Harry maintained to remain lying down on his bed, especially when he heard the worried conversation among the faculty.
"No wound and all bruises. No bruises on the head. How did he fall down unconscious?" He heard Madam Pomfrey speak.
"I am certain that I heard him screaming before I saw him in that state. He must be attacked." Snape rumbled. "I heard wheezing, buzzing sounds."
The raspy gasping gave Harry the indication that Mr. Filch, the school caretaker, is also there. It was most surprising of all. Mr. Filch, attacked? Perhaps the caretaker had a run-in with the dementors. Harry clutched to the edge of the bed, right at the direction were the conversation was held.
"How do you feel?" He heard Dumbledore calmly ask.
"Like lightning hit my chest," Filch gasped, "Wizards, shooting beams of light at me. They seemed to have used an Expelliarmus charm, since it was red light, but it was no Expelliarmus charm. The beam didn't pop from their wands. It was a steady stream. Soon I felt a thousand lightning bolts prick all over me, then I blacked out."
"Did you see their faces?" Dumbedore enquired.
"No, professor."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"I could swear they're Death Eaters." Flitwick's voice buzzed across the room.
"But they couldn't have—Professor Dumbledore, the wards, they're still working, aren't they?" Minerva's voice quavered.
The silence had kept Harry listening. He was careful not to rise up so much from the bed, lest he evoke a protest from at least Madam Pomfrey.
Someone screamed across the Great Hall that breakfast, a Monday morning that gave Harry a relief from plenty of boring days spent in the hospital wing. The exclamation of Dean Thomas drew the attention of most Gryffindors. Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat across him; staring at him. The boy waved a copy of the Daily Prophet and slammed it so hard before the three that they jumped on their seats.
"There has been an attack on Hogsmeade!" Dean managed to shout that loud despite panting himself.
He unfolded the paper, and then he read aloud.
"Several wizards found dead outside Hogsmeade." He did not seem to feel the other Gryffindors now flocking around him. Some stood as near from Harry and Hermione as possible. Seamus, however, only stood. He still couldn't get over that little spat with Harry.
"Burn marks all over their bodies. Apparently, they also have died of shock." Seamus peered to read and rephrased what he saw.
"You mean like electricity?" interjected Hermione.
Muggle term. The wizards looked at her quizzically.
"Like a lightning bolt, I mean." She added shyly.
The Gryffindors looked back to Dean as he read on. Ron, however, leaned to Harry and he whispered.
"It could be one of those Voldemort's supporters, couldn't it."
"Shush, Ron." Hermione asked him. She soon heard Dean continue, "The victims all have the infamous Dark Mark on their arms."
"Voldemort's people, what did I tell you." Ron gobbled more spoonfuls of his sweet porridge.
And the Ministry still refuses to believe that they are now back.
The crowd gathered around Dean seems to disperse by now. But no, they stared at him with affronted looks on their faces as Ron repeated the dreaded name Voldemort. Seamus, naturally, scowled at Harry.
"Well, that's strange." Hermione whispered to both Harry and Ron. "The Daily Prophet making news about dead suspected Death Eaters."
"I thought they were supposed to be at least silent about this." Ron added. "Look what they've done to you all summer, Harry."
"Yeah," Harry played his fork around. Ron continued, "I suppose they're going to believe you now, Harry. "
Harry took a dark glance at Malfoy strutting to the Slytherin table with his friends. He didn't think Malfoy even saw him. "Fat chance."
Harry had been right. The next days, the Daily Prophet made long editorials explaining the Hogsmeade incident and how that had nothing to do with the Dark Lord returning. Probably the old gang, Voldemort's supporters, thinking the same way as Harry. Probably some vigilante wizards in league with the crackpot Dumbledore went out to hunt for the Dark Lord's former supporters. The Prophet went as far as releasing the Ministry's official statement: "The victims, former supporters of the Dark Lord they may have been, have died an unjustifiable death. We do not condone the acts of their murderers, especially that there is no slightest evidence that He-Who-Must-Be-Named is back."
And people like Seamus and Lavender lap that load of crap eagerly.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione huddled together. They went into their Defense Against the Dark Arts class, not exactly a thing they've been looking forward to, especially not Harry, since they're copying notes, the shouting match between Harry and Professor Umbridge, and that horrible detention. Ron and Hermione had given him the nudge not to give Dolores another go. Harry clutched on his hand; the pain of that damned quill still vividly searing in his mind.
"Is you scar hurting again?" Ron whispered to him as they sat.
"My other scar." He muttered, trying to keep a dull face, now that Umbridge is there again.
The delectable breakfast in the Great Hall did little comfort to the trio, if at all. Harry only twirled the fork with the lamb chops, as he scrawled sentences on his ever-growing pile of homework. Ron, who usually gobbles down his dinner, didn't seem to see it there, as his nose is buried on Professor Snape's newest homework. And these idle gossipers. They didn't bother to even lower their opinion
on Harry, courtesy of the Daily Prophet. Speaking of the Daily Prophet, Hermione's reading it. If Hermione hadn't issued scoffs and scowls at the old crap like "The mass murderer, Sirius Black," she'd earn his scorn as well. Still, he can't concentrate on his homework.
He thought of excusing himself to the Gryffindor common room when he saw Filch walk into the Great Hall, recovering from considerable shock but still shocked. Then a surge of memories flew right through harry. An attack in the castle, the conversation in the hospital wing. His eyes popped wide.
He swiftly turned to his best friend. "Ron, about our last Quidditch practice," he interjected between his own pauses. It was his nice way of saying, 'Would you listen to me for a moment?'
Ron looked knowingly at him. "What, you also think I'm such a bummer, are you?" A reference to his apparent Keeper abilities. "I'd never thought that the whole Gryffindor team would agree with Malfoy."
Ron shot a venomous look on Angelina Johnson sitting at the far end of Gryffindor table.
That's not what Harry wanted to mean. "No! It's not that!" He said angrily, "We were attacked, remember?"
Harry, at this time, now has Ron's full attention.
"From the ground, I remember." Ron, despite realising how hungry he was, still gingerly ate his apple pie. "You had to stay the whole week in the hospital wing."
Ron's following silence indicated Harry to continue talking. "In my last night in the hospital wing, Filch was attacked, too." Harry struggled between words as he gathered words to string his memories. "He was Stupefied, but he claims that the spell looked like Expelliarmus to him."
Harry described to him the incident he overheard.
"What's your point, Harry?" Ron's cheeks were stuffed with the apple pie.
"The weird magic, Ron." Harry continued. This time Hermione was now listening to them. "Remember what hit us, Ron? What hit Filch was red, and he was stunned. What hit us was yellow, and we got burned all over. It looked like laser beams."
"A what?" Ron scowled. Hermione cast Harry a what-the-hell look. Both raised in Muggle worlds, sometimes it's hard to get rid of the Muggle references.
"Could it be one of those vigilantes back in Hogsmeade?" Harry wondered.
"Then those vigilantes also wanted us dead." Ron looked incredulous. He chewed down some more apple pie. When he swallowed it, "I mean all of us. Madam Pomfrey thought we were all dying."
Yeah, and Malfoy too. Ron recollected how Malfoy had been hit with one of those yellow beams. It all happened so fast. The git obviously was unaware that Ron wasn't the only hearing their jeers. Only then his friends scampered down the high Quidditch benches.
"That's not all." Harry added, this time looking at Hermione too. "When I woke up there, my scar hurt again." He touched the lightning-bolt scar absently. "It happens all the time, but that night was terrible."
"When you saw Filch?" Hermione asked.
"No, when I woke up in the hospital wing one hour later after the practice. In fact, that's what woke me up."
Harry shouldn't have said that. He knew this would vex both Ron and Hermione.
"I felt very angry that time, felt like killing some reptile with an unforgivable curse."
"Harry!"
"Sorry."
Pause. Breakfast's almost about to end. But that's not all. From the high table, Hermione saw eyes from the toadlike face dart unto her. Professor Umbridge seemed to hear what they're talking about.
"We can continue speaking in the common room." suggested Hermione, who folded her evening paper and started eating her food at last. "Let's eat fast."