2nd November
News travels fast here at Hogwarts. At breakfast this morning, Ron and Harry had a gathering of people surrounding the Gryffindor table.
"What's going on?" Hermione asked Fred.
"Harry, Ron and Kathryn saved you from the giant 20 foot giant-troll last night, with teeth as big as your arm, as yellow as mustard and smelling like dragon dung!" George said sarcastically, exaggerating Ron's fiction with terrible actions. He turned and looked at me, on Hermione's left side.
Fred added, "A whole 5 points for that, though?"
George finished, "Too bad Fred and me lost them this morning for throwing a dung bomb in Snape's classroom..."
I laughed, "Looks like you owe me!"
"Looks like I do!" he coughed, "I mean we, we owe you!" his cheeks reddened.
"I knew what you meant!" I smiled at him and sat down, the twins left.
Hermione poked my arm, "I saw that!"
"Saw what?" my heart started to thud.
"The way he looked at you, silly!" she stared into my eyes, looking for weakness. The weakness she was not yet going to see.
"Oh that? That's nothing, friendly banter 'tis all!" I smiled as innocently as possible. I think it worked.
15th November
Hermione is more relaxed with rule-breaking now, which is a relief. We're seeing a new side of her, too! She's basically been doing Ron and Harry's homework. Ron's because he's down right lazy, but Harry's because he's been at Quidditch practice three nights each week, and well... he's a little lazy too! Oliver Wood (who's not too bad looking, may I add) is the captain for the Gryffindor team; he tried to keep Harry's appointment as seeker a secret, but failed, miserably. My money's on Draco! (Not that I'm the betting type). He's been hanging around me a lot lately; he's a bit of a creep.
Just last Friday, Professor Snape partnered Draco and me together in potions, but that is an event I neither want to record nor remember. I will say this, however, he is arrogant, and Snape is now referring to us as 'the dream team'. *rolls eyes and holds head in hands* Ron and Harry find it funny, and every time he comes near me they say 'here comes dreamer boy!' in high pitched voices. I ignore them; I'm not stooping down to their level.
Speaking of Snape, earlier today, Ron, Hermione and I were watching the final Quidditch practice before the match, and when it was over, Hermione lit a little blue flame and put it in a jar. The heat emitting from it is surprising! Anyway, Snape was walking around the grounds and limped toward us, the other three acted terribly suspicious as they hid the jar from sight. He didn't see it, but since he had bothered to limp toward us, he looked for a reason to tell Harry off anyway.
Snape sneered, "What's that you've got there, Potter?"
Harry held out the book 'Quidditch through the Ages'.
"Library books are not to be taken outside the school. Give it to me." He snapped, "Oh, and 5 points from Gryffindor." Snape limped away.
"He just made that rule up." Harry said under his breath. "I wonder what happened to his leg?"
Ron replied something that made us laugh, "I don't know, but I hope it's hurting him."
That night after dinner, Harry's nerves started kicking in. He couldn't concentrate. He stood abruptly. "I'm going to get my book back. He can hardly say no, when his dream girl," he shot a look at me, "and the rest of the teachers are around, surely?"
"You want me to come with?" I questioned.
Sarcasm prevailed in his next statement, "That's the general idea!" He took me by the hands and pulled me off the seat, dragging me toward the portrait. "See? You're already halfway there!" We walked toward the staff room and peered in through the door, it was sitting ajar. What we saw next, we couldn't believe, Snape was holding his robes up over his knees, one of his legs looked like it had been hacked at. Snape was with Filtch who was handing him bandages. Somehow I didn't think bandages were going to do the trick, it looked infected.
The next words made us come to a shocking revelation, "How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?" Harry's jaw dropped. We looked at each other, then back at Snape.
"Potter?" he dropped his robes at once, "Pink? What are you doing here?"
I pulled a really bad fake smile and Harry went for it, "I just wondered if I could have my book back?"
"Get out! OUT!" Snape slammed the door in our faces.
We headed back for the common room, "Do you know what this means?" Harry broke the silence.
"Snape knows what's under that trap door, and that three headed dog was having none of it? One bite seems to have done the job."
He nodded, "And he let the troll in for the diversion."
When we returned, we filled the other two in. They came to the same conclusions. Snape was scheming against the school. He was trying to steal what Harry saw Hagrid take out of vault 713- Harry told me that in confidence. We went off to bed, sleep was much more difficult to achieve with all this on my mind...
16th November
At 11am, the whole school made their way toward the Quidditch pitches, Dean had made a poster stating 'Potter for President'. He wasn't too bad at drawing. Hermione used a spell to light it up, flashing in different colours; the supporters for Gryffindor totally outstripped that for Slytherin 3:1! When the Gryffindor team left the changing rooms, the whole stadium erupted in cheers.
Within seconds, the match had begun and Lee Jordan, a friend of Fred and George's started commentating. He said, "And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor- what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too-" Professor McGonagall stopped him right there. The Quaffle was carried from one end of the pitch to the other and Wood saved the goal and passed the Quaffle onto Katie Bell. Then I got distracted as Ron and Hermione greeted Hagrid who also came to see the match. Lee Jordan's voice filled the air as she shouted "GRYFFINDOR SCORE!" it was Angelina. Harry was way above us, searching for the snitch, but keeping out of the middle of the mayhem of the game. One of the bludgers went flying at his head and Fred chased after it.
Harry's broom then zoomed toward what must have been the snitch. He was fast, very fast. Then Flint, the Slytherin captain purposely blocked Harry's broom which span off course and he was left holding on for dear life. Hermione grabbed my arm and shouted "FOUL!" along with the rest of the Gryffindor supporters. Gryffindor were offered a free shot, which Alicia scored with little effort, and it seemed Harry had lost sight of the snitch.
Another bludger flew at Harry's head and missed only by a matter of centimetres, his broom lurching out of the way. Then he made another sudden jolt, but there was no bludger this time. He staggered in the other direction. His broom was out of control! Ron noticed this as well, pointing it out to the others, peering though his binoculars. His broom rolled over and Harry was holding on by his fingertips. I hadn't even noticed that Slytherin had scored at this point.
Hermione grabbed a set of binoculars and gasped, "I knew it! It's Snape! He's jinxing Harry's boom! Look!" the next minute she had disappeared to 'sort it out'.
Fred and George flew over to Harry to try and rescue him onto one of their brooms. They had little success, each time they flew toward him; the broom reacted in such a way to stop them. Was Snape doing this in revenge for us seeing his leg? Hermione was the only hope he had left. Was I next? "Come on, Hermione!" Ron yelled in desperation.
Next thing I could see, there was panic in the teacher's stand as Snape frantically tried to pat out fire in his robes. Hermione. She really is fabulous. Snape had no idea what had just happened.
Harry climbed back on his broom.
"Neville, you can look!" Ron said. He had been blubbering into Hagrid's coat for the past 5 minutes. His eyes were red and puffy. "The baddies been defeated!" he said in a mocking voice.
I turned my attention back to Harry, who had just clapped his hands over his mouth, like he was about to be sick. He touched ground and hit the pitch on all fours. He sat up and coughed, the snitch fell into his hands! He held it high in the air, waving it for all to see. The game ended in total confusion. Gryffindor won 170 points to 60!
Within seconds I ran down to the pitch, saying 'congratulations' to all the players I passed. George was standing in front of me; I smiled and said, "Congratulations!" He put his arms around me and held me tight. Feelings of exhilaration and confusion invaded my mind. When he let go, he awkwardly said, "thanks" and continued expressing his excitement elsewhere. My chin dropped. Harry walked over to me and looked puzzled, I hugged him and we made our way to Hagrid's hut. Ron and Hermione were already there, the three of them seemed to be arguing.
"It was Snape; he was the one jinxing your broom." Ron exclaimed.
Hermione continued, "I read about spells and one thing is, you have to keep eye contact! Snape didn't take his eyes off you!"
I nudged Harry, "He couldn't keep his eyes off you! Next thing you know you'll be Snape's little fairy princess!"
"Seriously, Kathryn? This is neither the time nor the place!" Ron said. The other three looked at me in disgust. I gazed away in embarrassment. I was just trying to lighten the tone.
"I saw Snape, his leg was bitten, he tried to get past the three headed dog at Hallowe'en!" Harry continued as if nothing had been said.
"Who told you about Fluffy?!" Hagrid asked in shock.
"Fluffy? You mean that thing has a name?!" Ron, Harry and Hermione said in unison.
"He's guarding the-" Hagrid stopped himself mid-sentence, much to our discontent, "Tha's top secret, tha' is!"
Hermione pressed on, "But whatever Fluffy's guarding, Snape's trying to steal it! Besides, he just tried to kill Harry!"
"What rubbish!" Hagrid said hotly, "Snape is a Hogwarts teacher, he's one of the teacher's guarding the-" he stopped himself again; "Look- yer meddlin' in wha' ought not to be meddled in. You f'rget it all, the dog and what it's guardin', tha's strictly between Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel-" It was obvious from his facial expressions that he had said too much.
"Nicholas Flamel?" I enquired.
"OUT." Hagrid was fuming.
The four of us exchanged looks and made a run toward the library. One thing was for sure, we were going to find out who this Flamel guy is. One way, or another...