Harry Potter: I Get Stronger by Taking Loans - 188

Chapter 188: Hogwarts at Four in the Morning, Mudblood

It was early morning, with dawn only just beginning to lighten the sky.

Harry was hauled out of bed by Oliver Wood, Gryffindor’s Quidditch captain. Forced to drag himself upright, he washed up, pulled on his training kit, and hoisted his Nimbus 2000 before stumbling out.

He had not even made it through the portrait hole when Colin Creevey blocked his path. Harry was already starting to dread the younger boy. Colin had somehow memorised his timetable and asked him six or seven times a day.

Harry had insisted that Quidditch training was boring, but Colin stubbornly insisted on coming to watch anyway. All the way there, he chattered nonstop, peppering Harry with questions about everything and nothing.

In the cool morning breeze, Harry trudged towards the Quidditch pitch with Colin trailing after him like a little shadow. Harry was still half-asleep and felt a yawn creeping up.

“Leonardo! Morning!”

At Colin’s excited shout, Harry blinked hard and focused. Leonardo’s familiar figure was walking towards them from the direction of the pitch, and in his hand he was carrying a broom that looked like…

A Nimbus 2001?

Harry woke up instantly. Since when had Leonardo bought a broom, and the newest Nimbus 2001 at that, faster than the Nimbus 2000 by another step? Was Leonardo joining Ravenclaw’s team this year? Had he already finished training? Surely it was not that early.

A bad feeling settled in Harry’s stomach. Ravenclaw struggled in Quidditch because of numbers and team balance, but Leonardo did not struggle at anything. If they ended up facing him in a match, what then?

“Morning, Colin. Harry.”

Leonardo waved at them and walked straight back towards the castle. He looked faintly pleased with himself, as if he had already checked something off his list. Special training with Malfoy done, he thought, now breakfast.

Leonardo’s pace was brisk. Harry did not have time to ask questions, and with the team waiting, he hurried on as well.

When Harry reached the changing room, everyone was already there. Wood was in full command, analysing tactics and the day’s training plan, claiming he had spent his whole summer “researching” it. Harry was exhausted, but he forced himself to listen, guilt prickling at him. He had missed the final last year, and Gryffindor had suffered a humiliating defeat.

When Wood’s long speech finally ended, they filed out onto the pitch.

Harry spotted Ron and Hermione in the stands, along with Colin, camera raised and ready as if this were a professional match.

“This is breakfast, Leonardo asked us to bring you,” Ron shouted, lifting a lunchbox. It was the same one Leonardo had given him as a Christmas present last year. “Eat it after training, all right?”

Warmth surged through Harry, and he waved to show he had heard.

They had only just taken off when Wood noticed Colin clicking away with his camera. He immediately assumed the kid was a Slytherin spy and started to dive down to stop him, only for George to grab his arm and hold him back.

“Relax,” George said. “Slytherin doesn’t need spies.”

He jerked his chin downward. “They’ve come themselves.”

Wood dropped to the ground in a fury and marched up to a group of Slytherins in green robes. He had landed too fast and staggered, but it did nothing to cool him.

“Flint! We’re training. I booked the pitch. You lot should get out!”

Marcus Flint was even broader than Wood. He stared down at him without blinking, his voice dripping with amusement.

“Did you now? Then let me read you this little note…”

He cleared his throat theatrically.

“Ahem. I, Professor Severus Snape, grant the Slytherin team permission to train on the Quidditch pitch today, in order to develop their new Seeker.”

Wood’s face turned ugly. “New Seeker? Where?”

Flint grinned and swept one arm wide. “Come on, then. Let them have a proper look at our new Seeker, the one who’s made such a massive contribution to the team!”

The Slytherin players stepped aside, revealing Draco Malfoy behind them.

Malfoy looked half-dead with sleep, yawning repeatedly, and it was obvious he had not even heard what Flint had just said.

When Malfoy did not step forward on his own, Flint’s smile vanished. He grabbed Malfoy and yanked him to his side, then slapped him hard on the back several times.

“Draco Malfoy,” Flint announced, “Slytherin’s new Seeker.” He thumped Malfoy again for emphasis. "Thanks to him, we’ve got ourselves a new set of brooms."

The Slytherin players raised their broomsticks. Brand-new Nimbus 2001s, polished to a shine that caught and threw back the morning light.

Gryffindor’s team felt the pressure at once.

Malfoy, aching from Flint’s heavy hand, cursed the brute in his head. His eyes stung with exhaustion, and he instinctively reached into his pocket, fumbling for something.

These past days, Leonardo’s “special training” had started at four in the morning. Leonardo’s reasoning was simple: if you had never seen Hogwarts at four a.m., how were you supposed to become an excellent Seeker?

Thinking of how outstanding Leonardo was, Malfoy had decided the effort must be worth it, and he had not complained.

But now he realised his supply was gone. The Vigor Draught.

It was a potion Leonardo had invented, a coffee-coloured liquid he claimed would sharpen the mind and restore energy. Malfoy had asked why it had such a bizarre name, and Leonardo had answered with a straight face: drink it and you would have the strength of an ox and the speed of a horse, with endurance to match. It was designed specifically for overworked students running on fumes.

Malfoy had stopped questioning it after that. Leonardo had said it would go on sale at the Seventh Workshop today anyway. Malfoy could simply buy a whole case.

He was not about to cling to his friendship with Leonardo and ask for a “mate’s rate”. A pure-blood noble had not fallen so far.

Still, Malfoy was genuinely exhausted. He thought about training afterwards, which would be even more draining, and before he knew it, his eyelids drooped again.

Flint, towering over the Gryffindors and oblivious to Malfoy swaying beside him, sneered, “Tsk. Comets and Cleansweeps. Honestly, maybe they’re decent for sweeping floors, but for Quidditch? Don’t make me laugh.”  

He caressed his Nimbus 2001 like it was a priceless treasure. “For Quidditch, you want a proper broom. Not a glorified dustpan.”

The shouting match escalated. Ron and Hermione had moved down from the stands and came over as well, and once they heard what was happening, Hermione looked past Flint and noticed Malfoy nodding off on his feet.

She lifted her chin and met Flint’s glare without flinching.

“If broomsticks alone decided the result, then no one would need matches at all,” she said, voice sharp and clear. “You could just compare whose broom is more expensive and faster. I don’t think Gryffindor needs that sort of thing to find courage.”

Gryffindor erupted with cheers. The twins whistled, then spoke together in perfect unison.

“Exactly. Hope those shiny new brooms can comfort your tiny little hearts.”

Slytherin’s expression darkened. Flint’s face twisted, and he leaned over Hermione, looming.

“Sharp tongue for a little girl,” he snarled. “I’d have thought those great big teeth would get in your way. Hmph. Filthy Mudblood.”

Silence.

The moment the word left his mouth, the entire pitch fell dead quiet.

Even Malfoy, who had been drifting, snapped a bit more awake. He had the uneasy feeling he had missed something, and also the sense he had narrowly avoided being part of it.

Mudblood? Who said Mudblood?

Bang.

A dull thud of impact, followed by a roar that mixed pain and rage.

“Ah! My broom!”

Malfoy’s eyes opened fully. Ron was standing there with that alchemical device, the one that looked like a hairdryer, the one he called an Air Gun, held up and smoking faintly with residual magic.

Malfoy’s gaze snapped to Flint. Flint had been blown several metres back, and now he was kneeling on the ground, clutching a Nimbus 2001 snapped into multiple pieces.

Malfoy’s first thought was unexpectedly practical. That thing seems useful. Should he get one too?

...

The Great Hall.

Lunch.

Malfoy and Leonardo sat tucked away near the end of the long table.

“So Flint just went flying,” Malfoy said, recounting it with growing excitement. “And honestly, Weasley’s Air Gun is pretty interesting. Of course, it’s only because you taught him well that he could make something like that. Muggles have something similar, don’t they? What do they call it, a metal wand?”

Leonardo picked up a piece of crispy roast duck, thinking, ‘Not a metal wand, you mean a gun.’

From Malfoy’s retelling, Leonardo understood the general chain of events on the pitch.

“So after that,” Leonardo asked, amused, “it turned into a free-for-all?”

“Free-for-all?” Malfoy blinked, then understood. “Oh. You mean a fistfight. Yes, some people used fists and feet, some used wands.”

He scooped up a bite of mapo tofu and continued, sounding equal parts disgusted and impressed.

“It was chaos. Someone even started swinging a broom like a club. Nearly broke another Nimbus 2001. Absolutely…”

Leonardo thought the ripple effects were bigger than expected. If you traced it back, his reinforcement of the flying car meant Ron’s wand had not snapped, which meant there was no spell backlash. So there was no comic slug-vomiting to interrupt the confrontation, and the two sides truly came to blows.

And with Leonardo’s guidance, Ron had built an Air Gun and gotten increasingly handy with it. In a wizard brawl, Ron’s first instinct had not been to draw his wand, but to draw his weapon.

Well, an alchemical tool was still magic. At least the world had not completely gone off the rails.

"As for Malfoy, Leonardo’s four a.m. flying drills had left him too exhausted to utter the slur himself—the one he’d used in the original timeline. But someone else still did: Flint."

Leonardo set his chopsticks down and looked at Malfoy with a grin.

“Draco,” he asked, “when everyone started fighting, what did you do? Who did you help?”

Malfoy actually laughed, a smug sparkle returning to him.

“I’m in Slytherin. I can’t just stand there and do nothing. And I can’t help Potter, can I, not just because we’ve got tutoring together. How am I supposed to survive on the team, in my house, if I do that?”

He pointed to himself, then to Leonardo.

“But I also couldn’t exactly start hexing Gryffindor’s lot, could I? Not with what you and I have.” Malfoy lifted his chin. “You’re friends with Potter and them too. If I actually went after them, it would put you in a difficult position, wouldn’t it? A Malfoy doesn’t make his friends uncomfortable.”

His pride only grew as he explained his solution.

“So I remembered what we practised in tutoring, fighting one against several. I started signalling Potter and Granger. Then with Weasley as well, the three of them pulled their wands, and we just started trading spells with each other.”

He spoke faster, enjoying himself.

“While we were duelling, we kept moving away from the older lot. They hit hard and they don’t care where it lands. That way, I didn’t have a problem with either side. Clever, right?”

Leonardo paused, genuinely impressed.

This boy really was something.

The Malfoy bloodline had substance, and with instincts like that, it was no wonder the family had lasted.

Leonardo gave him a quick thumbs‑up. “That’s the spirit.”

That only made Malfoy more enthusiastic.

“I’m guessing Weasley explained what that word meant to Granger while they were fighting,” he said. “She got a gap and started firing spells into the crowd. I think she hit Flint.”

Leonardo nodded. She took revenge immediately. Good.

“That word is disgusting,” Leonardo said.

Mudblood* was a slur aimed at witches and wizards from Muggle families, vicious and among the most disgusting words a wizard could utter.

At Leonardo’s tone, Malfoy seemed to remember something and gave an awkward, embarrassed laugh.

“It’s Flint,” he muttered. “Bloody slug’s got a sewer for a mouth.”

Truthfully, Malfoy already disliked Flint. He thought Flint was crude and stupid, the sort who relied on brute force and never bothered with sense or foresight.

“Anyway, we all got told off by our Heads of House,” Malfoy continued, lowering his voice. “I don’t know exactly what happened with Gryffindor, but Head of House Snape gave Flint detention. Proper detention. Serious.”

Malfoy’s voice dropped further.

“And… you should’ve seen the Head of House’s face. He was terrifying. We’ve never seen him that angry.”

No wonder he was furious.

Leonardo suspected Snape hated that word more than almost anything, and hated the version of himself who had once said it to Lily most of all.

Malfoy sighed, irritation creeping in.

“I’ve only just joined the team. I haven’t even had proper training yet, and the captain’s already gone.”

“You don’t have a vice-captain?” Leonardo asked.

“No,” Malfoy said bitterly. “Flint’s an arrogant brute. He never lets anyone touch his authority.”

Leonardo offered a casual suggestion.

Leonardo leaned back a little. “Then take charge of practice for now. You know the game better than most of them anyway.”

Malfoy had loved Quidditch since childhood, and his parents had the means to indulge it fully. Leonardo had always suspected that, with Malfoy’s flying and Quidditch skill, he could have made the team on merit eventually. He had simply been impatient, or obsessed with competing with Harry, and so had used “sponsorship” to force his way into the Seeker position.

Malfoy stared at him and pointed at his own nose.

“Me?”

Leonardo laughed softly.

“You’ve got knowledge, you’ve got technique, you donated those brooms, and they’ll give you face for that alone. It’s only routine practice. If you’re all free anyway, you might as well.” He paused, then added lightly. “Besides, if the old lot don’t step aside, how do the young ever rise?”

Something in Malfoy’s eyes shifted. Ambition was practically a Slytherin birthmark, a hunger for power and glory.

This sounded like an opportunity. Not to become captain, obviously, Flint was in detention, not dead. But leading Slytherin training temporarily?

That was something Potter could never do.

Malfoy made up his mind on the spot. If he pulled this off, he would absolutely go back to the pitch during Gryffindor training and show off properly.