Chapter Ten: Friends and Strangers

"Stop that," I said crossly.

"Stop what?" Lucas asked innocently.

I sighed and put my quill down. "Stop with the dreamy brown eyes and the gravity-defying hair and that smile that makes it look like we're sharing some sort of secret. D'you think I don't hear the way Parvati and Lavender and Meg and Bianca and every other stinking female in this school go on about you? This is not a chance for you to wrap me around your finger the way you have everyone else tied up; this is us doing the Transfiguration homework we were supposed to have done three days ago."

He stuck his tongue out at me. "I can't help that I'm a nice guy. And my gravity-defying hair is a natural thing that just sort of happens when I wake up, so you can't fault me for that."

"Whatever. The point is that you, Lucas, have a girlfriend and I'm...unavailable, so stop whatever you're up to and focus for the next half hour, okay?"

In response, he leaned onto the back two legs of his chair and crossed his feet on the table we'd commandeered in the corner of the Gryffindor common room. "You're a tough nut to crack, Ginevra."

"Call me 'Ginevra' one more time and you'll find out just how tough," I told my textbook, refusing to give him the benefit of eye contact.

"You keep calling me Lucas, I'm going to keep calling you Ginevra and annoying you instead of doing the homework."

I plunked my forehead down on my book. "Why me? There are six other people in our Transfiguration class, why me?"

"You're just uncommonly lucky."

"I have six brothers. How do you manage to be more obnoxious than all of them put together?"

"I'm uncommonly talented. Your answer to number four is wrong, by the way."

I turned my head to glare at him, but he was apparently very absorbed in watching a game of Gobstones two Second Years were playing over by the fireplace. The flickering light threw his features into relief and I suddenly noticed the deep bags under his eyes, cut into a face that somehow seemed pale under its usual tan.

"Are you feeling okay?" I asked abruptly.

"Yeah, fine, why?" He responded without looking away from the game.

"I don't know, you just...you have bags under your eyes. You look tired."

"You don't exactly look like you've been getting eight hours of beauty sleep a night either," he pointed out, turning back to me. "Ginny, we've got basically the same course loads, so you know how much homework I have, plus I've got N.E.W.T.S. at the end of this year which is a whole bunch more studying, and I'm at all the same Quidditch practices you are. We've been at this for a month now, has there been a day yet when you didn't wake up completely exhausted?"

I considered it. "No, I guess not."

"Exactly. We're in the same boat. So stop looking at the bags under my 'dreamy brown eyes,' because they're not going anywhere."

I straightened up and rubbed at my own eyes. "Hard to believe it's the end of September already. It feels...well, I'm not sure if it feels like we just got here yesterday or if it's been way longer than that."

"How d'you mean?"

"I don't know. You don't know what Hogwarts was like before this year, so it's kind of hard to explain, but I've had detention with Amycus Carrow four weekends straight and each time I'm pretty damn sure I'm not going to make it out of that dungeon alive. Every day seems like it takes a million years because I've got so many things to do and worry about—our Quidditch team, homework, demerits, detentions, trying to keep the younger kids out of harm's way, everything that's going on outside the castle. But I'm so busy worrying about those things and getting it all done that the time just seems to fly by."

He nodded and started flicking through his textbook, presumably looking for the answer to one of our homework questions.

I chewed on a fingernail, watching him search. In the past month, Lucas and I had spent a lot of time together between Quidditch practices and being Transfiguration partners, and I was no closer to feeling like I actually understood anything about him. He could be incredibly arrogant and was excellent at avoiding answering personal questions, but he paid very close attention to everything going on around him and could apparently read me like a book. It made our weekly joint Transfiguration assignments—reporting what we'd learned about the other—very unbalanced.

I halfway had my mouth open when the portrait hole swung open and Neville tumbled in, followed by the rest of the prefects. Neville walked over to me and Lucas quickly while Meg and Parvati got the attention of the rest of the students in the common room.

"First Hogsmeade visit is this weekend," Neville said breathlessly, talking under Meg and Parvati making the same announcement. "Saturday, October fourth."

I felt my eyes light up. We hadn't been able to arrange a D.A. meeting since the first one nearly four weeks ago. "Hog's Head?"

Lucas looked back and forth between the two of us, clearly trying to connect the dots. "Someone going to tell me what's going on?"

"Oh, we just, er, really like the barman at Hog's Head," Neville said, still smiling that dead-giveaway grin.

"Plus the best butterbeer in the whole village," I added.

Lucas looked unconvinced, but I didn't have time to work on the story any further as a loud popping sound emanated from the center of the common room and Twilla the house elf appeared, holding Fawkes in one hand and Bailey Norren in the other. Both Bailey and the phoenix were squawking unhappily with the situation.

"Twilla? What's going on?" I stood up and walked to them, aware that everyone in the room was looking at us.

"Phoenix Fawkes is showing up in the kitchens again," Twilla informed me, stuffing the still-protesting phoenix in my arms.

"Aw, Fawkes!" I chided. The phoenix's feathers had sprouted a few days earlier and had been accompanied by the return of his ability to do the phoenix equivalent of Apparation; he'd been found in Great Hall twice, sitting on Hagrid's hut once, in the kitchen several times and earlier that day I'd walked into Charms to find him sitting on my desk. "This unruly-teenager thing you've got going on has got to stop."

"Miss Norren," Twilla continued, transferring possession of Bailey's arm into my other hand, "is sitting in the kitchens for several hours every night and being a nuisance to Chives."

"I'm not a nuisance!" Bailey protested, wrenching her arm free. "I sit quietly in a corner and do my homework and I don't bother anyone."

"Nuisance," Twilla repeated. "Chives is asking that Miss Weasley handles Miss Norren from now on." With another loud crack, Twilla disappeared, leaving me holding an immature phoenix and a First Year Slytherin in a room full of confused Gryffindors.

"Uh, c'mon, Bailey," I said, tugging at her sleeve. "Let's go upstairs and talk."

"Ginny?" Jimmy Peakes asked. "Why did a house elf just ask you to take care of a Slytherin?"

"She's just a kid, Jim," Lucas said lazily from behind me. "Back off."

I pulled Bailey after me and took the stairs two at a time, eager to be away from the prying eyes. Once we reached my room, Bailey flung herself petulantly on Meg's bed. I deposited Fawkes back on his roost and he immediately pounced playfully on Arnold; the two seem to have adopted each other and Pig as long-lost brothers.

"All right, kid," I said, settling myself cross-legged on my bed, "what's going on?"

She mumbled something incoherent into her pillow.

"Sorry, what was that?"

She lifted her head. "I hate my house! All of them! They're pricks and jerks and mean and I hate them!"

"So you hide in the kitchens all night? Hogwarts does have libraries, you know."

"You don't know what it's like!" She exclaimed. "You get to live here with all the other Gryffindors and be friends with Luna and Susan and everyone but because I'm a bloody Slytherin I have to act like I don't know any of you so no one suspects anything!"

"I'm sorry, Bailey, but we really can't do anything about that," I said, looking at her tiny form fondly. She was headstrong and fiery and rather a lot like myself. "We're having a D.A. meeting on Saturday, I'll talk to the group and see if anyone has any ideas."

She sat up and narrowed her eyes at me. "What, can't I come?"

"It's at Hogsmeade, you have to be a Third Year to visit," I said apologetically. She shrieked and threw herself facedown again. I laughed, walked over, and offered her a hand. "C'mon, I'll walk you back to your common room."

"Can't I stay here for a little while longer?" She whined. "I'll be quiet, I promise."

"My entire house is downstairs wondering what you're doing here in the first place," I said. "Not a chance. Come on."

She grumbled, but followed me downstairs. We walked quickly through the common room, keeping our heads down, but once out in the hallway she burst into another rant about her fellow First Year Slytherins which was alternately hilarious and concerning. We were halfway to the Slytherin common room (according to Bailey, who seemed to be taking the scenic route) when a voice that never failed to make my skin crawl echoed through the stone corridor.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Amycus Carrow stepped out from behind a pillar, accompanied by Daphne and Blaise. "My favorite Gryffindor has befriended a Slytherin?"

"I'm not her friend," I countered immediately, trying to inject disgust into my voice and contort my face to mask. It was easy to fake disgust when Daphne was around. I pushed Bailey's shoulder none too gently, propelling her over to Blaise. "She was wandering around near the Gryffindor tower and I'm returning her to where she belongs. Trying to get First Years to spy on me, huh, Daphne?"

Bailey looked hurt and confused as Daphne cackled. "As if your life is interesting enough to spy on."

"Children, children," Carrow sighed. "Can't we all get along? I have other places to be tonight, try to get to bed soon." He stalked away down the corridor, leaving a slightly off-putting stench behind him. I breathed a sigh of relief once he was out of eyesight; while I'd thankfully had no one-on-one time with him since the beginning of the year, that scene between the two of us after the first Dark Arts class still made frequent appearances in my nightmares.

"At least my life doesn't involve shagging the Head Boy," I said once I was sure Carrow was well beyond earshot. "I suppose Carrow caught you at it? Maybe even joined in? Seems like something you'd enjoy, Daphne."

I watched her smooth her ridiculously curly blonde hair, wondering what had possessed me to say that. It wasn't like I needed any more drama to my life.

Blaise sighed. "Come on, Bailey. Let's leave the girls to their catfight. No magic in the corridors," he added to Daphne. He led Bailey down the hall; I watched their retreating figures until I had no choice but to turn back to Daphne.

"You're pathetic, you know that?" She said immediately. "What makes you think anyone cares about anything you do?"

A feeling of déjà vu sprang up in my stomach. "Tell me about it, Daph," I sighed. "If I let you prattle on about it for a few minutes, will you just let me go to bed?"

In answer, she took a step closer. "Everyone knows that you're the main person behind this stupid Dumbledore's Army stunt. All it's going to do is get you killed. Hopefully. So please, keep at it."

I rolled my eyes, struggling to keep external calm as a familiar heat balled beneath the déjà vu. This was remarkably similar to that conversation with Umbridge, and I hadn't had a month of pent-up rage and frustration for that conversation. I realized my fist was clenched around my wand. This is what she wants, a small, rational voice at the back of my mind said. She's trying to make you angry so you'll do magic and get in trouble.

She took another step closer and I could feel her breath on my face as she said, "Nothing you do matters. So play your silly little games and hide away in the Gryffindor common room, but don't you dare insult what me and Blaise have."

I laughed out loud at that. "'What you and Blaise have'? What do you and Blaise have, Daphne? True love, is that what it is? He's certainly a git, so I suppose the two of you are made for each other."

"Just because your boyfriend is probably dead in a ditch somewhere-!"

She didn't get any further because I slugged her across the chin, putting all my weight into it, the way Fred and George had taught me. She looked up at me from the floor, breathing heavily, a dribble of blood coming from one corner of her mouth. "I'm going to tell Carrow about that."

"Fine," I hissed, squatting down so that our faces were level. "Tell him. Tell everyone. Land me in detention every Saturday for the rest of my life. There's a war on, I've got a lot to lose, and I have a bad temper. You need to learn that I'm not a person to be screwed with."

I stood up, every muscle in my body shaking, and walked down the hall. My hand was throbbing. I made it up three flights of stairs and down two corridors before I slid down a wall, put my head to my knees, and tried to stifle the sobs that were threatening to overtake me.

"He's alive," I said out loud. "He has to be alive. I know he's alive."

"Of course he's alive!" said a voice that was startlingly close by. I looked up to see Luna sitting directly across the hall from me, wearing something that vaguely resembled a hot air balloon on her head.

"Luna? What are you doing out here?"

"You're just down the hall from the Ravenclaw common room," she informed me, pointing. "I believe it's you whose location needs explaining."

I heaved a sigh. "Must've gotten turned around. I was upset."

"I heard." She nodded sagely and her hot air balloon hat let off a small puff of steam. "But you mustn't worry, he's very much alive."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Why, because the Hondoplume's weathervane is still working," she said, looking at me as though I'd sprouted a second head.

I leaned my head back against the wall. "We're not talking about the same person, are we?"

"Are we not discussing Willus Chablon, the Lost King of the Agbers?" She fed a piece of her hair through a pipe in her hat.

"He wasn't really who I had in mind, no."

Luna got up and came to sit next to me, linking our arms. "Well, in that case, I'm positive that Harry is still alive as well."

"And how do you know that one? Someone's mailbox get knocked over?"

She tinkled a laugh. "Don't be silly. No, it's been in Daddy's paper. For weeks now. All sorts of people, historians and journalists and such, are writing in and everyone agrees that if Harry were to be killed, You-Know-Who would be broadcasting it everywhere because it'd be so demoralizing. You should really read more, you know."

"I've heard that before," I said, smiling at her. "Thanks, Luna."

"Of course, darling." She picked up a piece of my hair and poked it through the pipe in her hat. I let her tug it out of my scalp and listened to her babble on about the Lost King of the Agbers late into the night.

[A/N] Thanks for the reviews and PMs! Opinions are always welcome. I know that the past couple chapters haven't been super action-packed, but believe me, that's about to change. I've got a whole bunch up my sleeve.