It Could Have Gone That Way; A Harmione Fanfiction

Chapter 60: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The following morning at breakfast, Hermione watched Harry eat. He was thin. Too thin. He always looked better after a few months of Hogwarts food. He had broad shoulders, but whenever he got too thin, his skin hung oddly. He was like this every autumn - Hermione knew that - but that day, it was worse than it had been before.

Harry had arranged Quidditch tryouts the previous evening for that day, and so many people had signed up, he had needed another sheet of paper. His job was to select who would be best in each position on the team. He felt slightly nervous at confronting the first hurdle of his Captaincy. "I dunno why the team's this popular all of a sudden."

"Oh, come on, Harry!" Hermione said, suddenly impatient,"It's not Quidditch that's popular, it's you! You've never been more interesting, and frankly, you've never been more fanciable."

Ron gagged on a large piece of kipper. Hermione spared him one look of disdain before turning back to Harry.

"Its true." She said simply. That hadn't really improved Harry's outlook on the situation; instead, it had made him feel quite embarrassed.

Shortly after breakfast, everyone headed down to the Quidditch pitch for the tryouts Harry had arranged at short notice that morning. A lot of people turned up and they were all being very unruly. Ron and Ginny stood at the front quietly whilst the twenty-odd other people behind them shouted and wrestled for positions.

"Um...hi." Harry tried to stop them,"Hello? Today we are - shush! - doing tryouts and..." No one was listening to him. Harry glanced at Hermione, who was sitting in the stands, for help.

Placing the tip of her wand against her neck, Hermione shouted,"BE QUIET!" Her voice boomed around the pitch, silencing everyone.

"Good. Thanks. Right, um, we are doing tryouts today. Thank you all for coming at such short notice...Professor Dumbledore thought I should start these as soon as I could. Okay, just because you might have been on the team last year does not guarantee you a spot this year, do you understand? All right, get into groups with people that are trying out for the same position as you are and then we can start."

As the students began shuffling around and calling out positions, Cormac McGlaggen - a seventh year - strode up to Harry and nudged his shoulder.

"Say, Potter," he said breezily, eyeing the top of the stands,"think you could introduce me to your friend Granger? Wouldn't mind getting on a first-name basis, if you know what I mean." Cormac winked at him before striding off to stand next to Ron in the huddle of Keepers.

Harry suddenly felt very sick. Tryouts lasted for a good couple of hours, which were not made particularly enjoyable by the gasps and squeals from Lavender Brown in the stands every time Ron played. He wasn't half as bad as he had been the previous year, but Cormac was just a little bit better. Luckily for Ron, however, Harry didn't care all that much about the difference in skill between him and Cormac after what the latter had said about Hermione, and wound up giving Ron the Keeper position on the team. Cormac didn't speak to anyone for the rest of the day.

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September 19th was really quite a cold day that year. To celebrate their recent successes, Harry had bought almost all of Hermione's birthday presents from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, Fred and George's joke shop. Early in the morning, Harry snuck downstairs into the common room just before Hermione did. Harry ducked behind a chair in the corner of the room, small black ball ready in his hand.