Chapter 16

The noise of the storm was even louder in the common room.

Grace was woken up by the noise, sitting up, looking at the weather now reminded her of what would happen today.

She lay down and closed her eyes, thinking that as long as she didn’t go, everything would be fine since Harry is different from what she had watched. He knows how to use spells and can manage his emotions well. She’s confident that as long as Harry stays calm, he can defend himself against Dementors.

” Grace, let’s go!” Hermione called out excitedly.

” It’s still early,” Grace said; she already planned not to go.

Hermione opened the curtain of Grace’s bed and saw her covered with a blanket. ” But today is Harry’s Quidditch game. I heard that it won’t be cancelled even with this heavy storm.. I’m worried.”

Grace paused for a moment and sighed. She was worried too. ” Fine,” Grace sat up and ruffled Hermione’s hair.

” Ugh.. my hair! Grace, stop it,” Hermione complained as she moved away from Grace’s hand.

” It’s so soft.”

” I’ll wait for you outside,” Hermione ran out, not giving Grace a chance to ruffle her hair again.

A few minutes later, Hermione saw Grace. The two ate first and quickly went to the Quidditch arena. Even with the big storm, a lot of students still went to watch. Grace unconsciously looked around only to see a few Slytherin students.

” I thought only a few would watch,” Hermione said as she noticed that Grace kept looking around.

Grace was startled inside but remained calm outside. ” Yeah, Quidditch is really popular.”

” Don’t you like it too? You’re pretty good at flying on a broomstick. If you join the team, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that you can be one of the greatest Chasers!”

Grace smiled helplessly. She actually didn’t expect that she would be good at magic and broomsticks. Although she’s not familiar with them, maybe it was because her body was occupied before and had muscle memory, coupled with her getting her original body back, the potential was unlocked.

” Don’t exaggerate,” She tapped Hermione’s forehead.

” I’m not.”

Grace chuckled, then ruffled Hermione’s soft hair again. It’s so soft.

” Grace, stop it! I just fixed it a while ago,” Hermione complained, only to be met by Grace pinching her cheeks, although it didn’t hurt. She slapped Grace’s hand with controlled force, just enough not to hurt Grace.

Grace laughed at how Hermione looked so cute and irritated yet still reluctant to hurt her even a little.

Hermione gave Grace a glare.

Grace knew that she was wrong, so she quickly apologized. ” I was wrong, I got carried away,” she gently rubbed Hermione’s head.

Hermione sighed and smiled helplessly. ” Stop treating me like a child.”

” But you’re so cute,” Grace said, pinching Hermione’s cheek again.

Hermione blushed and lightly moved Grace’s hand away. ” Hmph.. just because I’m cute, you treat me like a child?”

She didn’t even refute it. Cute. Grace chuckled. ” Well, how ’bout you call me sister?”

Hermione’s eyes suddenly shone, she was obviously tempted. “I don’t want to,” she said weakly.

” But I want Hermione as my sister. I promise I’ll be a nice older sister,” Grace coaxed Hermione. ‘ It’s definitely not because she wants to rub Hermione’s hair. Her hair is so soft, it’s reasonable for an older sister to pamper and rub her little sister’s head from time to time, right?’

Hermione was about to answer when the match began. ” Let’s talk about it later.”

With the intense weather, you could see how the players struggled. Grace and Hermione saw how Harry was almost swept away.

~

With the first flash of lightning came the sound of Madam Hooch’s whistle. Harry could just see the outline of Wood through the thick rain, gesturing him toward the ground. The whole team splashed down into the mud.

” I called for time-out!” Wood roared at his team. ” Come on, over here!”

They huddled at the edge of the field under a large umbrella. Harry took off his glasses and wiped them hurriedly on his robes.

” What’s the score?”

” We’re fifty points up,” said Wood, ” but unless we get the Snitch soon, we’ll be playing into the night.”

” I’ve got no chance with these on,” Harry said exasperatedly, waving his glasses.

At that very moment, Hermione and Grace appeared beside him. They were holding their cloaks over their heads, and Hermione was inexplicably beaming.

” I’ve had an idea, Harry! Give me your glasses, quick!”

He handed them to her, and as the team watched in amazement, Hermione tapped them with her wand and said,
“Impervius!”

” There!” she said, handing them back to Harry. ” They’ll repel water!”

Wood looked as though he could have kissed her.

” Brilliant!” he called hoarsely after her as she disappeared into the crowd. ” Okay, team, let’s go for it!”

Hermione’s spell had done the trick. Harry was still numb with cold, still wetter than he’d ever been in his life, but he could see.

Full of fresh determination, he urged his broom through the turbulent air, staring in every direction for the Snitch, avoiding a Bludger, ducking beneath Diggory, who was streaking in the opposite direction.

There was another clap of thunder, followed immediately by forked lightning. This was getting more and more dangerous. Harry needed to get the Snitch quickly.

He turned, intending to head back toward the middle of the field, but at that moment, another flash of lightning illuminated the stands, and Harry saw something that distracted him completely, the silhouette of an enormous shaggy black dog, clearly outlined against the sky, motionless in the topmost, empty row of seats.

Harry’s numb hands slipped on the broom handle and his Nimbus dropped a few feet. Shaking his sodden bangs out of his eyes, he squinted back into the stands. The dog had vanished.

” Harry!” came Wood’s anguished yell from the Gryffindor goal posts. ” Harry, behind you!”

Harry looked wildly around. Cedric Diggory was pelting up the field, and a tiny speck of gold was shimmering in the rain-filled air between them. With a jolt of panic, Harry threw himself flat on the broomhandle and zoomed toward the Snitch.

” Come on!” he growled at his Nimbus as the rain whipped his face. ” Faster!”

But something odd was happening. An eerie silence was falling across the stadium. The wind, though as strong as ever, seemed to stop roaring. It was as though someone had turned off the sound, as though Harry had gone suddenly deaf ‘ What was going on?’

And then a horribly familiar wave of cold swept over him, inside him, just as he became aware of something moving on the field below.

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 beneath him. It was as though freezing water were 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.

Harry suddenly felt the wand in his hand, he wanted to protect the woman. For a moment he regained his consciousness, and in the distance he saw a silver eagle he was familiar with.

He struggled to fight back the nightmare brought by the Dementors and finally uttered the spell, ” Expecto Patronum!”

~

A chill so sharp it felt like it was cutting through skin spread from the top of the stadium downwards. The rain turned to tiny, stinging ice pellets, breath came in thick white clouds that hung in the air like ghosts. The crowd’s shouts and cheers died in throats that had gone tight and dry, replaced by a sudden, suffocating silence broken only by the howl of wind and a distant, hollow rattling that might have been the stadium’s stands shaking, or something else entirely.

Shadows bloomed across the pitch, darker than any storm cloud could cast. They drifted low over the grass, moving not with the wind but with a slow, deliberate weight, and Grace saw them first, tall, hooded figures, their faces hidden beneath tattered black cloth, hands that looked like bone stretched out before them. Dementors.

Despair flooded the air like water filling a sinking ship. Thoughts turned dark and heavy, every fear, every loss, every moment of pain pressed down until it was hard to breathe.

In the stands, students hunched in on themselves, some with hands pressed to their mouths, others shivering uncontrollably despite the thickness of their robes. On the pitch, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor players alike faltered, their brooms dipping as their limbs grew leaden.

Grace saw with her own eyes how the exciting game turned into a horror show. It was her first time seeing an actual one and couldn’t help but tremble.

She could see Hermione trembling from fear too, trying not to make a noise. She was about to comfort her when she saw that a Dementor was getting closer. She quickly moved forward and pulled Hermione behind her back.

In just a short moment facing the Dementors, she saw how she was transmigrated alone to an unknown place for the first time when she was just a child; the feeling of hopelessness came over her like a tide. Then the scene switched; she saw how her parents panicked and cried when she passed out and was sent to the hospital.

Even when the child woke up, her parents still looked so sad. She saw her mother cry in the night in her father’s arms.

” I can feel it.. it’s not her, honey.. our daughter-“
” Sshh.. she will come back, she will definitely come back.”

Grace felt as if all the emotions she had hidden were being pulled out of her chest. She knew it was the Dementors’ doing. Her arm was shaking; she wanted to comfort them, she wanted to hug them, she wanted to see them badly.

‘ My dear daughter.. please come back soon’

Her mother’s voice, which she had longed to hear, rang in her ear, waking her up. Her parents were waiting for her. She held her wand as steady as she could.

” Expecto Patronum!” Grace shouted. The words burst from her throat with all her strength.

A bright silver light exploded from the tip of her wand, growing larger and brighter with every second. It took shape in the air before her, sleek and sharp-winged, then launched forward with a clear, piercing cry, just like when she first summoned it, but louder and stronger. It was a silver eagle, its feathers gleaming like polished metal against the dark shapes of the Dementors.

The creature swooped low, driving the approaching Dementor back with powerful beats of its wings, and the sickening cold around them began to lift just a little. Grace felt a warm surge in her chest, pushing back the dread that had wrapped around her heart.