Chapter Fifteen of 'For the Game'

[lomonaaeren]

“And you really don’t know anything else about your parents?”

“I only learned that they didn’t die in a car accident when I got my Hogwarts letter. Why would I?”

The Slytherins who had taken to “subtly” asking Harry about his bloodline had to either admit that they didn’t know what a car was or retreat, and so far, they had all chosen the second course of action. Ron shook his head as he watched Jugson walking away and shooting glances over his shoulder. “Why do they keep asking you that, mate?”

“I think they hope that they can prove I’m a secret pureblood or something. It would make them less uncomfortable about having a half-blood in their House.”

Ron snorted, and they resumed their walk to the Quidditch pitch, where they were going to watch the Slytherin-Gryffindor game. Malfoy had evidently become Seeker, which didn’t surprise Harry at all. He’d bought his way onto the team. “You can tell them what I told you, if you want. That you’re a sort of fake Slytherin.”

Harry smiled at him. “Thanks, Ron.”

He hadn’t told Ron and Hermione about his Parseltongue, or the snake. It didn’t seem like it would make them comfortable, and—

In the end, Harry just wasn’t sure it mattered that much. Sure, being able to speak to snakes was sort of cool, but what use was it, outside of very specific situations like someone casting Serpensortia on you? And apparently it was associated with Dark wizards.

Harry didn’t need that.

They had to separate when they got to the pitch, but Harry sat in the part of the Slytherin seats as close to the Gryffindor ones as he could, and he caught Ron’s eye and grinned every time Gryffindor scored points.

“You know, that isn’t going to make anyone any more fond of you.”

Harry shrugged, keeping his eyes on Malfoy as he dodged a Bludger and swooped down. Harry had thought he’d seen the Snitch, but he came back up without it. “Maybe not, but they don’t know how to feel about me anyway. I’m not going to pander to them.”

Silence, which meant Blaise and Theo were exchanging glances, of course. Harry continued to watch as Malfoy avoided another Bludger and then dodged beneath the Gryffindor Seeker, Cormac McLaggen.

“It doesn’t bother you, what they think of you?”

“If it makes them attack me, sure,” Harry said absently, craning his neck. He thought that one of the Bludgers was behaving strangely, corkscrewing around Malfoy as if its enchantments had failed. “But they attack me for being a half-blood anyway, so—”

The Bludger turned and shot towards the stands.

Towards Harry.

Harry leaped to his feet and raised a curl of fire in front of himself. The Bludger swerved to avoid it, trying to come around the side and hit him. Harry rolled, and the Bludger smashed into the stands amid a lot of angry shouting.

“What—what’s going on, it shouldn’t be over here—”

Harry ignored that, too. He didn’t think the Bludger cared about what it was supposed to do. He scrambled out from beneath the cracked part of the stands and saw the Bludger aiming right back at him.

It could crush his skull. It could break all the bones in his body.

Harry glared at it and felt the same fear and rage that he’d felt around the Dursleys rise up. He pointed his wand at the Bludger and just let magic flow out of him, not knowing what it would do, not caring.

The Bludger exploded.

Harry ducked again from all the falling pieces, and heard someone shout. He looked up in time to see that Malfoy had caught the Snitch, or at least he seemed to have from the way that he was holding up his closed hand, and that the other Bludger was also heading straight for Harry.

Harry rolled again. This time, someone must have got control of the Bludger, because he heard it screech to a halt in the air. And then people started shouting, and more than one person was pulling at Harry’s shoulder.

Harry grimaced and stood up to face his fate.

*

“You understand that this is a matter of points in the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch game. Professor McGonagall maintains that Gryffindor would have won the game if not your interference with the Bludger…”

Harry sat in a chair in front of Professor Dumbledore’s desk, staring vacantly at the wall behind him. Professors McGonagall and Snape were arguing in low, vicious voices behind him that Harry didn’t bother listening to.

He didn’t care about Quidditch. He thought it might have been another attempt from the Dark Lord to kill him, but McGonagall seemed to think that Harry had taken control of the Bludger to make sure Slytherin won.

Harry had tried to say he didn’t care, but no one had believed him.

Because all second-year students care about Quidditch? Or all second-year boys?

Harry sighed, loudly enough to bring Dumbledore’s attention back to him again, and away from the two arguing professors. “Is there anything you wanted to say, my boy?” Dumbledore asked, his eyes twinkling.

“Is there some magical means you can use to tell whether I’m lying?” Harry demanded. “Because I didn’t take control of the Bludger, I don’t know who did, and I didn’t interfere in the game.”

“We all know that Slytherin would cheat to—”

“I wouldn’t,” Harry said, and spun around to face Professor McGonagall, who blinked at him. “I don’t care what you think! I didn’t cheat, and I don’t want to spend more hours sitting here while you argue about stupid things! Someone tried to kill me! That’s what’s important to me, not a stupid game of Quidditch!”

McGonagall blinked and then shut her mouth and studied him for a moment. Then she said, “There is a potion, Veritaserum, that will pull truth from the one who drinks it, but we cannot give it to a child.”

“So you’ll just spend the rest of time thinking I cheated?”

“No,” Professor McGonagall said, in a softer voice than Harry had thought she could use. “No, Mr. Potter, I—I believe you. And I will talk to the Gryffindor team so that they accept this as a Slytherin victory.” She turned to Professor Snape. “Although what they will say if they learn that—”

Harry rolled his eyes and glanced at Dumbledore. “May I leave, sir?”

“Yes, of course.” Dumbledore was studying Harry in a way that made the inside of Harry’s head feel as if it had been scraped bare. “You will let me know if you think of any way that someone could have interfered with the Bludgers?”

“Yes, sir.” Although Harry thought they should just ask the actual Quidditch players, he was too glad to get out of the Headmaster’s office to argue about it.

He walked down the moving staircase and then sped through the corridors and other staircases as quickly as possible. He didn’t know why, but the castle seemed more deserted than usual, even though it was only early evening. He wanted to get back to the common room, and he’d probably have to face an interrogation by his roommates.

Harry was grimacing at the thought when he came around the corridor and nearly slipped in a puddle of water.

He blinked and glanced up, then stared. He was in front of a girls’ bathroom, and there was a cat—Mrs. Norris—hanging by her stiff tail next to a message that appeared to be written in blood.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS IS OPEN! ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE!

Harry felt for a moment as though he were short of breath. And then he turned around and ran as fast as he could, back the way he’d come, towards the Headmaster’s office.

Snape and McGonagall were standing down the corridor from the gargoyle, still talking to each other in soft sniping tones. Harry nearly ran them down as he tore around the corner. Snape whipped at once into a crouch with his wand out, and Harry rolled back and came up with his own.

“Severus, it’s only Potter,” said McGonagall, with a shake of her head, as if to say that she didn’t know why they were both so ridiculous. “Mr. Potter, is something wrong?”

Harry forced back the temptation to gasp for air and said as steadily as he could, “There’s—Mrs. Norris, near the girls’ bathroom on the second floor—paralyzed or something—and a message in blood.”

Snape and McGonagall promptly snapped into grim adult mode, and accompanied him down the stairs. Harry walked beside Snape and noticed that the man was scanning the walls and floor, his wand darting back and forth. If Harry squinted, he thought he could see a blob of blue light bobbing around in front of Snape’s wand.

Harry didn’t know what it meant, but he memorized the color of the light. Maybe he could ask Hermione later.

“Merlin!”

Professor McGonagall seemed to have found Mrs. Norris. Snape stood looking down at Harry for a moment before he went around the corner to join her, and his face had a complicated expression on it that made Harry narrow his eyes.

“You don’t know what caused this, Mr. Potter?” Snape asked softly.

“No, sir.” Harry tried not to feel resentment. This felt like all the times in primary school when Dudley had claimed that Harry had caused trouble and the teachers had just believed him. Soon they hadn’t even needed Dudley’s stories to suspect Harry of things. They just did, because he was a “troublemaker.”

Snape blinked and looked away, and Harry breathed out a little. Why had he been remembering the incidents with Dudley so clearly? It felt like someone had dragged them to the surface of his mind in a net.

“Keep near me, Mr. Potter,” Snape murmured as he walked towards the place where Professor McGonagall seemed to be holding Mrs. Norris hovering in the air with a charm. “We will clear your name, if anyone gets upset, but we must make sure that you have an alibi at all times.”

Harry followed, but he felt a prickling unease creep up his spine. Snape was talking like he knew about those incidents with Dudley.

But how could he? It wasn’t like Harry had told him.

It was something Harry supposed he would have to think about later, because McGonagall was already saying they needed to tell Filch, and Harry knew he would need Snape’s protection for that conversation.