." Alice pointed out to Rosemary, who shrugged again.
"We had to give it a shot." She said. "And we did. And he didn't believe us. Now all we can do is wait for rock-solid proof."
"But where are we going to get that?" Amber asked, as Professor Lyra herself came round the corner, wearing her pale blue robes again. She smiled and waved at Amber, who gave a forced smile back.
"I don't know … we can't afford to do anything to lose points again." Rosemary said. "So I think sneaking around is out."
Amber silently agreed with her as the bell rang for Transfiguration, but on the whole, didn't feel any better. Amber knew they had not overheard wrongly, and that Snape and Lyra, and possibly Malfoy were up to something.
Of course he'll come round eventually. Amber thought miserably. But would it be too late by the time he did?
A/N: Hurrah! Funny ... when i wrote the Quidditch in the storm, it was blazing hot outside and i had the fan blowing my face ... talk about contrast. Lalalalalalalalalaaaaa ...
Hmmm ... i don't know what to say about this chapter. I honestly don't like his story very much, but you wonderful reviers seem to like it, so yeah ...
Reviews are appriciated. : D