Chapter 11
Note: The rest of Chapter 10 is up. Please finish reading Chapter 10 before reading Chapter 11, or Chapter 11 will hardly make sense. Thank you!
Professor Dumbledore entered the Owlrey followed by Professors McGonagall, Midrigge, and Snape.
"Oh my.." Professor McGongall whispered as Dumbledore pulled the arrow out, hanging out of the window. He magicked Hedwig into a bag. He took one look at the note an immediately pocketed it.
"Shall I make some tea?" Professor Snape asked.
"No thank you, Severus. Mister Longbottom, you and Nellie were the ones that found the owl, am I correct?"
"Y-Yes." Neville said.
"What time did you find it?"
"About.. 5:45 I suppose. We had just come up here from dinner and we were waiting for the stars to come out so we could study some Astronomy. And while we waited, we were going to study our Care of Magical Creature notes. I have the books to prove it."
"There is no need for that." Dumbledore said. "Continue."
"So, we came in here, and noticed several of the owls were fidgety. Then Nellie said, 'Does something smell?' and I said, 'Yes, the droppings on the floor'. And she goes, 'No, rather than that'. And I sniffled and smelled something else, and we walked over to the window, since we trailed the scent over to there, and I looked out, and.." Nellie, who was huddled in the straw with Hermione being comforted by Professor Midrigge, burst into sobs again.
"Thank you Mister Longbottom. Harry, will you please follow me to my office." Harry tore his eyes away from the bag and followed the headmaster out of the Owlrey.
"There, there, dears." Professor Midrigge said to Nellie and Hermione. "Everything is going to be all right."
"How do we know that?" Hermione wailed. "Who's going to be next?" Professor Midrigge looked towards Professor McGonagall.
"Please excuse me." The pleading excusive look on Ophielus' face told Minerva that she was going to try to pre read who would be next. Professor McGonagall nodded and Ophielus left. Professor McGonagall smoothed Nellie's hair, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. This was James and Lily's daughter. A survivor of the attack.
'Hermione is right'. She thought. 'How do we know if we will be safe?'. Neville took Hermione and Nellie back to the common room.
"Sit." Dumbledore ordered, pointing at his wand at the chair in front of his desk. Harry sat dumbfounded. Dumbledore slowly sat down, leaning on his cane for support.
"Now. I know you are upset about Hedwig. Very upset. But this is no doubt a terrible act of Lord Voldemort." Harry sniffled.
"And his message to us is to be taken very seriously. The Minister's execution is being planned by Voldemort and his Death Eaters." Harry looked up.
"Fudge? He's going to.. Die?"
"I'm not sure. The execution is not final. But if it does come to that, yes, he will die." Harry sniffed again.
"Now Harry, I want you to go back to Gryffindor Tower and rest. I will send word to you in the morning about what we can do about your owl." Harry choked down a sob.
"Until Hogsmeade is freed, if you want to send your godfather a letter, you will need to use a school owl, since you can't go to get a new owl." Harry pushed back his chair.
"Good evening, Harry." Professor Dumbledore said. Harry left the office, silent tears dripping down his face, falling to the floor like rain, as he headed back to Gryffindor Tower. As soon as he got back into his room, Seamus and Dean gave him their apologies. Ron merely said he was sorry. Harry nodded and climbed into his bed. The door opened. Harry heard Ron, Dean, and Seamus talking to someone. Three pairs of footsteps left the room and another one entered. Hermione pulled aside Harry's bed curtains.
"Harry. I'm SO sorry about what happened." She said. Harry sniffed and turned over on his side. Hermione crawled onto the bed next to him, curled up next to him. Harry did know how long they laid there crying, but he finally cried himself to sleep and woke up later in the night, and Hermione was gone.
The next morning, about everyone knew about Hedwig. Whispers spread around the Great Hall when Harry entered.
"WELL!" Malfoy said very loudly as Harry passed the table. "I'm glad MY owl wasn't murdered! This allows me to freely send letters." Crabbe and Goyle snickered.
"Stick a pitchfork in it, Draco." Nellie said to Draco, as she, Hermione, Neville, and Ron made their way towards the Gryffindor Table. Draco blanched and rubbed his right forearm in thought of his Master, planning even more murders..
Professor Midrigge tugged on her robes, knowing what she had to do. She opened up the door to her office and began to head out, but she was stopped halfway down the cold corridor.
"Ooooooooooo! My dear Ophielus!" cried Professor Trewlawny. "Didn't I tell you? I did, I did, I DID! I KNEW someone was going to die!"
"That's great, Sibyll. But---"
"I've decided to go on a vacation in celebration. Can you take over for my classes?"
"I--- Suppose so." Professor Trewlawny thrusted apiece of paper at her.
"Here is the schedule of all of my classes. Oh dear, I believe I will be late for my train so I better hurry and finish my packing." She rushed off. Professor Midrigge stared down at the piece of paper. What was she going to do? The first class started in 20 minutes! Ophielus sighed and headed up to the North Tower.
"Good morning class." Professor Midrigge said, climbing up the ladder into the classroom. "Professor Trewlawny is taking a vacation, thank you Mister Thomas, and I will be filling in for her." Everyone applauded Dean Thomas.
"Now, Professor Trewlawny didn't tell me what you were learning. Can someone be kind enough to fill me in?" Neville raised his hand.
"We were studying oracles and prophecies. Professor Trewlawny wanted us to find out our own. We were due to turn them in today."
"Well, I guess I'll collect them and look them over. She began to go up and down the aisles picking up the papers. She looked them over and smiled at the class.
"Dear me. It seems I have a lot to teach you. First off, if you don't mind Mister Weasley, I will demonstrate what you all did wrong with your paper." Ron stared blankly at Professor Midrigge.
"See class? Professor Trewlawny showed you how to come up with your own oracles by telling you to record everything that happened that week. Then, you just put it together in some rhyming poem. Mr. Weasley's oracle states that he will come upon something very unfortunate and beautiful, when he put down that he came upon something terrible and disturbing." Ron's mouth fell open.
"What everyone did wrong was mis-translate the oracles." She graded the papers and passed them back.
"Mister Potter, you left out quite a lot in your oracle." She smiled at him and he blushed. Pavarti and Lavender sulked in their seats.
"Now, I want you to correct your oracles during this hour. I will be walking around and checking them."
Ron grumbled while he, Harry, and Hermione worked on fixing their oracles.
"I don't know what she means." He whispered. His quill scratched across his paper, trying to re-write it.
"I left out a lot in mine. No wonder it was so short."
"Mine was almost correct. All I have to do is change some of the words." Hermione bragged. Ron scowled. The hour slowly passed. Professor Midrigge came to their table.
"Hmm." She picked up Ron's oracle.
On a crisp autumn night,
Your throat will be offered to the wolf with the red roses,
Your mouth, your teeth, your jaws, your hunger,
Will be offered the wolf with the red roses,
And you will love.
"Good job, Mister Weasley." Professor Midrigge said, returning his paper.
"I don't like the sound of it." He said.
"Well, some things in life you have to deal with." She left to another table.
"Sounds like you need to go to the dentist." Hermione said.
"Or something will be wrong with your esophagus." Harry added. The bell then rang.
"Next time, I want all of your oracles turned in at the beginning of class." Everyone left the class to go to Potions.
In Potions, Professor Snape had almost clean hair. He grinned at the class.
"I am pleased at how well everyone has been doing with my worksheets!" The class groaned. They didn't want another worksheet to do.
"So, I made COOKIES!" He then passed out the cookies. All the Slytherin's shoved their in their mouths, chewing noisily. Nellie was the only Gryffindor who ate hers, knowing that it wasn't poisoned.
"I don't think you should have ate that." Neville told Nellie.
"Do I look poisoned?" she asked.
"No, but."
"Now, who wants to play, 'Twister'?" Snape asked, bringing out a very battered Twister game box. The class stared at Professor Snape.
"No one wants to play Twister?" he frowned. "Well, I have Monopoly, Scrabble, Taboo, Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Dragon, and Spin the Bottle."
"Spin the bottle?" Harry whispered to Ron. Ron glared at him. Harry lowered his eyes to the potion stained desk.
"I vote for Spin the Bottle." Draco drawled out, smirking in Harry's direction.
"Let's take a vote." Professor Snape picked up chalk from the blackboard tray and prepared to take votes. "Who wants Spin the Bottle?" Draco elbowed Crabbe and Goyle, and the three of them raised their hands.
"Three votes. Who wants to play Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Dragon?" Seamus, Dean, Lavender, Pavarti and a couple of Slytherin's raised their hands.
"Majority rules." He brought out a box and taped up the dragon to the blackboard and moved his desk out of the way.
"This place is going to the dogs." Harry muttered.
At lunch, Harry was rubbing his behind. Malfoy had stabbed him with his tail, when it was his turn to play.
"That Malfoy. I'll get him." He angrily said.
"No. You will not. You have Quidditch practices to think about."
"You're right. Just hope my butt isn't killing me at practice later.
Three tiring weeks of class and Quidditch practices went by and it was finally time for the first Quidditch game of the season. Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff. The cheerleaders of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff occupied the front rows. Hermione, Ginny, Pavarti, and Lavender sat in their red pleated skirts trimmed with gold, with the red tops with big gold 'G's' on them. The Hufflepuff Cheerleaders had yellow pleated skirts lined with black, with black 'H's' on their tops. In the Gryffindor Locker room, Harry was going over last minute statistics with the team.
"All right. There are a bunch of pudgy players on the Hufflepuff team. That's good for us. Most of them are chasers so we'll be able to fly better and score more goals. What we need to be concerned most about is getting knocked off our brooms. Now let's go." They walked out onto the field amidst cheers of the Hogwarts students, awaiting a great game. The Hufflepuff team was walking on the field. Madam Hooch floated on her broom above them.
"You all know the rules of Quidditch. I want a fair game played." She glared at Ron. Ron liked to try to get the other team fouled. "Let's play Quidditch." The crowd roared as 14 brooms rose in the air.
"And what a BEAUTIFUL October day for our Quidditch teams! The winners should have much fun tomorrow at the Halloween feast. I can almost taste that pumpkin pie now."
"Thomas! What is happening in the game?! Gryffindor has already scored a goal!" Professor McGonagall yelled at Dean Thomas who was commentating.
"Sorry! A great score by chaser Natalie McDonald of Gryffindor. Oh! Hufflepuff Keeper, Ernie Macmillan, nearly blocked another score by Gryffindor Chaser Isaac Garret." The game was going good. Twenty to zero. Dennis dropped his Beater's stick and it hit Jeanne on the head. She dropped the Quaffle and Susan Bones grabbed it and made a score.
"Twenty ten!" Dean yelled. "A terrific block by Gryffindor Keeper Ron Weasley! Harper catches the falling Quaffle, and she scores!!!!! Thirty to ten!" Harry was being followed by the Hufflepuff seeker, Justin Finch- Fletchley. Chaser Hannah Abbott of Hufflepuff caught the Quaffle and was nearly knocked off her broom after Colin whizzed by to attack a Bludger heading towards Natalie. The Quaffle fell and Susan Bones caught it. She threw it to Eleanor Branstone and played 'Monkey in the middle' with Isaac. Isaac swerved left on his broom and crashed into Owen Cauldwell, one of the Beaters. Cauldwell's broom spun and knocked into Eleanor and Isaac grabbed the Quaffle and made a terrific score.
"Forty to ten!" Dean cried out in triumph. The Hufflepuffs groaned. Something whistled by Harry's ear. The vibrate of the Snitch's wings buzzed annoyingly at Harry. Justin, also the Captain of the team, was telling Ernie off for not blocking the goal posts. Harry sped towards the Snitch, fingers outstretching towards it. It swerved in and out of reach.
"Come on.." He whispered, leaning down on his broom to go faster. The Firebolt speeded up. Inching forward on his broom, Harry's fingers attached themselves around the Snitch.
"Gryffindor wins!!!!!" Dean yelled. "190 to ten! What a win!!!!!" Harry soared around the Quidditch stadium, the Snitch beating it's wing against his wingers, begging to be let loose.
On the ground, and the Quidditch balls put back, Harry went to the locker rooms to change.
"Harry!" Hermione cried, running up to him. "You were great! We're going to win the Quidditch Cup again this year!" She gave him a hug, the pom-poms swishing nosily through the air.
"Yeah. We.. Won." Ron stormed past Harry and into the locker room, hitting him in the back with his broom as he went.
"Oh dear.." Hermione said.
"Don't worry. I'll have a talk with him." Hermione ran off back to Gryffindor Tower.
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