There were a few noticeable changes to their days as the weeks passed. For one thing, Hermione was now a constant presence in their lives. She sat with them during class, ate meals with them and helped them with most of their homework, too. But the far biggest change was the weather. They had moved from the easy weather of fall and into the biting cold of winter. The mountains surrounding Hogwarts were quickly covered with snow and the giant lake started to freeze over. They woke every day to grounds covered in frost, and Hagrid could be seen defrosting the brooms on the Quidditch pitch.
And Quidditch season had finally began. Harry was practicing three times a week and was going to play his first game on Saturday, Gryffindor against Slytherin. If they won, it would give Gryffindor enough points to move up to second place in the race for the house championship.
But no one had yet seen Harry play. Wood had decided that as their secret weapon, it would only be fitting for him to actually stay a secret. But somehow, the news had leaked out that he was going to play Seeker and people kept on stopping the three of them in the hallway to wish them good luck. Or, like Malfoy, to tell him that they’d be waiting on the ground with a mattress to catch him when he fell. Ron found himself being pulled back by the neck of his robes by Harry and Hermione when trying to make true on a promise to break
someone’s nose.
Hermione was proving to be good for more than holding him back, though. With the mounting pressure and extra Quidditch practice, Harry never would have been to finish his homework on time without her help. She also lent him Quidditch Through the Ages, which she had taken out from the library again for him to read.
Harry, for his part, quickly became enamored with it. He brought it to every class and meal, reading out bits of it for them, the way that Hermione had before they’d had their first flying lesson. “Did you know,” he asked them at one breakfast, “that there are seven hundred ways to commit a foul, and all of them happened at the World Cup match in 1473?”
“Really?” Ron said, hoping that Harry would get through the book already and stop telling him things he’d known since he was eight.
But Harry didn’t seem to be letting it go any time soon. During one particularly boring History of Magic lesson“as if it were even possible for one to be more boring than the next“Harry asked Ron if it was really true that referees disappeared during games, showing up months later in the Sahara Desert. Ron nodded his head, meaning to reassure Harry that only the Professors knew enough magic to do that when Harry continued, voice shaking a little, if it was also true that most injuries happened to the Seekers. There was nothing Ron could do but not his head slowly as Harry turned white, turning back to face the front of the classroom with a blank expression on his face.
There was though, another change to Hermione besides for their friendship. Between himself and Harry, they had both managed to instill within her a slightly smaller regard for the rules since Halloween. The day before Harry’s first match, the three of them were outside in the freezing cold during a break and Hermione had conjured up a small fire for them to carry around in a jar. They were all standing around it, trying to get warm, when Snape started coming across the courtyard. They moved closer together, trying to block the fire from his view, unsure if it was allowed or not. But something about the way they were standing must have made them look guilty because he hobbled over to them. “What’s that you’ve got there, Potter,” he snapped.
Helplessly, Harry showed him Quidditch Through the Ages.
“Library books are not to be taken outside of the school,” Snape said with a nasty sneer. “Give it to me. Five points from Gryffindor.”
“He’s just made that up,” Harry muttered sullenly under his breath as Snape limped away. “Wonder what’s wrong with his foot.”
“Dunno, but I hope it’s really hurting him,” Ron said bitterly, moving closer to the fire.
The Gryffindor Common Room was noisier than ever that night in anticipation of the next day’s game. Ron, Harry and Hermione were sitting next to the window where Hermione was going over their Charms homework for them. She would never let them copy straight off her own parchment, but by asking her to check it, they usually got the right answers in the end anyway.
But Harry kept on jumping up from his seat to pace the room. He wouldn’t sit still and, after about his tenth round through the room, he said quite seriously, “I’m going to get the book back from Snape.”
“Better you than me,” Ron and Hermione said together, sharing a smile. Neither expected him to actually leave. But a moment later he did, leaving a very stunned Ron and Hermione to stare at the back of the portrait as it swung closed behind him.
“He’s mental,” Ron said finally.
“No he’s not,” Hermione said, a preaching tone to her voice, as though she thought she were explaining something to a three year old. “How would you feel if you were getting up tomorrow to play the most important part in a Quidditch game, in front of hundreds of people? Everyone is expecting him to do brilliantly tomorrow. Besides, he needs something to keep his mind off the match.”
“So he’s going to get back a book about Quidditch?” Ron asked, rolling his eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be smart?”
She tsked, ignoring his question as she picked up his roll of parchment. “Ron,” she scolded, “you’ve got the first question wrong. I think.”
“You think?” Ron asked. “It’s either right or wrong. What was the question?”
“What’s the most common spell used for levitation?” she read off the paper.
“Wingardium Leviosa,” Ron said with a smirk. “Why? What did I write?”
“Well, that’s the problem. I don’t know. I can’t read
what you wrote.” She shoved the parchment under his nose, pointing. “And if I can’t read it, there isn’t a chance that Professor Flitwick will be able to, either.”
A/N: So I've come to the realization that I will never finish posting this if I wait till I have entire chapters posted. It's just too much to sit down and do and too much to wait for. (The 6,309 word Chapter Three comes to mind.) So. From this point forward, once I've got a thousand words or so written up, I'll put it through Q and then add to that as I type it up. Sure, it means you've got to keep on coming back to the same chapter more than once and I'm sorry for the bother, but you'll never get it otherwise.
And besides, I'd hate to disappoint my twelve faithful reviewers, wouldn't I? *grin*