A/N
this is kinda just a filler chapter sorry
-
Over the past few weeks, Harry and I had continued to go to Professor Lupin's class every Tuesday for Patronus lessons instead of Hogsmeade. Even though I didn't really need them since I was now producing a Patronus nearly every time, Harry was still stuck at white mist.
He was trying his best to be supportive, but I knew it was ticking him off. I decided that if I used the passages from the map without him, it would just set him over the edge.
One thing that made me a bit upset, however, was that Harry would refuse to let me see the map. It was like he was hiding something from me. The day after he got it, he opened it for me to see and he quickly yanked it back right after, like he had spotted something I wasn't supposed to.
On top of everything, Ron and Hermione were now at each others throat over her stupid cat, and Ron's "rat." Ron had found a puddle of blood along with orange cat hairs in his dorm, and he's convinced that Scabbers had been eaten.
I disagreed. To me, Scabbers was clearly not a normal garden rat, therefore he was very much capable of escaping a stupid cat. Hermione agreed with me. (Not about the fact that he wasn't a rat, but it didn't matter.)
Harry had been in a considerably annoying mood because Hermione had gotten his Firebolt confiscated. Luckily for me, McGonagall said that there's nothing she could do about the money.
"Did you see his face?" Ron laughed gleefully as he walked into the Great Hall, next to Harry who was proudly carrying his new Firebolt. "He can't believe it! This is brilliant!"
"Aren't you going to thank me for not letting you buy it yourself, Potter?" I asked as Harry sat next to me and laid the Firebolt carefully on the table.
"Thank you, Jupiter." Harry said, dragging out 'Jupiter.' I smacked him on the shoulder.
Soon enough, there were people from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff coming over to see Harry's new broom. It was getting extremely annoying. There was a random group of Ravenclaw girls, who were a bit too chatty with Harry for my liking, Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff, Roger Davies from Ravenclaw, Justin Finch-Fletcher, and so many more.
One stood out to me, however.
Fifth year, Cedric Diggory came over to congratulate Harry on having acquired such a superb replacement for his Nimbus. I tried not to think to hard about him smiling at me.
Percy Weasley came over with a tall blonde girl, who was gawking at the new broom.
"Can I hold it?" She asked Harry, which he nodded to.
"Now, now, Penny, no sabotage!" Percy laughed heartily. My mouth fell open as I looked over to Ron, who nodded. Percy actually did have a girlfriend, he wasn't full of it. And she wasn't ugly, either. "Penelope and I have got a bet on. Ten galleons on the outcome of the match!"
"Thank you." Penelope smiled as she placed the Firebolt back in its original position and went back to the Ravenclaw table.
"Harry, make sure you win." Percy whispered to Harry. "I haven't got ten galleons." He hurried off to join his girlfriend.
Before any of us could make fun of him, we heard a cold, drawling voice. "Sure you can manage that broom, Potter?"
"Yeah, reckon so." Harry shrugged casually.
"Got plenty of special features, hasn't it?" Draco asked, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Shame it doesn't come with a parachute. Incase you get too close to a dementor."
"Pity you can't attach an extra arm to yours, Malfoy. Then it could catch the snitch for you." Harry said.
The whole Gryffindor table laughed loudly as Draco's gray eyes narrowed and he stomped away.
-
For this match, I had only asked Harry to pay me if they won. I figured he didn't need to be out five more galleons if he was already upset over Gryffindor losing.
I stood on the stands in between Ron and Hermione, which was not as fun as it used to be. They both were looking in opposite directions, neither of them uttering a word to each other.
After what felt like hours, the Gryffindor team came out of their tunnel. The Gryffindor stand erupted into such huge applause and cheers that it shook the stands.
The game was nothing special, honestly. I stood there and watched Harry fight a very pretty girl over a ball for an hour. (I pretended to not let it bother me.)
Cho Chang, the girl, was losing miserably in her pursuit to the snitch when she suddenly lost focus in it and screamed.
She was pointing at three dementors on the ground of the field. Except, these dementors weren't actual dementors. They were short. And I mean, seriously short. Before anyone had time to react, something silver-white, something enormous shot from Harry's wand.
A shining, silvery stag was charging at the dementors.
Harry had conjured a Patronus.
The stag collided with the dementors, and knocked them over. The hoods fell off, and revealed my cousin and his two buffoon friends.
Madam Hooch's whistle sounded, and we all looked back at Harry, who had his fingers wrapped around a little golden ball.
We all bursted into cheers, and for once, I wasn't afraid of the stands collapsing under us.
The Gryffindors all started to run down the stands and onto the field, Ron, Hermione and I leading the pack.
"Yes!" Ron was screaming as he grabbed Harry's arm and held it into the air.
"Did you see it?" Harry asked me, beaming like I had never seen. "I made a Patronus!" He grinned.
"I saw it!" I smiled, and before I could realize anything, Harry tackled me in a hug. The roars on the field grew louder.
"That was quite some Patronus." A voice said, making me pull away from him immediately in embarrassment. I tried to hide the inevitable red on my face. Professor Lupin was standing in front of us, smiling.
"The dementors didn't affect me at all!" Harry said proudly. "I didn't feel a thing!"
"That would be because they- er- they weren't dementors." Professor Lupin sighed as he led us to the side of the field.
"You gave Mr. Malfoy quite a fright." He said. Draco was lying in a crumpled heap on the ground with Crabbe, Goyle and Marcus Flint. He had been standing on Goyle's shoulders to seem taller, and now he couldn't get his robes off. Standing over them was Professor McGonagall.
"An unworthy trick!" She shouted. "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 make this moment more brilliant, Ron had showed up and was now clinging to our shoulders as he doubled over with laughter while we watched Draco fight to get out of his robes. Goyle's big head was still stuck inside of it.
"Come on, you three!" George yelled from the crowd. "Party! Gryffindor common room, now!"
The party went on for the rest of the day, and deep into the night. An old muggle album was playing in the background, and Fred and George had disappeared for a couple of hours, then returned with armfuls of butterbeer, firewhiskey, and several bags full of Honeydukes sweets.
"How did you do that?" Angelina Johnson asked as they begun to throw Peppermint Toads into the crowd.
"With a little help from Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs." Fred muttered to Harry and I. Nobody asked how they got the firewhiskey.
There was only one Gryffindor who wasn't joining in the party. Hermione was sitting in a corner, reading an enormous book.
"Did you even come to the match?" Harry asked her as we walked over to her sad corner.
"Of course I did." She said. She sounded a bit hurt, but she still didn't look up from her book. "I'm very glad we won, and you did really well, but I need to read this by Monday."
"Harry, just leave her alone." I said as Harry looked over to Ron. I knew that Hermione was taking Ron's behavior hard, and the last thing she needed was to be told to stop reading.
"No, come on. Come have some food, Hermione." Harry urged.
"I can't, Harry! I've got four hundred and twenty-two pages to read!" Hermione squealed. "Anyway... he doesn't want me to join it." She stared at Ron, who took noticed and didn't try to help.
"If Scabbers hadn't been eaten, he could've had some of those Fudge Flies. He used to really like them."
Hermione burst into tears, and before either of us could say anything, she had grabbed her enormous book and ran up the stairs to our dorm.
"Can't you give her a break?" Harry asked Ron quietly.
"No." He snapped. "If she just acted like she was sorry, but she'll never admit she's wrong. She's still acting like Scabbers has gone on vacation or something."
"JUST GIVE IT A REST, RONALD!" I yelled, a bit unexpectedly. "It's a rat! It's a stupid, old, sick rat that's going to die anyways! It shouldn't even be alive! There is seriously something off with that nasty thing, and for some reason, you're prioritizing it over your best friend who has always been there for you! One day in the very near future, that things going to actually die, and you're going to have no friends because you picked it over Hermione!"
I turned away from him and Harry, and stomped upstairs.
After a long night of trying to get Hermione to stop crying, I had finally gotten to fall asleep. That is, until I heard a loud, bloody murder scream come from the boys dorms.
I shot up in the darkness, and for a moment, I thought I had just had another dream, but Parvati and Lavender were also awake as well. I'm fairly certain that Hermione had heard it, but she chose to act unbothered.
"Professor McGonagall told us to go to bed!" Lavender snapped as a whole group of us walked into the common room and saw Harry and Ron.
"Excellent, are we carrying on?" Fred asked brightly from the other staircase.
"Everyone back upstairs!" Percy said, hurrying into the common room and putting his Head Boy badge on.
"Perce! Sirius Black!" Ron said. "In our dormitory! With a knife! Woke me up!"
Everyone fell silent. I felt the blood leave my face.
"Nonsense!" Percy scoffed disbelievingly. "You had too much to eat, Ron. You had a nightmare."
"I'm telling you!"
"Now, really, enough's enough!" Professor McGonagall yelled as she slammed the portrait of Sir Cadogan shut. "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!" Percy said, puffing his chest out at the sight of her. "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 BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME, HOLDING A KNIFE!"
Professor McGonagall just stared at him.
"Don't be ridiculous, Weasley, how could he possibly have gotten through the portrait hole?"
"Ask him!" Ron said, pointing a shaking finger at the back of Sir Cadogan.
Professor McGonagall glared at Ron, then pushed the portrait back open and went outside. The whole common room listened with quiet breaths.
"Sir Cadogan, did you just let a man enter Gryffindor Tower?"
"Certainly, good lady!" Sir Cadogan said.
"You- you did? But the password!"
"He had 'em!" Sir Cadogan said 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 us.
"Which person..." She asked, her voice shaking. "Which abysmally foolish person wrote down this week's passwords and left them lying around?"
There was complete silent, broken by the smallest of whimpers. Neville, who was trembling from head to toes, slowly raised his hand.
-
A/N
yikes i hate this chapter 😬😬