Despite Luna’s assurances, Taylor wasn’t ready to forget anything. Like a hammer to glass, she spoke her mind.
“You can tell us, we won’t tell anyone.”
“There ain’t nothin’ ter tell,” Hagrid said, going toward the window and peaking outside.
“Are you sure? It would help if we can find the horror and prevent another attack.”
“Look at the time,” Hagrid said, abruptly. “Yer gotta return ter the castle afore it gets late.”
Taylor didn’t have a chance to complain about that.
“Take ta book with yer, yer can give it back once yer ‘ave finished readin’ it.”
Then they were shown out with the door closing behind them with a soft bang.
Taylor looked around. Without the giant pumpkins, the hut looked more like a normal giant’s house instead of a fantasy fairyland retreat.
“To the castle?” Taylor asked.
Luna shook her head. “I’d like to visit the lake.”
That was as good as any other destination. Holding the book in one hand, and grabbing Luna with the other, Taylor led the way. She found a nice patch of grass closer to the lake’s waters. The weather was still cloudy and cold, but Luna didn’t seem to mind it at all. She settled near the water, sometimes dipping her fingers into it.
“I don’t think Hagrid has anything to do with the chamber,” Luna said after a while.
Taylor, who had been reading from the book, looked up.
“He didn’t look guilty, he looked sad.”
Taylor placed the book on her lap, thinking about the whole situation. “But he knows something.”
“He does, and that makes him sad.”
Taylor’s questions bothered Hagrid more than she expected. In the following days, he kept finding excuses — not even good excuses — to every owl she sent asking to visit again. He’d be warding off his chicken against predators, or bathing Fang, or pruning weeds. One time, he even said he had a stomachache.
She’d be very annoyed if her bugs hadn’t clued in that she had stepped onto some real mines. Something had spooked Hagrid something fierce. He behaved like there was someone out to get him, he constantly checked his windows and surroundings. He had even arranged a crossbow from somewhere and stashed it near the door. More often than not, he’d disappear into the forbidden forests for hours on end, doing what she had no idea.
But Taylor couldn’t dedicate too much time to solve that new mystery. There was ever more school work to do, and magic to practice. She managed, that same week, to cast her first successful shield charm. She still had a lot of trouble forming the spell correctly, but it was good progress.
Her normal classes also had her learning new spells.
Flitwick had started teaching them two opposing charms: Lock and Unlock. The goal for this was to have students help each other in turns. One would learn the locking charm, while the other unlock, then they’d practice together.
Unfortunately, the pairs were assigned by Flitwick and Taylor ended up paired with Nneka instead of Luna. Taylor had nothing against Nneka, she just found the girl strange.
“I won’t lose this time,” Nneka said, then focused solely on her wandwork.
Taylor didn’t know what the other girl expected to not lose, so she just shrugged and got on with her own practice. But having worked with spells harder than unlocking, she found it almost too simple to grasp. As it was her custom, she visualised the whole thing in her head, from the chanting to the wand waving and only after she had a good visualisation she tried it for real.
“Colloportus,” she whispered.
The lock clicked with a satisfying clank.
Nneka’s head snapped up, eyes wide. “How?”
“Marvelous wand work, Miss Hebert! Ten points to Ravenclaw!” Flitwick praised from his book stack.
Taylor didn’t hide the wide smile Flitwick’s praise got her. The house points were a nice bonus too. She didn’t understand Nneka’s confusion; the spell wasn’t that hard to grasp.
Almost two weeks had passed since the attack, and Taylor still had no clue about the heir, the chamber, or what was up with Hagrid. He’d become even more guarded after something had killed one of his roosters. He found it strangled and with a broken neck near its pen. That happened while Taylor was asleep, so she had no clue what killed it either.
“There’s a Quidditch match this weekend,” Luna said Thursday afternoon.
Taylor didn’t need Luna’s reminder about the match, most students were talking about it. The enthusiasm was such that most forgot the attack and the chamber: Gryffindor versus Slytherin rivalry was the new story in everyone’s mouth. Taylor hadn’t seen anything regarding the sport yet, aside from a few students who were obsessed with it. Harry seemed to be a good player, and this year, Malfoy had joined the green team.
The rivalry was almost to the point of bullying. She caught Flint discussing sabotage a few times, but it never went anywhere. Slytherin was confident they would win: they had faster brooms, courtesy of Malfoy senior.
For a brief spell, Taylor wanted to stay in the castle and practice magic. It was an excellent opportunity to work on advanced charms. The whole student population would be outside, but Luna’s expectant eyes killed that idea.
“Gryffindor?” Taylor asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes,” Luna nodded.
When Saturday morning arrived, Taylor was left speechless.
Luna had acquired from somewhere a lion’s mane hat. A roaring lion’s mane hat. A hat that roared every time someone shouted Gryffindor near it.
“To support Gryffindor,” she had said like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Taylor was conflicted about the whole thing. On one hand, it looked silly. On the other hand, it looked very fun. But even if she wanted, she didn’t have a lion’s mane hat, so it was a moot point. She followed the students toward the Quidditch pitch. Outside the castle, it was a muggy sort of day with a hint of thunder in the air. At least, it wasn’t raining.
Students climbed the stands towards their seats, following their housemates, while down in the pitch, Madam Hooch prepared for the match.
Then the teams walked in and it was… amazing!
The crowd roared in greeting of the players; mainly cheers, because Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff wanted to see Slytherin beaten, but the Slytherins in the crowd made their boos and hisses heard too. Madam Hooch, the Quidditch teacher, asked both team captains to shake hands, which they did, giving each other threatening stares. Even from a distance, Taylor could feel the animosity.
“On my whistle,” said Madam Hooch, her voice echoing from the field, “three … two … one …”
With yet another roar from the crowd and Luna’s hat, which Taylor joined too, the players sped upward, toward the leaden sky. Harry flew higher than any of the others, head of a swivel, like a hawk in search of prey.
There was a lot of taunting and name calling down in the pitch, and as much mean-spirited the taunting was, it was part of the sport, and not something she wanted to deal with.
The game was fast and frantic, with players flying in daring loops and mid-air acrobatics. She watched fascinated as the big ball (a Quaffle, Luna whispered closer to her ear), got tossed from student to student, while others flew about with bats, deflecting smaller balls that looked like flying menaces.
One of those smaller balls (a Bludger, Luna informed her again), flew so close to Harry that Taylor even felt the wind of its passage for the bespectacled hero.
It all left Taylor feeling electrified. She hadn’t taken to flying at all, she still found it difficult even after two months of practice, but this was something she could enjoy.
Even knowing nothing about Quidditch, Taylor knew Gryffindor was in trouble. Slytherin was flying rounds around them; their brooms were a lot faster than the ones used by the students in red.
“Close one, Harry!” yelled one of the twins, flying past Harry and whacking the black ball toward a Slytherin flier, but the Bludger changed direction in mid-air and shot straight for Harry again.
Harry dropped quickly to avoid it, and the Weasley managed to hit it hard towards Malfoy.
Once again, the Bludger swerved like a boomerang and shot at Harry’s head, who put on a burst of speed and zoomed towards the other end of the pitch.
The other Weasley twin was waiting for the Bludger at the other end. Harry ducked, and the red-head blasted the Bludger away.
“That’s done it!” Taylor heard him yelling over the crowd’s cheering. But he was wrong; the Bludger curved mid-air again, and pelted after Harry again, who was forced to flee at full speed.
“Is that normal?” Taylor asked Luna, without taking her eyes from the chase.
“No,” Luna whispered back.
To make things worse, it started to rain.
The rest of the game hadn’t stopped because Gryffindor’s seeker had a stalker-Bludger problem. While the twins flew closer to Harry, trying to bat the Bludger away, Slytherin abused their superior speed and lack of opposition to score six times in a row.
The narrating student called out each score, and his enthusiasm had diminished with each scored point by Slytherin.
“Slytherin lead, sixty points to zero.”
A signal passed between the twins and the team captain, who then waved Madam Hooch. She whistled a timeout.
Gryffindor students huddled together, while Slytherins in the skies and crowd jeered.
There weren’t many bugs out and about with this heavy rain, but she managed to sneak a few to pick up the conversation happening down there. It was, of course, another mystery. Someone had cursed the Bludger to target Harry Potter and him only. Was this the heir? Another avenue of attack? Were they trying a different tactic?
Taylor scanned the surroundings, looking for anything out of place, but the rain and the crowd made it difficult. She sent what few bugs she could muster in this heavy rain, trying to find anything out of place, but there was nothing.
The only abnormal thing was one of the castle house elves watching the game too, mostly hidden away from prying eyes.
“What are they saying?” Luna leaned closer, the hat’s mane tickling Taylor’s ear.
Taylor leaned toward Luna, eyes never leaving the group down in the pitch.
“Wood, the team captain, is asking what the twins are doing and why they aren’t defending the rest of the players. Fred or George, I dunno which, is saying they are trying to keep Harry alive and that the Bludger won’t leave him alone.”
Luna nodded, huddling closer. The proximity in the cold weather was nice.
“Harry wants the twins to leave him to deal with the cursed Bludger, but another player wants them to stop the game and ask for an inquiry.”
The crowd was starting to get restless. The game hadn’t stopped for more than a few minutes yet, but people were impatient.
Madam Hooch approached, and that seemed to push a decision forward.
“They’re going to keep playing,” Taylor said with bathed breath. She didn’t know if Harry was being courageous or courageously foolish.
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“Very dangerous,” Taylor said, not repeating the protests from the Gryffindor’s players, “but Harry doesn’t want to lose to Slytherin.”
Then she had no more time to talk. The rain was falling more heavily now. On Madam Hooch’s whistle, Harry kicked hard into the air. It didn’t take long for the stalker-Bludger be on his trail again. Higher and higher he climbed. He looped and swooped, spiralled, zig-zagged and rolled.
Taylor forgot all about looking for the heir. Watching Harry loop and dive was too much fun to think about anything else.
The crowd laughed at his flying; but the rogue Bludger didn’t seem to care about it one bit, it kept fixated on Harry, and it wasn’t as fast as the seeker when doing abrupt turns and twists. Harry began a kind of roller-coaster ride around the edges of the stadium.
After Harry was forced to do a stupid kind of twirl in mid-air to dodge the Bludger, Malfoy yelled something that Taylor couldn’t hear. She had too few bugs in place. Off Harry fled, the Bludger trailing a few feet behind him. Then Harry stopped, looking surprised.
It was the opportunity the Bludger needed. It hit his arm, and even with the heavy rain and gasp from the crowd, Taylor heard the snapping of bones.
For an agonising moment, Harry hung in mid-air. Then, like a man possessed, he dived toward a sneering Malfoy.
Taylor, like most of the crowd, thought Harry had just snapped and wanted some revenge.
Malfoy careened out of Harry’s way. Harry took his remaining hand off his broom and made a wild snatch; Taylor could see a golden glint between his fingers, but now he wasn’t holding the broom with anything but his legs. He headed straight for the ground in what looked like an uncontrolled fall, and the crowd yelled.
With a thud, he hit the mud and rolled off his broom. His arm was hanging at a very strange angle. He raised his one good arm, showing the still caught golden ball.
He said something, then fainted.
The crowd went nuts. The cheering and yelling reverberated in Taylor’s bones. She wasn’t far behind the others, screaming her head out at the end of the game. She had no idea if it had been a good one or not, but it had been a lot exciting, if dangerous. Best of all, Slytherin lost even with their ‘daddy’s super expensive brooms’.
Playing Quidditch wasn’t she something wanted to do anytime soon, but it was very fun to watch!
“That was brilliant!” she said, hugging Luna.
Down in the pitch, people were starting to crowd Harry, Colin Creevey was snapping picture after picture like he’d just found the holy grail, and from amidst the crowd, Lockhart sauntered toward the injured seeker.
Somehow, Taylor knew that wasn’t going to end well.