Emily Potter - Book 5 - Order of the Phoenix

Chapter 46 - The Game

(photo above is Ginny Weasley + check out the external link for more!)

"The game wasn't that bad, Ginn." Emily said, trying to make her statement a bit more believable. The best thing you could say about the match yesterday was that it was short; students who watched had to endure only twenty-two minutes of agony. It was hard to say what the worst thing was: Emily thought it was a close-run contest between Ron's fourteenth failed save, Sloper hitting Angelina in the mouth with his bat, and Kirke shrieking and falling backward off his broom as Zacharias Smith zoomed at him carrying the Quaffle.

The miracle was that Gryffindor only lost by ten points. Ginny managed to catch the Snitch from right under Hufflepuff Seeker Summerby's nose so that the final score was 240 vs. 230.

"If you think that the game wasn't atrocious, then you must be off your rocker." Ginny retorted, tying her hair up in a loose ponytail, "We were awful, Em. I don't know how you managed to watch it without screaming your throat raw."

"You caught the Snitch! You should be proud of that, Ginn. And on your first game no less." She said, trying to get her friend's spirits up before breakfast. It was no use. They were a few feet away from the Great Hall entrance, but they could already sense the dead aura surrounding the Gryffindor table. "Well, this is unappetizing." Emily heard Ginny mutter under her breath.

They entered the Great Hall for breakfast at exactly the same moment as the post owls on Monday morning. Hermione was not the only person eagerly awaiting her Daily Prophet. Nearly everyone was eager for more news about the escaped Death Eaters, who, despite many reported sightings, had still not been caught. Hermione gave the delivery owl a Knut and unfolded the newspaper eagerly while Emily helped herself to orange juice when the first owl landed with a thud in front of her, she was sure that it had made a mistake since she almost never received mail.

"Lost?" She asked it, languidly removing her orange juice from underneath the owl's beak and leaning forward to see the recipient's name and address:

Harry Potter & Emily Potter

Great Hall

Hogwarts School

Right at that moment, her brother and Ron arrived at the table. Frowning, Emily made the move to take the letter from the owl, but before she could do so, five owls had fluttered down beside it and were jockeying for position, treading in the butter, knocking over the salt, and each attempting to give her their letters first.

"What's going on?" Harry asked in amazement, as the whole of Gryffindor table leaned forward to watch as another seven owls landed amongst the first ones, screeching, hooting, and flapping their wings.

"Harry!" said Hermione breathlessly, plunging her hands into the feathery mass and pulling out a screech owl bearing a long, cylindrical package. "I think I know what this means — open this one first!" Harry ripped off the brown packaging. Out rolled a tightly furled copy of March's edition of The Quibbler, he unrolled it to see a photo of him and his sister from his trial during the summer on the front cover. In large red letters across their picture were the words:

POTTER TWINS SPEAK OUT AT LAST: THE TRUTH ABOUT HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED AND THE NIGHT WE SAW HIM RETURN

"It's good, isn't it?" said Luna, who had drifted over to the Gryffindor table and now squeezed herself onto the bench between Emily and Ginny. "It came out yesterday, I asked Dad to send you two a free copies. I expect all these," she waved a hand at the assembled owls still scrambling around on the table in front of the twins, "Are letters from readers."