Untraceable (Harry Potter)

10: Sapphire gets smart

Untraceable chapter 10

Apparently, Harry had gone back to the mirror that night, even though we had warned him against it. But he said Dumbledore had been there and told him that he was moving the mirror and not to look for it. But Harry said he had been having nightmares about his parents getting killed in a flash of green light. I too, had been having dreams about the woman who looked like me - maybe my aunt or something - and the man who had my face, but boyish.

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

Hermione, who came back the day before term started, took a different view of things. She was torn between horror at the idea of Harry being out of bed, roaming the school three nights in a row ("If Filch had caught you!"), and disappointment that he hadn't at least found out who Nicolas Flamel was. They had almost given up hope of ever finding Flamel in a librarybook, even though Harry and I were still sure we had read the name somewhere. Once term had started, they were back to skimming through books for ten minutes during their breaks, while I sat there writing anonymous love notes to kid random people that they were loved. Only Slytherins though, I'm not mean enough to do it to anyone else - and it was really funny watching all the Slytherin girls squealing about their notes.

Harry had even less time than Ron and Hermione, 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 housechampionship 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.

Do I sound like a stalker, knowing that? Just because the library is boring so I follow Harry to Quidditch practice and yell random things at the team.

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 falloff 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 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.

"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."

Harry headed straight back to the Gryffindor common room after practice, with me tagging along behind him, trying to convince him that even though Snape is a smelly, evil, non-llama, bastard, he wouldn't do that.

He ignored me all the way to the common room, where we found Ron and Hermione playing chess. Chess was the only thing Hermione ever lost at, something we thought was very good for her.

"Don't talk to me for a moment, " said Ron when we 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."

Speaking quietly so that no one else would hear, Harry told the other two about Snape's sudden, sinister desire to