Kim Shimmers and the Screech Owl
This Harry Potter fanfiction will be posted, as long as all goes well, every weekend.
Chapter 7
Near Death
It was the day of Kim’s first ever quidditch match. When she got to the Great Hall for breakfast, it was clear the festivities had already begun. Everyone was sporting either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. Kim, of course, had a Gryffindor pin and little flag that were being handed out in the main hall. She had been worried, though, that the match would be canceled, or at least no one would want to go, because there was a ragging storm outside that howled and splattered the windows of the Great Hall with thick pellets of rain. That was clearly not the case.
“Is this really still going to happen?” Kim asked Fred as she peered out the window again. It was storming so hard it looked like twilight.
“Of course! You never cancel quidditch!”
“You think people will stay? I mean everyone’s going to get drenched aren’t they?”
“Of course they’ll stay!” Fred continued, as if this was an equally preposterous question.
“You’ll stay, won’t you?” George asked, and it sounded rhetorical, but Kim couldn’t help but think there was a glint of something genuine in his eye.
“Well…” she faltered, but she saw the glint get brighter, as George watched her intently for her answer. Truth was, she didn’t particularly want to get soaked watching quidditch.
“To watch you two, of course,” she finally said.
“It’s a spectator’s sport, you’ll see,” Fred assured her, and she did see. Sort of.
The field was greatly obscured by rain that flew this way and then that as the wind whipped in different directions. Kim silently hoped that Strix didn’t get too upset being locked in the dormitory, being that Kim had been forced to shut the window she usually left cracked for her. The game was a close one, and Kim thought she would enjoy watching it more if it weren’t for the fact that she was freezing, and Gryffindor was barley winning.
Fred and George were a sight to see, though. They seemed right at home on their broom sticks, flying about and smashing their bats into bludgers. The game had dragged on for a long time, and she felt bad for the players, thinking they must feel even more sopping and frozen than she did. And then something terrible happened.
She felt the cool creeping sensation a moment before she saw the dementors making their way across the field. Kim grabbed Hermione’s shoulder and started to hedge towards the aisle, gasping with horror.
“They’re coming onto the field!” she said, and Hermione saw what Kim meant a moment later. The three of them ran out into the aisle, looking down at the dementors with frozen sinking pits in their stomachs.
“What’re they doing—” Ron began, but Hermione shouted and pointed into the sky.
“Look! Harry!”
Harry was frozen on his broom, his body gone ridged. It was hard to make out exactly what was happening to him, but it seemed like he was paralyzed. And then his body slumped.
“No,” Kim cried, gripping the railing, because all she could do was watch. Harry fell, faster than her eyes could see, tumbling near 50 feet to the ground. And then he was motionless, his body firm against the earth. Kim pressed her fingers like frozen bones against her lips, not able to process what she saw, only able to watch.
Dumbledore was there, in fact he had been there seconds before Harry had hit the ground, waving his wand. Now he was casting another spell, aimed at the dementors, with brilliant streams of silver coming from the end of his wand. Unfurling from the ribbons of silver was a great bird that sored over the field and frightened away the dementors.
Hermione gasped in a breath of air that she had been holding before her jaw wound up tight again. Kim looked at her, seeing that water was welling in her eyes. She wanted to say something, but she had no idea what there was to say. Harry wasn’t moving.
