Pride Crushed, Dignity Rising

     The day of the Quidditch game was clear, cold, and windy.  I was the first in our dorm to awaken and I lay there in the purplish sunrise, mulling silently over the last few days and stroking Hedwig, my owl.  From a distance, Hedwig appears all-white, but up close, you can see that she has tiny gold specks.   The game was starting at two.  I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep again, so I read a while, then slowly got up just as I heard soft stirring down the room.  Neville had been snoring softly and his snores petered out, telling me that he was coming awake.  I had to pee, so I quickly got dressed and headed to the loo.
     At lunch, all of us in our group sat talking and eating.  I was mostly quiet and McGonagall passed by our table at one point.
     "Harry..." she said softly. "I just wanted you to know how sorry I am about...your album.  You've handled yourself well with Mr. Malfoy's bullying.  I let him know that we will be watching him closely today and from now on."
     "Thank you, Professor McGonagall," I whispered, touched by her caring.  My friends were also hearing this.
     "And it's twenty points awarded to Gryffindor for your courage and dignity," she told me with a smile before moving on to the teachers' table.
     "Wow, great!" Ron grinned.
     "Way to go, Harry," Hermione added.  I smiled his first real smile in days.
     "Thanks...all of you..." I told everyone.   "Hey, it's getting late, let's head on over and change."  The lunch crowd was thinning out, so we got up and headed upstairs to get ready.

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     Once we got out on our broomsticks and were centered in the Quidditch field, I saw Malfoy's eyes widen when he saw me, then his lip lifted in disgust.  I think he was hoping I'd be too crushed to show up on the field.    Look out, Malfoy, I am going to play and play my best, I thought, filled with a fresh determination.  Yes, you got the brief high of seeing me in tears and humiliated, but I'm not going to let you destroy my will and my life.  I was still a bit nervous facing him and a bit embarrassed about everyone seeing me cry, but I was able to look into Malfoy's cold gray eyes this time without wincing.  I heard snickering somewhere in the stands and was worried that I was the one being laughed at.  I looked around nervously a minute, then forced myself to concentrate on the game once I saw the source, Crabbe and Goyle.
     "Looks like you didn't knock Potter down!" I heard Goyle jeer.  Malfoy glared over at them and opened his obnoxious mouth to I guess tell him off, but Madame Hooch tossed the Quaffle into the air, starting the game.  We all plunged into it except Malfoy for a minute, who was yelling something at Goyle.
     "MALFOY, pay attention to the game!" roared Slytherin's Captain, Berle Pauce.   I was concentrating on beating the bludgers away from players while Ginny peered around for the snitch.  So did Malfoy eventually.  Ron and Cheria played their end.  Cheria managed to score one.  Then Slytherin scored and Ron groaned, rolling his eyes.    I must have batted away a dozen bludgers including one from Ron.  I could also see Hagrid, there bouncing around and whooping it up along with the rest of the crowd.  An hour later, Slytherin was twenty points ahead and Ginny and Malfoy had gone head-to-head for the snitch.  Malfoy naturally tried to knock Ginny off her broom, but she clamped on.   We really needed this win; last year, Gryffindor lost two games in a row at the end of the season.  A niiingk sound told me that someone had scored and I looked up and groaned softly when I saw that it had been Slytherin.  Now they were thirty points ahead.  A bludger headed toward me and I barely batted it off, wobbling on my broom a minute.  Then I saw another bludger headed toward Ginny and Malfoy.  I swooped down and saw that it was on the way to knocking Ginny's shoulder, which could break her concentration, since the snitch was fluttering right in front of her.  Malfoy was edging up as well and I guess heard the swish of my broom because he looked up and gave me such an evil glare that I had to suppress a shudder and just raise my bat, standing up to take aim.  Maybe it was a mistake to stand because Malfoy pulled his broom upward so it was headed right towards me and before I realized what was happening, he'd rammed into me and I was falling toward one of the towers by the stands.  As I lost my balance and fell, I felt my bat contact the bludger.  It was just a ten-foot fall, thank the stars of Merlin, but I felt a sharp pain in my mouth as my face hit the broom, then a hard jolt as I hit the ground below the stands.  I vaguely heard people gasp and someone yelped.  The next few minutes was blurred, but I could tell the game was over.  I sat up, feeling a bit dizzy and flopped back down, feeling warm blood drip out of my mouth.  I couldn't see anything but a blur and I fumbled around until I found my glasses.  Oh, dear, I thought seeing that they were bent.
     "Gryffindor wiiiiins!" I heard Madame Hooch bellow and I heard cheers rise up and smiled weakly, even though it hurt.  So Ginny caught the snitch after all.
     "Harry, are you all right?" I heard Ron call as a crowd gathered around.
     "Trying to be..." I wiped more blood off my mouth and hoped I hadn't knocked out any teeth.  So far it didn't feel like any had been.  My arse was sore also and Madame Hooch rushed over and slowly got me up.
     "Nothing seems to be broken..." she told me.  "Mr. Weasley, get some ice for Mr. Potter's lip.  Swell play, Mr. Potter." she smiled at me.
     "Is he all right..." I heard voices from the stands murmur.  "Oh, God..."  "His mouth was bleeding..."
     "Mr. Potter just has a cut lip; he will be fine," Madame Hooch called up to the stands as she kept an arm around me.
     "Great shot, Harry!"  "Swell!"  "Bloody brilliant!" My teammates took turns congratulating me and Ginny, who held onto the snitch.  "Found his broom..." Cheria handed me my broom and I nodded thanks to her.  Ron brought the ice and I put it on my lip.  The bleeding had slowed by then and we slowly trekked back into the field where there was more cheered.
     "Way to go, Gin!" someone hollered.  Ginny and I smiled at each other, silently congratulating each other.

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     I was a mess, being spattered with mud and a bloody lip, so I went over to the hospital wing to get cleaned up.   Madame Pomfrey fixed my glasses and gave me a potion to ease the pain on my lip.  As I headed back for dinner, other students called their congratulations...even a couple of Slytherins.    Later on, us Gryffindors had an informal little party to celebrate our victory.
     "Knew we'd blow them out of the water," Ron grinned in satisfaction as he sipped his butterbeer.
     "Malfoy was blasted big-time by Pauce," Mintra McGonagall put in.  Mintra is Professor McGonagall's great-niece and is a first-year.   "Ginny caught the snitch just as Harry landed on the ground."
     "I noticed Malfoy suddenly veered upward and I wondered why until I caught the snitch and saw Harry on the ground," Ginny put in.
     "Malfoy was smirking at Harry falling until he saw that you caught the snitch, Gin," Mintra added.  "You wiped that smirk off his face fast."
     "I think he also got into a fight with his yes-men," Will Beavers, a third-year, put in.
     "Oh, wow, what happened?" Ron's freckled face lit up.
     "Crabbe said something about how he had to admire the little dork, meaning Harry, saying that it showed a lot of grit to show his face on the field after being so badly embarrassed on Thursday." Will grinned.
     "I heard that too," Beverly Kinney, a fourth-year, added.  "Malfoy got mad and started yelling at Crabbe about his loyalties being mixed up and all and called him a stupid idiot.  A bunch of us saw it.  It was after you'd gone to Madame Pomfrey, Harry, and most of us were still out by the field."
    "Oh, and Harry..." Beverly leaned back, peering at me. "I think...some of the other students, the ones that were jealous and said those nasty things about you the last couple of years...they feel kind of bad about saying them and see you with more respect now.  I don't think they'll be gossiping about you anymore."
     "That's good..." I smiled in relief.  It was true...in my fifth and most of my sixth year, some Hufflepuff and a few Ravenclaw students said some awful things behind my back...like that I buttered up teachers and used the fact that my parents were well known around here to gain favors, all of which was untrue.  Of course Malfoy fanned that gossip with his imput.   My friends say it was because they were jealous, but it didn't make it any easier to bear.  Sitting with my dormmates, I felt better than I had in a long time.  Maybe now Malfoy would back off, knowing that I got back up again after he'd knocked me down.  I smiled ruefully, remembering that he'd knocked me off my broom today, but I'm back up again.  I guess that is the best way to deal with enemies and people who try to tear you down.  And even if Malfoy kept up his stupidity, I knew now I could survive it and go on with my life.   I'd still ache for the photo album, but I had other mementos of my parents.  Best of all, I had their love and courage deep in my heart which could never be taken away or destroyed.