Harry Potter and the Sticking Broom

Chapter 7: Harry's Personal Storm Cloud

It was apparent to Harry, as he threw his broom on his bed, that the heat was taking its toll on his Firebolt as well as his nose. He grabbed a black leather case, containing his broom servicing kit, from his school trunk. While he clipped the Firebolt's frayed and frazzled twigs, he began to explain to Ron the finer points of the noble game of cricket.

Harry's only practical experience of cricket had been to stand before a set of toy stumps in the back garden of number four, Privet Drive, at the age of five, while his cousin Dudley bowled bouncers and full tosses at Harry's head. However, because Harry spent all his summers in the home of his Muggle relations, where the interminable droning of cricket commentators emanated from the television set nearly every daylight moment, he had a surprisingly good grasp of the game. Harry was therefore able to give Ron what he hoped was a fairly comprehensive overview. As his broom grooming and his explanation drew to a close, Harry was disappointed to see that his friend still looked confounded.

"So what you're saying," Ron began uncertainly, "is that the Muggles can play this game for five days running, that they can stop for snacks, for meals and even to go home to sleep, that the bloke who's supposed to be scoring these run thingys can just stand still and pretty much do nothing if he feels like it, and at the end of five days the most likely result is that everybody just calls it a draw and goes home?"

"Pretty much," said Harry. "Oh, unless we're playing Australia. Then England gets walloped in two or three days flat, and afterwards the Australians drink huge amounts of beer and go home."

Ron expression turned from incredulity to disgust. "Well, I don't care what Hermione says," he said emphatically, "nothing is stupider than cricket!"

"You shouldn't be too hard on her - " Harry began.

"Too hard?" Ron asked, his voice changing pitch suddenly and his ears turning pink. "She's got no right, Harry, to go on like that. Not about Quidditch. And all that stuff about not getting noticed, I mean, what was all that about anyway?" The expression on Ron's faced showed that, even compared to the mysteries of cricket, he regarded Hermione as the ultimate puzzle.

"Well, I guess she's just a bit worried about life after school. There's lots of wizarding stuff you don't learn at Hogwarts," Harry suggested. He wondered when, if ever, Ron was going to get the point about Hermione.

"Like what?" Ron asked, sounding quite unconvinced and still a little angry.

Harry felt the painful twinge of his red cheeks and nose. He said, "Like sunburn. Look at you - you've got red hair and freckly skin, but you never, ever get sunburned. Meanwhile, my nose is done to a turn. I know there's magic involved somehow, so how do you do it?"

Ron shrugged his shoulders. "There's not much I need to do at all. I just make sure I wear the right underpants. Mum's put a Sunblocker Charm on some of them. You can have a lend if you like."

Harry just muttered, "No thanks," as the two friends left their dormitory to go down to dinner. In many ways, Ron was closer to him than a brother. There was nothing that Harry felt he would not do for his friend. But Harry drew the line at sharing Ron's underpants.

As they went down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room, they saw that Hermione's satchel was still on the table. Curiously, it appeared to be groaning forlornly, although the sound was very faint.

"Sounds like she's got a ghoul in there," Harry joked. Ron, whose anger had now fully abated, just looked at the bag thoughtfully.

"Maybe I'll wait here for Hermione," Ron said. "You go down without me."

Denied the company of his two best friends for dinner, Harry sat next to Seamus Finnigan. The ceiling of the Great Hall was still a brilliant, cloudless azure, the summer sun being a couple of hours away from setting. Harry wondered whether anybody had put a Sunblocker Charm on the ceiling and contemplated taking all his meals in future wearing a wide brimmed hat. The giggling of Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil broke his chain of thought as they came and sat down on the other side of Seamus.

"Have a look at this," said Lavender, as she handed her new copy of Witch Weekly to the boys.

The headline on the cover screamed Singing Sorceress and Savage Sister in Sizzling Summer Sojourn. Harry was a bit disconcerted by the screaming. "It's on page sixteen," said Lavender, grabbing the magazine back and flicking through the pages before she returned it to Seamus.

At first, Harry thought Lavender was talking about the picture of Professor McGonagall on the left hand side of the open page. A photograph showed Hogwarts' acting headmistress bowing graciously and accepting a bag of Galleons from a fat, bald wizard described as "Mr. Declan McManus, Chairman of Brews-U-Like Corporation." It appeared that the company had made a large donation to St Mungo's Hospital in return for the right to sponsor the teachers' team in the upcoming Quidditch tournament. Then Harry spotted the very animated wizard photograph on the right.

The black and white picture showed a preternaturally thin witch, wearing a turban, sunglasses and a neck-to-knee swimming costume, sunbathing on a beach towel. Parvati sniffed disapprovingly. "What a hussy!"

"Now, here comes the good bit," said Lavender gleefully, as the door of a bathing shed in the background of the photo swung open. Out of the shed stormed a monstrously hairy and unmistakably belligerent wizard, also in modest swimming attire. Harry recognised him as one of the Weird Sisters, who had played at the Yule Ball the year before last. The hirsute wizard stormed up to the place where, one would assume, Witch Weekly's photographer had been standing. What followed appeared to be a very vicious attack, with limbs and hair flying in all directions, until the wizard photograph went blank.

"He looks so gorgeous when he's angry," Lavender sighed.

"Cool!" said Seamus. "It says here that: Our photographer, Mr. Pappillon Ratzi, sustained such serious injuries that he is contemplating legal action from his hospital bed."

"Well, serves him right," scolded Lavender. "I think all lovers deserve their privacy. Some people are so unromantic."

Harry rolled his eyes, but Seamus looked critically at the page. "Of course," Seamus concluded, "it'll never work out. I mean, she's a Puddlemere United supporter, but his sister plays for Pride of Portree. Prides and United fans hate each others' guts."

Lavender looked at Seamus as though he was speaking in tongues. "Why is it that all you boys ever think about is Quidditch?" she scoffed.

Harry tried to ignore the rest of Lavender and Parvati's opinions on the ignobility of the paparazzi and the preeminence of romance, wishing all the while that Ron and Hermione would hurry up. Lavender moved on to a rapturous appraisal of the talents and beauty of Kirley McCormack, while Seamus countered that all the talent in that family belonged to Kirley's sister. Harry had just about decided that this was the most boring dinner he had ever had at Hogwarts, and that he would skip the pudding course, when something interesting began to happen.

Neville Longbottom was sitting with Dean Thomas on the other side of the Gryffindor table. Neville's toad, Trevor, was croaking happily in a soup dish while Neville hand fed him the kidneys from Dean's steak and kidney pie. Looking up from his work, Neville pointed to the ceiling and said, "Look at those clouds."

In the four corners of the Great Hall ceiling, white clouds were amassing. Slowly, tendrils stretched out from these clumps and moved towards the ceiling's centre. Then, amazingly, the tendrils began to twist and loop together.

"It looks like skywriting," said Dean.

Neville didn't understand what Dean meant, but Harry could see the similarity immediately. The strings of cloud were definitely resolving into words. It took nearly two minutes before the words were legible, but as the message became clearer Harry began to feel his already red cheeks flush.

In a flowing script, the writing said: The Sticking Broom is Coming, Harry Potter! The message was greeted with raucous cheers from the Slytherin table, but the rest of the Great Hall also degenerated into noisy chaos as students asked each other what it all could mean. Harry looked to the High Table, hoping that somebody there could set things straight. To his disappointment, the only staff members dining with the students that evening were Madam Pomfrey, Madam Pince and Professor Grubbly-Plank. All three ladies seemed to be having a genteel laugh at Harry's expense.

Then Neville shouted, "Harry, look out!"

Something white, fluffy and round was falling slowly from the sky. It drifted downwards, changing from white to grey as it did. As it came to a sudden halt a metre above Harry's head, he realised that the dot from the exclamation mark on the message had fallen out of the ceiling. And that it now hovered as Harry's personal storm cloud over his head. Lightning crackled within the cloud, thunder rumbled and Harry braced himself for the inevitable. A second later, Harry was enveloped in a downpour.

He sat at the table, unable to hear anything except Lavender's screams and the hooting and laughter of the rest of his peers. His glasses were so wet it was impossible to see. As the drips ran down Harry's nose and splashed on the table in front of him, Harry wished he could remember the charm that Hermione once used to clear his glasses in wet weather. He drew his wand, but without the proper spell could only wave it uselessly.

It seemed that, despite the cloud being very small, the amount of rain it contained was inexhaustible. Harry cursed, then stood up, unsteadily. He was still blinded as he tried to make his way out of the Great Hall, the cloud following him. Somewhere towards the end of the Gryffindor table, somebody's small hand gripped his own and swiftly guided him through the main doors.

Thankfully, the deluge stopped at the doorway. Harry could only guess that the cloud formed part of the Great Hall's enchanted ceiling. To his relief, it could not pursue him through the length and breadth of Hogwarts Castle.

"Impervius," said Harry, finally recollecting the correct words as he touched his wand to his glasses. The drips vanished from the lenses.

"It's about time you remembered that charm," said Ginny. Her hand was still gripping Harry's as she led him into a gap in a stone wall, which concealed the spiral staircase down to Hogwarts' kitchens. "I think we better get you dried off," she said in a businesslike tone as she hurried him down the narrow stairs. "Then, if you're up to it, I suggest we take a little walk. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of the Slytherins' Sticking Broom nonsense. Let's find out who's behind it." She opened the narrow door to the kitchen and led Harry through the doorway.

In the kitchens, the elves were preparing Hogwarts' sumptuous selection of desserts. An elf in a ragged, blue cotton frock was meticulously piping whipped cream onto an array of tarts laid out on the vast platter that hovered before her. She was nearly, but not quite, as tall as the piping bag she held. Another elf was arranging little pyramids of berries on top of the cream, but his work was somewhat haphazard.

The elf with the piping bag squealed at the berry-positioning elf when a handful of strawberries tumbled onto the tray. "Dobby is not paying proper attention to Dobby's duties! Winky thinks that Dobby should stop giving Winky unwanted advice and be concentrating on Dobby's job."

Dobby the house-elf shook his head, which despite the heat still wore the tea cosy Mrs. Weasley had knitted for him. "All Dobby is saying is that Winky does not have to be cleaning the bell if Winky does not wish. Winky should be telling Mr. Filch that Winky is afraid of heights. Winky is a free elf now and free to be speaking Winky's mind."

At this remark, Winky let out a long wail and squirted a large amount of whipped cream at Dobby's face. "Dobby is a wicked, wicked, elf! Dobby is talking foul, naughty insults to Winky! Winky is not a free elf! After poor Master Barty is taken away, Winky is begging the great wizard, Professor Albus Dumbledore, to make her a servant again. Professor Albus Dumbledore says that Winky can be a servant in his school. All the students and professors is Winky's masters and mistresses now. Winky is not free no more!"

Dobby wiped the cream from his face and shrugged. "Free or not, Winky should be telling Mr. Filch."

Winky dropped her piping bag and clapped her hands over her ears, squealing as though in pain. "No! No! Winky must be doing Winky's master's duty. Winky is being an obedient elf now. Winky is not betraying her master's secrets ever again!" With that, the little elf turned and ran towards the kitchen cupboards. She then jumped through one of the open doors and pulled it tightly shut behind her. Dobby grumbled a bit to himself as he bent to pick up the piping bag. Straightening himself up, his frowning brown features transformed into the broadest of smiles, as he observed his favourite wizard, Harry Potter, standing at the entrance to the kitchens.

"Harry Potter is come to Dobby's kitchens! How may humble Dobby help the great Harry Potter?" Dobby sang out joyfully as he ran towards Harry and Ginny.

Ginny let go of Harry's hand and patted him on the shoulder. It suddenly occurred to Harry that they had been standing hand in hand, quite unselfconsciously, for the whole time that they had watched the exchange between Winky and Dobby. He couldn't ever remember holding a girl's hand like that. Aside from Hermione's off-putting habit of kissing him at railway stations, the only experience that came close had been taking Parvati's hand to dance. Dancing at the Yule Ball had been both awkward and embarrassing. Holding Ginny Weasley's hand had been such a normal thing to do, that Harry hadn't even noticed he was doing it. And now, her hand was gone.

"We could really use a drying charm, Dobby," Ginny suggested, before walking over to a rusty cauldron, which lay on its side in a dark corner of the kitchen.

Dobby looked with horror at Harry's sodden robes and hair. "At once. Dobby is doing it at once," Dobby said as he raised his arms. There was a loud crack and Harry felt as though he had been blasted with an enormous, invisible hair dryer. A second later, Harry's clothes were completely dry, crisp and smelling strongly of laundry detergent. Oddly enough, Harry's hair and skin smelt exactly the same way.

"Er, thanks Dobby," said Harry as he turned around to see what Ginny was doing. She appeared to be pulling a large collection of miscellaneous items from the cauldron, assessing their usefulness and forming a small pile of the articles she wanted. Among the things in that pile was a pillow, a length of twine, some dirty old clothes and a feathery object that Harry could not identify.

"Is Missy Wheezy and Mister Fred going exploring again this evening?" Dobby asked, as though Ginny's appearance in the kitchens, to sort through the rubbish in an old cauldron, was a regular event.

"Mister Fred is probably still in too bad a mood to come out tonight," Ginny replied as she continued her rummaging. "But Harry and I are off on a little excursion."

"We are?" Harry asked. He realised the drying charm had caused is hair to stand on end and tried in vain to pat it down.

"We are," Ginny confirmed. "I overheard Madam Hooch talking to Katie Bell over lunch today. She said the teachers' Quidditch team is starting its training tonight. They're going to use the Hogsmeade village green because they don't want to be seen." She gave Harry an impish smile. "You and I are going to find out what it is they're hiding."

"Won't we be noticed?" Harry asked with concern. He wondered whether it would be wise to fetch his Invisibility Cloak from his room. However, if he did so, he would also have to tell Ginny that his cloak existed. Up until now, Ron and Hermione were the only friends he had knowingly let in on that secret.

"We'll be invisible," Ginny declared as she collected up her bundle of odds and ends. Noticing Harry's bemused expression, she added, "You know Harry, we don't need a cloak to become invisible."