Enjoy!
Chapter 19
Mudblood and Murmurs
Harri spent the majority of her time over the next few days avoiding Lockhart at all costs, unless she was in his class, then she was silently pranking him. She had to dive into unlocked classrooms to make sure he didn’t see her in the hallways. She even ran into Snape one time, when she told him that she was hiding from Lockhart he only gave her detention, that had to be served Saturday night, he didn’t take any points from Gryffindor and told her to get to class.
The only person harder to avoid then Lockhart was Colin Creevey. The boy seemed to always find her, no matter where she was. She realized the day after they met that the flush on his cheeks wasn’t from a cold, but from an embarrassed blush, because he had a crush on her. Sadly for him, Harri refused to get into relationships with people that liked her because she’s the girl-who-lived or before they met her. Idolized infatuation was not something she appreciated, she felt like it devalued her worth as a person.
A few mornings later Harri was woken up to a knocking on her window. She groggily got up, putting on her glasses on her way to the window, and saw that it was Oliver Wood flying outside her room. She was going to kill him, when she looked behind him she saw that it was the crack of dawn.
“What is it, Oliver? Do you have any idea what time it is?” she growled pulling out her wand. She was not a morning person.
“Exactly, it’s the best condition for quidditch practice! It’s all part of my new training program, now get your broom!” he said excitedly, a mad gleam in his eyes. This was the way he always acted when talked about quidditch. The whole team thought he was a little too obsessed with the game.
“Fine,” she hissed as she got dressed, she wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep anyway. On top of that, she didn’t want to wake Hermione, who would hex her for waking her up this early in the morning.
When she made it to the common room, Nimbus 2000 over her shoulder, she found the Weasley twins slumped over the couch, obviously the two only made it so far before falling back to sleep.
Harri sighed and shook the boys awake, they didn’t disappoint since they rolled off the couch and onto the floor in a heap.
“Morning, boys,” she greeted cheerily.
“Morning, Harri,” they groaned as they scrambled off the floor and picked up their brooms. Right before they left Colin came running down the boy’s staircase with his camera in hand.
“Harri, I heard someone say you name from outside and hoped to find you here before you left! Look the film developed!” he said jumping up and down from excitement.
Harri took a look at the pictures and smiled, despite the fact Lockhart was in them, mostly because her picture-self was violently beating the picture-Lockhart, who had tried to grab her and force her into the picture with him.
“Will you sign it?” Colin asked hopefully.
“No,” Harri told him flatly. There was no way she was signing photographs.
“Harri, if you’re done talking to your fan, we have to get to practice,” Fred teased as he and George went through the portrait hole. Harri quickly followed the twins, but Colin wouldn’t take the hint and stop following her.
“Cool! I’ve never seen anyone play Quidditch before!” he exclaimed and began chatting about all the facts he knew about Harri. The twins were snickering as they listened to the kid annoy her.
She finally got rid of him when they had to go into the changing rooms. When they arrived Oliver was already there with Katie, who was falling asleep on the wall, as well as Angelina and Alicia, who were nodding off on the bench. The twins and Harri sat down on the opposite bench to the chasers and right away their eyes started to droop. Oliver seemed to be the only person in the room truly awake.
“Now, I’ve spent all summer planning a new strategy so we can win the quidditch cup!” he told them, eyes gleaming. Then, he took out a board with different plays on it. Harri was sitting down next to George and they leaned on each other as they started to doze off listening to Oliver prattle on about different plays.
“So, any questions?” Oliver questioned the team who all shook themselves awake at his chipper statement.
“Yes, why couldn’t you have told us all this yesterday when we were all awake?” George asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Because we need more practice, now let’s try out those new maneuvers,” Oliver said with an over enthusiastic grin. If only the entire team could be as awake as him in the morning.
When they walked out onto the field they saw Draco, Hermione and Luna in the stands eating breakfast. “You guys finishing up? We brought you some food and there’s a letter from Sirius with your name on it!” Draco shouted.
“We haven’t even started, but thanks for the food and getting the letter for me!” Harri replied with a groan as her stomach growled. She shrugged her shoulders, she ignored her growling stomach and kicked off the ground. The fresh morning breeze woke her up much better than Oliver’s two hour speech.
Harri decided to race the twins around the pitch for a good five minutes before a very loud clicking noise could be heard. Harri sighed when she saw Colin avidly taking pictures of her. She was going to destroy that camera…
“Who is that? Is he a spy for Slytherin?” Oliver asked Harri since she obviously recognized him.
“No, he’s a first year Gryffindor.”
“Wood, there’s really no reason to believe that he’s a spy. The Slytherins are on the pitch, right now,” Fred told their captain.
“I booked the pitch…I’m going to clear this up,” he growled as he flew down towards the green clad team with their team captain, Marcus Flint in front of the group. Harri, Fred and George followed their captain to make sure that he didn’t do anything that he would regret later on.
“Flint, this is our practice time! We go up especially! You can clear off!” Wood bellowed at the other captain.
“There’s plenty of room for all of us,” Flint replied with a conniving smirk on his face, obviously something was wrong. The Gryffindor chasers decided to come down as well to figure out what was going on. It was strange, the two teams were so different. The Slytherin team had no girls, while the Gryffindor team had four, outnumbering the boys.
“But I booked it!” said Wood who was shaking with rage.
“Ah, but I've got a specially signed note here from Professor Snape,” Flint said in reply handing Oliver the note:
I, Professor S. Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practice today on the Quidditch field owing to the need to train their new team manager.
“Team manager, you don’t need a team manager for a school quidditch team,” Fred said incredulously.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Weasley. Our new manager needs to see our plays and see if we need any more new equipment. Isn’t that right, Alya?” Flint told them with a smirk as Alya came out from behind the team of boys. Her usually free flowing, curly black hair was tied in a ponytail and she had a clip board in hand. There was a sinister grin on her face as she walked forward.
“You’re Lucius Malfoy’s niece,” Fred said with a frown, he could tell that this was going south quickly.
“Speaking of Mr. Malfoy, look at what he generously donated to the Slytherin team,” Flint said as he and the team showed their new Nimbus 2001s.
“I believe that these out due the old Nimbus 2000 considerably,” he added staring at Harri’s broom.
By the point, Luna, Hermione and Draco were coming up to the opposing groups, Hermione obviously sensed a fight coming on and wanted to stop it before it started.
“It’s obvious that since you couldn’t ride a broom to save your life that bought your way onto the team. This is a new low for you Alya,” Draco sneered at his cousin as he approached. He was sick of her pushing people around to get what she wanted, it was time he pushed back a little bit.
“You’re just jealous that your father is willing to spend money on me and the Slytherin house after disowning you,” she taunted right back. To Harri’s surprise, Draco didn’t back down.
“I’d rather be disowned then live in a house with a Death Eater!” Draco snapped and Alya stood straighter at that comment.
“So you’d rather live in a house with blood traitors and be friends with a mudblood?” she asked condescendingly.
As soon as the words left her mouth Flint jumped in front of the girl right before the Weasley twins tried to attack her. Angelina was being held back by Katie, and Oliver was holding Harri’s shoulders, successfully stopping her from attacking the second year Slytherin. Luna had grabbed Draco’s arm, stopping him from hexing Alya. Hermione, actually looked confused about the comment that was made and just stayed back, letting the older students handle things.
Harri pulled on Oliver’s robes slightly to get his attention and he gazed down at her with a questioning look in his eyes. “Oliver, I’m going to get Hermione out of here, okay? Why don’t you talk to McGonagall about the bookings before a full out brawl starts and someone gets banned for fighting.”
He nodded weakly and she pulled Hermione, Draco and Luna off the field and into the castle. Harri took them into the Gryffindor common room, much to Luna’s delight, since she had never seen another common room before. Harri changed out of her quidditch robes and made her way back down the spiral staircase. Her friends were all sitting down on the couches waiting for her.
“What did Alya mean when she said that? I had never heard that word before?” Hermione asked with a worried frown.
“It’s a really offensive term some pureblood wizards use to describe muggleborn witches or wizards. It means dirty blood,” Harri explained quietly.
“There are some pureblood families, like my parents and Sirius’ parents that believe that blood status is everything. They constantly marry other purebloods. It’s just a lot of inbreeding, considering that on some level Harri, Sirius and I are all related, we might be third or fourth cousins.” Draco said with a shrug.
“Without muggles and muggleborn witches and wizards the magical world would have died out. Most wizards now are half-bloods, like Harri,” Luna added with a smile.
“I don’t get the point in all that blood status mumbo-jumbo. My mum was the top of her class and was a muggleborn just like you Hermione. I mean, Alya, Crabbe and Goyle are all purebloods and they can barely do anything correctly in class. Blood has nothing to do with it. It’s just something a group of people like to tell themselves to make them feel special…all it really does is give you more money and some social standings in the wizarding world,” Harri said with a shrug.
Hermione’s full attention was on her friends. She was surprised that she hadn’t heard of any of this before. It seemed like it was a rather important part of wizarding culture.
Hermione was about to say something when Harri’s stomach growled loudly, causing all the tension in the room to leave as the group laughed. Draco pulled something wrapped in napkins from under his robes and handed it to Harri. She saw a few pieces of toast and a cookie, she was more than happy to eat it.
“Oh, Sirius’ letter!” Draco said remembering the letter. He pulled it out of his robe pocket and handed it to Harri while she stuffed her third piece of toast in her mouth. She read it while she nibbled on a cookie:
Dear Bambi,
Congratulations on your new friend! Tell Luna I say hello and tell Ginny she did a good job getting into Gryffindor. If Luna wants she can spend her holidays with us, the more the merrier! I hope that Lockhart has been leaving you alone since you got to school. There is a story as to why Snape hates Lockhart, but I can’t really remember it off the top of my head, we weren’t really friends in school, as you well know. Anyway, as long as Snape isn’t bothering you, I don’t care who he hates.
Try to get some pictures of Snape hexing Lockhart if it happens. I’ll want to hang them on the wall.
Now, I have some horrible news. It’s that time of year again…I have to go and clean Grimmauld Place and deal with Kreacher. What am I going to do without you here to distract him? I’m determined to get my mother’s portrait down this year, I’m taking out the wall all together, Moony said he’d help.
So, send all your letters to Grimmauld Place. I’m sure that Hedwig will find the house without a problem, she’s such a smart owl.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Padfoot (and Moony even though he didn’t write anything)
Harri chuckled at the end of the letter. She knows that Sirius hates cleaning his family home, but it has to be done every few months, otherwise Kreacher wrecks the place.
“How many houses do you two have?” Hermione asked reading the letter over her friend’s shoulder.
“Um, well, there’s Potter Manor and then there’s another Potter estate in France and I think there’s one in Germany as well, though they aren’t as large as the one in England. We have house-elves in charge of the other houses, since we can’t look after all of them on our own. Sirius just has his family home and the apartment, he sold the other Black estates. The Potters and the Blacks are those old wizarding families with a lot of money. Sirius and I prefer to live in the apartment, we don’t like big houses, there was only ever two or three people living in the apartment at once, well now there’s between three and four people living in the apartment at one time, but it is still more than enough room for all of us,” Harri replied with a shrug.
“Oh,” Hermione said as she mulled over the fact her friend was wealthier than she led on.
They talked for a few more hours before they went down to the great hall for dinner and then they all sat in the Gryffindor common room enjoying each other company.
Hermione was reading one of Lockhart’s books, while Draco was doing a transfiguration essay that was due on Friday. Luna was searching the common room for nargles. Harri, on the other hand, was writing a letter to Sirius and Remus, telling them all about Lockhart before she had to leave for detention.
Dear Padfoot and Moony
Well, I have detention with Snape tonight, but it was valid, I was late for class since I was avoiding Lockhart. The git keeps commenting about my living situation and saying that I crave fame. He keeps trying to get me alone as well, I don’t get what he’s playing at, but I don’t like it. So, for the last few days Draco and I have been pranking our new DADA teacher. It’s mostly small things, like gluing him to his desk, having his test papers float out the window or make the all desks in the class stick to the ceiling. We even left a fire salamander in his desk. It took him quite a while to put it out. Fred, George, Draco and I have another plan, that I came up with, that will liven up our DADA class. I hope to make the Marauders proud.
Anyway, on a more serious note, Alya almost got the tar beaten out of her today when she and the Slytherin team came onto the pitch saying that they had a teacher’s note that gave them the pitch even though Gryffindor booked it. I found out from Oliver, the Gryffindor team captain, that they forged the note. They’re all serving detention with Madam Hooch for two weeks.
Now, back to Alya, she called Hermione…well I’m not actually going to write it down, but you know what word I’m talking about. Oh, bugger, I have to go to detention. I’ll finish the letter when I get back…
Harri grabbed her school bag and ran towards the potions lab, where she’d have her detention.
She arrived right on time. Snape didn’t seem to be in the best of moods when she opened the door, well, he was in a worse one than normal.
“Potter, you’ll be cleaning out caldrons,” he told her and she shrugged her shoulders and got to work.
Harri hummed to herself quietly as she worked on cleaning the caldrons and Snape didn’t seem to mind in slightest. When she had finished the last caldron she heard a bone chilling voice that sent shivers up her spine.
“Come... Come to me... Let me rip you... Let me tear you... Let me kill you..."
She only got this sensation when she heard snakes speaking and that didn’t happen often since Sirius was deathly afraid of snakes, he said it had something to do with living with snakes all his life. Harri had the feeling he just didn’t like them and needed an excuse to be afraid of them.
“Professor, are there any snakes on the Hogwarts’ grounds?” she asked worried. She swayed slightly as she stood up, away from the caldrons.
“No, why would that matter, Potter? Maybe you should get to your common room, you’ve been here for over four hours,” he replied watching her nod and shakily leave the room.
She made it back to her dorm and sat down on her bed, Hermione was already sound asleep and she picked up her letter to her Sirius and decided to finish it before she went to sleep.
There’s a rouge snake running around Hogwarts. I heard it while I was in detention. It doesn’t seem like a very friendly snake either, it was talking about killing. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell anyone about my ability to speak to snakes, I guess Moony was right… I would have to tell my friends about my ability eventually.
Please, right back soon, I’m worried,
Harri
I hope you enjoyed! I'll post the next chapter soon!
~Animerocker
PS
I don't own Harry Potter