Chapter Twenty-Six of 'For the Game'

[lomonaaeren]

“You didn’t receive even a potion?”

“No, Madam Pomfrey.”

“Those people,” Madam Pomfrey muttered beneath her breath as she bustled around the hospital wing, tapping and pushing and waving her wand at various vials in a pattern Harry couldn’t figure out. “Albus should have known better! At his age! And as for Minerva…”

Harry lay back in the bed and obediently drank the potion she offered when she offered it to him, gagging a little on the thick chalky taste. It amused him to hear Madam Pomfrey acting as if she would scold the robes off either Dumbledore or McGonagall if they showed up in the hospital wing.

He didn’t expect they would, didn’t expect anything would really be done. But it was funny to pretend.

The aching in his ribs eased, and he took a deep breath without pain for the first time since yesterday. “Thanks, Madam Pomfrey.”

“You’re welcome, dear boy. I swear, Albus should learn a lesson or two!”

Harry lay and listened, contented, to her ranting, until she seemed to remember that she had an audience and sent him (regretful) on his way. Harry walked slowly back to the Slytherin common room, enjoying the sensation of being free of his broken ribs and grateful that Theo and Blaise had convinced him to go and ask for healing.

“Um. Harry. Can I talk to you?”

Harry turned and sighed a little. Ron was lurking in a side corridor. Harry had expected Ron to come find him, of course, but the conversation was bound to be an awkward one considering what Jenny had done.

Not that she was going to be punished for that, either, Harry thought. McGonagall had whisked her away without a word, and there had been a rumor or two that she wouldn’t be attending classes because she’d got sick and had to go to St. Mungo’s. Nothing more than that.

“I didn’t know that my sister had anything to do with the Heir of Slytherin business! I swear.”

Harry blinked back to reality and found Ron staring at him desperately. That hadn’t been the reaction he’d expected. He’d thought Ron would be defensive about Jenny’s actions and demand that Harry not tell anyone.

And because this was something that Harry hadn’t expected…

He could manipulate it.

“I didn’t think you did, Ron,” Harry said, and smiled a little at him. “You wouldn’t have been so desperate to find the Heir of Slytherin if you’d known that Jenny was possessed by them.”

“Ginny.”

“What?”

“Her name is Ginny. Not Jenny.”

Harry hesitated, then shrugged. “Ginny, then. I didn’t think that you had anything to do with it.”

“And you don’t blame her?”

That was going a little too far. Harry stared unblinkingly at Ron, who soon began to blush and look down at his feet.

“I do blame her,” Harry says softly. “For not telling someone the truth about the thing possessing her when she could have. But not really for what she did when she was casting spells at me, no.” He didn’t need to say that he intended to avoid Ginny whenever possible, because he was pretty sure Ron would get that.

“She was possessed,” Ron mumbled. “It wasn’t her fault.”

“So she couldn’t fight the possession? Even though the Petrifications didn’t start until October, and I doubt she got the diary in the school?”

“We don’t know yet!” Ron said hotly, jerking his head up. “They took her to St. Mungo’s, and she hasn’t been—she hasn’t talked about it yet. We won’t know until she tells us, and I’d think you could wait until then.”

“Maybe if one of my best friends hadn’t thought that I was the ultra-evil Heir of Slytherin, I could.”

“What do you want from me, Harry? I apologized!”

Yes, he had. Harry took a deep breath and held it. Ron glared at him in the meanwhile. Harry held his breath some more, then released it in a whoosh. “I just don’t want to forgive your sister for making my life hell for months and making the professors engage in multiple rounds of scolding me,” he said at last. “That’s all.”

“They—what, they scolded you? For what? That’s mental.”

Harry felt his chest warm with Ron’s instinctive defense. At least he was still willing to do that for Harry. But he ended up shrugging. “I didn’t defeat the basilisk the right way. I shouldn’t have risked my life. I shouldn’t have cast back at Jen—Ginny when she started cursing me. All sorts of things.”

Ron gaped at him in silence, and then burst out with, “But you saved the school!”

“Apparently,” Harry said, “that doesn’t matter to them. I should have done it the right way. Or something.”

“I—” Ron ran a shaking hand through his hair. “I knew Snape hated you for whatever mental reasons he has, but how could the others hate you? Who were the ones who scolded you?”

“Dumbledore and McGonagall,” Harry said, and did take some pleasure in watching Ron’s face crumple. Besides McGonagall being the Head of Gryffindor, he knew that Ron practically hero-worshipped Dumbledore.

Although Hermione might be worse about it.

Ron took a deep breath and shook his head. “That’s mental,” he repeated. “And I’m going to make it right. I’ll make sure of it, Harry. You watch.”

He hurried away down the corridor, leaving Harry blinking after him. He didn’t think Ron would be willing to explain to everyone that Ginny deserved the fear or scoldings, so he had no idea what Ron’s plan was.

Then Harry shrugged and put it out of his mind. He had end-of-term exams to study for, and there was almost no way to tell for certain what would end up in Lockhart’s stupid head and therefore on the stupid parchment.

*

“Professor Dumbledore? Sir?”

Harry stared at Ron. It was the end-of-year leaving feast, and Ginny—whose name, Harry had still had to remind himself several times, was not Jenny—sat at the end of the Gryffindor table and ate and chattered with the rest. Harry had had to work to keep himself from glaring at her.

But he hadn’t known anything about the way Ron would rise to his feet, pale and nervous.

Professor Dumbledore blinked several times. He’d just stood up himself and begun an announcement, something about how he was so pleased to have the Heir of Slytherin situation resolved and a good ending to the year. Blaise had snorted when he’d said that, and Harry had grinned back at him.

But now…

“Yes, Mr. Weasley?” Professor Dumbledore asked at last. He sounded vaguely perplexed, but mostly disapproving.

Ron took a deep breath, and Harry knew what was coming. He slid down a little in his seat, while Blaise and Theo stared at him.

“Sir,” Ron said, and his voice squeaked. He cleared his throat and started again. At least no one can doubt that he deserves to be in Gryffindor, Harry thought, half-hysterical. “I just thought it would be nice if you gave some credit to the one who actually defeated the Heir of Slytherin.”

“Mr. Weasley?”

“My friend, Harry Potter.” Ron turned and looked straight across the Great Hall at Harry, and Harry smiled back, a little helpless. “He was the one who defeated the basilisk and—caught the real Heir. So he deserves some credit. Not just—not just talking about it as if someone else h-happened along and stopped it.”

Ron sat back down abruptly, his face as bright a red as his hair. Theo and Blaise were blinking. Malfoy looked as if he might explode. And Flint, further up the table, was flinching, maybe because he now knew that the second-year he’d lost to had also defeated a basilisk.

“Mr. Weasley, what you ask is impossible for several reasons…”

“What are they, sir?”

And that was Hermione, on her feet as well, blushing and clenching her hands down by her sides as if she wanted to grip something and swing out of sight, but speaking nonetheless. “Why can’t we honor the person who actually defeated the basilisk and stopped the Petrifications? Harry went down there on his own and did it!” She glared at Harry in a way that somehow managed to convey admiration and anger at the same time. “He’s as brave as any Gryffindor.”

“Of course they have to bring House prejudices into it, the idiots,” Theo muttered.

Harry shrugged and turned to face Dumbledore. He didn’t know for sure what expression was on his own face, but he didn’t think it mattered. The Headmaster would probably come up with some way to squirm out of this.

It would be interesting to see him do it, though.

Instead, Dumbledore sighed and straightened his shoulders. “Thank you, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger,” he murmured. “I have been unreasonable.” He turned towards Harry and gave him a long look, as though trying to see into his soul. Harry raised his eyebrows back. It wasn’t his fault Dumbledore had been unreasonable.

Dumbledore nodded slightly as though receiving the message, at the same time Harry felt a light scrape across his thoughts. He frowned and looked at the table, massaging his forehead. It was blooming into a headache.

I have to look into that.

“I have been unreasonable,” Dumbledore announced, “and that is an unfair thing to do when Mr. Potter saved the school the way he did.” So he can be unfair at other times? Harry thought crossly. “Mr. Potter did indeed defeat the basilisk and expose the Heir of Slytherin. One hundred points of Slytherin for entirely unexpected bravery.”

The rest of his Housemates broke into cheers as the banners on the walls turned green and silver, and Professor McGonagall, her face looking constipated, had to hand the House Cup to Professor Snape. Snape shot Harry an unreadable look, and Harry felt the little scrape again.

Ouch.

“Slytherin wins the House Cup!”

Malfoy actually clapped Harry on the back as he whooped with excitement. Harry smiled tightly at the boy and asked Theo softly under the chorus of cheering, “What would make your mind feel as if something had scraped across it?”

“What?” Theo sounded sharp, but Harry had the feeling it was because he knew, not because he didn’t know.

“Both Dumbledore and Snape. When they looked at me, it felt as if they were scraping my brain with their eyes, and now I have a headache.”

Theo and Blaise shot each other tense, worried glances, and then Blaise shook his head. “Not here.”

Harry must have scowled, because Blaise added, “We’ll discuss it back in the dormitories, Harry, I promise.”

Harry nodded, and tried to enjoy the celebration exploding around him. Slytherins he had never spoken to before, or who had been nervous about his Parseltongue, were coming up to talk to him. Harry, meanwhile, raised his goblet in a toast to Ron and Hermione.

They were the ones who had really made sure he got what he deserved.