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HARRY POTTER AND THE MIRROR'S GIFT
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CHAPTER TEN
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After
the Christmas Ball, Hermione seemed to be keeping a sharp
lookout for signs that Jeanne and Professor Lupin were a couple,
but
to her disappointment, there were none. Jeanne still persisted
in
going down to Hagrid's cabin for all her meals, instead of joining
the
staff table in the Great Hall, where Lupin was. She wouldn't come
to
the Hall even if Hagrid was eating there. Perhaps Harry was imagining
it,
but she seemed to be looking even more sullen and serious lately,
and
was finding more and more work for herself to do than ever. Harry
thought
that even Lupin sometimes looked rather serious, though for the
most part
he was still his usual cheerful self.
"I'm just looking too hard and imagining it," Harry
said to himself.
"Hermione's idiocy is beginning to rub off on me."
One afternoon several weeks after the Ball, they were gathered
around
Hagrid's table having tea. Jeanne did not join them; she was sitting
near
the fire, surrounded by a strange assortment of plantlike objects
and tree bark.
She was systematically shredding them and putting them into jars,
while
reading from a thick book at the same time.
"Whatever are you doing with all that stuff, Jeanne?"
wondered Hermione.
Jeanne was reading something from the book, and only looked up
after
a few moments.
"- What? Oh, Severus Snape wants help with some of the Potions
research he's doing," she said, shredding more tree bark.
"He doesn't
have a lot of time, with all his classes, so I'm just helping
him gather
some of the ingredients."
"You're helping Snape - ?" said Ron, surprised.
Jeanne nodded, still shredding treebark. Her eyes wandered back
to the book.
"What book is that?" asked Harry curiously, coming over
to take a look.
Jeanne lifted it up with some difficulty, because it was so heavy.
Harry read, "Recent Developments in Potions
and Tonics".
Jeanne buried her nose in the book again. She threw some bark
into a jar,
then gave an exclamation of dismay.
"Oh - ! It's the wrong jarnow it's all mixed up!"
She emptied the jar onto the floor and began separating the two
different
types of bark.
Hagrid looked at her from the corner where he was cleaning his
boots.
"Yeh bitin' off more'n yeh can chew, Jeanie," he said.
This was obviously an old topic between him and Jeanne, because
she
didn't even look up. She just said, "Hmm," vaguely,
and continued sorting bark.
"Yeh headin' fer a breakdown," continued Hagrid. "Givin'
Neville so much
tuitionhelpin' Madam Pomfreyan' my classesan'
now helpin'
Professor Snape"
"Don't worry about me, Hagrid," said Jeanne. "I'm
not neglecting my
gamekeeping duties, am I? You know I always like doing several
things
at once."
She finished sorting the bark, and placed them in two different
jars.
"Besides," she said absently, as if to herself, "the
busier you are, the less
time you have to think."
Ron still seemed astonished that she was helping Snape.
"I think you're the only one in this school, besides the
Slytherins, who
likes Snape," he said. "You seem to be talking to him
a lot, these days."
Jeanne looked up at this.
"I don't really like Severus," she said slowly.
"In fact, I'm a bit afraid of him;
he can be rather unnerving at times. If he were nasty to me, I'd
probably
dislike him as much as any of you."
"What do you two talk about?" asked Harry, curiously.
"It can't be
Potions all the time."
"He does most of the talking, actually," she said, starting
to shred
bark again. "Talks about himself, mostlyhis ambitionsthe
state of
the world today..." She waved a hand as if to say, "and
so on..."
"I just listen," she said. "Severus needs someone
to listen to himhe's
actually a very lonely and bitter person. Most nasty people are."
Hagrid looked up, boot still in hand.
"Yeh a good girl, Jeanie," he said.
But Jeanne had buried her nose in the book again.
"You and Professor Lupin were dancing pretty close during
the Christmas
Ball, Jeanne," said Hermione suddenly.
Harry wanted to kick Hermione, but she was sitting too far away.
Jeanne looked up.
"Are you still going on about that, Hermione?"
she asked, looking amused.
"Professor Lupin and I are just good friends."
Hermione looked sceptical.
"I didn't dance any closer with Remus than I did with Severus,"
said Jeanne
calmly, throwing bark into a jar.
"Besides," she added, smiling at Hermione, "it
takes more than one dance for
two people to fall in love, you know."
Hermione didn't look convinced.
"That's not true," she muttered to herself, looking
at the floor. "All of us
here know, that when the conditions are right, it takes less than
a minute
to cast a spell on someone."
-----* * *------
Harry was finding it difficult to sleep. It was a warm night;
bright moonlight
was spilling in at the window.
He sat up in bed, and found that he was sweating. He walked over
to the
window, hoping that it might be cooler there, or that even a slight
breeze
might blow in.
The moon was so bright it was almost like day. He looked down
toward
the lake, as if expecting to see something there, but everything
was still.
He stood and gazed out for a few minutes, thinking of nothing
in particular.
Then, when he was starting to turn and go back to bed, a movement
somewhere to his right caught his eye.
He poked his head out of the window, but saw nothing. He waited
for
a while. Nothing. Harry sighed.
"What's the matter with me?" he muttered. He was starting
to turn away
from the window, when he saw them.
Two wolves, one large and dark, the other smaller and paler, were
trotting off in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. They were
keeping
to the trees, so Harry could only just make them out.
In a flash Harry ran over to his trunk, put on his robes, grabbed
his wand
and the Invisibility Cloak, and ran silently from the room. He
dashed down
the stairs, out of the portrait hole, all the way down to the
castle entrance.
Once outside, he stopped to catch his breath. The moonlight shone
brilliantly down around him. Looking round, he walked toward the
grove of trees where he had seen the wolves. But on the way there,
something made him turn and look at the castle.
He blinked. The wall of the castle just near him was covered thickly
with
ivy, but something under the ivy was sticking out ever so slightly.
Harry
walked quickly over to it and lifted the ivy away.
It was a door, left slightly ajar. Harry's heart skipped a beat.
Was it a new
secret passageway?
He opened the door and peered in. A flight of stairs led upwards
into
pitch darkness.
Harry took his wand out, and muttered, "Lumos!"
Light flared from the
wand. Holding it in front of him, he started up the stairs.
The stairs didn't go up very far. They ended in what seemed to
be a
trapdoor in the ceiling. Pushing it slowly open, Harry peered
cautiously out.
He seemed to be in a room used for stores. Empty boxes lay strewn
on the
floor, and the dust made him want to sneeze.
Closing the trapdoor, Harry went over to the storeroom door, opened
it
and looked out. He knew where he was now; a few corridors down,
and
he would reach the Charms corridor. It would be much faster to
return to
the dormitory from here, than if he were to go back to the Entrance
Hall.
He closed the door and looked around the storeroom. The trapdoor
was in
one corner of the room. A large, heavy chest, big enough to cover
the
trapdoor and hide it, stood next to it; it looked as if it had
just been shoved
aside. The room was bright enough for him to extinguish his wand;
moonlight
was falling through a window in the wall.
Harry went over to the window to look out. Below, to his right,
was the
door hidden beneath the ivy. A movement caught his eye. There,
in the
distance, near the Forbidden Forest, he saw two figures running.
Harry watched them for a while. He knew he had no business to
be here;
he should go back to bed. However, something about the wolves
stirred
his imagination. There was something so wild and free about them
He watched them a while longer, then made up his mind. Leaving
the trapdoor
open, so that the stairs were dimly illuminated, he made his way
down and
through the ivy, and started off toward the Forest.
He walked through the grove of trees, then across some fieldsThe
Forest
was looming closer and closer to him. He was almost at the edge
of it when
he heard a noise behind him. He turned, and his stomach gave a
lurch.
A large, dark grey wolf was about fifty feet away, its nose to
the ground. It
seemed to have picked up Harry's trail.
Harry reached into his robes for his wand, but it wasn't there.
He must have
left it behind in the storeroom! He backed away desperately. It
was full moon
tonight. What if it was a werewolf? What good was the Invisibility
Cloak?
The animal could smell him! He then did a very foolish thing indeed;
he turned,
and ran toward the Forest.
When he had reached the trees, he turned, and his heart almost
missed a beat.
The wolf was following him.
Harry dashed into the darkness under the trees. His foot caught
on a tree root;
he fell to the ground, the Cloak falling off him. A loud howl
rang in his ears.
Harry scrambled up, his hair all standing on end. There, about
twenty feet in
front of him, was a werewolf!
It has seen him. It was coming toward him, a mad light shining
in its eyes,
foam slobbering from its mouth, a low, eager growl in its throat.
Harry stood rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle.
The werewolf snarled, and bounded forward.
This is the end, he thought. I'm going to die.
Another loud snarling came to his ears from behind him. Turning,
Harry saw
the dark grey wolf. It was leaping at him - it had leapt past
him, straight at
the werewolf.
There was a horrible snarling and shrieking as the two animals
fought,
tearing viciously at each other. Harry stood there, transfixed;
and then -
Another wolf sprang at him from the darkness of the trees. It
knocked him
right to the ground, then stood next to him, growling.
Harry didn't even stop to think. He got up, and holding the Invisibility
Cloak
over himself, ran for dear life back to the castle, the wolf growling
and snapping
at his heels all the way. Out of the Forest - across the fields
- through the grove
of trees - he bounded through the door in the ivy, slammed it
shut, thundered
up the stairs and through the trapdoor. He then slammed the trapdoor
shut and
sat on it, breathing hard.
After several minutes, he got up and went to the window.
The wolf was sitting on the ground in front of the ivy, watching
the door. It
looked up at Harry when he appeared at the window, its tongue
lolling out in
a smile. Harry had the impression the wolf was laughing at him.
The wolf looked at him for a few moments, then turned, and without
a
backward glance, made its way back toward the Forest.
Harry watched it until it disappeared from sight. He suddenly
felt very tired.
He took his wand from the window sill, where he had accidentally
left it, and
tucked it back into his robes. Turning from the window, he walked
slowly
back to his dormitory.
Still shaking slightly from fright, his body aching with tiredness,
he undressed
and got into bed. However, it was a long time before he fell asleep.
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