Chapter 5: Harry vs Sakura
Harry Potter awoke the next morning with the firm resolve to get a grip and pull himself together. When he thought of the way that he'd acted yesterday, it was disgusting. More than that it was embarrassing. He'd face Voldemort for crying out loud, twice! Last year he'd taken on an army of Dementors single handed and beaten the lot of them. And there he was running scared from a bunch of kids who were younger than Colin Creevey, in case he'd forgotten. What had gotten into him, it was as if he hadn't been himself at all. When he looked back on his life, he had a feeling that the previous day was going to be one of those memories he would like to bury.
Well, time to do something about it now. He had been confused, and surprised, and as a result those ninjas had gotten the better of him. But no more. He was better prepared this time, and he was going to show them what set true Gryffindors apart.
Neville, shaking from head to toe, crept up the stairs and stuck his head round the door, "Um, Harry?"
"Yes Neville?"
"Are you going to go down to breakfast, around, well, now?" Neville said.
"I was, why?"
"I think you'd better."
Harry frowned, "What's going on Neville?"
"I don't know," Neville said quickly, "except that I saw Hermione going down there and she looked absolutely terrifying. I mean I've never seen her looking so angry before."
Harry's eyebrows rose, Hermione in a temper tended to loose all self control very quickly; Draco had had a raw mark on his face where she'd smacked him for about a fortnight afterwards. And it didn't take someone of Hermione's intelligence to guess what had gotten her riled up: the words 'Mind Transfer Jutsu' sprang to mind, and notwithstanding his resolve to get over the fear that seemed to have transfixed him last night he still half feared that if Hermione tangled with a trained fighter she was likely to get the worst of it, temper or not.
"Thanks for letting me know Neville." he said, rushing past him down the stairs, through the common room, and out of the Fat Lady's portrait hole and on his way to the Great Hall.
Harry had hoped to catch up to Hermione before she reached the hall proper, unfortunately he never saw her as he sped down the moving staircases, through the corridors, ignoring the portraits criticising his haste as he ran past. He rushed towards the Great Hall and pushed his way through a mob of First Years to reach the doorway, where he stood looking this way and that searching for some sign of Hermione. He couldn't see her anywhere at the Gryffindor table. Had he somehow overtaken her without realising it and gotten here first. It was possible, he supposed, but it didn't seem likely.
What he could see was Sasuke Uchiha, the cause of all the trouble, who seemed to be trying to eat his breakfast while ignoring Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who had seated themselves on either side of him and were, by the looks of things, keeping up a flow of conversation in which the lack of replies from Sasuke seemed rather irrelevant. Opposite Sasuke, Naruto was contemplating a full English breakfast with something less than full blooded enthusiasm. But where was Hermione?
Ino was growling at Lavender and Parvati, "If you two don't get away from him right now then-"
"Ino!" Harry recognised the shrill, angry shriek, and he finally spotted Hermione looking like some demented harpy as she drew and aimed her wand, "Tantallegra!"
Suddenly, Ino began to dance, her legs jerking and waving uncontrollably, the kunoichi shrieked as she began to jig down the Gryffindor table and around the Great Hall, while increasing numbers of witches and wizards convulsed in laughter at her predicament.
"You, you rabbit teeth bitch!" Ino screamed as she began to linedance, "I'm going to get you for this you hear me."
The sight of Ino being forced to tango solo past the Hufflepuff table seemed to calm Hermione down no end, the anger faded from her eyes and face and she strolled down to an empty seat at the Gryffindor table, "Good morning Harry."
"Um, hi Hermione." Harry said, still a little tentatively, as he sat down beside her.
Parvati Patil tittered, "Don't you think she looks so ridiculous Sasuke? Like a pig in dancing shoes?"
Hermione snorted, "Look at them, making a fool of themselves over him just because he's a little good looking."
"Um," Harry didn't like to throw words like hypocrisy around, but there were limits, "you remember last night…?"
"Oh I know, I look back now and I can't believe some of the things I said. I don't know what came over me." Hermione said.
"But you're back to normal now?" Harry asked quickly.
"Completely," Hermione said without hesitation, "having your mind taken over has a strange way of clearing your head."
Harry felt unutterable relief at those words, not just because it meant Hermione would no longer be making a fool of herself but also for other, deeper, more ineffable reasons. The idea of her fawning over Sasuke it, it struck at something in his soul, it was intolerable, but the fact that she had come to her senses came like sweet relief and rain after a dry spell.
Ino, freed from the jinx, fled from the hall and the mockery that trailed in her wake, brushing past Ron as he made his way down to breakfast.
"What was that about?" he asked as he sat down.
Harry grinned, "Hermione's back."
Ron's face lit up, "Well thank god for that."
"I wasn't that bad." Hermione said.
Harry and Ron exchanged a meaningful glance, "Yes you were." they said simultaneously.
"No I wasn't!"
"You really were." Harry said earnestly.
"Hmph," Hermione said, "well at least I taught Ino a lesson anyway."
Harry nodded, "You know, I've been thinking that perhaps we need to put these people in their place a bit. You know, show them that our magic is every bit as good as there, whatever they call."
"Jutsu?" Sakura had apparently heard what they had been discussing, "I kind of doubt that."
"Really?" Harry said, "All right then, can you fly?"
"What?"
"Fly," Harry said, "we can fly on broom sticks, right to the very ceiling of this room if I wanted to, or much higher if I was outdoors obviously. Can you do that?"
"No," Sakura conceded.
"Hah!"
"But if I wanted to get to the top of the ceiling," Sakura said brightly, "I could always climb up."
"Eh?" Harry frowned
Sakura leapt up onto the table, jumped Dennis Creevey's head and then began to walk vertically up the wall of the Great Hall, "By manipulating the chakra to my feet, I can control it to enable me to climb up vertical surfaces." she explained, "The same technique can, with modification, allow you to walk on water."
"Walk on water?" Harry repeated.
"Jesus ninjas," Ron moaned, "that's all we need."
Harry stood up, "All right, come down because we're having a race."
Sakura returned to the ground in one leap, "A race?"
"Whose your best person at this, Katra thing?" Harry said.
"It's called chakra," Sakura said, "and I am."
"And I'm the best flyer in the school." Harry said, "Flying versus climbing, first one to the top of the Astronomy Tower wins."
By now the other ninjas had heard what was going on and had gathered behind Sakura.
"What do you want to race Sakura for?" Naruto asked, "If it's a contest you want I'll give it to you."
"They want the best, Naruto." Choji said.
"I am the best, I'm going to-"
"Yes, you're going to be Hokage some day, we get it already. Find someone who hasn't heard it like a million times already." Kiba said.
"If we're agreed that Sakura is the best of us at chakra, and in the absence of Ino I can't see who will disagree with that, I say we let her go ahead." Shikamaru said, "Our best against their best it is."
"You Hogwarts' best flyer Potter? You? Since when did you become the best flyer in the school, or is this a special school with Weasley, Longbottom and Granger as your fellow pupils."
Harry didn't even have to turn around to imagine the pale, pointed face of Draco Malfoy sneering at him, and when he did turn around sure enough there it was, flanked by the ubiquitous Crabbe and Goyle sniggering appreciatively at their master's wit.
Out of the corner of his eye Harry could see Ron straining at the bit and being restrained by Hermione's firm grasp, but he met Draco's sneer with a falsely sweet smile, "Well if it isn't me, then who is the best flyer, Draco? You, the person I've beaten both times we've faced each other on the Quidditch pitch?"
Draco scowled, "You got lucky, Potter. It doesn't make you the school's best."
"He's right you know Harry," Cedric Diggory had risen from the Hufflepuff tables and come to join the discussion, "much as I hate to admit it. You're taking at lot on yourself to just declare you're the best like this. But if you want to prove the point then go ahead and have the race. But you mustn't use your firebolt."
"What? Why not?"
"It's obscenely fast," Cedric said, "the poor girl will have no chance. You have to be fair Harry or there's no point. You can borrow my Nimbus 2001 if you like."
Draco's lip curled, "Hardly less of an advantage is it Diggory? Tell you what Potter, why don't you try one of the Weasley brothers' Cleansweeps, you know; the ones that were museum pieces even when they weren't family hand me downs."
"You can borrow my Seven Harry." Fred said, "And if you could try and wreck it, that way Mum would have to buy me a new broom." George, Lee and Ron laughed appreciatively.
"Well this will be a new experience for me." Draco said, "I actually find myself rooting for the mudblood."
Harry didn't respond. He'd wiped the smirk of Malfoy's face before and he'd do it again.
It was not long before Sakura and Harry stood at the base of the astronomy tower, the ninja who had turned out to support Sakura clustered on one side facing Harry's supporters- most of Gryffindor House, plus a few others such as Cho Chang and Cedric Diggory- stood on the other. Malfoy and his Slytherin cronies stood a little way off from the rest, watching with an air of detached amusement.
"Now remember Sakura," Kakashi said, "it's a long way to fall from the top of that tower, and this race isn't worth crippling yourself or risking your life for, so if you feel your reserves of Chakra running low, get down at once." Especially since you don't have the greatest chakra reserves of any in this group. If it were Naruto or Neji or even Sasuke making the running I wouldn't be so concerned.
"Ah, don't worry about a thing Kakashi," Guy said, "just let her unleash the full bloom of her youth and she'll be unstoppable." His teeth sparkled.
Kakashi would have been more reassured by Guy's advice if his friend hadn't had a habit of helping his students push themselves far beyond the limits of their natural tolerance.
"Don't worry Kakashi sensei," Sakura said reassuringly, "I won't take any dumb risks."
"Sakura, I just want to wish you good luck." Lee gave her a thumbs up, "I will be behind you with all of my heart, and I know that you will triumph."
Sakura blushed slightly, "Thanks, Lee."
"Good luck Sakura." Naruto called, but Sakura was a little disappointed when Sasuke didn't say anything. In fact, now that she looked, he didn't even seem to be there.
"Get her Harry," Ron yelled, "put them in their place."
Harry grinned, "I'll do my best Ron."
"I see Professor McGonagall hasn't emulated the example of their sensei," Hermione noted.
"I think if she were here she'd have to put a stop to it, so her absence is a sort of support." Harry said encouragingly.
"Hmm, I suppose so." Hermione said.
"All right, who wants to place a bet on Harry, three to one on anyone?" Fred called out from over the crowd, "yes Seamus you want to bet on Sakura?"
Ron glared, "Seamus!"
Seamus shrugged, "Even with that forehead, she's not half bad looking."
"I prefer Ino." Dean remarked.
"What about Hinata?" Neville asked.
"Neville!"
Neville appeared to wilt a little under the intensity of Ron's glare, "I'm only saying."
"Here," Ron dug into one of his pockets, "Eight galleons on Harry." To Harry, Ron muttered, "I hope you win, that's all the money I've got."
"No pressure then."
"At least I'm behind you."
"Ready?" Sakura backed away a little from the tower, and crouched into a running position.
Harry mounted Fred's Cleansweep Seven; it felt strange to have the unfamiliar broom beneath him, and after nearly a year with his Firebolt it felt sluggish, and slow to respond. For a moment he wondered if he would be able to do his best with the alien, inferior broomstick, but then he caught himself. That sort of thinking was for people like Malfoy who reckoned you could buy talent; he would fly just as well with this broom as he had with his Nimbus, or with his Firebolt.
"Ready." he said.
"Then let's go!" Sakura yelled, taking a run at the outer wall of the tower and beginning to run up it, her feet emitting a strange blue glow around the edges as she moved seemingly effortlessly up the smooth stone surface.
Harry kicked off from the ground, soaring up through the air, hugging the wall of the tower as the swiftest way up to the top. He could feel the air whipping past his face, the feel of the broom beneath his legs, and allowed a smile to spread out across his face as he savoured this moment. With no Quidditch this year, he would not get so much regular practice on his broom and so he ought to savour the opportunities to fly as and when they came.
All the same, he knew he couldn't spend too much time savouring because Sakura certainly wasn't. The pink haired girl, her red blouse having shifted to expose her legs, was bounding up the wall of the tower with a speed that was astonishing; even more so because he still hadn't quite gotten used to the fact that she was running up the wall. For a moment he slowed down as he watched her, but then the sounds of cheering down below re-awakened him to the fact that he was flying with the pride of the wizarding world and Gryffindor House on his shoulders and he put the Cleansweep into a spurt of speed, pushing the old broom for everything that it could give him as he saw that his brief distraction had allowed Sakura was catch up.
He couldn't loose. He could not loose. He was the Seeker who had never failed to catch his Snitch- all right technically he had failed to catch it once but there were extenuating circumstances that day- and he was not about to loose, not to some wallcrawler from another world. He had to show that his magic was just as good as hers, and the only way to do that was by winning.
But he couldn't shake Sakura. She was hugging his bristles as he flew, always right behind him, always keeping up no matter how much speed he tried to force out of the Cleansweep Seven. In fact, as they neared the top of the tower, she even started to overtake him.
"Come on, come on," Harry muttered, urging the Cleansweep on to even greater exertions, he stopped bothering to watch his opponent as he concentrated on reaching the top first. He couldn't loose, he could not loose.
Harry let out a yell of triumph as the broomstick swept over the tower battlements, a cry that was strangled as he saw Sakura leaping over them at exactly the same time as he himself crested them. Her feet touched the tower roof even as he landed.
"A draw?" Harry said, disbelieving, "A draw?" even from up there he could hear Malfoy and his friends laughing, and disbelieving cries from down below. He waited a moment, before he realised that he had no choice but to go back down and face the music.
"Still think you're the best flyer in the school Potter?" Malfoy cackled, "Or has loosing to a mudblood freak deflated your head a little. You looked like the worst from down here. Longbottom could have done better."
"So, you drew," Hermione said cautiously, "well, Harry, I suppose it could have been worse."
"Could it?" Harry demanded, "How?"
"You might have lost." Hermione pointed out.
She wasn't wrong there.
