Not Mine
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The next two months flew by, much to Harry’s disgust. He only had one week left to revise for his NEWTS. Not many seventh year pupils were seen outside their common rooms unless to go to the great hall to eat or if they had any classes.
Most of the teachers had cancelled all their seventh year classes to give time for extra revision. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny took advantage of this and revised till the information was coming out of their ears.
Even though the whole Gryffindor team was under pressure from the NEWTs, they were managing to stay at the top of the league, and, much to Hermione’s delight, they also had the most house points. What Hermione didn’t know was that sometimes, Harry would award people like Seamus points for sneezing and Lavender points for screaming, ‘Oh my God! My mascara is running!’
It was soon the last match of the season, and as always, it was Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Slytherin was just below Gryffindor in the league and they had to win by at least one hundred points. Harry was slightly worried. He knew none of the Slytherin team gave a damn about the NEWTs and probably hadn’t been spending too much time revising. They had probably been practising every night.
All Harry had to do was find the snitch first.
Twenty minutes later, there was no sign of the snitch. The score was 100-90 to Gryffindor. Harry was getting worried. He could see Malfoy circling the pitch from high above, just like he was. When they past each other, he would smirk and zoom away. Harry hated him.
Another Gryffindor goal later and still, there was no sign of the snitch. Harry was getting more and more agitated. He flew around, screaming at Ginny, Lavender and Parvati to score more goals, yelling at Ron not to let any more and telling Seamus and Dean to knock every member of the Slytherin team off their brooms. He felt guilty for shouting but he really wanted to win this.
He scanned the pitch once again but saw nothing. He glanced at Draco, who, evidently, could see nothing either. They began circling the pitch again.
Another hour later and Harry could see lots of uninterested girls leaving the stands. It was getting rather boring. No one had scored a goal in about fifteen minutes and the score was pretty tight, 170-150 to Gryffindor. Harry thought of something and shot into a vertical dive. He could feel Draco hot on his heels, even though he couldn’t see the snitch.
Harry could hear the commentator (Luna) talking about it. ‘Oh look! Harry’s seen something. It's probably the snitch, but you never know. Could bee a piece of bubblegum, you never know. There are lots of interesting things around this castle. One time I saw a - ’
‘LUNA!’
‘Sorry, Professor. Back to the game…’
He sped right to the bottom of the pitch and about five feet before the ground; he pulled out of the dive. Malfoy was caught unawares and wasn’t able to pull out of his dive. He crashed to the ground.
‘Seems he didn’t see anything after all. Oh well, that Draco Malfoy character looks hurt. Pity…’
Harry grinned as he sped to the top of the pitch again. He met Ginny on the way.
‘That was dirty Harry!’ she laughed.
Ten minutes later, when some more people were leaving, Harry spotted Ron dancing around at his end of the pitch. He was waving his arms in Harry’s direction.
Harry sped over to him, and when he got closer, he realised why he was dancing. The golden snitch was fluttering around his left ear. Ron was trying to edge away from it, but it seemed to like him. It kept following him.
Harry reached out and tried to grab it, but it moved around to Ron's other ear. Then when Harry tried to catch it again, it moved back.
Harry could hear Luna in the background.
‘What's that Harry's doing? It seems he’s trying to punch Ronald Weasley in the face. He’s missing though, every time. Oh no, wait! It's the snitch!’
‘Thanks Luna.’ Harry mumbled. Now Malfoy would be over. He could hear Malfoy zooming towards him and he reached out one last time and caught it. He held it up in the air and turned around to see Malfoy fuming, but still coming towards them. He moved out of the way, pulling a celebrating Ron with him.
Malfoy crashed into one of the goalposts, which sent all the Gryffindors into massive cheers, which were magnified by the fact that they had won.
The Gryffindor team did a lap of honour with most of the crowd cheering at them. A lot of the spectators had returned and there was a massive amount of people doing a weird war dance. Harry could see Hermione leading it.
‘God, she’s changed.’ he whispered.
When the team hit the ground they were attacked by a crowd of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff supporters. When Seamus finally got up for air, he shouted, ‘PARTY IN THE COMMON ROOM!’
All the Gryffindors ran off to get the party started and all the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuffs left, sulking because they couldn’t go to the party. The team headed off for the showers, all with massive grins on their faces. Hermione followed them into the showers and attacked Ron with the biggest hug he had ever got.
‘Oh my God, Ron! You made us win! You found the snitch! Ohh! I am so proud of you! Well done! Harry, tell him it's his fault we won!’
Harry grinned. ‘Yeah, mate. You saved the day.’
The tips of Ron's ears went pink and he smiled a little. ‘Hermione, I need to go and wash.’
‘Oh, of course. I’ll stay out here and wait for you. And hurry up, everyone. We don’t want to miss the party!’
*
Twenty minutes later, the Gryffindor team and Hermione made their way to the Gryffindor common room for the party. When they went in, someone had produced a large banner with the faces of all the players splashed across it. There was an immense amount of food laid out on every table in the room and someone was sitting in the corner, trying to develop a few pictures taken at the match.
Harry and Ron disappeared to the kitchens to get some butterbeers. The house elves stuffed crates of it into their arms and Dobby gave Ron some extra cake.
The party went on for a few hours, but Hermione decided that, at nine o’clock that evening everyone had to stop the party because the fifth and seventh years needed to revise.
‘But Hermione…’
‘NO!’
‘Please?’
‘NO!’
‘Pretty please, pretty, pretty please? With a cherry on top?’
‘NO! Harry, Ron, Ginny, get out! I'll be back in fifteen minutes and if this isn’t all cleared up, I'm blaming you two!’ she pointed at Seamus and Dean, who pulled identical ‘why me?’ faces.
Hermione directed her three friends back to their tower and made them sit down to revise before leaving to go and check on the Gryffindors.
Ginny was huffing. ‘Not even one little party, no.’
‘I can't believe she didn’t let us stay?’ Ron scoffed.
‘We ARE part of the team! And I'm captain!’
‘And I caught the snitch!’
‘And I scored most of the goals.’
‘I say we rebel!’ Ron said, standing up.
‘Yeah!’ Harry agreed. ‘When Hermione comes in, we’ll tell her we’re going back and starting a new party!’
‘Yeah! Bring it on, Hermione!’ Ginny said, defiantly.
All three were standing up, with determined looks on their faces, but Hermione came in looking particularly angry and scary.
‘Why are you three standing up?’
Ron looked at his best friend and sister with an apologetic look. ‘I was…er…stretching!’ and he raised his arms up, stretched and sat down again.
‘Yeah, me too.’ Harry said, copying Ron's movements.
‘I was er…going to the toilet.’ Ginny said, rushing up the stairs.
‘Don’t be long,’ Hermione snapped. ‘You need to revise!’