It looked like the end of Ron and Hermione's friendship.
Each was so angry with the other that neither Harry nor Emily couldn't see how they'd ever make up.
Ron was enraged that Hermione had never taken Crookshanks's attempts to eat Scabbers seriously, hadn't bothered to keep a close enough watch on him, and was still trying to pretend that Crookshanks was innocent by suggesting that Ron look for Scabbers under all the boys' beds.
Hermione, meanwhile, maintained fiercely that Ron had no proof that Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers, that the ginger hairs might have been there since Christmas, and that Ron had been prejudiced against her cat ever since Crookshanks had landed on Ron's head in the Magical Menagerie.
Personally, Harry was sure that Crookshanks had eaten Scabbers, and when he tried to point out to Hermione that the evidence all pointed that way, she lost her temper with Harry too.
"Okay, side with Ron, I knew you would!" she said shrilly. "First the Firebolts, now Scabbers, everything's my fault, isn't it! Emily's the only one who believes me! Just leave me alone, Harry, I've got a lot of work to do!"
Ron had taken the loss of his rat very hard indeed.
"Come on, Ron, you were always saying how boring Scabbers was," said Fred bracingly. "And he's been off-color for ages, he was wasting away. It was probably better for him to snuff it quickly, one swallow, he probably didn't feel a thing."
"Fred!" said Ginny indignantly.
"All he did was eat and sleep, Ron, you said it yourself," said George.
"He bit Goyle for us once!" Ron said miserably. "Remember, Harry? Emily?"
"Yeah, that's true," said Harry.
"His finest hour," said Ethan, unable to keep a straight face. "Let the scar on Goyle's finger stand as a lasting tribute to his memory. Oh, come on, Ron, get yourself down to Hogsmeade and buy a new rat, what's the point of moaning?"
In a last-ditch attempt to cheer Ron up, Harry and Emily persuaded him to come along to the Gryffindor team's final practice before the Ravenclaw match, so that he could have a ride on the Firebolt after they'd finished.
This did seem to take Ron's mind off Scabbers for a moment ("Great! Can I try and shoot a few goals on it?") so they set off for the Quidditch field together.
Madam Hooch, who was still overseeing Gryffindor practices to keep an eye on Harry and Emily, was just as impressed with the Firebolts as everyone else had been.
She took it in her hands before takeoff and gave them the benefit of her professional opinion.
"Look at the balance on it! If the Nimbus series has a fault, it's a slight list to the tail end, you often find they develop a drag after a few years. They've updated the handle too, a bit slimmer than the Cleansweeps, reminds me of the old Silver Arrows, a pity they've stopped making them. I learned to fly on one, and a very fine old broom it was too..."
She continued in this vein for some time, until Wood said, "Er, Madam Hooch? Is it okay if Harry and Emily have the Firebolts back? We need to practice..."
"Oh, right, here you are, then," said Madam Hooch. "I'll sit over here with Weasley..."
She and Ron left the field to sit in the stadium, and the Gryffindor team gathered around Wood for his final instructions for tomorrow's match.
"Harry, I've just found out who Ravenclaw is playing as Seeker. It's Cho Chang. She's a fourth year, and she's pretty good... I really hoped she wouldn't be fit, she's had some problems with injuries..." Wood scowled his displeasure that Cho Chang had made a full recovery, then said, "On the other hand, she rides a Comet Two Sixty, which is going to look like a joke next to the Firebolt." He gave Harry's broom a look of fervent admiration, then said, "Okay, everyone, let's go-"
And at long last, Emily mounted her Firebolt, and kicked off from the ground.
It was better than she'd ever dreamed.
The Firebolt turned with the lightest touch; it seemed to obey her thoughts rather than her grip; it sped across the field at such speed that the stadium turned into a green-and-gray blur; Emily turned it so sharply that Alicia Spinnet screamed, then she went into a perfectly controlled dive, brushing the grassy field with her toes before rising thirty, forty, fifty feet into the air again.
"Harry, I'm letting the Snitch out!" Wood called.
Harry turned and raced a Bludger toward the goal posts; he outstripped it easily, saw the Snitch dart out from behind Wood, and within ten seconds had caught it tightly in his hand.
The team cheered madly. Harry let the Snitch go again, gave it a minute's head start, then tore after it, weaving in and out of the others; he spotted it lurking near Emily's knee, looped her easily, and caught it again. "Show offf!" Emily shouted.
It was the best practice ever; the team, inspired by the presence of the Firebolts in their midst, performed their best moves faultlessly, and by the time they hit the ground again, Wood didn't have a single criticism to make, which, as George Weasley pointed out, was a first.
"I can't see what's going to stop us tomorrow!" said Wood. "Not unless, Harry, you've sorted out your Dementor problem, haven't you?"
"Yeah," said Harry, thinking of his feeble Patronus and wishing it were stronger.
"The Dementors won't turn up again, Oliver. Dumbledore'd go ballistic," said Ethan confidently.
"Well, let's hope not," said Wood. "Anyway, good work, everyone. Let's get back to the tower... turn in early..."
"Me and Em are staying out for a bit; Ron wants a go on the Firebolt," Harry told Wood, and while the rest of the team headed off to the locker rooms, Harry and Emily strode over to Ron, who vaulted the barrier to the stands and came to meet them. Madam Hooch had fallen asleep in her seat.
"Here you go," said Emily, handing Ron the Firebolt.
Ron, an expression of ecstasy on his face, mounted the broom and zoomed off into the gathering darkness while Harry and Emily walked around the edge of the field, watching him.
Night had fallen before Madam Hooch awoke with a start, told Emily, Harry and Ron off for not waking her, and insisted that they go back to the castle.
Emily shouldered the Firebolt and she, Harry and Ron walked out of the shadowy stadium, discussing the Firebolt's superbly smooth action, its phenomenal acceleration, and its pinpoint turning.
They were halfway toward the castle when Emily, glancing to her left, saw something that made her heart turn over, two pairs of eyes, gleaming out of the darkness.
Emily stopped dead, her heart banging against her ribs.
"What's the matter?" said Harry.
Emily pointed. Ron pulled out his wand and muttered, "Lumos!"
A beam of light fell across the grass, hit the bottom of a tree, and illuminated its branches; there, crouching among the budding leaves, was Crookshanks.
"Get out of here!" Ron roared, and he stooped down and seized a stone lying on the grass, but before he could do anything else, Crookshanks had vanished with one swish of his long ginger tail.
"See?" Ron said furiously, chucking the stone down again. "She's still letting him wander about wherever he wants, probably washing down Scabbers with a couple of birds now..."
Emily didn't say anything. She took a deep breath as relief seeped through her ; she had been sure for a moment that those eyes had belonged to the Grim.
They set off for the castle once more. slightly ashamed of her moment of panic, Emily didn't say anything to Ron or Harry - nor did she look left or right until they had reached the well lit entrance hall.
Harry went down to breakfast the next morning with the rest of the boys in his dormitory, all of whom seemed to think the Firebolt deserved a sort of guard of honor.
As Harry entered the Great Hall, heads turned in the direction of the Firebolt, and there was a good deal of excited muttering.
Harry saw, with enormous satisfaction, that the Slytherin team were all looking thunderstruck.
"Did you see his face?" said Ron gleefully, looking back at Malfoy. "He can't believe it! This is brilliant!"
Wood, too, was basking in the reflected glory of the Firebolt.
"Put it here, Harry," he said, laying the broom in the middle of the table and carefully turning it so that its name faced upward.
People from the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables were soon coming over to look.
Cedric Diggory came over to congratulate Harry and Emily on having acquired such a superb replacement for his Nimbus, and Percy's Ravenclaw girlfriend, Penelope Clearwater, asked if she could actually hold the Firebolt.
"Now, now, Penny, no sabotage!" said Percy heartily as she examined the Firebolts closely. "Penelope and I have got a bet on," he told the team. "Ten Galleons on the outcome of the match!"
Penelope put the Firebolts down again, thanked Harry and Emily, and went back to her table.
"Harry, make sure you win," said Percy, in an urgent whisper. "I haven't got ten Galleons. Yes, I'm coming, Penny!" And he bustled off to join her in a piece of toast.
"Sure you can manage that broom, Potter?" said a cold, drawling voice.
Draco Malfoy had arrived for a closer look, Crabbe and Goyle right behind him.
"Yeah, reckon so," said Harry casually.
"Got plenty of special features, hasn't it?" said Malfoy, eyes glittering maliciously. "Shame it doesn't come with a parachute, in case you get too near a Dementor."
Crabbe and Goyle sniggered.
"Pity you can't attach an extra arm to yours, Malfoy," said Harry. "Then it could catch the Snitch for you."
The Gryffindor team laughed loudly.
"Still think my cousin should've been in Slytherin. She could beat you in a second with or without a firebolts."
"That's very true, but thank you Draco, I would rather stay out of whatever you two still have going on."
Malfoy's pale eyes narrowed, and he stalked away.
They watched him rejoin the rest of the Slytherin team, who put their heads together, no doubt asking Malfoy whether Harry's and Emily's brooms really were Firebolts.
At a quarter to eleven, the Gryffindor team set off for the locker rooms.
The weather couldn't have been more different from their match against Hufflepuff. It was a clear, cool day with a very light breeze; there would be no visibility problems this time, and Emily, though nervous, was starting to feel the excitement only a Quidditch match could bring.
They could hear the rest of the school moving into the stadium beyond. Emily took off her black school robes, removed her wand from his pocket, and stuck it inside the T-shirt she was going to wear under her Quidditch robes.
She only hoped she wouldn't need it. She wondered suddenly whether her dad would be in the crowd watching.
"You know what we've got to do," said Wood as they prepared to leave the locker rooms. "If we lose this match, we're out of the running, just fly like you did in practice yesterday, and we'll be okay!"
They walked out onto the field to tumultuous applause. The Ravenclaw team, dressed in blue, were already standing in the middle of the field.
Their Seeker, Cho Chang, was the only girl on their team. She was shorter than Harry by about a head but only about one inch taller then Emily, and Harry couldn't help noticing, nervous as he was, that she was extremely pretty.
She smiled at Harry as the teams faced each other behind their captains, and he felt a slight lurch in the region of his stomach that he didn't think had anything to do with nerves.
"Oh get a grip." Emily rolled her eyes and elbowed him in the stomach.
"Wood, Davies, shake hands," Madam Hooch said briskly, and Wood shook hands with the Ravenclaw Captain. "Mount your brooms... on my whistle... three two one -"
Emily kicked off into the air and the Firebolt zoomed higher and faster than any other broom; she flew around the stadium, trying to put the other team of their game.
"They're off, and the big excitement this match is the two Firebolts that Harry Potter and Emily Lupin-Black are flying for Gryffindor. According to Which Broomstick, the Firebolt's going to be the broom of choice for the national teams at this year's World Championship-"
"Jordan, would you mind telling us what's going on in the match?" interrupted Professor McGonagall's voice.
"Right you are, Professor, just giving a bit of background information, the Firebolt, incidentally, has a built-in auto-brake and-"
"Jordan!"
"Okay, okay, Gryffindor in possession, Emily Lupin-Black of Gryffindor, heading for goal..."
Harry streaked past Emily in the opposite direction, gazing around for a glint of gold and noticing that Cho Chang was tailing him closely.
She was undoubtedly a very good flier, she kept cutting across him, forcing him to change direction.
"Show her your acceleration, Harry!" Ethan yelled as he whooshed past in pursuit of a Bludger that was aiming for his sister.
Harry urged the Firebolt forward as they rounded the Ravenclaw goal posts and Cho fell behind.
Just as Emily succeeded in scoring the first goal of the match, and the Gryffindor end of the field went wild, he saw it, the Snitch was close to the ground, flitting near one of the barriers.
Harry dived; Cho saw what he was doing and tore after him, Harry was speeding up, excitement flooding him; dives were his specialty, he was ten feet away.
Then a Bludger, hit by one of the Ravenclaw Beaters, came pelting out of nowhere; Harry veered off course, avoiding it by an inch, and in those few, crucial seconds, the Snitch had vanished.
There was a great "Ooooooh" of disappointment from the Gryffindor supporters, but much applause for their Beater from the Ravenclaw end.
Ethan Lupin-Black vented his feelings by hitting the second Bludger directly at the offending Beater, who was forced to roll right over in midair to avoid it.
"Gryffindor leads by eighty points to zero, and look at those Firebolts go! Potter and Lupin-Black are really putting them through there paces now, see it turn, Chang's Comet is just no match for it, the Firebolt's precision, balance is really noticeable in these long-"
"JORDAN! ARE YOU BEING PAID TO ADVERTISE FIREBOLTS? GET ON WITH THE COMMENTARY!"
Ravenclaw was pulling back; they had now scored three goals, which put Gryffindor only fifty points ahead, if Cho got the Snitch before him, Ravenclaw would win.
Harry dropped lower, narrowly avoiding a Ravenclaw Chaser, scanning the field frantically, a glint of gold, a flutter of tiny wings, the Snitch was circling the Gryffindor goal post...
Harry accelerated, eyes fixed on the speck of gold ahead, but just then, Cho appeared out of thin air, blocking him.
"HARRY, THIS IS NO TIME TO BE A GENTLEMAN!" Wood roared as Harry swerved to avoid a collision. "KNOCK HER OFF HER BROOM IF YOU HAVE TO!"
Harry turned and caught sight of Cho; she was grinning.
The Snitch had vanished again.
Harry turned his Firebolt upward and was soon twenty feet above the game.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cho following him... She'd decided to mark him rather than search for the Snitch herself...
All right, then... if she wanted to tail him, she'd have to take the consequences...
He dived again, and Cho, thinking he'd seen the Snitch, tried to follow; Harry pulled out of the dive very sharply; she hurtled downward; he rose fast as a bullet once more, and then saw it, for the third time, the Snitch was glittering way above the field at the Ravenclaw end.
He accelerated; so, many feet below, did Cho. He was winning, gaining on the Snitch with every second, then,
"Oh!" screamed Cho, pointing.
Distracted, Harry looked down.
Three Dementors, three tall, black, hooded Dementors, were looking up at him.
He didn't stop to think. Plunging a hand down the neck of his robes, he whipped out his wand and roared, "Expecto patronum!"
Something silver-white, something enormous, erupted from the end of his wand.
He knew it had shot directly at the Dementors but didn't pause to watch; his mind still miraculously clear, he looked ahead, he was nearly there.
He stretched out the hand still grasping his wand and just managed to close his fingers over the small, struggling Snitch.
Madam Hooch's whistle sounded.
Harry turned around in midair and saw seven scarlet blurs bearing down on him; next moment, the whole team was hugging him so hard he was nearly pulled off his broom.
Down below he could hear the roars of the Gryffindors in the crowd.
"That's my boy!" Wood kept yelling.
Alicia, Angelina, and Katie had all kissed Harry; Ethan had him in a grip so tight Harry felt as though his head would come off.
He saw a firebolt headed to him and before he could catch a glimpse of Emily's face her hair was buried in his face and she had jumped on his broom to hug him.
"Oh snap." She said, once she released that the only thing from keeping her from falling was Harry's grip on her.
In complete disarray, the team managed to make its way back to the ground without Emily falling.
Harry got off his broom and looked up to see a gaggle of Gryffindor supporters sprinting onto the field, Ron in the lead. Before he knew it, he had been engulfed by the cheering crowd.
"Yes!" Ron yelled, yanking Harry's arm into the air. "Yes! Yes!"
"Well done, Harry!" said Percy, looking delighted. "Ten Galleons to me! Must find Penelope, excuse me."
"Good for you, Harry!" roared Seamus Finnigan.
"Ruddy brilliant!" boomed Hagrid over the heads of the milling Gryffindors.
"That was quite some Patronus," said a voice in Harry's ear.
Harry turned around to see Professor Lupin, who looked both shaken and pleased.
"The Dementors didn't affect me at all!" Harry said excitedly. "I didn't feel a thing!"
"That would be because they, er, weren't Dementors," said Professor Lupin. "Come and see-"
He led Harry out of the crowd until they were able to see the edge of the field.
"You gave Mr. Malfoy quite a fright," said Lupin.
Harry stared. Lying in a crumpled heap on the ground were Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Marcus Flint, the Slytherin team Captain, all struggling to remove themselves from long, black, hooded robes.
It looked as though Malfoy had been standing on Goyle's shoulders.
Standing over them, with an expression of the utmost fury on her face, was Professor McGonagall.
"An unworthy trick!" she was shouting. "A low and cowardly attempt to sabotage the Gryffindor Seeker! Detention for all of you, and fifty points from Slytherin! I shall be speaking to Professor Dumbledore about this, make no mistake! Ah, here he comes now!"
If anything could have set the seal on Gryffindor's victory, it was this.
Ron, who had fought his way through to Harry's side, doubled up with laughter as they watched Malfoy fighting to extricate himself from the robe, Goyle's head still stuck inside it.
"Come on, Harry!" said George, fighting his way over. "Party! Gryffindor common room, now!"
"Right," said Harry, and feeling happier than he had in ages, he and the rest of the team led the way, still in their scarlet robes, out of the stadium and back up to the castle.
It felt as though they had already won the Quidditch Cup; the party went on all day and well into the night.
Ethan, Fred and George Weasley disappeared for a couple of hours and returned with armfuls of bottles of butterbeer, pumpkin fizz, and several bags full of Honeydukes sweets.
"How did you do that?" squealed Angelina Johnson as George started throwing Peppermint Toads into the crowd.
"With a little help from Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs," Fred muttered in Harry's ear.
Only one person wasn't joining in the festivities. Hermione, incredibly, was sitting in a corner, attempting to read an enormous book entitled Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles.
Harry broke away from the table where Fred and George had started juggling butterbeer bottles and Ethan and Emily were trying to do karaoke without any backing music and went over to her.
"Did you even come to the match?" he asked her.
"Of course I did," said Hermione in a strangely high-pitched voice, not looking up. "And I'm very glad we won, and I think you did really well, but I need to read this by Monday."
"Come on, Hermione, come and have some food," Harry said, looking over at Ron and wondering whether he was in a good enough mood to bury the hatchet.
"I can't, Harry. I've still got four hundred and twenty-two pages to read!" said Hermione, now sounding slightly hysterical. "Anyway..." She glanced over at Ron too. "He doesn't want me to join in."
There was no arguing with this, as Ron chose that moment to say loudly, "If Scabbers hadn't just been eaten, he could have had some of those Fudge Flies. He used to really like them"
Hermione burst into tears. Before Harry could say or do anything, she tucked the enormous book under her arm, and, still sobbing, ran toward the staircase to the girls' dormitories and out of sight.
"Can't you give her a break?" Harry asked Ron quietly.
"No," said Ron flatly. "If she just acted like she was sorry, but she'll never admit she's wrong, Hermione. She's still acting like Scabbers has gone on vacation or something."
"You don't have to be horrible Ron. She's upset and you keep digging at her! You don't even know if Crookshanks ate your stupid rat anyway!" Emily shouted still dancing with her brother.
"You too? Oh honestly, it's obvious that cat ate my rat!" Ron shouted back at her.
"I thought you both valued your friendship with Hermione a lot more then a stupid broom or a stupid rat. I'm of to speak with her." Emily shouted at Ethan so that he could dance on his own.
She went to bed and walked in to see Hermione crying, hugging her pillow and lying on Emily's bed "Oh Emily, he hates me!"
"'Mione, no ." Emily muttered under her breath as she fell on to her own bed and let Hermione cry on her shoulder.
"AAARRGGHH! NOOO!"
Harry woke as suddenly as though he'd been hit in the face. Disoriented in the total darkness, he fumbled with his hangings, he could hear movements around him, and Seamus Finnigan's voice from the other side of the room.
"What's going on?"
Harry thought he heard the dormitory door slam. At last finding the divide in his curtains, he ripped them back, and at the same moment, Dean Thomas lit his lamp.
Ron was sitting up in bed, the hangings torn from one side, a look of utmost terror on his face. "Black! Eric! Sirius and Eric Black! With two knifes!"
"What?"
"Here! Just now! Slashed the curtains! Woke me up!"
"You sure you weren't dreaming, Ron?" said Dean.
"Look at the curtains! I tell you, they were here!"
They all scrambled out of bed; Harry reached the dormitory door first, and they sprinted back down the staircase.
Doors opened behind them, and sleepy voices called after them.
"Who shouted?"
"What're you doing?"
The common room was lit with the glow of the dying fire, still littered with the debris from the party. It was deserted.
"Are you sure you weren't dreaming, Ron?"
"I'm telling you, I saw them!"
"What's all the noise?"
"Professor McGonagall told us to go to bed!"
A few of the girls had come down their staircase, pulling on dressing gowns and yawning including Emily. Boys, too, were reappearing.
"Excellent, are we carrying on?" said Ethan brightly.
"Everyone back upstairs!" said Percy, hurrying into the common room and pinning his Head Boy badge to his pajamas as he spoke.
"Perce, Sirius and Eric Black!" said Ron faintly. "In our dormitory! With a knife! Woke me up!"
The common room went very still.
"Nonsense!" said Percy, looking startled. "You had too much to eat, Ron had a nightmare "
"I'm telling you-"
"Now, really, enough's enough!"
Professor McGonagall was back. She slammed the portrait behind her as she entered the common room and stared furiously around.
"I am delighted that Gryffindor won the match, but this is getting ridiculous! Percy, I expected better of you!"
"I certainly didn't authorize this, Professor!" said Percy, puffing himself up indignantly. "I was just telling them all to get back to bed! My brother Ron here had a nightmare-"
"IT WASN'T A NIGHTMARE!" Ron yelled. "PROFESSOR, I WOKE UP, AND SIRIUS AND ERIC BLACK WERE STANDING OVER ME, BOTH HOLDING KNIFES!"
Professor McGonagall stared at him.
"Don't be ridiculous, Weasley, how could he possibly have gotten through the portrait hole?"
"Ask him!" said Ron, pointing a shaking finger at the back of Sir Cadogan's picture. "Ask him if he saw-"
Glaring suspiciously at Ron, Professor McGonagall pushed the portrait back open and went outside. The whole common room listened with bated breath. "Sir Cadogan, did you just let two men enter Gryffindor Tower?"
"Certainly, good lady!" cried Sir Cadogan.
There was a stunned silence, both inside and outside the common room.
"You-you did?" said Professor McGonagall. "But-but the password!"
"They had 'em!" said Sir Cadogan proudly. "Had the whole week's, my lady! Read 'em off a little piece of paper!"
Professor McGonagall pulled herself back through the portrait hole to face the stunned crowd. She was white as chalk.
"Which person," she said, her voice shaking, "which abysmally foolish person wrote down this week's passwords and left them lying around?"
There was utter silence, broken by the smallest of terrified squeaks. Neville Longbottom, trembling from head to fluffy slippered toes, raised his hand slowly into the air.
"Eric and dad?" Emily whispered to her brother after walking over to him.
"Eric and dad." Ethan repeated, he once again found her shoulders and held her closely to him.