Chapter 9 and 10 - The Midnight Duel, and Halloween

[Serenoli]

Chapter Nine - The Midnight Duel

The main events in this highly eventful chapter are:

a) Neville gets a Remembrall from his grandmother, and almost immediately Malfoy sets his sights on it. A conflict at the breakfast tabel is averted by Professor McGonagall.

b) Flying lessons. We meet Madam Hooch, and learn that both Neville and Hermione are probably bad at flying. Neville then proves that he's bad at it, by flying too high, with his broom beyond his control, ending in a broken wrist. While Madam Hooch is out of the scene, Malfoy grabs hold of Neville's forgotten Remembrall, and flies up with it. Harry stands up for Neville, and discovers that he is an excellent flier... A little twirling with Malfoy in the air, a fifty-foot dive and he's got the Remembrall. Only problem is, Professor McGonagall has caught him flying.

c) Turnaround. Instead of being expelled, Harry gets introduced to burly fifth-year Oliver Wood, and becomes the youngest Seeker of the century. Hurrah!

d) Malfoy, still seething over how Harry showed him up, challenges him to a duel at midnight in the trophy room. Hermione, (whom the boys are starting to regard as a pain) tells Harry off for agreeing to prowl the corridors at night.. and that night, when they're about to leave, she even joins them, trying to stop them. She gets locked out when the fat Lasy leaves her potrait, and also locked out is Neville, who doesnt remember the password anyway. They both follow the two boys into the Trophy room, where they find Filch instead of Malfoy. Hermione points out that malfoy probably tricked them and told on them to Filch. They race away from him, and are almost safe, when they come across Peeves, who alerts Filch. In desperation, they rush into a locked corridor, using Hermione's clever spell-casting.

e) Fluffy, mad eyes, three heads informs them exactly why the corridor is locked and forbidden. This time they make it back to the common room fine, without encountering Filch or Peeves. Hermione, slightly more observant, realizes that Fluffy was guarding something in a trapdoor under its feet, and harry deduces that it must be the package that Hagrid took from Gringotts.

Chapter Eleven - Halloween

My favourite chapter, because Hermione ceases to be the annoying know-it-all and graduates to friend.

a) Harry gets himself a cool new Nimbus Two Thousand, which allows a slight revenge on the bewildered Malfoy. Hermione is still not talking to them, but on the other hand, Harry learns how to play Quidditch from Oliver Wood that evening.

b) Two months, more or less pass, and its Halloween. Flitwick starts teaching them Wingardium Leviosa, the spell to make objects fly. Ron does it all wrong, and Hermione corrects him, which of course, just annoys him, so he bites back at her while talking to Harry. SHe overhears him, and upset, takes off to the nearest bathroom to have a good cy.

c) Halloween feast interrupted by Quirrel rushing in to announce a troll in the dungeons. (Excellent acting!) Pandemonium ensues, and Harry and Ron go off to find Hermione and tell her of the troll.

d) Severus Snape passes them by and then, preceded by a disgusting smell, the troll emerges. The boys cleverly lock him up in a bathroom, only to realize moments later, that Hermione is locked up with the troll too. After trying to distract the troll by various means, Harry jumps on top of the troll, and accidentally pushes his wand up its nose. He's about to get crushed by the troll, but Ron uses Wingardium Leviosa on the troll's club, which floats up and falls right back onto the troll's head, knocking it out.

e) Professors Snape, McGonagall and Quirrel turn up at the scene. Amazingly, Hermione lies to make it seem like the whole incident was her fault, so the two boys wouldn't get in trouble. Gryffindor ends up with five points, and Harry and Ron end up with a new friend.