Harry Potter 03 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

…
    Before he’d had time to think, Harry had taken his eyes off the Snitch and looked down.
    At least a hundred Dementors, their hidden faces pointing up at him, were standing below. It was as though freezing water was rising in his chest, cutting at his insides. And then he heard it again … someone was screaming, screaming inside his head … a woman …
    ‘Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!’
    ‘Stand aside, you silly girl … stand aside, now …’
    ‘Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead –’
    Numbing, swirling white mist was filling Harry’s brain … What was he doing? Why was he flying? He needed to help her … she was going to die … she was going to be murdered …
    He was falling, falling through the icy mist.
    ‘Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy …’
    A shrill voice was laughing, the woman was screaming, and Harry knew no more.
    *
    ‘Lucky the ground was so soft.’
    ‘I thought he was dead for sure.’
    ‘But he didn’t even break his glasses.’
    Harry could hear the voices whispering, but they made no sense whatsoever. He didn’t have a clue where he was, or how he’d got there, or what he’d been doing before he got there. All he knew was that every inch of him was aching as though it had been beaten.
    ‘That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’
    Scariest … the scariest thing … hooded black figures … cold … screaming …
    Harry’s eyes snapped open. He was lying in the hospital wing. The Gryffindor Quidditch team, spattered with mud from head to foot, was gathered around his bed. Ron and Hermione were also there, looking as though they’d just climbed out of a swimming pool.
    ‘Harry!’ said Fred, who looked extremely white underneath the mud. ‘How’re you feeling?’
    It was as though Harry’s memory was on fast forward. The lightning … the Grim … the Snitch … and the Dementors …
    ‘What happened?’ he said, sitting up so suddenly they all gasped.
    ‘You fell off,’ said Fred. ‘Must’ve been – what – fifty feet?’
    ‘We thought you’d died,’ said Alicia, who was shaking.
    Hermione made a small, squeaky noise. Her eyes were extremely bloodshot.
    ‘But the match,’ said Harry. ‘What happened? Are we having a replay?’
    No one said anything. The horrible truth sank into Harry like a stone.
    ‘We didn’t – lose ?’
    ‘Diggory got the Snitch,’ said George. ‘Just after you fell. He didn’t realise what had happened. When he looked back and saw you on the ground, he tried to call it off. Wanted a re-match. But they won fair and square … even Wood admits it.’
    ‘Where is Wood?’ said Harry, suddenly realising he wasn’t there.
    ‘Still in the showers,’ said Fred. ‘We think he’s trying to drown himself.’
    Harry put his face to his knees, his hands gripping his hair. Fred grabbed his shoulder and shook it roughly.
    ‘C’mon, Harry, you’ve never missed the Snitch before.’
    ‘There had to be one time you didn’t get it,’ said George.
    ‘It’s not over yet,’ said Fred. ‘We lost by a hundred points, right? So if Hufflepuff lose to Ravenclaw and we beat Ravenclaw and Slytherin …’
    ‘Hufflepuff’ll have to lose by at least two hundred points,’ said George.
    ‘But if they beat Ravenclaw …’
    ‘No way, Ravenclaw are too good. But if Slytherin lose against Hufflepuff …’
    ‘It all depends on the points – a margin of a hundred either way –’
    Harry lay there, not saying a word. They had lost … for the first time ever, he had lost a Quidditch match.
    After ten minutes or so, Madam Pomfrey came over to tell the team to leave him in peace.
    ‘We’ll come and see you later,’ Fred told him. ‘Don’t beat yourself up, Harry, you’re still the best Seeker we’ve ever had.’
    The team trooped out, trailing mud behind them. Madam Pomfrey shut the door behind them, looking disapproving. Ron and Hermione moved nearer to Harry’s bed.
    ‘Dumbledore was really angry,’ Hermione said in a quaking voice. ‘I’ve never seen him like that before. He ran onto the pitch as you fell, waved his wand, and you sort of slowed down before you hit the ground. Then he whirled his wand at the Dementors. Shot silver stuff at them. They left the stadium straight away … he was furious they’d come into the grounds, we heard him –’
    ‘Then he magicked you onto a stretcher,’ said Ron. ‘And walked up to school with you floating on it. Everyone