The Other Black Book 5

Chapter 30 - O.W.L.s

Ron's euphoria at helping Gryffindor scrape the Quidditch Cup was such that he could not settle to anything next day. All he wanted to do was talk over the match and Harry, Aurora, and Hermione found it very difficult to find an opening in which to mention Grawp — not that any of them tried very hard; none of them were keen to be the one to bring Ron back to reality in quite such a brutal fashion. As it was another fine, warm day, they persuaded him to join them in studying under the beech tree on the edge of the lake, where they stood less chance of being overheard than in the common room. Ron was not particularly keen on this idea at first; he was thoroughly enjoying being patted on the back by Gryffindors walking past his chair, not to mention the occasional outbursts of "Weasley Is Our King," but agreed after a while that some fresh air might do him good.

They spread their books out in the shade of the beech tree and sat down while Ron talked them through his first save of the match for what felt like the dozenth time.

"Well, I mean, I'd already let in that one of Davies's, so I wasn't feeling that confident, but I dunno, when Bradley came toward me, just out of nowhere, I thought — you can do this! And I had about a second to decide which way to fly, you know, because he looked like he was aiming for the right goal hoop — my right, obviously, his left — but I had a funny feeling that he was feinting, and so I took the chance and flew left — his right, I mean — and — well — you saw what happened," he concluded modestly, sweeping his hair back quite unnecessarily so that it looked interestingly windswept and glancing around to see whether the people nearest to them — a bunch of gossiping third-year Hufflepuffs — had heard him. "And then, when Chambers came at me about five minutes later — what?" Ron said, stopping mid-sentence at the look on Harry's face. "Why are you grinning?"

"I'm not," said Harry quickly, looking down at his Transfiguration notes and attempting to straighten his face. "I'm just glad we won, that's all."

"Yeah," said Ron slowly, savoring the words, "we won. Did you see the look on Chang's face when Ginny got the Snitch right out from under her nose?"

"I suppose she cried, did she?" said Harry bitterly.

"Well, yeah — more out of temper than anything, though . . ." Ron frowned slightly. "But you saw her chuck her broom away when she got back to the ground, didn't you?"

"Er —" said Harry.

"Well, actually . . . no, Ron," said Hermione with a heavy sigh, putting down her book and looking at him apologetically. "As a matter of fact, the only bit of the match Harry, Aura, and I saw was Davies's first goal."

Ron's carefully ruffled hair seemed to wilt with disappointment. "You didn't watch?" he said faintly, looking from one to the other. "You didn't see me make any of those saves?"

"Well — no," said Hermione, stretching out a placatory hand toward him. "But Ron, we didn't want to leave — we had to!"

"Yeah?" said Ron, whose face was growing rather red. "How come?"

"It was Hagrid," said Aurora, and telling the story slowly. "He decided to tell us why he's been covered in injuries ever since he got back from the giants. He wanted us to go into the forest with him, we didn't have much choice, you know how he gets. . . . Anyway . . ."

The story was told in five minutes, by the end of which Ron's indignation had been replaced by a look of total incredulity.

"He brought one back and hid it in the forest?"

"Yep," said Harry grimly.

"No," said Ron, as though by saying this he could make it untrue. "No, he can't have. . . ."