Harry Potter 03 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

hear his parents again …
    ‘They’re dead,’ he told himself sternly. ‘They’re dead, and listening to echoes of them won’t bring them back. You’d better get a grip on yourself if you want that Quidditch Cup.’
    He stood up, crammed the last bit of chocolate into his mouth and headed back to Gryffindor Tower.
    *
    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 they 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, Harry had just one night a week to do all his homework. Even so, he 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 Harry one evening, as Harry sat finishing a nasty essay on Undetectable Poisons for Snape. Harry looked up. Hermione was barely visible behind a tottering pile of books.
    ‘Doing what?’
    ‘Getting to all her classes!’ Ron said. ‘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!’
    Harry didn’t have time to fathom the mystery of Hermione’s impossible timetable at the moment; he really needed to get on with Snape’s essay. Two seconds later, however, he 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. ‘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,’ said Harry flatly.
    *
    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 Professor McGonagall for news of the Firebolt after every Transfiguration lesson, Ron standing hopefully at his shoulder, Hermione rushing past with her face averted.
    ‘No, Potter, you can’t have it back yet,’ Professor McGonagall told him the twelfth time this happened, before he’d even opened his mouth. ‘We’ve checked 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.’
    To make matters even worse, Harry’s Anti-Dementor lessons were not going nearly as well as he had hoped. Several sessions on, he was able to produce an indistinct, silvery shadow every time the Boggart-Dementor approached him, but his Patronus was too feeble to drive the Dementor away. All it did was hover, like a semi-transparent cloud, draining Harry of energy as he fought to keep it there. Harry felt angry with himself, guilty about his secret desire to hear his parents’ voices again.
    ‘You’re expecting too much of yourself,’ said Professor Lupin sternly, in their fourth week of practice. ‘For a thirteen-year-old wizard, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge achievement. You aren’t passing out any more,