There was another clap of thunder, followed immediately by forked lightning. This was getting more and more dangerous. Harry needed to get the snitch quickly-
He turned, intending to head back towards the middle of the pitch, but at that moment, another flash of lightning illuminated the stands, and Harry saw something that distracted him completely: the silhouette of an enormous shaggy black dog, clearly imprinted against the sky, motionless in the topmost, empty row of seats.
Harry's numb hands slipped on the broom handle and his nimbus dropped a few feet. Shaking his sodden fringe out of his eyes, he squinted back into the stands. The dog had vanished.
"Harry!" came Wood's anguished yell from the Gryffindor goal posts. "Harry, behind you!"
Harry looked wildly around. Cedric Diggory was pelting up the pitch and a tiny speck of gold was shimmering in the rain-filled air between them…..
With a jolt of panic, Harry threw himself flat to the broom handle and zoomed towards the snitch.
"Come on!" he growled at his nimbus, as the rain whipped his face. "Faster!"
But something odd was happening. An eerie silence was falling across the stadium. The wind, though strong as ever, was to forgetting to roar. It was as though someone had turned of the sound, as though Harry had gone deaf-what was going on?
And then a horribly familiar wave of cold swept over him, inside him, just as he became aware of something moving on the pitch below….
Before he had time to think, Harry had taken his eyes off the snitch and looked down.
At least a hundred dementors, their hidden faces pointing up at him, were standing below. It was a though freezing water was rising in his chest, cutting at his insides. And then he heard it again….someone was screaming, screaming inside his head….a woman…..
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl….stand aside, now…."
"Not Harry, pleases no, take me, kill me instead-
Numbing, swirling white mist was filling Harry's brain….what was he doing? Why was he flying? He needed to help her….she was going to die…..she was going to be murdered….
He was falling. Falling through the icy mist.
"Not Harry! Please…have mercy….have mercy…."
A shrill voice was laughing, the woman was screaming and Harry knew no more.
"Lucky the ground was so soft"
"I thought he was dead for sure"
"But he didn't even break his glasses"
Harry could hear the voices whispering, but they made no sense whatsoever. He didn't have a clue where he was, or how he goes there, or what he'd been doing before he got there. All he knew was that every inch of him was aching as though it had been beaten.
"That was the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life"
Scariest…the scariest thing…hooded black figures…..cold……screaming…..
Harry's eyes snapped open. He was lying in the hospital wing. The Gryffindor Qudditch team, spattered with mud from head to foot, was gathered around his bed. Ron and Hermione were also there, looking as though they'd just climbed out of the swimming pool.
"Harry!" said Fred, who looked extremely white underneath the mud. "How are you feeling?"
It was as though Harry's memory was on fast forward. The lightning…..the grim….the snitch……and the dementors…..
"What happened?" he said, sitting up so suddenly they all gasped.
"You fell off," said Fred "must've been – what- fifty feet?"
"We thought you'd died" said Alicia, who was shaking.
Hermione made a small, squeaky noise. Her eyes were extremely bloodshot.
"But the match" said Harry. "What happened? Are we having a replay?"
No one said anything. The horrible truth sank into Harry like a stone.
"We didn't - lose?"
"Diggory got the snitch," said George. "Just after you fell. He didn't realise what had happened. When he looked back and saw you on the ground, he tried to call it off. Wanted a re-match. But they won fair and square…..even Wood admits it."
"Where is Wood?" said Harry, suddenly realising he wasn't there.
"Still in the showers," said Fred. "We think he's trying to drown himself."
His voice faded away, but Harry hardly noticed. He was thinking about what the dementors had done to him…..about the screaming voice. He looked up and saw Ron and Hermione looking at him so anxiously that he quickly cast around for something matter-of-fact to say.
"Did someone get my nimbus?"
Ron and Hermione looked at each other.
"Er-
"What?" said Harry looking from one to the other.
"Well….when you fell off, it got blown away" said Hermione hesitantly.
"And?"
"And it hit – oh, Harry – it hit the whomping willow"
Harry's insides lurched. The whomping willow was a very violent tree which stood alone in the middle of the grounds.
"And?" he said dreading the answer.
"Well, you know the whomping willow" said Ron "it – it doesn't like to be hit"
"Professor Flitwick brought it back just before you came round" said Hermione in a very small voice.
Slowly, she reached down for a bag at her feet, turned it upside down and tipped a dozen bits of splintered wood and twig onto the bed, the only remains of Harry's faithful, finally beaten broomstick.
Harry spent the rest of the weekend in the hospital wing. In between visitors Harry finished of homework and stared longing at the remains of his broom. Oliver came to say that it wasn't Harry's fault. Cedric came to apologise and Hermione and Ron came a lot.
Ginny visited late Sunday afternoon. She brought a singing card that had a very shrill voice. Harry had to keep it underneath a fruit bowl.
Ginny grimaced "sorry, I must have done the charm wrong"
"It's all right, it's the thought that counts" Harry said chucking a chocolate frog towards her.
Ginny caught it "how are you feeling?" she asked stuffing a chocolate leg in her mouth.
"I…..Ginny what I'm going to tell you is personal, very personal"
"I can keep it a secret if that's what you mean" Ginny said frowning
Harry nodded "when the dementors come near me……I can hear my mum….Voldemort" Harry felt tears run down his cheek.
"Oh, Harry" Ginny whispered wiping the tears away with a handkerchief. "I know you're scared and upset. I felt the exact same thing. When those dementors came near me near me I was back in the chamber with Tom's voice echoing in my ear and you slowly dying"
Harry pulled Ginny into a hug. "What a pair we make" he whispered into her ear. Ginny snuggled into Harry's shoulder, hoping that he wouldn't let go.
Harry enjoyed the moment, he could smell the shampoo on Ginny's hair, and it smelled like some kind of flower. He hoped that this would last forever because with Ginny in his arms everything seemed all right.