Title: Harry Potter and the Mole of Hogwarts
Rating: K+
Chapter #: 1 of 3
Ship/s: - (slight Ron/Hermione hints)
Era/s: Hogwarts
Genre/s: Friendship, Mystery, General
NOTE: I recommend you read this in 3/4 width and with the font size 2 steps bigger than the preset. It looks a lot nicer and much easier to read, I think:)
Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I'd be rewriting the epilogue right now.
As the boys of Gryffindor stretched and groggily rubbed their eyes, groaning in their four-posters, they awoke thinking that early spring Thursday morning would be like any other: bitter-cold and mind-numbingly dull. Harry Potter climbed out of bed, his feet wriggling into his slippers and hand reaching out for his glasses as they did daily. He glanced over at Ron, who was leaning against his ebony headboard and yawning. The two teenagers exchanged mumbled good-mornings and began to dress themselves, their nostrils quivering with anticipation at the scent of sizzling bacon drifting through their dormitory window. All was typical: Seamus had to fall victim of a flung shoe to the face before he finally rejoined the awake and conscious; Dean hogged the adjoining bathroom's streaky mirror; Neville tended meticulously to his Mimbulus Mimbletonia, sprinkling olive-green flakes over it.
Together, Harry and Ron headed for the common room, expecting to see Hermione sitting cross-legged on their favourite sofa, nose buried in a book as it usually was.
But not today. Instead, as they reached the lowermost step of the dormitory's winding staircase, their eyes fell upon a bustling crowd of Gryffindors swarming around the notice-board. Instinctively, their first assumption was that Fred and George were selling off their Wizard Wheezes wares, but this theory fell flat on its back as Harry spotted the backs of the twins' heads bobbing around, trying to get a better view of whatever was occurring.
"What in the name of Merlin...?" Ron sent a quizzical glimpse at Harry, who shrugged. Curious, the pair began to advance forwards, approaching the rear of the crowd, but were cut short by a bushy-haired girl who dashed over to them, babbling rapidly and fretfully. It would be difficult, bordering on impossible, for anyone else to understand a word of she was saying, but Harry and Ron had experienced years of practice.
"It's so awful, I don't know who on Earth would say such a thing, especially about poor Neville, I hate to think it was one of our Gryffindors too, and oh, how dare they tell such a spiteful lie! Lavender Brown and Parvati think it's uproarious, of course, they won't stop giggling, I really want to give them both a hard slap—"
"Hermione," said Ron, speaking deliberately and firmly, stopping her jabbering immediately, "what the hell are you talking about?"
Hermione's eyes darted between the two boys; both shared a bewildered expression. She frowned, her neat brows puckering. "Haven't you seen?"
"Seen what, Hermione?"
With a great sigh, she grabbed Ron's hand and dragged him through the assembly, pushing through to the front. Elbows digging the other students out of the way, Harry followed, jostling through the hubbub until there was nobody left in front of him and his view of the notice-board was unobstructed.
His heart plummeted, the colour draining from his cheeks simultaneously. There, on the wooden pin-board, tacked up over Quidditch practice schedules and Wizard Wheezes flyers, was a large banner, curling at the corners. Printed boldly in thick black lettering were the words:
01. NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM DANCES IN HIS UNDERWEAR.
Harry's stomach churned in its pit. His memory couldn't help but flit back to the messages decreed on Hogwarts' walls during his second year, messages that had ultimately been written by Tom Riddle himself, using Ginny Weasley as his medium. Obviously, the danger in this malicious announcement was far less than that in the ones in second year, but there was still the danger of severe humiliation on Neville's behalf. Who could have written such a bizarre slander? Whether it was a lie or not, it should never have been so publicly proclaimed. Harry's eyes scanned the horizontal roll of parchment for a signature, name, anything – but the only trace of identification on the sign was a small illustration of what looked like a tiny mole, holding a finger to its whiskers.
He understood the dry humour of the image, what with a 'mole' being another term for 'spy', but didn't find it funny one bit. Jointly, he, Hermione and Ron backed away from the notice-board over to the cushy armchairs by the common room fireplace, which currently lay unlit. After holding an expectant expression for a while before realising that neither of the boys was going to speak, Hermione piped up quietly.
"I can't believe it," she said reproachfully, shaking her head.
"I can," retorted Ron with a small smirk. Hermione shot him a withering look whilst Harry bit his lip to withhold smirking along with Ron. He couldn't help but feel sorry for Neville; if it had been anyone else on the receiving end of the hate-banner, the statement would have been shrugged off – but it had to be Neville, which made the rumour, well, slightly believable, he had to admit.
"Has Neville seen it, d'you think?" Harry asked. He had directed the question to Hermione, who he supposed had been in the common room long enough to see, however it was Ron who answered.
"Nah, he was in the dorm when we came downstairs," he replied, casting a glance towards the foot of the spiral staircase. "Probably still grooming that Mimblytonia thing of his even now," he finished, ignoring Hermione's interjected correction of the plant's name.
Harry dusted his thighs and made to stand up. "Well, although I do have sympathy for him and everything, I don't think I want to be around when he sees it." Hermione frowned slightly at this, but had to nod her agreement too whilst Ron leapt to his feet saying it was about time he ate some breakfast.
The three of them made their way out of the common room, manoeuvring past the notice-board huddle that was still murmuring about Neville, on their way to the Great Hall. They descended the many staircases to the ground floor quickly and quietly; it seemed that each of their minds was too preoccupied with mulling over Neville's predicament to start a chat. The comfortable silence was broken, however, as they neared the lofty Entrance Hall, when Hermione raised an intriguing point that until then, Harry had not yet picked up on.
"What do you two take from the numbering of the banner? It labelled the scroll as the first, remember, as if there were more to come – oh my..."
Her musings trailed off when they reached the polished oak doors to the Great Hall; a swelling buzz of chatter and a great deal of rushing around inside distracted her. Harry guessed the reason behind the heightened state of Hogwarts commotion, and as he passed other students on his way up to the Gryffindor table, overhearing snatches of their conversations, his spirits sank – he had been right. Everyone was discussing Neville. Ahead of him he spotted Draco Malfoy lounging on the Slytherin table, oozing conceit and arrogance. Harry tried to keep his eyes fixed ahead, knowing that a slur would come and determined to ignore it.
"Hey, Granger!"
Right on cue, Malfoy's sneer caused his onlookers to stop silent and watch. Harry could practically see through their temples, look at their brains begging him to react for her. He kept walking, his pace only faltering slightly, but after a few steps realised that Ron and Hermione had paused; they were now glaring at Malfoy, waiting for him to finish off the imminent insult.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" asked Hermione.
"I was just going to ask if that's the reason you've been hanging around the Gryffindor boys' dormitories so often lately?"
The joke was ridiculous, as untrue as Malfoy having a pleasant bone in his body. Hermione scowled at him and began to walk on, but Ron remained still, glowering at the supercilious Slytherin and his cackling audience.
"Oh jog on, Malfoy," he said indignantly, "we all know you're the one that's been doing that."
With that, he turned to catch up to Harry and Hermione, leaving behind an astounded Malfoy and galled-looking band of Slytherins. They took a seat at the Gryffindor table, each reaching for a selection of the vast array of breakfast foods – even liquorice sticks, oddly enough – and juices. Munching quietly for a while, the only thing discussed was when the next Hogsmeade trip would be, until the loud voices of Fred and George carried through the Hall and diverted their attention.
The twins sat opposite Harry and Ron, on either side of Hermione, and immediately upon parking themselves on the bench leaned in and dropped their voices, eyes twinkling with adventure.
"So, the question is," began George.
"Who did it—"
"—and why?"
Despite the sensitivity of the matter, the blunt manner in which the twins had phrased their question reminded Harry awfully of one of those tiresome murder-mystery series that Aunt Petunia would often watch, with a sombre, distant sleuth starring and heaps of frenzied housewives murdering their husbands before sobbing at the detective's feet. Harry had never understood why Aunt Petunia had enjoyed those dramas so much – he could always tell who the killer was immediately anyway. He opened his mouth to reply, but the twins continued talking without bothering to wait for a response.
"See," said Fred, "at first we reckoned it was someone who'd had an argument with him..."
"...But how could you argue with Neville?" followed George. "He's like a teddy bear. So instead, we've decided it was someone who wanted to embarrass him..."
"...Because, let's face it," said Fred sympathetically, "that option's a bit easier to understand."
Hermione was chewing her lip, processing the new offerings in her mind, whilst Harry and Ron murmured their agreement.
"But who? Who'd want to say something like that?" pressed Harry, looking at each of his friends' faces individually to drive the point home. He ended with Ron, who nodded.
"Yeah, I mean, Neville's alright. Never went out to hurt anyone, or argued much. I doubt it was Seamus or Dean, they seemed pretty normal this morning, and it wasn't me or Harry," he paused, his expression reflecting the whirring of his mind behind his forehead, "I don't really know who else he speaks to, to be honest."
"Well there's the Hufflepuffs – Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abbott and Justin Finch-Fletchley," Harry picked up the list, eagerly adding a few more potential suspects, "oh, and not forgetting Luna, and Ginny—"
Interrupting, Hermione shook her head rigidly.
"I can hardly see any of them trying to start it, and besides, it couldn't have been anyone but a Gryffindor. We're getting too far ahead of ourselves."
Ron glanced at his watch before delivering a sentence that washed away the sticky silence following Hermione's harsh interjection.
"Well, we'll be getting too far ahead of McGonagall if we don't get a move on, come on," he said as they shrugged their bags onto their shoulders, bade a rushed goodbye to the twins, and hastened off to Transfiguration.
All three, although they didn't wish to bring it up, shared the same unease in their guts. It wasn't down to the bacon, however. It was the internal warning that the day was going to get worse as it progressed.
A/N: Not the best start but do please stick with me, it's a little better in the next chapter:)
Written for the Confessions Challenge by psychopath-convention.
Hope you like it!