The Marauderettes

➵ Nicolas Flamel

Dumbledore had convinced Harry not to go looking for the Mirror of Erised again, and for the rest of the Christmas holidays the Invisibility Cloak stayed folded at the bottom of his trunk.        

Harry wished he could forget what he'd seen in the mirror as easily, but he couldn't. He started having nightmares. Over and over again he dreamed about his parents disappearing in a flash of green light, while a high voice cackled with laughter.

"You see, Dumbledore was right, that mirror could drive you mad," said Ron, when Harry told him about these dreams."

Max, who was back a couple of days before the second term, had agreed with Ron ("There must've been something way off about that mirror, you were right to leave it be —"). She was also quick to inform them that she had asked Bea, Jacob, and even her cousin, Jesse, for information about Flamel, but had turned up empty.

Hermione, however, who came back the day before term started, took a different view of things. She was torn between exasperation at Max's pranks, horror at the idea of Harry and Ron being out of bed, roaming the school three nights in a row ("If Filch had caught you — !"), and disappointment that none of them hadn't at least found anything about who Nicolas Flamel was.

They had almost given up hope of ever finding Flamel in a library book, even though Harry was still sure he'd read the name somewhere. Once term had started, they were back to skimming through books for ten minutes during their breaks. Harry had even less time than the other three, because Quidditch practice had started again.

Wood was working the team harder than ever. Even the endless rain that had replaced the snow couldn't dampen his spirits. The Weasleys complained that Wood was becoming a fanatic, but Harry was on Wood's side. If they won their next match, against Hufflepuff, they would overtake Slytherin in the House Championship for the first time in seven years. Quite apart from wanting to win, Harry found that he had fewer nightmares when he was tired out after training.

Then, during one particularly wet and muddy practice session, Wood gave the team a bit of bad news. He'd just gotten very angry with the Weasleys, who kept dive-bombing each other and pretending to fall off their brooms.

"Will you stop messing around!" he yelled. "That's exactly the sort of thing that'll lose us the match! Snape's refereeing this time, and he'll be looking for any excuse to knock points off Gryffindor!"

George Weasley really did fall off his broom at these words.

"Snape's refereeing?" he spluttered through a mouthful of mud. "When's he ever refereed a Quidditch match? He's not going to be fair if we might overtake Slytherin."

The rest of the team landed next to George to complain, too.

"Oliver, how could this have happened?" said Alicia miserably. "There's no way Snape'll be a fair ref!"

"It's not my fault," said Wood. "We've just got to make sure we play a clean game, so Snape hasn't got an excuse to pick on us."

Which was all very well, thought Harry, but he had another reason for not wanting Snape near him while he was playing Quidditch...

The rest of the team hung back to talk to one another as usual at the end of practice, but Harry headed straight back to the Gryffindor common room, where he found Max watching Ron and Hermione play chess. Chess was the only thing Hermione ever lost at, something Harry, Ron and Max thought was very good for her.

"Don't talk to me for a moment," said Ron when Harry sat down next to him, "I need to concen —" He caught sight of Harry's face. "What's the matter with you? You look terrible."