“Yeah … see you.”
She smiled at him and departed. He walked on, feeling quietly elated. He had managed to have an entire conversation with her and not embarrassed himself once. … You were really brave standing up to her like that. … She had called him brave. … She did not hate him for being alive. …
Of course, she had preferred Cedric, he knew that. … Though if he’d only asked her to the ball before Cedric had, things might have turned out differently. … She had seemed sincerely sorry that she had to refuse when Harry had asked her. …
“Morning,” Harry said brightly to Ron and Hermione, joining them at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall.
“What are you looking so pleased about?” said Ron, eyeing Harry in surprise.
“Erm … Quidditch later,” said Harry happily, pulling a large platter of bacon and eggs toward him.
“Oh … yeah …” said Ron. He put down the bit of toast he was eating and took a large swig of pumpkin juice. Then he said, “Listen … you don’t fancy going out a bit earlier with me, do you? Just to — er — give me some practice before training? So I can, you know, get my eye in a bit …”
“Yeah, okay,” said Harry.
“Look, I don’t think you should,” said Hermione seriously, “you’re both really behind on homework as it —”
But she broke off; the morning post was arriving and, as usual, the Daily Prophet was soaring toward her in the beak of a screech owl, which landed perilously close to the sugar bowl and held out a leg; Hermione pushed a Knut into its leather pouch, took the newspaper, and scanned the front page critically as the owl took off again.
“Anything interesting?” said Ron; Harry smiled — he knew Ron was keen to get her off the subject of homework.
“No,” she sighed, “just some guff about the bass player in the Weird Sisters getting married. …”
She opened the paper and disappeared behind it. Harry devoted himself to another helping of eggs and bacon; Ron was staring up at the high windows, looking slightly preoccupied.
“Wait a moment,” said Hermione suddenly. “Oh no … Sirius!”
“What’s happened?” said Harry, and he snatched at the paper so violently that it ripped down the middle so that he and Hermione were holding half each.
“ ‘The Ministry of Magic has received a tip-off from a reliable source that Sirius Black, notorious mass murderer … blah blah blah … is currently hiding in London!’ ” Hermione read from her half in an anguished whisper.
“Lucius Malfoy, I’ll bet anything,” said Harry in a low, furious voice. “He did recognize Sirius on the platform. …”
“What?” said Ron, looking alarmed. “You didn’t say —”
“Shh!” said the other two.
“… ‘Ministry warns Wizarding community that Black is very dangerous … killed thirteen people … broke out of Azkaban …’ the usual rubbish,” Hermione concluded, laying down her half of the paper and looking fearfully at Harry and Ron. “Well, he just won’t be able to leave the house again, that’s all,” she whispered. “Dumbledore did warn him not to.”
Harry looked down glumly at the bit of the Prophet he had torn off. Most of the page was devoted to an advertisement for Madame Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions, which was apparently having a sale.
“Hey!” he said, flattening it down so Hermione and Ron could both see it. “Look at this!”
“I’ve got all the robes I want,” said Ron.
“No,” said Harry, “look … this little piece here …”
Ron and Hermione bent closer to read it; the item was barely an inch long and placed right at the bottom of a column. It was headlined:
TRESPASS AT MINISTRY
Sturgis Podmore, 38, of number two, Laburnum Gardens, Clapham, has appeared in front of the Wizengamot charged with trespass and attempted robbery at the Ministry of Magic on 31st August. Podmore was arrested by Ministry of Magic watch-wizard Eric Munch, who found him attempting to force his way through a top-security door at one o’clock in the morning. Podmore, who refused to speak in his own defense, was convicted on both charges and sentenced to six months in Azkaban.
“Sturgis Podmore?” said Ron slowly, “but he’s that bloke who looks like his head’s been thatched, isn’t he? He’s one of the Ord —”
“Ron, shh!” said Hermione, casting a terrified look around them.
“Six months in Azkaban!” whispered Harry, shocked. “Just for trying to get through a door!”
“Don’t be silly, it wasn’t just for trying to get through a door — what on earth was he doing at the Ministry of Magic at one o’clock in the morning?” breathed Hermione.
“D’you reckon he was doing something for the Order?” Ron muttered.
“Wait a moment. …” said Harry slowly. “Sturgis was supposed to come and see us off, remember?”
The other two looked at him.
“Yeah, he was supposed to be part of our guard going to King’s Cross, remember? And Moody was all annoyed because he didn’t turn up, so that doesn’t seem like he was supposed to be on a job for them, does it?”
“Well, maybe they didn’t expect him to get caught,” said Hermione.
“It could be a frame-up!” Ron exclaimed excitedly. “No — listen!” he went on, dropping his voice dramatically at the threatening look on Hermione’s face. “The Ministry suspects he’s one of Dumbledore’s lot so — I dunno — they lured him to the Ministry, and he wasn’t trying to get through a door at all! Maybe they’ve just made something up to get him!”
There was a pause while Harry and Hermione considered this. Harry thought it seemed far-fetched; Hermione, on the other hand, looked rather impressed and said, “Do you know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that were true.”
She folded up her half of the newspaper thoughtfully. When Harry laid down his knife and fork she seemed to come out of a reverie.
“Right, well, I think we should tackle that essay for Sprout on Self-Fertilizing Shrubs first, and if we’re lucky we’ll be able to start McGonagall’s Inanimatus Conjurus before lunch. …”
Harry felt a small twinge of guilt at the thought of the pile of homework awaiting him upstairs, but the sky was a clear, exhilarating blue, and he had not been on his Firebolt for a week. …
“I mean, we can do it tonight,” said Ron, as he and Harry walked down the sloping lawns toward the Quidditch pitch, their broomsticks over their shoulders, Hermione’s dire warnings that they would fail all their O.W.L.s still ringing in their ears. “And we’ve got tomorrow. She gets too worked up about work, that’s her trouble. …” There was a pause and he added, in a slightly more anxious tone, “D’you think she meant it when she said we weren’t copying from her?”
“Yeah, I do,” said Harry. “Still, this is important too, we’ve got to practice if we want to stay on the Quidditch team. …”
“Yeah, that’s right,” said Ron in a heartened tone. “And we have got plenty of time to do it all. …”
Harry glanced over to his right as they approached the Quidditch pitch, to where the trees of the Forbidden Forest were swaying darkly. Nothing flew out of them; the sky was empty but for a few distant owls fluttering around the Owlery Tower. He had enough to worry about; the flying horse wasn’t doing him any harm: He pushed it out of his mind.
They collected balls from the cupboard in the changing room and set to work, Ron guarding the three tall goalposts, Harry playing Chaser and trying to get the Quaffle past Ron. Harry thought Ron was pretty good; he blocked three-quarters of the goals Harry attempted to put past him and played better the longer they practiced. After a couple of hours they returned to the school, where they ate lunch, during which Hermione made it quite clear that she thought they were irresponsible, then returned to the Quidditch pitch for the real training session. All their teammates but Angelina were already in the changing room when they entered.
“All right, Ron?” said George, winking at him.
“Yeah,” said Ron, who had become quieter and quieter all the way down to the pitch.
“Ready to show us all up, Ickle Prefect?” said Fred, emerging tousle-haired from the neck of his Quidditch robes, a slightly malicious grin on his face.
“Shut up,” said Ron, stony-faced, pulling on his own team robes for the first time. They fitted him well considering they had been Oliver Wood’s, who was rather broader in the shoulder.
“Okay everyone,” said Angelina, entering from the Captain’s office, already changed. “Let’s get to it; Alicia and Fred, if you can just bring the ball crate out for us. Oh, and there are a couple of people out there watching but I want you to just ignore them, all right?”
Something in her would-be casual voice made Harry think he might know who the uninvited spectators were, and sure enough, when they left the changing room for the bright sunlight of the pitch it was to a storm of catcalls and jeers from the Slytherin Quidditch team and assorted hangers-on, who were grouped halfway up the empty stands and whose voices echoed loudly around the stadium.
“What’s that Weasley’s riding?” Malfoy called in his sneering drawl. “Why would anyone put a Flying Charm on a moldy old log like that?”
Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson guffawed and shrieked with laughter. Ron mounted his broom and kicked off from the ground and Harry followed him, watching his ears turn red from behind.
“Ignore them,” he said, accelerating to catch up with Ron. “We’ll see who’s laughing after we play them. …”
“Exactly the attitude I want, Harry,” said Angelina approvingly, soaring around them with the Quaffle under her arm and slowing to hover on the spot in front of her airborne team. “Okay everyone, we’re going to start with some passes just to warm up, the whole team please —”
“Hey, Johnson, what’s with that hairstyle anyway?” shrieked Pansy Parkinson from below. “Why would anyone want to look like they’ve got worms coming out of their head?”
Angelina swept her long braided hair out of her face and said calmly, “Spread out, then, and let’s see what we can do. …”
Harry reversed away from the others to the far side of the pitch. Ron fell back toward the opposite goal. Angelina raised the Quaffle with one hand and threw it hard to Fred, who passed to George, who passed to Harry, who passed to Ron, who dropped it.
The Slytherins, led by Malfoy, roared and screamed with laughter. Ron, who had pelted toward the ground to catch the Quaffle before it landed, pulled out of the dive untidily, so that he slipped sideways on his broom, and returned to playing height, blushing. Harry saw Fred and George exchange looks, but uncharacteristically neither of them said anything, for which he was grateful.
“Pass it on, Ron,” called Angelina, as though nothing had happened.
Ron threw the Quaffle to Alicia, who passed back to Harry, who passed to George. …
“Hey, Potter, how’s your scar feeling?” called Malfoy. “Sure you don’t need a lie-down? It must be, what, a whole week since you were in the hospital wing, that’s a record for you, isn’t it?”
Fred passed to Angelina; she reverse passed to Harry, who had not been expecting it, but caught it in the very tips of his fingers and passed it quickly to Ron, who lunged for it and missed by inches.
“Come on now, Ron,” said Angelina crossly, as Ron dived for the ground again, chasing the Quaffle. “Pay attention.”
It would have been hard to say whether Ron’s face or the Quaffle was a deeper scarlet when he returned again to playing height. Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin team were howling with laughter.
On his third attempt, Ron caught the Quaffle; perhaps out of relief he passed it on so enthusiastically that it soared straight through Katie’s outstretched hands and hit her hard in the face.
“Sorry!” Ron groaned, zooming forward to see whether he had done any damage.
“Get back in position, she’s fine!” barked Angelina. “But as you’re passing to a teammate, do try not to knock her off her broom, won’t you? We’ve got Bludgers for that!”
Katie’s nose was bleeding. Down below the Slytherins were stamping their feet and jeering. Fred and George converged on Katie.
“Here, take this,” Fred told her, handing her something small and purple from out of his pocket. “It’ll clear it up in no time.”
“All right,” called Angelina, “Fred, George, go and get your bats and a Bludger; Ron, get up to the goalposts, Harry, release the Snitch when I say so. We’re going to aim for Ron’s goal, obviously.”
Harry zoomed off after the twins to fetch the Snitch.
“Ron’s making a right pig’s ear of things, isn’t he?” muttered George, as the three of them landed at the crate containing the balls and opened it to extract one of the Bludgers and the Snitch.
“He’s just nervous,” said Harry. “He was fine when I was practicing with him this morning.”
“Yeah, well, I hope he hasn’t peaked too soon,” said Fred gloomily.
They returned to the air. When Angelina blew her whistle, Harry released the Snitch and Fred and George let fly the Bludger; from that moment on, Harry was barely aware of what the others were doing. It was his job to recapture the tiny fluttering golden ball that was worth a hundred and fifty points to the Seeker’s team and doing so required enormous speed and skill. He accelerated, rolling and swerving in and out of the Chasers, the warm autumn air whipping his face and the distant yells of the Slytherins so much meaningless roaring in his ears. … But too soon, the whistle brought him to a halt again.
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