Chapter Number: 33
Chapter Name: The long Explanation...
Hermione was not usually as absent minded in her classes - infact she never was like this. Her mind again wondered to what she had thought of a few minutes ago, when Parvati had brought her out of her daze with that small explosion : ' How could I think, Harry would be so...so...' she really did not know what word to use to describe what she thought of Harry before. It was just too horrible think of now. The more she thought about it, the angrier she would get at herself for behaving like a spoilt brat. She just hoped when she was going to visit Harry that night, if he was awake, he would forgive her. She hoped he would be as lenient on her as he was with Ron the year before.
Frustrated with herself, she turned her head towards the window, only to be greeted by an unearthly sight. Something that even in the magical world seemed unreal. " What in heaven's name is that?" she said loudly, managing to get attention from fair number of the students around her. A set of cries and aw's broke out that finally grabbed everyone's attention. " Wha..." started to say Ron, but he stopped when he saw what Hermione had seen. " What are you guys..." started Parvati, "...Oh! By Merlin's beard! What is that?!"
Parvati managed to get the attention of Lavender, who screamed upon seeing the phenomenon. Hearing the scream, Ron's dazed mind snapped out of wonderment. He closed his gaping mouth. Everyone other than Ron, Hermione and Parvati had a mixture of panic and horror written on their face, as they thought deatheaters were attacking the school. Ron and the others had thought nothing. They were just too stunned.
Before anyone else from the class could overreact, the people who were paying attention to Professor Flitwick before this scene broke out, saw that he had received a small piece of paper on his desk right, and right after reading it, the teacher had cast a silencing spell on the room. So that none of the other adjacent classes didn't panic. "Ahem..." he coughed intentionally. "...what you see happening there, over the Hospital Wing is ancient magic."
This revelation was followed by a round of gasping noises. " Professor Dumbledore asks me to inform you that..." he said, reading the paper in front of him, " what you see unfold in front of your eyes, is the magic being used to revive Mr. Potter. Please do not go into the Hospital wing. The rooms are sealed until as such a time as the magic is completed...." he looked up from the parchment and said, " ...that means, get comfortable, we're staying here for a while. Lunch will be served in the room."
Professor Flitwick waited a while to let the students get over the shock - no one did, but he went back to giving notes.
Ali Pasha did not like teaching pupils whom he could sense were destined to become dark wizards, but he had to teach everyone otherwise his position at Hogwarts was in jeopardy. As much as he hated to admit it, Malfoy was one of the best students he had ever had, with the possible exception of Hermione, but then again no one ever has been.
Harry really was not his student, as what Harry now knows, came from Professor Dippet some 13 years ago. Part of the reason Ali Pasha had accepted the teaching job was to have a chance at seeing Harry fight - maybe even have a sparring session with him. His own teacher and mentor (long time before Harry came to Morocco), Professor Dippet had told him that Harry was to become a very strong warrior. He told him that Harry was really good and was good enough to be his equal or even better than Ali.
That simple possibility made him accept the teaching post at Hogwarts. That is why he was so surprised when it seemed like Harry was barely qualified to be on the same mat as Hermione, on the first few days of Harry and Hermione's training, as he was getting beaten up by her lot. It made him doubt whether or not he should have had accepted the job.
But his doubt disappeared as soon as he found out Harry had apparated with the Nundu, as it showed great potential for Harry, far more than anyone else. Professor Pasha had assumed that somehow Harry would survive the encounter with the creature and makes it alive to Morocco. There he would increase his powers, until he somehow would be able to jump back in time to during the war and bring about its end, under an alias.
Ali Pasha always wanted to test his strength against Harry, or more like the legendary figure Harold Parker, whom he had heard stories about when he was fighting in the war. Though Ali Pasha was now known as the best practitioner of the arts, he was always regarded as second to Harold Parker, who fought a large number of wizards by himself on both sides to stop both sides from fighting.
It had saddened Ali Pasha that Harry would not be participating in the Dueling tournament, but he understood Harry's reasons. Harry held back his own potential as much as he could. His encounter with Voldemort that Professor Dumbledore had told him about made Ali realise that Harry held back and second guessed his every action - for they could have consequences he wasn't ready to deal with.
Ali's suspicions about Harry were confirmed, sort of, when the Professor Dumbledore refused to confirm them - or deny them.
Hermione ate her dinner in silence - this was not weird. The weird part was the fact that she and the 5th year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were eating them at their Charms class.
When it was time for their lunch, plates and goblets started to appear for each person. Several times during the lunchtime, Hermione had starred out of the window at the amazing lighting and thunder show. She wanted to go and see the magic, but not because she wanted to examine how it was done or any other academic pursuit.
She wanted to see how Harry was doing. Dread, depression and waves of panic hit Hermione as she sat there, moving food around her plate.
Alicia wanted to take the first shift for watching Harry, but Professor Dumbledore was very insistent that it would be Roger Davies who would be the first person on guard. He gave no reason, but as always, he had the last word.
When the student's were allowed to leave their classes, their teachers told them that the classes for that day had been cancelled. The Hufflepuffs celebrated, since their next class was supposed to be with Professor Snape. Seamus had almost lost his nerves trapped in the room. Finally before they were supposed to leave for their individual classes (it started to rain after the magic had finished), Seamus gathered up all his courage and stepped up to Hannah Abbot.
"ermm...excuse me, Hannah." He said with a definite tremble in his voice.
" What is it Seamus?" she asked very softly.
" I wasss...." he stopped in the middle of his sentence when he found Hanna's blue eyes glued to his face.
" You were going to..." she offered, with a smile.
Her smile seemed to fill Seamus with unimaginable amount of energy as his demeanor suddenly changed. He became very confident as to what he needed to do. " I was wondering... would you like to go to the end of term ball with me?"
The question shocked everyone present except for Hermione. Even Dean Thomas, who knew about Seamus's plan, did not think his friend had enough courage to go through with it - let alone that day!
" You what?" was her reaction, while her friends were either giggling or stood with an open mouth.
It took a second for her to realize what Seamus had said. She could not help but be flattered by the very very early invitation. As she figured it, Seamus must have had thought that his only chance to ask her out was now, at the beginning of the term rather than ask at the end of the term and risk the possibility that she already found herself a date. She realized that he was afraid that the older boys would ask her out before he had a chance to do so.
" Well," started to say Hannah, " I would love to..."
Seamus's smile on his face became twice as big,
" but..."
" Oh! No!" said Seamus. His face faltered, as his heart jumped off a cliff and onto jagged rocks below.
" ...it's too early. How about we go to the next Hogsmede trip together? If we have a good time until the ball, I'll go with you."
"WhooHooo!" said Seamus, hardly capable of sustaining his own happiness.
He was not the only one. All the Gryffindor boys let out enough whoops and catcalls at the pair to make them both blush a fairly deep shade of red.
" Well, that certainly was surprising..."said Parvati.
Lavender, equally amused said, " Yeah, I'll say."
Parvati looked at Hermione to ask how she felt about the situation, but did not ask as there was a very somber expression on her face. She moved closer to Hermione and enveloped her in a hug. " He'll be alright...Professor Dumbledore is with him. If there was something really bad with him, I'm sure he would have had told us." Parvati stopped hugging Hermione and said, " We'll go by the Hospital Wing..." her eyes sparkling, she said, " ...maybe they'll let us see him".
Parvati knew it was not really true about the headmaster telling them, but she wanted to comfort Hermione. The headmaster wouldn't want to make the entire school upset earlier than it was needed - if needed at all. Hermione knew that as well, but could see no reason for her to mope any longer.
She scanned the pockets of people in the sea of people that were passing the three girls, "...where is Ron anyway?"
" I think I heard him say something to Neville... Oh yeah... He said he was going to the great hall to get some food."
" Well Let's go." said Parvati, shoving Hermione in the direction of the Hospital Wing.
" WHAT. DO. YOU. MEAN. HE'S. NOT. ALLOWED. ANY. VISITORS?" yelled Hermione at the top of her voice. She had emphasised each and every one of the words in that small sentence in the hopes that it would go through the Headboy's head.
" I..I..I don't know...I was told not to let any one in. Especially you." He covered his head with his hands, and cowered against the door. He was afraid of the Girl's wrath. It was quite understandable, since Hermione at five foot eight was a full foot taller. Though he was the headboy and two years older, he had seen Hermione fight with Harry and he did not think he knew enough (specially after the golden flame he had seen Hermione do).
Hermione was going to deal a beating to the headboy right there, damn the consequences, had Parvati and Lavender not jumped on top of her and forced her to the ground.
" Hermione...this is not like you!" said Parvati, as she used her knee to hold down Hermione's right arm and use both of her hands to restrain the other one. Because she was on her side lying on top of Hermione, this stopped Hermione from getting up. Her legs were held together by Lavender who was sweating at the amount of effort it took to control Hermione.
" Well! I have to see him. I have...have...have to talk to..." Hermione did not finish the sentence, because she broke down crying.
Parvati let go of Hermione, who backed in to the wall and started to cry. Lavender and Parvati both sat on either side of her and held her close. Parvati put her shoulder on Hermione's and said, " It'll be okay..."
" Yes, love."said Lavender, " It's not like he's dead or something."
Hermione was slowly beginning to stop her flow of tears when Lavender's words brought her back to tears, worse than ever.
" Good going, Lavender." scolded Parvati.
" He said..." Hermione pointed at the headboy (Roger Davies), " Harry doesn't want to talk to me..."
Roger was listening to the three girls, he had not intended to overhear them, talking as loud as they did he could not help it. He piped up, still far from the three girls, " I said no such thing!" He paused, " What I said was that, I've been told not to let anyone in. Especially Fred and George's brother and You. I'm only following orders from the headmaster."
" See Harry doesn't hate you..." said Parvati.
" Well, he hasn't talked to me...." said Hermione, looking ready to let the dam in her eyes be broken.
" Did you let him?"
" No..." came the almost whispered answer.
" Did he try anyway?"
" Yes..." her voice was so very quite that they had to strain themselves to hear him.
" How long ago this start?" ask Parvati.
" Yesterday..."
" You haven't even been angry at Harry for 24 hrs...he can't hate you." Parvati reasoned.
Lavender decided that it was a safe time for her to join the conversation.
" Yeah...We'll get to see him soon. Besides the way he is about Quidditch, I doubt he'll not be a 100% for the tryouts..."
Parvati smiled at Lavender. This is a very good way to comfort Hermione.
" She's right you know..." she stopped dead in the middle of the conversation as the head boy approached Hermione.
" The headmaster did tell me to tell you that Harry would be alright by the end of the day tomorrow. The healing magic was particularly rough on him and it would take the rest of today and most of tomorrow night for Harry to recover."
Hermione brightened up considerably.
" Thanks for telling me this"
Roger was going to say welcome, but Lavender jumped up to him and kissed him full on the lips. Hermione and Parvati exchanged shocked glances. Neither had any idea why Lavender had kissed Roger, and it seemed Lavender did not either as she shrieked, " Ahhh...What have I done?", before taking off really fast from there.
Hermione and Parvati followed very close. Roger was too stunned to do anything other than falling backwards onto the floor with shock.
" That was something" said Ron as he congratulated Seamus on his date with Hannah.
" Yeah..." said Neville patting Seamus on the back.
The twins showed up from their elective class of "Magical Reaction" an advanced potion class that Professor Snape took. " Did I hear it right? Someone ask someone else to the ball already?"
" How did you know?" asked Ron, very surprised that his brothers had found out about the date so fast.
" SO Ickle Ronniekins has a date..." said Fred/George.
" Where is Hermione? We want to tease the little woman a bit..."said the other twin.
" I don't have a date with Hermione." said Ron turning an awful shade of red.
" Oh... We assumed it was you, since you asked us how we knew..." asked the first one.
" Which by the way is a secret, and we hope to sell to Zonkos very soon..." said the other one handing out small bits of parchment, which turned out to be business cards. Ron took one. It read:
Fred & George Weasley
Proud proprietors of
Weasley Wizard Whizzes (WWW)
Maker's of all you pranking and joke need.
Everything you can think of including the kitchen sink.
Since 2 months 3 weeks and 2 days ago
" So who is the lucky boy?" asked one of them.
Seamus put his hand up slowly.
" Hmm..." said one of them, circling him one way, while the other circled in the opposite way - they were appraising him. " Hmm...indeed."
" Who is the girl?" they asked together.
" Hannah Abbot...from Hufflepuffs."
" Hmm...she's beautiful..." said one of them, much to Seamus's displeasure.
" You sure you don't want to..." started one of them
" ...go for a Nice Griffindor girl..."
" ...Like Ginny over there perhaps..."
" Or... Elizabeth next to her" (both of the girls blushed when they heard the boys talking about them) One of the twins then got the really good idea of teasing Ron as well.
" Maybe even Hermione..."
Fred and George were behaving quite unlike themselves - normally this love stuff was just too - icky to tease people about. Icky is the word they chose to use. They were breaking their rule about this because they had been doing very little pranking and a lot of studying. Like they say - all work and no play makes the twins desperate. They were just using anything they can to amuse themselves.)
Ron piped up. He really did not want to let any of the other boys to think of Hermione in that way - other than himself. " Hey! The guy has got a date. And all you can tell him is he should have had chosen another girl!"
" Oops! Sorry Ickle Ronniekins. We didn't want to talk about your Girlfriend..."
" She's not my girlfriend" he said, almost screaming.
" Well in that case..."said one of the twins with a very serious tone, " You would not mind me asking her out?"
" Fred!" said obviously George since he just called out the other ones, name, " I don't know you had a thing for Hermione."
Ron grumbled something to his brothers before he headed out of the room. He knew he would never be able to compete with anyone of his brothers if they decided that they like Hermione.
" Ron" yelled Fred from downstairs, " We were only joking" before he broke into laughter.
" What were you two joking about?" asked Hermione, who had appeared behind the boys after her visit to the hospital wing.
" errr...we have to go" said Fred breaking into a run, dragging George along with him.
" What was all that about?" she asked again - this time to Dean Thomas, next to Seamus.
" Nothing really...Well, will you look at that" he pointed at the large wall clock above the fireplace. "...It's time for our meeting...sorry girls we have to go" said the other boys as they all left in a group.
" What meeting?!?!" she asked very puzzled, but got no answer as all the boys vanished into their common room.
Hermione did wonder what the boys were talking about but stopped when Parvati brought out a packet of exploding snap cards. As she played the game, Hermione thought it was odd how she had not gone totally obsessed with her OWL yet. She needed to draw up a time table soon. Usually she would be going at it a long time before the exams and would have had drawn up revision tables by now. Not to mention the fact that she would have been nagging her two best friends to start studying.
She realized that she had over the years changed. She was no longer the bossy and annoying kid, well maybe just a little, she was when she was in muggle schools. The same things (being bossy, annoying and most importantly being smart) that had made an outcast of her in the muggle school, had brought her two very wonderful friends. She looked across two Parvati and Lavender. ' Now I have another two...' she thought. But these two would not have been her friends if Harry and Ron had not gone to save her in his first year.
' I have a lot to thank those two idiots for...' she thought.
Suddenly she thought back to the reason why she was in that toilet that night. It was because Ron had behaved like all the boys (and girls) at her muggle school. He had pointed out to Harry that Hermione had no friends. It surprised her that even through he was the reason she was in the toilet that day, she attributed her rescue more on Ron.
' One of these days I have to find out why they went back to save me?'
Dinner could not have had finished fast enough for Hermione. Every few minutes, she looked at her watch to see how long was left. Each second seemed to take longer than the one before and finally, after playing with her food all night long, she finally put a whole lot in her mouth and left for the common room. Ron saw her leave, and wondered if he should go after her, as he half suspected that Hermione was somehow blaming herself for Harry's predicament. Just as he was about to leave his favorite dishes filled up his plates.
' Right after this' he thought. But by the time he had finished his dinner, Ron had completely forgotten about why he wanted to talk to Hermione.
It took Hermione over ten minutes to go to the common room and then to her dorm to retrieve the cloak and the marauders map. She closed the drapes around her four poster bed with a spell. Though it was possible to open the drapes by the simple " Alohomora" spell, she did not think any one in her dorm room had mastered that spell yet.
She posted a note on the drapes, telling anyone to wake her up before the next morning would die of a horrible curse or have a face full of acne that'll stay with them until the day they die. One was for Lavendar, the rest of the threat for Parvati and the other two girls.
She shivered a bit as she put on the cloak. Her senses were assaulted by the memories of her and her two male friends' escapades under the cloak. Also of the latenight walks that Harry took with her in their 4th year while he was having a fight with Ron.
She took out the map and made her way secretly to the hospital wing. It took her quite a long time to navigate through avoiding everyone. When she saw Mrs. Norris, she flashed back to the time in their first year when Ron wanted to kick her, while they were under the cloak. She almost gave away her position, because it was hard for her to hide her giggles from the memory. She shook her head to get rid of the silly grin that was plastered all over her face.
At the door (more like the corner to the corridor) leading to the hospital wing, Hermione got cold feet. She had never done anything the headmaster had forbidden, without help from Harry and Ron.
But she got over it very fast.
She rounded the corner and walked very silently through the corridors. She saw Alicia sitting outside the door, scanning the hall from where she sat, and looking out for anyone who might be trying to sneak into the hospital wing.
Hermione was only about five feet from where Alicia was sitting when she thought she caught Alicia staring right at her.
That little thing made her heart stop, but relaxed a little when Alicia turned her head the other way. Hermione quickly rushed past Alicia - careful to be very silent.
The only occupied bed was the one that was the furthest from the door. This eased Hermione's mind a lot, as she was sure that if the bed was close to the door then Alicia might hear her.
One look at Harry's body (he was naked from waist up), and she broke down and started to sob softly. There were bruises everywhere, and Harry's scar she could see had been bleeding very slightly from before. She could see his now fairly well muscled arms and hands covered in scratches and scorch marks...well actually it was soot, grime and self-inflicted scratches, when he was trying to escape the ancient and powerful magic done on him. Hermione didn't know the reasons behind them but the first one.
She went to the nurse's table and retrieved some water and some spare gauze that was there. She dipped a bit of gauze in the water and started to clean Harry's scar. " It'll be a while before I get the scar cleaned so..." she whispered to the unconscious Harry in his sleep as she wiped a tear from her own face, " listen carefully..."
She took extraordinary care to wipe away the dry blood, and clean the jagged edges of his scar. When the gauze was almost crimson, she dipped it in the bowl of water (magical cleaner mixed in to disinfect against and remove blood) and squeezed it to release all the blood. She used the clean cloth to start to wipe Harry's face and then rest of his body as she spoke to him. Softly.
" I'm really sorry about the way I acted yesterday... I..I ... don't know what happened to me," she said wiping away yet another tear, " I promise I'll make it up to you..."
Some more sobbing before, " I remember telling Ron how much of an idiot he was being not to believe you last year...yes... I know I said I wouldn't tell him that when you asked last year during TriWizard Tournament... but I did."
She wiped off another tear, this time on the other cheek, "...and look what I did because I thought you wouldn't need me to be your friend anymore... just get better, okay. Then I'll apologize and kick your butt in that tournament - and everything would be alright again."
She moved onto Harry's left arm, where there was a scar from the small griffins that had attacked him a long while ago. It was very grimy but Harry's palm was something she had not expected it to be.
It used to be very slightly harsh form Quidditch practice and poor maintenance of his wand. The result of the poor maintenance was that she had to help Harry remove a lot of splinters over the years. The spell had to be cast by another person. More specifically using another wand, otherwise there was always the chance of the splinter cause damage to nerves in the body.
But after Harry's return this was the first time she had seen and felt his hands up close and she could see they were different than the ones she had seen and felt only a week ago when Harry was trying to save her. They were alot harsher and worn with time then they should have had been. She attributed it to all the running and physical activity Harry had started doing after coming from Morocco. Not to mention the two days that Harry was missing in the desert.
" Looks like you need to discover moisturizers..." she mumbled, "...your hands are as smooth as the Himalayas... anyway... I'll tell you what's been happening."
" You missed the announcement that Lee Jordan was removed as the commentator for the Quidditch games. Snape used Lucius Malfoy to remove him. Said, he was biased. They are going to use another student to do it, but I doubt that anyone can be as good as him. I do admit he was biased, but he was the best that the school has had in a long time... well that's what the twins told me at dinner time."
" In the morning today, I went to the lakeside to do some practice for the Dueling tournament, guess who I ran into. Cho Chang. Yep, she was there to practice Kung Fu. Well I wanted to train as well, so I asked if I could join her for a bit of one on one. I could not believe how good she was. It took her about ten minutes to make me submit... She's gonna be a lot of competition, so I've decided we're gonna train for the tournament together."
" He won't be in the tournament" said a feminine voice, that she knew to belong to Alicia.
" Alicia...How did you..." she started to say, but stopped when she saw Alicia smile. It was more in the range of amusement than anything else. It only took Hermione a second to realise what Alicia might have been thinking. "...It's not what it looks like?"
" What exactly does it look like, Hermione?" asked Alicia.
" I'm not his girlfriend or anything...I just came to say..."
Alicia interrupted her. " sorry?"
" How did you know?" asked Hermione, looking at Alicia suspiciously.
" He told me yesterday. When we were playing exploding snaps in the common room. I was just wondering how long you would be mad at him....hmmm"
" Hmm. What?" asked Hermione.
" Well I thought it was gonna last more than that... I though until the weekend, but I guess that incident with the Veloron moved up the timetable."
" It did..." Hermione wanted to desperately ask Alicia one question before she wanted to make a run for the common room. "...er...what did you mean about Harry not taking part in the Dueling tournament?"
Alicia lifted one eyebrow and answered, " Harry's not taking part...I can't really blame him. I mean, with what happened the last time he was in a competition..." Her voice was very sympathetic.
" I should have had guessed that's what would have had happened." She twiddled her fingers in front of her, as Alicia took another piece of gauze and dipped it in the water, and then proceeded to clean Harry's other arm of the soot and grime. It amazed both girls that Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey left Harry in the condition that he was.
" You saw me come in didn't you?" asked Hermione very curious as to why the headgirl let her into the hospital wing when she was supposed to keep everyone out.
" Yep. I did... don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone. I wanted you and him back to being friends as much as you."
" What do you mean?"
" Well... When you two were fighting, if I can even call it that, I saw how different he was. It's odd to be around him when he's like that. He was more reserved, almost as if he was avoiding getting hurt..."
Suddenly Hermione blurted out, " You like him, Don't you?"
Even in the dim light of the room, Hermione could see Alicia turn pink. " No...No..." she said, trying to hide the truth from Hermione.
" No, you do!.." said Hermione, practically shouting, "... you were the same way when I told you about Harry switching class to Runes...yeah!" Hermione was getting more and more excited, "...and when they were doing the sorting... I saw you blush several times... It was because of Harry wasn't it?!"
" No!" said Alicia, her voice betraying the outrage that it was supposed to have.
" It is!" Hermione kept going without a thought to what Alicia had said.
" No!" Alicia tried again, but she was really bad at this and Hermione was paying no attention to her denials.
" So?" said Hermione, expecting and answer.
" So what?" Alicia looked very guilty.
" How long have you felt this way for Harry?" Hermione asked giggling.
" I didn't say I feel a thing..."
Hermione made a face at Alicia, who gave up all pretences,
"...Oh... all right... If you must know. Since last year...well kind of."
" Since when last year?" It even amazed Hermione what she asked next. ("...I want details"), as it was more in line with what Parvati or Lavender would ask.
" Since... don't tell him. All right?"
Hermione nodded.
" Since the ball... he looked so cute on the dance floor, but it was a bit of a shame how his date was moving him around on the dance floor."
" Wow!... You have no idea... but that's what Harry told me too. You two were made for each other." Hermione squealing with joy.
" You think so..." Alicia grinned a little, " I mean... Who says I'm interested in him like that..." Alicia did not want to hear any more from Hermione so she asked her to leave.
" I think you should go now... Madam Pomfrey would be back soon, to check on Harry's progress."
" You don't want to know if he likes you or not?" Hermione ask tentatively, teasing.
" I do...No. I don't... If Madam Pomfrey sees you both of us would be in trouble"
" She won't see me." Said Hermione.
" Because of that cloak?" Alicia asked pointing to the watery cloak near the edge of Harry's bed.
Hermione nodded.
" Yes!... by the way how did you see through it?"
" Professor Dumbledore gave me this..." Alicia held out her palm.
In it she had a small clear opal like stone. It sparkled like that of the opal eye dragon's eye. It only took a fraction of a second for Hermione to realize why exactly the stone did look like the eyes of the Opal Eye Dragon. Because it was the eye of the dragon!
" Is that...Wow...Oh...Wow..Is...Is that...Wow oh Wow!" Hermione started babbling.
" Yep! Eye of the Opal Eye Dragon... Ability to see what can not be seen..." Alicia said it with pride, " This is the reason, you have to get out..." now her voice was more nervous than pride, " Madam Pomfrey has the other eye that Professor Dumbledore has. He gave one to her and one to me. I have to give mine to Roger when he comes to take over his shift. This is why you have to go!"
Alicia was basically pushing Hermione out of the door, as she said her final words, " If you tell Harry about anything I said to you... Lets just say I can pair you with Malfoy in anything... including the ball. Not to mention what kind of punishment you'd get for breaking into the hospital wing."
" You wouldn't?" Hermione said, he voice expressed how much she would hate to be paired up with Draco.
" Oh, Yes I will and you know I'm supposed to choose a couple to promote inter-house relationship. I was going to choose a Ravenclaw with a Hufflepuff, but if you tell Harry anything..." Alicia let her words hang in the air, which made Hermione even more nervous than before. Hermione did not want to take a chance at getting caught by Madam Pomfrey nor get Alicia mad at her. The last thing she wanted was to go to the ball with Malfoy, even that came after her own death on the list of things she did not want to do.
After she left the hospital wing, Hermione felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulder. She was thinking about the assignment that Hagrid had given the whole class to be handed in a few weeks time, when suddenly she remembered something.
' I thought I put a charm on the sheet covering the Veloron cage... I know I did.' Hermione stopped in her tracks. Something odd was going on and she had to find out what it was. ' I think I'll go check it out tomorrow morning.' she thought, entering the common room very quietly.
Hermione cried to sleep that night, even though she had apologized to Harry and she felt everything would be all right, she cried not because Harry might never forgive him, but because she was ashamed of what she had done. She had put no thought about Harry when she had judged that Harry would participate in the tournament. She cried into her pillow for an hour before slumber over took her.
NEXT DAY...
It took a while for Hermione to realize why her pillow was wet in the morning from her tear. When she looked at herself in the mirror, after splashing her face with water, she saw a pair of puffy and bloodshot eyes stare back at her. When she finally stopped her eyes were back to normal, but the puffiness she couldn't make go away.
At breakfast Malfoy received a note from Professor Dumbledore. He looked scared, nervous and slightly on the edge as he read the message.
To Mr. Malfoy
Your presence is required in the headmaster's chambers today at
lunchtime. There will be a hearing on your alleged assault on Professor Rubeus Hagrid. The door will open once you
reach it.
Professor Dumbledore
Headmaster
Malfoy managed to keep a straight face when he read the letter. This was not because he was afraid of what his punishment was going to be, for he already knew that his father had after receiving his letter blackmailed the board of governors into not expelling him. His father was quite proud in the letter that he sent his son back. He mentioned several times that his son had a great future ahead of him on the dark side. Lucius had not used those exact words but the tone of the letter said it all.
Though he was not going to be expelled Malfoy was afraid that he might be punished, and punished severely. He just hoped it would not be the forbidden forest. He still got nightmares of the time he was in there with Harry and Neville. Ofcourse they were not nightmares - Malfoys didn't get nightmares. They got curses inflicted upon them.
By breakfast time, Hermione had decided that she would take a lot of notes for the classes that Harry missed. Defence against Dark Arts class was a double one and Hermione was sure Harry would kick himself for missing the class. As with the last time all the boys threw up at the beginning of the class, when Fleur handed out the chocolate. When she went past Hermione's desk she stopped.
" How iz ee doing?" she asked
" Harry?... He's doing fine..." she was going to say that when she last saw him he was sleeping very peacefully, but caught herself, " ... The headboy told me he'll be back to normal by the end of the day."
" When we are allowed to visit 'im, pleze tell me... I'm busy wiz my classes so I huv a nasty h'abit of forgetting things."
" Ok..." said Hermione a bit uncertain why Fleur needed to be told how Harry was doing?...for that matter why Fleur wanted to see him when he was feeling better.
" Okay...claaz.. Tozay, we are going to start on the proper curr...currii..." she wanted to say curriculum, but she could not pronounce it. It would have had turned embarrassing, if Hermione had not piped up asking about something that she really wanted to know about and she had not had time to go to the library yet. Her question was one that had been bothering Hermione since the night before, it was about the eye of the dragon.
" Professor Fleur..." she said, " Could you tell us about the eyes of the dragon?"
" Zee eye of the Dragonz is not till the end of zee terms... I'll cover it then. We neez to get back to zee planned lesson..."
" Okay then can we hear about the ancient magic?" asked Parvati, getting quite sick of sitting next to the drooling (literally) Dean Thomas.
" Zat is not zis year. We'll.." started Fleur, but all the other girls were interested in what had happened to Harry and this was a perfect opportunity to find out.
" Okay...I will cover zee topic. But zere iz going to be a lot of homework that you'll have to do.." this was not a problem for the girls. They were all very interested in Defence against Dark Arts and Fleur could make the class interesting, even to the girls. She was almost as good as Professor Lupin.
(A/N: I'm not doing the Fleur speech thing.... it's too hard to do for long chapters!)
" Ancient Magic is the magic of the art of elemental magic. It's been around from the time of Merlin. All magic he used was the elemental, wand magic only came about when Merlin decided that some humans were worthy of magic too - not just the immortals. He did not restrict the use of magic for the purposes of good, as it is a subjective term. What is good for one country, spells the end of another."
" Some of the most elite of the magical world, attempt to learn one of the elemental powers. Drawing power from the elements is not simple and takes years of practice...." Fleur went about explaining what the 3028 steps that the wizards had to go through to learn the element.
" Once you master one element, you can use that to summon all the others. It is a very complicated procedure and one is very power consuming. It has led to deaths of many famous wizards. Salazar Slytherin was one such famous wizard. But he was not the only one. His mistake during his battle with Goderic for the hand of Rowena Ravenclaw was the most famous one. He summoned up fire, but he did not control it well, he burned himself to ashes."
" Are there any others?" Hermione asked getting into the topic, though she would have had liked her own question answered much better..
" Yes... The battle of Maenad. It was not one person but a group of wizards and witches, established in France, calling themselves Maenad, had tried to summon a large amount of the element earth. The mistake was made by one of the casters, which summoned up the forbidden element. To this day there is a scorching mark on the same place. No one survived that accident. The loss of magical life was estimated to be thirty three, but the one that makes that place forbidden is the fact that the muggle population of about sixty thousand died because of the accident."
" Professor Dumbledore, your headmaster, is the only known master of the forbidden element. That is why he is the chief warlock... Oh! I forgot to tell you... One wizard can only be a master of one element. Several had tried after Merlin to master more than one, but they never did. The human mind is not capable of rational thinking when they try to control more than one element. Once that happens the best way to neutralize the situation is for someone watching the person do this, is to kill him or her. The summoned element vanishes, when the person who summoned the element is either unconscious or dead."
" Professor Delacour?..."it was Ron. " What do you look for in a man?" The girls were shocked at the question... not only was it highly inappropriate, it was also off the topic. Hermione looked like she was ready to kill Ron at that moment.
" Nothing any of you boys have... I would like to get back to the topic I was discussing before..." it clicked in Fleur's mind why the boys might have been loosing concentration.
" Okay..." said Ron, his voice dreamy.
It seemed some of the boys were actually not eating the whole of the Chocolate frog. This meant that they would loose focus occasionally. " Mr. Wesley...did you eat the chocolate frog that I gave you?"
" No..." he answered dreamily, before realizing what he had said, " er...i mean yes! I did!" it was not a complete lie - He did have half of it.
" In that caze pleze...have another."
" Oh...do I have to?" asked Ron, looking positively sick at the thought of having to eat another one
" Yez...you all huv to..."
After ten minutes later the class was back to normal again. It took that long because she made sure that all the boys ate their chocolate frogs.
" What waz I zaying?"
(A/N: Going back to normal English)
Hermione helped, " If they fall unconscious or die the summoned elemental power is lost."
" Thank Oou Hermione" she said moving to the other side of the room, " The elemental magic performed yesterday was well beyond anything I've seen being performed. Madam Maxime, my former Headmistress showed a small demonstration of her abilities with the element water, in which she created a creature out of thin air. As you all may know creating inanimate objects out of thin air is not a very hard task, but to create a living creature from the beginning (instead of creating an inanimate object and giving it life), is a totally different thing altogether.
" Has there ever been any one who controlled all the elements?" asked Hermione.
" There's only ever been one... it was Merlin, father of modern magic... thought there's been a prophecy around for a long time... it's about the Heir of Merlin"
" But he never married anyone?" said Parvati.
Fleur smiled and said, " You do not need to marry anyone to bear a child..."
This caused almost all the girls in the room the blush, as well as a fairly large portion of the boys (Neville, Crabbe and Goyle were in the dark as to what the hidden meaning of the sentence was).
" What's the Prophecy?" asked Lavender who was always interested in anything to do with Divination.
" Well, Ms. Brown, mind you that I do not believe in that junk..." at those words the amount of respect that Hermione had for her tripled, almost to the same amount that she had for Professor Flitwick, her second favorite teacher. "... I know I'm going way out of the class plan, but I'll do it quickly since there are only a few more minutes of the class left."
" The prophecy was foretold by a French fisherman. He was a muggleborn wizard, in the dark time he was born he was not educated in the magical arts. He foretold the Arrival of the ONE."
" He was very cryptic. It went something like this..."
One when One
Peace
When five and five twice more
Is three.
One must see his heart
His heart must choose
He must be the saviour
He will be the end
He will be the end.
Holding the fire and wind in one hand.
Holding the others with the other hand.
He'll be the void.
He'll be Parker!
Know thyself.
Know thyself.
Know thyself.
Must happen it is! Must happen or punished he would be.
Punished he would be for defying when the stars align....
" The rest of the prophecy is numbers and letters... only the centaurs know what the rest of the prophecy is and they do not tell humans anything willingly." said Fleur.
" What does that mean?" asked lavender.
" It means nothing!" said Hermione.
" There is something in zere Hermione... zee part about holding the fire and water in one hand and two others with zee fifth being himself.... I think it means that zee One will be zee Heir of Merlin. Not in flez and blood but in power."
" Parker? What does that mean?" asked Lavender.
" It was thought to be a name a long time ago, but some now believe that it's a code. Hiding something very big. Very important. I would not even know of the prophecy had I not had to do an essay on the seer himself for my last year of school."
Fleur barely had time to give out homework when the signal for the end of the class was sounded.
At lunchtime Malfoy made his way to the headmaster's chambers. He took the longest route possible and when Malfoy did read the door he hesitated. But he overcame that. ' I'm a Malfoy...and Malfoy's always get what they want ' he thought to himself.
The gargoyle jumped out of the way as he reached the entrance to Professor Dumbledore's office. When the wooden door opened, Malfoy was not sure how to react at the person staring right at him. It was his Mother.
" Mother!"
" Don't you mother me young man!" Malfoy's mother was clearly angry.
" I... I..." Malfoy started to stammer.
" You will go and apologize to Professor Hagrid..." she pointed at Hagrid, who looked quite shocked, that Malfoy's mother would be saying that.
" But mother... he's a half gia..." Malfoy did not get to finish that sentence when his mother slapped him hard on the cheek.
" I don't care if he is half flubberworm." She got a hold of Malfoy's ear and twisted it slightly as she dragged her son towards Hagrid, " He's your teacher and you will show respect to your teachers...Now, Apologize!" Her tone was deadly.
The smack was not something that anyone in the room was expecting. Hagrid was now even more surprised but he enjoyed the show none the less. " I certainly wil..." Malfoy tried to defy his mother, but one more twist to the ear changed his mind, " I'm sorry..."
"..err...Apology accepted..."said Hagrid.
Hagrid had originally wanted Malfoy expelled and his wand broken, but after this he really did not care what the other three teachers in the room agreed on.
" I must offer my sincere apologies to you, Professor Hagrid. I promise you the next time he assaults a teacher, he won't be alive to complain to anyone."
" Nice to hear that!..."
"Well then there's just the little matter of his punishment that is to be decided" said Professor Dumbledore.
" We can't expel him, since his father has already convinced that it was all an accident"
" It was..." said Malfoy rubbing his cheek.
" Well then, I suggest one month of forbidden forest detentions" suggested Professor McGonagall.
" No!" Malfoy yelped in horror.
" Don't worry Mr. Malfoy" said Professor Snape as he turned to Professor Dumbledore, " Surely there is something less dangerous... after all, the board did decide that it was an accident"
" You're right Severus" said Professor Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling with mischief that he had not had since the end of the TriWizard Tournament.
" You can't be serious?" Professor McGonagall uttered her protest.
" Calm down Minerva... I never said what the punishment was."
" What is it then?" Malfoy's mother.
" He'll be required to clean the old prefect's bathroom, for a month. Moaning Myrtle's been flooding the entire floor every day and it's getting a ripe in terms of smell....if you know what I mean!"
" No! I don't want to do..." Malfoy refused to do it...well he tried. His mother's grip on his ear made it otherwise, " Ok...ok...I'll do it. I guess it's better than going into the forbidden forest."
" Well since that's settled... we have to decide on how you have to clean the bath room and at what times..." Professor Dumbledore
It took nearly an hour to decide, whether or not a toothpick or a toothbrush would be an appropriate method of cleaning... In the end it was decided that the toothpick would guarantee a better outcome in terms of how clean the end result would be.
When the Defence against Dark Arts class was finished, Hermione dragged Ron with her to the where the care of magical creatures class was held the day before. But there was something very strange there...
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END OF CHAPTER
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