Classes resumed the next day as normal. The only reminder that there had ever been a troll in the castle at all was when, at breakfast, Headmaster Dumbledore stood and announced that the troll had been captured in the second-floor corridor, the same one, Harry presumed, that the three of them had found themselves in last night. Everyone then went about their daily routines, and the troll was quickly forgotten. Harry did notice, however, that Professor Snape was walking with a slight limp, and that Professor Cauverina had the faint mark of a cut across her face. Harry presumed that those were injuries that they had sustained trying to bring the troll under control.
Hermione agreed that they should tell Neville about what they had seen in the third-floor corridor – if nothing else, she thought, Neville, with his knowledge of the magical world, might be able to at least tell them if their theory held water. So later that night, in a private corner of the Gryffindor Common Room, Harry and Hermione walked through everything that happened the night that they had seen the Cerberus, followed by what they had come up with in the library the next day.
'Do you think it's possible?' Hermione asked once they had finished. 'That Headmaster Dumbledore or someone else moved whatever was in the vault to Hogwarts?'
'I do,' Neville confirmed. 'Gran's always told me that "whatever his faults, there's no one dark wizards fear more than Albus Dumbledore," and I'll bet anything that whoever the thief is, they're a dark wizard. The version in the Prophet has always been odd. Gringotts…well, two twenty-year-olds right out of school trying to break into it would be basically suicide.'
Hermione nodded. 'So you think that the owner of whatever was in that vault thought that the closer it was to Dumbledore, the safer it would be?'
'Probably,' Neville affirmed.
'But whoever broke into Gringotts, they must still be after it, right?' Hermione asked. 'And now, if we're right, the thing they're after is now at Hogwarts with us. What if they…I don't know…attack Hogwarts to go after it?'
Neville swallowed, looking out the window. 'I don't think…well, I hope not, anyway…that a dark wizard would openly attack Hogwarts. You-Know-Who was the only one who might dare directly cross Dumbledore, and according to Gran, he's most likely hiding somewhere far off, without followers or strength.'
'But what if someone wants to take Voldemort's place?' Harry suggested. Neville visibly cringed at the name being pronounced, but Harry did not care – Dumbledore had told him that he should not be fearful of a man's name, after all. 'What if they attack Hogwarts to steal whatever it is so that they could become a new dark lord?'
Neville shook his head. 'I doubt there's a new dark lord rising, but even if there were, they still probably wouldn't make their first open attack one on Hogwarts and Dumbledore. It wouldn't really give them anything besides letting everyone know that they want to become a dark lord. That's if Dumbledore doesn't defeat them right away and send them to Azkaban.'
'As long as Headmaster Dumbledore is here, then, you think we're safe?' Harry asked.
'I think so.'
The conversation with Neville had, at least to an extent, alleviated Harry's worries about the third-floor corridor. His ease was helped, too, by the fact that on the following Friday, as Harry was returning late from dinner, he ran into Headmaster Dumbledore with Hagrid on the third-floor landing, the two of them having just come out from the right-hand corridor.
'Hello, Harry,' Headmaster Dumbledore greeted lightly when he saw him. 'It's been a while since we've met.'
'Hello there, Harry,' said Hagrid.
'Hello, Headmaster Dumbledore. Hello, Hagrid,' Harry replied. Unable to suppress his curiosity about finding them at this spot in particular, he added, 'What are you here for?'
The moment the question left Harry's mouth, he wanted to pinch himself for asking such an overstepping question to the headmaster. Professor Dumbledore, however, did not seem to mind.
'Oh, Hagrid – you've met him, I've heard? – Hagrid needed some help getting into a part of the castle,' Dumbledore answered easily, and Harry noticed that Hagrid's cheeks turned a little pink. 'I'm just here to be his wand, and also to stretch my legs a little. Always remember to do that, Harry. Get up every so often, that is.'
'How has Hogwarts been so far?' Dumbledore followed up. 'Made any friends?'
Harry nodded. 'It's been good. I've met a few people from my House.'
Dumbledore nodded, smiling. 'That's good to hear, Harry. I see that you haven't taken my warning too literally. But don't be afraid of meeting people beyond your House, Harry. There are good people everywhere and of every sort, just like there can be bad.'
'I haven't really had a chance to talk to people from other Houses,' Harry replied.
'Well, don't worry. It's only been two months,' Dumbledore said placatingly. 'And there are plenty of opportunities available if you'd like them. Clubs, the Quidditch team, revision groups…whatever you're interested in.'
'Thanks,' Harry said with another nod. 'I'll take a look.'
'Ask a Prefect if you have any questions,' Dumbledore encouraged.
There was a pause before Dumbledore spoke up again. 'On another note, how have your classes with Professor Snape been?'
Harry realised immediately what he was asking about. 'It's been better.'
'I should apologise to you personally, Harry,' Dumbledore said. 'I should have had the conversation that I had with Professor Snape long ago, before you came to Hogwarts. I did not realise, though, that personal grudges sometimes run too deep to forget. You have my apologies, Harry.'
Harry nodded, not sure how to reply to the headmaster saying this. 'It's okay, Headmaster.'
'I thank you for your forgiveness,' Dumbledore replied as the staircase slid into place. 'I believe that this is for you?'
The day after that, Saturday, was Gryffindor's first Quidditch match. Harry, personally, was not particularly interested in Quidditch, but Neville insisted that he and Hermione went to a match at least one time.
'How could you possibly know whether you like it or not if you've never seen it played?' he had argued.
And so, just after breakfast the next day, Harry bundled up in a jumper and coat and followed almost the entirety of the Gryffindor House down to the Quidditch Pitch. The three of them climbed up the stairs to the top of the pitch, listening as Neville tried to give them a crash course in Quidditch.
'There're four Chasers,' he was saying. 'Their job is to throw the Quaffle through one of the three hoops at the ends of the field. Each goal scored starts out at ten points, but that goes up with each goal you score in a row. The first and second goals are worth ten, the third goal is worth twenty, the fourth thirty, and the fifth and above – fifty. Pretty simple, right?'
'The Chasers' jobs aren't that simple, though,' Neville continued before Harry or Hermione had said anything. 'They're only allowed to hold the Quaffle for three seconds before you have to pass it – or the Quaffle will drop itself – so it's harder in practice to actually build a scoring streak. Also, if the other team scores a goal, your team is immediately reset to ten. So, say you just scored a Quaffle worth fifty points, and the other side scores, you'll need to score five more goals until you get back to fifty again. Make sense?'
'Sure,' Hermione said, and by the look on her face, she must already be working through the numbers in her head.
'Okay, so that's Chasers. There're also two Beaters,' Neville went on. 'They hit the Bludgers – those are balls that fly on their own around the field, and there're two of them, too – they hit the Bludgers around the field so that they don't hit your Chasers, and hopefully hit the other team's Chasers or Beaters.'
'That sounds barbaric,' Hermione gasped in horror, and Harry felt rather inclined to agree.
Neville shrugged. 'It's just Quidditch,' he said. 'The Bludgers at Hogwarts and at the other schools, I heard, are cushioned, so they don't hit you very hard – just enough to disorient you but not hurt. The ones in the professional leagues and the World Cup, though…' Neville cringed.
'Then, there're the keepers,' he continued. 'Each team has one. Their job is to stop the Quaffle from going through the hoops. Sounds simple enough, but it's far harder to do in the air and with three hoops to guard.'
'Got that?' Neville asked, and without waiting for a reply, he went on. 'Finally, there's the Seeker. Technically, the Seeker isn't a position by itself – they're actually just the fourth Chaser most of the game – but they have the additional responsibility of looking for the Golden Snitch. That's a tiny ball that's released from somewhere around the edge of the pitch the moment one team gets eighty points ahead, or halfway through the game – that's at the sixty-minute mark. The Snitch is worth a hundred fifty points if caught, and if it's caught, the game ends early, but if it's not caught by the end of the two hours, then the game is decided by points from the Quaffle goals.'
'So there's strategy involved with almost every aspect of the game, see?' Neville said as they climbed out onto the top of the stadium. Harry looked down onto the grass pitch where they had their flying lessons and was immediately hit by a sense of vertigo. They must have been at least fifty metres up, perhaps even more.
'There's a lot of strategy and tactics involved on how to prolong your streak and break the other team's,' Neville elaborated, though Harry was now having a difficult time hearing thanks to the wind shear at this height. 'And that's not even talking about Seekers and all the ways you can play them. Sometimes, you might want to keep using your Seeker as a Chaser to bring your score up to negate the points from the Snitch, but other times, you might want to catch the Snitch as quickly as you can, so you'd detach your Seeker. There's so much flexibility and strategy, so a lot of the difference between a great side like Puddlemere United and a team that never wins like the Chudley Cannons comes down to their decision-making on the pitch.'
Neville continued through some of the finer points of Quidditch as they took their seats in the middle of the Gryffindor first-years. Hagrid was sitting a distance away, and he waved to Harry, who waved back. In front of him, in the first row, sat Ron, Seamus, and Nura, all arguing animatedly about the strengths and weaknesses of the Ravenclaw side versus the Gryffindor side, though the one point that they all agreed on was their excitement in seeing Raul play in his first match.
'Good morning, Hogwarts!' a voice that Harry felt like he had heard before suddenly rang out over the Quidditch Pitch, and the entire crowd quietened in an instant. 'Welcome to the first Inter-House Quidditch game of the year!'
There was a wave of cheers, and Harry could see around the stands the banners of each of the four Houses, though by far the most visible and numerous were the red and gold of Gryffindor and the blue and bronze of Ravenclaw – the two Houses that were to play today.
'Today's game will see Ravenclaw House, two-year defending House Quidditch Cup title holder, face down Gryffindor House, the last-place finisher in last year's Quidditch Cup,' the announcer said, and Harry realised that the announcer was Lee Jordan, one of Fred and George Weasley's friends, whose voice he had often heard before in the common room, cooking up new pranks and schemes. 'This game, however, is anything but decided! Ravenclaw, despite still having one of the strongest line-ups that Hogwarts has seen in recent years, is under the leadership of a new captain, fifth-year Joseph Oxley – '
Cheering erupted in the Ravenclaw section of the stands, and Lee Jordan waited for it to die down before continuing. 'Oxley may be a great Beater with, if I may add, an excellent chance at the British-Irish League, but until he proves himself today, many will rightfully doubt his captaining abilities,' Jordan said, immediately being met with booing from the Ravenclaw stands. 'Gryffindor's side, meanwhile, has seen drastic changes from last year. Captain Oliver Wood, a fifth-year like Oxley, has invested heavily in young players, with third-years Fred and George Weasley as Beaters, third-years Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet and second-year Katie Bell as Chasers, and first-year Raul Noriega as the Seeker!'
Gryffindor, which had stayed respectfully silent as Jordan announced their players, now broke out in cheers and applause. Harry, despite still not being quite invested in Quidditch itself, even after Neville's sermon, felt some force pushing him to clap along, which he did so gladly.
'And now, that's enough from me!' Jordan shouted excitedly. 'Give your loudest round of applause, please, to our teams! Gryffindor! Ravenclaw!'
At that very moment, amidst the deafening applause coming from the stands, two gates opened, one on either end of the field. From the right, nearest to the Gryffindor side of the stands, seven players, all donned in red and gold robes, shot out at lightning speed on polished black broomsticks. At the same time, from the left, by the Ravenclaw side of the stands, another seven players dressed in blue and bronze burst out over the field. The two teams flew one lap in formation around the pitch before one player from each team – the captains – broke rank and met in the centre.
There, they were met by another figure on a broom, whom Harry recognised as Madam Hooch. Under her right arm, she held a large, red ball, while on the grass below her, in a large chest, were two smaller, black balls which seemed to be struggling to get out, rocking the chest that they were held in so much that Harry could see it even up here.
'Oxley, Wood, shake hands,' Madam Hooch said, her voice magically amplified over.
The two captains reached out and shook one another's hands cordially before letting go. 'Thank you, Captains. The game will now begin on three,' Madam Hooch said. 'Three, two, one!'
She threw the red ball – the Quaffle – into the air, and then, with a flick of her wand, released the two Bludgers, which rocketed up into the air from the chest that they had been held in. She pitched her broom up to hover above the players as the game began.
'Johnson of Gryffindor has the first possession,' Lee Jordan announced as the ordered formations of players suddenly devolved into what seemed almost a chaotic free-for-all. 'Johnson passes to Noriega. Noriega passes the Quaffle on to Spinnet. Spinnet passes to Noriega and – no! Oxley nails Noriega with a Bludger and the pass doesn't complete.'
The action was happening so fast that without Jordan's commentary, Harry would have had no way of following the blurs of the players shooting around the pitch. 'Now Chang has possession of the Quaffle. Chang passes it to Burrows. Burrows to Samuels, Samuels back to Chang. Excellent positioning from Ravenclaw as Chang makes an attempt on a goal and…Wood blocks it!'
The Gryffindors roared in cheers, and the Ravenclaws answered with a collective moan. Harry watched as Wood picked up the blocked Quaffle and threw it back into play. The red ball sailed over the heads of the waiting Ravenclaw defenders, before being caught by a Gryffindor player that Lee Jordan identified as Angelina Johnson.
'Johnson in possession of the Quaffle once again,' Jordan continued. 'Chang is right on her tail and moving in to block, but Johnson should be faster. Johnson back passes to Bell – hah! Wasn't expecting that, were you, Chang? – Bell just manages to dodge a Bludger from Inglebee, but the swerve might've cost her… Wheeler is moving in right behind her – but what a Bludger from Fred Weasley! Wheeler is off Bell's tail. Now she's clear to move in to shoot. Can Page stop the shot? No, she can't! Bell scores, and Gryffindor is ahead ten-zero!'
The noise from the Gryffindors was deafening, completely drowning out Lee Jordan's commentary. When Harry could hear again, the Ravenclaws were once more in possession of the Quaffle and were making another attack run on the Gryffindor goal posts.
'…Burrows takes the pass from Chang and sets up to shoot, but he doesn't have much room,' Jordan was saying. 'Noriega and Spinnet coming up on either side of him, he needs to let the Quaffle fly now or – no! Noriega! No!'
The Gryffindors groaned, much to Harry's confusion, for it seemed like Burrows had dropped the Quaffle. Was that not the point? He turned to Neville, a questioning look on his face.
'Foul,' Neville moaned, his face in his hands. 'Raul just body-blocked the Quaffle just in front of the goal. That's such a basic foul…'
Madam Hooch's whistle sounded. 'Noriega, Gryffindor,' she called. 'Body-blocking in the Safe Zone. Five points from Gryffindor; five points to Ravenclaw. Resume.'
'As Madam Hooch just said, foul by Gryffindor,' Jordan announced, sounding far less buoyant than before. 'The score is five-five as Gryffindor takes control of the Quaffle again.'
The early foul might have taken some spirit out of the Gryffindor spectators, but it did not seem to impact the morale of the team. Three minutes later, another Quaffle sailed through the Ravenclaw goal hoops. Ravenclaw took possession of the Quaffle, but their Chaser, Burrows, held it for too long and dropped it. Johnson swooped in in a perfect dive and picked it up, quickly bringing Gryffindor another goal. This was followed shortly after by yet another, bringing Gryffindor to a sixty-five to five lead.
'Let's go!' Ron shouted from in front of them. 'Destroy them, Wood!'
'I wouldn't get so cocky,' Neville said quietly, looking concerned. 'Wood's getting a little loose with the defence tactics and letting Ravenclaw get too close to the goalposts. He needs to be a little more careful and set up properly, otherwise…'
'What do you mean he's getting a little loose?' Hermione asked.
'Our Chasers aren't setting up as carefully for defence as they did earlier,' Neville said, pointing at two red-clad figures near the Gryffindor endings. 'See Spinnet and Raul over there? They're playing in what's called "ready positions" – called that because it lets you go back onto the attack quicker. You generally don't want to do that. Definitely not at the start of a match.'
'Why not? You can go back on the attack quicker this way, right?'
'It's risky. It's much easier for Ravenclaw to breach that kind of defence,' Neville answered as a Quaffle sailed towards the Gryffindor goalposts, only to be blocked by Wood. 'You'd only want to play that riskily if you're near the end of the match and you need to score as many points as quickly as you can.'
Sure enough, a few minutes later, a Quaffle flew through the Gryffindor rings, putting Ravenclaw at fifteen points. That, though, seemed to wake Wood up to his defence situation, and the ranks tightened, denying Ravenclaw any goals for the next ten minutes – though a foul on Fred Weasley cost Ravenclaw five points and gave Gryffindor back the five points that it had lost at the beginning of the match. Despite – or perhaps because of – the solid defence, though, Gryffindor's offence was also unable to score any points of its own.
'Now he's playing too carefully,' Neville observed. 'And too inflexibly. He's not in a position to play a completely defensive game yet. We need to score points.'
Thankfully, Wood appeared to change his strategy quickly, and Gryffindor made another goal several minutes later, bringing them up to eighty points to Ravenclaw's ten. A few minutes after that, at just before half time, Gryffindor scored another goal, putting them at eighty points ahead. At that point, Harry heard three short bursts of a whistle and turned to see Madam Hooch flying out onto the field, something held in her hands.
'Gryffindor leads by eighty points!' she shouted. 'The Golden Snitch has been released!'
'I wonder what Wood will do now,' Neville said, sitting forward as the game continued. 'We're not far enough ahead or close enough to the end of the match to bank on points from goals alone. If Oxley detaches Chang – which would be a huge risk for him, too, mind you – then we might be in trouble. If he holds back, though, and we try to go after the Snitch…it would risk our defence far too much.'
'What would you do?' Hermione asked, who Harry had noticed was now watching with rapt attention, far more absorbed into the game than himself.
Neville looked out at the pitch, thinking. 'It's hard to say,' he answered finally. 'I'd probably stay on the safe side and go for goals. Our next goal is a twenty. We could, in theory, beat the Snitch in three goals. The question is scoring those three goals, though… Wood's offence isn't very consistent right now. He's switching things up far too much, which is good, I guess, since it keeps Ravenclaw guessing, but on the other hand, our Chasers can't really settle into a rhythm.'
'We are now three minutes into the second half, and eight minutes after the Snitch had been released. Ninety points for Gryffindor to ten for Ravenclaw,' Lee Jordan said. 'It appears that neither Wood nor Oxley has detached their Seeker. Looks like Oxley is trying to set up some sort of major attack against Gryffindor's defence, which has proven incredibly strong this match. Oh…it looks like he's going with the Swedish Hammer attack…very risky move. If Oxley loses the gamble, then it'll be nearly impossible to stop Gryffindor's return attack, which will be worth twenty points and put them only two consecutive goals away from beating the Snitch. This one attack might just decide the game. Ravenclaw is only on ten-point goals, but if this attack succeeds, it might break Gryffindor's momentum and possibly give Oxley the initiative…'
'Classic start with the opening Bludger from Oxley,' Jordan commentated as the offence began, and Harry could hear the excitement in his voice. Both Neville and Hermione were at the edges of their seats, and even Harry felt compelled to turn his full attention onto the game. 'Bludger flies true, right towards Johnson. She rolls and avoids it, but Oxley succeeds in weakening Gryffindor's hold just a little. Wheeler spearheads the formation, Samuels and Burrows on either side. Chang is above them, interesting positioning, definitely looking to exploit. Fred Weasley hits a Bludger towards Chang, but Chang avoids it. Will Gryffindor's line hold? It looks difficult…Oxley is playing a much more dynamic manoeuvre than the usual Swedish Hammer.'
Suddenly, the Gryffindor lines folded forward, the two Chasers at either end shooting into the midst of Ravenclaw's attacking formation. 'Gryffindor breaks formation! Johnson and Bell advance on either side!' Jordan shouted. 'Oxley hits a Bludger towards Fred and gets him, George attacks back and nails Chang. Creators! What is happening? Where is the Quaffle? Johnson has it…Johnson doesn't have it. Noriega has possession! He passes it to Spinnet and fu – I mean, oh no! – Wheeler intercepts it. Wheeler passes to Samuels. Samuels does not make the catch! Johnson takes it again and is hit by a Bludger from Inglebee! The Quaffle is dropped, and nobody is available to make a re – Chang! Chang comes out of nowhere and takes the Quaffle! Gryffindor doesn't realise what's happening! She has an open shot on the goal. Will she make it? It's only her and Wood. Chang lets the Quaffle fly and…'
'NO!' the collective yell of the Gryffindors overpowered Lee Jordan's commentary as the Quaffle soared just over Oliver Wood's arm and into the left ring. A moment later, the dismay of the Gryffindors was overpowered by the roars of approval from the Ravenclaws, which only grew louder as Chang recovered the scored Quaffle from right under Oliver Wood's nose, the other Chasers still too involved in their mid-pitch brawl to realise what had happened.
It was now ninety to twenty, but Ravenclaw was on the offensive. Quickly overwhelming the unprepared Gryffindor defence, Ravenclaw soon scored another goal, closing the gap to sixty points and bringing them to twenty-point goals. Gryffindor's Chasers, now more prepared, managed to stop Ravenclaw's next several attempts at the goal, but were unable to score any goals themselves.
'Would now be a good time to play ready positions?' Hermione asked.
'I would if I were Wood,' Neville replied. 'We need to break their scoring streak. I'd take the risk to do it.'
Wood, however, did not, and soon, another Quaffle went through the Gryffindor goalposts. The gap now closed to forty points – two more goals and Ravenclaw would take the lead.
Suddenly, with twenty minutes left, Harry saw Raul's broom break off from the rest of the team and shoot up into the air. He began flying around the pitch in slow, large circles, his head on a swivel.
'Wood detaches his Seeker!' Lee Jordan announced. 'Will Oxley follow suit, or will he take advantage of the four-on-three attack and score much-needed points to put Ravenclaw ahead?'
Oxley, it appeared, did not follow Wood. Instead, he began attacking as aggressively as he could with his four Chasers, putting them in ready positions to bounce from attack to attack against Gryffindor's outnumbered defences. Ravenclaw quickly broke through Gryffindor's tired defence and scored another goal, closing the gap to ten points. This was soon followed by another goal for fifty points, taking them to a forty-point advantage. Gryffindor's Chasers attempted to mount attack after attack, desperately trying to break Ravenclaw's scoring streak, but they were outnumbered and outplayed time and time again.
Every Gryffindor spectator's eyes were now fixated on Raul, but now with five minutes left in the match, he still had not seen the Snitch. Ravenclaw had managed to score one more goal for fifty, putting them up ninety points. Thankfully, Gryffindor managed to break their streak with a goal of their own, reducing the gap to eighty points. It was, however, seemingly far too little, far too late, as Ravenclaw's relentless attacks continued, Oxley showing no intention of detaching Chang to fight Raul for the snitch.
'Wood's played himself into a corner,' Neville said miserably, his face in his hands. 'He doesn't have time anymore to catch up eighty points, and I doubt that he could, even if he had the time. Our Chasers are tired – you can see it by how they're flying. The only way we could possibly win is if Raul catches the Snitch.'
The Gryffindor stands watched with bated breath as Raul circled the pitch again and again. Then, suddenly, with just over one minute left, Raul pitched his broom down and dove sharply in the direction of the Ravenclaw section of the stands. The Gryffindors collectively inhaled as he made a sharp right turn, his right hand stretched out in front of him. Oxley, who had realised too late what Raul had seen, shouted instructions at Chang, gesticulating wildly, and she immediately took off in hot pursuit, gaining on him slightly, but far too slowly.
'Noriega has seen the Snitch!' Lee Jordan cried, excitement once more in his voice after many minutes of depressed commentary. 'Chang has now begun to give chase, but it doesn't look like she'll get there in time. Raul is within spitting distance of the Snitch! Is this the miracle that Gryffindor needs?'
'Inglebee hits a Bludger towards Noreiga, but it's too far to the left to hit. George Weasley hits a Bludger towards Oxley, but no! The Bludger flies too wide, and it's in a perfect position for Oxley – yup, Oxley hits it. Perfect trajectory towards Noriega. Does Noriega realise it? He makes a grab for the Snitch, but doesn't quite get it. There's no way he could avoid the Bludger now…and it hits him…'
Once more, the Gryffindors in the stands moaned, and Harry heard several shouted expletives. Hermione and Neville buried their faces into their hands so far that it almost looked like they were touching their laps. Then, all of a sudden, over the misery in the Gryffindor stands, the Ravenclaws erupted in roars of elation.
Harry looked down onto the field, and Chang was flying up towards the centre of the pitch, her right hand held high. The Ravenclaw team were quickly coalescing towards her, reaching her and clapping her on the back. Oxley had his Beater's bat held high, pumping it in the air. The Gryffindor team, meanwhile, stayed right where they had stopped, looking on at the celebration with expressions of sadness and disappointment. Wood had already descended to the ground, and stood hunch-backed, leaning on his broom like it were a walking stick.
'Ravenclaw wins the match,' Lee Jordan announced with no enthusiasm. 'Cho Chang catches the Golden Snitch and ends the match early. The final score is three hundred thirty points for Ravenclaw to one hundred for Gryffindor.'
Hermione, who had had little interest in Quidditch just this morning, looked like she wanted to kick something.
The next week was off to a miserable start, for Professor Snape had announced on Monday that he would be giving a test that very Wednesday during their fifty-minute class. He gave no announcement about what content would be on the test, which left Harry with no option but to revise every single piece of information that he had been taught since the beginning of the year in September.
'Why does he have to do this?' Neville complained as he, Harry, and Hermione sat in the common room late Tuesday evening, reading over their notes and past assignments. 'Would it really have hurt him to give the announcement a few days early?'
Harry thought cynically that, knowing Snape, it rather would have – though he did not voice that opinion. 'Maybe he hadn't anticipated needing a test last week,' Hermione said, seemingly playing the unneeded Devil's advocate for Snape.
'I doubt it,' Neville grumbled. 'What kind of teacher doesn't know what they're doing until two days before?'
'Well, what can we do about it now?' Hermione asked, sounding a little irritated. 'Let's just revise the best we can. What're the three Golpalott Laws of Potion Action?'
'Law of Dependency – potions need a magical being's magic to act,' Harry groused, cursing Snape for the fact that he had to make a discipline that sounded so interesting such a chore. 'Law of Domain – potions can't have effects beyond the magical being that consumes it. Law of Permanence – potions can't adapt their effects to the exact environment the magical being is in.'
'I still don't get the Law of Permanence,' Neville mumbled. 'What does "can't adapt" even mean?'
'It means that a potion can act once and only once. It can't take feedback from the outside environment once it's acted,' Hermione explained. 'So you could have a potion that turns you red and a potion that turns you blue, but you can't have a potion that turns you red when you enter a red room and then turns you blue when you leave the red room and enter a blue room, since that would require the potion to know what's going on around you and adapt its effects accordingly.'
Neville nodded, looking like he had understood. 'So you can't have a potion that, say, always keeps you cool, because that'd require it to change its effects whenever you move into a different room?'
'Exactly,' Hermione said with a grin. 'See, you got it.'
Neville blushed a little before returning to his revision. 'Do you think he'd make us brew a potion from memory?' Harry asked after a while, frightened of that possibility.
Hermione sighed. 'I don't know. I mean…is it really that important to know each recipe to the word?'
'It isn't,' Neville said, shaking his head. 'Whenever Gran needs to make something, she always goes off a recipe book – unless it's something she's made a thousand times and already memorised like a Pepper-Up or Invigoration. Though knowing Snape…'
'I wouldn't put it past him,' Harry finished with a sigh. 'But knowing how he grades the potions we make in class…maybe memorising the recipes by heart won't help us anyway.'
Hermione, who usually might have protested taking a risk like this, actually agreed. 'It's pointless, then. If we won't learn anything useful revising that, then we probably shouldn't revise it at all.'
They continued looking through their notes for the next hour or so, occasionally discussing points that came up. Just before midnight, they split up, biding good night to each other, and went to bed. By the time they got there, the other boys in the dormitory had already gone to bed, and Harry climbed into bed, falling asleep quickly in the silence.
The next morning, Harry woke up at his usual time, feeling not at all stressed about the test – he had revised as well as he could, so what was the point in being nervous? Others at the Gryffindor table, though, did not seem to share in his calm. Ron and his circle, consisting of Raul, Nura, Sally-Anne, and occasionally Seamus, were bent over their potions notes, trying to squeeze one last bit of revision in before the beginning of lessons. They must not be making much progress, though, Harry thought, for he noticed that they were chattering about other things – most notably the latest changes to the Quidditch League tables – than about potions.
'Is Quidditch really that interesting?' Hermione asked in an exasperated voice, watching the group.
'Look who's talking,' Harry said with a smirk. 'Who's the one who reads the Quidditch column in the Daily Prophet every day now?'
Hermione blushed. 'Quidditch is an interesting game,' she replied, defending herself. 'All the strategy that goes into it is fascinating. Discussing only the clubs' rankings without bothering to think about how they play, though… Doesn't that just defeat the whole point?'
'I guess it does,' Harry agreed, remembering how Uncle Vernon would parrot how football was the 'beautiful game', but never bothering to pay attention to anything about it except how Arsenal was doing that day.
After breakfast and Finding Magic, the Gryffindors headed into the dungeons to Potions. The room had been set up differently for the day. The square tables around which four of them usually worked together had been replaced by rows of single tables, on which sat a piece of parchment, a cauldron, and a stirring rod.
'Sit according to where you would normally sit in the room,' Professor Snape ordered as more students began trickling in. 'Yes, Weasley. Where you used to sit around the tables. You have a brain that can count chairs.'
Harry found his place in the second seat to the left of the first row. Hermione was right behind him, Neville to his left with Dean sitting behind him. On his right was Tracey Davis, and right in front of him, looking like he was rather enjoying this, stood Professor Snape.
'Now, as you know, today is your test,' Snape said, sounding bored. 'You have in front of you a cauldron, a stirring rod, and instructions. You are to brew a Voice-Changing Potion. At the end of the test, you are to drink the Voice-Changing Potion, and you will be graded on the effects that your potion manages to produce. You will use ingredients in the cupboard. Begin.'
There was immediately a rush to the ingredients cupboard, and a long queue formed as students scrambled to get the needed ingredients. Harry, though, decided against joining the rush, instead opting to read through his instructions first, getting a basic idea of how the Voice-Changing Potion was supposed to be brewed. Only then did he get up to grab ingredients, and by that time, the queue had already cleared up.
Harry began brewing the potion, first heating up the cauldron of water to the required temperature. While it heated, Harry minced his peppermint leaves, measured out his bouncing spider venom extract and sugar, and cut up his tubeworms. Following the instructions carefully, he dripped two drops of the spider venom into the water, followed by one Standard Spoon of peppermint leaves.
Unlike the instructions in their book, the instructions on the sheet of parchment said nothing about the colour that the potion was supposed to turn at each step of the process, and so Harry had to simply trust that he had done everything correctly. He took his time with each step, making sure that every stir, every cut, was done exactly as the book had said and as they had practised in class. At the same time, though, he had to be conscious of the clock. They did not have the full ninety minutes that they would have had on their Monday and Thursday class-practicals this morning, and he would need to be both quick and accurate with his work.
'Twenty-five minutes,' Snape drawled, pacing around the room. Harry looked down at his parchment and was relieved to see that he was making good time. Out of the sixteen steps that were required to brew the potion, he had already completed nine.
Snape stopped to the right of Harry's desk just as he finished the eleventh step. Harry did not dare look up at him, nor did he want to. He was not going to be shaken by whatever expression Snape must have had on his face as he looked down at his potion. Be it a disgusted sneer, a superior smirk, or something else, Harry did not want to see it.
Thankfully, soon, Snape moved on, inspecting Tracey Davis's potion. After a few moments of looking, unexpectedly, he spoke.
'Which step are you on, Davis?' he asked.
Tracey took a few seconds to answer, presumably looking over her list. 'Step eight, Sir.'
Step eight was the addition of the rest of the bouncing spider venom extract, Harry recalled. His potion had turned a dull orange after that step. Had Snape seen that the colour of Tracey's potion was wrong and was trying to help her? If Tracey's potion was wrong, then, what was its colour? Harry found himself thinking, hoping that it was not also a dull orange.
'Bright purple…bright purple,' Snape said to himself. 'That doesn't seem right…doesn't seem possible… Davis, what did you just add to your potion?'
'Two Standard Spoons of sugar, Sir.'
Tracey had mixed up steps eight and nine, Harry realised. Instead of yelling at Tracey like he would any Gryffindor who made such a mistake, though, Snape continued to speak to himself in a low voice. 'Sugar…that doesn't seem right, either. Unless…'
'Stop brewing,' Snape suddenly ordered the entire class. 'Stop brewing immediately.'
'What? Why?' came Hermione's voice.
'I said, stop brewing,' Snape said, louder. 'Everyone, stop brewing.'
Clinks could be heard all around the room as stirring rods suddenly stopped against the walls of cauldrons. Snape, meanwhile, conjured a cauldron cover out of thin air and dropped it over Tracey's potion. With a wave of his wand, he levitated it and floated it over to his desk, setting it down with a thud.
Next, Harry watched as he walked to one of the cupboards and took out a glass vial, returning to his desk. He uncovered Tracey's cauldron and waved his wand again, presumably filling it up with Tracey's potion. Once it was filled, Snape stoppered it, gripping it tightly, obscuring its contents from everyone in the classroom, and dropped it into his robes. He turned around towards the cauldron, pointing his wand at it.
'Evanesco,' he hissed, before levitating the cauldron once again and dropping it back on Tracey's desk. Harry chanced a glance over and found it empty. Snape had evidently just vanished all of her potion.
'Your test is cancelled,' Snape said. 'Leave your cauldrons and potions where they are. You are dismissed. Go!'
The room descended into chaos again as the students gathered their things and rushed out of the room, wanting to get away from a Snape who was clearly in a poor mood. Still far too early for lunch and lacking anywhere else to go, Harry, Hermione, and Neville followed the rest of the Gryffindor first-years up to Gryffindor Tower. Once there, they took a seat in a corner of the Common Room, away from Ron's group, who were busy celebrating the cancellation of a test that none of them had revised for.
'What just happened?' Neville asked the inevitable question.
'I have no idea,' Hermione replied. 'I didn't even know what was going on until Professor Snape told us to stop brewing.'
'I don't really know why he told us to stop brewing,' Harry said quietly, 'but he was looking over Tracey Davis's potion, and he saw that there was something wrong. Her potion was bright purple, apparently, and it wasn't supposed to be anything close to that. She had reversed steps eight and nine on the instructions, but Snape kept mumbling to himself that that shouldn't be possible either.'
'What happened then?' Hermione pressed.
'Nothing,' Harry answered. 'Snape said "Unless…" and then he told everyone to stop brewing.'
'Snape took a sample of Tracey's potion,' Neville said. 'He must have thought that whatever happened to cause her potion to be that colour was important.'
'And he told us to stop brewing,' Hermione added. 'Maybe he realised something when Tracey messed up those two steps,' she speculated. 'Maybe reversing those two steps could've caused the potion to become something different altogether. Or maybe something dangerous. Say what you will about Professor Snape, but if anyone might know these things, it's him.'
'Shouldn't he have realised that beforehand, though?' Harry asked. 'If mixing up two steps could make the potion something completely different, I mean.'
'I'm sure even Einstein has made an arithmetic error in his life, Harry.'
'Einstein?'
'He's a famous scientist,' Hermione said. 'Someone who does research,' she added at Neville's still-confused look.
'Oh. Okay. Sorry.'
Hermione shook her head. 'Back to Professor Snape. Why would he want to take a sample of the potion? He's not going to be grading it.'
'He could've wanted to see if it really was a different potion,' Harry reasoned. 'Maybe he wanted to follow the steps through himself and check.'
Hermione looked off into the distance, thinking. 'Maybe… Something about his reaction just feels weird to me.'
Harry nodded in agreement. 'I wish I knew what he was thinking then.'
'Maybe we should just ask him,' Hermione suggested.
Harry blinked. 'What?'
'Ask,' Hermione repeated. 'Just ask Professor Snape what happened and why he did what he did.'
Harry blinked again. 'Are you insane?'
'What?'
'Do you think Snape would really answer a question like that?' Harry pointed out. 'He barely has the patience to answer questions in class. Let's not even mention that we're the ones posing the question.'
'You can't know that he wouldn't unless you try it,' Hermione said.
'I don't exactly want to try it,' Harry replied. 'I know Snape would just tell me to mind my own business.'
Hermione huffed, giving Harry an annoyed look. 'Fine, I'll ask, then. And if Professor Snape answers me, I'll have every right to laugh in your face.'
And so, as promised, the next day at the beginning of Potions, Hermione went up to Professor Snape. Harry, looking on, could not help but want to try to dissuade her, tell her how bad of an idea it was, but it was too late.
'Professor, may I ask you a question?'
Snape looked up with an annoyed look on his face and gave one small, curt nod.
'During the test yesterday,' Hermione began. 'What happened to Tracey's potion? I heard it turned bright purple and that it wasn't supposed – '
'That is no business of yours, Granger,' Snape interrupted, his eyes burning with anger. 'There is no need for you to be asking after the affairs of a teacher.'
'I was just curious – '
'Then don't be,' Snape snapped. 'What happened yesterday is nothing that you should be concerned about. Go sit.'
'I did tell you,' Harry whispered as Hermione sat down.
She gave him a dirty look but said nothing. After Potions ended, however, she pulled Harry and Neville aside in the corridors.
'What?' Harry asked.
'Listen, even if I didn't get any information from Professor Snape, he still told me something important,' Hermione said.
'And what is that?'
'That whatever happened yesterday was more than just a simple mistake,' Hermione answered, her eyes lighting up in thought. 'There's something significant about Tracey's potion turning that specific colour. If there wasn't, he wouldn't be so guarded about everything.'
'Sure. I mean, we guessed yesterday that it had to be something important,' Harry said. 'But that doesn't really help us, does it? That doesn't really let us figure anything out.'
'We can look in the library,' Hermione suggested. 'Maybe there'd be something in a book about bright purple potions.'
But after an entire evening spent in the library, pouring over potions books that, by the end, made Harry want to fall asleep, they still had no idea what the significance of the bright purple potion could possibly be. One book said that purple was a colour that comes up often in the process of brewing sleeping potions, while another said purples were dead ends for potion creation. Everything seemed too general to be of any use, and every piece of information that was more specific seemed to contradict one another.
'Maybe this is just something we won't be able to figure out,' Neville groaned with a yawn as they walked back to Gryffindor Tower that night.
'Don't lose hope just yet,' Hermione advised. 'We might not be able to get to the bottom of this today, but who knows, maybe in a week, in a month, or sometime later in the year, we'll see something that makes everything make sense.'
