About the only person still talking to him on a regular basis was Hermione, and they were actually getting along for a change.
The Quidditch team was practicing furiously now that they had to train a replacement seeker. The honor ended up falling to Ginny, much to her chagrin, since she had done such an admirable job at the position the previous year. When Ron talked to her about it, she'd been tempted to tell her brother to shove it and find himself someone else to do the job. Practice on Friday was incredibly tense, Ginny told Harry. While Ron was putting the balls away, they had apparently been talking in the changing rooms and were considering telling Ron exactly where he could shove his Captain's badge.
When Harry heard about this, he met with the team minus Ron, and without Ron's knowledge. He told them that he wanted them to play and to win, even if it was without him. They were reluctant but eventually relented to his wishes. Practices were still tense and the team less than friendly to Ron, but things calmed down considerably. It was a good thing that they had decided to train reserves as well, or else they would have been training a brand new chaser on top of everything else. As it was, the team was nowhere near as strong as it could've been with Harry at seeker and Ginny at chaser, but it was still pretty solid overall.
Harry was worried though. He really didn't want to lose against Slytherin. They were sure to fight dirty as well. He never worried much about himself up there. He knew he could handle anything Malfoy and his goons dished out. And they always focused on him since he was the seeker, so he didn't really have to worry much about anyone else. But now Ginny was going to be seeker, and Malfoy was sure to throw everything he had at her.
So that was why, after the Ravenclaws bested the Hufflepuffs 240-100 on Saturday, Harry was leading Ginny back out to the Quidditch pitch. Ginny was bubbling with curiosity since Harry refused to tell her what it was about. When they finally reached the pitch and he stopped her, she immediately burst out, "So what'd you bring me out here for?"
"I have a surprise for you," he replied mysteriously. "I would have done this last year as well, but circumstances as they were, I couldn't."
"Do what?" she asked excitedly. She was having trouble standing still and ended up rocking on the balls of her heels.
"You'll see in a second," he told her as he dug his trunk out of his pocket. He enlarged it and reached inside to extract one of his most prized possessions. "Here," he told her, handing it to her.
"What?" she asked breathlessly, spreading her hands out wide and shaking her head disbelievingly.
"I want you to use it," he told her as he grabbed one of her hands and forced it around the shaft of his Firebolt. "I want to see you fly circles around Slytherin next week."
"Harry, I couldn't," she insisted, trying to give the broomstick back to him.
Harry shrunk his trunk and quickly pocketed it. "You can, and you will. You've hardly had any practice at seeker, and I know Malfoy is going to pull out every dirty trick in the book to get to you. Nobody will be able to touch you on the Firebolt. You're a great flier, Ginny. It's a shame that you've been stuck out there on the broom you've got. Now go on, you need to get used to flying it."
Ginny was still shaking her head insistently. "But I can't. I can't take this. Sirius gave this to you. What if something happened to it? You'd never forgive me. I'd never forgive myself."
"Why don't you leave it to me to decide what I would or wouldn't forgive?" he asked her. "Sirius did give that to me. And I love it. But he wouldn't have wanted me to treat it as some sacred artifact to be kept under lock and key. He would want that broom out in the air helping Gryffindor trounce Slytherin. You know that's true. So if you won't fly it for me, then fly it for Sirius."
She finally stopped shaking her head and gazed deeply into his eyes as he spoke. When he brought up Sirius, her eyes began to sparkle with tears. As soon as he'd finished talking, she flung her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. "Oh Harry," she cried to him, the tears beginning to slide down her cheeks.
"Shh," he whispered into her ear as his arms slid around her back to return the gesture. "He always did like you. He told me how you two had talked over the summer and Christmas break. He said you reminded him a lot of my mum and dad back when they were at Hogwarts together. Said you had a Marauder's spirit in you." He rubbed his hand across her back in an effort to comfort her. "I think he'd be glad to see you flying that out there. I think he'd want to see you fly circles around Malfoy next week."
She choked out a sob as he told her all that Sirius had said about her. She was wondering when he ever had the time to tell Harry all of that about her and was astounded that they actually talked about her in what little time they did have together. She had always thought that Harry never really noticed her before this past summer. Of course, she was right to wonder about that, since this conversation didn't actually occur between Harry and his godfather until the summer after Sirius died. But she had no way of knowing that.
She held onto him tightly for another couple of minutes before she finally managed some semblance of control over herself. She rubbed her eyes on the arm of her robes to try to erase the evidence of her crying jag. This was the second time this term she'd broken down and cried on Harry's shoulder, and she was a bit embarrassed about it. She didn't normally cry so much. But she was also secretly impressed with him. He was two for two as far as she was concerned as far as comforting her in those times. She didn't know what Hermione was talking about when she said that Harry couldn't deal with a crying girl.
....
Join my exclusive website for 60+ thrilling chapters!
Link: [email protected]/MidnightWonder
If you join now you will get 2+ Chapters for free as well.
Don't miss out, join now!