Aftermath

As they entered November, the weather turned very cold. The mountains around the school became icey grey and the Lake like chilled steel.

Every morning the ground was covered in frost. Hagrid could be seen from the upstairs windows, defrosting broomsticks on the Quidditch pitch, bundled up in a long mole skin overcoat, rabbit fur gloves and enormous beaverskin boots.

The Quidditch season had begun. On Saturday, Harry would be playing in his first match after weeks of training: Gryffindor versus Slytherin. If Gryffindor won they would move up into second place in the House Championship.

Hardly anyone had seen Harry play because Wood had decided, that as their secret weapon, Harry should be kept, well, secret. But the news that he would be playing seeker had leaked out somehow much to Woods displeasure.

It was really lucky that he now had got Hermione as a friend. She had become a lot more relaxed about breaking rules since the boys(Neville) saved her from the Troll and she was much nicer for it. She had helped them a lot in homework and she had also lent him "Quidditch through the ages" which proved to be an interesting read.

Neville and the others had been listening to Harry in the Gryffindor common room in early morning, recounting about the 700 ways of committing a foul in Quidditch and all of them had happened during a World Cup Match in 1473; that seekers were usually the smallest and fastest players and the most serious Quidditch accidents seemed to happen to them; that although people rarely died playing Quidditch, referees had been known to vanish and turn up later in the Sahara Desert.

Naturally, Snape had confiscated the book from Harry when he came across it while they had been out in the freezing courtyard , stating that library books are not to be taken out of the school and went away after deducting 5 pints from Gryffindor.

The Gryffindor common room had been very noisy that evening. All four of them sat together next to the window. Hermione was checking their Charms homework for them. She would never let them copy, but by asking her to read it through , they got the right answers anyway.

Harry felt restless.

He needed that book "Quidditch through the ages" back to calm down about tommorow match and so thought up an idea.

He wasn't afraid of Snape. He was going to ask Snape if he could have it back. He believed that Snape would not be able to refuse him if other teachers were listening.

he made his way down the staff-room and knocked. There was no answer.

He knocked again. Nothing.

Perhaps Snape had left the book in there?

It was worth a try.

Harry pushed the door ajar and peered inside and a horrible scene came to his view.

Snape and Filch were inside, alone.

Snape was holding his robes above his knees. One of his legs was bloody and mangled. Filch was holding Snape bandages.

"Blasted thing," Snape was saying, "How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three of them at once?"

Harry tried to shut the door quietly but was still found out and had to scram away before Snape could take the opportunity to take more points away from Gryffindor.

Once he reached his friends he recounted everything that had happened.

After that Harry and Ron indulged into their conspiracy theories regarding Snape.

You know the usual, he deliberately freed the Troll to create a diversion in an attempt to steal whatever there was below the trap door.

Hermione tried to refute the notion that a teacher would do it, but Ron countered her by saying that she probably thought that all teachers were saints or something and asked Neville's opinion on it.

As Hermione had been saved by Neville not too long ago she looked forward to his opinion on the topic.

Neville who had tried not to interfere but forced to do so gave the green light by saying, "We still don't know much about the thing the dog is guarding. We should not guess further without finding out about the object."

After a bit more discussion about the issue they all decided to head back sleep for the day as Harry had his first match against the Slytherins in a few hours.

Though it was hard for him to sleep as the expression on Snape's face when he saw his leg wasn't easy to forget.