Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
A/N: I noticed that I forgot to put some things in the previous flashback (of chapter 4), so I edited couple of lines.
I wrote this chapter and I wanted to post it on last Tuesday, like I said, but then I read it before I posted and I just saw it had a bad ending, so I rewrote it and my fingers just didn't stop typing on the keyboard, and before I knew it, I ended up with 10 pages LOL. I had so many ideas to put in and I kept writing and writing until I covered all of them. It took me a few days because I had a test to study to and other thing on my mind, so this is a compensation for you for waiting and me breaking my promise. But don't get used to read long chapters, I can't promise that every chapter from now on will be long. And there's no flashback in this chapter, sorry, I couldn't think of one.
hathor X: Thank you! Guess we'll see in this chapter, won't we...?
Slytherin-girl TF lover: Well, sorry to disappoint you, I don't like the Slytherin girls, I think they're bitches and this is not a slash fic either... But of course I really appreciate and hope that you'll continue to read. Like I said, the romance won't take a big part from the story.
kelsey: He might will, but I guess it will take place in later chapters.
emuerz: Thank you!
Anyway, enjoy and don't forget to REVIEW!
Chapter 5 – Detention with a Weasley:
"Welcome to the N.E.W.T. Potions class," Professor Snape said in a drawling voice at their first class they had the following morning. "I expected to have fewer pupils in my class this year, but I guess some of you realized before your O.W.L.s last year that Potions is no picnic. If you thought that an A, E or O grade in your O.W.L.s exam was enough for you to pass the N.E.W.T.s exam then you're wrong," he said, walking up and down the class and shooting threatening glances at a few scared Gryffindors. "This year is going to be the toughest year you've had so far and if you don't practice doing potions correctly and learn the theoretical material by heart, I can assure you right here and now that you will fail the N.E.W.T.s exam and that there is no reason for you to stay, unless you want to fail..."
The potion lesson today wasn't so hard, Harry thought. He compared his own to Granger's and was sure that both potions looked the same and that they were both good.
After the bell rang and ended the double period they had, Snape called Harry to stay behind. After Harry saw that all the students left the classroom, including Blaise and Draco, who said that they'd meet him at lunch, Harry approached Snape.
"You wanted to see me, sir?" he asked.
"Yes, Potter. I wanted to know when you are planning to set tryouts for the team," Snape responded.
"Hua?" Harry asked dumbly, but then he understood that Snape was probably talking about Quidditch, since he was the new team's Captain. "Oh! Er... I dunno. Maybe Friday night, I guess. I haven't really thought about it yet."
"Then Friday night it is. I'll sign for the pitch between 7 to 9 P.M.. Is that a good time?"
"Yeah, it's great," Harry answered. "Should I put a note on the notice board, sir?"
"If you may, I've got loads of work to do and Quidditch is the last thing on my mind right now."
"Okay then, I will," Harry assured him.
"All right, off you go."
Harry turned around from Snape's desk and made his way towards the door, but stopped when a thought popped in his mind. He turned around and looked back at his greasy, black haired Professor. "Excuse me, sir, can I ask you something?"
"What is it Potter?" Snape asked, not facing Harry, and carrying on writing something on a parchment.
"I... I wanted to know why you chose me to be... the team's Captain." Now Snape finally abandoned his business and turned his face to look at Harry. "I mean, I'm honored, and let me assure you that I'll do a great job as Captain and do my best to train the team so we'll win the Cup, but... there's something on my mind that's bothering me a bit..."
"And that thing is...?" Snape looked quite annoyed that Harry spoke a whole speech and distracted him.
"I'm not your favorite student, let's face it, and I almost always fail your tests, so why did you chose me as the Captain and not Draco for instance?"
"As much as I hate your parents, Potter," Harry of course already knew that tiny fact, but it didn't matter to him. "I trust you completely and I know you're different from them. I mean, look at you, you're a Slytherin but they were Gryffindors, that's the first thing that makes you different from them. I chose you because you're cunning and clever, even if you don't admit it. And the last thing that made me sure that you're right for the position was that you're the best Quidditch player and Seeker Slytherin has seen in years. That's why I chose you. Did you really think that I would prefer Mr. Malfoy? No offense to your friend, of course, but he's not as good player as you," Snape finished his speech. Harry looked surprise to hear for the first time in his life Snape complimenting him. Snape continued to look at him, as Harry hadn't said a word and he looked like he hoped he (Harry) had heard him because he didn't want to repeat it all over again. "Do you understand?" he asked, finally pulling Harry back to reality.
"Y...yes, sir. Thank you," he said and walked out of the classroom.
He went to join his friends for lunch in the Great Hall and told them what Snape had wanted.
Blaise looked overenthusiastic about something for some reason and it started to annoy Harry. "What are you so excited about today?" he asked him curiously, but Blaise was jumping in his seat. "Can you calm down? I'm trying to eat here!" Blaise stopped jumping but kept on smiling from ear to ear and continued to gaze in air, daydreaming. He didn't answer Harry, like he hasn't heard anything he said. "Hello? Blaise...?" Harry asked, waving a hand in front of his friend's face. Blaise didn't wake up from his daydream. "Did a Dementor kiss him or something?" he now turned to Draco, after giving up.
"Almost. To be precise, the Dementor's name is Pansy Parkinson," Draco said as he read the headlines of the Daily Prophet and chewed his food at the same time.
"What?" Harry asked, suddenly sounding surprised for an unknown reason. Is this another plan of Pansy to make him jealous? By using poor Blaise now? (Not that Blaise seemed to mind...) Did she always have to use his friends?
"Oh, didn't you notice in class earlier? His dear precious Pansy allowed him to sit next to her," Draco answered with a smirk on his lips.
"That's all?" Harry asked with a mocking chuckle and Draco nodded. And he thought it was getting out of hand! "Okay... this is fixable; we still can have our old Blaise back. Hey, Crabbe!" Harry called, looking for one of their dumb and fat followers. Crabbe raised his head from his plate and looked at Harry with a questioning look on his face. "Next Potions class you sit next to Pansy Parkinson, okay?"
Crabbe just shrugged his shoulders carelessly and went back to stuffing food into his mouth. Harry noticed that when he called out Pansy's name, Blaise woke up from his daydream and looked around. Now Blaise held a horror-struck look on his face and looked at Harry, who looked back at him and Draco with a triumph smile playing on his lips. Blaise stared at him opened-mouthed and Draco tried to suppress a laugh.
"Wha...? Why...? What'd you that for?" Blaise asked Harry in shock.
"And he can talk!" Draco joked. Harry sniggered but then tried to look serious as he talked to Blaise.
"You need to get over that girl, man. Forget her. You can do much better than that. Believe me, it's for your own good. It's not healthy to obsess over some girl like that... especially if it's Parkinson..." Harry added a disgusted look to his words.
"To hell with health! You ruined my chances with her!" he protested.
"Okay, Blaise," Draco folded his paper and put it aside and turned to Blaise. "Reality check – Parkinson does not give a damn about you!"
"Yeah, sorry mate, but you know it's me she wants. I'll be more than glad to let you have her but let's face it, when she's obsessed with someone, she'll turn the world upside down just to have him. Do you remember what she did to Marcus Flint a few years ago? Even though he was a little older than her? She made him miserable until he gave up, polyjuiced a frog to look like him and let her kiss it just so she would leave him alone," he said and then mumbled to himself, "Umm... maybe I should do that too..."
"I think the frog died an hour later. Poor thing, never knew what was coming..." Draco made the comment with a sarcastic smile.
"I don't care!" Blaise ignored Draco and retorted back to Harry. "Let her use me, just so I could have her for one minute!" He said and then his face froze. "Hold on a sec, did you say something about Quidditch tryouts?"
"Yeah... On Friday night, I thought you didn't hear. Why, you want to tryout?"
"That would be cool, don't you think?" Blaise said. He looked like a lightening bulb had been lit above his head, meaning he had an idea. "That way, Pansy will notice what a great Chaser I am. And everyone knows the Chaser gets more attention than any other player on the team, right?" he asked, more to himself than his friends, but Draco answered cynically, "Oh yeah, sure!" and rolled his eyes.
Harry just shook his head disbelievingly and knew that Blaise was, for the time being, hopeless.
But he wasn't finished there. Blaise decided that Harry had gone too far, so he told them after the bell rang, that he didn't want to speak to them for a while because they were supposed to help him with stuff like that. So he walked out alone to their next class, without saying anything else to them.
"Oh, great..." Draco mumbled. "Had to say that, didn't you?"
"Oh, of course, blame me with all of this!" Harry retorted, quite annoyed.
"Well, you started it! You told him –"
"I did not!"
"Did too!"
"No arguing in the hallways,"a voice said calmly. Unfortunately, this voice belonged to Hermione Granger, as she passed them by on their way to class.
"Filthy Mudblood..." both Draco and Harry said in unison under their breaths and they calmed down at once. Harry noticed he used again the 'M' word he promised to Sirius he wouldn't use again, but he couldn't help it. When he was around his friends, he was a whole new person.
"Okay, so how long do you reckon he won't talk to us?" Harry asked, trying to focus back on 'The Blaise Issue'.
Draco smirked and said, "It wouldn't take long... I think we'll survive his silence until dinner," he said and they both tried to suppress another laugh...
The first Quidditch practice took place on the second weekend after school had started. Harry's team had already drawn up tryouts for the three missing Chasers.
Blaise was excellent. Harry wondered why he never tried to be a player on the team if he was so good at dodging Bludgers and score the Quaffle through the goal posts, because he got the position immediately. And as for the other two chasers, they were good and fast, but not as good and fast as Blaise was.
Harry was also glad that Blaise didn't mention Pansy since the first day of school and he was sure he was over her now.
Slytherin, as always, 'stole' the pitch from the other teams for their practice (of course they had Snape's permission with them, using the excuse that they needed to train their new chasers, but it still counted as stealing and they were proud of it, or so they were thought to be. When Harry and his teammates came out of the changing room and walked down the pitch, they saw the last thing they've expected that day. Gryffindor's team was already playing in the air.
Crabbe and Goyle suggested knocking them off their brooms and the rest of the team supported that plan, but not Harry. He stopped them at the last second before they soared into the air. Truly, Harry was mad at the Gryffindors for taking their time at the pitch, but before he let them know that they made a very big mistake, he wanted to see how strong their team was. He wanted to see their moves, their players, and their tactics. From what he could see, their team has improved since last year, and honestly, they were indeed a good team.
Harry scanned the sky for their Seeker, but he couldn't find that little red-headed girl. He started to look for her around the pitch, right when a flash of gold crossed his eyes, and one second later he was knocked to the ground by someone.
"Fuck!" he exclaimed, clutching the back of his head, where he felt a sharp pain followed by what might have been blood that dripped forcefully inside of his grip.
"Got it!" the Weasley girl called from up the air. Harry opened his eyes and saw her flying about 12 feet above him, the Snitch was held tightly in her hand. He saw her freckled face shoot him a sneering look, and then she poked her tongue out at him, just before all of the Gryffindor team flew to meet her.
"Good one, Ginny!" Ron Weasley clapped on his sister's back and laughed lightly.
Draco and Blaise helped Harry to get up. He quickly seized his wand from his back pocket. He didn't mind that his head was bleeding; he wanted her to pay for the pain she caused him. He wanted to fly up and start to shoot curses at her, but he felt everyone holding him back. The scene around him started to spin. He suddenly felt very weak, his body was sloppy and he lost the grip on his broom and wand that were in his hands, and he fell to the ground. Darkness taking over him as he fainted.
"Oh look, he's waking up," Blaise's voice said from a great, great distance. Harry opened his eyes to see himself lying on a bed in the hospital wing. Even though he thought Blaise and Draco stood near the door, they were actually sat right next to his bed.
Draco explained what happened. "I – I fainted?" Harry asked, stunned, after he heard the whole story. He never, ever lost consciousness before. He reached up to where the pain was still fresh and felt bandages wrapped around his forehead. "What's that?" he asked, at first confused, but then he realized that his head must still be bleeding.
Madam Pomfrey entered the ward from her office. "Mr. Potter, I see you're awake now. I need to be sure that you don't have to stay here overnight and then you can leave. How many fingers am I holding up?" She held up three fingers and a thumb, from what Harry could see. He hoped he was right. He didn't want to spend the night in this place. He barely ever stepped inside the infirmary, only when one of the team's players got hit by a Bludger or something, so he went to visit him with the rest of the team.
"Four?" he tried to sound like he was sure of what he saw.
"Are you guessing or do you really see me holding up four fingers?" she asked.
"I see you holding three fingers and a thumb. Now, am I right and I can leave or do I need to tell you what color your shoes are?"
She pouted and put her hands on her hips. "I'm not appreciating your attitude, Mr. Potter, but you may leave."
Harry sat upright in the bed and reached again to his head to take off the bandages.
"What are you doing?" Madam Pomfrey asked. "You can't take them off until tomorrow morning, I'm sorry," she didn't sound like she was sorry.
"I can't walk around with these things on my head!" he complained.
"Well, you have to. Goodbye."
Harry had to hurry to the common room as fast as he could. Draco and Blaise may look innocent, but he knew they made fun of him behind his back. He didn't care that they would see him like this, just as long as nobody else would.
"Oh, that's attractive."
Harry cringed his teeth at the sound of the voice. Dreams snapped, hopes shattering into small pieces!
Weasley and Granger stood together at the bottom of the stairs in the entrance hall. Weasley smirked at him and looked very pleased with whathis sisterdid to him.
"Shut up, Weasel! It's all your sister's fault! She did that on purpose!" Harry said, defending himself.
"Oh, yeah? Try to prove it!" he shot back.
"When I see her... I swear..." His temper was rising now.
"If you lay one finger on my sister, your head isn't the only thing going to be wrapped in bandages," Weasley said threateningly.
"Leave him alone, Ron. I think the bandages looking quite nice on him... It's like a new hat, don't you think so?" The Weasley girl emerged from nowhere and now stood next to her brother, crossing her arms over her chest, a defeating smile cross her lips.
"You...! You filthy little Weasel!" Harry spat. He couldn't take this anymore. No one would make fun of him or threaten him without getting punished. He reached for his wand and pulled it out, pointing it at the three Gryffindors standing in front of him.
"Harry, stop!" a man's voice called. Harry turned around, startled to see Remus Lupin, his Defense against the Dark Arts teacher and also one of his parents' best friends standing on the stairs behind him. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Trying to attack three defenseless Gryffindors!" he said as he came down a few stairs.
"What? How can you take their side? They started it! His sister is the reason my head is all wrapped in bandages! Ask Draco and Blaise, they saw it, too!"
Draco and Blaise nodded to Lupin. He turned to look at the three Gryffindors. They all shook their heads in unison and looked innocent. "They're lying!" Harry said. "Do you think I really have time to attack these idiots whenever I feel like it?"
"Okay, you two," he pointed to the two Weasleys, "And you, Harry, to my office – Now."
They all walked in silence to the second floor, where Lupin's office was. Nobody dared to say anything or looked each other in the eye, until they entered the office. Lupin made them stand side by side and then started to ask questions, or actually, to demand answers.
"Harry, tell me what happened."
Harry started to tell him about what happened that afternoon, about how the Weasley girl knocking him on the ground and made him lose consciousness.
"Okay, Ginny, is that true? Did you do it on purpose?"
"No, I was after the Snitch, it just happened to go right in front of him. It was an accident," she answered.
"Which this reminds me, they stole the pitch from us today!" Harry interfered, pointing a finger at them.
"We did not!" Ron protested and he and his sister started to get into a row with Harry, each side claiming they had signed for the pitch first.
"Okay, quiet everyone!" Lupin shouted with his hoarse voice and the room was quiet again. "Ginny, you could have avoided crashing into Harry, right?" She nodded. "Then why didn't you?" She shrugged and looked at the floor, circling the stone with the toe of her shoe. "Then it was on purpose," Lupin said and she nodded again, facing the floor and stopped circling it with her shoe.
"And did you have anything to do with it?" Lupin turned to Ron.
"No, I swear. I only teased him earlier, but that's all," he said innocently.
"Ha-ha," Lupin sounded like he reached a decision. "I don't like taking points off the houses and certainly not giving out punishments, but I'll easy you with this one. Ginny, detention for you tomorrow night for what you did to Harry. And no excuses of how much he deserved it! I'll talk to you tomorrow morning to let you know when and where your detention will be set. You two may go back to your common room now, not wandering the hallways."
"Yes, sir," the two Gryffindors said and went out of the office. Harry was triumph that she got punished and he wasn't, though he hoped her brother would get a detention too, but hey, you can't eat the cake and keep it whole, right?
"Now, about you Harry," Lupin said. "From what I saw, you just broke some of the school rules yourself. No using spells in the hallways, no attacking other students and there are a few more, but let's spare the details. I'm sorry, but I have to be fair and objective, so a detention for you too tomorrow night."
Harry nodded quietly. He turned back to exit the room, but then Lupin stopped him. "Wait, I think it will be best if you inform your parents about today's events, including the detention you just got."
Harry nodded again and headed back to his common room. Somehow, it seemed fair to give him a punishment too. He just didn't know why.
Lupin caught Harry at lunch the next day and told him that his detention would be at 7P.M. with Professor Snape in his office. Harry was disappointed to hear that. He knew Snape's detentions were the worst, and he hoped the Head of his House would not hear about it somehow. After all, he said he trusted him completely and he didn't want to let him down after only two weeks. But he had no choice. Ditching a detention from Snape was the worst thing one could do.
Harry arrived at Snape's office couple of minutes after 7. He sighed before he knocked twice on the door, and when he heard Snape calling him to come in, he pressed down the handle and walked inside the room.
He didn't expect to see her there. The Weasley girl, sitting in one of the chairs in front of Snape's desk and glaring back at him, looking like she wasn't so pleased to see him. Harry shot her back the same look. What is she doing here? he thought to himself, but then remembered that Lupin gave her a detention, too.
"Come in, Mr. Potter, close the door behind you, please," Snape drawled and Harry did as he was told.
"I though I was doing this detention alone," she said to Snape. The truth was that Harry was also sure that he would be doing this detention alone. That it would be just him and Snape. He would have preferred to do it with a whole bunch of Gryffindors instead of this particular one.
"Well, I guess you were wrong, Ms. Weasley. You will be here with Mr. Potter." Snape bent down and took a bucket of water and two sponges from the floor and placed them on his desk. "My office needs a little wash," he said with an evil grin. "You will clean it with these sponges, and of course, without using magic. I have some things to take care of, so you'll be here alone for awhile. I'll be back shortly and when I do, I want to see you both on floor, scraping and polishing it very nicely so when I look down at it, I will see my reflection. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," they said together.
"Good luck," he said as he rose from his desk and left the office.
Ginny took the bucket of water and put it on the floor. She didn't look at Harry, though he had watched her since he entered the room. She had her hair tied in a high ponytail, and she still wore her school uniforms. She sat on her knees and started to scrape the floor with a sponge. Her skirt was short and almost revealed more than Harry was supposed to see.
She noticed he was looking at her and gave him a very angry look. "Are you going to do something or do I need to tell Snape that you just watched me do all the work by myself all the while he was gone?" she spat.
Harry rolled his eyes at her and kneeled next to her, taking the other sponge in his hand and starting to scrape the floor. "Chill with the temper," he muttered under his breath.
"I heard that," she said in through gritted teeth.
"Argh!" Harry had enough. Even though he was scraping the floor for less than ten seconds, he couldn't stand being in the same room with this girl. He threw his sponge, stood up and started to pace around the room. He couldn't leave, because then Snape would let Filch hang him upside-down in the entrance hall, so he stayed. "I can't believe I have to spend a detention with a –"
"With what?" she asked firmly, also standing up and reaching his eyes level. "With a Weasel? With a shame for purebloods? With Muggle-lover? With a red-head? With a Gryffindor? Come on, Potter, say what you had in mind! I don't care because I already heard it all! You're such an arse!"
Her dark brown eyes burned with rage. Harry couldn't stare at them for long, fearing he might lose himself inside of them.
"Oh yeah?" he retorted, feeling his own temper rising just above the average and his heart starting to bit faster than usual. "Well, you are the most unbearable person I ever met!"
She absentmindedly took a small step towards him and sharpened her gaze at him. "You are the most self-centered, arrogant human being I even came across!"
"OH YEAH?" he yelled.
"YEAH!" she matched her voice to his tone level. "You're a foul, little scumbag, that's what you are! I think you're the most irritating person in the world!"
"Well, I think you're the most..." he started to shout back, but then he looked down at her eyes. Tears were beginning to form in them. He wasn't sure if they were tears of anger or tears of some sort of pain, he just knew that he didn't want to see tears in those gorgeous brown eyes of hers. He suddenly saw something in her that he didn't see before. She was pretty, more than pretty. It was indescribable and he couldn't resist the words escaping his mouth. "The most beautiful and incredible person I ever seen..." His voice was now weak and almost like a whisper.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Ginny was ready to respond back with another rebuke. She opened her mouth to insult him back, but then realized what he said. The truth was that Harry didn't regret saying those things to her, even though it was an accident.
"W...what?" she asked, bewildered.
He didn't answer her. He didn't want to repeat it once again, for fear that he just couldn't say those words again. He just closed his eyes and leaned over, placing his lips on hers.
Ginny was in shock. She blinked her wide-open eyes once, but didn't cooperate on kissing him back. After what seemed like 30 seconds or more had passed, and neither of them pulled back, she realized what was going on. Was he using her? It seemed to her that he was. She let a few tears roll down her cheeks as the thought sank in. She decided that she won't let anyone, especially not Harry Potter, use her.
She pulled back and looked at his eyes. His emerald green eyes were studying her own. He was waiting for her to say something because she was the one who stopped the kiss. But she didn't say anything, but only slapped him hard on the cheek.
"Oww!" he cried, holding his aching cheek and then turning back slowly to face her. She looked tentatively at him and he didn't expect her next move. Instead of walking away, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to kiss him again. Her lips crashed hard against his this time, taking them into one passionate kiss.
Harry was confused. One minute, they were yelling at each other, the second he was kissing her, then she pulled back and slapped him, but in the end she kissed him back.
Ginny was also confused, even more confused than Harry. Why was she kissing him? She told herself not to let him use her. Only this was the boy she had a crush on ever since she saw him on platform 9 ¾ when Ron left for school. But when she heard he was sorted into Slytherin, she told herself – no, she forced herself – to forget him. She never was able to forget him completely, even when he cursed her, her family and her friends, she always found him so attractive and good-looking. But what was on the inside? She never knew...
"Hem-hem," Snape cleared his throat when he saw the scene before him. Harry and Ginny parted immediately and looked at Snape innocently.
Snape's dark and cold eyes moved to look from Harry to Ginny for a short and quiet minute, before he finally looked at Ginny. "Ms. Weasley, you may go now. I think you've done enough for tonight... maybe too much than what was asked from you..." Snape said coldly. Ginny nodded quietly and without a glance back at Harry she left the office.
Snape walked towards Harry, who gulped with difficulty. Snape watched him closely as he walked around him. Harry felt nervous by that and looked at the floor.
"Potter," Snape finally said, causing Harry to jump. "Can I ask what was what I saw now happening in my office?"
"Er..." Harry tried to find something to say, but he was too nervous to speak. "I... I'm sorry, sir," he calmed down a little and managed to say. "It won't happen again, sir. I... I think she did something to me... She must have put some sort of a spell on me. I'll be more aware next time."
"All right. I shall have a talk with Professor McGonagall about her. You, too, may leave now. You're excused from this detention."
"Thank you, sir."
Harry walked out of Snape's office, feeling relieved that he didn't punish him, not that he had the right to, but this was Snape, and he could have kept Harry cleaning his office all night long, alone.
He hurried to the Great Hall, to get some leftovers for his missing dinner. He felt someone placing a hand on his shoulder, so he turned around to see Ginny Weasley looking very pissed. Before he knew what was going to happen, she kneed him in the groin and said, "Put a spell on you, hua?" and ran away with tears in her eyes, leaving him curled on the floor like a ball and whimpering from pain. "Damn you, Weasley," he said to himself after everything cooled down and he found his voice again.
All right, now repeat after me: R, E, V, I, E, W! That's right, now you will be reviewing this chapter, because I spent really long time writing it and I really worked hard on it, so please tell me what you think, it's really important to me and it helps me to see how the next chapters will be like. Hoped you enjoyed! Love you all, LittleSinner!