Before he’d had time to think, Harry had taken his eyes off the Snitch and looked down.

At least a hundred Dementors, their hidden faces pointing up at him, were standing beneath him. It was as though freezing water were rising in his chest, cutting at his insides. And then he heard it again… Someone was screaming, screaming inside his head… a woman…

“Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!”

“Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…”

“Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead—”

Numbing, swirling white mist was filling Harry’s brain… What was he doing? Why was he flying? He needed to help her… She was going to die… She was going to be murdered…

He was falling, falling through the icy mist.

“Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…”

A shrill voice was laughing, the woman was screaming, and Harry knew no more.

“Lucky the ground was so soft.”

“I thought he was dead for sure.”

“But he didn’t even break his glasses.”

Harry could hear the voices whispering, but they made no sense whatsoever. He didn’t have a clue where he was, or how he’d got there, or what he’d been doing before he got there. All he knew was that every inch of him was aching as though it had been beaten.

“That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Scariest… the scariest thing… hooded black figures… cold… screaming…

Harry’s eyes snapped open. He was lying in the hospital wing. The Gryffindor Quidditch team, spattered with mud from head to foot, was gathered around his bed. Ron and Hermione were also there, looking as though they’d just climbed out of a swimming pool.

“Harry!” said Fred, who looked extremely white underneath, the mud. “How’re you feeling?”

It was as though Harry’s memory was on fast forward. The lightning—the Grim—the Snitch—and the Dementors…

“What happened?” he said, sitting up so suddenly they all gasped.

“You fell off,” said Fred. “Must’ve been—what—fifty feet?”

“We thought you’d died,” said Alicia, who was shaking.

Hermione made a small, squeaky noise. Her eyes were extremely bloodshot.

“But the match,” said Harry. “What happened? Are we doing a replay?”

No one said anything. The horrible truth sank into Harry like a stone.

“We didn’t—lose?”

“Diggory got the Snitch,” said George. “Just after you fell. He didn’t realize what had happened. When he looked back and saw you on the ground, he tried to call it off. Wanted a rematch. But they won fair and square… even Wood admits it.”

“Where is Wood?” said Harry, suddenly realizing he wasn’t there.

“Still in the showers,” said Fred. “We think he’s trying to drown himself.”

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They huddled at the edge of the field under a large umbrella; Harry took off his glasses and wiped them hurriedly on his robes.	\|	Harry put his face to his knees, his hands gripping his hair. Fred grabbed his shoulder and shook it roughly.

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