When Harry
got to the common room he found Ron and Hermione and, together, they found three
armchairs away from prying eyes and ears. There, Harry told them, in a hushed
voice, all he had been told about the Order of the Phoenix.
‘So that’s what Hagrid’s
doing,’ said Ron.
‘I wonder what they are doing
about the Dementors,’ said Hermione looking extremely worried. ‘I hope
You-Know-Who hasn’t already bribed them onto his side. I was wondering why
Dumbledore would have given you a phoenix feather. It all makes perfect sense
now. And no wonder Fletcher doesn’t like you. He doesn’t want you to be in
the Order. Maybe he feels if he’s mean to you, you wont want to join the
order.’
‘Like that’s going to
happen!’ said Ron. ‘I wonder who the spy is.
You don’t reckon its Snape again, do you?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Hermione.
‘I don’t think Dumbledore is stupid enough to use the same spy twice. Do
you? It’s going to be very hard for you, Harry, to learn all those new things.
Even some fully-grown wizards can’t do them. And you still have to study for
your OWLs.’
‘I’ll be fine, Hermione,’
said Harry. ‘Stop worrying.’
‘I wonder what Fletcher did that
was against tradition?’ asked Ron.
There was too much going on in
Harry’s mind to think about half of this stuff. Just thinking about the Order
was enough. The quidditch season was also starting and he was to have his first
training session after school the next day. Angelina Johnson had been made the
first female Quidditch captain Hogwarts had seen and she was determined to prove
that she was better than Oliver Wood or anyone else.
***
The next afternoon at five
o’clock Harry headed down to the Quidditch stadium, with his Firebolt, where
Angelina, Fred, George and Aoife were already standing. It was already getting
dark so Fred summoned some large bright flames that hovered high in the air
around the outside of the pitch. Behind Harry came Katie Bell and Alicia
Spinnet.
‘So,’ said Angelina. ‘Let’s
get started. I’m the captain this year and I’m determined for Gryffindor to
keep the title. First of all, let me introduce the new keeper, Aoife Granger.
And a mighty fine one she is too!’
Everyone nodded a hello and Harry
smiled. Aoife smiled back. She looked extremely nervous. This was going to be
her first time playing a proper game of quidditch (Angelina had, no doubt, shown
her the basics) and she had very big shoes to fill as keeper after Oliver Wood.
‘This year,’ continued
Angelina, ‘we are going to concentrate on something a little different to
before. I call it The Slanting Broom Formation.’
Angelina whipped out her wand and
drew a slanted line through the air. Five beads of light appeared in different
positions along the line – three down the centre of the line and then two
spread out on either side at the end line giving a simple broom shape.
‘These three here,’ Angelina
said pointing to the three dots that were on the centre of the line, ‘are
Katie, Alicia and myself. The two on either end at the back here, are Fred and
George.’
Angelina spent the next hour
talking to them and for once they didn’t fall asleep. Harry actually found it
all very interesting. Then they mounted their brooms and shot off into the air.
Harry could feel the wind rush through his hair. It was a sensation he had not
felt for over a year now and it felt as though a friend had come back to him who
he had not seen in a decade. It was now pitch black outside the stadium. Inside,
however, it was like the middle of a summer’s day. The large torches kept the
area both bright and warm.
‘Right,’ called Angelina,
‘we’re going to practise this new formation. Harry you do what you do best
and catch the golden snitch. Aoife you try stop us scoring.’
She then let the Bludgers and
Snitch go and grabbed hold of the Quaffle. Then, she mounted her own broom and
soared up into the sky. Harry kept his eye on where the Snitch went but after a
few seconds he had lost it.
Harry thoroughly enjoyed the rest
of the practise and could not wait for his first game against Slytherin in two
weeks. They didn’t finish practise until half past ten and when Harry looked
at his watch he realised that he was late for his meeting with Prof. Dumbledore
and Sirius. Saying a quick good bye to everyone and not giving an excuse for
leaving, he stayed on his broom and sped up to the castle. When he reached the
large oak front doors he didn’t bother getting off his broom – he was
already late enough. He flew straight up to the fourth floor and stopped just in
front of the statue of Merlin. He was very lucky not to have met Filch. He would
hate to think of the trouble he would get into for flying through the corridors.
He took out his wand (he didn’t have his quill with him) and gave the statue a
tap. It came to life and jumped aside to reveal the now familiar passageway.
Harry stepped through the arch and immediately the statue covered the passage
from the other side again.
He flew down the long passageway
again and came to a halt at the end. Once again he was in the beautifully
decorated room. This time only Prof. Dumbledore and Sirius were at the table but
they were still in the same places.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Prof.
Dumbledore. ‘Harry! You’re very welcome. Now sit down. Let’s start
work.’
Harry went over to the seat he had
sat in only the night before and once again it formed around him to become the
most comfortable chair ever. Harry even thought it was more comfortable than
yesterday but that could have been because he had just been out in the cold
night air.
‘Now Harry,’ continued Prof.
Dumbledore. ‘Today we’ll be teaching you the basics of Animagi. You will
need to learn all of the physics that belong to transforming yourself and we
will also need to work out the animal that will most suit you and the markings
that you will keep when you transform.’
Harry and
Sirius spent the next three hours watching Prof. Dumbledore as he wrote numbers
and equations on a piece of paper and showed it to them. By the end of the three
hours Prof. Dumbledore had worked out that the animal that would suit Harry best
to turn into was a barn owl because of his precision in flying and his alert
personality. The marking he would keep would be obviously his lightning bolt
scar on his forehead.
All Harry would have to do was
think very hard of his lightning bolt scar and the image he would take when he
was transformed. Then, of course, he would have to remember all the magical
theory behind the transformation. Prof. Dumbledore had made it sound so easy
but, in fact, it was very difficult. By the time the class was over all Harry
had managed to do was make his face go a shade whiter but he wasn’t exactly
sure if that was because he was changing into a barn owl or just because he felt
sick from so much effort and lack of sleep. It was three o’clock and Harry had
been up early the morning before to finish his essay for Mrs. Figg.
‘Now Harry,’ said Prof.
Dumbledore finally. ‘I believe it is time you went to bed. You have school in
the morning and I don’t want any teachers sending you to my office for falling
asleep in their class!’
Harry went off back to the
Gryffindor common room. He was very put out that he hadn’t had the chance to
talk to Sirius but he had arranged to meet him after the game on Saturday.
Sirius had promised that he would watch the game and Harry couldn’t wait.
When Harry reached the common room
it was empty. Ron and Hermione had obviously been fed up waiting and gone to
bed. Harry didn’t mind and he couldn’t blame them. The thing he wanted most
to do was get into his comfortable four-poster bed and fall asleep.
He went up to the dormitory and
just as he was about to climb into bed Ron woke up and pulled back the curtains
of his four-poster.
‘So how’d it go?’ said Ron
sounding very sleepy.
‘I’ll tell you about it
tomorrow,’ said Harry not wanting to talk about it in front of Neville, Seamus
and Dean. He guessed that Ron had got the message because Ron just nodded and
went back behind his curtains.
***
The rest of the week passed quickly
enough. Harry had been practising transforming into a barn owl with Hermione and
Ron after dinner most of the days. Being a Prefect had its good sides as it gave
Harry the authority to take over a class at lunch time without getting in
trouble. Prof. McGonagall had even given Harry some tips about how to become an
animagus.
He had managed to grow a full tail
and make his right arm shrink to the size of a wing. That was the easy part
compared to the next step – transforming back again. It required much more
concentration and one time, when they had been practicing during lunch, Harry
had to go to History of Magic with a few feathers sticking out of his head.
Harry had
been finding it hard to concentrate on transforming on the Thursday because he
had just gotten a letter from Hagrid. He had been hoping to see Hagrid sometime
soon but it didn’t look likely.
Hi
Harry (Harry
read through messy handwriting and misspelled words)
Don’t
think I’ll be cumin back soon. The giants aren’t to happy about You-No-What.
They don’t think it’s a good enugh deal. Dumbledore was tellin me bout you
being a member. Darn proud I was. Your parents would be to. I nearly cried when
I heard. Good luck in yer match on Saturday. You’ll do grate!
Hagrid
When Saturday
came Harry was too excited to eat breakfast.
‘How many times do you have to be
told,’ said Hermione trying to wave a piece of toast under his nose. ‘You
can’t fly on an empty stomach.’
‘I’m grand,’ said Harry
pushing away the toast.
At eleven o’clock he headed down
to the Quidditch pitch with Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Aoife and his broomstick. It
was a sunny and dry day and the ground was hard. At the changing rooms Hermione,
Ron and Ginny wished Harry and Aoife good luck (Ginny went bright red when she
looked at Harry, which, Harry had noticed a lot recently, while Hermione looked
extremely anxious about Aoife being hit by a Bludger).
Harry and Aoife went into the
changing room where they pulled on their Quidditch robes and Angelina gave a
quick prep talk.
‘Remember what we’ve been
practising,’ she said. ‘Don’t let it all go to waist. Harry, Aoife – you
know what you have to do. Good luck everyone.’
They walked out on to the pitch
along with the Slytherins, where Madam Hooch was waiting for them. The whole
school was already in the stands.
‘Good luck, Harry,’ sneered
Malfoy. ‘You’ll need it.’ Harry ignored him and mounted his broom.
‘Don’t forget,’ called Madam
Hooch. ‘A nice clean game. Ok. Everyone ready?’ She let out the Bludgers and
Snitch which Harry watched as it sped out of site. She picked up the Quaffle.
‘On my whistle then. Three…two…one!’
She blew the whistle, and threw the
Quaffle into the air as the fourteen players raised off the ground and high into
the air. Harry gazed around into the stands and spotted Sirius in his dog form
at the back of the stands. And then Harry spotted beside Sirius, someone that
made his heart skip a beat. He had to close his eyes for a second to make sure
he was seeing correctly. He couldn’t believe it. Hagrid was sitting beside
Sirius. He waved at Harry who returned the wave.
Harry’s excitement suddenly
raised then. He would finally get to talk to both Sirius and Hagrid after
the match. He longed for the end and kept his eyes wide open and looked for the
Snitch.
Ten minutes into the game Harry
recognized the Slanting Broom form at the half way mark, as Angelina flew in
front, with Katie behind her and slightly lower and behind Katie, and once again
lower, came Alicia. They were passing the ball back and forth to each other
while the Slytherin team tired to retrieve the Quaffle, but failed. Behind the
three girls and out to the sides came Fred and George, who, every so often,
would move forward to knock a Bludger away. When they came within twenty feet of
the goals the three chasers realigned themselves into a straight line, each one
facing one of the hoops at the end of the pitch, passing the Quaffle to each
other, while Fred and George flew in circles around the line knocking away any
Bludgers and preventing the Slytherins form getting near the chasers.
Harry could see that the new
Slytherin keeper (a boy from sixth year) was extremely confused. The Quaffle was
moving from player to player too fast for him to keep up and he wasn’t going
to be able to defend all the hoops at the same time.
Alicia, Angelina and Katie
continued to throw the Quaffle to each other at the speed of light and at five
feet from the gaol Fred and George flew away to give the chasers a clear shot of
the hoops. Alicia passed the Quaffle to Katie, back to Alicia, Angelina, Katie
and through the hoop. The keeper was at the far hoop and was only able to tip
the Quaffle as it went in though the hoop. The whole stadium (except for the
Slytherins) erupted into cheers and Harry joined in.
‘An amazing tactic,’
Harry heard Lee Gordan shout over the cheering. ‘I don’t think that’s been
seen since the 1973 World Cup!’
Harry watched the Slytherin keeper
nearly break his broom as he flew around; banging it off the goal post he was so
annoyed. By the time he had finished the broom was nearly bald and Slytherin had
scored two goals.
The next ten minutes were
thoroughly exciting even though Slytherin had scored another three, very good
gaols (Harry had to admit). Gryfindor had earned themselves another goal; once
again using the Slanted Broom Formation.
And then, suddenly Harry noticed a
Bludger heading straight for the back of Malfoy’s head. No one seemed to
notice. This seemed to good to be true! The Bludger hit him and he fell off his
broom, falling sixty feet. The dry, hard ground waiting patiently below. And
then Harry saw it. The Golden Snitch seemed to be racing Malfoy to the ground
but Malfoy was too concerned with falling and screaming to notice. Harry sped
after it faster then Malfoy was falling. As he reached Malfoy, ten feet from the
ground, he flew under him grabbing the Snitch on his way and then heard Malfoy
smack onto the ground with a thud behind him. Harry felt the pain Malfoy was
going through as the same thing had happened to him in his third year at
Hogwarts but didn’t pay much attention to it. It seemed to make the whole four
years of being annoyed by Malfoy worthwhile. If only Lockhart had been here to
“fix” Malfoy.
It wasn’t until Harry heard the
blow of Madam Hooch’s whistle that he realised that he had caught the Snitch.
The stadium exploded into a cheer from the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and
Ravenclaws. The whole Gryffindor team sped over to Harry on their brooms and
hugged him as Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, Ginny and Sirius (in dog form) came down to
congratulate him. Harry saw Ginny as red as her hair after she hugged him and
Harry felt something he rarely felt.
‘Great catch!’ called Fred
Weasley.
‘Haven’t seen one like that
since the eighty-five World Cup!’ said George.
After all the celebrating on the
pitch Harry, Ron, Hermione and Sirius went to Hagrid’s hut for a chat and some
tea. Wenn they entered the large hut Fang bounded towards Harry and gave him a
big lick on the side of the face. Once they were safely inside and the door and
curtains were closed, Sirius transformed back into a human.
‘I thought you weren’t going to
be coming back for ages,’ said Harry to Hagrid. ‘You said so in your
letter.’
‘Wanted yer ter think that,
didn’t I?’ said Hagrid with a smile forming under the big beard. ‘We go’
the giants ter sign an agreemen’ ter say that they wouldn’t go over ter the
dark side an’ they would help us if we needed it. It was tough bu’ no one
ain’t never gonna say no to Olympe Maxime. She’s very persuasive.
‘What’s going to happen now?’
asked Hermione.
‘Can’t be too sure,’ said
Hagrid. ‘Bu’ I’d say Dumbledore’s gonna use them ter try an’ defeat
You-Know-Who. The giants can be very cunnin an’ useful agains’ dark magic.
They’re almost immune ter it.’
‘Well it’s brilliant you’re
back,’ said Ron. ‘I couldn’t stand another class with that fool,
Rubbly-Slanks.’
‘Grubbly-Planks,’ corrected
Hermione.
‘I’m afraid
tha’ won’ be happenin’, Ron,’ said Hagrid. ‘Dumbledore felt it
better tha’ you keep her ‘til the end of the year so tha’ you can
concentrate on yer exams.’
‘Another eight months with
her?’ asked Ron sounding disgusted.
‘Yep,’ answered Hagrid smiling
and happy to see Ron so white.
‘How’s your animagus practise
coming along Harry?’ asked Sirius. ‘Gotten far yet?’
‘Yer transformin’!’ cried
Hagrid. ‘Never thouugh’ I’d live to see the day! Go on show me and Sirius
wha’ you can do.’
Harry wasn’t too sure about this.
He wasn’t to keen about the thought of having feathers sticking out of his
head and bum as he entered the Great Hall for lunch and having Malfoy laugh at
him but after a lot of persuasion he decided to transform and if the worst came
to the worst he could always pull the feathers out – even if it hurt badly.
He stood in the middle of the floor
and with everyone watching him he concentrated hard on what Dumbledore had told
him. And he felt the familiar tingle rush through his body. He closed his eyes
concentrating hard and when the tingling left him he opened his eyes to a very
unusual sight.
He was still in Hagrid’s hut and
every one was still there but they seemed to have grown a lot and he was looking
up at them from the floor. Hagrid had a very strained smile on his face and said
unreassuringly ‘Well done, Harry!’ While Hermione looked extremely shocked
and Ron tried very hard to stifle a laugh. Sirius on the other hand didn’t
seem too perturbed about what ever was wrong with the others.
Harry looked at himself and filled
with horror. He realized that he had shrunk to the size of a barn owl but he was
still in his human form. He tried to cry out in shock but all that came out was
a loud squeak. He started to panic but was reassured by Sirius.
‘Don’t worry, Harry,’ he
said. ‘Just transform back to your normal size. It happens to everyone their
first few times.’
Harry gazed around him for a while
before getting ready to transform back again. The large figures of Ron, Hermione
and Hagrid were still shocked. It was very unusual to be so small with everyone
staring at you like that but Harry supposed he would have to get used to it if
he was going to transform into an owl all the time.
Once again he closed his eyes
tightly and remembered all of Dumbledore’s instructions and tips and once
again he felt the tingling rush through his very small body. When the tingling
finally finished he opened his eyes again. Everything appeared to be back to
normal again. Everyone was the size they should have been and Harry felt the top
of his head which was feather free.
They spent the rest of the
afternoon talking and Sirius told them about his summer, which was the most
exciting summer he had had in a long time even though it was spent hiding in
Lupin’s house. Hagrid told them about his adventure to the giants and how he
had become great friends with Madame Maxime instead of having a relationship. He
also explained that Madame Maxime had to return to France to her school and
would only be visiting Hogwarts for the meetings of the Order.