Chapter 28 — The Broom Above Us

‘Good luck, Potter.’ Snape’s voice came from behind the bench, and Harry tightened his hand on the Nimbus. The students gathered nearby found reasons to return to their own breakfasts.

Snape suggested that after a mountain troll, a few Slytherins ought to present little difficulty. His attention passed over the broom and rested briefly on me before he walked away. One step was shorter than the other. Harry watched until he was out of earshot, then said his leg was still hurting.

Hermione asked what had happened to it. Harry explained the blood and torn robes he had noticed on Halloween, then added a possibility he hadn’t offered in the dormitory. Snape might have been bitten by the three-headed dog. While the troll drew the teachers towards the dungeons, he could have gone upstairs to reach whatever lay beneath the trapdoor.

‘The thing Hagrid took from Gringotts,’ Harry said. ‘Vault seven hundred and thirteen. He said it was Hogwarts business.’

I remembered the small brown-paper parcel Hagrid had carried from the vault while we waited in the cart. We had seen a guarded object leave Gringotts and later found something guarded at school, but that didn’t establish that they were the same thing. Hermione pointed out that we didn’t know what had hurt Snape either. The possibility was worth asking about without treating it as an answer.

I suggested Hagrid. He had carried the package, and owning an enormous dog with extra heads sounded entirely compatible with what I knew of him. We agreed to ask after the match. Harry already had enough to consider without taking an unproved accusation onto a broom with him.

At the pitch, Hooch inspected the Nimbus before allowing him to mount. I watched from beyond the boundary as he made a cautious circuit, then a much faster one which ended with a grin. Wood caught him on his return and began explaining something with both hands. I left them to the warm-up and went to find our seats.

Ron had joined Hagrid in the stands, while Hermione kept the folded banner from escaping into the row below. The view was excellent and considerably farther from the ground than I would have chosen for any ordinary seat. Hagrid admired the broom I had lent Harry. I told him I would have a more settled opinion of the loan once its borrower landed again.

When the teams rose, Ron and I shook out the sheet. HARRY TO WIN filled one side in thick red letters; turning it over showed GRYFFINDOR TO WIN on the other. The chewed corner flapped beside Ron’s elbow. Harry noticed it and grinned towards us, encouraging me to add a demonstration I hadn’t thought through quite as carefully as the spelling.

I took a prepared sparks talisman, spoke its formula and threw it over the empty space before the stand. The piece spent itself in a brief shower of coloured light. McGonagall’s amplified voice reached us before the last sparks disappeared, naming me loudly enough to make the whole stadium aware of the contribution.

‘Spectators will not cast beside the pitch. Put it away, Mr Mercer.’ I lowered my hand while Ron tried folding the banner over it. That provided very little concealment after the announcement, but at least Harry could no longer doubt where we were sitting.

Hooch opened the ball chest below. The Bludgers shot apart, followed by a gold flicker which vanished against the sky. Lee Jordan introduced the players in a voice which rolled across the stands. When Hooch threw the Quaffle, fourteen brooms moved and the diagrams in Hermione’s books became much harder to follow.

Angelina Johnson reached the ball first. She tucked it under her arm, dipped beneath an outstretched hand and passed to Alicia Spinnet. The return put it back with Angelina before the hoops, where she scored before I quite realised she had decided to shoot. Ron hit my arm, Hagrid roared and I found myself leaning towards the rail with them.

Now I understood the attraction. A player could approach from below, disappear above somebody’s shoulder and return from an angle which hadn’t seemed available a moment earlier. There was speed, judgement and the pleasure of watching a plan work before the other side could stop it. I wanted to be there, even with my limited experience of staying on a broom.

Harry raised a fist to celebrate. A Bludger curved towards him, and George crossed his path to drive it away with a crack we could hear from the stand. Harry moved aside too late to have avoided it himself. George pointed towards his own eyes and then across the pitch, reminding him to look, and Harry resumed searching.

Gryffindor scored again. Wood caught a shot against his chest and sent the Quaffle back into play, prompting Lee to praise him at enough length for McGonagall to intervene. Watching our players had become increasingly enjoyable when two green robes closed around Angelina and another crossed in front of Hooch.

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Angelina tried to rise between them. A collision sent her towards the stand, where she struck the padded edge below the spectators. Lee shouted for a foul, but Slytherin already had the ball. Angelina pulled away with one arm held close and began descending. I looked for Hooch’s whistle while Ron said furiously that the referee hadn’t seen the contact.

We had seen it clearly enough. That did nothing to put Angelina back in the air, or stop a Slytherin boot catching Alicia’s leg soon afterwards. Then Flint took a bat from one of his Beaters and drove a Bludger at Wood as he turned towards the incoming Quaffle.

The black ball hit from the side. Wood dropped beneath his broom, clinging to the handle for a moment before his hand came loose. I reached towards the pouch and remembered how far away he was. The last part of the fall was short, but watching him hit the grass ended any pleasure I had taken in the violence of the game.

Hooch whistled this time. Adults hurried across the pitch while she descended, and Wood’s attempt to sit up was stopped by someone kneeling beside him. The Slytherin supporters were still celebrating the goal which had followed the blow. Ron gripped the rail while I pointed out, uselessly, that their captain had taken somebody else’s bat.

An argument followed near the centre of the pitch. We could see gestures without hearing the words. Wood eventually stood with help, but he didn’t remount, and when play resumed I found myself following the Bludgers nearly as closely as Harry. He turned high above the other players, then leaned forward and accelerated across the sky.

Ron shouted that he had seen the Snitch. The Nimbus lurched beneath him. Harry corrected, only for it to pitch the other way, and I began looking for a Bludger he might be avoiding. Then the handle bucked upwards and forced him to fold over it with both arms. Whatever the broom was doing, its rider was struggling to stop it.

‘Someone could be jinxing it,’ I said. ‘Look at the stands. Anyone watching him and casting.’

I had seen the Nimbus fly smoothly in the warm-up, although that alone didn’t prove what was happening now. Ron scanned the opposite seats while Hagrid shouted Harry’s name. Hermione took the brass binoculars from Hagrid and swept them across the stands, then stopped so suddenly that I turned towards her before she said who she had found.

‘Snape,’ she said, passing them over. ‘He’s looking straight at Harry. His mouth’s moving.’

Through the lenses, his face came sharply into view. His gaze was raised, his lips moving continuously, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Ron’s shout made me look away. The broom rolled, and Harry slipped beneath it, catching the handle with both hands while his legs kicked against empty air.

I returned the binoculars to Hagrid, caught Hermione’s sleeve and headed for the stairs. ‘Get to the teachers,’ I told her as we ran. ‘Stop Snape casting. Make a scene if you have to. I’ll get underneath Harry.’

We separated at the bottom. I ran onto the grass, following the movement above and finding a Levitation talisman in the pouch. A club in a bathroom was one thing; a falling boy at that height was another. I didn’t know whether I could reach him in time or control the weight once I did. Moving to the clearest line I could find was the only useful part I could settle in advance.

Hooch was rising towards him. Two red brooms drew close, but the Nimbus swung away and climbed, making Harry harder to approach just when he most needed someone beside him. I lifted the prepared piece. One of his hands came loose, leaving the other to hold everything I was trying not to imagine hitting the ground.

Shouting came from the teachers’ stand. Smoke rose above the seats, and the Nimbus stopped bucking. Harry hung for another moment before swinging a knee across the handle and hauling himself onto it. I lowered my hand without releasing the talisman, discovering how badly my chest hurt from the breath I had been holding.

Hooch drew alongside him and pointed towards the ground. I wanted him down too, with the broom examined and the smoke explained before anything else happened. Their words didn’t reach me. Harry straightened, looked across the pitch and suddenly went after a flicker of gold, leaving my hopes for an immediate landing well behind him.

Higgs reached the chase almost at once. Their brooms ran close together until he pressed across Harry’s line. Harry gave ground, dipped aside and accelerated through the space beyond him. The Nimbus pulled ahead, but Higgs changed course to block the direct route to the Snitch. Harry went wider, disappearing behind the edge of a stand before returning to view.

The Snitch dropped towards the pitch. Both Seekers followed in a dive which brought the commentary to a halt. From ground level, their speed looked worse than it had from the seats. I stepped back with the unused talisman still between my fingers, watching the two shapes grow larger until Higgs finally pulled out.

Harry kept coming. I told him to pull up, far too quietly for him to hear, and watched the broom turn close enough to the grass for its twigs to brush it. His body pitched forward with the change. He got his feet beneath him, half standing on the shaft, and reached for the tiny movement ahead.

Then he jumped. The broom shot on without him while Harry struck the ground, rolled and came to a halt on his knees. I was running before he stopped, but he had a hand against his middle and was coughing by the time I reached him. He bent forward and spat a small golden ball into his palm, its wings trembling between his fingers.

Lee found his voice before I found mine. He announced the capture and the hundred and fifty points with enough force to start the stands roaring again. Hooch landed beside Harry, checked the ball and raised her arm to confirm the result. Gryffindor had won, and the boy in front of me was still breathing despite nearly swallowing the reason.

‘Did you see?’ Harry asked. Grass clung to his hair, and he held the Snitch as though somebody might ask him to prove what he had done.

‘Nearly ate the evidence, but yes.’ I gripped his shoulder and helped him up as the team arrived around us. Above the rush of red robes, our crooked banner waved from the stand. I put the unused talisman back into its sleeve, deeply relieved that I hadn’t needed to discover whether it could catch him.