HP 1 - Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone
CHAPTER NINE
THE MIDNIGHT DUEL
H arry had never believed he would meet a boy he hated more than Dudley,
but that was before he met Draco Malfoy. Still, first-year Gryffindors only had
Potions with the Slytherins, so they didn’t have to put up with Malfoy much. Or
at least, they didn’t until they spotted a notice pinned up in the Gryffindor
common room that made them all groan. Flying lessons would be starting on
Thursday — and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.
“Typical,” said Harry darkly. “Just what I always wanted. To make a fool
of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy.”
He had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.
“You don’t know that you’ll make a fool of yourself,” said Ron
reasonably. “Anyway, I know Malfoy’s always going on about how good he is at
Quidditch, but I bet that’s all talk.”
Malfoy certainly did talk about flying a lot. He complained loudly about
first years never getting on the house Quidditch teams and told long, boastful
stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in
helicopters. He wasn’t the only one, though: the way Seamus Finnigan told it,
he’d spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his
broomstick. Even Ron would tell anyone who’d listen about the time he’d
almost hit a hang glider on Charlie’s old broom. Everyone from wizarding
families talked about Quidditch constantly. Ron had already had a big argument
with Dean Thomas, who shared their dormitory, about soccer. Ron couldn’t see
what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to
fly. Harry had caught Ron prodding Dean’s poster of West Ham soccer team,
trying to make the players move.
Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his
grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Harry felt she’d had good
reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of accidents
even with both feet on the ground.
Hermione Granger was almost as nervous about flying as Neville was.
This was something you couldn’t learn by heart out of a book — not that she
hadn’t tried. At breakfast on Thursday she bored them all stupid with flying tips
she’d gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville
was hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him
hang on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased when
Hermione’s lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.
Harry hadn’t had a single letter since Hagrid’s note, something that
Malfoy had been quick to notice, of course. Malfoy’s eagle owl was always
bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opened gloatingly at the
Slytherin table.
A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He
opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble,
which seemed to be full of white smoke.
“It’s a Remembrall!” he explained. “Gran knows I forget things — this
tells you if there’s something you’ve forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like
this and if it turns red — oh…” His face fell, because the Remembrall had
suddenly glowed scarlet, “…you’ve forgotten something….”
Neville was trying to remember what he’d forgotten when Draco Malfoy,
who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his hand.
Harry and Ron jumped to their feet. They were half hoping for a reason
to fight Malfoy, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than
any teacher in the school, was there in a flash.
“What’s going on?”
“Malfoy’s got my Remembrall, Professor.”
Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table.
“Just looking,” he said, and he sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle
behind him.
At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Ron, and the other Gryffindors hurried
down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear,
breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the
sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to
the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.
The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying
in neat lines on the ground. Harry had heard Fred and George Weasley complain
about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew
too high, or always flew slightly to the left.
Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and
yellow eyes like a hawk.
“Well, what are you all waiting for?” she barked. “Everyone stand by a
broomstick. Come on, hurry up.”
Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck
out at odd angles.
“Stick out your right hand over your broom,” called Madam Hooch at the
front, “and say ‘Up!’”
“UP” everyone shouted.
Harry’s broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few
that did. Hermione Granger’s had simply rolled over on the ground, and
Neville’s hadn’t moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you
were afraid, thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville’s voice that said only
too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.
Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without
sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips.
Harry and Ron were delighted when she told Malfoy he’d been doing it wrong
for years.
“Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” said
Madam Hooch. “Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come
straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle — three — two
—”
But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the
ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch’s lips.
“Come back, boy!” she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a
cork shot out of a bottle — twelve feet — twenty feet. Harry saw his scared
white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways
off the broom and —
WHAM — a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the
grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to
drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight.
Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.
“Broken wrist,” Harry heard her mutter. “Come on, boy — it’s all right,
up you get.”
She turned to the rest of the class.
“None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You
leave those brooms where they are or you’ll be out of Hogwarts before you can
say ‘Quidditch.’ Come on, dear.”
Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with
Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.
No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter.
“Did you see his face, the great lump?”
The other Slytherins joined in.
“Shut up, Malfoy,” snapped Parvati Patil.
“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced
Slytherin girl. “Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”
“Look!” said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the
grass. “It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s gran sent him.”
The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.
“Give that here, Malfoy,” said Harry quietly. Everyone stopped talking to
watch.
Malfoy smiled nastily.
“I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find — how about —
up a tree?”
“Give it here!” Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broomstick
and taken off. He hadn’t been lying, he could fly well. Hovering level with the
topmost branches of an oak he called, “Come and get it, Potter!”
Harry grabbed his broom.
“No!” shouted Hermione Granger. “Madam Hooch told us not to move
— you’ll get us all into trouble.”
Harry ignored her. Blood was pounding in his ears. He mounted the
broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared; air rushed
through his hair, and his robes whipped out behind him — and in a rush of fierce
joy he realized he’d found something he could do without being taught — this
was easy, this was wonderful. He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even
higher, and heard screams and gasps of girls back on the ground and an admiring
whoop from Ron.
He turned his broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair. Malfoy
looked stunned.
“Give it here,” Harry called, “or I’ll knock you off that broom!”
“Oh, yeah?” said Malfoy, trying to sneer, but looking worried.
Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the
broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfoy like a javelin. Malfoy
only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the
broom steady. A few people below were clapping.
“No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy,” Harry called.
The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.
“Catch it if you can, then!” he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high
into the air and streaked back toward the ground.
Harry saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise up in the air and then
start to fall. He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down — next
second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball — wind whistled
in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching — he stretched out his
hand — a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom
straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched
safely in his fist.
“HARRY POTTER!”
His heart sank faster than he’d just dived. Professor McGonagall was
running toward them. He got to his feet, trembling.
“Never — in all my time at Hogwarts —”
Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses
flashed furiously, “— how dare you — might have broken your neck —”
“It wasn’t his fault, Professor —”
“Be quiet, Miss Patil —”
“But Malfoy —”
“That’s enough, Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me, now.”
Harry caught sight of Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle’s triumphant faces as
he left, walking numbly in Professor McGonagall’s wake as she strode toward
the castle. He was going to be expelled, he just knew it. He wanted to say
something to defend himself, but there seemed to be something wrong with his
voice. Professor McGonagall was sweeping along without even looking at him;
he had to jog to keep up. Now he’d done it. He hadn’t even lasted two weeks.
He’d be packing his bags in ten minutes. What would the Dursleys say when he
turned up on the doorstep?
Up the front steps, up the marble staircase inside, and still Professor
McGonagall didn’t say a word to him. She wrenched open doors and marched
along corridors with Harry trotting miserably behind her. Maybe she was taking
him to Dumbledore. He thought of Hagrid, expelled but allowed to stay on as
gamekeeper. Perhaps he could be Hagrid’s assistant. His stomach twisted as he
imagined it, watching Ron and the others becoming wizards, while he stumped
around the grounds carrying Hagrid’s bag.
Professor McGonagall stopped outside a classroom. She opened the door
and poked her head inside.
“Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Wood for a moment?”
Wood? thought Harry, bewildered; was Wood a cane she was going to
use on him?
But Wood turned out to be a person, a burly fifth-year boy who came out
of Flitwick’s class looking confused.
“Follow me, you two,” said Professor McGonagall, and they marched on
up the corridor, Wood looking curiously at Harry.
“In here.”
Professor McGonagall pointed them into a classroom that was empty
except for Peeves, who was busy writing rude words on the blackboard.
“Out, Peeves!” she barked. Peeves threw the chalk into a bin, which
clanged loudly, and he swooped out cursing. Professor McGonagall slammed the
door behind him and turned to face the two boys.
“Potter, this is Oliver Wood. Wood — I’ve found you a Seeker.”
Wood’s expression changed from puzzlement to delight.
“Are you serious, Professor?”
“Absolutely,” said Professor McGonagall crisply. “The boy’s a natural.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Was that your first time on a broomstick,
Potter?”
Harry nodded silently. He didn’t have a clue what was going on, but he
didn’t seem to be being expelled, and some of the feeling started coming back to
his legs.
“He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive,” Professor
McGonagall told Wood. “Didn’t even scratch himself. Charlie Weasley couldn’t
have done it.”
Wood was now looking as though all his dreams had come true at once.
“Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?” he asked excitedly.
“Wood’s captain of the Gryffindor team,” Professor McGonagall
explained.
“He’s just the build for a Seeker, too,” said Wood, now walking around
Harry and staring at him. “Light —speedy — we’ll have to get him a decent
broom, Professor — a Nimbus Two Thousand or a Cleansweep Seven, I’d say.”
“I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can’t bend the first-
year rule. Heaven knows, we need a better team than last year. Flattened in that
last match by Slytherin, I couldn’t look Severus Snape in the face for weeks.…”
Professor McGonagall peered sternly over her glasses at Harry.
“I want to hear you’re training hard, Potter, or I may change my mind
about punishing you.”
Then she suddenly smiled.
“Your father would have been proud,” she said. “He was an excellent
Quidditch player himself.”
“You’re joking.”
It was dinnertime. Harry had just finished telling Ron what had happened
when he’d left the grounds with Professor McGonagall. Ron had a piece of steak
and kidney pie halfway to his mouth, but he’d forgotten all about it.
“Seeker?” he said. “But first years never — you must be the youngest
house player in about —”
“ — a century,” said Harry, shoveling pie into his mouth. He felt
Dostları ilə paylaş: |