Quidditch and Insanity
~~~~~
On the way back to the common room after Potions, the air was tense. There was a Quidditch practice that night, and the bet Ron and Hermione made was just starting to sink in.
They all ate dinner pretty much in silence. It got them some very weird looks, as Ron was usually only silent when he was either ill or not in the room. Harry, however, didn’t mind it so much. It was rather nice to have quiet instead of the usual constant bickering.
At seven, Harry got up to head to the pitch for practice. Hermione promptly followed him.
“I’m really sorry about this bet, Harry. I haven’t actually flown properly since that Quidditch game I played with your family a few years back. You may have to remind me exactly how to do it. At least Ron was just the Keeper, right? All he had to do was hover there and move a little to block the quaffle,” Hermione said timidly as the approached the field.
“There’s a lot more to it than that. And I’ll expect you to try really hard, because we have to win this next game against Ravenclaw if we want a shot at the Quidditch Cup. And it would be nice to win the Cup my last year.”
Hermione looked a little green. She hadn’t thought there was this much pressure in blocking a stupid little red ball.
“But won’t be the end of the world if we don’t win, don’t worry too much about it,” Harry hastily added at the expression on her face. He hoped his voice didn’t give away that he was lying. ‘Why did they have to make that ruddy bet? I am going to kill Ron if we lose this match,’ he thought to himself.
As they finally approached the Quidditch locker rooms, the rest of the team was there waiting. They seemed slightly puzzled by the fact that Hermione was there and Ron wasn’t. And Harry had the pleasant task of explaining it to them.
“Okay, before we start our practice, there’s been...a slight change in our roster. Due to a bet that I won’t go into, Ron will not be playing Quidditch for the next month and Hermione will take his place.”
“So she’s going to be our Keeper against Ravenclaw?” one of the chasers asked.
“Yes.”
The team just sat there staring at each other for a few moments. Hermione stood at the front, biting her lip. She was really nervous that they would be angry with her.
“Um, welcome to the team I guess,” said one of the beaters, breaking the silence.
Hermione heard several halfhearted murmurs congratulating her.
“I know I haven’t played much, and I know this whole thing may come as a bit of a shock, but I will try my best. I don’t want to let any of you down.” Hermione said.
The team seemed a little less gloomy to know that she was at least going to try.
“Well then, I suppose we should start practice,” Harry said.
They all walked onto the pitch. Harry decided to work with Hermione alone for a few minutes while the rest of the team did some practice laps. She mounted her broom without trouble.
“Okay, now you just need to kick off. We’ll see where you’re at.” Harry encouraged her.
She waited a second, hesitating.
“Just go. Don’t think about it so much.”
She finally gave a little push with her feet to get herself off of the ground.
“Hey Harry, this isn’t so bad. I think I can do this.”
He looked at her, hovering twenty feet up with her broom shaking like mad. He was going to have a lot of work ahead of him.
~~~~~
It was almost the end of practice for the night. She was doing better. At least she didn’t look like she was going to fall off the broom anymore. She had gotten the hang of moving around a little, and now she could get as high as the lowest goal post without nearly fainting when she looked down.
The rest of the Gryffindor team had just watched Hermione, as Harry was too busy helping her to be able to conduct a normal practice. He was grateful to them. Hermione wasn’t exactly the ideal player, but they were at least being civil. He figured this was mostly because they were still too shocked to be angry, but he would take what he could get. They all really wanted to win the cup, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they asked him later about the bet and how they could get it cancelled.
“We’re going to have to come and practice your flying sometime without the rest of the team. We can’t afford to lose anymore practice time to work on it. I’m sure with a little extra work, you’ll do find at the game.” Harry told Hermione. He was trying to be supportive of her, but the Cup was very important to him. He was silently asking himself why Ron couldn’t have made this bet with Oliver Wood.
She looked at him meekly and said, “I’m sorry about this whole thing Harry. I know it’s not your fault that Ron and I came up with this bet. It’s really nice of you to let us go through with it.”
“Why I did, I don’t know,” Harry said quietly to himself. Louder, he added, “Don’t worry about it. We have almost a month to get ready. I’m sure you’ll be okay by then.”
He turned his thoughts to Ron. It would be quite interesting to see how he was coming along with the book Hermione had given him to read.
~~~~~
“So, how’d the book thing go Ron?” Harry asked as he reached his room, where Ron was lying in bed looking rather pale.
“She made me read Hogwarts, a History! Can you believe it? And she said she read it in two hours her first year, so I had to finish the whole thing while she was at practice. Do you know how many pages that is? 438! No person with a normal brain capacity could read that fast! Is she mad?” At this point in his rant, Ron’s face had turned a bright crimson and he looked as though he might actually cry.
“Did you finish it?”
“Of course not! Are you mad too?”
“How far did you get?”
“Page 52. Then I had to give up. And I don’t remember one word that I read. How does she do it, read that much and remember it all word for word?”
Ron was beginning to get a bit hysterical at this point so Harry decided to save any further discussion for the next morning. He rolled over and tried to go to sleep, which was a difficult task as he could still hear Ron muttering, “438 pages! Word for word...”
~~~~~
On to Love and Hate-->
Back to The Insane Bet
