Chapter 12: The Dead End
They tried to think of all kinds of ways how they could be able to find the Diadem as they wandered around the castle for the next hour, but nothing more popped up in their minds than the fact that they needed to get some kind of the legendary Lady Ravenclaw's possessions.
Having entered into an empty classroom, they tried their best with the Locator Spell, both individually and collectively. They even tried chanting the newly learned Rite Chants, but in the best case their wands just oscillated widely somewhere around the direction of the Forbidden Forest. Also, Hermione hadn't any other ideas, and it meant that they had returned to the square one – the Diadem could only be found if they somehow would accidentally run into it. And the possibility of happening something like that was starting to seem even less likely to Harry. So he talked his friends into going to the library to look for new ideas there on how to search for a lost object in a castle full of magic, because this aimless strolling around the castle combined with a suspicious behavior could only make people really think they had some bad intentions.
In such a feeling, the remaining three days until the weekend went by, and Harry's mood was not improved at all by his failure in the Alchemy class – he didn't succeed in moving any of the four basic elements, while Ginny managed to stir a large fire whirl. He couldn't perform Transfigurations as well as he would want them, and new ideas for further search of the Diadem didn't come up at all, regardless of his efforts. Though, his grim mood for a brief time had improved by the Potions lesson – although, it may seem weird, but he had actually managed to make as pretty good Fire Essence as Hermione, so Slughorn had started again to praise his talent inherited from his mother. Of course, in the lesson led by Dawlish Harry proved to be one of the best in casting and blocking the Body-Bind Curse. And with all that, today, after the breakfast of Saturday morning, this season's first Quidditch practice was expected; besides they have to try their new Comets 500 in a proper Quidditch Pitch. He had been flying with Ginny practically every late evening in the Weasley's yard; it had seemed to him that maybe his new broom had a little less maneuverability and perhaps it accelerated a bit slower than Firebolt, but how exactly this would affect his performance as a Seeker at the exact moment of catching the Snitch was still unknown.
"So, we have the tryouts for the Quidditch players ahead of us today," Ginny repeated it to Harry once more, pouring some milk into her mug. "I suppose everything is clear with you and Ron, and Ritchie will likely be the Beater, but Jimmy and Demelza – let them rest in peace – we'll need substitutes for them. In fact, I'm most interested in what will turn out with Dean – maybe we actually have some new Chaser talents in Gryffindor," she made expectant plans in a soft voice about what to do today.
"Then watch it – if it'll be like when I had to lead the tryouts to select my team, be aware not to take in your team any Hufflepuffs," Harry reminded the girl with a laugh.
"You know, these talks about the Quidditch had never seemed exciting to me," Hermione said as she ate a chocolate roll, "but now I think it could be much more enjoyable to freeze in a cold, icy wind on a single piece of wood than going into the dark Dungeons with Draco Malfoy."
"That's right, Hermione; you have your first duty as the Head Girl today," Ron said, thinking back. "Ginny, maybe you could leave the Keeper tryouts at the very end of the practice so I could go with you, Hermione, for the first hour so it's not that bad for you."
"Ron, but what will I get if I put the Keeper tryouts at the end of the training?" Ginny asked, grinning.
"It's going to be fine, Ron," Hermione said with a grateful smile. "I've met Boggarts before and speaking about Malfoy – I doubt he would dare to tease me."
"That's right; if he calls you a Muggle, then remind him how the Muggles throw the right hook punch," Harry advised his friend with a wink. Hermione only showed a vapid smile – she had never considered this event as some kind of a feat.
"Stop it, Harry – if she really will have to fight with Malfoy, then I won't let you go anywhere alone," Ron said, now sounding worried as he turned to Hermione.
"Just calm down, both of you! Dawlish had already trained us yesterday about the Body-Bind Curses, besides Malfoy wasn't even close to one of the most brilliant students," Hermione said, giving a knowing look at Ron as she slightly tilted her head. "I'll be fine."
"If you say so. But if you don't feel so sure, I can go with you," he repeated once again, determinedly.
"Wait, Ron," Ginny laughed, "for such demands you have to bring me a box of Butterbeer and a Galleon."
"You're such a sweet sister," he muttered, ironically. "Hermione has to go down into the dark, scary Dungeons with Malfoy, but you're now starting to trade with me."
"I heard Hermione just stating that she'll be fine. And what if there'll arrive only the old team to the practice? How are we going to play without a Keeper, then?" Ginny asked, now sounding serious.
"Ron, feel free to go and play Quidditch with the others. In the worst case scenario, I'll summon Kreacher – now he's ready to help us anytime," Hermione reassured her boyfriend. Though, Harry knew that Hermione would never use a house elf if she could avoid it, but Ron seemed to be pleased with her answer.
Breakfast had already come to an end, and other students were slowly starting to make their way to their businesses. Leaving Hermione finish her reading of the Daily Prophet, Harry, Ron, and Ginny climbed up to the Gryffindor Tower after their broomsticks and then they went to the Quidditch Pitch in a slow stroll, discussing the suitability of a partly cloudy and windy weather for a Quidditch game.
Upon entering the Changing Room, Harry, Ron, and Ginny noticed that something was different here – the Changing Room had been renovated and refurbished. Apparently, during the Battle of Hogwarts, the Quidditch Pitch also had suffered, perhaps it was trampled by the giants, although, here McGonagall had made the restoration with great care and it could be seen that these weren't just a temporary fixes. Probably the new Headmistress had a huge enthusiasm for this sport deep in her heart.
They also took a look at the well-equipped showers before they cheerfully changed their clothes, and soon other former teammates and potential players showed up. It was already a few minutes past nine, so Ginny urged everyone to go out to the pitch.
"Hello, my fellow Quidditch players, this year I'm fortunate enough to truly act as the Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team," the girl said as she turned to face everyone. She quickly gazed over them – there was Harry, Ron, some of her teammates from last year, a few strong fifth or fourth year boys, then also a bunch of the youngest students – maybe from second year, maybe they were actually the first-years. Then her gaze went further into the distance and became darker – Harry knew what she had noticed. Once beautifully green lawn was now covered with spots here and there, out of which narrow-leaved grass stalks were sprouting out, looking so thin and weak against the dense and vivid grass rug growing for centuries.
The players responded to her greeting with a murmur or a nod.
"For the starter, I would like the youngest candidates to fly one lap around the pitch, okay? Then after, let's do the Keeper tryout," the girl suggested, smiling kindly. Of course, it turned out that some of the youngest Quidditch player candidates didn't really know in which direction they should sit on their brooms, so Ginny asked these boys and girls to come back a year later, after they'll master the flying by Alicia Spinnet. The little Gryffindors didn't seem too upset about it, so they went into the spectator stands, actually being in a rather cheerful mood.
Having observed the youngest candidates for a moment, Ron approached Ginny and asked, irritated, "Did you specially put the Keeper tryout as the first one, hm?"
"Ron, if you weren't so thick, you could easily see that with this I'm letting you go and put on your shiny armor from the very start, so you can hurry on rescuing your fair Hermione even for the rest of the day," she explained, with a little tinge of mocking.
"Ah, oh, very well then," her brother said stuttering as he watched the smaller candidates flying around the pitch wanting to gain their acceptance in the team. The flying was pretty uneven for some of them, but, though, few of the taller boys were quick enough as they passed the three high goalposts.
When descending, one boy practically touched the ground with his nose; he was immediately sent by Ginny to the stands along with a great number of others which, in her opinion, hadn't shown any good flying skills. One of the bigger boys started objecting that he was trying to show a variety of sharp maneuvers and she's wrong assuming that he is a bad flyer. Ginny firmly told him that there was no jiggling activity in the air going on here, but rather a serious Quidditch training, so the boy eventually had to leave the pitch. Now she placed the Keepers in a row. Without Ron, two other boys with a quite bulky figure of the fifth year had applied for the Keeper position, contrasting greatly with the thin, tall figure of the red-haired young man.
Ginny was glad to see that both of the Keeper candidates were quite acceptable, both catching three shots out of five, but Ron also caught the fourth shot thrown by Dean. Ginny left the new candidates for the Keeper position, Dirk and Carl, in reserve.
As he climbed off of his broom, Ron approached Harry. "Phew, I already thought I wouldn't catch the last one. But I did."
"Of course, you did," Harry said, smiling to his friend. "If you aren't so terribly afraid that you'll fail, then in the end everything actually turns out quite well. The biggest fright is usually the fear itself."
"You almost sound like Dumbledore," Ron laughed, glancing at the new candidates for the Beater position. "I feel so restless about what's going on with Hermione right now. Maybe, though, I should go and help her?"
"I don't know. I think she'll deal with it, but if I'll have to listen to your worries for the rest of the practice, I suppose, you better go and check on her," Harry replied with a grin.
"Then I'll go. Later, just tell me how the tryouts went," Ron said, and a moment later he turned and began to cross the pitch. He cast a quick look at Ginny, and she nodded twice and rolled her eyes. Then Ron hurried away. Meanwhile, one of the potential Beaters was no longer able to control the broom as he chased after the Bludger, and he was sweeping just right towards Ginny. She drew out her wand hastily out of her waistband and yelled, "Impedimenta!"
The broom began to go noticeably slower until the boy fell sideways onto the grass and the broom fell next to him with a jerk. Clearly, he isn't going to be a good Beater yet.
The next session of the practice went smoothly, only Ginny had to settle a dispute between two sixth-years about who, where and how had thrown the Quaffle, so she accepted on the team the one who was less eager of yelling and was first to obey the Captain. So they had got the new Beater Bruce Waters, the Chasers Andrew McLagor and Quintia Knowlton, and to everyone's surprise, the tiny, little second-year student, Mily Miles, showed a great maneuverability and had caught the Snitch with a neat catch when it had hovered between the two of the long goalposts. She was accepted as the reserve Seeker.
To Harry's delight, Dean was surpassed by Quintia, a fourth-year, who superbly flew past Carl and threw in practically half of all the shots she cast. Fortunately, Dean didn't object to Ginny's decision to leave him as the reservist.
Then they together with the newly accepted team members tried out a few of good old Oliver Wood's maneuvers and tactics, and by then the sun had raised high into the sky, indicating that now was the lunchtime.
Tired but overly happy about their successful Quidditch practice, Harry and Ginny showered and changed into their everyday clothes in no hurry, and then they went in a slow stroll to the castle for the lunch.
"Those Comets weren't so bad after all, weren't they?" Harry spoke, measuring the path up to the castle.
"They weren't bad at all! And you ought not to complain about the gift anyway," the girl said, looking gratefully at Harry.
"The Captain can't be left without a decent broomstick," he replied with a wink. "I definitely think we'll have a good chance to fight for the Cup. Our team has been better before, but this one isn't half bad."
"Everything is going to be fine. And after all – regardless of how it will turn out, we'll survive it anyway. There's not much to overthink it all," Ginny replied as she took his hand.
They still had time to get ready for the matches. The first game of this season was scheduled for October 10th – Hufflepuff vs. Slytherin, and they'll have to play vs. Ravenclaw on November 14th. However, talking from experience, time in Hogwarts sometimes could run at astronomical speeds. Discussing this matter, they soon had reached the lunch table in the Great Hall and now thoroughly turned their attention to the eating of the beef stew.
Suddenly Harry was feeling like something wasn't exactly right – and indeed lunch had been already half finished, but nowhere did he see nor Ron neither Hermione.
When Harry was leaning closer to Ginny, wanting to say something about this matter, Ron appeared in the entrance of the Hall right away, but he was alone. Both Harry and Ginny stared at the redheaded young man with their eyes full of surprise.
"Why are you so late for lunch, Ron? And where's Hermione?" Ginny managed to ask first.
"Meh, it just so happened. I don't want to talk about that," Ron retorted and then took extra care in piling the stew on his plate.
Further Harry's questions were also unsuccessful in getting any answer, so they just shrugged and left him be, but this matter didn't look good.
When they had finished their lunch, they didn't ask anything more to Ron and just took their brooms upstairs to their dorms, but Hermione wasn't in the Common room either. Now they were getting worried. Harry pulled out his Marauder's Map out of his pouch and first examined the library on the map, but he didn't see a dot with Hermione's name there either. Soon Ginny noticed Hermione's name in the lavatory on the ground floor just next to the Firenze's classroom.
They both hurried down and Ginny went into the girls' toilet. Harry waited at least ten minutes until his girlfriend came out, now with Hermione they were searching for.
Her hair, which was usually so bushy, was now particularly frizzy and with wet spots where the tears had wetted it.
"Hermione, what happened? Did Malfoy do something to you?" Harry asked, frightened. If it was true, then in Hermione's misery, he, only and exclusively he, has to be blamed with his incredibly stupid idea that he should give away his Head Boy position to Malfoy. However, this didn't explain Ron's strange behavior, so a quiet voice deep inside his mind reassured him that this is actually going to be somebody's else's fault.
"No, no, it's not Malfoy's fault at this time; I could say that he rather saved me," Hermione said in a half-whisper.
Harry didn't understand anything at all anymore, so Ginny began to explain to him what she had just learned from the tearful Hermione. "If I understood it correctly, they had encountered a Basilisk in the Dungeons, and Malfoy kind of saved her from it."
"A Basilisk?!" Harry said, almost in a scream as a cold chill went down his spine.
"It wasn't a real Basilisk, but a Boggart that appeared to me as a Basilisk," Hermione sobbed, trembling. "But its yellow eyes lo-looked so real, I immediately felt like I was truly petrified as back then," the girl continued, starting to recover a little. "Then Malfoy realized it was a Boggart and cast Riddikulus, and that Basilisk somehow tripped and, well, it fell to the floor." She took a deep breath and her tears were stopping now. "Then Malfoy cast Riddikulus one more time, and that Boggart vanished into smoke. But those yellow eyes – I just stood there and couldn't move, that's why Malfoy grabbed me by my shoulders and was pushing me forward out of the Dungeons. Soon my fear had started to lessen, so I was about to tell that Malfoy to let me go, that I can walk by myself, but then… then…" and a new wave of tears came over her. She sniffed for a brief moment and responded to her friends' comforting words with finishing her story.
"But then Ron appeared at the Dungeons and saw both of us like that and began to shout at me, at Malfoy – like we had come down here to hug or what. He said he had been so worried about me all the time, but I was embracing here with… with Malfoy! If Ron wants to be jealous, it's fine, but with Malfoy! Can you believe it?" Hermione said as she looked at the ceiling, blinking her eyes several times, but a few tears still escaped out of her eyes.