Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [1]

⚡️ Chapter 16 ⚡️

The morning, at first, Gryffindors passing the giant hourglasses that recorded the house points the next day thought there'd been a mistake. How could they suddenly have a hundred and fifty points fewer than yesterday?

And then the story started to spread: Harry Potter, the famous Harry Potter, their hero of two Quidditch matches, had lost them all those points, him and a couple of other stupid first years. From being one of the most popular and admired people at the school, Harry was suddenly the most hated.

Even Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs turned on him, because everyone had been longing to see Slytherin lose the house cup. Everywhere Harry went, people pointed and didn't trouble to lower their voices as they insulted him. Slytherins, on the other hand, clapped as he walked past them, whistling and cheering: "Thanks Potter, we owe you one!"

Only Ron and Vega both tried to improve Harry and Hermione's moods.

"They'll all forget this in a few weeks," Ron tried to reason. "Fred and George have lost loads of points in all the time they've been here, and people still like them,"

"They've never lost a hundred and fifty points in one go, though, have they?" Harry said miserably.

"Well – no," Ron admitted.

But Harry felt so ashamed of himself that he went to Wood and offered to resign from the Quidditch team, something Vega thought wouldn't solve their problems anyway.

"Resign?" Wood thundered. Vega jumped from nearby, turning to look at them. "What good will that do? How are we going to get any points back if we can't win at Quidditch?"

But the rest of the team wouldn't speak to Harry during practice, and if they had to speak about him, they called him 'the Seeker.' Only Vega called him by his name and she knew that it was taking a toll on Harry as well.

Hermione and Neville were suffering, too. They didn't have as bad a time as Harry, because they weren't as well-known, but nobody would speak to them, either. Hermione had stopped drawing attention to herself in class, keeping her head down and working in silence.

Vega, who had never wanted to see her friends in such a situation, was at a loss as to what she should do. She didn't want any attention, either, but she tried to work even harder than before to gain back the points they had lost.

Taking advice from Andromeda and Ted as to how to get a lot of points, Vega began to do all of her classwork and homework immaculately, she answered every question and brewed perfect potions. She helped every professor by cleaning up after class to get back the points.

Other than that, Vega, Harry, Ron, and Hermione kept to themselves, working late into the night, trying to remember the ingredients in complicated potions, learn charms and spells by heart, memorise the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions...

Vega had forgotten all about Quirrell during those days, her tiredness had even cleared out her nightmares for a while, until she came across something suspicious. She and Harry had been walking from the library one afternoon when they heard someone whimpering from a classroom ahead of them. As they drew closer, they heard Quirrell's voice.

"No – no – not again, please –" It sounded as though someone was threatening him. They moved nearer. "All right – all right –" They heard Quirrell sob.

Next second, Quirrell came hurrying out of the classroom straightening his turban. He was pale and looked as though he was about to cry. He strode out of sight; it didn't seem as if Quirrell had even noticed them.

Once he had disappeared, Vega peered into the classroom and once more, found it completely empty. But this time, a door stood ajar at the other end. She had been halfway towards it but Harry pulled her out of the classroom, reminding her that they were not to meddle anymore in anything.