Goodbye, Faithful Companion

"I thought he was dead," a voice commented.

"But he didn't even break his glasses," explained another.

Harry heard the voices murmuring, but they made no sense. He had no idea where he was or how he got there, or what he had been doing before he arrived. All he knew was that every inch of his body was aching as if he had been beaten up.

"It was the most frightening thing I've ever seen. More frightening... the most frightening... hooded black figures... cold... screams," a third person also in the room said.

Harry suddenly opened his eyes. He was lying in the hospital wing. The Gryffindor Quidditch team, covered in mud from head to toe, surrounded his bed. Ron and Hermione were also there, looking as if they had just come out of a pool.

"Harry!" exclaimed Fred, whose face was extremely pale under the mud.

"How are you feeling?" Hermione asked.

For him, it felt like the memory was fast-forwarding. 'The lightning... the Grim... the Snitch... and the Dementors...'

"What happened?" he asked, sitting up in bed so suddenly that everyone stifled a surprised scream.

"You fell off your broom," Fred recounted. "Must've fallen... from... about fifteen meters?"

"We thought you were dead," said Alicia, trembling.

Hermione made a choked sound. Her eyes were very red.

"But what about the game?" Harry asked. "What happened? Are we going to play again?"

Nobody said anything. The terrible truth struck Harry like a blow. "We didn't... lose?"

"Diggory caught the Snitch," informed George. "Right after you fell. He didn't realize what had happened. When he looked back and saw you on the ground, he tried to stop the game. Wanted a new game. But they had a fair win... even Wood admitted that."

"Where's Wood?" Harry asked, suddenly noticing the absence of the team captain.

"He's still in the shower," Fred replied. "We think he's trying to drown himself."

Harry lowered his head to his knees, grabbing his hair with his hands. Fred held him by the shoulders and shook him hard. "Come on, Harry, you've never lost the Snitch before."

"There had to be a first time," said George.

"But it's not over yet," said Fred.

"We lost by a margin of a hundred points, right? So if Hufflepuff loses to Ravenclaw and we beat Ravenclaw and Slytherin... Hufflepuff will have to lose by at least two hundred points," said George. "But if they win against Ravenclaw..."

"No way, Ravenclaw is too good. But if Slytherin loses to Hufflepuff... Everything depends on the number of points, a margin of a hundred points more or less," Fred continued, completing his brother's reasoning.

Harry lay there, not saying a word. They had lost a Quidditch match for the first time in their lives.

After about ten minutes, Madame Pomfrey came to tell the boys to leave Harry alone. "We'll come back to see you later," said Fred.

"Don't beat yourself up, Harry, you're still the best Seeker we've ever had," added George.

The team left, leaving mud on the way. Madame Pomfrey closed the door after they passed, a look of disapproval on her face.

Ron and Hermione approached Harry's bed.

"WinterHeart was really furious," Hermione said, her voice trembling. "I've never seen the professor like that before, not even when he protected me from Snape."

Ron also chimed in excitedly, "The headmaster also acted at that moment, Harry. He waved his wand, and you sort of slowed down in mid-air."

"But what everyone is talking about now in school is that Professor WinterHeart pointed his wand at the Dementors. He unleashed a creature that looked like a large silver eagle against them. Made them leave the stadium immediately... He was furious that the Dementors had entered the school grounds," Hermione narrated the fight.

"And then while Dumbledore stopped your fall, he cast another spell... Then out of nowhere, an ice falcon appeared beneath you and gently carried you to the professors," she said, starry-eyed.

"It was amazing, Harry! Not when you fell, of course... but the spells were amazing," Ron exclaimed.

Ron kept talking, but Harry barely noticed because he was thinking about what the Dementors had done to him and the voice that was screaming.

He raised his eyes and found Ron and Hermione looking at him with so much concern that he immediately sought something banal to say. "Did anyone get my Nimbus?"

The two glanced at each other quickly.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, looking from one to the other.

"Well... when you fell, the broom was taken by the wind," Hermione said, hesitantly.

"And?" he continued to inquire.

"And it hit... it hit... oh, Harry... it hit the Whomping Willow," she completed the sentence.

Harry's insides churned. The Whomping Willow was a violent tree that stood alone in the middle of the grounds. "And?" he insisted, fearing the answer.

"Well, you know the Whomping Willow," said Ron. "It doesn't like being hit."

"Professor WinterHeart brought the broom back just before you regained consciousness," Hermione said in a small voice.

"He said to look for him if you need a new broom," Ron added.

Slowly, Hermione stooped to pick up a package at her feet, poured it out, and some bits of wood and twigs fell on the bed, all that was left of Harry's faithful broom, finally defeated.

****************************

{ Headmaster's Office }

"Thank you for your intervention, Nathaniel," Dumbledore thanked him for the help he provided in Harry's case.

"I did what should be done by a professor," he replied in his usual cold tone. "Have you informed the Ministry?" he asked.

Contemplating the events, Dumbledore responded, "Yes, I sent a letter to the Minister to remove the Dementors from the school. At the moment, they are causing more harm than the very murderer they are hunting."

"They must be getting hungry," Nathaniel theorized about the creatures' attack. "Since they don't have permission to enter the school, their supply of people they relied on has dried up. I suppose they couldn't resist the crowd around the Quidditch field. All the excitement.. the heightened emotions.. it's their idea of a feast," the professor concluded.

"Your theory is quite plausible, my friend. However, I assure you we won't be troubled by them again," Dumbledore finalized the conversation.

****************************

Madame Pomfrey insisted on keeping Harry in the hospital wing for the rest of the weekend. He didn't argue or complain, but he didn't let the shards of his Nimbus 2000 be thrown away. He knew it was a foolish gesture, knew the broom couldn't be fixed, but the feeling was stronger than him; it was as if he had lost one of his best friends.

A procession of friends came to visit him, all determined to cheer him up.

Hagrid sent him a bouquet of flowers with caterpillars that looked like yellow cabbages, and Ginny Weasley, blushing furiously, showed up with a homemade get-well card that she herself had made, which sang with a squeaky voice unless Harry kept it shut under the fruit bowl.

The Gryffindor team visited their teammate again on Sunday morning, this time accompanied by Oliver, who assured Harry that he wasn't to blame for the loss.

Ron and Hermione only left Harry's bedside at night.

But nothing anyone said or did could make him feel better because they only knew half of his concerns.

He hadn't told anyone about seeing the Grim, not even Ron or Hermione, because he knew his friend would panic and his friend would laugh at him. The fact was, however, that the Grim had now appeared twice, and both appearances had been followed by nearly fatal accidents.

The first time Harry had almost been run over by the Knight Bus, and the second time, he had fallen from his broom from almost fifteen meters high.

'Was the Grim going to haunt him to death? Was he, Harry, going to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for the beast?' he thought.

And then there were the Dementors. Harry felt sick and humiliated every time he thought of them. Everyone said the guards were dreadful, but no one else passed out every time they approached. No one else mentally heard echoes of his parents' deaths.

Because now Harry knew to whom that voice belonged. He heard what she said, endlessly during the long nights spent in the hospital wing, awake, staring at the moonlit stripes on the ceiling.

When the Dementors approached, he heard his mother's last moments of life, her attempt to protect her son from the wrath of Lord Voldemort, and the wizard's laughter before killing her. In his brief naps, he had dreams full of decaying, sticky hands, hearing sad pleas and would suddenly wake up, thinking again of his mother's voice.