Fear of a Name

Chapter Fifty-Three: Making Plans

By the time the holidays were over, my attitude about doing so much had changed completely. I was constantly on the edge of having a breakdown, and I was permanently exhausted. The little time I had at night when I wasn't doing research, homework, or revision was plagued with the nightmares. I'd got no closer to figuring them out.

"Ivory, please put that book down," Ron said on the first morning after the holidays were over. "You need to have some time away from all that research, especially now you're going to have class work to cope with as well."
"I can't!" I said shrilly. "I've got to find out why they're happening!"
"Please, Ivory..."
He tried to gently pull the book from my hands, but I steadfastly refused to let go.
"Ron, don't!"

Just then, Hermione came down. She also had her nose buried in a book, and she was looking just as stressed out as I felt.
"Hey Hermio — oh for Merlin's sake, not you as well," Harry said, interrupting himself.
Hermione sat down next to me without a word.
"What even is that you're reading?" Ron asked her.
"The Secret Garden," she said without looking up. "It's a Muggle book, I've got to read it for Muggle Studies. Apparently there's probably going to be some questions about it in the exam."

Harry sighed.
"Hermione, don't you think you're doing too much? You've barely slept at all, and the exams are still ages away."
"They're in less than two months!"
"Exactly," Ron said. "That's ages."
"It's not ages! It's barely any time at all!" Hermione said.

"What's our first lesson?" I asked, changing the subject quickly to avoid an argument.
"Divination," Harry said.
"Good, I don't have to concentrate in that, I can keep researching," I muttered.
"But the exams!" Hermione said.
"Honestly, Hermione, I think there's a very low chance us three are going to get good marks in Divination," Ron said.
I nodded.
"Come on, we'd better go."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next few days, there was incredible tension in the air. The Quidditch final between Gryffindor and Slytherin was approaching, and if Gryffindor won, we'd get the Quidditch Cup for the first time in almost a decade. A number of small scuffles broke out in the hallways, one particular incident landing a Gryffindor fourth-year and a Slytherin sixth-year in the hospital wing with leeks growing out of their ears.

The team couldn't go anywhere without Slytherins sticking out their legs to try and trip them up, but Harry definitely had the worst of it. Crabbe and Goyle kept popping up wherever he went, and slouching away looking disappointed when they saw him surrounded by people. Oliver Wood had given instructions that Harry should be accompanied everywhere in case the Slytherins tried to put him out of action. The whole of our house had taken up the challenge enthusiastically, so that it was impossible for Harry to get to classes on time because he was surrounded by a vast, chattering crowd.

By the day before the match, the tension had reached breaking point. No less than twenty three different Slytherins had tried to hex Harry on that day alone, and a couple had even managed to get into our common room to try and steal the Firebolt, which he kept locked in his trunk. Thankfully, Fred and George had been there setting up a prank they were going to pull on their brother Percy, so they'd managed to get the Slytherins out again by putting the Full Body-Bind Curse on them and levitating them back out of the portrait hole.

All usual pursuits were abandoned in the common room that night. Even Hermione and I had put down our books.
"I can't work, I can't concentrate," she said nervously, and I felt the same way.

There was a great deal of noise. Fred and George, who were the team's beaters, were dealing with the pressure by being louder and more exuberant than ever. Oliver Wood, captain and keeper of the team, was crouched over a model of a Quidditch pitch in the corner, prodding little figures across it with his wand and muttering to himself. Angelina, Alicia and Katie, the chasers, were laughing at Fred and George's jokes. Harry was sitting with Ron, Hermione, and me, removed from the centre of things.

"You're going to be fine," Hermione told him, though she looked positively terrified.
"You've got a Firebolt!" said Ron.
"And Fred and George said you're the best seeker they've ever had," I added. "You'll do great."
"Yeah..." said Harry, though he didn't sound like it'd helped at all.
I could see it came as a relief to him when Wood suddenly stood up and yelled, "Team! Bed!"

The team all went up the stairs to the dormitories, and talk soon turned to how good our chances were looking.
"I've heard Flint, the Slytherin captain, has made some changes to the team for this match," Lee Jordan said. He did the commentary for the matches, so he often found out about new team line-ups and stuff before everyone else did. "He seems to be going for size rather than skill. Malfoy's easily the smallest on the team, the rest of them are enormous. I reckon they're going to try and knock our players out of the air."

There was an uneasy lull in conversation when he said this.
"Maybe we should try and learn a couple of spells to help the team out if the Slytherins are trying to put them out of action during the match," someone said. "Just to keep them all in the air, you know?"
There were murmurs of agreement, and then everyone turned to look at me. Everyone in Gryffindor knew by now that if they wanted a spell for something, I'd almost certainly know one.

"Well," I started thoughtfully, "we need a spell that won't knock the Slytherins out of the air, because we might get the team in trouble if that happens, and we need one that we can do without anyone knowing it's us, because we're technically not supposed to intervene with a match. It can't disrupt play at all, but at the same time, it needs to be powerful enough that the Slytherins can't knock our team off their brooms."
There was complete silence now as I tried to think of a spell that met all those criteria.

After a couple of minutes, I suddenly had an idea.
"I've got it! A simple levitation spell should work!"