Chapter 5- Family comes First.

Two weeks after the disastrous match against Ireland, Harry and Ginny were still having the same argument.

'You can't possibly still be considering playing!' said Ginny during dinner one night. 'The whole idea is ridiculous!'

'The team needs me,' said Harry, matter-of-factly. 'We can't win without a Seeker.'

'Well, what about us?' said Ginny coldly. 'Your family, remember? We need you as well.'

'You'll have me,' said Harry exasperatedly, glaring at his plate, as if each individual grain of rice had done something to offend him.

'Not if you get killed!' Ginny said, her voice rising. 'Like I said before, the team have managed without you before!'

'Not in the finals of the world cup they haven't!'

'Doesn't it matter, then, what I think?' said Ginny tearfully. 'I thought I meant more to you than that.'

Harry was shocked to see that she was crying. Ginny Weasley never cried. He must have imagined it! But before he could check, Ginny had leapt out of her seat and ran out of the door into the cold night air yelling:

'Well then, if you wont do it for me, what about the children? You know what it's like to grow up without a father!'

Her words seemed to linger in the air around his head long after Ginny herself had vanished. Harry sat motionless for a long time, seeing nothing... thinking nothing... feeling nothing but pain and anguish.

After the Quiddich game, when the mysterious blue liquid had been found in Harry's cut, Dean and Gladys had taken him to St Mungos, where they had extracted and examined the liquid. It was a rare type of poison called Rentraophogis, which came from a deadly species of plant whose name Harry could not remember. His blood still ran cold when he thought about what would've happened to him if Gladys had not spotted it. The Healers at St Mungos had told him that if the poison had remained in the injury long enough to get into the bloodstream, he would have died a painful and unpreventable death.

As it was, Harry was very weakened by the poison, and couldn't stay on a broomstick long enough to get a foot off the ground, let alone play in the finals of the World Cup, but that was not the only thing stopping him from participating: They still did not know who had tampered with the Bludger and attempted to kill him.

As far as everyone could tell, the Bludger that had hit Harry had had some sort of charm on it so that it released the Rentraophogis when it came in contact with Harry's head. No signs of any such charm remained on the Bludger, although it was being re-examined at this very moment.

The Ireland Quiddich team were questioned using Veritaserum to see who had tampered with the Bludger, making it want to attack Harry, and who had put the poison on it. Veritaserum was a clear, colourless potion Harry knew well from his fourth year. If consumed, the drinker could tell only the truth. All seven members of the Ireland Quiddich team had taken the potion voluntarily and declared that they had had nothing to do with the incident.

The only other suspects were the players on the Bulgarian Quiddich team, because they would be versing England in the finals and they had been known to use violence and attempt to eliminate the opponent before. However, the team could not be questioned because there was no proof of their involvement, and in any case, they had run out of Veritaserum, which was expensive, and extremely difficult to make. In fact, Harry doubted in even Hermionie would be able to produce it first try.

So, according to Ginny anyway, there was no question of Harry playing in the final.

'The culprit is still out there,' she reminded him repeatedly. 'They tried to kill you Harry, and next time they might succeed.'

Harry could see her point. He knew that playing would be dangerous, but, if only he could get his strength back again, it would be worth it. His team needed a Seeker or they would have to default and Bulgaria would win the World Cup. He didn't see what else he could do.

But then, the answer came to him in a jolt of inspiration.

Please tell me if there are any mistakes in this chapter, I'm having problems with my computer at the moment and haven't been able to proofread it properly. Also, please give me feedback! Just ignore my feelings- tell me the truth! I wanna know, as this is my first fanfic and personally I don't feel that it's going as well as I planned but I can't figure out why. Tell me if you're lost, bored, or don't understand something. Thanks... I will be posting the next chapter shortly.