wanna be yours

XXI. ROGUE BLUDGER AND DUELLING CLUBS

chapter twenty-one; the chamber of secrets

1992

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The rain was falling more heavily now. 

On Madam Hooch's whistle, Harry kicked hard into the air and heard the telltale whoosh of the Bludger behind him. Higher and higher Harry climbed; he looped and swooped, spiraled, zigzagged, and rolled. Slightly dizzy, he nevertheless kept his eyes wide open, rain was speckling his glasses and ran up his nostrils as he hung upside down, avoiding another fierce dive from the Bludger.

The crowd was roaring with laughter from the crowd and Elodie he knew looked very stupid, but the rogue Bludger was heavy and couldn't change direction as quickly as Harry could; he began a kind of roller-coaster ride around the edges of the stadium, squinting through the silver sheets of rain to the Gryffindor goal posts, where Adrian Pucey was trying to get past Wood. The Bludger had just missed him again; he turned right over and sped in the opposite direction.

"Training for the ballet, Potter?" yelled Malfoy as Harry was forced to do a stupid kind of twirl in midair to dodge the Bludger, and he fled, the Bludger trailing a few feet behind him; and then, glaring back at Malfoy in hatred, he saw it, the Golden Snitch. It was hovering inches above Malfoy's left ear, and Malfoy, busy laughing at Harry, hadn't seen it. For an agonising moment, Harry hung in midair, not daring to speed toward Malfoy in case he looked up and saw the Snitch.

WHAM.

He had stayed still a second too long. The Bludger had hit him at last, smashed into his elbow, and Harry felt his arm break. He slid sideways on his rain-drenched broom, one knee still crooked over it, his right arm dangling useless at his side. The Bludger came pelting back for a second attack, this time zooming at his face. Harry swerved out of the way as Elodie's blue eyes were wide. Through a haze of rain and pain he dived for the shimmering, sneering face below him and saw its eyes widen with fear. Malfoy thought Harry was attacking him.

"What the. . . ." he gasped, careening out of Harry's way.

Harry took his remaining hand off his broom and made a wild snatch. His fingers closed on the cold Snitch but was now only gripping the broom with his legs, and there was a yell from the crowd below as he headed straight for the ground. With a splattering thud he hit the mud and rolled off his broom. His arm was hanging at a very strange angle; riddled with pain, he heard, as though from a distance, a good deal of whistling and shouting. He focused on the Snitch clutched in his good hand.

"Aha," he said vaguely. "We've won." And he fainted.

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"Harry!" Elodie was shaking him awake, her wet hair dripping onto his uniform.

He came around, rain falling on his face, still lying on the field, with Elodie on one side and someone leaning over him. Lockhart was beaming as Elodie and Ron exchanged looks.

"Oh, no, not you," Harry moaned. "Doesn't know what he's saying," said Lockhart loudly to the anxious crowd of Gryffindors pressing around them. "Not to worry, Harry. I'm about to fix your arm."

"No!" said Harry. "I'll keep it like this, thanks. . . ."

Harry tried to sit up with a familiar clicking noise nearby.

"I don't want a photo of this, Colin," he said loudly.

"Lie back, Harry," said Lockhart soothingly. "It's a simple charm I've used countless times. . . ."