“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the first Quidditch match of the season!”
The stands erupted as students began cheering and shouting. The Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin was about to begin. Harry paced in the locker room as he waited for the announcement to come on to the field. Waiting with him were Ron, Seamus, Dean, Ginny, Veronica Robertson and Derrick Fathermere. Ginny had given up her vendetta against Harry for the moment and concentrated on the match. Harry looked over his team. “All right. This is it. I can’t give any words of wisdom, no inspirational speech, but I can tell you that Slytherin has never relied on skill. As long as we remember what we’ve learned, they don’t stand a chance.” The team nodded and murmured in agreement.
After a brief announcement of the teams involved, the announcer called for the Gryffindors to come onto the field. Harry took the lead and walked to the center of the pitch. A large portion of the stands cheered wildly for them as the commentator announced their names. Afterwards, the Slytherin team walked onto the pitch, but to a mildly less volume of cheers. Harry took notice of the Slytherin team makeup. He was right in that they didn’t value skill too much. Each person was large and bulky, except Malfoy. He recognized Crabbe and Goyle as the Beaters, but couldn’t place the others. He guessed that the Slytherins must have also brought new people onto the team.
The commentator, who Harry finally realized it to be Colin Creevy, read the names of the Slytherin team, “And now we have the Slytherins: Goyle, Crabbe, Maragon, Taylor, Henderson, Emerson, and Malfoy.”
Madam Hooch walked out in between the two teams. “Captains, shake hands.” Harry stepped forward to meet Malfoy. They clasped hands harshly, and Harry could feel him trying to break his hand. He pushed back with his own strength. The two finally broke apart and walked back to their teams. “Mount your brooms,” Madam Hooch said. Fourteen brooms soared into the air, as the stands cheered.
The bludgers were set free, the Snitch was let loose, and the Quaffle was thrown into the air. The match had begun. Ginny grabbed the Quaffle and took off towards the Slytherin goal posts. She soared in between the opposing chasers, all of which were too slow to catch her. She slipped past Emerson and put the Quaffle through a goal. 10-0 Gryffindor.
Slytherin was now in possession as Harry saw Maragon take the quaffle. He was a muscular boy of at least fifteen. He powered through the Gryffindor chasers and soared for the other end of the field. Seamus sent a bludger his way but he managed to dodge it. He powered his way past Ron and scored, tying the match.
Harry now saw the Slytherin team’s strategy. Maragon, Henderson and Taylor started swinging their arms at any Gryffindor that got near them. Ginny and Veronica were almost knocked off their brooms. Derrick tried to fight back, but he was a bit smaller then the other team’s chasers. It seemed that Malfoy had figured that he could bully his team’s way through this match, just like he thought he could bully his way through everything else. Gryffindor was granted three penalty shots and Slytherin one. Ginny took the first shot and scored with ease. Veronica tried a faint shot towards the right most goal post, but that didn’t fool Emerson. He made a quick turn to his left, only to realize too late that it wasn’t a faint. Veronica made the goal. When Derrick’s turn came, Harry saw his right arm twitch and the Quaffle sail wide. The Slytherins in the stands cheered wildly.
Harry flew up beside him. “Derrick, are you all right?”
Derrick moved his arm a bit. “That oaf Maragon hit it when I tried to push him away. It messed up my arm a bit.”
“Do we need to bring in a reserve?”
Derrick shook his head. “No, I’ll be fine. Give me a few minutes and I should be all right. I’ll just let the girls handle the scoring for a while.”
Henderson took the shot for Slytherin. He aimed for the center post, a rookie maneuver that Ron could block easily. The score was now 30-10 in favor of Gryffindor. Harry started looking around frantically for the Golden Snitch. His team had been practicing under the assumption that the Slytherins had been focusing on strategy, so they had been using counter-strategy. If the Slytherins had opted for brute strength, it was going to make things difficult. The Gryffindor chasers were not able to use their quick skills to pass the Quaffle around without one the opposing team’s players moving directly in their path.
Nonetheless, the practice they had put in did pay off. Seamus and Dean did a great job using the bludgers to counter the strength of the Slytherin team. Derrick, even though his arm was a bit hurt, was able to pass the Quaffle to Ginny or Veronica, both of which widened their lead to 70-10. Malfoy started acting like a captain when he directed his team forward. However, by forward he meant for his chasers to run right over the Gryffindors. Crabbe and Goyle used their clubs for the most primal purpose and, under the pretense of swinging for a bludger, hit a part of a Gryffindor chaser. Seamus took a shot on his back, and Veronica almost fell off her broom when she ducked a bludger.
The match was fierce, but no one had made a blatant foul yet. Ron had his hands full as three large Slytherin chasers fell upon him. The score was soon 70-40. Slytherin obviously knew what they were doing. Harry saw each one of them had come dangerously close to committing a foul, but they never crossed the line. Ginny and Veronica did what they could to keep the score in their favor.
Derrick’s arm got better as the match went on and he helped the girls in scoring another four goals. Slytherin’s chasers continued to use their strength against their opponents, but were not able to get the Quaffle past Ron. Malfoy was starting to get annoyed. He flew in close to Crabbe, whispered something in his ear and flew off. Harry watched him closely, which was hard as he kept an eye out for the Snitch. Crabbe didn’t seem to be doing anything out of the ordinary.
The match seemed to get worse as the minutes went by. Harry saw the Snitch out of the corner of his eye and raced towards the ground. This was the moment Crabbe had been waiting for. The stands went wild as they saw Harry dive. Malfoy himself raced in the same direction. All eyes seemed to be fixed on the two of them…all eyes except two.
Crabbe started towards a bludger and made it look like he was going to hit it at Harry. Instead though, his club was too low and his speed too great.
It hit Ginny directly in her abdomen.
A large part of the stands roared in protest at the blatant attack that had just happened. Ginny doubled over on her broomstick. Her hands grasped her midsection and her face contorted in pain. Her vision started to blur, which caused her slip off her broom. The crowd gasped as they watched her plummet to the grass below.
Acting quickly, Harry turned his broom handle around and soared underneath where she was falling. Keeping a firm grip on the handle with one hand, he reached out the other and caught her across her chest. He recoiled his arm quickly, bringing her close to himself. The stands started cheering. Harry had thought Malfoy had gotten the Snitch, but when he looked back, he saw Malfoy falling as well. He was much closer to the ground, and the impact did nothing more then knock the wind form him.
Harry saw a bludger whip past close to him. Dean Thomas was shouting something down at him. Dean had knocked a bludger at Malfoy to keep him from getting the Snitch. Harry lowered his broom to the grass below to check on Ginny. She was still doubled over and not moving much. His feet hit the ground and he gently set Ginny down. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry noticed a bright shine. On instinct, he reached out his right hand and closed his fingers around the Golden Snitch. The crowd went wild as Colin Creevy announced, “After a daring save of his fellow teammate, Harry Potter catches the Golden Snitch and wins the match for Gryffindor!” The stands started chanting “Gryffindor! Gryffindor!”
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Ginny had been taken to the hospital wing immediately after the match was over. Madam Pomfrey had found three broken ribs, though she was able to mend them easily. She only asked that Ginny stay in the hospital wing for a few hours. The Gryffindor team, along with a few well wishers, stayed by her side for the whole of the time. Ron was absolutely furious at Crabbe and Malfoy for pulling something like that. Professor McGonagall and Madam Hooch had each given them both detentions for a week and threatened to boot them off the Slytherin Quidditch team if anything like this happened again.
Seamus and Dean were plotting some revenge already, but Harry told them to forget about it. The last thing he needed was to lose two perfectly good Beaters. Besides, it seemed that Kevin had already taken steps to put the fear of Gryffindor into both of them. An hour after the match was over, Harry heard from Colin that both Crabbe and Malfoy were seen being chased down the corridor by Lita and Chris. Sara quickly called off the canines, but only after they had chased the two students onto a large statue of a previous headmaster.
Around dinner, Ginny was let out of the hospital wing. The team walked with her back up to Gryffindor tower. Once in the common room, Hermione helped her up to her room to change out of her Quidditch robes. Once inside, Hermione set Ginny on her bed and kneeled down in front of her. “Are you all right, Ginny?”
Ginny shook her head. “I was scared. This was just supposed to be a game. I’ve seen that it can get rough, but I never thought that anyone, even a Slytherin, would stoop so low as to outright attack me.”
Hermione took her hand. “Well, the important thing is that Harry was there to catch you.”
“Yeah, Harry,” Ginny said, silently. “After the way I’ve been treating him, and the things I said to him…”
“He’s still your friend.”
Ginny changed into her school robes and walked with Hermione down to the Great Hall. Ron and Harry were already at the Gryffindor table. As the girls walked to where they were sitting, students gave Ginny words of encouragement and affectionate pats on her shoulders. She took a seat across from Harry and Hermione across from Ron.
Whatever feelings of malice she had been holding against Harry up until that moment seemed to be pushed to the back of her mind as he looked at her with concern in his eyes.