"Ginny, we can't do this," Harry quickly pulled away a few seconds after their lips had touched. She frowned.
"What's wrong, Harry?" she asked.
"I just...can't do this," he repeated, backing up significantly.
"Why?" she asked, hurt edging her voice. Why again? he thought, running his hand through his hair. WHY? Because you love Hermione, you dolt! his brain exclaimed. Right. I love...I LOVE her?! he suddenly jolted fully awake. Then, a small smile crossed his lips. I love Hermione, he realized. He quickly moved to hide his smile, in case Ginny happened to see it. Things would go sharply downhill if she did.
"Because. Because I don't like you in that way," he blurted. He wished he could've sugarcoated the words a little more. Ginny's face fell.
"Oh," she said softly, tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her ear.
"I'm sorry, Gin. You said you wanted this night to be perfect. And, well, I thought I was over the girl I like, but I guess I'm not," he replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. She looked up.
"That's all right, Harry," she simply said. She turned around and started walking toward the school when Harry put out his arm to stop her.
"What?" she asked, turning around.
"You didn't say good night." He managed a small smile. She laughed and walked back to him.
"Good night, Harry. I had a great time tonight," she stated. He smiled.
"Me too," he replied. "Well, except for a few minutes ago." She laughed again.
"I'm glad," she said. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, and then ran back towards the castle. After she had disappeared, Harry heaved a sigh and made his way toward the glowing lights of Hogwarts. Up the stairs he went, being careful to skip the trick step, and made his way to Gryffindor Tower.
"Growling Griffin," he said in-between a yawn. The Fat Lady yawned herself and said sleepily, "What?" Harry repeated the password.
"Where!?" she shrieked, suddenly completely awake and looking around her in all direction.
"No, that's the password," he said, starting to get annoyed. "There's no real griffin."
After a sigh, she let him in. Harry ran across the room and up the stairs. He practically fell into the dorms and
dragged himself to bed. He noticed that Ron was sleeping soundly, as were Seamus and Dean. Suddenly, Harry noticed an
extra arm in Ron's bed. Now, he would have dismissed it as one of Ron's own, but the trouble with that theory
was that Ron was sleeping on his side, and Harry could quite plainly see the elbow of his other arm sticking out behind
him. Curious as always, he silently padded across the room to Ron's bed and pulled the corner of his thick red
comforter down to see someone he never thought he'd see there in a million years.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Monday came too quickly, and the familiar voice of Neville as he repeated "I got kissed!" over and over again came along with it.
"Neville, just stop already! We know!" Lee cried exasperatedly.
"Harry, what's the fifth ingredient needed for the Eutharsos Potion?" Ron asked tiredly, staring at the parchment in front of him blankly.
"Powdered Finica leaves, I think," Harry replied automatically. He had taken to Ron asking him questions on their homework the morning it was due. This was all routine. Harry patiently waited for the next question.
"And what do you need to add to liver of frog to get the Discerendium Potion?" he asked.
"Pinch of cow spleen." He furtively glanced at Hermione, who was sitting across from Ron, flipping through her notes before classes started. He had been utterly and completely shocked to find her in the boys' dorms, let alone Ron's bed that night. And the fact that he had no shirt on and she only had a tank top and shorts on didn't comfort him any. The bell shrilly rang across Harry's clouded thoughts, jolting him back to reality.
"Time for Defense Against The Dark Arts," Seamus said out loud with a sigh as he followed the Gryffindors out to the familiar classroom. Harry, who was a few steps behind Seamus, felt someone bump into him from behind, almost knocking him down. He turned swiftly to see the two Malfoys sneering identically.
"For heaven's sake, watch where you're going, Potter! People who deserve to be here are trying to WALK!" the older snapped as he shuffled past, sniggering. A few steps in front of him, Harry could see that they had bumped into Hermione.
"Oh, great!" the small one piped nastily.
"Now I have to go wash off the Mudblood filth that's all over my clean robes"! The older added. Hermione turned sharply. This was not her day, and she frankly didn't give a damn if she was sent to Azkaban. She was going to KILL Malfoy. She stared at him for a moment, hoping to lure him into a false sense of security. It worked. As he sneered classically, she withdrew her wand quickly and cried, "Expelliarmus!" Malfoy went flying backwards and hit his head, although not hard, on a pillar. He winced as he rubbed the back of his head, standing up with a death glare. The little one quickly ran to his side, shooting her an identical glare. She calmly said, "Fuck off, Malfoy" and continued onto class, leaving a gaping Draco Malfoy standing there.
"Good day, class! Today, we will be studying Sawmiums!" Lupin exclaimed as the students wearily walked in and sat down. He looked around the classroom at the drooping, tired faces and the heads ready to drop onto the desk as soon as he started talking, and then he came upon Harry's face, which was a mix of sorrow and fatigue. Something to do with Ginny? he thought. But then, he had seen Ginny only a few minutes earlier when she had come to talk to him about her essay, and she had shown no signs of it. Over the years, adding to his acute werewolf abilities, he had also developed a knack for reading people's feelings beyond what they were displaying. And he was sure he had seen no sorrow in Ginny, only a bit of sadness.
"Now. Sawmiums are tiny little devils, and are quite dangerous. So watch out if you ever come across one," he warned. Then, he went to the corner of the room and pulled an old quilt off something big and rectangular. It was actually a big glass cage, within which lay a cross between a metal tool and a small rabbit. It was gray and furry, but had the nose that most closely resembled a power saw. It was long and filled with razor-sharp fangs on the bottom. And as it raised its tiny hands to the glass, it seemed to have suction-cups on its palms.
"They can be tricky, but the real trick is to outsmart them," Lupin explained to the quiet class. "They don't attack you. They shoot riddles at you that you solve. If you solve all of their clues, you will beat them. But be careful. Their riddles are harder than Snape's Potions class!" There was scattered laughter to this. "Now. Let's experience their riddles for ourselves, shall we?" he offered.
"Mr. Longbottom!" Neville stared up, his eyes wide with panic, as usual. "Step up, please," Lupin kindly said, standing by the cage. Neville stood on shaky legs and slowly made his way over to the tank, his wand out the whole time. As soon as he approached it, the Sawmium opened its mouth to reveal a rather blue and spiky tongue as it spoke in a raspy voice:
With wings of gold,
I'll fly High, high up into the sky.
I roar with fierce might
And people shrink from me at the sight."
"Well, Neville?" Lupin gently prompted. Neville just stared at the thing in the tank, apparently thinking hard. Finally, he said nervously, "I...I don't know. A lion?" Suddenly, the sawmium growled and slowly retreated, and as the class watched, flew forward with full force and began sawing at the glass. Neville let out a small yelp of horror. It was amazing how fast it could saw. It was halfway done already. Lupin leapt forward and shouted, "Dispando Aliunde!"
The thing stopped in mid-saw, frozen. Then, it slowly began to stretch apart, its arms, legs, and head going in opposite directions. Even its tongue began to stretch outwards. After what seemed like a minute, Lupin said, "Finite Incantatem!" and it returned back to normal and fell to the floor.
"Maybe you'd want to write that down?" Lupin asked, amused at the dumbstruck class behind him.
After a very interesting class (during which Ron wrote down some revenge plans involving Sawmiums), Lupin called out, "Harry! May I please see you?" while the rest shuffled out. Harry gathered his books and approached Lupin at his desk. When everyone else was gone, Lupin asked, "What's wrong?"
"What d'you mean?" Harry asked slowly.
"Well, you look like the you got about 10 minutes of sleep. Did something happen at the Ball?" he asked, looking directly at Harry, who shuffled his feet.
"Its not so much AT the Ball as it is AFTER the Ball." And then all the words, the pent-up feelings, the battle with his conscience, all came pouring out of him while Lupin sat and listened patiently.
"So that's when I realized that I. Love. Hermione," he finished. Lupin smiled at him.
"What?" Harry asked, confused.
"Welcome to a real relationship, Harry," he said.
"What are you talking about?" Harry asked. This wasn't helping his confusion any.
"Harry, a relationship isn't just about cuddling and kissing and holding hands, although that's the better part of it. There are also a lot of challenges, confrontations and vindication. You have to go through that to prove to each other, and more importantly yourselves, that you two are meant to be together. That's how your mother and father ended up together. That's how every couple ends up together," Lupin explained, still smiling. Harry smiled back.
"Now, better get a move on. Don't want to make Professor Trelawney mad and start chucking crystal balls at you," he added. Harry laughed.
"What guarantee do I have that she won't do that anyway?" he asked as he got up and took the note from Lupin.
"Thanks, Professor," Harry said as he left, feeling as if a weight had been removed off his
shoulders.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Potter!" the familiar voice, dripping with annoyance, cut through Harry's thoughts like a knife.
"Huh?" Harry's head snapped up from the mortar and pestle. He looked down at his finely powdered crab-bugs, and realized that he had gone way past "finely." Across the room, Malfoy snickered. Snape shot him a look that silenced him immediately, and then made his way towards Harry briskly. Harry slowly forced his hands to stop grinding as he looked at Snape. He wasn't going to let Snape intimidate him.
"Potter, when in my class, I expect your already miniscule brain to be here as well!" Snape remarked, his face contorted into the special 'I- loathe-you' expression he saved just for Harry. Harry's face remained blank. Malfoy and a few others snickered behind him again.
"For your lack of attention, forty points from Gryffindor!" he added with a small smirk, and then strode back to his desk. The class had grown quiet.
"What are you all waiting for!?" he barked. The whole class jumped. "Get to work! I will be testing your potions in five minutes!"
After class (during the course of which Snape had taken ten points from Dean for his potion turning purple with white dots instead of a blue as it should have been, five from Hermione for 'acting like a know-it-all', and five from Ron for defending her, for a grand total of sixty points), all Harry wanted to do was take a hot shower, and then collapse on his bed and sleep for weeks.
He left the class as quickly as possible to avoid any more confrontations with Snape, his greasy hair, and his undying hatred towards him. As he was walking towards Gryffindor Tower, he saw Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall coming in the opposite direction, McGonagall whispering very fast in Dumbledore's ear while he just nodded. When they passed Harry, Dumbledore gave him a wide smile, while McGonagall gave him a curt nod. Harry smiled and nodded back, and as he was passing by them, he distinctly heard "Death Eaters", "Dark Mark", and "problem". Being the curious boy he is, he waited until they had walked a safe distance, turned around, and stealthily followed them. He walked just close enough so he could hear most of the conversation, but not close enough to be caught.
"I don't know what's going to happen, Albus," she was saying to him. "I mean, where did the Mark all of a sudden pop up from? It's been out of sight for a while now! That Nott. I always knew he was trouble. I was the one to always give him detention. It got to the point where every time someone said a student had caused trouble, my mind automatically swerved to Nott."
"Its all right, Minerva," Dumbledore replied. "Fudge is looking into it, and I trust him to do a thorough job."
"Yes, but Albus, this was in HOGSMEADE. That's practically next door! What if it gets closer? And Harry almost passed out again on the train coming here, all because Fudge was so careless as to send a Dementor among the students!" she exclaimed.
"Fudge is just doing what he thinks is best. Let him do his job, then we can do ours," Dumbledore answered kindly. Harry followed this conversation to just outside Professor Dumbledore's office, whereupon he hid in one of the nooks nearby (which he found was impossibly small).
"Sugar Quill," McGonagall said. Then, turning to Dumbledore, "I see you're on good relations with Fudge again."
"Not good relations, I would say. We're partners in the same business," he answered simply.
"All I know is, no one except you and me know that the 'Hagrid' that Potter found in the hut was really Connor Davies. On top of that, Nott and Lucius were HERE at Hogwarts. We don't know when or why... I hope no one else finds out because of some silly mistake." Then, Harry heard the stone gargoyle grind and quick footsteps, which stopped abruptly.
Harry's brain worked quickly as he emerged from the nook and proceeded to walk hastily to the Gryffindor common room. Connor Davies...that name sounded familiar somehow...he stopped suddenly and gasped. Roger Davies' FATHER was Connor Davies! Roger "Could Be a future Death Eater" Davies. As for Nott and Lucius here at Hogwarts, Harry wondered, what if...what if Nott and Lucius had killed Connor? And why?
All Harry knew is, if they had been trying to come after him on Voldemort's orders, they were dangerously close.