Defence Against the Dark Arts on Monday, unlike their previous three lessons, followed a lecture format, with Lockhart teaching the class three new spells which, to Harry's delight, he had already learned by himself the year before. Harry, and the rest of the class had no complaints about not being forced to swat at Pixies or dodge flying balls, and even the likes of Ron and his friends had to say that Lockhart's lesson had been quite informative and engaging.

While there was no denying the quality of Lockhart's teaching, Harry did not know how he was supposed to see the man after what he had learned from Anna. He had been in the dark about Quirrell's loyalty to Voldemort all last year, but he wondered how he would feel if Quirrell or some other follower of Voldemort was now openly teaching one of his classes. However good Lockhart's teaching was, there was nothing that could excuse unleashing dragons on unarmed civilians – if that were indeed what he had done. The only things on which Harry's urgent hopes of an innocent Lockhart whom he could still respect rested were the shred of doubt Anna had cast on her own understanding and his faith in Dumbledore.

'Dumbledore couldn't possibly have not done his research before hiring him,' Hermione told him repeatedly. 'He has contacts everywhere. He should definitely have found out if there were anything suspicious going on. If Lockhart really were a war criminal, Dumbledore would have to know. Would Dumbledore hire someone like that?'

Harry and Neville exchanged a glance, and they knew that there was no way the Dumbledore they knew would do such a thing. Though what Hermione had said was comforting and logical, Harry could not help but feel some unshakeable, perhaps even superstitious, suspicion against the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. After all, Quirrell had managed to slip through Dumbledore's watch. What if Lockhart was simply very good at hiding things? But if that were the case, why would he tell Anna that he was in Russia, potentially blowing his own cover? In the end, the most comforting explanation also seemed to be the most sensible.

Even if Harry had any lingering doubts, there was nothing he could do but convince himself that there was in fact nothing to doubt, for life at Hogwarts was not about to pause just for him to ponder over his questions. After another Defence Against the Dark Arts 'practical' on Tuesday, in which the students were forced to individually remove enchantments on Headless Snitches, ended in the class's failure, Lockhart's history ceased to even be the biggest point of concern Harry had in regards to him, overtaken by a need to strategise for Thursday's repetition of the exercise. This time, nearly the entire class joined in, all wishing to avoid a scolding from Lockhart for failing to plan ahead.

There was also something else to look forward to on Tuesday evening – the Games Club meeting. At seven o'clock, Harry made his way to an unused classroom on the second floor. When he got there, he found that Tracey had already arrived and was sitting at a corner desk. After a brief conversation with the leader of the club, a seventh-year Slytherin named Horatio, he made his way over to her.

'Hey, Harry,' she greeted.

'Hey, good evening.'

'How were classes?'

Harry shrugged. 'Fine. We failed Lockhart's task, though, so we'll have to do it again Thursday. Did you do it?'

Tracey shook her head. 'We didn't. We figured out to capture the balls into the bag – you have to Freeze a group of them first so you can aim a Finite Incantatem to undo the enchantment he put on one of the balls before you use a Carpe Retractum to pull them towards you and catch them in the bag so you don't burn your hands – but we didn't have enough time at the end to finish the task. It should be easy for us to do tomorrow, though. Hopefully he lets us go early again.'

'Oh, great. That's almost exactly what we came up with earlier,' Harry said happily.

'What did your class end up doing today?' she asked in curiosity.

'Mostly just shooting Finite's everywhere,' Harry chortled. 'A couple of us figured out the Freezing and pulling strategy, but most people completely forgot the Freezing Charm existed, so there wasn't enough of us to complete the task. It's so hard to catch the balls with the bag. I also couldn't fall asleep last night for some reason. That probably didn't help.'

'You have to be very quick,' Tracey agreed.

As expected, not many people showed up to Games Club. Besides the club leader and his sixth-year Hufflepuff friend, a fourth-year Ravenclaw was also present. After a short round of introductions, several games were brought out, and Harry and Tracey joined the others in a game of Galleons, something that disappointed Harry somewhat, for he had hoped that he would be able to have a more private conversation with Tracey over something like Chess or Exploding Snap to catch up. Despite the drawback, the game was still off to an enjoyable start, though Harry, already not great at the game, came out on the short end of the stick over and over again to the older students, who deployed every trick against the two hapless second-years to snatch piles of fake Galleons from their hands at once.

'I'm almost out,' Harry said as he was forced to cross the bridge controlled by Jonathan, the sixth-year, once again, losing two hundred Galleons in the process.

'That's too bad,' Jonathan replied with an evil grin. 'I could loan you five hundred Galleons, but you'll have to pay me back a thousand seven hundred five turns from now.'

'Where am I supposed to find two hundred Galleons if I've made just about a hundred this entire game?' Harry asked.

Jonathan shrugged. 'That's your own problem.'

'Fine, give me the Galleons,' Harry said. If he did not take the Galleons, he would be eliminated in a turn's time, anyway. It was a little better to prolong the game for five more turns than to immediately accept defeat, he thought.

Jonathan began to count up the Galleons. 'Well…'

'Ssshaaaachssssss I ssss…'

'…here you go,' Jonathan finished, pushing towards Harry a large pile of false Galleons.

'…shsssaach free chasssaach…'

Harry bolted upright. 'What was that?'

Jonathan looked confused. 'Your Galleons,' he said. 'You wanted them, didn't you?'

Harry shook his head. 'No, it wasn't the Galleons.'

'What was it, then?'

'The noise,' Harry said. 'Did you hear a…a hissing sort of sound? It sounded like it was saying something. Something about "I" and "free".'

Tracey gave Harry a sideways glance. 'What noise?'

'The hissing. Didn't you hear it?'

Tracey shook her head. 'No, I didn't hear anything.'

Harry looked at the rest of the students gathered around the game. 'Did any of you hear anything?'

All three shook their heads. 'Nothing.'

'Are you sure?' Harry asked. 'I heard it clearly.'

'You might've just heard the wind or something,' Tracey suggested. 'You said you didn't sleep well last night. Maybe that caused you to think it was something else.'

Harry shook his head. 'That sounded nothing like the wind.'

The others gave him helpless looks. 'Well, maybe we missed it,' Horatio said, though he sounded like he was simply placating Harry instead of believing in fact that he had missed the sound. 'If you hear it again, let us know.'

By sheer luck of the dice, Harry managed to make four hundred Galleons over the next several turns, allowing him to pay back the sum that Jonathan demanded while staying in the game with a small but workable sum of five hundred Galleons. Several more lucky wins then brought his sum to a thousand Galleons, enough that he did not have to worry about an imminent elimination.

As they played, Harry listened for the hissing that he had heard earlier, and once or twice, he thought that he had heard something, before realising that that, indeed, had actually just been the wind. The others seemed to have forgotten about it, too, their attention turned completely back to trying to knock one another out of the game. Despite Harry's string of victories earlier, he was soon once again in danger of elimination, having been bled to just a hundred Galleons.

'All depends on this roll, Potter,' Jonathan said. 'I'm ready to have your Galleons.'

'Ssssss shaaaaaasssss hunger sssssh aaaaaash…'

Harry blinked. 'The noise,' he breathed. 'I just heard it again.'

'What noise?' Tracey asked.

'The hissing sound,' Harry answered. 'I just heard it again.'

'I didn't hear anything,' the fourth-year, Eddie, said.

'How did you not hear it? I heard it clearly. It said something about "hunger".'

'Are you sure it's not your stomach talking?' Jonathan jested.

Harry shook his head, unamused. 'No. I actually heard it.'

'Well, I don't think any of the rest of us heard anything,' Horatio said. 'I think you should go to Pomfrey and get it checked out.'

'I'm not hallucinating!' Harry insisted. 'I heard what I heard!'

'You can't know that for sure,' Horatio replied seriously. 'Hearing things nobody else hears is never a good thing. If you had been accidentally exposed to some kind of harmful potion or spell, that might be one of the things that it could cause. It's better to be careful and stop something like that as early as possible than to risk it getting worse.'

'He has a point,' Jonathan agreed. 'Go to Madam Pomfrey and have her examine it. Tracey, you should bring him there right now.'

'I'm fine – '

'I'm sure you are,' Horatio interjected, 'but in case you're not, it's better to know earlier than later.'

Tracey stood up. 'He's right. It's better to be safe than sorry. Come on.'

Harry, remembering Dobby's warning and thinking back to how Tracey had almost been poisoned last year in Potions, saw the sense in the others' suggestion. He stood and followed Tracey out of the room and through the now quite peaceful corridors to the Hospital Wing. As he walked, a forgotten feeling of dread at his own mortality came back to him. Was someone out for his life again? Was this how he was going to die, killed by some spell that a mysterious assassin had cast on him in his sleep?

Madam Pomfrey looked cheerful and not overly concerned when Harry entered the Hospital Wing, something that Harry had quickly become unable to mirror. 'What is it, Mister Potter?'

'I…I heard voices,' Harry answered quietly.

'You'll need to tell me a little more than that.'

'I was at Games Club,' Harry told her. 'I heard a voice…it sounded like some kind of hiss, but I could make out a few words. I heard "I", "free", and "hunger". Nobody else but me heard anything, though. They thought that I…I might've been hearing those things because…because I've been poisoned or c-cursed.'

Madam Pomfrey immediately grew alarmed. 'I see…' she breathed. 'Sit down on the bed. I'll examine you.'

For the next thirty minutes, Madam Pomfrey circled Harry, casting spell after spell on him to look for traces of dark magic. 'Well, I can't find a curse,' she told him after she finished her examination. 'You most likely haven't been exposed to any dark spells.'

'Really?' Harry asked, surprised and relieved.

'No curses,' she repeated. 'I still have to check for poisons, though. That's much harder, and I can't check for all of them. Only the Department of Security has the equipment to do that…but I can still look for all the more common ones.'

She disappeared momentarily into her office and came back with a silver dagger and a flask. 'Your arm,' she commanded.

Harry put out his left arm, and Madam Pomfrey made a cut on the inside of his arm. Harry winced as he saw blood begin to trickle into the flask, but to his – very pleasant – surprise, he felt no pain. Madam Pomfrey let the blood flow for approximately thirty seconds, and when she was finally satisfied that she had collected enough, she waved her wand across the cut and instantly healed it, leaving not even a scar.

'I'll be back in about twenty minutes,' she said. 'Wait here, please, Mister Potter.'

Harry – and Tracey – waited, mostly in silence. He had not been cursed – that was a relief, but if he thought about it, the chances of him somehow being cursed was not in fact that high – certainly not in comparison to the possibility of being poisoned. What Madam Pomfrey had said about her being unable to detect every possible poison certainly did not bring Harry any comfort, either.

'I'm sure it'll be fine,' Tracey reassured him several times. 'Who would want to risk poisoning you under Dumbledore's watch, anyway?'

Tracey's words, with all the assumptions that she had made in an earnest effort to comfort him, only made his anxiety worse. When Madam Pomfrey returned from her office, Harry was half expecting her to pronounce to him what would essentially be a death sentence on the spot. As such, Harry did not even believe her when she told him that she, in fact, had not found any signs of an attempted poison attack.

'None at all?' Harry gasped.

Madam Pomfrey shook her head. 'None. Although as I said, I can only test for the more common poisons. A completely comprehensive test would take days and require the Department of Security to be involved, and I doubt there's enough suspicion here for them to even consent to review the request in the first place. The chances of you being given something we can't test for is probably low, because you would have to have been intentionally targeted by an expert assassin…and I doubt any of our students have that desire or ability.'

Harry nodded, feeling somewhat more assured. 'Could you tell Headmaster Dumbledore what happened?' he requested, remembering how Orville had advised him to keep Dumbledore informed and still not shaken in his paranoia that this may somehow be connected to Dobby's visit and warning.

'Certainly,' Madam Pomfrey replied. 'I doubt, though, that the Headmaster would be able to arrange for the involvement of the Department of Security, if that's what you want.'

Harry shook his head. 'No, I'm not trying to do that. I just thought…he should know, given…'

'I understand,' Madam Pomfrey said. 'I will let him know at the earliest opportunity. I advise that you pay attention to whether or not you hear the voice again. If you don't stop hearing it after a few days, or if you start hearing it more regularly, then you should come to me at once. Unless that happens, though, I think you don't need to worry too much about poison or dark spells of any sort.'


Madam Pomfrey had been quite quick in her informing of Dumbledore, for the next day at breakfast, Harry received a note from the Headmaster, relaying to him that he had been told of what happened and that he did not see a reason that Harry should worry excessively right now. Dumbledore's words did what Madam Pomfrey's had not been able to do, and Harry was reassured enough to relegate the matter mostly to the back of his mind.

As September continued, classes began to quickly pick up – with the exception of Finding Magic. The class, having achieved its stated purpose of helping the students 'find their magic' the previous year, morphed into a strange mixture that Harry was unsure what to make of. Professor Cauverina seemed to teach whatever she felt like teaching on any given day: one day, she could be discussing wizarding customs, the next, a layperson's overview of recent developments in arithmancy, and the next, current events. Harry found it interesting to hear about all these topics, and Cauverina had promised an 'O' to everyone who showed up to every class, but he could not help but feel a bit frustrated sometimes by the total lack of direction.

Finding Magic may have been quite easy, but the same could not be said for the other classes. Lockhart's lessons followed generally the same predictable pattern – a day of teaching new spells followed by one, two, or sometimes even three days of drills. The drills became more difficult almost exponentially as the weeks wound on. The 'solutions' to the challenges could involve anything – and sometimes even everything – they had learned up to that point so far, and Lockhart would give no hints on which ones were needed, leaving the students to figure it out for themselves. Furthermore, the repetition days now included variations to the original task, meaning that plans almost inevitably had to be modified on the fly. All this made many students – unrestricted to Ron and his circle – rather resentful of Lockhart for his harshness, but Harry, though often dismayed by their failures, understood quite well the need for this challenge.

History of Magic, meanwhile, was also a challenge, not in the academic sense, for Harry was maintaining an 'O' with not too much effort, but rather as a result of the sometimes-disturbing assignments that Professor Ross gave. A string of assignments given over several days, for example, was to read first-hand accounts of the London Insurrection, the first and largest battle of the Third Great Tremor. Professor Ross had already removed some of what Harry presumed to be the most graphic depictions of violence, but that which remained – no more than brief, almost undescriptive narrations of what had happened – was still enough to give Harry chills. Goblins had mutilated and then decapitated the bodies of dead wizards and then stuck their severed heads on stakes to be displayed along roads, or hurled bundles of them at the enemy with trebuchets. Wizards, meanwhile, were by no means better. A group of wizards had forced a group of goblins into a house at the end of a cul-de-sac and coaxed them to surrender. When they did, the wizards simply laughed and used Fiendfyre to burn all but one of the disarmed goblins alive. The survivor was sent back to the goblins' camp, blinded, to deliver his companions' charred remains to his king as a warning. While Harry had simply been shocked, some others had been downright disturbed after reading the passages. The initial excitement with which many had come into learning about the Third Great Tremor, the largest and bloodiest – and in the imagination of many, the most exciting – of the three great goblin wars, seemingly evaporated in one single day, replaced by only horror.

There were also other developments. A second Exploratory had been held, though this one was rather boring, consisting only of McGonagall addressing the gathered second-years about the elective options they had for next year. Outside of classes, Neville had, to his surprise, though not to Harry's, begun working with Professor Sprout with the rare plants. According to him, he was not able to do very much himself, for he was classified as a 'trainee' under the supervision of a seventh-year student, but he was fascinated by the plants with which he had been able to work, often talking about it excitedly in the Common Room. Hermione, who had joined eight clubs following the first Exploratory, quickly realised that there was no way of actually going to eight clubs, and so pared back her programme significantly to only attending the Reading, Quidditch, Transfiguration, and Charms Clubs. Even then, it still seemed like every minute of her day was dedicated to something, with much less time left reserved for relaxing and spending time with them in the Common Room.

Harry, too, was spending more of his time outside of Gryffindor Tower, especially on weekends, when Neville was usually out in the forest and Hermione was attending a meeting of one of her clubs. As a result, he often sought out Tracey on weekends, when they would spend much time in the library, doing homework and revising. As a result of Defence Against the Dark Arts and Finding Magic assigning no homework at all this year, the overall workload represented a marked reduction from the year prior, despite other classes, such as Transfiguration or Potions, increasing the amount of assigned homework.

Strangely, as the month wore on, Tracey started asking more and more often for Harry to spend time with her. He had no issue with that at all, for it was a regular way for them to see one another, but Harry also got a feeling that she was trying to avoid the Slytherin Common Room by spending time with him. At first, Harry assumed simply that Tracey missed talking to him regularly as they had over the summer, but late in the month, she began to seem unenergetic and indifferent, and the look which she carried on her face slid slowly from being generally positive to worried and ill at ease.

'Is everything okay?' Harry asked one Saturday afternoon as they wrote a Transfiguration essay. 'Is there something going on with…Pansy? Or Daphne?'

Tracey looked up, staring at him for a second. 'What?'

'Is everything okay?' Harry repeated. 'You look…down. Is it about Pansy or Daphne?'

Tracey blinked. 'I…uh…'

Harry did not need a firm answer to be able to guess that the answer to both of his questions was 'yes'. 'What happened?' he asked, before realising that it was rather blunt. 'I mean…you can tell me…if you want to…I won't tell anyone…'

There was an awkward, tense pause. 'It's Daphne,' she finally replied. She looked around, making sure that they were alone, before continuing. 'She's just…she's just been worried because Pansy…well, she's always with Millicent and Lisa…and Draco… She thinks Pansy's going to abandon her and she doesn't want her to, so she's been trying to…get back in with them. And…well…what if she chooses Pansy?'

'What do you mean "get back in with them"?' Harry asked in a rather obtuse way.

'She's spending more time with them,' Tracey answered. 'And…well, they're always huddled around one of the tables in the corner of the Common Room, talking in whispers. I don't know what they're talking about, and Daphne…she always looks anxious when she leaves the table and doesn't want to talk to anyone… She doesn't even want to tell me anything when I ask her. Why does she suddenly not trust me anymore? She chose Pansy…I know she did…that's why she's acting like this. I know I did it to myself…if I hadn't left Pansy like that…'

Harry gulped. He had no idea what he should say. To tell Tracey that Daphne would not choose Pansy over her seemed to him at best, optimistic speculation which he knew would sound disingenuous, and at worst, a lie. 'Do you know what they're doing?' he finally said. 'I mean…could they just be…doing homework or something like that?'

'If they were just doing homework, why would Daphne not want to tell me anything?' Tracey counter-propositioned. 'She doesn't want me to know what they were talking about – it's so obvious.'

'Does she still spend time with you?' Harry asked. 'Have you tried to ask her what they were doing…I don't know, not immediately after she leaves the table?'

Tracey nodded. 'I tried to ask several times already, but she still wouldn't answer,' Tracey answered, sounding desperate. 'She still spends time with me, she still talks to me, but just nothing about what she's doing with them…or anything about Pansy, actually… She trusts them but she doesn't trust me. Isn't it clear? She's choosing them.'

There was another long, difficult pause. 'Well…I suppose…if you ever want to…' he gestured at the open books and sheets of parchment on the table, 'I'm always around and happy to…revise…or do homework…or whatever…'

Tracey gave a small smile. She did not look very reassured or soothed, however, and Harry did not know what more he could say or do that might do so.


After telling Harry about what was happening with Daphne, Tracey seemed reluctant to discuss that subject any further the next times they met, even upon Harry's questioning. Harry, realising that it would do no good to keep asking, ceased to bring up the subject any further. In any case, it seemed to Harry that after a week or so, Tracey and Daphne had made up, or perhaps she simply had grown accustomed to the new situation, for Harry thought he could see a positive change in Tracey, and her old, cheerful self made a partial return.

As October began, the attention of much of the Gryffindor House – and much of the school, for that matter – turned to focus on one singular event: the first Quidditch match of the year between Gryffindor and Slytherin. The Gryffindor-Slytherin game had always managed to bring out the worst in those who held a stake in the results, but this year, tensions ran particularly high. A collective thirst for vengeance ran in the Slytherin House, seeking to make right the embarrassing last-minute defeat against Gryffindor the previous year. It did not help that the team had finished a distant third in the tournament last year, adding to the sense of humiliation within the House.

If Slytherin were really determined to do everything and anything to win, however, the choice of their new seeker did not seem to many to be exactly conducive to their goals. In a puzzling turn of events in mid-September, before trials were even held, Captain Marcus Flint announced that Draco Malfoy would be taken on as their new Seeker. The bizarre choice soon became clear, however, when it transpired that Malfoy's father had given two gifts which were, most certainly, completely unrelated in any way to this decision. The first had been thirty-two Nimbus 2000s, eight for each of the four Houses' Quidditch teams to replace their old Cleansweep Fives, while the second, perhaps more immediately motivating one, was a large bailout to Flint's father's business, which was in imminent danger of going under.

Tracey had revealed that a good portion of the Slytherin House, disgruntled that their chance of winning the Quidditch Cup had been severely jeopardised by this blatant corruption, had reported the matter to Snape, complaining that Flint had broken the rules by appointing a Seeker without holding trials. As they found out, however, there was nothing in the rules that mandated trials be held for the Quidditch teams, and captains were, in fact, technically at their liberty to appoint whomever they wished. A coalition of older students, seeing the bribe as a 'fundamental breach of the values of the Slytherin House', then called on Flint to remove Malfoy from the team and replace him at once, but Flint, perhaps having predicted the outcry, replied that he had already submitted the official team list days ago, and there was nothing that he could change now.

The Seeker Scandal, as it began to be called, appeared to divide Slytherin. On one side were Malfoy's loyalists – Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy and her two new friends Lisa and Millicent, Flint, and several others whose names Harry did not know – and on the other, the rest of the house, who perceived him as a cheat throwing around his father's money to the detriment of everyone else. As a result, the traditional spate of pranks, taunts, and insults preceding the Gryffindor-Slytherin match took on a new dimension. When the Gryffindors' victim was a friend of Malfoy, the remainder of the Slytherin House turned a blind eye or even laughed behind their backs, while Malfoy's 'faction' refused to support any taunts issued against the Gryffindors by the rest of their House.

Some of the practical jokes also took a more personal turn. Ginny and Astoria, for example, replaced Ron's real wand with a trick wand, which turned into a quacking duck as he tried to perform a spell in Transfiguration. Ron had been furious at his sister, initiating an argument outside the Great Hall that night at dinner, but Fred and George had pulled him away, telling him that it had just been a prank and he needed to learn how to get a grip on himself.

Finally, the day of the match came. Neville and Hermione were, as always, excited. 'As long as we stay within a hundred fifty points, the game's ours,' Hermione speculated as they climbed the stairs to the stands. 'Our Chasers and Beaters are pretty evenly matched, and Raul's improvement from last year is really impressive.'

'What if Malfoy actually turns out to be good?' Harry asked.

'Have you ever watched him in Flying?' Neville replied. 'The most I'd say for him is that he's slightly better than average. Certainly nowhere close to Raul's level this year.'

'Plus, he's unproven,' Hermione added. 'Raul has a whole year of experience already. Malfoy doesn't even have half a month of training with the Slytherin team. Unless Malfoy's swallowed some Liquid Luck, he's got no chance.'

'What if he did swallow Liquid Luck?' Harry proposed jokingly.

'Well, you were there when Professor Cauverina was talking about elixirs,' Hermione answered. 'It's easy to catch someone using Liquid Luck, and if you get caught using it in Quidditch, it's a lifetime ban. I doubt Malfoy would want to be banned so soon after cheating his way onto the team.'

'It'd make his situation in Slytherin even worse,' Neville said with a snort. 'Personally, I'm not opposed to that idea…'

When Harry arrived in the stands and looked out across the pitch towards the Slytherin section, he could tell at first glance that the turnout was unusually low compared to last year. At least a third of the Slytherin House had simply refused to attend out of protest of Malfoy's appointment as Seeker – Tracey being one of them, as she had told Harry the day before – and among those who still showed up to the match, there were notably fewer banners and posters than usual. The front row, however, was still decked out in all sorts of paraphernalia, and there was no doubt in Harry's mind as to who those people were.

Soon, the teams made their entrances. Gryffindor let out an enormous cheer as the Gryffindor team flew onto the pitch, but when the Slytherin team entered, the cheers from the Slytherin section were muted. When Malfoy broke ranks from the rest of the team to fly a circle around the pitch in a display that he himself no doubt took part in choreographing, Harry could even clearly hear booing over the attempts of the front rows of the Slytherin section to drown it with cheers.

The game began. As Hermione had expected, the score see-sawed between the two sides. Gryffindor took the first goal, but Slytherin quickly responded with one of their own. A second Slytherin goal was countered by one from Gryffindor. As the match went on and the sides fell into their rhythms, however, it became clear that Gryffindor held an advantage. Despite the Snitch not having yet been released and both sides playing with four Chasers, Raul was far better integrated into Gryffindor's setups than Malfoy was. In fact, on occasion, Malfoy even became a hinderance to the Slytherin side with his repeated Quaffle drops and even an accidental blocking of an otherwise clear shot by Adrian Pucey. Eventually, even Flint himself had had enough, and he dismissed him from his Chasing duties, sending him off to hover above the plane of play despite there being as of yet no Snitch to find. Despite being one down, the three Slytherin Chasers played more fluidly, and were able to catch up to seventy-fifty in Gryffindor's favour at the half.

Less than a minute into the second half, Gryffindor scored another hoop, giving them a forty-point advantage. At that point, Raul was detached from the formation to look for the Snitch. With Gryffindor losing the numbers advantage, the two sides devolved into a stalemate. Slytherin was able to score a goal to break Gryffindor's streak, but then, for the next twenty minutes, only a single Slytherin goal was scored. Neither Raul nor Malfoy had any luck with the Snitch, either, both still circling over the pitch, craning their necks as they searched.

'We can probably win this by points alone,' Hermione said as the match passed into its last ten minutes, one hundred ten to eighty in Gryffindor's favour and with no scoring streaks on either side. 'As long as Malfoy doesn't get the Snitch…'

It was as if Hermione's words were cursed, for not a second after she uttered them, Malfoy dove sharply towards the Slytherin side of the pitch. Raul spun around on his broom to look in his direction, squinting to look for a small, golden ball. A second later, he shot off in Malfoy's direction.

'It looks like Malfoy has found the Snitch!' Lee shouted as the two dove. 'Yes, Malfoy has found the Snitch. Noriega is going after him, but he's far behind…will he be able to catch him?'

'No!' Hermione shrieked. 'No! Not Malfoy! Go, Raul! Get him!'

The entire Gryffindor House had risen to their feet as Raul entered a nearly vertical dive. 'Noriega enters the dive at close to the Nimbus's max speed!' Lee yelled. 'He pulls out…he must be near the Nimbus's never-exceed speed! An extremely risky play by the second-year Gryffindor, even with all the safety enchantments in place at Hogwarts! And it's working! Malfoy's isn't even near the Nimbus's maximum level speed, by the looks of it. Noriega's gaining on him quickly…they're almost level! Noriega pulls ahead by a hair!'

The Gryffindor audience, along those present from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, roared in approval as Raul took the lead, however slight. Malfoy, who was beginning to fall behind, started to accelerate, but as he sped up, his nerves seemed to inhibit his flying. His flight became shaky and unstable, and Malfoy's posture also degraded as he hugged his broom for dear life. Raul was nearing the snitch, and it was only two arms' lengths away now, but as he neared the end of the pitch, he was forced to make a turn to follow the snitch, a manoeuvre which greatly reduced his speed, closing his speed gap with Malfoy by a large margin.

'Back onto the straight chase!' Lee cried, and Harry could hear the anxiety in his voice. 'Noriega is still slowly losing speed as Malfoy keeps on accelerating. Next turn, and they'll be even. Noriega cannot afford this! Malfoy's only offset from him by half a broom's length! Fred Weasley hits a Bludger at Malfoy, but…oh no! I think he's aimed too far ahead. Yes, he's aimed too far ahead! The Bludger's headed right for his own teammate!'

The Gryffindor stands erupted in anger. Harry heard several swears and saw obscene gestures directed at the Beater. The Bludger hurtled towards Raul, who snapped his head around for a split second, just enough to realise what was happening. Harry knew that he had no choice. There was no way he was going to reach the Snitch in time.

Raul pitched his broom up. Malfoy glanced up, and seeing his opponent's withdrawal from the chase, accelerated, reaching out with his arm to grab for the Snitch. 'Malfoy reaches for the Snitch,' Lee commentated, and Harry could see him holding his head in shock in the Commentator's Box. 'He has a clear path... Wait…'

There was a thud and a shout as the Bludger impacted its intended target after all. Unbeknownst to Malfoy, his outstretched arm was caught right in the Bludger's path. Reflexively, he pulled his left hand off his broom handle to clutch at his right arm, but the moment he did that, he lost balance. His broom rolled to the right, and with nothing to counter the torque generated by Malfoy's body, flipped all the way upside down. Malfoy fell to earth, letting out a cry as he struggled uselessly in the air. His Nimbus 2000 continued without him, shooting forward and crashing into the stands. He impacted the grass with a thud, but thanks to the safety enchantments, he bounced back into the air before falling and bouncing again and again until he finally came to a stop.

The Gryffindors, who had originally been screaming in anger, were now erupting with laughter at Malfoy's fate. In the time that it took for Malfoy to come to rest, Raul had also caught the Snitch. Mockery of Malfoy's misfortune mixed with roars of approval as Raul, his hand outstretched and displaying the Snitch, flew close in front of the Gryffindor section of the stands, showing off the victory as a furious Malfoy shook his fists pathetically at the sky.

Nearly the entirety of Gryffindor rushed the changing room as the match ended, seeking to congratulate their team. They arrived just in time as the two teams walked out, save for their captains, who, according to Neville, were talking to Madam Hooch about their next fixtures. The Gryffindors swarmed their team, clapping them on the back and lifting them into the air. Many expressed their incredulity at Raul's daring play to turn the tables on Malfoy, and even Fred's potentially game-costing mistake was completely forgotten.

'Look at them celebrating,' Malfoy's arrogant voice suddenly cut through the din. 'If we were also using Liquid Luck, we'd have easily wiped them out.'

The celebrating Gryffindors fell silent, and the team extricated themselves from the crowd to face the Slytherins, anger and challenge on their faces. 'What did you say?' Katie Bell asked softly.

Malfoy looked around at the rest of their team and his Housemates, who were slowly also arriving, but none seemed too willing to back him up. He gulped, realising that he was alone and unsupported. 'I said, if we'd also been using Liquid Luck, we'd have easily beat you,' he said nervously, perhaps thinking that he had gone too far to turn back now.

'And the evidence for your accusation is…'

Draco opened his mouth and closed it again, unable to produce a reply. At that moment, however, Pansy squeezed through the ranks of the Slytherin students to the front. 'Weasley and Noriega, of course,' she said, rescuing him. 'That last Bludger and that feint must've been Liquid Luck.'

'Sure, if you're really thick enough to think so,' Fred replied with a dismissive snort, already re-shouldering his broom and beginning to walk away. 'You know, Malfoy, instead of being a sore loser, you might want to consider practising more so that your daddy could at least feel somewhat justified in spending all those Galleons on you.'

Fred's insult stirred laughter in the massed Gryffindors, and Harry could even see some of the Slytherins nodding, shrugging, and murmuring amongst themselves in what could only be agreement with Fred's observation. Expectations for Draco were never high among the majority of the Slytherins, Harry knew from Tracey, but his abysmal performance today certainly made their perception of him even worse than before.

The prevailing inclination of many of the Slytherins to agree with, of all people, Fred Weasley, seemed to anger Draco even further. 'Well, if you hadn't cheated, I'd have easily caught the Snitch,' he said, digging himself further into the hole rather than giving up. 'I'm going to report this to Madam Hooch. You were using Liquid Luck. I know you were.'

'Malfoy, did you ever bother to pay attention in Finding Magic?' Hermione asked, and Harry could almost see her roll her eyes despite standing behind her. 'Someone using Liquid Luck would act giddy for hours after the effects wear off. I don't see Fred or Raul acting giddy at all. Maybe instead of making baseless accusations, your time right now would be better spent revising so that you won't get a 'P' in every class.'

The Gryffindors let out a howl of laughter, and the Slytherins, save for Pansy and a handful of others, showed their disgraced Seeker no sympathy at all. Adrian Pucey, doubtlessly seeing a lost cause, put a hand on Draco's shoulder and attempted to guide him away from the confrontation, but Draco slapped it off, his face red and determined to die on this hill.

'Maybe you should be learning your place instead of challenging me, know-it-all Mudblood,' Draco snarled his retort.

An utter silence fell on the crowd, save for a few gasps of shock, before just a moment later, complete chaos erupted. On the Gryffindor side, there were shouts of rage. A majority of the Quidditch team had drawn their wands, as had Neville, Ron, Lavender, Parvati, and many, many others. The Slytherins, meanwhile, were backing away from Malfoy, many with them rolling their eyes or exasperatedly shaking their heads. The Slytherin Quidditch team were waving their arms and shouting what sounded like apologies at the advancing Gryffindors. The only one to even attempt to draw his wand was Draco himself, but just as he did, Adrian Pucey wrested it away and threw him to the ground behind the line formed by the rest of the team.

'What the hell is going on here?' suddenly roared Oliver Wood. 'Wands away, all of you! Now!'

The commotion died at once, and everyone turned to face Wood, who had just walked out of the changing room. Marcus Flint was right behind him. 'What is this about?' he demanded of Wood. 'Why does your team have wands on mine?'

'This is what I'm trying to find out,' Oliver replied. He looked around at his team. 'Does anyone have an explanation for this?'

There was a silence. 'Well? I'm waiting.'

Finally, George spoke up. 'Malfoy caused it,' he told the captains, pointing at Malfoy, who was cowering on the ground behind his teammates. 'He insinuated that we cheated with Liquid Luck to start an argument, and then when he realised that he couldn't win, he called Hermione a…a Mudblood.'

Wood blinked. 'Malfoy called Hermione a what?'

'Mudblood, Wood.'

Wood's bright expression morphed suddenly into one of fury. He turned to Flint. 'Go deal with your Seeker,' he hissed.

Flint hesitated for a moment before, without a word, nodding and walking up to his team. Pucey and Bletchley, the Keeper, parted to expose Malfoy, who was still struggling to grab his wand back from Pucey's hand. 'Get up,' Flint barked.

'You really are the most dim-witted person I've ever met,' Flint snapped as Malfoy struggled to his feet. 'For someone who cares so much about his reputation, you seem to give no thought before ruining it in front of the entire school. Your father is a clever man. I have no idea what happened with you.'

Malfoy swallowed. 'I didn't think – '

'I'm sure you didn't,' Flint interrupted with disappointment in his voice, shaking his head, before turning around to face the rest of his team. 'We're going back to the common room. Now! Not one more word from any of you!' he shouted, before leading the six other Slytherin Quidditch players away from the pitch up towards the castle.