Chapter 88
Chapter 88
They finally reached the Quidditch pitch, and Ron bolted towards the stands as though he had been set free.
Harry and the team had not yet emerged from the changing room. Unable to follow the two top students’ conversation any longer, Ron sat beside Colin Creevey, whom he had already met several times.
The boy possessed the soul of a determined paparazzo: wherever Harry went, Colin was bound to appear.
Fortunately, Colin was interested in Quidditch, so Ron began explaining the game and extolling his beloved Chudley Cannons.
Harry came out with his teammates. All of them looked half asleep except Wood, who was brimming with energy.
The cold morning wind slapped Harry’s face and drove away his drowsiness as he mounted his broom and shot around the stadium at full speed.
He soon spotted Hermione and Suer in the stands, with Ron and Colin talking excitedly nearby.
“Morning.” Harry braked sharply in front of them.
“Harry, look this way!” Colin shrilled, lifting his camera.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Harry muttered. He gave Colin a perfunctory wave, greeted Hermione and Suer, and fled at top speed.
“What are the Slytherins doing here?” Hermione suddenly asked, pointing towards the entrance.
The Gryffindor players had noticed them too. Wood dived to the ground, his team close behind, and soon he was arguing furiously with the Slytherin captain.
“Let’s go down and see.” Hermione rose and called to the others. “Ron, stop talking. Something’s happened.”
“Oh, look,” Flint called loudly as the three approached across the grass. “Someone’s trespassing on the pitch.”
“Why have they stopped? I was explaining the rules to Colin,” Ron said to Harry. “What are they doing here? Especially him.”
“I’m Slytherin’s new Seeker, Weasley.” Malfoy smirked. “We were just showing everyone the new brooms my father bought for the team.”
Ron stared as Malfoy raised a gleaming broom and waved it beneath his nose.
“Not bad, is it?” Malfoy said pleasantly. “Perhaps Gryffindor could scrape together enough gold for new brooms too. Though the Weasleys certainly couldn’t, what with all those mouths to feed.”
Several Slytherins burst into vicious laughter.
“I have an idea,” Malfoy continued. “Sell those Shooting Star Fives of yours. Some foolish museum might take them, and then perhaps you could afford second-hand modern brooms–something like Potter’s Nimbus 2000.”
“I could ask whether a museum wants them,” offered a tall, thin Slytherin in mock friendliness. “An uncle of mine deals in antiques.”
The Slytherins laughed again, Malfoy loudest of all.
“At least nobody on the Gryffindor team had to buy his way in,” Hermione said sharply. “Every one of them earned a place through ability.”
The laughter stopped. Malfoy’s face darkened as he glared at her.
“Nobody asked you, you filthy little Mudblood!”
Behind Hermione, Suer’s expression turned terrifyingly cold. His wand was in his hand almost before Malfoy finished speaking.
“Petrificus Totalus!”
Malfoy’s sneer froze. He pitched face-first onto the turf.
The Slytherins could only watch their benefactor become intimately acquainted with the grass.
“How dare you!” Flint stepped forwards and drew his wand.
The whole team glared at Suer and raised their wands. The Gryffindors surged forwards in answer.
“How dare you!” shrieked a girl in red Quidditch robes.
Fred and George placed themselves between Suer, Hermione, and the Slytherins.
Harry blinked in confusion. He did not yet know what Mudblood meant.
Ron had gone scarlet. He too drew his wand and pointed it at Malfoy.
Chaos engulfed the pitch as the two sides faced each other down.
An older Slytherin released Malfoy from the curse. Malfoy scrambled to his feet, shook off the hands of his teammates, and drew his wand, his face black with rage.
“Suer Bones!”
This was the second time. The humiliation on the train the previous year might have happened only yesterday. Fire seemed ready to burst from Malfoy’s eyes.
“Get out here!”
“Here I am. Now what?” Suer patted one of the twins on the shoulder and stepped calmly to the front.
Hermione watched him anxiously from behind.
Malfoy raised his wand.
“What are you doing?” a voice thundered from across the lawn. Hagrid strode rapidly towards them.
“None of your business, you great oaf!” Malfoy snapped.
“Is that how old Malfoy raised yeh?” Hagrid glowered.
Perhaps Hagrid’s enormous bulk was simply too intimidating. Malfoy’s lips moved, but no words emerged. He gave Suer a venomous look.
“You’ll pay for this.”
Then he shoved past Colin. “Move, boy.”
Colin stumbled sideways.
Without their new Seeker, the Slytherins could not train. They followed Malfoy away.
Suer narrowed his eyes at Malfoy’s retreating back.
With the Slytherins gone, Gryffindor had the pitch to itself. Harry gave Suer and the others a worried look, but mounted his broom when Wood called.
Fred and George each clapped Suer on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Call us if you need help.”
“If Slytherin’s miserable, we’re happy.”
“And we’ve got plenty of Dungbombs. George and I made loads over the summer.”
They sniggered.
Before long, Hagrid joined them in the stands, taking up an enormous stretch of bench.
“Who was he trying ter curse?” he asked.
“Suer,” Ron answered. “But there was a reason. Malfoy called Hermione something horrible. He called her a Mudblood.”
“Is that true?” Hagrid demanded, outraged.
“Yes.” Hermione nodded. “But I didn’t know what it meant. Everyone became furious, and Suer suddenly cursed Malfoy. It startled me.”
“It’s one of the worst insults there is,” Ron said angrily. “Mudblood is a slur for someone Muggle-born–someone whose parents can’t do magic. Some wizards think they’re superior because they’re pure-blood and look down on anyone from a Muggle family.”
He drew breath.
“It means dirty, inferior blood.”
“So that’s why Suer was so angry.” Hermione’s own anger began to rise. “It’s appalling. Completely uncivilised.”
“His whole family is like that,” Ron agreed. “You saw how Malfoy’s father treated us in Diagon Alley.”
“It’s all rubbish anyway. Most wizards are half-blood these days. If we never married Muggles, we’d have died out!”
Suer, meanwhile, was talking to Colin, who had nearly dropped his camera. He wanted to know whether the boy had captured Malfoy with his face pressed into the turf.