Harry Potter and the Quidditch Island

Charlie and the House Elves

"Harry, you've got mail!" Terry said brightly.

Harry opened his eyes and groaned at the bright morning sunshine that was flooding the room.

"Is it anything important?" Harry mumbled as he rolled over and shut his eyes. He didn't really want to be woken up; he was very tired.

"I'm not sure," Terry said. "It's sealed at the back with wax and, hey! There's a paw print on the wax. Isn't that curious. Want me to open it?"

Harry sat up so fast he hit his head on the top of the bunk.

"No!" he said so loudly that Terry jumped and dropped the letter.

"Sorry," he said nervously as he stooped down and picked up the letter. "I didn't mean to invade your privacy or anything."

"It's ok," Harry said as he took the note from Terry. "It's just that, I haven't heard from my godfather in a while and I'd like to be the first to read what he has to say."

Terry seemed satisfied with that because he relaxed and sat back down on his bed.

"Why would he seal the letter with a paw print?" Terry asked.

"Let's just say he has a close relationship with his dog," Ron replied. Harry grinned. Sirius was an Animagi: a person who could transfigure themselves into an animal. Sirius, for example, could transform into a great black dog, the almost the size of a bear.

"Ron, your owl has something too," Terry said, walking up to Pigwidgeon's cage. "What is...ACK!" Terry jumped and backed away from Pigwidgeon with a horrified look on his face.

"What?" Ron asked, sitting up in bed. Terry, who had backed himself into the wall, pointed a shaky finger at Pigwidgeon, who started hooting happily.

"He brought a...a..."

"What?" Ron asked again. He leaned over the bunk to look at his owl. "Oh, it's just a mouse." He hopped off the bunk. "That's what owls do, they eat mice."

"I don't like mice," Terry said shakily, "especially ones with no head."

"It has a head!" Ron said defensively, picking the dead rodent up by the tail. Harry looked at it. True, it did have a head, but the head wasn't hanging on by much. Terry looked like he was about to be sick.

"I'm going to the bathroom," he said, rushing towards the door.

"What, don't tell me you're afraid of mice!" Ron called out, still holding the rodent. He shook his head. "Some people."

When Terry was out of the room and the water was running, Harry ripped open the letter and began to read it.

Dear Harry,

I'm with Weasleys right now, so is Hermione. It sounds like you will be having an interesting summer. You're very lucky, I've heard that this is an amazing camp, and even if you don't make the first or second cut, you will still learn a lot about Quidditch. But I have confidence that you'll make them, you have a lot of talent. They select the best players in England to come to this camp so you should be honored. Don't worry about the fee, I took care of that. You shouldn't worry about the technicalities, that's my job, I'm your godfather after all. Just relax and have fun. And about this Cory fellow, well, I think you'll be able to handle yourself; you've faced a lot worse than a jealous teenager. Besides, when your training gets more intense he probably won't have time to bother you.

Now Stan Swan, I don't know much about him besides the fact that he was a great Quidditch player. He fell out around the time that Voldemort was becoming powerful and there were a lot of rumors going around about him. It was hard to distinguish between fact and fiction in times like those. But we all suffered back then, and Swan might just another wizard who never really got over what happened. The best thing you can do to impress Swan is to try your hardest and to concentrate on you flying.

Hermione says hi and hopes you're both well. Stop asking questions, Harry, and just go with the flow. You won't have the time or energy to worry about anything for a while so just relax Also, I hear that Swan doesn't want any outgoing mail from his campers, so please, don't send any more owls. Good luck, and have fun.

Sirius

"What does it say?" Ron asked.

"I don't believe that this is Sirius," Harry said flatly. "Not the same Sirius who has always told me to watch my back and be careful. Basically, he's telling me to stop asking questions and not to think about why I'm here or why any of this is happening and just have a good time."

"Maybe he wants you to have a good summer," Ron suggested.

"It just seems odd," Harry replied. "He's always telling me to watch myself. And he didn't think it was strange at all that they chose me instead of someone more experienced. It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe he's proud of you and he believes in you," Ron said. "He's right, you should lighten up."

"Maybe," Harry replied, still staring at the letter with a furrowed brow. "Should we get some breakfast?"

"More like lunch," Ron said. "It's after eleven. We all slept in."

Harry nodded and got dressed, then headed towards the dining hall. They had just sat down when they heard a ruckus outside. Harry turned around and saw that the decorative pot that he had stumbled on the night before was attacking Terry. It seemed that the pot didn't appreciate being trod upon and had gathered a few other pots to help get back at whoever they could. At the moment, Terry was sprawled across one pot that was squirming underneath him, while a few others were hopping around them, trying to land on Terry's fingers.

Harry and Ron rushed to Terry's aid and pulled him up from under each arm. Terry straightened his glasses and smoothed down his wavy hair.

"Thanks," he said. "Something got them really mad. I was just walking down the hall when they started hopping over, trying to knock me down. I wonder what happened."

"Who knows," Ron said as he grinned at Harry.

They sat down and began eating and talking about what they would be doing on their day off.

"Ron, do you think that next Sunday you could supervise cooking again?" Terry asked and he poked at his scrambled eggs. They were very runny, almost uncooked. He gave a slight shudder before pushing the plate away.

"What are they doing?" Ron asked suddenly. Harry and Terry both turned and saw that there were at least twenty house elves all standing on the sill of the window connecting the kitchen and the dining hall.

Harry felt a hard taping on his back. He turned around and saw that the pot he had tripped over the night before was head butting him.

"Go away," Harry said. He turned away from the elves and tried to grab the lid, but the pot had learned better. It jumped back and forth and snapped at Harry outstretched hand.

"You!" he heard a house-elf squeak. Harry turned around and saw the largest house-elf on the sill pointing at Charlie Chambers, one of the Chasers that had been on Harry's team and looked a lot like him, minus the green eyes and the scar. "We want you!" Immediately, all of the elves on the sill lifted what looked like crude bows. They armed the bows with what looked like steaming meatballs on chopsticks, took aim and fired at Charlie.

"Ah! Stop it!" The meatballs that hit Charlie caused giant boils to form on his skin. Ogley and Braceb both jumped up and started shouting madly. Devon Wurstermann was bellowing at the elves, torn between rushing forward to wring their necks and ducking as more meatballs soared in their direction. Many of the boys followed suit and began throwing their own food at the elves, but there wasn't much more that they could do. None of them wanted to get any closer to elves for fear that they would be hit as well.

After about five minutes more of this chaos, the elves began laughing hysterically.

"Take that, Harry Potter," one of them shrieked and they all jumped down from the sill. All eyes turned to Harry. Charlie was still whimpering at the other side of the room.

"They must not have seen me," Harry whispered to Ron. "When I was facing the pot they must have seen Charlie and assumed he was me."

"Those damn elves," Ron said angrily. "Come with me." He stood up and marched out of the dining hall. Harry looked around at the angry faces in the hall, all staring at him. Between house-elves and murderous Quidditch player, Harry would choose the elves. He jumped up and followed Ron out of the room. They entered the kitchen, where the elves were still laughing.

"What were you doing?" Ron yelled, ducking as five meatballs flew in their direction. "Why did you want to attack Harry? You didn't even hit him. You were hitting the wrong person."

"When we is told to do something, we do it well, Breazle," one piped up.

"No you don't," Ron shouted. "You never do what I tell you to."

"So you're saying someone told you to throw those balls at me?" Harry asked. "Who told you to do that?"

"We is house elves," another said. "We is trustful. We is not telling you nothing."

"BREAZLEY!"

The house elves shrieked with laughter as Swan's bellowing voice echoed off the walls. They ran out of the room through their small doorway. Ron sighed and walked out to the dining hall to confront Swan.

"What has happened here?" he growled. Harry could understand why Swan was so angry. One of his trainees was lying on the floor, writhing in pain, and a few others were nursing boils on their arms and necks. There was food all over the both the dining hall and the kitchen and there were even some people kicking the walls, trying to flush out the house elves.

"It was the elves," Ron began. "They started attacking Charlie with these bewitched meatballs. They thought he was Harry. Someone convinced them to attack Harry but they mistook him for someone else..."

"The house-elves did this?" Swan's voice was barely more than a whisper but Ron stopped so quickly that he might as well have been yelling. "The house-elves that you are supposed to be managing and supervising did this? Mr. Breazley, this is despicable. When we hired an assistant manager we expected someone who could control things."

"Sir, I can't be held responsible for someone confusing the house-elves into attacking us," Ron said angrily, trying to keep his voice calm. "This isn't my fault."

"Silence!" Swan roared. "You will no longer be seeing your friend here. You are to reside in the basement room for the next week, if not longer. The house-elves are going to be relieved of duty so you will be responsible for seeing that their jobs get done. Once you have finished the morning chores, report to my office for further instructions. Now I want you to escort Mr. Chambers to the infirmary."

Ron stared at him in shock.

"I suggest you get working, Mr. Breazley," Swan snarled taking a step forward. Ron marched over to Charlie and helped him out of the room. Harry sat down with Terry.

"What does Swan have against Ron?" Harry asked angrily. Terry shrugged and took a sip of water.

"I don't know, but he must have done something bad."

"But they've only known each other for a week," Harry said. "I just don't get it."

The rest of the day was extremely boring for Harry. As much as he liked Terry, he wasn't much for conversation. They explored the outside of the manor for a while, but there wasn't very much to see. Harry decided that his best idea would be to go to his room and read for the rest of the day, since he would be on his feet all week.

Harry was in the library picking out a few new books when Charlie came charging in, looking furious.

"Make them stop!" he shouted.

Harry looked at him, bewildered.

"Make who stop?"

"Them!" Charlie kicked out his leg and a house-elf flew off and into the books. "They've been chasing me around all day, throwing things and biting me. They think I'm you." Charlie stumbled as an elf jumped off of the shelf and landed on top of his head. He grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and held it up to Harry's face.

"This is Harry Potter," Charlie yelled at the elf. "You want him, not me."

The elf looked Harry up and down, and then started flailing its limbs wildly, trying to scratch him. Harry backed up against the shelves.

"Now leave me alone," Charlie said as he threw the elf out of the room. "Sorry," he said, turning to Harry, "but I'm sick of them." Charlie marched out leaving a stunned Harry alone in the library.

Once he had chosen a few new books, Harry left the room, looking both directions to make sure there were no house-elves after him. He saw Charlie again on the second floor. It seemed that the house-elves hadn't quite believed that they were going after the wrong person, because two of them had clamped onto each of his legs.

"I wonder why someone would want to set the house-elves on you," Terry mused.

"Whoever it was isn't too worried about hurting me, that's for sure," Harry replied.

"Maybe it's not you they're after," Terry said.

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked. "They set the house-elves after me. How would that hurt anyone else?"

"It hurt Ron," Terry answered. "He's stuck living in the basement for the rest of the week and he'll be working non stop. I wouldn't be surprised if he only gets about three hours of sleep this whole week. If someone is trying to give him a hard time, they are doing a pretty good job."

Harry hadn't even considered this. Maybe someone did want to get at Ron. Swan seemed to have it in for him the first time they met. And there were a lot of campers (Cory's name came to mind) that weren't too happy about having such a young assistant manager. Harry shook his head. Stop worrying, he told himself. Sirius had said that he shouldn't ask questions and he should just relax. But somehow, that didn't sound like Sirius...

Harry stared up at the top of the bed. It was going to be a very boring week without Ron. He sighed closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He had a feeling that he would need as much rest as he could get.

Screams were echoing outside of his room. Harry awoke from his nap with a start. He looked over at Terry's bed to find him looking back with a mixed expression of fear and confusion. Without saying a word, Harry walked over to the door with Terry close behind. He opened the door and stepped out into the hall, only to jump back quickly to avoid being bowled over by a speeding Bludger.

"What's going on?" Terry asked from the floor. Harry had knocked him over when he jumped backwards.

"I'm not..." Harry started, but stopped when he saw Charlie run past his room, a Bludger not far behind. Cautiously, Harry stuck his head out again and saw four house-elves watching from the stairs, laughing gleefully. "I can't believe it," he said as Terry peered over his shoulder. "They've set a Bludger after him."

"I've never known house-elves to be so violent!" Terry replied, sounding shocked. "That's really dangerous!"

"Tell me about it," Harry muttered. He watched as Charlie grabbed a helmet off of a suit of armor and trapped the Bludger inside. Stumbling as the Bludger tried to free itself, Charlie slid open a window and chucked the helmet as far as he could. The suit that it belonged to ran noisily to the window and leaned out. The house-elves, clearly angered by Charlie's victory, began screeching at him, and he bolted up to the fourth floor as fast as he could. A few guests heading for the dining halls came down the stairs from the fourth floor, looking curiously at Charlie as he ran.

"Want to go for dinner now?" Terry asked brightly. For him, the action was over now that Charlie had left.

"Yeah, alright," Harry replied quietly. It disturbed him that someone would tell the house-elves to go after him so viciously. He felt even worse that it was Charlie who got the bad end of it.

Harry trudged towards the cafeteria, only half listening to the story Terry was telling him. He was so preoccupied trying to figure out why someone would set the manors house-elves on him that he ran into Cory, who was standing in the doorway to the cafeteria.

"Sorry," Harry mumbled as he tried to go around him, but Cory's feet were firmly planted. Looking up, Harry saw that Cory was sneering down at him. He moved to the left, but Cory blocked his way, still giving him a hate filled glare. "What did I do this time?" Harry asked angrily. Hawk and J.P, who had been standing just inside the cafeteria, had both stopped talking to watch them. Terry had gone very pink and stepped back a little, staring at the ground.

"Causing more problems are you?" Cory said bitterly.

Harry looked at him, perplexed. He wasn't sure what Cory was talking about, and didn't think he had caused any problems earlier, unless Cory meant showing him up on the pitch, but Harry decided not to mention that.

"Sorry," Harry repeated again, "I'll try not to mess anything up while I eat." He tried to get through the doorway again, but Cory stuck out his arm, blocking his path. Harry was suddenly aware how much bigger Cory's arms were compared to his. Harry, though only about four inches shorter than Cory, was definitely much less wide.

"Well you've already messed things up for Charlie," Cory replied, never taking his steely eyes off Harry. "I say, if he can't eat in here, neither should you."

"Come off it Cory." Harry was immensely relieved. Hawk had just stepped in, obviously seeing the great advantage that Cory had. "Leave the kid alone, those elves were after him, remember?" Reluctantly, Cory dropped his arm and Harry walked passed him, with Terry right behind him.

Harry ate his meal in silence, making sure that he kept his head down. Cory wasn't the only person who was feeling less that happy about him being there. Harry could hear someone saying loudly that Charlie was eating his dinner in his room, not wanting to risk another confrontation with the house-elves. It looked like many of the trainees seemed to think that it was all Harry's fault.

Ron entered the cafeteria and began refilling pitchers of pumpkin juice. Harry watched him as he walked through the rows of tables. As Ron approached, he kept looking down at the floor, careful not to make eye contact with Harry, since Swan would have torn into him if he thought Ron was neglecting his punishment. However, as Ron walked by him, he dropped a small slip of parchment on top of Harry's mashed potatoes.

Meet me in the library passageway tonight at nine. Bring my pillow.

So this is why, at nine o'clock, Harry was walking down the stairs to the library with his arms crossed in front of him, trying to cover the large feathery bulge under his robes. Harry made sure to keep his head down, trying as much as he could to avoid the angry glares he was being given by the others.

"Where are you going, Potter?" Great, Harry thought, just great. Cory was headed towards him, blocking the way to the library.

"Just going to get a book," Harry replied shortly. The less he had to do with Cory, the better. He still didn't really understand why Cory hated him so much, but he did know that the less they came in contact, the better off he would be.

Cory was smiling, but the look in his eyes was anything but happy. As Cory approached him, Harry couldn't help noticing how very empty the entrance hall was. Cory was barely a foot from him, when a great crash came from upstairs. Cory looked up at the stairs, and back down at Harry, trying to decide which he'd rather deal with first. Harry took full advantage of that moment of indecision to dodge around him and head straight for the library. After making sure that no one else was in the room, Harry pulled the wooden book off the shelf, entered the passageway and slammed the door closed behind him. Ron was waiting for him there.

"Thanks Harry, I really needed this," Ron said gratefully when Harry handed him the pillow.

"Doesn't the basement room have a pillow?" Harry asked.

Ron shuddered. "Yeah, I guess you could call it that. I brought my stuff down there this afternoon when I had some spare time. From the looks of it, I'm betting that wrapping a piece of plywood in cloth would be more comfortable." He sighed. "I want to go home Harry. They're working me senseless here. And it's not only Swan who's going after me now. You know that guy Chilesworth? The curator? Well, apparently, being the assistant manager of the team makes me the assistant curator too. He's mad because HIS elves won't listen to me, and it's MY job to get them to show some respect. I don't know how much longer I can take this. Swan's always right there, breathing over my shoulder, waiting for me to slip up..." He trailed off. Harry didn't answer. As much as he was getting sick of this place, he knew that Ron had it even worse.

"I hope the real Breazley shows up soon," Ron said finally. "At least then I could leave."

They continued on in silence, periodically glancing into one empty room after another. Harry felt much happier, being inside the walls. It was a relief to be able to walk around without having to worry about being harassed by the rest of the campers. They continued on for many minutes, but as they passed the room labeled "Coaches Lounge" Harry stopped. Swan was deep in conversation with Wolverwick, the head coach.

"...getting very dangerous. Chambers was badly injured a few minutes ago, he's going to have to stay in the infirmary all night. Chilesworth had a talk with those elves, I think they'll leave the boy alone now."

"Isn't that assistant manager Breazley's job?" Wolverwick asked.

Swan shook his head. "I don't know why I'm paying that boy."

Ron opened his mouth as if to say something, but Harry elbowed him as Wolverwick and Swan kept talking. "He isn't paying me," Ron hissed, looking indignant.

"But what are you suggesting?" Wolverwick continued.

"I want you to keep a close eye on Potter from now on," Swan replied gravely. "Those, those pranks I suppose they are called, they were intended for him. I know I may sound paranoid, but I was warned to look out for this type of thing in the beginning. I know how these people work better than most people. I'm afraid there may be someone here working for him. I hope that I am wrong, but I think he may know our plan."

"He, sir?" Wolverwick's usually strong voice sounded slightly weaker. "You don't mean -- ''

"Yes, I do." Swan's face darkened. "I fear Lord Voldemort has someone working here. I do not know who, or how many, and I still hope that I am wrong, but I fear the worse. Then again, I always do..."

"It's always good to be prepared," Wolverwick replied. "I'll notify the other coaches."

"Be sure no one else finds out," Swan said. "I don't want people to start panicking. We need to keep this quiet. I've asked the Daily Prophet to keep all camper's names out of their articles, but pictures can say more than we want them to. Make sure the coaches are on guard, Glosford."

Wolverwick nodded and marched out of the lounge, while Swan sat down and gazed thoughtfully into the fire.

Ron looked at Harry, dumbfounded. He opened his mouth to speak but Harry shook his head and turned around in the direction of the library. It almost didn't seem real. First abusive camp mates, now this: Harry's summer had just taken a turn for the worse.