Harry Potter and the Maze of Anomy

Chapter Twelve: The Beauty, The Beast, and The Would-Be Boyfriend

He’d been shooting straight for the sky for almost a full minute before he realized that a pair of arms held him tight around the midsection. Harry knew who they belonged to instantly; not by the hands, but by her smell. It was soothing, though he still felt slightly enraged.

“Hermione!” he shouted as the wind whipped in his face. “What’s gotten into you?” He was just about to give her a good telling off when he noticed that the arms holding him tightly were trembling.

“I’m n-not l-letting you f-f-fly off to d-do s-something s–s-stupid!” she shouted, her voice shaky but stern. He could feel her face moving from its place against his back as she spoke.

Leveling off, he slowed the broom and turned his head slightly, so his face was met with a large puff of brown hair.

“I’m serious, Hermione,” he said in a stern, albeit concerned voice. “That was dangerous!”

“And I’m s-serious, too, H-Harry!” she shot back stubbornly as her hair blew wildly about her. “I’m not letting you f-fly off to do anything stupid!” The small arms around him continued to tremble, and Harry relinquished one hand from the broom to grasp her hands firmly.

“It’s all right, Hermione,” he said confidently. “I won’t let you fall.”

“You better not!” she said, and Harry could tell by her voice that she was close to tears. “Because I’ll never f-f-orgive you if y-you do!” Harry suppressed a chuckle, and brought his hand back to the broom handle. He began slowly bringing them both back down to the earth when he heard a loud shriek from behind him.

“Harry, look down there!” Hermione shouted, pointing towards the far end of the . Harry turned to look, and at first wasn’t sure what she was pointing at. Below them lay an endless row of green – nothing out of the ordinary. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of it; at the very end of the , towards a set of high mountains, he could barely make out what appeared to be trees falling.

“What’s going on?” he heard Hermione cry behind him.

“I’m not sure,” said Harry, determination welling up inside him. “But hold on tight, we’re about to find out.”

Not wasting another second, Harry sped towards the disturbance, Hermione’s arms wrapped around him tightly. The forest was underneath them in an instant, and Hermione shrieked again as he quickly brought them lower, so they were just above the trees.

“Harry, look!” Hermione shouted in his ear. “It- It’s Grawp!”

And it was Grawp. He was in the middle of a large clearing, which – Harry mused – he probably created. The great giant appeared to be swinging what looked like a part of a fallen tree around in a circle. As they moved closer, he could hear Grawp howling loudly. Moving closer still, Harry thought he could distinctly hear another voice.

“No, Grawpy! ‘At’s a bad boy! Stop it, Grawpy!”

Harry looked down, and his heart leapt in his chest as he saw, right at the beginning of the clearing, none other than-

“Hagrid!” Hermione shouted. Harry reached the ground, landing several feet before him. “Hagrid, you’re all right!” She leapt from the broom and ran towards the half-giant professor as Harry dismounted and did the same.

“’Ermione?” Hagrid asked in confusion as a large tree branch flew past his head. “’Arry? What ‘re you doin’ ‘ere?”

“That’s not important!” Hermione shouted, hugging one of Hagrid’s massive legs. “We’re just glad you’re safe!”

“Well, that’s just nonsense,” Hagrid said, shielding himself and Hermione with his forearm as a large rock was sent in their direction. “Why wouldn’t I be arright?”

“One of the students said you weren’t at class,” Harry said as he joined them. “We thought you went, you know, missing. Like the rest.”

Hagrid laughed heartily at this. “No, I’ve not gone missing,” he said, looking down at Harry as Hermione let go of his leg. “It’s Grawpy, here. Something’s got ‘im in a right state. ‘E’s been rampagin’ through the forest for the past day.” Hagrid pointed over at Grawp, who was currently in the middle of ripping another tree from the ground and whipping it about madly.

“Grawpy!” Hagrid shouted, walking forward and waving his arms about. “Look who’s come to see you Grawpy! It’s ‘Arry and Hermy!” Grawp, who was in the middle of another loud shouting fit, turned his great, gray head towards the three and dropped the broken tree trunk from his hands.

“H-HERMY?” he said in his great giant’s voice. “HERMY!”

Much to Harry’s dismay, Grawp barreled forward, running straight in Hermione’s direction. Hermione let out a horrified scream, Hagrid shouted for him to stop, and Harry dove towards her, attempting to put himself between her and the large creature.

Grawp knocked him away easily. Harry fell to the floor as if he were a discarded rag doll. With his large, stone-like hands, he picked Hermione up as if she were another doll.

“HERMY,” he said loudly. Harry got up and ran at Grawp, pounding his fists against the monster’s back.

“’Arry, no!” Hagrid shouted, grabbing Harry and pulling him away. “You’ll only make him mad!”

“Make him mad?” Harry said angrily as Hagrid pulled him away, albeit kicking and screaming. “Make him mad! What’s wrong with you!”

“’Arry!” Hagrid shouted, hoisting Harry around so that they were facing the two. “Look.”

Harry stopped fighting against Hagrid’s grip and looked over at the pair. He expected to see Hermione torn to bits of his once very pretty best friend. What he did see, he couldn’t believe.

Grawp had sat down, and was now allowing Hermione to sit on his knee, quite like a parent would his three-year-old daughter. Hermione, still looking slightly scared, but not as much, was scratching behind Grawp’s ear.

“See,” Hagrid said calmy. “Gawpy likes her. Isn’t that right, Grawpy?”

Grawp had a very relaxed look on his face as Hermione continued to scratch. “GRAWPY LIKE HERMY,” he replied in his great giant’s voice. Harry took a tentative step forward and Grawp snarled. He moved back quickly and looked at Hagrid for help.

“How long before we can get him away from her?” Harry asked. Hagrid shrugged.

“I suppose it’s best iffin’ we let him fall asleep at this point,” Hagrid said uneasily.

“Great,” Harry muttered, as who he was becoming to realize was the woman of his dreams continued to scratch another man’s, er giant’s ear. Even if he is just a crazy giant, he thought bitterly, as Hermione began to visibly relax and even smiled, it’s still not my lap she’s sitting on…

- - -

Ronald Weasley did not seem very happy to see Harry, or Hermione for that matter, when the two windswept teens made their way into the common room later that evening, tired and weary from the day’s events.

“Out for a midnight fly by lover’s lane?” he quipped, rather miserably, as he sat in front of his chessboard across from Neville.

“Honestly, Ronald!” Hermione said fiercely, who Harry knew was tired and irritated after spending over three hours at Grawp’s disposal. “Get over yourself. I wasn’t about to let Harry fly around as angry as he was by himself, given the state of things.” She narrowed her eyes, and placed her hands on her hips. “I’d have done the same to you, and you know it. Now, if you’re finished acting like a great prat, I’m off to bed. I spent my afternoon entertaining one brainless oaf, I’m not about to spend my evening entertaining another.” And very red in the face, Hermione made her way up the stairs towards the girls’ dormitories.

If Ron Weasley was aware of the fact that she’d have done the same to him, he didn’t show it; he simply bade goodnight to Neville, and swept past Harry without so much as a look.

“Fancy a game, Harry?” Neville asked hopefully, as Harry watched the staircase with a bemused expression. Not actually wanting to play a game of chess, but wanting to go upstairs and face Ron even less, Harry let out a reluctant sigh and sat down; the battered black and white pieces already hobbling back into place before him.

- - -

The following three weeks passed by without another disappearance; however, Harry couldn’t exactly call those three weeks uneventful.

A team of Aurors had been assigned to patrol the school grounds at all times, by order of the Ministry of Magic (after receiving several angry howlers from parents indicating that Durmstrang and Beauxbatons were doing just the same). Cornelius Fudge even accompanied them on patrol one rainy afternoon, looking worse for wear: his eyes were red, and there were large, dark circles underneath them; his cheeks were low and sunken; his black bowler hat was covered in dirt, and, when he stopped to speak with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, Harry thought he caught a whiff of Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey on his breath.

One of the Jarveys also found their way into the castle one night, and made sport of shouting obscenities at Peeves as he flew from classroom to classroom, attempting to deter the beast. Hagrid eventually arrived to catch the creature and carry him back out onto the grounds, but not before it had uttered an entire dictionary of cuss words loud enough to make all of the first years in the Gryffindor common room go as scarlet as the scarves they were wearing.

What was most definitely the highlight of that time, for Harry, was the reason why Gryffindor students were wearing their colors so proudly: a landslide victory over Slytherin in the first Quidditch game of the season. In a nearly flawless victory, Ron (who was no longer so upset with Harry, and was, in fact, back on speaking terms with his best mate) saved nine out of ten goals. Harry caught the Snitch (which, amusedly enough, was spinning in circles around the edge of Draco’s broom – who, amusedly enough, was in the middle of a chorus of ‘Weasley is Our King’ at the time.) When Harry lunged for it, Draco must have thought that Harry was planning to have another go at his nose, because he dove out of the way so quickly he almost flew right into the stands.

It was now game number two for Gryffindor, and Harry could not say that his team was having the same luck.

In fact, Luck, it seemed, had gone out for a cup of coffee, and was currently enjoying herself too much to come back any time soon.

He regarded Luck as a girl because there was no way a man would ever abandon him in his hour of need – especially not in the middle of a bloody Quidditch match. His team, who had gone into an early lead of 30 – 0, was now trailing Ravenclaw 90 – 30. No, a man would never desert him at that point, not when the Quidditch Cup was on the line.

No, she was probably out with her friends at the moment as he sat there on his broom watching the embarrassing play of events. They were all laughing and giggling, no doubt, sprawled out on padded lawn chairs in colorful hats, as they watched the display from behind jewel-encrusted sunglasses.

Harry watched the game continue around him and frowned. Yes, what a cruel lot – girls. Why, if Hermione wasn’t one of them, he’d have every reason to charm them all off the face of the planet. And the world would be much better for it, that was for sure. Now, if he could only convince Hermione to not be a girl, that would make things just wonderf-

WHOOSH!

A small golden orb whizzed madly passed his face, barely nicking his cheek, tearing him from his thoughts. Just as quickly, he was off, whizzing madly after it. He flew fast, nearly knocking over a certain raven-haired Ravenclaw Seeker in the process, closing in on the little ball swiftly. Behind him, he heard a whooshing sound, and looked just quickly enough to see that Cho Chang was now right behind him, gaining fast.

He looked ahead; the Snitch was just before him, and he reached out to grab it. Closer and closer he moved, the wind rustling through his dark hair, his glasses threatening to fall down to the blur of screaming voices below. And then, before he knew it, his fingers were wrapping themselves tightly around the solid gold ball and…

BAM!

Something hard slammed into him from behind, sending him on a collision course with the stands below. Turning his head slightly, he barely caught a glimpse of navy robes sailing freely in the air above him before his body was jerked abruptly; it felt as if he’d just crashed into the pitch.

The only problem with that, he mused, his eyes closed tight, was that he didn’t…hurt… at all.

Was he unconscious? Was this all a dream? He bit his lip.

“Ouch.”

Nope, no dream. Opening his eyes, Harry found the most welcomed sight he’d ever seen: A very upside down Hermione Granger had her wand pointed at him, and Cho, a worried expression on her face.

“Are you all right, Harry?” she asked with concern as Harry came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, he and Cho who were upside down (which made much more sense than the entire Gryffindor house flipping itself over in a matter of seconds.) They were both perfectly suspended, several feet above the stands. The Snitch fought furtively from amidst Harry’s tightened grasp. Someone in the crowd shouted, “He’s still got it!” and instantly the Gryffindor stands exploded in cheers and applause.

“Thanks, Hermione!” Harry said excitedly after she had lowered both him and Cho down to safety, and Professor McGonagall had done her fair share of fussing and fretting before accepting that the two students were unharmed. ”That was some quick thinking!”

Hermione blushed; Cho scoffed.

“Don’t be too thankful, Harry.” she said grumpily, tossing her long black hair behind her shoulder. “We were about to fall on her head. I would have done the same thing.”

“Fat bloody chance!” Ron said defensively. “You may be a Ravenclaw, but our Hermione’s got more brains than the whole lot of you!”

Harry was so happy that he hadn’t splattered poor Hermione that he let out a relieved sort of chuckle. Cho turned her head, a disgusted look on her face.

“Oh, so you think that’s funny, do you?” she asked hotly. “Real rich! Cho the idiot can’t do anything right! I thought I knew you better than that, Harry!” she added, close to tears. “I thought you cared! B-but you’re just like the rest. A t-thoughtless p-p-prat!”

At that, Hermione took a defensive step in front of Harry, eyeing Cho angrily. “You can’t talk to him like that!” she shouted indignantly. “It was your poor flying that sent him falling from the sky in the first place!”

Tears fell from the dark eyes of Cho Chang, and she turned around and walked away; Hermione turned towards Harry.

“Are you all right?” she asked, bringing a hand to his face and stroking his cheek absentmindedly. Harry knew he must have been blushing wildly, because his face suddenly became very hot.

“F-fine,” he managed, smiling awkwardly. Hermione must have come to the conclusion that her hand had been stroking Harry’s face, because she pulled it away swiftly and averted her eyes from his.

“R-right,” she stuttered. “Well, l-let’s get back to the common room. I’m sure everyone’s waiting to congratulate you properly.”

Harry followed, one hand on the place where she’d touched him, two steps behind her.

If that’s what he got for being knocked off his broom, he’d gladly fall from the sky any day.

- -  -  -  -

A/N: This is actually the second draft of this chapter I’ve uploaded. The first one hadn’t been betad.

Thanks to everyone for sticking with this story! I promise I will see it through to the end, even if it’s AU as of this Saturday.

I bow down to Nel, aka Pottermama, bka the catcher of my typos, in humble, sincere appreciation. Thanks for all the work you do. You’re the reason this story keeps going!

I also would like to dedicate this chapter to the letters ‘B’ and ‘Q,’ and the number ‘4.’

Until next time!

Finchy