As they approached the Quidditch pitch

, Harry glanced over to his right to where the trees of the Forbidden Forest were swaying darkly. Nothing flew out of them; the sky was empty but for a few distant owls fluttering around

the Owlery tower. He had enough to worry about; the flying horse wasn't doing him any harm; he pushed it out of his mind.

They collected balls from the cupboard in the changing room and set to work, Ron guarding the three tall goalposts, Harry playing Chaser and trying to get the Quaffle past Ron. Harry thought Ron was pretty good; he

blocked three-quarters of the goals Harry attempted to put past him and played better the longer they practised. After a couple of hours they returned to the castle for lunch—during which Hermione made it quite clear she

thought they were irresponsible—then returned to the Quidditch pitch for the real training session. All their teammates but Angelina were already in the changing room when they entered.

‘All right, Ron?’ said George, winking at him.

‘Yeah,’ said Ron, who had become quieter and quieter all the way down to the pitch.

‘Ready to show us all up, Ickle Prefect?’ said Fred, emerging tousle-haired from the neck of his Quidditch robes, a slightly malicious grin on his face.

‘Shut up,’ said Ron, stony-faced, pulling on his own team robes for the first time. They fitted him well considering they had been Oliver Wood's, who was rather broader in the shoulder.

‘OK, everyone,’ said Angelina, entering from the Captain's office, already changed. ‘Let's get to it; Alicia and Fred, if you can just bring out the ball crate for us. Oh, and there are a couple of people out there watching but I

want you to just ignore them, all right?’

Something in her would-be casual voice made Harry think he might know who the uninvited spectators were, and sure enough, when they left the changing room for the bright sunlight of the pitch it was to a storm of catcalls

and jeers from the Slytherin Quidditch team and assorted hangers-on, who were grouped halfway up the empty stands and whose voices echoed loudly around the stadium.

‘What's that Weasley's riding?’ Malfoy called in his sneering drawl. ‘Why would anyone put a flying charm on a mouldy old log like that?’

Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson guffawed and shrieked with laughter. Ron mounted his broom and kicked off from the ground and Harry followed him, watching his ears turn red from behind.

‘Ignore them,’ he said, accelerating to catch up with Ron, ‘we'll see who's laughing after we play them ...’

‘Exactly the attitude I want, Harry,’ said Angelina approvingly soaring around them with the Quaffle under her arm and slowing to hover on the spot in front of her airborne team. ‘OK, everyone, we're going to start with some

passes just to warm up, the whole team please—’

‘Hey, Johnson, what's with that hairstyle, anyway?’ shrieked Pansy Parkinson from below. ‘Why would anyone want to look like they've got worms coming out of their head?’

Angelina swept her long braided hair out of her face and continued calmly, ‘Spread out, then, and let's see what we can do ...’

Harry reversed away from the others to the far side of the pitch. Ron fell back towards the opposite goal. Angelina raised the Quaffle with one hand and threw it hard to Fred, who passed to George, who passed to Harry, who

passed to Ron, who dropped it.

The Slytherins, led by Malfoy, roared and screamed with laughter. Ron, who had pelted towards the ground to catch the Quaffle before it landed, pulled out of the dive untidily, so that he slipped sideways on his broom, and

returned to playing height, blushing. Harry saw Fred and George exchange looks, but uncharacteristically neither of them said anything, for which he was grateful.

‘Pass it on, Ron,’ called Angelina, as though nothing had happened.

Ron threw the Quaffle to Alicia, who passed back to Harry, who passed to George ...

‘Hey, Potter, how's your scar feeling?’ called Malfoy. ‘Sure you don't need a lie down? It must be, what, a whole week since you were in the hospital wing, that's a record for you, isn't it?’

George passed to Angelina; she reverse-passed to Harry, who had not been expecting it, but caught it in the very tips of his fingers and passed it quickly to Ron, who lunged for it and missed by inches.

‘Come on now, Ron,’ said Angelina crossly, as he dived for the ground again, chasing the Quaffle. ‘Pay attention.’

It would have been hard to say whether Ron's face or the Quaffle was a deeper scarlet when he again returned to playing height. Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin team were howling with laughter.

On his third attempt, Ron caught the Quaffle; perhaps out of relief he passed it on so enthusiastically that it soared straight though Katie's outstretched hands and hit her hard in the face.

‘Sorry!’ Ron groaned, zooming forwards to see whether he had done any damage.

‘Get back in position, she's fine!’ barked Angelina. ‘But as you're passing to a teammate, do try not to knock her off her broom, won't you? We've got Bludgers for that!’

Katie's nose was bleeding. Down below, the Slytherins were stamping their feet and jeering. Fred and George converged on Katie.

‘Here, take this,’ Fred told her, handing her something small anc purple from out of his pocket, ‘it'll clear it up in no time.’

‘All right,’ called Angelina, ‘Fred, George, go and get your bats and a Bludger. Ron, get up to the goalposts. Harry, release the Snitch when I say so. We're going to aim for Ron's goal, obviously.’

Harry zoomed off after the twins to fetch the Snitch.

‘Ron's making a right pig's ear of things, isn't he?’ muttered George, as the three of them landed at the crate containing the balls and opened it to extract one of the Bludgers and the Snitch.

‘He's just nervous,’ said Harry, ‘he was fine when I was practising with him this morning.’

‘Yeah, well, I hope he hasn't peaked too soon,’ said Fred gloomily.

They returned to the air. When Angelina blew her whistle, Harry released the Snitch and Fred and George let fly the Bludger. From that moment on, Harry was barely aware of what the others were doing. It was his job to

recapture the tiny fluttering golden ball that was worth a hundred and fifty points to the Seeker's team and doing so required enormous speed and skill. He accelerated, rolling and swerving in and out of the Chasers, the warm

autumn air whipping his face, and the distant yells of the Slytherins so much meaningless roaring in his ears ... but too soon, the whistle brought him to a halt again.

‘Stop—stop— STOP!’ screamed Angelina. ‘Ron—you're not covering your middle post!’

Harry looked round at Ron, who was hovering in front of the left-hand hoop, leaving the other two completely unprotected.

‘Oh ... sorry ...’

‘You keep shifting around while you're watching the Chasers!’ said Angelina. ‘Either stay in centre position until you have to move to defend a hoop, or else circle the hoops, but don't drift vaguely off to one side, that's how

you let in the last three goals!’

‘Sorry ...’ Ron repeated, his red face shining like a beacon against the bright blue sky.

‘And Katie, can't you do something about that nosebleed?’

‘It's just getting worse!’ said Katie thickly, attempting to stem the flow with her sleeve.

Harry glanced round at Fred, who was looking anxious and checking his pockets. He saw Fred pull out something purple, examine it for a second and then look round at Katie, evidently horror-struck.

‘Well, let's try again,’ said Angelina. She was ignoring the Slytherins, who had now set up a chant of ‘Gryffindor are losers, Gryffindor are losers,’ but there was a certain rigidity about her seat on the broom nevertheless.

This time they had been flying for barely three minutes when Angelinas whistle sounded. Harry, who had just sighted the Snitch circling the opposite goalpost, pulled up feeling distinctly aggrieved.

‘What now?’ he said impatiently to Alicia, who was nearest.

‘Katie,’ she said shortly.

Harry turned and saw Angelina, Fred and George all flying as fast as they could towards Katie. Harry and Alicia sped towards her, too. It was plain that Angelina had stopped training just in time; Katie was now chalk white and

covered in blood.

‘She needs the hospital wing,’ said Angelina.

‘We'll take her,’ said Fred. ‘She—er—might have swallowed a Blood Blisterpod by mistake—’

‘Well, there's no point continuing with no Beaters and a Chaser gone,’ said Angelina glumly as Fred and George zoomed off towards the castle supporting Katie between them. ‘Come on, let's go and get changed.’

The Slytherins continued to chant as they trailed back into the changing rooms.

‘How was practice?’ asked Hermione rather coolly half an hour later, as Harry and Ron climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room.

‘It was—’ Harry began.

‘Completely lousy,’ said Ron in a hollow voice, sinking into a chair beside Hermione. She looked up at Ron and her frost mess seemed to melt.