"Hermione gasped. Harry strode over to Neville.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, the shock hitting him full- force.
"I saw the flames coming from his hut! I-I didn't know what to do! So I went to Dumbledore, then came here to tell you guys since you're so close to him!" Neville said in a panicky voice. Harry nodded. Hermione had now joined him.
"Thanks, Neville," he said and ran out the door, Hermione close behind him. They ran all the way outside where a spring breeze, mingled with the deep black of the night, greeted them. Harry paused for a second before jogging the rest of the way to the orange mass up ahead on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, prayers running through his mind a mile a minute.
As he neared the sky-high flames near where Hagrid's hut used to stand, Harry could feel the heat radiating off them. He had to squint to see anything clearly past the haze of heat for miles around, and he spotted a flash of silver. He ran over in that direction, hoping that it was Dumbledore.
"Professor!" he gasped, halting near the headmaster, who was gazing up at the flames next to an open-mouthed McGonagall. The older wizard lowered his head and looked at Harry, the twinkle in his eyes gone.
"Is Hagrid OK?" Harry asked, awaiting a positive answer.
"Harry, do you know why this was done?" Dumbledore asked instead, gesturing to the hut engulfed by the fire. Gasping for breath, Harry shook his head.
"Is Hagrid OK?" Hermione half-shouted, stopping beside Harry and trying to draw in deep breaths, but ending up coughing.
"Calm down," McGonagall instructed, not taking her eyes off the arms of red that reached toward the sky. "Hagrid's fine, thank god."
"What happened?" Harry asked, squinting up as the fire slowly overtook the cozy home.
"Someone set fire to Hagrid's house. We don't know who, but we do have an idea as to why," Dumbledore replied simply.
"Why?" Hermione asked softly, barely audible over the vicious flames.
"To get to Harry by harming those close to him," the wizened man answered gravely.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Sweaty and covered in soot, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Lavender and Ginny trudged into the common
room, exhausted.
"That was unbelievable. I never thought I'd be helping to extinguish Hagrid's house on fire," Ginny
commented flatly, collapsing on the sofa and sending up a small cloud of dust around her. She closed her eyes, too
tired to care.
"Who could've done it?" Ron asked, still shocked from what he had just done. He plopped down next to Ginny.
"Dumbledore said that it was to get at Harry by attacking the people close to him," Ginny said slowly.
"I can't believe this," Harry muttered, putting his head in his hands.
"Hagrid, of all people!" Dean uttered.
"I bet it was one of Voldemort's minions," Seamus said with a mixture of anger and sadness.
"We don't know for sure," Hermione reasoned, but followed it up with, "But it probably was, though. God, I hate them."
"Who doesn't? Maybe Lucius Malfoy did it," Neville suggested.
"Well, the teachers are examining it now. They said there was some sort of mark on the grass in the back," Ron said, leaning back. Observing the look on Harry's face, he hastily added, "Not the Dark Mark."
Suddenly, a gruff voice recited the password outside the common room, causing all of them to stand up in unison, Neville trembling a bit.
"Are yeh all alright?" a soft but booming voice greeted as Hagrid stooped low to enter the common room, Fang at his heels. Harry grinned widely and ran over to Hagrid, hugging him. The others followed, embracing their half- giant friend.
"Hagrid! We thought something had happened to you!" Hermione exclaimed, tears squeezing out of her eyes as she stared up at Hagrid.
"No, no, I'm all right," he answered heavily, hugging them all back. As they released him, Harry could see a glint of tears in Hagrid's eyes and sympathy in Fang's.
"What happened?" Ron asked hastily.
"I dunno. They're lookin' into it now. I s'pose I should go help them. Just wanted to see if yeh're all right," he answered.
"We're fine. Just glad you're OK," Lavender said, grinning.
"Good. Well, good night. Don't worry abou' the mess outside. It'll be sorted out soon enough," he assured them and with a final glance and "Come on, Fang", he left. The others sighed and headed back.
"I am going to sleep until next millenium," Ron announced and dragged himself up the stairs, the other boys except Harry following suit with scattered "Me too" 's in tired tones.
"Well, I don't know how they can live in filth, but I'm going to take a shower. The least a girl can do is clean up before going to bed," Ginny said through a yawn. The other girls, although bushed, wholeheartedly agreed.
"You two going?" Ginny asked, not bothering to turn around to face Harry and Hermione as she walked up the stairs. When she only received a low "Mm, no" from a half-asleep Hermione, she shrugged and marched up the stairs, yawning all the way.
"Harry," Hermione turned to Harry, poking him gently on his arm to see if he was still awake. When he didn't respond, she smiled a little and brushed the hair back from his now-black forehead. She leaned in and kissed his scar, praying that he didn't have any violent dreams. As soon as she pulled back, he smiled and pulled her back to him, opening his still-bright eyes.
"You're awake!" she exclaimed, laughing a bit.
"I can't sleep so easily after tonight," he answered, pulling her to him. She leaned against his chest, sighing.
"Why not? The others can," she answered, looking up at him. Even upside down, he looks handsome, she thought.
"Yeah, but the others aren't scared of Voldemort coming after them," he answered somberly, running his hand gently up and down her arms. She sat up and looked at him.
After a second, he leaned in and kissed her, tenderly at first but deepening it as it progressed. She felt all his emotions pour out in his actions as he slowly lay her down on the couch. He pulled away, staring into her chestnut eyes.
Still no words. Her hands went to his cheeks, caressing them with her thumbs, then pulling his face down to hers for another kiss. It was forceful. She felt horrible about everything that was happening to him. Voldemort, haunting dreams, people pointing at his scar, people close to him getting hurt, facing near-death every year. Her arms went protectively around his neck, never wanting to release.
She squeezed her eyes shut and, much to her surprise, a single tear spilled out. He pulled away once more, and a thought crossed his mind as she studied him. She's crying for me.
It was too much for him. They could try to go at her next. Or Ron. Or Lupin, or Sirius. How many more near-deaths, actual deaths, how much more suffering, until it was all over?
His vision blurred, and Hermione didn't move. She just looked at him, sadness in her eyes. He tried to blink them back, but they spilled out instead. He silently cursed the tears.
"Its all right, Harry," she whispered as he tried to look away. She pulled him down for a lingering kiss and he buried his face in her neck. She stroked his hair and back, whispering soothing words in his ear. Eventually, both drifted off to an uneasy sleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The O.W.L 's were approaching fast. On top of all the things that were already going on, Harry Potter had yet another demon staring him in the face: exams.
"Next question: What is the result of combining Coltsfoot with Wolfsbane?" Hermione asked.
"Who cares?" Ron asked in a monotone voice, throwing his quill down in anger.
"Ron!" Hermione admonished angrily. "Harry?"
"Oh, um, the Wolfsbane Potion?" he guessed.
"Nope," she sighed. "Wrong again."
"Who cares?" he repeated Ron as he let his head fall down onto his textbooks. The words were swimming in front of his eyes. His mind was jumbled with different potions and their ingredients, with different ways to charm a person, with varying ways to defend yourself against an intruder. It was all too much. He was surprised even Hermione wasn't breaking down under all this.
"It makes the Diiudico Potion, Harry," she corrected him automatically, jotting down notes.
"All right," he mumbled. Hermione reached over and tugged on his hair, making him look up.
"What potion was that again?" she asked, glaring at him.
"The Diiudico Potion. I heard you," he assured her and put his head down on top of the textbooks again.
"Moving ON," Hermione said, "how do you make an Animagus reveal his or her true form?"
"Oh, I know this one!" Ron exclaimed, shooting up. Hermione looked at him approvingly, clearly expecting the right answer. His face scrunched up as he thought hard for a minute. Then, he fell back, muttering, "No I don't."
"Honestly! Don't you two EVER pay attention in class?" she asked, put off by how little they knew. "The answer is, 'Principalis Conformus."
"Fine," both boys said in unison.
"And do you know what the equivalent to the Killing Curse is?" she forged on, clearly not giving up.
"Adflatus Quietum," Harry said, lifting his head up.
"Yes," she answered, staring at him. "How do you know that?"
"Oh, um, Dumbledore told me," Harry answered.
"You know what's weird?" Ron suddenly asked, sitting up again and looking at them.
"What?" they chorused.
"If Lucius told his son to spy on you a while ago, then maybe Draco saw Snuffles at Hogsmeade," Ron said thoughtfully.
"Ron, please! We've just been through one thing! Can we please not talk about this right now?" Hermione pleaded. As she spoke, the fire from the previous night appeared in her mind, consuming Hagrid's house, a place that contained a lot of their memories.
Ron gave her a sympathetic look. "All right, 'Mione," he agreed, flashing her a quick smile to make sure everything was OK. She mustered a small smile back, and he went back to leaning against the couch.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Now! As your wands are under an anti-cheating spell, even if you tried, you couldn't cheat. But I warn you not to try. The results can be... devastating," Remus Lupin said with a devilish smirk on his face.
"You may begin." Indeed, the O.W.L 's had begun.
"Your first task will be to defeat a Sawmium. Mr.Finch-Fletchley, you first," Lupin called. As he talked, he walked over to a large tank resting in the corner of the room and opened the tarp over it to reveal the ugly creature itself, attached to the wall with its face twisted into a mischievous grin.
Justin got up and, wand aimed and ready, slowly walked toward the container that separated him and the Sawmium, the container that he was extremely thankful for.
I am capable of flight as I please
People find me rare
I am accustomed to living near large trees
If you come too close, it is you I will tear.
When I open my mouth, flames lick the sky
If you have not met me before, beware.
Justin was quiet, thinking hard. The rest of the class was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Not blinking, they stared at their now-nervous fellow classmate, struggling to answer a hideous creature's hard riddle.
"Um, is it a..." Justin started, but promptly shut his mouth, thinking again.
"Come on, Mr. Finch-Fletchley! We studied this!" Lupin said, trying to encourage the boy who was getting closer and closer to a panic attack. "You can do this!"
"I-I... um, could you repeat it, please?" he asked, swallowing hard. The class looked in unison at the Sawmium, which groaned, an ugly throaty sound, and repeated the riddle.
"Come on, Justin! You don't want to keep a Sawmium waiting!" Lupin warned. As he said it, the Sawmium was rearing back slowly, the grin back in place. Justin had evidently seen this, because he started trembling very slightly.
"A-a dragon?" he guessed, stuttering.
"What kind of dragon?" Lupin shouted, his wand poised in case the Sawmium ran out of patience.
"Um, I uh, a, um," Justin stammered. He took a deep breath.
"Is it a, uh, Yugoslavian Yelloweye?" he guessed, now sweating buckets. As they all watched, the Sawmium stopped moving backwards, and the grin disappeared off its face. It zoomed forward, making Justin's eyes grow wide, attached itself to the wall of the box, and gruffly say, "That's correct." As it said this, one of its razor-sharp blades on its nose fell with a clatter to the floor. After a minute, the class applauded a grinning Justin as he shakily made his way back to his seat. As the exam progressed (and Hermione got her answer so quickly that the Sawmium didn't even have time to grin), it was soon Harry's turn.
"Mr. Potter!" Lupin called. Harry got up and, looking more confident than he felt, walked up to the glass box.
"Good luck," Lupin whispered.
"Thanks," Harry whispered back. He turned back to the Sawmium and it shot its riddle at him:
You may not see me, but I see you
I am ever watchful of all around me
My skin is a blue as rich as the rivers
When I was born, visions I had of three
I do not miss anything one does
The hands I was slain by belonged to Hermus
A light bulb lit up in Harry's brain, and he wanted to run over and kiss Hermione for forcing this into his brain repeatedly when he had not gotten it.
"Argus Panoptes," he answered confidently, shooting a sideways glance at a smiling Lupin and a grinning Hermione. He turned back to the Sawmium just in time to see its face fall.
"You are correct," it answered, mad that it hadn't gotten a chance to rip anyone to bits. Another blade clattered to the floor as Harry walked back to his desk, grinning at Ron's thumbs-up sign.
As good as he had done in Defense Against the Dark Arts (in both the normal and advanced levels), he did just as abysmally in Divination. They had to look into a Futurall, which Harry vaguely remembered receiving as a present from Lavender Brown. Harry, who had no idea what he was doing, was supposed to look into the Futurall, relay which moons were aligned at that very moment, and what that signified.
"I see Pluto's moon, Sharon, aligned with Jupiter's moon, Orica," he made up (he wasn't Harry Potter, best friend of Ron Weasley, the duo famous for making up predictions in Divination, for nothing) as he stared at the shapeless cloud of gray swirling around in the picture Professor Trelawney held in her hands.
"And what does that mean, Harry?" her misty voice floated over to him from across the circular table in her room. Harry's eyes fluttered shut from fatigue for a moment before they snapped open and he said, trying to remember something Hermione had told him, "It means that a baby will be born somewhere in the world, while a man will die at the exact same moment exactly halfway across the world."
He glanced at Trelawney.
"Good, Mr. Potter," she approved, and he let out a sigh of relief.
"You may go." He thought he'd never hear those beautiful words as he got up to leave and passed Ron along the way. As they crossed, Ron muttered hurriedly to Harry, "Uranus' moon with Earth's. Means that someone will fall in love and a close relative will embark on a journey."
"That's good!" Harry exclaimed softly, grinning. Ron grinned back and stepped into the stifling room as Harry exited, heaving a sigh of immense relief.
"Onto better things. How was Arithmancy?" Ron asked Hermione as they headed to Lunch after a very tiring Transfiguration exam, where they were asked to turn a porcupine into a book (Neville's still had spikes down the spine), a cat into a backpack (Ron's had fur along the edges) and a parrot into a radio (Seamus's still squawked). Needless to say, everyone was tired and famished.
"It was very easy! I needn't have learned about geometry used during the Goblin Rebellions or shape configurations needed for the Dragon Wars!" Hermione answered, shaking her head.
"Uh, right," Ron replied and shook his head. "Where did we go wrong, Harry? We tried to fill her mind with garbage as much as possible, and she turns around and disappoints us like this." Harry laughed.
"Shut up, Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, a smile evident.
As soon as they sat down at their tables in the Great Hall, to everyone's surprise and great happiness, the food immediately appeared. Dumbledore rose and simply said, "Dig in!" But everyone was already doing just that.
"Farms if nexf!" Ron said through a mouthful of turkey.
"Do you mind swallowing, Ron?" Hermione asked disgustedly. "I really don't need to see your chewed-up food, thank you." Ron grinned, cheeks bulging, and swallowed.
"Charms is next," he said, mouth clear of food. Hermione nodded.
"I personally think its going to go well," Harry commented. Ron stared at him.
"What makes you think THAT?" he asked.
"What with all the spells I've learned already, I could pass Charms for the next ten years!" Harry said.
"True," Ron agreed.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Herbology's OVER!" Ron sang the last word jubilantly, stretching his arms out wide and accidentally smacking a camera-clicking Colin Creevey in the face.
"Oops, sorry," he hastily added, smiling before rushing off to catch up with Hermione and Harry.
"I saw that!" Harry said, stifling laughter unsuccessfully. Hermione wasn't even trying.
"Who cares? I don't care! Know why? Herbology's OVER!" Ron repeated, grinning.
"Glad to know you care, but it's time for Potions, Cheery," Harry said, breaking Ron of his happy trance.
"You REALLY know how to ruin a guy's mood, you know that?" he said grouchily.
"Sometimes I think I was put on this Earth to ruin Ron Weasley's mood," Harry joked as they entered the dungeons. Snape, as usual, was waiting by the desk, drumming his fingers on top of it impatiently.
"Stupid Snape," Ron muttered as they took a seat in the middle of the first row.
"You will find the instructions on the parchment in front of you. Don't even think of cheating as the parchment is for your eyes only. After you are done, I will come around and test each person's results on themselves, so I suggest you do a good job. You may begin." With that, Snape sat himself behind his desk and started scribbling.
With a heavy sigh, Harry and Ron shuffled to the cabinets against the wall for their ingredients, joining the rest of the class swarming there.
"Single file!" Snape barked, making everyone jump. Simultaneously, the crowd shifted itself into a neat line, causing Snape to turn back to his papers.
"What potion do you have to make?" Ron leaned over and whispered to Harry as he waited for Pansy Parkinson to finish with the Boomslang.
"The Eutharsos Potion, you?" Harry whispered back as Malfoy shoved a jar of Finica Leaves into his ribs with a devilish grin before walking off.
"The Prophylaxis Potion," Ron muttered, scooping up Budbloom powder with his measuring cup. The two made their way back to their table and proceeded to add the ingredients into their cauldron and hope that they didn't fail Potions.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"McGonagall said you failed all your exams except her class," Harry sneaked up behind Hermione, who was
reading 'One Thousand Ways To De-Worm a Island Flowerworm'.
"What?!" she exclaimed, dropping the book and stand up to face him, a horrified look on her face. Harry laughed as he sat down on the couch next to her.
"Harry! That's NOT funny!" she exclaimed, sitting down and picking up he book. "Honestly. You can be so immature sometimes."
"I know. It's a talent," he said, putting his feet up near her and lying back with his hands behind his head.
"Sure, but your feet aren't, so would you mind moving them?" she asked, shoving them off the couch.
"Ow!" he exclaimed, sitting up. She laughed and turned back to her book.
"Come on," he said suddenly, grabbing her hand and pulling her up.
"Where are we going?" she asked, surprise clearly written on her face as she placed her book down once more.
"It's a surprise. Just come on," he urged, pulling her up. She stood and curiously followed him out the common room door and down the steps at the Entrance Hall.
"You have to close your eyes," he instructed, turning around.
Why?" she asked suspiciously.
"Because, Hermione! Just do it! Please?" he asked in a small voice. She stared at him for a minute, sighed resignedly, and closed her eyes. He took her hand and led her away from the looming towers of Hogwarts.
Hermione heard his footsteps leading her to this mysterious thing. She was very curious as to what it would be.
"Open your eyes," Harry whispered in her ear from behind.