Chapter 9
Harry and Ron agreed to the Occlumency lessons and Hermione and Draco were pretty busy between classes, taking Legilimency lessons and giving Occlumency lessons.
Harry was doing pretty well and Ron wasn’t too bad either. With a little bit of luck, Harry would learn enough in time for his next meeting with Dumbledore. Their great advantage was that Dumbledore would not want Harry to know that he was invading his mind and since he didn’t know that they were having these lessons at all, he probably wouldn’t try too hard. If Harry only learned to discreetly provide him with harmless information to distract him from the other ones.
Two weeks into their lessons, however, instead of giving instructions, Hermione was sitting in the Room of Requirement, ranting to her father. “Why is everyone so set on being stupid?”
“Careful, you’re becoming too much like me.”
“Well, that’s far better than becoming like the morons surrounding me.” She ignored the amused look on his face. “Remember what happened last time Sirius left his cave to watch his godson play Quidditch?”
“Of course. Don’t tell me he did it again. Didn’t Draco say the next Quidditch match was going to be next week?”
“It is. So he came up with something even more moronic. Today, during classes, he broke into Hogwarts, by sheer dumb luck he found the password to Gryffindor Tower which Neville Longbottom wrote down because he couldn’t bloody remember it and then left it lying around. Sirius broke into Gryffindor Tower and tried to get to the rat. Of course, the rat escaped, so did Sirius somehow, and now everyone is on high alert, we have even more Dementors on the grounds, Harry will have an even harder time believing that Sirius did not kill his parents and does not want to kill him, and to top it all off, we no longer know where Pettigrew is.”
Also, she was slightly resentful that they hadn’t been the ones to find the written down password.
“That is … truly impressively stupid.”
“Yes! We were so bloody close to being able to tell Harry everything and I think he would have been reasonable enough to bring the rat to the Room of Requirement so Professor Snape could confirm that it was indeed Pettigrew. But no, that would have been far too easy. Sirius had to go and ruin it all and he could do it because Neville is incapable of remembering one single word. But according to some, that is by far not our worst problem.”
“It gets worse?”
“Oh yes,” she said in a perfectly serious voice. “Harry is constantly whining about possibly not getting his Firebolt back before the game next week, which is far more important than an escaped criminal trying to kill him, and Draco is constantly whining about the possibility of him getting it back it in time, which is also far more important than what his cousin has done. Do you think Lucius’ no hexes and no jinxes rule only goes for the holidays when we’re at home? I may just have to jinx them both.”
“I think Lucius would understand.”
“He may. Draco wrote to him repeatedly that he needs a Firebolt, but Lucius bought new brooms for the whole Slytherin team last year, so he understandably refuses to buy him yet another broom. Now Draco is sulking and doesn’t write to him at all. I envy him a little.”
Harry indeed got his broom back in time and the whining among the entire Slytherin Quidditch team increased tenfold. And although they weren’t on the team, Theo, Gregory, Vincent and Blaise all joined in the general doom and gloom out of sympathy.
Hermione, Daphne and Pansy spent as much time as possible in the girls’ dorms to get away from all of that. They were occasionally joined by Tracy, who had enough of the whole Quidditch drama, too. Only Millicent still avoided Hermione as best she could with them sharing a dorm, which was fine by her. She still much preferred Millicent’s cat to Millicent herself, although Daisy sometimes sniffed on Hermione’s bag and even hissed at it. She was obviously smelling Noodles, but other than the occasional comment from Daisy’s owner that Hermione’s bag had to smell abhorrent, that wasn’t really a problem. Daisy couldn’t open the bag and Noodles was told that the cat was off limits.
The evening before the game, Snape was in the common room and after a discussion with a chatty first year student, who had a lot of questions about literally everything, he turned to Hermione.
“What’s wrong with them?” He nodded towards the corner where the Quidditch team discussed their strategies with very little enthusiasm.
Hermione looked at him in faux shock. “You didn’t hear? Harry Potter got his Firebolt back and now we’re all doomed.”
“We are all doomed because Potter has a slightly faster broom than Draco?”
“Yes,” Pansy confirmed solemnly. “The world is coming to an end, the heavens will crash down on us and the butterbeer will run dry.”
“And if you ask Draco, it’s all Lucius’ fault, because he won’t buy him a Firebolt,” Hermione added.
Snape rolled his eyes. “You know what? Bring your bag outside to the hallway in five minutes. I’ll take a walk.” Now it had come to this – he preferred taking Noodles out to hunt to staying inside while it was raining. Looking at the her Quidditch-obsessed schoolmates, Hermione could relate.
Unsurprisingly, with all that positivity going on, Slytherin lost to Gryffindor 10:160.
When Hermione left the stands with Lucius and Narcissa, Draco came towards them. “That’s all because he has a better broom than me!”
Ah, so it was indeed Lucius’ fault now. Why wasn’t she surprised? The whole team had paid more attention to Potter than to the game itself.
Lucius didn’t look impressed by his son’s little outburst. “You lost because you were unfocused and Potter saw the Snitch sooner than you, although it was in your line of sight and closer to you than to him. If you had paid attention, you could have caught it easily before him. You have only yourself to blame.”
Draco huffed and stomped off while Narcissa turned to her husband with an amused smile. “Isn’t it wonderful to have a teenage son?”
~tbc~