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***
- Are we sure we don't have any replacements? - Potter asked.
- We do. Be thankful they gave the teams at least an extra time out," Cedric replied, not really distracted from explaining Susan Bones' new tactics.
The conversation was taking place on the Quidditch pitch. It was already the fourth hour and the fourth timeout of Slytherin's game with Hufflepuff. The snake faculty team was winning by a difference of one hundred and seventy points. Previously the gap had been three hundred points - the Nimbus 2001 were too strong - but Cedric Diggory was in no hurry to catch the snitch, his tactic was to take the Slytherins by force. So for two hundred minutes Harry had been flying around the pitch and hitting bludgers with his bat. The easiest - and most pleasant - target was Malfoy, but Diggory had said at the first timeout that he could handle the opposing Seeker himself, and he should turn his attention to the enemy's corrals or hunters. After that remark, Potter shifted his attention to Flint, and the Hufflepuff finally started scoring more than the Slytherin.
Cedric was waiting for a hundred and forty point gap to snatch the snatch and snatch victory, but the Hufflepuff players themselves were starting to get tired and peckish. The worst of all was the one who had to stay up until two in the morning, Justin, who had fallen asleep on his broomstick during the game. He was woken up by a bludger hitting him in the nose. Finch-Fletchley never went to sleep again, and when Harry flew past him he heard Justin's outrage, which he expressed in colourful epithets and metaphors. As a result of the game, Finch-Fletchley had roughly the same opinion of Cedric's tactics, the Quidditch game itself, bludgers, Flint, and for some reason, Malfoy's parents.
The fans had long since left the stadium, so apart from the players, only Madam Trick and some recently arrived late supporters were watching the game. Potter had spent the last hour wishing that this match would finally be over, after which he would go straight to bed. And then, finally, the denouement came. The Hufflepuffs were able to close the gap to one hundred and forty points, Cedric flew up the pitch in search of the snatch, and Harry switched the focus of his bludgers from Flint to Malfoy again, so that he, God forbid, wouldn't grab the snatch. The Slytherins, seeing that they could be beaten, got their second wind and sped up. Two minutes later they scored a goal, the lead was one hundred and fifty points, but Cedric Diggory didn't let that stop him, he did a loop in the air and grabbed the snitch.
- The snitch was caught by Cedric Diggory. It's a draw! - exclaimed Madam Trick.
The Hufflepuff team landed on the pitch: everyone was tired and barely standing, and Herbert Fleet had laid down on the grass:
- At last this game is over! - he exclaimed.
- Did we really draw? - A disgruntled Finch-Fletchley landed the very last.
Harry nodded. There was no more strength to talk.
- I'm the one who flew four hours for one point? - Justin's indignation was nearing its climax.Herbert Fleet tried to calm him down, but lying on the grass, he wasn't very good at it.
- What kind of idiot comes up with the rules for this game. We've wasted a lot of time only to get a draw with the Slytherins! - Finch-Fletchley raised his voice, drawing Madam Trick's attention.
- Justin, shut up, it's sickening enough without you,' Cedric said.
- Shut up? I'll shut up now, I'm fucking up this game! - Justin shouted.
- Minus twenty points to Hufflepuff," Madame Trick said loudly.
- Wouldn't you go...
Harry and the others on the Quidditch pitch didn't hear Justin's remarks as Cedric used a non-verbal spell to mute Finch-Fletchley.
- Calm down! Everything is fine and under control, we didn't lose and that's what matters," Cedric stepped up close to Justin. Diggory wasn't angry, he was trying to get the information to Finch-Fletchley. - Listen to me, Ravenclaw beat Gryffindor yesterday, which means that Slytherin and I have four points, Ravenclaw has three, and Gryffindor has zero. In the next match we play the Gryffindors, the ones who lost to both Ravenclaw and Slytherin. They have the slowest broomsticks, and there's no incentive to fight, since they theoretically can't take first place, and if we beat them, we're guaranteed to take the cup. Even if Slytherin can beat Ravenclaw, we're still ahead of them due to the huge difference in the first match against Ravenclaw. So stop whining and losing our faculty points. If we play our game in the last match, the cup will be ours.
Finch Fletchley grinded angrily at him.
* * *
By the end of March, the students were convinced that something had happened to the monster and the Slytherin heir after all, as there were no further incidents. There were a total of three pieces to the students' viewpoints.
The first, most popular point of view: the monster was killed by Lockhart.
This was the opinion of about half of the students, which mostly included fans of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and a small number of those who simply saw no other options but Lockhart's intervention. And indeed, the monster attacked three people in two months, and then suddenly stops its atrocities for no good reason, and just after Gilderoy claims to have gotten rid of the monster. There was logic in this point of view.
Second: the monster was killed by a rooster. (What is the difference with the first opinion?)
Those who leaned towards this point of view included those who completely disbelieved Lockhart and thought his minions were idiots, but these people also realised that something did happen to the monster. Harry was leaning towards this particular option. The Basilisk doesn't show its face to anyone, only to kill, it came out of the Chamber of Secrets. So it wasn't surprising that sometime, for example, right after the holidays, the Basilisk plotted to kill someone, started to come out of the Chamber of Secrets, and then... Suddenly a rooster cried out, and... The Basilisk was gone... When Potter thought about it, he believed it less and less, but Harry didn't see any other plausible reasons why the monster had stopped attacking.
And there was a third possibility. Half of the Slytherin faculty was leaning towards it.
The monster had lurked on purpose so that everyone would think it was dead, and then the basilisk would strike suddenly when no one was expecting it. Also, maybe the Slytherin heir realised that a pureblood student of his own faculty had died because of his actions, and because of that he decided to temporarily lay low.
However, as time passed, people with a third point of view slowly came to the conclusion that the monster was dead after all, with such an ambitious "Chamber of Secrets reopened" inscription and several attacks in a short period of time, the suggestion that the monster or the heir had come to their senses or gone into hiding seemed unbelievable. The students' thoughts turned smoothly to the first or second option.
A marvellous event had occurred in connection with the monster's disappearance - not for the Slytherins. Albus Dumbledore was reinstated as Headmaster and returned to Hogwarts! Most of the students reacted joyously to this news. This joy was overshadowed by the fact that Dumbledore returned without Hagrid, as the latter had not been released by the Ministry. The giant's trial was scheduled for the summer, and until he was acquitted, he was forbidden to attend Hogwarts.
Immediately after the Headmaster's return, the school was visited by an angry Lucius Malfoy. Having discussed something with the Headmaster, he left almost immediately, apparently not having achieved what he wanted. The first thing Dumbledore did after his reinstatement was to approach Potter:
- Harry, tell me, did you hear anyone else speaking in the snake tongue?
Potter looked around, there was no one else in the corridor but them.
- Harry: No Headmaster, nothing else suspicious was going on. I was watching closely and couldn't help but notice. I think something's happened to the Basilisk, it couldn't have gone into hiding, could it? Do you think it was killed by Lo... Professor Lockhart? Or did the roosters scare him away? - Potter shared his thoughts.Hearing that answer, the Headmaster visibly relaxed.
- I'm not sure that the basilisk is dead, and I advise you not to let your guard down. But if someone chased it away, it was probably the roosters rather than Professor Lockharts. If you hear anything, Harry, come straight to me. It's very important!
* * *
The school year was coming to an end. The Chamber of Secrets monster had not appeared, and almost all the students thought the trouble was over. But Harry still occasionally put his ears to the walls and listened for hissing voices or other suspicious sounds. But inside the walls there was silence.
Slowly life returned to normal, with no particularly significant events taking place, except that Zachariah Smith had somehow managed to steal the Distributing Hat and convince it that he belonged in Slytherin instead of Hufflepuff. As a result, Hufflepuff lost forty points, and for the first time in Hogwarts history, there was a transfer of a student from one faculty to another. It seemed incredibly unfair to Potter, why because the, now, Slytherin student had broken the rules, it wasn't the snake faculty that lost points, but Hufflepuff for some reason. But this was a question Harry didn't dare address to Dumbledore.
By the end of the year, the Badger Faculty had begun to lose a lot of points, and its lead over Ravenclaw was only thirty points. Justin had contributed greatly to this, he had managed to pick a fight with half the faculty at the same time and lose one hundred and fifty points in just five minutes. At the defence against the dark arts, he couldn't stand Lockhart's blatant lies and attacked the teacher. Harry didn't know how the battle between teacher and student had taken place, as he hadn't attended DADA in over a month, and all the stories were different. Finch-Fletchley, on the other hand, had been as silent as a fish after his conversation with Dumbledore and refused to share any details. The only thing Potter knew was that it was Justin who had won the battle, and that he had tried to sic a pixie on the professor afterwards.
Now Finch-Fletchley had to work five days a week, and the fate of the school cup depended on who won the Quidditch cup: if Hufflepuff won the championship, the school cup would be theirs, and it hadn't happened in over fifty years; if Ravenclaw won the championship, the school cup would go to them. That is, just like last year. But if Slytherin won the championship, then the fate of the cup would depend on the scores of the individual students.
Interest in the final two Quidditch Championship finals, and in particular in the Hufflepuff team, has increased by leaps and bounds. Cedric was the Seeker and captain of the team, Herbert Fleet had been fantastic in the goal against Slytherin, Potter and Finch-Fletchley had won the battle of the pens in all of the past championship matches, but the hunters had been struggling from too much attention. The hunters' line-up changed three times in one week, and eight days before the final match there was another hunters-only elimination trial. In the end, there was one change to the squad - Susan Bones' place on the main team was taken by a large, snub-nosed seventh year Eddie Jones.
In early May, most of Hogwarts gathered at the stadium to watch the Ravenclaw and Slytherin teams play. Harry, like all the other Puffenduys, was rooting for Slytherin, but Ravenclaw won. Even though they had a huge advantage in speed, the Slytherins were losing in one-on-one battles and completely gave up control to the Eagle Faculty team, whose members acted as one. In the fortieth minute, Zhou grabbed the snitch and Ravenclaw won with a difference of two hundred and fifty points. After the match, Potter had to admit that Ravenclaw played much better than Hufflepuff, and if the bludger hadn't been enchanted in their face-to-face match, the Badger Faculty would be fighting for second place, but now everything depended on them... If they won Gryffindor, they would win the championship and the cup. If they lost, they'd lose both.
The day before the match, he went to bed very nervous, and because of that he had a terrible dream that he was in Mrs Norris's body and couldn't eat a volcano....
- Harry, wake up," Justin's voice came through the dream. - We have practice at six o'clock, have you forgotten? Oh, are you even sleeping with gloves on?
- Piss off," Potter mumbled incredibly inarticulately through his sleep. - To hell with the training, I haven't been able to sleep half the night. You need to go, you go...
- Hey! It's the last practice before the final match! Cedric told me not to... Oh, I don't care, I'm going to bed.
Finch-Fletchley's voice was finally silent, and Harry went back to sleep.
* * *
Potter woke up to a ray of sunlight hitting his face. He looked around - there was no one in the bedroom but him and Justin. Finch-Fletchley was sleeping peacefully on his bed; he probably hadn't gone to practice, and judging by the fact that the clock read '13:00', Harry wasn't going to make it to practice or breakfast. He didn't bother waking Justin and went straight to lunch, hoping that the Hufflepuff Quidditch team wouldn't be in the Great Hall. He was lucky, the Great Hall was half empty: of the teachers he knew, there were Professors Snape and Flitwick, and only a dozen students from each department.
Harry put himself a few large potatoes from the communal dish and a small wiener that was buried under a pile of others. While he was eating, Cedric Diggory came into the Great Hall, heading straight for Potter.
- Why weren't you and Justin at practice today? - He asked immediately.
- Sorry, Cedric, we overslept. It's actually my fault, Justin tried to wake me up, but he didn't succeed," Potter answered honestly.
- It's too bad, we've been practising new tactics... A new formation of hunters, I mean, but the game of pens will be important too, I'd like to explain to you now, while we have time, where is Finch-Fletchley?
- Asleep.
- Still? It's lunchtime, he could sleep through the game, wake him up and get on the pitch together, there's not much left to play for.
- OK, Cedric, we'll change and be there. Give us fifteen minutes.
Diggory nodded, sat down in his seat and started eating his lunch. As Potter was about to get up, Ginny Weasley's blonde-haired girlfriend, whose name Harry had once again forgotten, approached him.
- Hello, Harry.
- Hi... - Potter frantically tried to remember her name. - Polumna?
- Polumna," she corrected him. - Listen, have you seen Ginny Weasley's diary?
- Diary? No, I haven't," Harry's mind flashed to a hunch. - You know, it doesn't say 'Tom Riddle' on it, though, and it's black and green?
- I don't know about that Riddle, but Ginny said the diary was indeed black and green... So? Where is it?
- He's-" Harry hesitated for a while, but decided to lie. He didn't want to part with Tom. - I threw it away, Ron said it was a nobody's diary and if I didn't find something about the Chamber of Secrets, I'd have to throw it away.
- Sad. Well, I'll go tell Ginny then," Luna smiled sadly and walked towards the exit of the Great Hall.
- Wait. What makes you think I have the diary? - Potter asked the question of interest.
Polumna made a mysteriously dreamy face and answered:
- 'I was told about it by the brainiacs, they're hovering around you right now and giving me all the information.
Seeing his surprised face, she laughed and explained:
- Hermione actually told me.
* * *
Before waking Justin up and going to the Quidditch pitch with him, Harry decided to clarify a point with Tom Riddle.
Why didn't you say Ginny Weasley talked to you first?
You didn't ask," came the instant reply.
Seeing Riddle's message made Potter angry at first, but after a moment he laughed. He really hadn't asked, after all, and this wasn't the kind of important information Tom should have told him.
Makes sense... Okay, forget it.
Hold on. What exactly did she tell you?
Nothing, I didn't even talk to her, my girlfriend told me, forget it. I've got my Quidditch finals, I've got to train, so I'll talk to you later.
You believe me, don't you? That I didn't leave Ginny out on purpose? I have no ulterior motive, if that's what you're thinking.
It was phrases like that that made Harry never really understand Riddle properly. It was resolved - Potter understood the diary's position, and then Tom starts "You believe me, don't you?" "I have no reason to deceive you, you realise that, don't you?" Harry had the feeling that no one at Hogwarts ever trusted Tom and suspected him of everything, so the latter was always trying to clarify the question of faith.
Of course I believe, what's the problem here anyway? I'm pretty sure you don't have any ulterior motive, you're harmless, if you were some kind of deranged dark wizard I'd definitely realise that.
The diary was silent for a while, then gave out:
You're an idiot, Potter.
Tom's bouts of incomprehensible aggression happened too, but this time Harry took a little offence.
But I'm glad you trust me.
You're an idiot yourself, you overgrown book," Potter wrote.
He didn't quite understand why Tom had called him an idiot for trusting him. Yes Potter never really understood Riddle enough to understand all of his lines. Harry closed his diary, stashed it in his locker, and then headed to the bathroom to get a bucket of water - he had to wake Justin up.