Chapter Six: The Troll and the First Game
September 19th, 1991
The days after the incident flew by with Harry making up with Hermione. For a while she had refused to talk to either him or Ron — the latter thought it was a boon — but she didn't stay mad at Harry for long. The day he got his Nimbus 2000 from his cousin Nymphadora as an apology for missing his birthday, his present for Hermione's birthday had arrived in the mail. It was a book on wizarding culture and customs, and she had accepted it as a start to their friendship.
Of course Malfoy tried to get Harry in trouble, but he showed him his permission slip from McGonagall. Kathy and Vince had received brooms suited better for their positions — Kathy was a chaser and Vince was a beater — also from "cousin Dora" as they called her. Hermione was a little miffed that Harry was allowed to have a broom after breaking the rules, but she appreciated that he promised to study with her to keep his grades up.
That same night after classes, Harry had his first practice with the team. He knew the game well enough to not need the breakdown from Oliver. Harry had been a little disappointed that no one else had tried to challenge his spot at tryouts once they saw him in the air, but he understood — hard to have confidence when a boy of eleven catches all the golf balls thrown at him.
October 31st, 1991
With his schedule so full because of classes, Quidditch, studying with Hermione, and keeping on top of his homework, before he knew it, Halloween had arrived. During this time his friendship with Ron had become strained. Ron had been asking him to help him with his homework, but when Harry invited him to the study sessions with Hermione, he'd pulled away.
In Charms class that day, Harry was partnered with Seamus, and Hermione was partnered with Ron — much to the dismay of both. Harry had gotten the feather to fly, but Seamus had set his on fire — and Harry put it out with the water charm he'd found in the book. Harry got some points for that. Ron had no luck, but he was irritated when Hermione got it perfect.
After class Ron complained. "She's insufferable! Such a bossy know-it-all!"
Harry snapped at Ron as he saw Hermione brush past them, crying. "She's absolutely brilliant! She's my friend, and I'm going after her!" Harry ran off to try and find her, but he couldn't find her before class. He knew she was hurting, but he never thought that she'd miss class. He took notes for her, and after the last class he went off to look for her again. He didn't much care for the Halloween festivities anyway, so he skipped the feast and soon found Hermione — crying in the first floor bathroom.
He knocked entered and she looked up at him. "Go away. You're friends with that pillock Weasley, you'll just hurt me more."
Harry shook his head. "No, Hermione. You're my friend, my scholarly rival. Ron and I have been drifting apart since I started hanging around you. I've been looking for you all day — but I made sure to take notes from our classes for you."
At the proffered notes, Hermione wiped away her tears, and allowed Harry to pull her to her feet. But just before they could leave the bathroom, they were met with a troll that was four yards tall, dwarfing both of the prepubescent children. The two of them backed away as the creature noticed them. Harry took out his wand, and thought through the spells he knew. He had a plan, but it was not guaranteed to work. He looked at Hermione, who was terrified.
He grabbed her shoulder with his left hand, rooting her back in reality. "Hermione, we're getting out of this mess, okay? Now, I'll try and trip it, and you try and levitate the club." She nodded, her chocolate eyes trying to muster all her courage. Harry cast the tripping jinx, but the troll barely stumbled. Hermione's levitation charm wrenched the club from the troll's grip, but her focus slipped as the troll stomped towards them. Seeing his opportunity, Harry levitated the club, and he swung it at the troll's leg at incredible speed.
As the troll howled in agony, Hermione was running on pure adrenaline as she cast the tripping jinx she had only heard from Harry's mouth minutes ago. Much to her own surprise, the spell tripped up the troll and he landed on his backside. Ron arrived — perhaps to apologize — but when he saw the troll he used the levitation charm to knock out the troll with its own club. After being found by McGonagall, they told her the truth — which Ron was ashamed about at least. After points lost and gained, they went back to the common room.
The air was still a little tense, Harry and Hermione on one side, Ron on the other. Ron was apologetic, but it remained to be seen if his friendship with Harry could recover.
November 9th, 1991
Time had passed with Ron trying to get along better with Hermione by asking her to check his homework. While it didn't make up entirely for what he'd done, Harry and Hermione were willing to be civil with him. Today was the first match of the Quidditch season: Slytherin vs. Gryffindor. Harry was a bit nervous, but not because of the game. Not long after Halloween, He'd accidentally run across Snape having his leg looked at by Filch, and he'd muttered something about three heads. It was lucky that he'd been wearing his invisibility cloak so wasn't seen. Ron was convinced that Snape was trying to steal the object guarded by the Cerberus, but Hermione didn't believe so.
Ron had turned towards Harry. "What about you, mate? Do you think Snape let in the troll to distract everyone?"
Harry sighed and shook his head. "Not really. He may be a bully of a teacher, but I don't think he has it in him to really endanger anyone. Uncle Herbert agrees with me too, and the two of them went to school together. If he says it's not in Professor Snape's character, I'm inclined to believe him."
But there was still the possibility that his uncle was wrong, Harry knew that. He shook himself out of his reverie as his nerves turned to focus on his first match.
"C'mon, Harry, you're going to need your strength for the game. Just eat something." At Hermione's final insistence — her and Ron had been swapping the honor for minutes — Harry finally allowed himself to eat.
At eleven a.m., the entire school was at the Quidditch pitch. In the Gryffindor stands, Harry's peers in his house all had banners with his name on it. His main friends had a giant banner that said Potter for President with a lion underneath.
In the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw stands, Harry's cousins had banners of their own — as did the friends that they had made. The game was pretty frantic, with Gryffindor leading in points after the first few minutes. Sure, one was from a penalty after Harry had almost been knocked off his broom by Flint, but that wasn't a big problem.
It was before Slytherin got their first points that Harry found his broom start to act erratically. It jerked and moved most unpleasantly as he rode higher in the sky. He was so distracted by his plight that he'd not noticed Slytherin gain the lead. But it ended almost as abruptly as it had begun. On his way down, he barely registered catching the snitch in his mouth. It was after he'd spat it out and held it aloft that he'd heard the score — 180 to 50, a proud Gryffindor victory.
It was only later at Hagrid's Hut that he got the story of Snape jinxing his broom, and Hermione setting his robe on fire. Harry had told Hagrid about Snape being bitten by the Cerberus — Fluffy, as Hagrid called him — and he'd let slip about Nicolas Flamel after Hermione had accused Snape of trying to kill Harry. Even if that's what the evidence pointed to, Harry couldn't fathom Snape taking his grudge against his dad that far — after all, his mother's journal had said she was friends with Snape once. He'd just have to puzzle out what was missing from the picture.
Author's Note: You may notice that I made Ron different than one might expect, and I'll explain. Harry is his first friend outside of his family, so when he realized that he had possibly ruined it, he wanted to fix it. I'm not really the type of person to bash characters in my fanfics unless I have a real problem with them, so don't expect any here.
