“Why the bloody hell does the weather have to suck every time we go to play?” Ron questioned as he, Harry and Ginny walked down toward the Quidditch pitch.

The wind had picked up considerably and the snow began to fall faster.

“I don’t know, but you should stop complaining.” Ginny answered. “It could be worse”

“Worse!” Ron exclaimed. “How can it be worse? I can barely see my hand in front of my face.”

“At least it’s not as bad as the storm that destroyed Harry’s nimbus.” Ginny commented.

“She’s right, Ron.” Harry agreed.

“And if you can’t see your hand, Ron, then you need to catch the quaffle with your face.” Ginny joked with her older brother.

The three of them walked into the locker room laughing. Most of the team was already there. With five minutes before game time, Harry stood up to give a pre-game speech.

“Good morning, Gryffindors. I know the weather is rough outside, but we all know it could be worse. We are playing Ravenclaw today. We haven’t lost to them in years and we aren’t going to start now. The weather is bad now and it could get worse. Everyone needs to keep their eyes open and their heads us. Those bludgers will come out of nowhere and crush you if you are not paying attention. Chasers, if there is a patch of air that you can’t see through, be cautious if you decide to fly through it. Let’s be safe and have fun. Good luck out there.”

The team gathered their equipment and headed out to the field. The icy cold wind hit them first as the team took off. With a single whistle, the game began. Surprisingly, no one had been injured within the first hour of the game. It was a miracle. The score was 210 to 230 with Gryffindor leading. Within that hour, there were multiple sightings of the snitch. This would include Harry or Cho diving after the snitch, with the other following behind them, only for the snitch to disappear. Harry decided, after some time, that if the weather got any worse he would have to ask Madame Hooch to stop the game.

Harry was looking over the pitch when he saw the snitch hovering over the Ravenclaw hoops. He shot off toward the goals and knew that Cho was following him. The snitch plummeted suddenly as the seekers took a sharp right turn. They began to nose dive as the screaming started. At first, Harry thought that it was the fans screaming. He pulled away when he heard that the screams were ones of desperation and fear.

Harry had been spinning in the air, looking for the source of the screams, as Cho pulled up besides him. Dark smoke rose from the teacher’s tower.

“What’s wrong?” Cho questioned.

There was an orange glow from that tower that gave Harry an answer.

“There’s a fire!” He shouted as he rocketed away from Cho. “Gryffindor, we need to help the teachers!” Harry shouted again as his teammates followed him to the tower.

Harry scooped up a teacher and saw that the staff was panicking. He placed the teacher down on the ground as screams of terror erupted throughout the pitch. Looking up at the tower, Harry’s eye was stopped about midway down as a large black mass plummeted to the ground.

Harry raced into the air, willing his broom to go faster. The black mass could only be Snape and, even though he did not like the man, he could not let him die. Harry raced even quicker as Snape got closer to the ground. He reached down as he approached Snape quickly, grabbing the professor’s forearm. Harry did not expect Snape to be falling so fast. When he caught the professor, Harry had become unseated from his broom.

He could hear the crowd shriek in fear. Now Harry and Snape were both falling through the air, with the ground approaching fast. Harry never let go of Snape as they were falling. When Snape was very close to the ground, Harry let go. Snape landed on the hard snowy ground at a much slower pace than when he started falling. Harry continued to fall.

He tried to change his body position as he approached the ground, in hopes that he would not be so severely injured. It did not work. He was unable to move. Harry impacted the ground, head first. He was lucky, if you wanted to call it that. Had he not fallen unconscious, he would have heard that bones breaking as he continued to bound off the ground.

Harry came to rest, twenty feet away from Snape, face down in the snow.