Bella and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter Thirty-One

After another attempt, Harry still couldn't cast his Patronus so we left the classroom with Lupin promising to help him soon. We also found out that Lupin knew Sirius while they were both in school, but he didn't really mention much about it.

Ravenclaw played Slytherin a week after the start of term. Slytherin won, though narrowly. According to Wood, this was good news for Gryffindor, who would take second place if we beat Ravenclaw too. He, therefore, increased the number of team practices to five a week. This meant that with Lupin's Anti-Dementor classes, which in themselves were more draining than six Quidditch practices, I had just one night a week to do all my homework. Even so, I wasn't showing the strain nearly as much as Hermione, whose immense workload finally seemed to be getting to her. Every night, without fail, Hermione was to be seen in a corner of the Common Room, several tables spread with books, Arithmancy charts, Rune dictionaries, diagrams of Muggles lifting heavy objects, and file upon file of extensive notes; she barely spoke to anybody and snapped when she was interrupted.

"How's she doing it?" Ron muttered to me and Harry one evening, as me and Harry sat finishing our nasty essay on Undetectable Poisons for Snape. I looked up. Hermione was barely visible behind a tottering pile of books.

"Doing what?" Harry asked.

"Getting to all her classes!" Ron said like it was obvious. I caught Harry's eye and shrugged. "I heard her talking to Professor Vector, that Arithmancy witch, this morning. They were going on about yesterday's lesson, but Hermione can't've been there, because she was with us in Care of Magical Creatures! And Ernie McMillan told me she's never missed a Muggle Studies class, but half of them are at the same time as Divination, and she's never missed one of them, either!"

I honestly didn't have the time to fathom the mystery of Hermione's impossible timetable at the moment; I really needed to get on with Snape's essay. Two seconds later, however, I was interrupted again, this time by Wood.

"Bad news, Harry. I've just been to see Professor McGonagall about the Firebolt. She - er - got a bit shirty with me. Told me I'd got my priorities wrong. Seemed to think I cared more about winning the Cup than I do about you staying alive. Just because I told her I didn't care if it threw you off, as long as you caught the Snitch on it first." Wood shook his head in disbelief and I gaped at him. "Honestly, the way she was yelling at me...you'd think I'd said something terrible. Then I asked her how much longer she was going to keep it..." He screwed up his face and imitated Professor McGonagall's severe voice, "'As long as necessary, Wood'...I reckon it's time you ordered a new broom, Harry. There's an order form at the back of Which Broomstick...you could get a Nimbus Two Thousand and One, like Malfoy's got"

"I'm not buying anything Malfoy thinks is good," Harry said flatly.

"Well, you need to order something and fast," Wood said sharply before glancing at me. "I got your necklace back, though Bella. Nothing's wrong with it. Just an ordinary necklace"

He handed me my necklace and walked off. I grinned as I fastened it around my neck where it belonged.

*

January faded imperceptibly into February, with no change in the bitterly cold weather. The match against Ravenclaw was drawing nearer and nearer, but Harry still hadn't ordered a new broom. He was now asking McGonagall for news of the Firebolt after every Transfiguration lesson, Ron standing hopefully at his shoulder, I was playing with my necklace and Hermione was rushing past with her face averted.

"No, Potter, you can't have it back yet," McGonagall told him the twelfth time this happened before he'd even opened his mouth. "We've checked it for most of the usual curses, but Professor Flitwick believes the broom might be carrying a Hurling Hex. I shall tell you once we've finished checking it. Now, please stop badgering me"