New Broom and Good News (2)

"Hey, mate." Fred spoke, his voice stripped of its usual playfulness, low and serious as though he were a different person. He crouched down until his eyes were level with Harry's, and there was something rare, almost solemn, in his gray eyes. "We examined where the broom broke."

George picked up the thread, crouching beside Fred. The two of them looked like twin statues standing side by side; their movements, tones, even the rhythm of their breathing were astonishingly identical. "The break was very clean," George said, his brow knotted tightly. "Like... it couldn't withstand the pressure."

"Though some of those moves you made during your duel with Malfoy were pretty extreme," Fred added, gesturing in the air as he mimicked the angle and speed of Harry's dive, "that was a Nimbus 2000! Your moves were fast, sure, but they were completely within its design limits! That wasn't normal!"

"Very not normal!" George raised his voice slightly, sounding offended, as if he were standing up for the Nimbus 2000. "Fred and I have flown the same maneuvers hundreds of times, and a Nimbus 2000 hasn't even lost a speck of paint! It was practically like... some undiscovered manufacturing defect?" He looked at Harry questioningly.

Harry gave a bitter smile and shook his head. His right arm moved as if he wanted to gesture, but a dull ache shot from his shoulder to his wrist, making him bare his teeth. "Hiss... The bone should be nearly healed. It's just that the muscle strain is bad. The Skele-Gro is working. Madam Pomfrey said I still need a few days of rest."

He looked at the twins, his eyes full of deep guilt and confusion.

That guilt was not an act. He really had been thinking: if he had not made that dive,