Harry Potter and the Quidditch Tournament

Disclaimer- I don’t own this so don’t sue me.

Chapter 9-

Harry woke up the next morning to a loud thump as Neville, who was tangled in his bed sheets, fell out of bed.

“All right there Ne- Ne- Neville?” Harry asked trying to stifle a yawn. He grabbed his watch and muttered “Tempus” and 6:30 glowed in the air in front of him.

“I’m fine; I just got startled when Trevor decided to wake me up by jumping on my head,” came Neville’s muffled voice from the floor. Both boys grabbed their clothes out of their trunks. Harry headed of to take a shower while Neville got dressed.

“So how was your summer Neville?” Harry asked as he came back from the bathroom.

“Pretty good, Gran took me to see Mum and Dad a few times. They started a new treatment and it looks promising. I think my Mum understood me when I told her about what happened with the Death Eaters at the Department of Mysteries.” Neville replied. At the mention of the Department of Mysteries Harry’s expression darkened. Neville noticed this.

“Merlin I’m sorry Harry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories or anything. How did you know Sirius Black anyway? I know you said that he was a friend of yours. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Neville said gently.

“It’s ok Neville. Actually he was more than a friend, he was my godfather. He was my Dad’s best friend. If it weren’t for me going there he would probably still be alive.” Harry sadly replied.

“You know Harry my Gran always told me when I would get sad about my parents that they wouldn’t want you to be so sad. They would want you to live your life. I don’t think your parent and Sirius would want you to be sad either. You should think about that.” Neville stated as he went down to the common room.

Harry thought about what his parents and Sirius would think. ‘Dad and Sirius are probably thinking I should go prank Snape or something.’ Harry thought laughing. ‘I wonder what Mum would do? Everyone always tells me about how much like my dad I am and how he was in school. No one’s told me much about my mum.’

Harry headed down to the common room with his books o he could get some studying in before classes started. ‘Spending so much time with Hermione really has rubbed off on me.’

When he entered the common room he found Hermione and Neville sitting at a table discussing the different uses of mandrake extract. Harry walked up, kissed Hermione on the cheek and took the empty seat next to her. Hermione grinned at him and said “Good morning, Harry.”

“Neville, I thought about what you said and I just wanted to say thanks. It really helped a lot.” Harry told the other boy.

“You’re welcome Harry. Are you going to be continuing the D.A. this year? I know that now we have a decent teacher but you can never have too much practice.” Neville inquired.

“Of course we’re going to continue the D.A. Prof. Lupin is going to help us learn even more curses and such.” Hermione quickly replied. The trio sat in silence reading over their text-books for an hour until the common room started to fill with students preparing to go down to breakfast.

Once Ron arrived, still yawning and muttering about having to get up so early, they headed down to the Great Hall. Harry took a seat next to Hermione across from Dean and Seamus. Ron, still half asleep, managed to fill his plate with food and only dropped one spoonful. Prof. McGonagall came around and passed out all the new schedules. Harry looked and saw that luckily they didn’t have potions first thing on Monday morning. Unluckily their first class was a double period of defense against the dark arts with the Slytherins.

“Why do they always torture us by putting us with those slimy Slytherins first thing?” Seamus moaned. The Gryffindor sixth years all rose from the table and headed to defense to make sure they had good seats. They wanted to learn all they could since they didn’t know if they would have a good teacher again next year. Harry and Hermione took seats in the front row. Prof. Lupin came over to talk to them.

“So Harry, have you been practicing your patronus charm?” Remus asked.

“Yeah, and in D.A. about half of the member had either mastered it or at least managed silver vapors.” Harry stated proudly.

“Good that means that this lesson should go even better. Maybe I should get those members that can produce a full patronus to give a demonstration for the class. That would probably encourage the other students.” Remus replied.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea..” Harry started but was interrupted when the Slytherin 6th years started filing into the class. There weren’t many there. Only Malfoy, Pansy, Blaise, and Millicseemseemed to have passed their Defense O.W.L. with a high enough score to be able to take the class. That wasn’t surprising when Harry thought about it. There was no way that Crabbe or Goyle had enough brain cells to rub togetho pao pass the test.

The Slytherins all took seats in the very back row (with a few rows in between them and the Gryffindors), as far away from Prof. Lupin as they could. Harry though it was funny that they were so afraid of Remus just because he was a werewolf. The only time that lycanthropy could be contracted was on the fill moon when Remus was in werewolf form, and with the Wolfsbane potion that he was taking Remus maintained his human mind during his transformation.

“You Slytherins can more closer I don’t bite.” Remus said chuckling at their horrified expressions. “Today we will be starting our lesson on dementors. We will be learning the charm to repel them. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t master this charm this class. It is an extremely difficult charm that many fully trained witches and wizards never master.

“We have a few students that managed to master the charm last year. I’ll have them demonstrate the charm and then show everyone how to perform it. Could I please have Harry and Hermione please come up to the front please.”

Harry was reluctantly pulled from his seat by Hermione and dragged to the front of the class. “Hermione you can go first and then Harry can go.” Remus instructed.

Hermione got a determined look on her face and spoke “Expecto Patronum” loud and clear. A silver otter burst from the end of her wand and began circling the students before fading into a silver wisp. “Excellent work, Hermione,” Remus stated once everyone was done clapping. “You’re up Harry. Good luck.”

Harry concentrated hard and thought of the first time he had kissed Hermione, how her lips had felt pressed up against his. He shouted “Expecto Patronum” and a huge silver stag burst forth from his wand. It was bigger than any Patronus he had every produced before. ‘Maybe the strenof tof the memory has something to do with the size and strength of the Patronus. Or maybe with all the work I’ve be doing on Occlumency it made it more powerful.’

“Very good, Harry. You two may return to your seats now. As you can see class everyone’s Patronus form is personal to them. Hermione you form was an otter was significance does that have for you?” Remus asked.

“When I was little my parent took me to the zoo and I loved seeing the otters they had there.” Hermione replied.

“What about you Harry?” Remus asked even though he knew the answer.

“My dad...uh...his animagus form was a stag.” Harry said sadly. Snickers rang out from the Slytherins in the class. “Oh is poor baby Potter going to cry from thinking about his parents?” Came a mocking baby voice from Pansy. It sounded so similar to Belatrix’s voice that it caused Harry to stiffen and grip his wand tightly. He turned and fixed the Slytherin girl with a cold glare that cause a panicked expression on the girl.

“That was uncalled for Miss Parkinson, 10 points Sly Slytherin.” Prof. Lupin stated angrily. “Now the way you perform this charm is by think of you most happy thought. Once you find this keep that thought in mind and you say the incantation which is ‘Expecto Patronum’. If the emotion behind the memory is strong enough than in theory you should be able to produce a Patronus. Now would anyone like to com up her and try it?” Prof. Lupin directed the last to the class.

Malfoy raised his hand and stated, “I’ll try professor, if Potter can do I can.” He fixed one of his famous sneers towards Harry.

“Alright Malfoy, you can come up here and try.” Prof. Lupin agreed. “Just remember, happy thoughts.”

Malfoy made his was up to the front of the room glaring at the Gryffindors that he passed. When he was in front of the class he drew his wand and got a look of deep concentration on his face. “Expecto Patronum” he shouted and a large mass of silver shot into the air in front of him.

“Good job for a first try Mr. Malfoy. Why don’t you try it one more time and see if you can get it to take on a form.” Prof. Lupin encouraged. “Try to think of a memory that’s even stronger than the last one you used.”

He concentrated for even longer this time and when he shouted the incantation a silver ferret burst from his wand tip. Malfoy turned bright red and glared murderously at the Gryffindors that were cing ing up laughing at his Patronus form. Even Blaise and Millicent were laughing. Pansy was trying to hide her smile behind her text book but finally gave up a burst into giggles. Malfoy took this as the last straw and stormed out of the class room with a furiously apologizing Pansy on his heals.

Once he got the class calmed down Prof. Lupin asked Blaise why everyone had laughed at Malfoy’s Patronus form.

“In forth year Draco was caught trying to curse some students in the hall by Prof. Moody. He was turned into a little white ferret and Prof. Moody bounced him up and down the hall until Prof. McGonagall made him stop. Everyone called him the Amazing Bouncing Ferret.” Blaise said through bouts of laughter. This made the class break into another round of giggles.

“Alright, I can see that we’re not going to get any more work done with you students in this shape so I’ll let you off early today. Don’t get too used to this, it won’t happen very often. Now get out of here.” Prof. Lupin told the class. Harry, Ron and Hermione headed out of class holding onto each other for support. The image of Draco the Amazing Bouncing Ferret going through their minds.

“I think I have a new happy memory.” Ron said as they headed to their next class. “See you guys later” he said as he headed off to Muggle Studies. Since Ron hadn’t received a high enough score on his O.W.L. to be eligible to take N.E.W.T. level Potions he had opted to take Muggle Studies instead.

Harry and Hermione headed down to the dungeons for their first Potions lesson of the year. They took seats towards the middle of the room and notice how small the class was. Since not many people were accepted into N.E.W.T level Potions all four of the houses were combined. Harry, Hermione, Seamus and Dean were the only Gryffindor. There were also two Ravenclaws, Padma Patil and Anthony Goldstein, no Hufflepuffs, and two Slytherins, Blaise Zabini and Malfoy. Harry had to suppress his laughter when he saw Draco sitting there. He was glaring at Harry as if daring him to laugh at him.

The door to the class room as Prof. Snape came into the room with his robes billowing behind him like a bat. ‘Some things will never change,’ Harry thought to himself. ‘He’s still acting like an overgrown bat.’

“Today we will be starting on a type of truth potion called the Veritas Potion. It is similar to the Veritaserum except the effectly lly last for a few questions. I will be assigning you partners for this project, so don’t get too comfortable where you are. Finnegan and Patil; Thomas and Goldstein; Granger and Malfoy; and finally Zabini and Potter. NOW MOVE!” Snape barked and waved his wand at the board where the instructions appeared. Harry gave Hermione a sympathetic look and squeezed her hand in reassurance.

Blaise came and took the seat that Hermione had previously occupied. He was a tall boy with black hair that just brushed the tops of his shoulders. Blaise merely nodded his head in greeting to Harry and set to coping down the instructions. The lesson passed by pretty peacefully for Harry with Blaise as his partner. Hermione on the other hand was having a difficult time resisting the urge to smack the sneer off of Malfoy’s face. He called her a mudblood at every chance he got. When they finally added the Jobberknoll feathers Prof. Snape came around and put a stasis charm on their caldrons.

“I want 12 inches on the differences between the Veritas Potion and Veritaserum, to be turned in next class. You are dismissed. Potter stay after, I have something to discuss with you.” Snape snapped at them and glared at Harry. Harry gathered his books at walked to the front of the class room. When he passed Hermione he told her to save him a seat in the Great Hall. Once everyone had left Snape muttered a few spells and the door slammed shut and locked. He heard him mutter a silencing spell.

“Have you been practicing your Occlumency this summer Potter?” Snape inquired.

“Yes sir, I’ve been clearing my mind every night before I go to bed. It helped to keep the nightmares and the visions away.” Harry answered.

“Good, you are to report here on Friday night at 8:00 so I can asses whether or not you need to continue Occlumency lessons. Don’t be late! You’re dismissed.” Snape said.

“Yes sir,” Harry muttered as he left the class room. He headed up to lunch. He took a seat between Hermione and Ron.

“So how was Muggle Studies, mate?” Harry asked once he had had something to eat.

“Pretty good, I can write home and tell Dad what a rubber duck is used for. I also have to write an essay on the refrigerator.” Ron replied, mouth full of food.

“Ron that’s disgusting. Chew with your mouth closed and don’t talk with your mouth full.” Ginny scolded her brother.

“Yes Mum,” Ron replied sarcastically. “I’ll see you all later. I’ve go to get all the way up to the Divination Tower. Mum wouldn’t let me drop it. I still can’t believe I got an E on my Divination O.W.L. Now I have two more years with that nutcase.” Ron grumbled.

Hermione and Harry got up and headed back to Gryffindor Tower since they had study periods for the afternoon. They said the password and curled up on one of the couches together. They had started reading their potions books to research for their essay when they fell asleep, with Hermione curled up against Harry’s chest.

A/N OK I ended it there because otherwise it would have gone on forever.