Chapter 15: Damned dirty business

As I look back over my life, I am astonished at the number of stupid things I have done – following Quirrell down into the dungeons; trusting Remus Lupin; marrying my grasping harlot of a wife. But undoubtedly the most asinine incident in my long, blundering career was the plan I concocted to frame Draco Malfoy as the Heir of Slytherin: get a local cat, transform it into something hideous, hide it in his dormitory and then call in the Aurors. The 'beast' is caught and killed, Malfoy is hauled off to Azkaban and I get Hunt and Tyler off my back. Can you see how this might have gone wrong?

Getting hold of the cat was actually the simple bit. I knew that Mrs Norris was sure to be missed, so I gave Ron my invisibility cloak, a wicker basket and a butterfly net and dispatched him to Hogsmeade one moonless night. He grumbled but I was able to twist his arm.

'Buck up old chap! You're doing me a damn good turn, saving me from those Auror thugs. I'd do the same for you if I was in your place.'

'Really?'

'I am hurt you'd even ask!' I said, settling myself in front of the common room fire, 'I'll be waiting for you when you get back.'

He scowled and muttered a great deal but he dutifully set off into the village. He returned several hours later with his hands cut to ribbons and a face like he'd tried to snog a barbed wire fence but he had found a cat. It was a spitting, snarling thing with more than a bit of rat in its makeup; if it had an owner I doubt they missed it.

Now we had the cat we had to find somewhere to work. Fred and George tipped us off that the girls' bathroom on the second floor had been abandoned due to some highly aggressive plumbing. As we were not intending to use the facilities, it was ideal. Ron tethered the cat to one of the pipes, losing another square foot of skin in the process, while I spirited some books on animal transfiguration from the Restricted Section of the library. There was no way Hermione would help us with this. Cheating on essays was one thing; what we were about was highly illegal.

I soon discovered that there is a world of difference between having a spell book and being able to use it. What with my indolence and Ron's gormlessness we were ill-equipped to understand the high level magic involved in such radical transfiguration. A lesser man might have been daunted. A wiser man would have abandoned the idea. Unfortunately for the cat, I was neither.

'O bugger this for a game of soldiers!' I cried, throwing yet another impenetrable textbook across the bathroom, 'It doesn't have to be pretty, does it? Just nasty enough to look like it has a taste for Muggleborns. How hard can it be?'

I stood up and pointed my wand at the cat.

'Let's have a bash at it! Err… Deformo!'

The cat squealed like a kettle on the boil, turned bright orange and burst in a great spray of apricot jam. I managed to dive behind a sink in time but Ron got a face full.

'Well don't just stand there!' I said as he wiped jam out of his eyes, 'We're going to need a new cat.'

We wasted a whole month in that bathroom, sending the local cats to meet their Maker in various colourful ways. Some caught fire; some were frozen to the spot; some shot into the ceiling. One turned into a perfect miniature replica of a double-decker bus. One appeared unaffected until Ron tried to touch it and it dissolved into a cloud of bubbles. The only one that actually survived was useless as a denizen of the Chamber of Secrets; apart from a lingering smell of violets, it remained an ordinary cat.

I was on the verge of abandoning the plan when something happened that drove the girls' bathroom, Malfoy and even the Aurors from my mind. I was making my way down to dinner after yet another spectacular feline death when a voice accosted me from a classroom door:

'Potter. In here, now.'

I turned aside and was astonished to see Lockhart perched on one of the desks, a slimy grin on his face. Oh ho, I thought as I closed the door behind me, has someone forgotten our little arrangement? Maybe it was time to send an owl to Ms Skeeter.

'Yes, Professor?' I said mildly.

'Your essay on the key themes in GaddingwithGhouls has not been handed in.'

'Essay?' I frowned, 'What are you talking about?'

'Your essay, Potter,' he said acidly, 'Students write them for their teachers. You owe me several.'

'I thought we had an understanding about such things,' I said, 'Or perhaps you would like me to have a word with the DailyProphet?I might even pop down to their office in person…'

'What a coincidence!' said Lockhart, feigning surprise, 'I was hoping to get in touch with the Prophetmyself. Longbottom told me such an interesting story last night. I am sure they would be verykeen to hear it.'

Shafts of cold stabbed at my bowels but I kept up an appearance of apparent indifferent.

'What do you mean?'

'I was curious about what happened the night you foiled old Quirinus Quirrell,' said Lockhart, growing more and more smug, 'Such a heroic thing to do. And from one so… young.So I thought I would hear it first hand from Longbottom. Those were very powerful memory charms you put on him; I thought I would never break through...' Memory charms? That must have been Dumbledore's doing, the devious old git. But why? Lockhart continued: 'I see why you took such trouble over them. Petrifying your friend when his back was turned? Very naughty, especially for the Boy Who Lived. I wonder what your adoring public would think if they knew that was how their precious hero responded in a crisis?'

'Probably the same way they'll respond when they find out you've been frequenting the London knocking shops!'

'It would be worth it to bring you down,' snarled Lockhart, 'They've put people in Azkaban for less than what you did to Longbottom!'

We stood in silence, teeth bared, glaring hatefully at one another.

'So,' I said at length, 'where do you propose we go from here?'

'If you keep your mouth shut, I'll keep mine shut,' said Lockhart.

'Fine by me.'

'Good.'

We both knew that it was never going to work. We had the measure of each other now: both scoundrels, both devious and both with too much to lose. The only question was which one of us would strike first. And it would have to be decisive: no half measures, or the other would run to the press and the game would be up for both of us.

I fretted about it for a fortnight. There was no-one I could turn to, not even Ron. Even his mindless puppy dog loyalty would not stretch to jinxing the sainted Neville Longbottom in the back. I briefly considered running to Dumbledore. He clearly wanted to hush up what really happened that night but I did not trust him. The old fox was playing his own unfathomable game and I wanted to keep as far out of it as I could. So I worried alone and in silence. The experiments in the girls' bathroom were abandoned. I hardly drank or smoked. Skirt chasing was out in the question. I spent my evenings in the dormitory dreaming up plots to bring down Lockhart but to no avail. I could not think of any way to silence him for good, short of actual violence and I did not have the stomach for that.

My only distraction was Quidditch. Our big game against Slytherin was coming up, with the Cup at stake. When I was training I did not worry about what Lockhart was planning. That was until Wood announced who was to referee the game.

'Lockhart?' I cried.

'Yeah,' Wood grinned, missing my horrified expression, 'Our lucky charm!' Lucky charm indeed, when I was blackmailing him to favour Gryffindor and turn a blind eye to our fouls. We had breezed through the last two games, with Lockhart awarding us penalties for every trivial foul the opposition committed. What would he be like now that he had Longbottom's story to use against me? A diehard Slytherin fan, no doubt.

'O God, let somebody else do it,' I groaned to myself, 'Madame Hooch;

Professor Snape; hell I'd even take Malfoy!'

But no replacement was forthcoming. The day of the cup match arrived and we marched out onto the pitch to find Lockhart waiting with the balls.

'Okay teams, you both know what's at stake,' he said cheerily, trying to juggle the Quaffle and dropping it on his toes, 'Do your best and keep it clean. I'm sure that it's going to be a memorable game.' I think he glanced at me as he said this but I am not sure. A few seconds later the Snitch was released, the whistle blew and the fourteen players soared into the air. I shot off to the furthest end of the stadium. Sod the game; I was getting as far away from Lockhart as I could.

The first part of the game went badly for us. Our Chasers were not up to much that year (Longbottom was laid up in the hospital wing with some sort of magic flu) and Slytherin soon led 60-20.

'Potter! Get your head out of your arse and look for the Snitch!' Wood bellowed after yet another goal slipped past him. I nodded and made a show of sweeping the Gryffindor stands but my eyes were fixed on the distant magenta speck that was Lockhart. He had behaved pretty well so far, showing no partiality towards either side but that only made me more nervous. I was sure that he had some dirty scheme in mind for me.

Another ten minutes passed and Slytherin edged further ahead, bringing the score to 100-30. Our only saving grace was that Malfoy, a shoddy Seeker at the best of times, had fagged himself out by racing up and down the pitch looking for the Snitch and now looked like he would have difficulty catching anything faster than a hot air balloon. I was not taking any real interest in the game, doing my best keep the spectator stands between myself and Lockhart at all times, when a Bludger came hurtling past me. Nothing unusual about that. I did a bit of the old ducking and diving, hoping to shake off the Beater who'd marked me for a pounding, only for the Bludger to come barrelling after me thirty seconds later. I twisted round, trying to spot the Beater but found only clear sky. The Bludger had been tampered with and it was obvious who was behind it.

I did everything I could to shake that damned ball. Long turns; short turns; climbing as high as I could; skimming above the ground; slaloming between the stands. Nothing distracted it. If it met an obstacle it smashed straight through it like a cannonball. The spectators were screaming. The Gryffindors were accusing the Slytherins of jinxing the Bludger. A fight was breaking out between two adjacent stands. Play had all but stopped on the pitch. Fred and George tried to cover me, smashing the rogue Bludger as hard and as far away as they could but it returned every time. The other players just floated there while Lockhart swooped up and down, making a lot of noise but not actually doinganything. Hermione told me later that some of the teachers wanted to shoot the ball out of the sky but did not want to risk hitting me.

The minutes dragged by. I could feel my arms and legs going numb. I knew I could not keep up that pace much longer. I would have to do something drastic. I considered diving into the Great Lake but I was not sure if you could drown a Bludger. I was starting to feel lightheaded. It would not be long before I fell off my broom. In my desperation I decided to try the Wronski Feint, one of the most dangerous Qudditich manoeuvres, in the hope of burying the Bludger in the ground.

I dropped my broom's nose and shot towards the pitch. I could hear the ball whistling through the air behind me like an artillery shell. At the last possible moment I pulled up. My tired hands slipped off the handle and I rolled off, bouncing roughly across the grass. My broom carried on towards the clouds. The Bludger slammed into the ground beside me, showering me with lumps of turf. I lay on my back, too exhausted to move, staring in terror as the ball writhed and struggled beneath the pitch like some frantic mole. It leapt skywards in another fountain of earth, hung for a moment as if in thought and then sped towards me.

With a crack a tiny, skinny little creature appeared between me and the Bludger. I had half a moment to recognise Dobby, the house elf who had visited me at Privet Drive, as he cried:

'You shall not hurt Harry Potter!'

Then he and the Bludger vanished with a sound like the ringing of some gigantic gong. I lay on the grass, unhurt, with my breath coming in and out in huge, panicky sobs. A shadow fell across my body.

'O the poor boy! He's broken his arm! Don't you worry Harry, I'll sort you out…'

I turned my head to see Lockhart standing over me, his wand pointed straight at me.