Chapter Six: The Goings On of Quidditch
As it grew closer to the end of October, the weather procured increasingly colder temperatures. Frost lay on the grounds in the mornings and trees turned bright red. On one particular morning, Harish was up early staring out a window. He hadn't been able to sleep as Halloween was that day and their first match was a couple days after that. So, he went to an alcove that he had discovered. It was a window that's sill was wide enough to sit in, and it was hidden behind a tapestry. The only problem was that, with the Map there was hardly anywhere in the castle that the twins didn't know where was. The first time Harish had hidden in this alcove, the twins had jumped him when he left. It was for this reason that Harish had the Cloak stuffed up his shirt.
Harish sat in the window seat overlooking the grounds. It was quite chilly that day. Frost streaked the ground and the sun, which was just rising, hidden behind clouds that were streaked red. Leaves fell slowly to the ground in wide arcs and off in the distance, the Whomping Willow shivered from its frosty bark. Smoke rose slowly from Hagrid's cabin chimney and Fang could be seen asleep in the batch of pumpkins, which were each now the size of a house. The young man sat watching this scene silently for a little while, until he finally decided that it would be late enough for breakfast to have started.
So, he silently pulled his Invisibility Cloak out and draped it around himself, even tucking it under his feet. Then, he listened intently and sure enough, he heard quiet murmurs of Fred and George, and a small clink of metal. Ah, so they were hiding behind the suit of armour. Suspicions confirmed, the boy hit the tapestry in a manner that made it flow outwards as if being pushed by a strong breeze. Before it came back to hang limply once more, Harish slipped out silently, making sure that the cloak didn't come up to show his feet. Then he went to stand behind the twins, who were in fact peering from behind a suit of armour, investigating what made the tapestry move. Finally agreeing that it was the wind, the two boys relaxed. That was when Harish decided to strike.
"Yah!" he shouted loudly, jumping forward and jabbing both of their backs. The twins, in turn, jumped rather high and let out identical, high pitched screams. The two clutched each other for a second, their heads swivelled towards where Harish was standing, still invisible.
Finally, after they recovered from their shock, they both reached forward together and groped in the air a second before finding the cloak and pulling it off of their friend.
"Touché," the two of the said together and Harish grinned.
"Ready for another Halloween?"
"Duh!" Fred said while George replied, "Of course!"
"Well, then what are you waiting for? Let's go eat breakfast!" and he turned on his heels and bolted down to the Great Hall.
The twins followed closely behind him and they went in, sat down, and dug into their food. This year, they had decided to lull everyone into a sense of false security by not pulling any pranks all day long. Then, at dinner they were going to pull the biggest prank yet. Their plan that was involved was so fool proof, there was no way it could go wrong.
The trio waited impatiently for the day to end, going over their plans in their heads. In each class, students looked at them weird because they hadn't pulled any pranks yet. Finally, others stopped caring and came to the conclusion that there weren't going to be any pranks that year. When they realized this, each individual let out a sigh of relief. The twins were the best pranksters Hogwarts had seen in years. Some teachers even foolishly hoped that this lack of pranks would continue. Then, all of them realized how stupid they had been when the feast rolled around.
That night a thousand live bats fluttered and swooped all around the Great Hall causing the candles in the large pumpkins to flutter. Along each table were smaller pumpkins, each of them had a different face carved into it. The feast appeared suddenly on golden plates as it did at start of term feasts. After everyone arrived, Harish forked some potato into his mouth and nodded at the twins, who flicked their wands discreetly underneath the table. Instantly corn chips appeared on the food platters and guacamole spewed out of the smaller pumpkins' mouths onto the table in front of them with a weird belching sound.
Harish looked at the corn chips for a minute, feigning confusion, before reaching forward and grabbing some to dip in the guacamole. Then he shoved it in his mouth and smiled to indicate that it tasted good. Following his lead, the twins dug into the new appetizer, and then the rest of the Slytherin house. Soon, everyone was eating again and the trio launched the next part of their plan.
All of the lights in the Hall went out and a dark evil chuckle reverberated loudly off of the walls. Then, the pumpkins each let out a scream, their candles flickering back on and the ones above spewed more guacamole: this time onto all of the students below. Harish grinned; he didn't care about getting messy so much if it was a part of a prank that had involved everyone else getting messy, including the Headmaster. He glanced up at the High Table where each teacher was wiping green goop off of their faces. First, he looked at Snape, who was scowling profusely. Then he looked to Professor Dobbins, who cleaned himself off with a flick of his wand and laughed the whole thing away. Harish then looked from the dotty old man to their Deputy Headmistress, Professor McGonagall, who's lips were pressed firmly into a thin white line. Finally, he glanced at Dumbledore. When he did so he automatically scooted closer to Fred as he noticed that the headmaster was staring at him with no emotion at all.
Harish then turned and whispered to the twins, who both leaned in to hear, "Look up at Dumbledore."
"Is he…" Fred whispered before George finished for him.
"Staring at you?"
"It's like he can read our minds," the twins said together before one said, "Weird." And the other whispered, "Blimey."
Instantly Harish gasped and shrieked maybe a bit too loudly, "But that's illegal!" causing several students at their table to turn and stare at them.
"What's illegal?" Fred asked, no longer whispering.
George jabbed them both in the sides and Fred looked around to see that there were people staring at him now.
"What's illegal?" he repeated, much quieter.
"Dumbledore—Legilimency—students…he can't do that!" Harish whispered back urgently.
"You're not making any—"
"Sense. What's Legilimency?"
"It's a technique that a witch or wizard can use to essentially read other people's minds," he replied. "A technique that Dumbledore is using to read students' minds, which is illegal."
Both twins' mouths formed a perfect 'o' as they realized what this meant.
"He could lose his job!" they both exclaimed.
"I highly doubt that," Harish replied coolly. "He's much influential. The best way anyone could get him fired is to do something first that would cause him to lose his reputation. Otherwise no one would believe us and say that he's much too good to do something like that."
"That's—"
"Horrible!"
"But true. Think about it. What would your mother do if you came home and told her that the headmaster was reading your mind?"
"She wouldn't—"
"Believe us I guess."
"Exactly."
Gasp—NO-BUT-HE'S-THE-LEADER-OF-THE-LIGHT!
Harish woke up slowly, listening to the soft snores of the other boys in the room. At first he had no idea what woke him, but then he felt another shake to his shoulders. He groggily opened his eyes to see Fred and George bending over him.
"Wake up mate!" Fred said giving him one more shake.
"We've got a game today!" George exclaimed ecstatically.
"I'm up!" Harish snapped, slapping Fred's hands off of his shoulders to prevent being shaken again. He sat up and quickly got his clothes on.
When the three of them walked into the Great Hall, booing began to sound from the Gryffindor table. Harish hesitated, but then walked forward confidently when Flint beckoned them over. Because of the game, the usual seating arrangement got mixed up and instead of second years, the Slytherin team were in the middle, a seat saved dead centre for Harish.
"Ignore them," Flint told the nervous trio of second years.
Fred and George nodded. Now some people, like Adrian, were so nervous they couldn't eat a thing, but the extra pressure simply seemed to make the twins more hungry than usual. Harish watched as the two of them scarfed their food down so fast that you could hardly see their forks. After a minute, Harish ate a bit of food and then, when everyone was done eating, they all headed down to the locker room. There they all changed into their green and silver Quidditch robes.
"All right everyone," Flint said a couple of minutes before it was time to go out. "This is our time to show everyone that Slytherin is superior. It's our first game, so really, our most important. Just try your best to win, okay?" Everyone nodded. "Okay, it's time to go."
As they walked onto the pitch, booing sounded from everyone one in the stands. Harish quickly tuned them out; no use letting nerves get the best of him. They all gathered around Madam Hooch, who was refereeing and stood in the middle of the field.
"Now I want a fair game, from all of you," she said. Harish snorted as she glanced towards Flint. There wouldn't even be any need for foul play this year. Their team was apparently better than it had been in years and the Slytherin team had been winning for several years in a row.
"Mount your brooms please."
Harish smoothly leapt onto his broom, the rest of the team doing the same. Madam Hooch blew her whistle and fifteen brooms rose up into the air.
"And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Terrence Higgs, Slytherin Chaser—" a boy from Gryffindor, Lee Jordan was commentating. "—and is taken by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor—quite a good player and rather attractive too—"
"JORDAN!" shouted Professor McGonagall.
"Sorry Professor—and Angelina takes a hit from one of the Weasley twins. Can't tell which one it is…I wonder what their mother thought when after generations, the Weasley twins were sorted into a rivalling house."
"Jordan! The game please!"
"—and the Quaffle is caught by Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint. And-and—he scores! Ten points to Slytherin!"
The stadium groaned and Harish punched his fist into the air. Then, he stopped watching the game and began searching for the snitch, still making sure to keep out of the way. That was part of Flint's plan. Keep from being attacked before he spotted the snitch since they weren't allowed to curse other players (which Harish thought was stupid. What would he do if he was about to get rammed?). Once he caught a glimmer of gold, but it turned out to be one of the twins' battered watches.
He watched for the flutter of silver wings, listening with half an ear as Slytherin scored goal after goal. Bletchley managed some rather spectacular saves and the twins were quite a force to be reckoned with.
"Gryffindor in possession—no Katie Bell gets hit by yet another bludger, turns out Flint didn't hire them just for size after all—"
"JORDAN!"
"Sorry Professor. And Angelina catches the Quaffle she aims for a goal and—the Quaffle is blocked by Slytherin Keeper, Bletchley!"
"Slytherin in possession—Bole with the Quaffle—passes Spinnet—passes Bell—hit hard in the face by a bludger, hope it broke his nose. Only joking Professor—Slytherins score—oh no…" The Slytherins were cheering and the Gryffindors let out a loud groan. "Wait is that the snitch?"
Harish jerked around and saw the snitch fluttering by a goal post. Unfortunately, the other Seeker, Charlie Weasley saw it as well. The two of them started speeding towards it from opposite directions, but Charlie was gaining speed on Harish. Suddenly, a bludger whizzed past Charlie's ear and he froze, looking at his brother who had nearly hit him. Harish took this advantage and shot past the older boy. As he began getting close to it, the snitch suddenly started flying down and Harish went after it. He was maybe five feet from the ground when he levelled his broom to keep from crashing and the audience let out a collective gasp. Harish leaned forward as far as he dared and grabbed the snitch.
Suddenly it sounded as if the stadium had exploded. Slytherins were screaming and shouting with delight and Gryffindors groaned and booed loudly. Lee Jordan began shouting into the microphone, "Slytherin Seeker Harish Blake catches the snitch and Slytherin wins with two hundred fifty points to forty!"
Harish flew to the ground, hopping off his broom. There he was ambushed by the rest of his team. "Great job, Harish," someone called while another clapped him on the back.
Then, he turned to Fred. "Great job with that bludger!" he said and Fred grinned widely.
"Come on!" Marcus Belby called as the rest of their year flooded onto the pitch. "Party in the common room!"
All three boys grinned in unison and shouted, "We'll bring snacks!"
CELEBRATION—IT-TIME-TO-PARTAY!
Lord Voldemort sat in his study working on how to break into the ministry. The manor was eerily silent with Harish gone. But, luckily, since Harish was gone the year before it didn't feel quite so new this year. Suddenly an owl swooped in and dropped a letter on his lap. It said:
Father,
I know it's only November, but I was wondering if the twins could spend the holidays at our place. We thought that since I stayed with them last year, maybe we should flip flop it this year. Don't worry about their parents, we've already asked them and they said that the twins could come over as long as you cleared it.
Also, recent development here at Hogwarts hasn't been very good. At the Halloween feast, I realized that Professor Dumbledore has been using Legilimency on his students. I was wondering if maybe you could start teaching me Occlumency this summer?
Anyway, I hope that you are doing well. Write me about any work you've been doing.
Love,
Harish
P.S. Slytherin won the first match 250 points to forty. Fred nearly whacked his brother (the other Seeker)'s head off!
The Dark Lord leaned back in his high back chair and thought for a moment. While he was reluctant to have little boys running his manor over this Christmas, he saw no reason why he couldn't allow Harish to bring friends over. Then, he thought of how to phrase his reply to the second point Harish brought up in his letter. Voldemort seethed with anger at this thought. How dare that meddle-some old fool go frolicking through his son—his son's mind! He shook his head. If he didn't have to keep their identities secret for now, he totally would've gone up to the school right then and there and cursed the old headmaster into oblivion.
Sighing, he brought his quill up to a piece of parchment writing:
Harish,
I thank you for letting me know that the headmaster is committing a crime such as reading my son's thoughts. I will definitely teach you Occlumency this summer, and maybe then you can instruct your friends in it as well. We don't want the old man knowing who we really are.
Also, I am sure that Dobby and Rinkle would welcome a few guests as they only ever get to serve me now. I would not mind if your friends stayed with us this break. Also, if you must, you are allowed to invite Draco. I hope you're grateful. It's not every day I'll let our home become overrun by teenagers.
Congratulations on winning the match.
Anata Thomas Blake