When Harry woke up on the Seventh of November – just a week after the notorious criminal and Death Eater Sirius Black had tried to break into the Gryffindor Common Room, and had caused the Fat Lady to flee her portrait in terror, and even more annoyingly, caused her to be replaced by Sir Cadogan – he just had to take one look out of the window to know it was going to be a bad day today.
Sheets of rain lashed against the castle, driven sideways by fierce gusts of wind that rattled the windows in their frames. Thunder rumbled overhead in the skies in deep, booming waves, making any hope of going back to sleep nearly impossible.
Harry sighed, grabbed his glasses from the bedside table and turned towards the alarm clock.
It was half past four.
Goddamit, he looked out the window again and just knew he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep again. And in a few hours he would be out on the Quidditch field, battling through that gale as he trained for tomorrow's match.
Finally, he gave up any thought of more sleep, got up, dressed, picked up his Nimbus Two Thousand, and started quietly walking out of the dormitory.
He suddenly paused at the doors, before turning to look back towards his bed. There, hanging on one of the four posters right above where his head lay when he slept, was a silver necklace.
Harry retrieved the necklace and put it on in one smooth motion, having gotten used to having his grandmother's necklace around his neck after more than two months of constantly wearing it.
As his fingers brushed the silver pendant, his thoughts turned towards his sister,
Two months ago, wearing it had filled him with hope.
Now, every time his fingers found the cool silver, he couldn't help but think of Rose, and wonder if things would ever become easier between them.
She still barely spoke to him outside necessity. She was never cruel, never openly dismissive, but every conversation felt painfully formal. Like she was speaking to an acquaintance instead of her own brother.
At first, Harry had tried talking to her whenever they crossed paths. Then he'd settled for simply greeting her. Now, he mostly waited for her to approach him instead.
Maybe she just needed time. She'd only found out he existed a few months ago. Harry couldn't blame her for needing time to adjust.
He still wore the necklace anyway.
He ignored Peeves the Poltergeist floating up the staircase with a mischievous look on his face and a box in his hands, and grabbed the sneaking orange tabby cat before making his way down into the common room.
He placed Crookshanks on the floor of the common room before nudging her away, "There are plenty of mice around this place; go and chase them. Go on, just leave Scabbers alone." Ron and Hermione had been arguing about her cat wanting Ron's pet rat as a snack, and it was starting to drive Harry mad.
The noise of the storm was even louder in the common room, and he was starting to feel apprehensive about how he would even play if it lasted till tomorrow's match.
But thankfully the rain abated, and the sky returned to its dreary but rainless grey it usually was during this time of the year. Harry just spent the few hours till dawn broke reading one of the books Alicia recommended in front of the fire, getting up now and then to stop Crookshanks from sneaking up the boys' staircase again.
Eventually, when Harry glanced at the grandfather clock in the common room and realized that breakfast must have started, he made his way through the portrait hole alone.
"Stand and fight, you mangy cur!" yelled Sir Cadogan.
"Oh, shut up," Harry yawned.
He had a hearty breakfast of crumpets, bacon, and a tomato gravy before making his way down to the Quidditch pitch for the final day of training before the match against Slytherin tomorrow.
Down in the pitch, Oliver Wood gave his team some unwelcome news.
"We're not playing Slytherin!" he told them, looking very angry. "Flint was just here. We're playing Hufflepuff instead. Its been certified with Hooch and everything."
"What?!"
"Why?!"
A hateful snarl crossed Wood's face. "Flint's excuse is that their Seeker's arm's still injured,"
"He's still milking that!" Harry asked in disbelief, "Its been over two months!"
"I know!" Oliver released a sharp breath from his nose. "Its obvious what they're doing. They don't want to play in this weather," he finished with an annoyed grumble
"The git's probably too scared to get wet. Might ruin his hair," George tried a smirk, trying to add a bit of levity to the entire situation. "Besides, its not like he'll do any worse against Harry in the rain than he did last year."
A distant rumble of thunder rolled through the air
"It was just a little scratch," Harry said furiously. "I'd seen it! There's nothing wrong with his arm, he's just faking it!"
"We all know that," Oliver added, "But there's no way to prove it."
Harry's eyes narrowed as his thoughts raced.
Around him, the discussion continued.
"But we've been practicing all our forms and moves assuming we're playing Slytherin." Angelina said through gritted teeth. "But the Puff's team's style is very different from the snakes. And they have a new seeker and captain this year. He's, umm…" an uncharacteristic blush appeared on Angelina's face, "…He's Cedric Diggory,"
Harry knew Diggory.
Oliver had pointed him out before, trying to keep the younger boy aware of who was who in the Hogwarts Quidditch scene. Diggory was a fifth year and a lot bigger than Harry. He had a robust build and a strong, muscular body. Seekers were usually light and speedy, so Diggory's weight and build could end up as an advantage for him in this weather because he was less likely to be blown off course.
Alicia and Katie suddenly giggled.
"What?" Wood frowned at their sudden lighthearted behaviour.
Harry also turned a questioning look to his mentor, an eyebrow raised.
"He's that tall, good-looking one, isn't he?" Katie asked, a shy yet excited smile on her face.
"Strong and silent too," Alicia added with a light giggle of her own. She then noticed the look Harry was shooting her, and smacked him in the back of his head.
"He's only silent because he's too thick to string two words together," Fred muttered.
"I don't know why you're worried, Oliver, Hufflepuff is a pushover," George added over his brother. "Last time we played them, Harry caught the Snitch in about five minutes, remember?"
"We were playing in completely different conditions!" Wood shouted, his eyes looking a tad bloodshot from where Harry stood. "Diggory's put a very strong side together! He's an excellent Seeker! I was afraid you'd take it like this! We mustn't relax! We must keep our focus! Slytherin is trying to wrong-foot us! We must win!"
"Oliver, calm down!" Fred's eyes widened with alarm at the sheer franticness Oliver was currently displaying.
"We're taking Hufflepuff very seriously. Seriously."
OO OO OO
After a few hours of gruelling training, the Gryffindor Quidditch team split, and Harry, after cleaning and changing into a fresh pair of clothes, made his way to the Great Hall for Lunch.
The moment he opened the door, he was hit by a wall of incomprehensible noise, with everyone talking and chatting and just having fun.
It was a different atmosphere from how it had been this time last week, when the castle had still been reeling with the news that Sirius Black had broken into the Gryffindor Common Room, and was seen standing over Ron's bed, with a knife or a sword if the rumours were to be believed.
As was his habit by now, he looked around and scoured the Slytherin Table for his sister, and frowned when he didn't find her there.
It wasn't anything new, as he had quickly noticed that Rose rarely appeared in the Great Hall for lunch, but it never failed to put him down.
Shaking his head of the morose thoughts, he sat down and started piling his plate with all sorts of meats and breads. After the way Oliver had run him and the others ragged today, he needed something hearty and filling. His plate full, he dug in.
As he was eating, something suddenly smacked him on the side of his head. "Hey!" he said as the quaffle bounced off his head and onto the table, stopping right next to his plate. "Not while I'm eating!" Harry shouted at Fred and George, who had been playing catch with the quaffle while somehow eating their lunch at the same time.
To their credit, the Weasley twins looked abashed. "Sorry, Mate. Won't happen again." George said, shooting him a thumbs up.
As Harry rolled his eyes and ripped into a piece of Gravy-dipped bread, he felt another presence sit beside him. A single glance revealed Alicia looking at him with amusement
"You know they're not going to stop, right?"
Harry shrugged, "Hey, I can hope."
The brown-haired girl snorted, "You'd have better luck getting Snape to award you points."
A mischievous grin crossed Harry's face as he shot back, "Just as much luck as you'd need to get Diggory to ask you out."
Alicia's hazel eyes widened at his remark before they narrowed. She wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled him closer into a headlock, grinding the knuckle of her other hand into the top of his head. "Why you…"
"Alicia, stop!" Harry laughed as he tried to break free, but couldn't. "Uncle, Uncle!" he cried out as he tried to unsuccessfully pull apart from her, a grin on his face the entire time.
A similar grin was also on Alicia's face as she messed with him.
As the two Gryffindors were messing about, an exaggerated theatrical sigh suddenly cut through all the noise and reached them. They paused in their playfighting and turned to see what was going on.
Draco Malfoy released another theatrical sigh. "Ah, if only my arm was feeling a bit better!" he said, waving his cast-clad arm through the air
Harry and Alicia exchanged a glance, an equal look of incredulous disbelief on their face. They all knew that there was nothing wrong with Malfoy's arm, and that he was just faking it to get out of having to play in this horrid weather.
Alicia's eyes drifted to Malfoy's bandaged arm before she let out a disbelieving scoff. "Seriously? There's no way Madam Pomfrey did that. That cast's awful. I could make a better one in my sleep."
Harry looked at her in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"The cast," Alicia said, tilting her head towards Malfoy. "It's a conjuration, not a proper plaster cast. Look at it. One good hit and the whole thing would probably fall to pieces. Looks like Flint's work to me." She finished with a scoff.
"How is it, Draco?" Pansy Parkinson simpered, sitting next to him. "Does it hurt much?"
"Yeah," Malfoy said, putting on a brave sort of grimace.
The moment Parkinson looked away, grabbing a bowl of soup to feed her precious Drakey-poo, Harry saw him wink and Crabbe and Goyle, who guffawed loudly. Malfoy then turned towards Harry and smirked.
Harry saw Red.
He wanted to leap out of his seat and show that over-polished twat what a real arm injury was. Alas, Alicia had somehow sensed his intent, and her grip on his arm stopped him from giving in his more violent impulses.
"Calm down, Potter," she hissed in his ear. "You're in the Great Hall. You'll get in trouble if you beat him in front of all the teachers."
Harry gritted his teeth, hating the fact that she was right. His gaze turned towards the teachers sitting at the front of the hall, having their own lunch, and his eyes inadvertently met Snape's. The hook-nosed professor glared at Harry, and he glared back with a stare just as intense.
Severus Snape looked startled for a brief moment, but by the time he regained his bearings, Harry had turned away, craning his head to hear what more nonsense Malfoy was trying to spew.
"Father says the Committee's finally seeing sense," Malfoy announced loudly enough for half the Great Hall to hear. He leaned back in his chair, the picture of smug satisfaction. "That savage beast will be put down before long."
Pansy clasped her hands together dramatically. "Oh, Draco, you must be so relieved."
"Naturally," Malfoy replied with an exaggerated sigh. "Wouldn't want a dangerous creature roaming the grounds, would we? Honestly, that oaf should count himself lucky if they only sack him. Keeping a murderous monster on school grounds..." He shook his head. "If you ask me, he ought to be sent to Azkaban for it."
A few students looked uncomfortable, while others ignored him and just kept eating.
"The Committee usually doesn't look kindly on attacks like that," Theodore Nott gave a small nod. "Can't say I'm surprised. Hippogriffs aren't exactly pets."
Daphne Greengrass glanced over from her lunch. "The gamekeeper was warned before. If he ignored Ministry regulations, that's on him."
Malfoy's smirk widened. "Exactly."
He raised his bandaged arm theatrically once more, making sure everyone nearby could see it. "Ah... if only my arm wasn't still injured. Recovery has been simply dreadful."
Harry's jaw clenched.
That was it.
He'd had enough.
He slowly drew out his Holly wand, making sure no one saw him do so.
Alicia saw it immediately and shot him a warning look. "Don't do anything stupid, Harry. Hexing him might feel good, but it won't help Hagrid. And we've got the match tomorrow. Don't get yourself into trouble now."
"Oh don't worry," Harry muttered, fingering his wand, "I know just what I'm doing."
Keeping his wand out of sight, he pointed it at Malfoy and flicked the wand once before lightly jabbing it forward. "Adhaerus," he muttered. A variant of the leg-locking spell, it was one of the spells Alicia had taught him over the past two months - and one of the ones he had mastered from that list.
And like all the times before, it worked flawlessly.
Malfoy's arm, not the so-called-injured one that was preventing him from getting his ass beat in Quidditch, but the other one, went still as it magically stuck to the surface of the table, where it had been resting previously.
"What the…," Malfoy tried to move his arm, but couldn't.
Harry ignored the Slytherin's shuffling as he enacted the next part of his plan.
His eyes went towards where the Weasley twins were sitting. He ignored the way they were also glaring at the Slytherin Table as he searched the area, before his eyes finally landed on the quaffle the twins had been messing around with earlier.
Harry pointed his wand at the Quaffle.
"Wingardium Leviosa," he whispered.
The Quaffle wobbled for a moment before it lifted into the air, following the gentle movements Harry made through his wand. It didn't go without notice, and everyone who sat near him or the Twins noticed what was happening.
But no one said or did anything.
Harry let it float forward for a few seconds before he jabbed his wand forward. "Depulso!" The Quaffle shot through the air, catching all attention as it zoomed over the tables and right towards the Slytherin one.
Malfoy turned around just in time to see the Quaffle zoom towards him faster than any that had been thrown at him before. Instincts kicked in, and before he knew it, he'd raised his cast-clad hand. The Quaffle slammed into his hand with an echo that seemed to resound through the Great Hall.
All conversation ceased as everyone turned around to see what was going on.
Right as everyone's attention turned towards Draco Malfoy, the cast on his arm shattered and crumbled away, fading away as broken conjurations do. And now, all could see the utterly uninjured and completely fine hand of Draco Malfoy.
Harry shot Alicia a smug grin as Malfoy looked around, lost for words as everyone stared at him and his arm.
But this smug feeling of victory over the blonde git didn't last long.
"POTTER!"
He turned around to see Snape stomping towards him, a furious expression on his face.
Harry grinned, Worth it!
OO OO OO
The rain kept falling upward, and nobody seemed to notice the sky was underneath the castle.
The Snitch burst apart into a hundred green sparks, and every single one whispered, "Not Harry."
The black dog waited in the highest row of empty seats until the seats remembered they had never been built.
Someone kept promising there would be mercy, but every promise ended with laughter that sounded older than the storm.
The whistle screamed so loudly that the thunder covered its ears.
The hooded figures stretched taller every time somebody begged them to stop, until they disappeared into the clouds.
The woman's voice was close enough to touch, yet every word came from farther away than the last.
The rain struck like fists against invisible glass, but the glass was only ever a pair of cracked spectacles.
Green light flashed across the pitch, and every shadow suddenly remembered having teeth.
The broom flew straight into the freezing sky, although the sky had already become an endless lake.
Somebody fell forever without ever beginning to fall, while the laughter reached the ground first.
The mist swallowed every sound except the pleading, and even that slowly forgot who it was begging for.
The black robes drifted across the field like they were harvesting the rain instead of souls.
When the laughter finally stopped, the silence somehow sounded even colder.
OO OO OO
Harry's eyes snapped open.
He was lying in the hospital wing, and the Gryffindor Quidditch team, spattered with mud from head to foot, was gathered around his bed. Ron and Hermione were also there, looking as though they'd just climbed out of a swimming pool.
"Lo', Harry," Fred waved, looking incredibly pale under all that caked-up mud covering him. "How're you feeling?"
It was as though Harry's memory was on fast forward. The lightning… the Grim… the Snitch… and the Dementors…
"What happened?" he said, sitting up so suddenly that it startled them all.
"You fell off your broom, Harry," Angelina said, one arm wrapped around Alicia's shoulders. Harry couldn't tell whether she was supporting Alicia or simply using her teammate to keep herself upright. "From more than fifty feet in the sky!"
"We thought you'd died," said Alicia, and Harry could still see the terror in her eyes and the shake in her shoulders.
She'd been crying. Harry stared at her for a moment. For me.
He didn't know what to do with that.
People didn't usually cry because Harry Potter had been hurt.
Now that he'd realized that, he could see the barest hints of tear tracks beneath her eyes. She'd clearly tried covering it with makeup, but it hadn't worked perfectly.
A wave of guilt hit him like it had never before.
Hermione let out a squeaky sound of distress at the mere idea that Harry had been thought dead. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and she was squeezing a book with all her strength – her usual care and concern over the proper care of books nowhere to be seen.
And Harry decided to figure that out at a later mess.
It was a problem for the Future Harry, the Present Harry had nothing to do with it.
He had more important things to focus on.
"But the match," he asked. "What happened? Are we doing a replay?"
Harry felt the pit in his stomach sink to the bottom when no one said anything. "We didn't — welost?!"
"Diggory got the Snitch," George started, a forlorn look on his face. "Just after you fell. He didn't realize what had happened. When he looked back and saw you on the ground, he tried to call it off. Wanted a rematch. But they won fair and square… even Wood admits it."
Harry jerked, suddenly noticing that Oliver wasn't there, "Where is Wood?"
"Still in the showers," Fred let out a forced chuckle. "We think he's trying to drown himself."
Harry put his face to his knees, his hands gripping his hair.
Fred grabbed his shoulder and shook it roughly. "C'mon, Harry, you've never missed the Snitch before."
"There had to be one time you didn't get it," George completed his twin's words.
"Not helping, guys," Harry muttered, his voice coming out a tad muffled.
The Weasley twins grinned, their eyes twinkling with delight.
Harry rolled his eyes at them, a slight grin tugging at his own lips. He looked around the Hospital Wing, and his eyes landed on a nearby table full of flowers and letters. "What is going on with that?" Harry asked, confused, as he gestured towards the table standing out like a sore thumb in this dreary Hospital Wing.
"Those are for you," Alicia explained. "People have been coming and dropping get-well cards and flowers on your bed this entire time. It became so much that Madam Pomphrey just put up a table for all these well-wishes."
What she pointedly didn't mention was that Harry's bed had received a few rather unusual additions while he was unconscious.
Alongside the flowers, get-well cards, Chocolate Frogs, and other gifts, a few bras and panties had somehow found their way onto his bed, along with several enchanted photos. Photos from upper year girls, each of them in varying degrees of nudity, ranging from some showing a bit more than proper cleavage, to bikini and lingerie or some were even stark naked!
And some of them were girls that Alicia knew and talked to all the time!
Needless to say, she had removed all of them before Harry could wake up and discover what had been left for him.
And she had done it without hesitation.
From the looks the other members of the team were giving her, they had all noticed what she'd been doing. None of them seemed particularly inclined to question it.
Harry, of course, remained completely unaware that anything had been removed.
"There are also Chocolate Frogs and other treats," Fred grinned, "Well, there were, don' know how much is still there after Ronnie got his hands on em."
Harry turned to look at a suddenly sheepish Ron, who not-so-subtly slid his foot across the ground, pushing a chocolate frog's wrapper under the bed.
"Really,' he deadpanned, to the sound of raucous laughter.
The conversation and the jokes continued, and after ten or so minutes, Madam Pomfrey came over to tell the team to leave him in peace.
"We'll come and see you later," Fred told him. "Don't beat yourself up Harry, you're still the best Seeker we've ever had." He said as he left with the team following him out, trailing mud behind them.
Madam Pomfrey shut the door behind them, looking disapproving. Ron and Hermione moved nearer to Harry's bed.
"Dumbledore was really angry," Hermione said. "I've never seen him like that before. He ran onto the field as you fell, waved his wand, and slowed you down before you hit the ground. Then he whirled his wand at the Dementors. Shot some silver spell at them and scared them away from the stadium. He was furious they'd come onto the grounds. We heard him -"
"Then he magicked you onto a stretcher," Ron continued. "And walked up to school with you floating on it. Everyone thought you were…"
He trailed off, but the implications in his words were clear.
Harry's thoughts went towards the dementors. What they had done to him, and to the screaming voice he heard.
He looked up and saw Ron and Hermione looking at him so anxiously.
"Did someone get my Nimbus?" Harry asked.
Ron and Hermione looked quickly at each other.
"Err…,"
"What?" He looked between his two friends. "Did something happen to it?" he asked, with a note of concern in his voice.
"Well… when you fell off, it got blown away," Hermione finally muttered.
"And?"
"And it hit the Whomping Willow."
Harry stared at her with dead eyes, "What?!"
"And well, you know the Whomping Willow," Ron shrugged his shoulders. "It doesn't like being hit."
"Professor Flitwick brought it back just before you came around," Hermione reached for a bag at her feet, turned it upside down, and tipped a dozen bits of splintered wood and twig onto the bed, the only remains of Harry's faithful, utterly destroyed-beyond-repair broomstick.