Turning Time (A Harry Potter Fanfic)

Prank Wars, pt. 3

The next morning, Raven came to breakfast late, red-eyed and pale-faced. Harry couldn’t figure out why she was emotional. 

Lily refused to speak to Severus and pretended he wasn’t there. Halfway through breakfast, however, she couldn’t hold back any longer. 

“Why did you do it, Severus?” 

Severus looked up, clearly dreading her suspicion. He glanced over to the staff table, where Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were talking. “I…what do you mean?” 

“I saw you with those Slytherins. You could go to Azkaban for that! What were you thinking? What did she do to deserve—?” 

“I didn’t cast the spell.” 

“Why should I believe you? You can’t prove you didn’t!”

“You can’t prove I did.” 

“I hate it when you act like this! You’ve seen the Slytherins do horrible things, but you still hang out with them—” 

Lily noticed Raven was holding back tears. “Look, Raven—” 

Lily watched in dismay as Raven got up and left, crying inaudibly. She didn’t want to take back what she said, but she felt bad. 

After glaring at the two of them, Severus stormed after Raven. 

Lily jumped into conversation so she didn’t have to worry about them. “Do they—the professors—know what happened?” 

“I don’t know. We were all supposed to take care of the injured ourselves. After Violetta was tortured, though, I don’t know what they’re going to do…but they can’t take away Quidditch without going against what McGonagall said.” 

It turned out that Violetta made everyone promise not to say anything. It would only lead to controversy, since the Slytherins would deny it and accuse the Gryffindors of lying. So the first match of the season, Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, was still on. 

On the day of the match, the air was humid and cold. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had arranged themselves between the Gryffindors and the Slytherins to prevent conflict.

Two chants began as the players took their positions, words mashing into an unintelligible roar. 

Harry had a new motivation to catch the Snitch as quickly as possible this time: to prevent anyone from getting hurt.

He took into the air and flew just slightly above the players. A few drops of moisture formed on his glasses and he wiped them away with his glove. 

Minutes went by with no sign of the Snitch. Through the mist, Harry could get a vague idea of what was happening. Hardly a play would go by without the shrill sound of a whistle and yells from either end of the stands. Lucius Malfoy glided along so casually that most of the time he wasn’t even looking around, just drifting, eyes locked straight ahead. 

At first, Harry thought this was because Lucius was counting on him to find the Snitch before trying to get it himself. Then Harry realized something else was going on. 

He hadn’t seen any flash of gold the entire time on the field, and as he was the best Seeker in Hogwarts, something had to be wrong. Harry had seen the Snitch released, so it wasn’t as though it wasn’t around somewhere. Maybe the Slytherins had cursed it from the stands, or put some sort of spell beforehand that kept it out of view. 

Harry continued to speed along, but gradually decreased his height. 

“…And Slytherin ties it up, 90 to 90!”