Mark Reads ‘Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets’: Chapter 10
In the tenth chapter of Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, SHIT. GETS. REAL. Oh man THIS IS INSANE. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Harry Potter.
CHAPTER 10: THE ROGUE BLUDGER
- “D’you realize how much we’re going to have to steal, Hermione? Shredded skin of a boomslang, that’s definitely not in the students’ cupboard. What’re we going to do, break into Snape’s private stores? I don’t know if this is a good idea….”
Hermione shut the book with a snap.
“Well, if you two are going to chicken out, fine,” she said. There were bright pink patches on her cheeks and her eyes were brighter than usual. “I don’t want to break the rules, you know. I think threatening Muggle-borns is far worse than brewing up a difficult potion. But if you don’t want to find out if it’s Malfoy, I’ll go straight to Madam Pince now and hand the book back in–“
“I never thought I’d see the day when you’d be persuading us to break rules,” said Ron. “All right, we’ll do it.”
- “It’ll be down to you, Harry, to show them that a Seeker has to have something more than a rich father. Get to that Snitch before Malfoy or die trying, Harry, because we’ve got to win today, we’ve got to.”
“So no pressure, Harry,” said Fred, winking at him.
- “Close one, Harry!” said George, streaking past him with his club in his hand, ready to knock the Bludger back towards a Slytherin. Harry saw George give the Bludger a powerful whack in the direction of Adrian Pucey, but the Bludger changed direction in midair and short straight for Harry again.
Harry dropped quickly to avoid it, and George managed to hit it hard toward Malfoy. Once again, the Bludger swerved like a boomerang and shot at Harry’s head.
Harry put on a burst of speed and zoomed toward the other end of the pitch. He could hear the Bludger whistling along behind him. What was going on? Bludgers never concentrated on one player like this; it was their job to try and unseat as many people as possible….
- “Someone’s–tampered–with–this–Bludger–” Fred grunted, swinging his bat with all his might at it as it launched a new attack on Harry.
- “We were twenty feet above her, stopping the other Bludger from murdering Harry, Oliver,” said George angrily. “Someone’s fixed it–it won’t leave Harry alone. It hasn’t gone for anyone else all game. The Slytherins must have done something to it.”
- “If we stop now, we’ll have to forfeit the match!” said Harry. “And we’re not losing to Slytherin just because of a crazy Bludger! Come on, Oliver, tell them to leave me alone!”
“This is all your fault,” George said angrily to Wood. “‘Get the Snitch or die trying,’ what a stupid thing to tell him–“
Madam Hooch had joined them.
“Ready to resume play?” she asked Wood.
Wood looked at the determined look on Harry’s face.
“All right,” he said. “Fred, George, you heard Harry–leave him alone and let him deal with the Bludger on his own.”
-
A whistling in Harry’s ear told him the Bludger had just missed him again; he turned right over and sped in the opposite direction.
“Training for the ballet, Potter?” yelled Malfoy as Harry was forced to do a stupid kind of twirl in midair to dodge the Bludger, and he fled, the Bludger trailing a few feet behind him; and then, glaring back at Malfoy in hatred, he saw it–the Golden Snitch. It was hovering inches above Malfoy’s left ear–and Malfoy, busy laughing at Harry, hadn’t seen it.
- For an agonizing moment, Harry hung in midair, not daring to speed toward Malfoy in case he looked up and saw the Snitch.
WHAM.
He had stayed still a second too long. The Bludger had hit him at last, smashed into his elbow, and Harry felt his arm break. Dimly, dazed by the searing pain in his arm, he slid sideways on his rain-drenched broom, one knee still crooked over it, his right arm dangling useless at his side–theBludger came pelting back for a second attack, this time aiming at his face–Harry swerved out of the way, one idea firmly lodged in his numb brain: get to Malfoy.
- Harry took his remaining hand off the broom and made a wild snatch; he felt his fingers close on the cold Snitch but was now only gripping the broom with his legs, and there was a yell from the crowd below as he headed straight for the ground, trying hard not to pass out.
With a splattering thud he hit the mud and rolled off his broom. His arm was hanging at a very strange angle; riddled with pain, he heard, as though from a distance, a good deal of whistling and shouting. He focused on the Snitch clutched in his good hand.
“Aha,” he said vaguely. “We’ve won.”
- “Stand back,” said Lockhart, who was rolling up his jade-green sleeves.
“No–don’t–” said Harry weakly, but Lockhart was twirling his wand and a second later had directed it straight at Harry’s arm.
A strange and unpleasant sensation started at Harry’s shoulder and spread all the way down to his fingertips. It felt as though his arm was being deflated. He didn’t dare look at what was happening. He had shut his eyes, his face turned away from his arm, but his worst fears were realized as the people above him gasped and Colin Creevey began clicking away madly. His arm didn’t hurt anymore–nor did it feel remotely like an arm.
-
As Harry got to his feet, he felt strangely lopsided. Taking a deep breath he looked down at his right side. What he saw nearly made him pass out again.
Poking out of the end of his robes was what looked like a thick, felsh-colored glove. He tried to move his fingers. Nothing happened.
Lockhart hadn’t mended Harry’s bones. He had removed them.
- “What’re you doing here?” he said. “And how did you know I missed the train?”
Dobby’s lip trembled and Harry was seized by a sudden suspicion.
“It was you!” he said slowly. “You stopped the barrier from letting us through!”
- Dobby mopped his bulging eyes and said suddenly, “Harry Potter must go home! Dobby thought his Bludger would be enough to make–”
“Your Bludger?” said Harry, anger rising once more. “What d’you mean, your Bludger? You made that Bludger try and kill me?”
“Not kill you, sir, never kill you!” said Dobby, shocked. “Dobby just wants to save Harry Potter’s life! Better sent home, grievously injured, than remain here, sir! Dobby only wanted Harry Potter hurt enough to be sent home!”
- “…And now, at Hogwarts, terrible things are to happen, are perhaps happening already, and Dobby cannot let Harry Potter stay here now that history is to repeat itself, now that the Chamber of Secrets is open once more–”
Dobby froze, horrorstruck, then grabbed Harry’s water jug from his bedside table and cracked it over his own head, toppling out of sigh. A second later, he crawled back onto the bed, cross-eyed, muttering, “Bad Dobby, very bad Dobby…”
“So there is a Chamber of Secrets?” Harry whispered. “And–did you say it’s been opened before? Tell me, Dobby!”
- “What happened?” Madam Pomfrey whispered to Dumbledore, bending over the statue on the bed.
“Another attack,” said Dumbledore. “Minerva found him on the stairs.”
“There was a bunch of grapes next to him,” said Professor McGonagall. “We think he was trying to sneak up here to visit Potter.”
Harry’s stomach gave a horrible lurch. Slowly and carefully, he raised himself a few inches so he could look at the statue on the bed. A ray of moonlight lay across its staring face.
It was Colin Creevey.
- “It means,” said Dumbledore, “that the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again.”
Madam Pomfrey clapped a hand to her mouth. Professor McGonagall stared at Dumbledore.
“But, Albus…surely…who?”
“The question is not who,” said Dumbledore, his eyes on Colin. “The question is, how….”
And from what Harry could see of Professor McGonagall’s shadowy face, she didn’t understand this any better than he did.
And now, your dose of, “The Most Depressing Sentence(s) in the English Language,” courtesy of J.K. Rowling:
- “Dobby is used to death threats, sir. Dobby gets them five times a day at home.”
why is there not an emoticon sad enough for this
