Author's note: Thanks for the reviews. They really mean a lot. I hope everyone is enjoying reading this as much as I enjoy writing it. It has taken a lot of effort trying to do everything from a half cat/half kneazle's point of view, but from your reviews, I think the results have been worth it.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story, though I wish I did. That honor goes to Ms. J.K. Rowling.
Chapter 4
Riddle Me This
It took several hours for her to recover, but eventually the headache wore off and my human was back to normal, despite a slight ringing in her ears that persisted for several days. Unfortunately for her, she was standing too close to the bubble when it burst, the noise becoming overwhelming, and she was unable to make out the words to Harry's proposal. Professor McGonagall, the romantic at heart that she is, kept Harry's secret. The only words she said about the matter were that someone was obviously trying to play a prank on them.
Harry, in the meantime, had been busy planning his next proposal attempt. By this time, all the seventh year Gryffindor boys had been clued in to what those two bumbling idi-. . . I mean, what those two, fine young men had been attempting. It had started when Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan found Ron and Harry reading through my human's bridal magazine one afternoon. Curious as to why two, strapping young men would be reading a woman's bridal magazine in the privacy of their dorm room, questions of their masculinity were immediately raised, and Dean even went so far as to ask if it was really appropriate for Ron to wear white, seeing as how the redhead had bragged to all that he had been deflowered the year before. A scuffle immediately ensued, and many hexes and curses were flown about striking pillows and mattresses sending feathers flying everywhere. After five minutes a truce was made, but not before the seventh year boy's dormitory looked as if two chicken armies had decided to use it for a battlefield. Neville Longbottom had been brought into what was now known as The Conspiracy to Propose to Hermione (or The Conspiracy for short), after he had pouted about being left out of what he termed "the mother of all pillow fights".
Seeing as how I was an honorary member of The Conspiracy (after all, it was I who tried to stop the bubble from popping before it reached my human), I was able to be present at all of their clandestine meetings. I must say that if I thought things were going badly when it was just Harry and Ron, they were nothing compared to when the rest of The Conspiracy became involved.
Seamus insisted that Harry dress up like Romeo, complete with tights that showed off his entire "package" ("Let Hermione see what she's getting!"). Harry quickly discarded that idea, and I for one agreed with him. Flaunting oneself in public, indeed!
"Eww," Seamus said. "Crookshanks is licking himself!"
Stopping my bath, I gave him an indignant stare. There was a difference between "advertising one's goodies" and cleanliness. Clearly the boy could not make the distinction.
Dean's suggestion was not much better. According to him, Harry should take Hermione to Madam Puddifoot's in Hogsmeade and find a nice secluded table where he could ask her in private. I thought this was a rather good idea. However, Harry looked at Dean as if he had just grown another head.
"Are you mental?!" Harry asked.
"What?" replied Dean. "It's a nice place!"
"That's not the point, mate," Ron piped in. "Madam Puddifoot's is where Harry took Cho Chang on their one and only date!"
"Yeah," Neville said. "And you know how Hermione gets whenever she's around anything that reminds her of Cho."
"I made the mistake of saying her name around Hermione the other day," Seamus added, a slight quaver in his voice. "I thought she was going to hex me on the spot! I was never so scared in all me life!"
Throughout all of this, Harry remained silent. That may have been as a result of all the blood draining from his face.
For those who are not in the know, my human despises Cho Chang with a passion. Not only was she Harry's first real girlfriend, but soon after Harry and my human got together in their sixth year (with a little help from yours truly!), Cho decided she wanted Harry back and set forth a plan to do just that. My human was just as stubborn and decided that now that she had Harry Potter, there was no way on God's green earth she was giving him up. What followed was a week long witch's battle of epic proportions that culminated with Harry bravely stepping in the middle and ended with him spending three days in the hospital wing. But that is another story.
As soon as Dean heard these arguments, he quickly rescinded his idea and kept his mouth shut for the rest of the evening. After much discussion, it was agreed on by a vote of four to one (Seamus being the only dissenter and insisting that Harry dress like Romeo) that Harry would attempt Magical Proposal Number Three. I must take a moment to point out here that the vote was actually five to one as I had my paw raised as well, but no one seemed to notice me except for Neville who thought I was swatting at a dangling thread from his robes.
Magical Proposal Number Three, according to Witch's Bridal Monthly, was supposed to be a romantic spell based upon the magic of ancient Egypt. Legend has it that Ramses II had his sorcerers enchant the Sphinx to propose to his beloved Nefertari by asking her a riddle. And so, The Conspiracy felt that Harry should charm one of the many statues found in the halls of Hogwarts to do the same with my human. After the vote was cast, the members of The Conspiracy, myself included, went in search of the perfect statue. We descended the steps from the boy's dormitory with the same determination of young men going to war (or young cats, as the case may be). We must have looked an odd sight to those in the Gryffindor common room, for we received many stares on our way out the portrait hole.
It took about ten minutes to find the right statue, but find it we did. On the second floor landing, near the entrance to the Great Hall, was a statue of the wizard Gulgathar the Great who was known for his work with animals. Everyone seemed to think this was particularly appropriate since my human had shown a great fondness for animals (one of the reasons I chose her as my human in the first place).
Neville pulled the magazine from the insides of his robes and began to read the particulars of the spell. Harry was to recite the incantation with the appropriate wand movements, then speak the words he wanted the statue to utter. Then he had to give the trigger to the spell, which would be when he and my human passed by on their way to breakfast the following morning.
With a flourish of his wand, Harry spoke the incantation perfectly. The statue's face lit up with a purple light as Harry spoke the riddle it was to repeat:
This riddle I bring from one you hold dear,
It is a question you might wish to hear.
So listen with all of your mind and your heart,
And apply that wonderful brain so smart.
'Tis a query your loved one wishes to make.
Answer it "yes" or his heart you'll break.
"Yes" will win you something you'll love,
A circle that shines with light from above.
After the spell was cast, and Harry checked and double-checked to make certain nothing could go wrong, our little group marched back up stairs to Gryffindor Tower. Once again we were met by wondering stares, not the least of which came from my human. In an effort to forestall any questions as to our previous whereabouts, Harry excused himself from the rest of our coterie and proceeded to kiss my human so deeply and thoroughly that even I began to blush. When they pulled apart from each other, I could tell by the glazed look in her eyes and the idiotic half-smile on her face that she had no clue what planet she was on, let alone that her boyfriend had been conspicuously missing for the past twenty minutes.
With the feeling that their mission had been accomplished, the boys headed up to their dormitory while I followed my weak-kneed human to her room. I was looking forward to a blissful night's sleep. Instead I was forced to endure an hour's worth of giggling, hormonal teenage girls as my human was bombarded with requests to describe, in excruciating detail, what her roommates had just termed "the kiss of the century". Once the giddiness died down, I was able to finally drift off into oblivion. But before I did, one question ran through my mind: If my human thought she was happy now, what would she be like after tomorrow?
*****
The next day, all of us in The Conspiracy were up early and out the portrait hole before any of the girls could arise. Harry stayed behind to walk my human down, making sure the spell would go off at just the right time. Ron took point and led us down the stairs to the doors of the Great Hall, where we took up a position that allowed us a good view of second floor landing. Actually, it allowed the boys a good view of the second floor landing. From my disadvantaged height, I had a most excellent view of the stairs.
"What's he doing there?" I heard Seamus ask.
"Who?" Neville inquired.
"Malfoy!" Ron snarled.
Standing behind the boys, I jumped in the air, trying to get a look at what they were talking about. Sure enough, the blonde haired Slytherin was leaning against the statue of Gulgathar looking as smug as ever. I tried to make out what he was doing, but only succeeded in making myself look like Malfoy himself when Barty Crouch posing as Mad-Eye Moody turned him into a bouncing ferret several years ago. Tired of all the jumping, I decided to find a better vantage point and settled upon Neville's shoulder.
At the same time, Ron, who had decided that Malfoy was not going to leave, pulled his wand and muttered, "Tarantallegra!" Unfortunately, Neville, who did not appreciate the feel of my claws suddenly imbedded in his flesh, stumbled forward into Ron. Ron's spell went wide, missing Malfoy and striking the statue. There was a bright flash and a resonating splat as the spell struck the marble artwork. Malfoy jerked his head in our direction, and nearly drew his wand in retaliation. However, seeing there were five of us (yes, I am counting myself with them) and only one of him, he quickly decided that discretion was the better part of valor and stalked off up the stairs, but not before giving a glare that promised retribution. After Malfoy slinked away, Dean brought up a rather astute question.
"Ron?" he asked. "Do you think that spell you cast did anything to mess up the one Harry cast last night?"
Ron stood there with a blank look on his face, alternately looking at Dean, then Seamus, then Neville, then (surprisingly) at me before looking back at Dean.
"I don't know," he said. "Do you think we should . . ."
Before he could finish the sentence, the sound of footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs. Within seconds Harry and my human, hand in hand, came waltzing down the stone staircase, the rest of Gryffindor House in tow. As he reached the statue, Harry stopped and flicked his wand at it. The purple glow surrounded the face and it began to recite, in a bass version of Harry's voice, the riddle he had given it last night:
This riddle I bring from one you hold dear,
It is a question, you might wish to hear.
So listen with all of your mind and your heart . . .
Unfortunately, that was all the statue was able to say. Much to everyone's amazement, there must have been a slight magical residue left over from Ron's spell. Since Harry's spell had, in effect, animated the statue, Ron's leg twitching spell fulfilled it's intended purpose, if not on it's intended victim.
Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, CRASH!!
As soon as it began to speak, Gulgathar's statue began walking jerkily forward until it reached the landing, where it promptly bounced down the stairs before smashing itself into tiny bits at our feet in front of the Great Hall.
Harry stood at the top of the landing with a look of pure astonishment on his face. He glanced from the ruined statue to us and back again, silently asking what had gone wrong.
"What was that all about?" my human asked Harry, who stood looking at Ron. Ron just shrugged and headed into the Great Hall for breakfast, followed by the rest of The Conspiracy.
I stayed behind and waited for my human to descend the stairs. When she saw me, she picked me up and began scratching my chin.
"Crookshanks!" she cried. "What are you doing down here?"
I purred in her ear hoping that she would forget that just moments before I was perched on top of Neville's shoulder. That must have worked, for she proceeded to carry me into the Great Hall with her, where she sat a saucer of milk on the floor in front of me.
Moments later, Harry shuffled into the Great Hall, shock still evident on his face. He took a seat beside my human and attempted to eat.
"Harry, are you okay?" there was a touch of concern in my human's voice. "You don't look so good."
"I'm fine," he said weakly. "I . . . fine."
My human shrugged and turned her talk to Ginny Weasley. When it was apparent they were deep in conversation, Ron leaned over to Harry.
"Looks like we try Magical Proposal Number Four, eh mate?"
Harry's head hit the table, and everyone just stared.
Post script: Some people have wondered why I just didn't have Harry propose in the traditional manner of getting down on one knee and presenting Hermione with a ring. Quite simply, I look at it this way; Harry grew up not really knowing what romance was. It wasn't until he met Hermione that he even knew what love for the opposite sex was. Keeping this in mind, remember that Ron has been a big influence on Harry's life, so when Ron made the comment in the first chapter that he was The Harry Potter and that his proposal had to be special, Harry took that to heart. (Also, the story would be really short if he did that, and nowhere near as funny!)
I've also gotten the impression that several people are anxious to know when Harry will actually be able to "pop the question" for real. All I can say is, once again, look back to the first chapter. There were five top magical proposals of all time, and I had planned on Harry trying all five before deciding to try one of his own. So as of right now, I plan on three more chapters after this one as well as a short epilogue.
Oh, and if you would like for me to write about the battle between Hermione and Cho, let me know. It won't be a Crookshanks story, but I believe it might be a fun one to write!