Gryffindor Princess and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Chapter Fourteen: Gryffindor Versus Ravenclaw

It appeared that Hope had missed quite the fight while in her lessons yesterday. According to Ron Scabbers was now missing and he was convinced that Crookshanks had finally managed to snuff him out. Hermione however simply scoffed at these accusations and suggested that Ron should look under things.

She was furious for the rest of the next few days she would go on about how he's never liked Crookshanks and that he had no real proof that Crookshanks had done anything at all to his rat.

Unfortunately Harry had tried to point out to Hermione that all the evidence had pointed towards Crookshanks eating Scabbers and that he was sure he'd done it.

"Of course you'd take his side", she'd snapped, "first the Firebolt now Scabbers! Everything's my fault! Leave me alone Harry I've got a lot of work to do."

While Hope did believe that Ron had always been very unfair to Crookshanks, he did seem to be taking the loss of his rat rather hard.

"Come on, Ron, you were always saying how boring Scabbers was", said Fred, in an attempt to cheer him up, "he's been off-colour for ages, he was wasting away. It was probably better for him to be snuffed out quick - I bet he didn't feel a thing."

"Fred!", Said Ginny.

"All he did was eat and sleep, you said it yourself", said George.

"He bit Goyle for us once", Ron said, miserably, "remember Harry?"

"His finest hour", said Fred, unable to keep a straight face, "let the scar on Goyle's finger stand as a lasting tribute to his memory- oh come on Ron get yourself down to Hogsmeade and buy a new rat, what's the point of moaning."

"Fred!", Said Hope.

Harry had been given his Firebolt back by McGonagall so that evening the team took turns riding it during practice. The broom was fast that Harry was almost just a blur of red and gold zooming around the quidditch pitch.

Alica Spinnet had turned up to practice as well, fully dressed in quidditch gear. Everyone on the team had seemed excited to see her and were more than keen to let her practice with them. As they were running a practice game Wood suggested that Hope go and sit with Ron and watched how the Chasers interacted with each other.

"It'll be good to see how their supposed to work together properly", he told her, "see how they know where the other player is going to be before they even get there."

She huffed off rather angrily and sat up in the stands with Ron. He hadn't said anything when she'd sat down, having a good idea of what had happened. She watched the team go through their practice, no one came over to call her back, and she made no attempt to rejoin. Alica was cheering and whooping wildly with the team as they played, she spent an awful lot of time hanging around George Weasley as well which didn't seem to improve Hopes mood.

Finally the practice ended and the team grouped up to talk. Hope was still up in the stands. Feeling rather fed up and finished with quidditch practice for the night, Hope told Ron she felt sick and that she was going to go to bed. She stomped off the stands taking the stair case at the back, so as not to continue seeing her team mates.

Feeling far to pent up to actually go to bed she decided to go for a walk around the grounds. Dragging her broom behind her she set off around the lake, kicking at pebbles and watching them fly into the water.

As she approached the Womping Willow (the tree that Ron and Harry had hit with a flying car the previous year) she noticed a large shape outlined in the darkness. It was hard to make it out but she could just seem to see the outline of what looked to be a very large shaggy dog. The dog raised it's head into the air and gave a sniff. Menacingly it's yellow glowing eyes turned to look straight at her.