Disclaimer: Cedric Diggory belongs to JK Rowling.

Chapter 9: Babbling

Grim Defeat

"Chapter Nine," Professor Babbling began, taking up the book. "Grim Defeat."

The news that Sirius Black had broken into the castle was obviously quite the shock. Professor Dumbledore had sent all the students back to the Great Hall while the teachers searched the castle, turning the whole place into a giant sleepover—one where no one particularly wanted to sleep.

"Now, hold on," Tonks interrupted. "Dumbledore, the other houses must've already been in their dorms by then, right? At least mostly? Why did you call them back down to the Great Hall when it looks like the dorms were capable of keeping Sirius out?"

There was some whispering around the Great Hall at that, partly because it was pretty obvious in hindsight and partly because Tonks was the first teacher to call Sirius by his given name. Of course, she was his cousin. Harry wasn't sure if she even noticed, herself.

Dumbledore could see the eyes on him, so he cautiously responded: "We had little choice for the Gryffindors. With the Fat Lady gone, we could not open the dormitory quickly enough. We could not even use our usual backup options because the portrait itself was damaged. And Ravenclaw Tower and the Hufflepuff Basement were not designed with an intruder inside the castle in mind. Most of Hogwarts' security is on the outer walls and the grounds. The Slytherins may have been safe, but the other houses were not."

"O…kay, I guess that makes sense," Tonks admitted. "And the troll in the first book?"

Dumbledore smiled slightly: "A troll is not intelligent enough to bypass any of the houses' security, Professor Tonks."

"Er, right, but why send the students back to their dorms that night if you could secure the Great Hall?"

The veteran teachers all looked at each other in surprise, and several of them looked accusatorily at Dumbledore. Percy was frantically taking notes.

"That…would have been better, wouldn't it?" Hermione said, making a note on her own parchment.

"Except we wouldn't've found you," Ron pointed out.

"Yes, but in general, I mean."

Kingsley sighed, clearly thinking along similar lines. "When Minister Fudge insisted on sending Umbridge here this year, perhaps she should have paid attention to the security procedures first."

Tonks snorted. "What, and botched those, too? This is why we're here, isn't it? But yeah, I'm starting to think they need some work."

Finally, Professor Babbling continued reading, describing the nervous conversations of the students and later the overheard conversations of the teachers who were searching the castle. But this time, Kingsley interrupted.

"Just a moment," he said. "Professor Dumbledore, you're saying that Mr Filch, a squib, was searching the dungeons for a murderous wizard alone?"

Dumbledore was getting a sour look on his face. "It was…necessary to move quickly, Professor Shacklebolt," he said. "We split up to cover more ground. I did attempt to send Argus to the safest part of the castle. At the time, I believed that Black was a loyal Death Eater and thus would have no interest in attacking the dungeons."

There were more whispers around the Great Hall at the implication that Sirius wasn't a loyal Death Eater. Although the fact that they were even having this book reading suggested that something fishy was going on.

Regardless, the search predictably failed to find Black, who had certainly fled once people were looking for him. Snape accused Professor Lupin of being in on it, but Dumbledore brushed him off.

"'It seems—almost impossible—that Black could have entered the school without inside help. I did express my concerns when you appointed—'

"'I do not believe a single person inside this castle would have helped Black enter it,' said Dumbledore, and his tone made it so clear that the subject was closed that Snape didn't reply."

Of course, they knew now that while Professor Lupin wasn't helping Black, he was withholding information about how Black might be getting in, something that could cause trouble by the end of the story. Harry made a note of that for himself. He should probably talk to Remus about that issue being made public. Besides which, the secret passages were not all accounted for like Dumbledore seemed to think—something that Remus also knew—as did Fred and George, for that matter. And on top of all that, contrary to Dumbledore's wishes, a dementor did cross the threshold of the castle a year later when Fudge had Barty Crouch Jr Kissed. Harry had to admit Tonks was right; the security of the castle wasn't a good look.

The school was safe that night in the book, but things were very tense after that: "The school talked of nothing but Sirius Black for the next few days. The theories about how he had entered the castle became wilder and wilder; Hannah Abbott, from Hufflepuff, spent most of their next Herbology class telling anyone who'd listen that Black could turn into a flowering shrub."

Hannah turned bright red as people laughed at her theory, although it was closer to the truth than they might think.

"The Fat Lady's canvass had been taken off the wall and replaced with the portrait of Sir Cadogan and his fat grey pony. Nobody was very happy about this. Sir Cadogan spent half his time challenging people to duels, and the rest thinking up ridiculously complicated passwords, which he changed at least twice a day. And really, Minerva, you should have seen what happened coming," Professor Babbling added. "If you change passwords that often, that's the way you get people writing down the passwords and leaving them lying around, and I'd wager not just Longbottom."

"I haven't heard the full story yet, but that sounds about right," Tonks agreed. "And if the passwords changed twice a day, how did the students find out the evening password when it was different from the morning?"

"It was a very trying time, Tonks," McGonagall said.

"I believe that would have been the time to consider other options," Kingsley said. "With the Fat Lady out of commission, you should have changed to a different security system right away. Slytherin doesn't have a portrait at all, as we saw in the previous book. It's protected by a solid wall."

"Which still wasn't entirely secure, but I take your point," she replied. "Although as Albus said, we aren't truly set up for internal security at Hogwarts…I admit we were improvising a fair bit at the time."

They left it off at that, and Professor Babbling continued reading. The other fallout from Black's break-in was that the teachers were becoming even more paranoid about Harry's safety. "'Well, in that case, Potter, you'll understand why I don't think it's a good idea for you to be practising Quidditch in the evenings. Out on the field with only your team members, it's very exposed, Potter—'

"'We've got our first match on Saturday!' said Harry, outraged. 'I've got to train, Professor!'"

"Yeah, I'm actually with Harry on that one," Dean said. "Why were all the teachers so convinced the grounds were unsafe compared to the castle Black had got into both of them?"

"And the grounds were inside the wards and the dementor guards," the real Harry agreed.

McGonagall, ever the Quidditch fan, finally allowed Harry to train so long as Madam Hooch supervised—not that anyone save for the most experienced teachers would present a serious obstacle to the murderer they thought Black was.

But it transpired that murderer or not, Sirius Black was not the greatest threat to Harry, but rather the weather was, as they descended into a whole week of violent storms. Malfoy was still faking his injury to get his team out of playing in the thunderstorms, despite the fact that it had been two months, and nothing but seriously dark magic took that long to heal in the magical world. So instead, Gryffindor was to play Hufflepuff. At the mention of their new captain Cedric Diggory, Cho Chang broke down in tears.

But before that, unremarked by the students, was the Full Moon, which meant that Professor Lupin was ill, and Snape was substitute teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts, where he wasted no time in directing their attention to the chapter on werewolves. And now that everyone knew that Lupin was a werewolf, his motive in assigning the unit—especially with the emphasis on recognising them—was painfully obvious.

"I'm surprised no one else figured it out," Hermione said. "Or maybe they did. I guess I'm just surprised he didn't receive any letters about it."

"Dumbledore probably kept it quiet if he did," said Harry.

"Ugh, that was so mean of Snape," Dean protested. "Lupin was a great teacher!"

No one except a couple of the younger purebloods who hadn't had him disagreed. And Snape, predictably, was not a good teacher, especially to Harry and his friends.

"'That is the second time you've spoken out of turn, Miss Granger,' said Snape coolly. 'Five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all.' Professionalism, Severus!" Babbling said, but Snape didn't respond. Ron, "who told Hermione she was a know-it-all at least twice a week" was the loudest in defending her, but he only got detention for his trouble.

And if anything, Snape was even worse when critiquing the students essays, seemingly doing nothing but trying to find ways to undermine Lupin and his teaching style: "'Very poorly explained…That is incorrect, the kappa is more commonly found in Mongolia…' Wait, what?"

"Mongolia?!" said Professors Grubbly-Plank, Bragnam, and even Hagrid in unison.

Snape looked between the three of them nervously, then glanced at the rest of his colleagues. "I have no recollection of that," he tried to defend himself. Still, it was too late to save the image the book presented of his lesson, and he looked thunderous a minute later when Professor Babbling read that Ron wished Black could have finished him off, something Harry now knew he would take even more personally than usual.

Next, the day of the Quidditch match got off to a poor start, with Peeves waking Harry up at half past four—although that did allow him to stop Crookshanks several times from going up to the boys' dorm to stalk Scabbers.

"'You know, I reckon Ron was right about you,' Harry told Crookshanks suspiciously. 'There are plenty of mice around this place—go and chase them. Go on,' he added, nudging Crookshanks down the spiral staircase with his foot. 'Leave Scabbers alone.'"

Harry groaned and dropped his forehead to the table with a soft thud.

"Okay, seriously, what's the deal about you and Scabbers?" asked Natalie. "You've all been acting weird about him all month."

"Just wait," Harry grumbled. "It's amazingly messed-up, and I'm sure the book will describe everything in excruciating detail."

The weather during the match itself was still the worst storm Harry had seen in all his time at Hogwarts. By that morning, the wind had been howling for several days, and they could barely even walk through it, let alone fly. Thunder was crashing almost continuously—the noise so bad that they couldn't hear Lee Jordan on the microphone and couldn't hear Madam Hooch start the match even though she was standing not twenty feet away. The rain was so heavy as to make spotting the Snitch practically impossible, and that was if they caught it while it was still daytime.

"They really shouldn't have played Quidditch in a thunderstorm, especially one that bad," Hermione said. "Muggles will play sports in nasty conditions, but they always postpone for lightning."

"It's Quidditch, though," said Ron. "It doesn't stop for anything."

"Was the storm really that bad?" Natalie asked, since she had started the year after. "I've never even heard of a storm that bad that wasn't a cyclone or something—except maybe that really big one when I was four."

"The Great Storm of '87," Hermione supplied. "And yes, I remember that day. This one might have been worse. It's just that there were so few muggles near Hogwarts to notice it."

"Worse?" Natalie said incredulously. "But wouldn't they notice with satellites and stuff?"

"Maybe not if it didn't do much damage. And it might have just been because of the dementors. They can affect the weather, you know."

Natalie shuddered. "Remind me never to get close to them."

In the book, Harry thought finding the Snitch was a hopeless situation, but Hermione came up with the idea of casting Impervius on his glasses during a time out.

"'There!' she said, handing them back to Harry. 'They'll repel water!'

"Wood looked as though he could have kissed her."

"I'm perfectly happy he didn't, thank you," said the Hermione at the Gryffindor Table.

Harry couldn't catch a break, though, because the first thing he saw after that wasn't the Snitch, but the Grim. (Although it made for a clever pun in the chapter title.) And then, naturally, it got worse. The Grim seeming to appear in the stands was one thing, but that it happened right before the dementors came onto the pitch was more than a little disturbing.

"Wow, that was an even worse day that it looked," said Dean.

"Except if the dementors caught on that Sirius was there, it would make a little more sense," Ginny pointed out.

"I don't think they did," said Harry. "They couldn't really sense Sirius as a dog. And if they knew he was there, they would have gone straight for him."

"So it was just a coincidence that they appeared at the same time?" asked Ginny.

"Heh. Typical Potter luck, I guess."

The Harry in the book reacted worse to the dementors than last time. Instead of an inarticulate scream, he heard voices, dredged up from memories so deep that it really shouldn't have been possible for him to have them in the first place.

"'Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!'

"'Stand aside, you silly girl…stand aside, now…'

"'Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—'

Harry bent down, his forehead on his hands. "Oh, bloody hell. I didn't think about it telling this part."

"Do you want to stop?" Ginny asked with concern. She leaned over and put a hand on his shoulder.

"No, no, we need to get to the end."

Up at the High Table, Minerva glanced over at Severus while trying to be subtle about it, and he looked…bad. She remembered his Patronus the other day. He was paler than usual and incredibly tense, with clenched teeth and gripping the edge of the table so hard it was actually starting to splinter. Very quickly, she considered intervening. For Potter's sake would be a reasonable excuse and probably a good reason in itself. But the passage quickly ended before she could say anything as the Harry in the book blacked out. He woke up in the hospital wing, disoriented, after Dumbledore saved him from falling off his broom and also chased away the dementors.

"That was bloody scary," said Dean. "I mean, not just for Harry. That was one of the few times we've really seen Dumbledore get angry."

"Maybe the only time the whole school's seen it," Seamus agreed. "I think he might've killed the lot of 'em if he could."

"I think he'd be a little more restrained than that," Hermione countered. "They were still technically Ministry employees." But the boys were right that that match had been one of the few times that the power and fury of the wizard who defeated Grindelwald had shown through to the residents of Hogwarts. The older students whispered to the first- and second-years how scary it was to see.

Unfortunately, the dementors did mean that Gryffindor had lost the match, as Cedric had caught the Snitch just before Harry fell.

"That catch should have been ruled interference," Dean complained. "The dementors were already on the pitch when Cedric made it, and everyone knows how distracting they are. Especially since the winning team tried to contest it. That wouldn't have even been a question in football. They might have even forfeited if it were ruled good."

"It's like I said, Dean," Ron told him. "Quidditch doesn't stop for anything."

Dean snorted: "And I thought us football fans were nutters."

But even then, the bad news didn't stop there, as Harry learnt that after he fell, his Nimbus Two Thousand had been blown into the Whomping Willow and come back as a pile of splinters.

Ron shook his head: "You just couldn't catch a break that year, could you, mate?"

"Ha, that and every other year," Harry said.