Slytherin vs. Gryffindor
"Next time, I'm choosing where we meet."
Parkinson looked around Moaning Myrtle's bathroom with disdain, her already upturned nose wrinkling in disgust. With the Slytherin common room being in the dungeons, I thought she would have been used to a bit of dirt and grime.
"Complain all you want," I bit back, "but I chose this place because I knew nobody would find us. I know neither of us wants that."
It had taken me a lot longer to get hold of Parkinson and arrange this meeting than I had anticipated. Her desire for me to read Runbright's book made me think she would want to sort this all out as soon as possible but, once again, she left me baffled. For two days she ignored my message and only replied at lunch time today – Friday – and agreed to meet with me after dinner.
Some would argue that two extra days of thinking would be a good thing but all it did was confuse me even more. Every time I thought there could possibly be some truth in Runbright's research, the logical part of my brain overrode everything else.
I watched as the Slytherin pursed her lips before turning and brandishing her wand to clean the sinks, hopping on top of the counter and crossing her legs. Rather than looking at me, Parkinson busied herself with smoothing out non-existent creases in her robes and picking invisible lint from her jumper. She was nervous.
Attempting to assuage the awkwardness, I reached into my bag and pulled out the infamous book that started all of this. My movement seemed to catch her eye and she met my gaze for the first time, as I held the book out for her to take.
"You read it?" She asked, slowly taking the tome from me, already knowing the answer.
"Yes," I replied, simply.
"And?" She probed further, running her hand across the delicate cover. I took a deep breath and paused for a moment before answering.
"I don't…" I began, but cut myself off. I shook my head, annoyed with myself for not being able to be more articulate. "I'm not sure what you want me to say," I managed to get out, my voice quieter than normal. Parkinson frowned.
"I thought you said you read it," she replied, sounding confused.
"I did."
"So, you read it, yet, you have nothing to say about it?" Already this conversation was going south and we hadn't even discussed anything yet. "I find that very hard to believe."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "If you're waiting for me to say that I believe in stories written by a fifteenth century charlatan then, I'm sorry, but I just can't do that."
Parkinson gave me a strange look. "'A fifteenth century charlatan'? Where exactly did you read that?"
I swallowed hard, knowing instinctively that telling her about my conversation with Slughorn wasn't a good idea. "What I'm saying is, there must be a more logical explanation," I clarified, attempting to divert attention away from her question.
Parkinson leant back and rested her hands on the counter behind her, still with her legs crossed. "Okay, then, let's hear this logical explanation," she sneered, throwing down the gauntlet. "I'm all ears, Granger."
Her taunts and mocking had changed with our relationship. What were once constant, unyielding insults had now become more controlled and thought-out. I would like to believe it was because she had an odd sort of respect for me that she didn't have before, but I knew better than that. It was because she had learnt that she could get a better rise out of me if she made it into a challenge.
"I don't know!" I barked at her. "I feel like I don't know anything anymore." I had begun to pace up and down the floor in front of where she was sitting, running my fingers through my birds nest of hair. "The only thing I do know is that we aren't going to sort this out unless we actually talk about what has been going on." I came to a stop in front of her but couldn't look her directly in the eye. "About what we've been… feeling."
I felt heat spread across my cheeks, despite my best efforts to stop it. I noticed that Parkinson had shifted her position and her arms were now folded across her chest, her eyes darting around the room. Her body language was very closed off and just when I thought she wasn't going to respond to me, she opened her mouth.
"Fine," she said, obviously trying to sound as indifferent as possible. I heard the slight tremor in her voice, though.
Silence stretched between us, neither of us wanting to get the ball rolling. I awkwardly shifted my weight from foot to foot, trying to think of a way to make this as easy as possible. Chewing my lip, I had an idea.
"Okay, um," I managed to mutter. "May I see the book again?"
The Slytherin gave me a fleeting glance before nodding and lifting the discarded book, handing it back to me. I slowly strode over to the row of sinks where she was sitting and leaned against them, consciously keeping a fair amount of distance between us. I quickly flicked through the well-worn pages to the chapter I knew far too well.
I skimmed through the case studies, searching specifically for the various different side-effects.
"Okay, so," I took a deep breath, steeling myself for what was likely to be a mortifying conversation. "Sickness, headaches, fatigue and loss of appetite. Does all that sound familiar?" I asked, reading from the text. I glanced over at Parkinson and she seemed to have become oddly fascinated by her fingernails.
"Yes," she replied, emotionlessly. "And I can't seem to concentrate on anything anymore."
"Well, I have been experiencing all of those things, too," I concurred, thankful that she was at least attempting to contribute. Now it was time for the harder questions.
"Have you…" I cleared my throat. A classic stalling tactic. "Have you been feeling anything else?" Part of me wanted her to say yes and part of me wanted her to say no. If she said no, I may well be crazy, but at least I could walk away without any repercussions. If she said yes, however, then I would be forced to put more stock in Runbright's writings.
Parkinson continued to pick at her nails and anyone would think she didn't hear me.
"Parkinson?" I probed. The Slytherin suddenly turned and glared at me with an exasperated huff and hopped off the sinks, running both of her hands through her dark hair. She stood with her hands in the pockets of her robes, looking at everything in that filthy bathroom but me.
"Why are you asking me that when you already know the answer?" Her response was meant to sound aggressive but desperation was the overriding emotion she conveyed. Our eyes met and I saw instantly how hard this was for her to talk about. It seemed even harder for her than it was for me, and that was saying something.
"We need to be honest with each other," I said gently, keeping our eye contact. "If nothing else, we need to be honest."
The Slytherin began pacing back and forth, taking slow, deep breaths. She finally came to a stop in front of me, eyeing the book I was still holding. "I first read this book when I was thirteen years old. I usually spend my summers with my grandmother; this belongs to her." Parkinson took the book from my hands and a vague look passed over her face. "I read the whole thing, cover to cover, and I loved every word of it. I didn't care if any of it was true or not, I was simply fascinated. I remember asking my grandmother about Runbright, about other books he'd written, and she said there were others but she knew nothing about them. Other than that, she wouldn't tell me anything about him. Nearly every summer since then I have read this book. I practically know it inside out." Parkinson moved to where she was sitting before but simply leaned against the sinks this time, mirroring my own stance.
"When all this… stuff started happening, I thought I was just sick, I even went to Pomfrey." I, of course, already knew that part but it was nice to get some context and clarification. "Whenever she started rhyming off all my symptoms, the Amortentia case studies jumped into my mind and I couldn't think about anything else. I wrote to my grandmother and asked her to send this book to me. I'm pretty sure you can figure out the rest." Parkinson finished in a hushed tone and ducked her head.
When I said that we needed to be honest with each other, I wasn't expecting Parkinson to open up quite that much and I'm sure that was made clear by the gobsmacked look on my face. Before I could respond in any intelligent way, she spoke again.
"Do I think about you constantly? Yes. I don't want to, but I do. The more I try not to, the worse it gets." She then looked me straight in the eye for the first time since she had begun her little speech. "And I know you feel something similar." She faltered for a moment before adding, "right?"
I simply continued to stare at her for a minute before nodding, dumbly. Without me even realising it, Parkinson had taken control of the conversation and it was now me who felt this topic impossible to talk about. "Yes," I finally managed to say, trying to claw back some poise and dignity. "We're both on the same page. So, the question now is, what do we do?"
"I think it's pretty obvious what the next step is," Parkinson said, frowning. "Again, I have to wonder if you actually read this book properly." The Slytherin busied herself by flipping through the pages until she found what she was looking for, roughly shoving the book into my hands.
"You must be joking," I said bluntly, looking up from the book. "You actually want to brew this potion?"
"Why wouldn't we?" She replied, sounding genuinely confused by my reaction. I gaped at her.
"Parkinson, the things in this book were written over five hundred years ago! Ingredients have changed, techniques have evolved; the human body reacts differently to potions now than it did back then." I couldn't believe how naïve she was being. "What if something goes wrong? What if we end up worse than we are now?"
"Granger, look at the ingredients." She snatched the book off me and listed them off. "Gurdyroot, asphodel, salamander blood, shrivelfig. We've been using shrivelfig since third year," she said, matter-of-factly. "You know as well as I do that both of us could brew this potion with our eyes closed. Besides, you seemed happy enough brewing Polyjuice Potion all those years ago."
"That was different," I snapped, "and I wasn't happy about it." Parkinson shook her head, looking fed up. We descended into silence and I took the opportunity to ask a question that had been niggling at me for a while now. "How did you know about that, anyway?"
Parkinson raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Seriously? Granger, everyone knows about that." My eyes widened. As far as I knew we had managed to keep that whole escapade pretty quiet. Clearly I was wrong.
"They do?"
Parkinson chuckled quietly. "Yeah. Tell me, what's it like having a tail?"
"Shut up!" I barked out, feeling both irritated and embarrassed. I still couldn't think about that without going red in the face.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." Parkinson raised her hands in surrender and silence once again filled the disused bathroom. That is, until Parkinson burst out laughing again. "I'm sorry," she repeated breathlessly between laughs. "I just can't stop thinking about you with a tail."
Despite the fact that I was knee deep in the most unprecedented and awkward conversation in history, I couldn't stop the laugh that escaped me. And we both kept laughing. And laughing and laughing.
"It's kind of itchy, actually," I confessed and it made Parkinson clutch at her stomach in mirth, the two of us laughing and joking around like the best of friends. It was the first time I had ever seen Parkinson so unrestrained, so carefree. She looked younger, more innocent. More like the seventeen year old she was.
Eventually the novelty wore off and we were plunged back into reality, with a very surreal problem.
"Look, Granger, unless you have a better idea, I don't see how this potion could hurt." Parkinson tried to reason. "And, chances are, it will fix our problem. All this happened because of that Potions class when we learnt about Amortentia, right?" Her eyebrows were unusually high and I wasn't sure if she was actually asking me a question.
"Well… I mean, we don't–"
"So, this is just random infatuation," Parkinson butted in again, not letting me finish. "One dose of this potion and everything will be back to normal." The Slytherin certainly had a lot of faith in this ancient and largely untested potion. I glanced back down at the ingredients and to be honest, Parkinson was right. They were relatively tame and the chances of something going wrong were very slim. I looked up at her, her green eyes expectant.
"Okay, fine," I conceded. "We'll make the potion. But some of these ingredients…" I trailed off, shaking my head. "I don't know about you but I don't carry around Gurdyroot in my supplies."
"Leave that to me," Parkinson said, pushing off the sinks and beginning to walk away from me towards the door. "I'll get what we need."
"How?" I asked, not liking the implications of that. "You're not going to steal them are you? Because if you–"
"Granger!" The Slytherin yelled, swinging round to face me again. She looked furious for a split second before her face softened and she looked almost ashamed. "Just… you need to trust me, okay?" Her voice was much softer and something told me that I really did need to trust her this time.
"Okay," I replied, my voice equally quiet.
"I'll let you know when I have everything." Parkinson straightened her robes and placed her hand on the door handle.
"Wait, don't forget this," I said, walking towards her with Runbright's book outstretched. Parkinson looked at it for a moment before shaking her head.
"You should hold onto it for a while; you need it more than I do." I gave her a tight-lipped smile before she flung the door open, escaping back to the relative normality of life at Hogwarts.
Saturday brought the much anticipated Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor. As always, it wasn't just the Gryffindors who were excited: Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students were looking forward to Slytherin getting hammered just as much as we were.
It was unseasonably mild for early December – the snow hadn't arrived yet – and the flying conditions were perfect. According to Ginny they were, anyway. She had been positively giddy all morning and I was pretty sure I knew why. She and Harry had been making gooey eyes at each other over breakfast and I was astounded that Ron hadn't noticed. I finally managed to catch her eye and gave her a disapproving look. Ginny at least had the decency to blush but it didn't stop her from continuing her oh-so-subtle flirting. She never learns.
"Harry!" The distinctive, dulcet tones of Demelza Robins reached our ears. She parked herself on the edge of the bench beside Harry, nudging his hip to make room. "You'll never believe it. Vaisey took a Bludger to the head in Slytherin's last practice, he can't play!"
"You're joking!" Ginny exclaimed, slapping her hand to the table, her face lighting up. "That's the best news I've heard all week!"
"He's their top goal-scorer!" Ron contributed, brightly, not realising that he was inadvertently talking to the sister he was supposed to be ignoring right now.
"Oh, it gets better," Demelza teased. "Malfoy isn't playing either!" Instantly, Harry's face fell.
"What? Why?" He demanded. "Why isn't he playing?"
Demelza stared at him with a look of bewilderment on her face. "I don't know," she replied, looking like she feared for Harry's sanity. "Who cares? We're going to destroy them!" With that, she stood up again and patted Harry on the shoulder before ambling back to her group of friends.
"Don't you think it's a bit strange," Harry muttered, keeping his voice low, "Malfoy not playing?" Ron seemed to think this topic of conversation was worthy of putting his breakfast on hold, as he proceeded to set down his knife and fork.
"Mate, calm down, he's probably just feeling sick," Ron tried to reason. "Look, he isn't even down for breakfast."
We all looked over to the Slytherin table and sure enough, Malfoy wasn't there. Once again, Parkinson wasn't there either and an emotion that I couldn't quite define flooded through me: not quite anger, not quite worry.
"He's right, Harry," Ginny said, agreeing with her brother, much to my amazement. "Plus, this can only benefit us, right?"
Ron went back to shovelling food into his mouth, missing the wink that Ginny aimed at Harry which made me roll my eyes. This will all end in tears, I thought to myself, and not for the first time.
Within the hour, players from both Houses were making their way out onto the Quidditch pitch to rapturous applause and discriminate jeers. I was wondering where Luna and her incomparable lion hat were until I glanced over to the commentators booth and saw her standing beside a very nervous looking Professor McGonagall. I smiled to myself. How did Luna manage to talk McGonagall into letting her do the commentary? I wondered.
"Oh, I think they've started!" Luna informed the crowd five minutes later. "And Ginny Weasley has the Quaffle – oh, she's lovely, I like her." McGonagall had removed her spectacles and was now pinching the bridge of her nose, clearing already regretting her decision to let Luna anywhere near the microphone.
Ginny was having an incredible game. Gryffindor were winning eighty points to ten, with the red-head scoring all but one of the goals. Because of this, she was the Slytherin Beaters' prime target. Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote were so preoccupied trying to shield her that every other member of the team was left unprotected. When Katie Bell was knocked off her broom by a well-timed Bludger attack, Ginny finally lost her temper. She snatched Peakes's bat and waited patiently for a Bludger to come flying towards her again, knocking it straight back at the Slytherin Beater. I could almost hear the bones breaking from where I was in the stands. He clutched at his elbow, agony etched all over his face.
"Oh, dear," Luna said into the microphone, dreamily. "I'm not sure Ginny was allowed to do that – that Slytherin fellow did deserve it, though." McGonagall seemed to have given up trying to rein in Luna's wayward comments; she was now on her feet, hurling abuse at Madam Hooch and her refereeing skills.
Whistles and boos rang out from the Slytherins in the crowd, drawing my attention to them. Most were on their feet, yelling colourful profanities at Ginny, Crabbe and Goyle among the most animated. Looking down the line I saw Greengrass and Bulstrode frowning and gesturing wildly, while Parkinson was still sitting down beside them, looking surprisingly impassive. In fact, I could have sworn I saw her smile to herself.
Cheers from the Gryffindors pulled my attention back to the game and Luna's magnified voice told me that Ginny had scored again. The red-head did a loop in celebration, a beaming smile on her face. Harry flew towards her and the pair high-fived, their gazes lingering on each other a bit too long to be considered normal.
"Harry!" Demelza yelled, sounding horrified. Harry's head spun round just in time to see Harper, the Slytherin Seeker, lying flat out on his broom as he sped towards the ground. He had seen the Snitch.
The Gryffindor Seeker shot off after him, leaving Ginny hovering in the air and staring apprehensively in his wake. Harry was nearly level with Harper, due to his superior broom, but the Slytherin's hand was already outstretched.
"Oh, this is very exciting!" Luna exclaimed, not helping at all.
In sheer desperation, Harry knocked into Harper, trying to steer him away but it was too late. Harper quickly pulled out of his dive with the Snitch raised triumphantly in his hand. The momentum of Harry colliding with the Slytherin carried him too far and he lost his balance, ending up sprawled out on the dusty ground.
Deafening cheers erupted from the Slytherin stands while feelings of absolute disbelief flooded through the Gryffindors. Harry was still lying on the ground with his arm covering his face and Ginny, much like the rest of the team, was resting her head in her hands.
"Slytherin win, 160 points to 90 – how very disappointing," Luna confirmed in an oddly emotionless voice. "I'm sure Harry is very sad."
Taking a break from celebrating with his team mates, Harper flew down to where Harry was lying and leaned over him. Within seconds Harry had jumped to his feet and was now nose to nose with his opposite number. Judging by their body language, some venomous words were being exchanged, culminating in Harper aggressively pushing Harry in the chest.
All hell seemed to break loose at that point, with every player from both teams descending on the feuding Seekers. Ron and Cootes grabbed Harry by the arms and pulled him away before he could do something stupid, while Ginny roared at the Slytherin captain, Urquhart. The burly boy simply laughed in her face and barked out what was clearly a distasteful retort. The red-head lunged at him but was caught around the waist by Demelza and Katie Bell and dragged back.
Madam Hooch landed roughly and pushed her way through the crowd of riled up teenagers until she was standing between Harry and Harper, blowing her whistle maniacally.
"Enough of this!" She shouted, so loudly that she could be heard in the stands. "Potter, Harper, my office. NOW!" Both of them reached for their brooms and slunk away, one behind the other. "As for the rest of you," Hooch continued, eyeing the remaining members of both teams, "get out of my sight before I ban you all from playing Quidditch for the remainder of the year!"
The teams dispersed amid hisses and boos from the crowd, both Houses clearly blaming the other for the scuffle. Chants of, "Harper! Harper!" soon began emanating from the Slytherins, which was met with furious jeers from every other House. In retaliation, "Potter! Potter!" quickly rang out, echoing around the rest of the stands and drowning out the Slytherins.
"ALL STUDENTS RETURN TO THEIR COMMON ROOMS, IMMEDIATELY!"
Professor McGonagall's unmistakable voice resonated around us through the microphone previously used by Luna, and she sounded livid. Everyone had enough sense to simmer down and instead made do with irritated murmurs as they slowly filed out of the stands and back towards the castle.
Nearly two hours passed before the Gryffindor team, including Harry, trundled through the portrait hole into the common room.
"Three days detention," Harry huffed out, falling into a free chair. "Harper got a week, though, so it's not so bad." He ran a hand through his unruly hair and exhaled dramatically.
"What did he say to you?" I asked, moving to sit on the arm of Harry's chair. My bespectacled friend simply shook his head.
"He just pushed me over the edge."
"It's a good job me and Coote pulled you back, mate," Ron cut in. "You looked like you were about to deck him." He suddenly turned to look at his sister. "I still don't know what you thought you were doing, though," he snarled at Ginny. "Urquhart did nothing to you."
"Knock it off, Ron," Katie Bell said, narrowing her eyes. "Don't start this again. It wasn't Ginny's fault." Ginny's gaze fell to the floor and she looked dejected.
"Yes, it was!" Ron rebuked, jumping to his feet. "If she hadn't been distracting Harry he would have seen the Snitch sooner!"
"Ron, don't be stupid, you have no idea what would have happened. Harry could have been at the other end of the pitch and not seen Harper dive at all," I tried to reason, noticing that Harry was slowly sliding down the chair beside me, as if trying to make himself invisible.
"What would you know?" Ron barked at me. "You know nothing about Quidditch."
"Don't speak to her like that!" Ginny suddenly erupted, speaking for the first time and taking a step towards her brother.
"Okay, everyone just calm down," Demelza said loudly, moving to stand between Ginny and Ron and eyeing Harry suspiciously, clearly as baffled as I was as to why he wasn't intervening. Putting aside the fact that Ron and Ginny were his friends, Harry was their team captain and part of his job was to make sure things like this were nipped in the bud.
Ginny was desperately looking at Harry, willing him to meet her eyes but he continued to stare straight in front of him. After an awkward pause she finally gave up and shook her head, trying valiantly to look angry instead of utterly heartbroken, before disappearing back out through the portrait hole.
I couldn't believe that Harry was willing to sit back and let Ginny get so upset and so humiliated by her brother just to protect their secret relationship. In that moment I felt like I didn't even know him.
Slowly the common room began buzzing with chatter again, with Ron walking away and speaking quite animatedly to Seamus and Dean.
"Don't you think you should go after her?" I said to Harry, leaning forward, my voice curt. "After all, it's because of you that she ran off."
Harry turned to look at me with his eyebrows raised slightly and studied my face for a moment. He visibly swallowed. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied, emotionlessly.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about," I hissed back through gritted teeth. When Harry went back to simply staring out in front of him, I stood up and loomed over him. "What the hell is wrong with you, Harry?"
With that, I marched away from him and out of the portrait hole in search of Ginny.
A/N: Sorry for the delay with this chapter and I'm sorry to say there will be a delay with the next one too because I am going on holiday. As much as I love this story, I won't be writing it while I'm off getting burnt to a crisp in the summer sun :)