A/N: I saw the Lord of the Rings movie recently and I think it's absolutely FANTASTIC! I loved every bit of it!

Chapter Fourteen

Reactions, Detention and Worry

Colours swirled of brown and red. There was an icy drift blowing her hair about with a cackling in the background. The colours became more defined shapes. Her hair was stuck to her face. Adelaide groaned and turned to face the breeze. Peeves hovered a foot away from her, blowing on her face.

"Peeves," Adelaide moaned groggily. "Go away."

She took a swipe at the annoying poltergeist, but missed as Peeves disappeared through the floor. Adelaide rolled her eyes and buried herself under the covers, but a shrill scream interrupted her sleep.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!"

Adelaide sat up jerkily, wiping away the sleeping sand in her eyes. From behind her hangings, confused voices rang out and the thuds of people ambling into the Common Room sounded. Adelaide stood up and stretched before stomping down stairs to see what was going on. The whole of Gryffindor Tower was staring wide-eyed at their Common Room dressed in pink and flowers.

Everyone just gawked. The G.O.S.T. committee tried to look baffled. The portrait hole swung open forcibly and McGonagall in a long nightgown stormed in, her eyes flashing furiously.

"What on earth is going on?!" she demanded. Then noticing the change of decor, gaped, lost for words.

"We found it like this, Professor," a second year girl said fearfully.

Regaining her composure, McGonagall straightened up and waved her wand, changing her nightclothes into some more suitable robes.

"Follow me," she said tartly, climbing out of the Common Room.

With a few puzzled glances at each other, the students of Gryffindor Tower entered the deserted halls and followed McGonagall at a jog, trying to keep up with her fast strides.

"It was you, wasn't it?"

Adelaide turned swiftly to face Lee, Fred and George.

"What do you mean?" she said innocently, a pleasantly mystified smile on her face.

"You destroyed the Common Room!" Lee accused, grinning.

Adelaide let out a shocked gasp, concealing a wild grin.

"I thought you did it!" she lied, looking stunned.

Fred, George and Lee exchanged bamboozled looks.

"We certainly didn't do it. We've got something huge planned for the end of the year," George said, a smile playing on his lips.

"Ooh! What is it?" Adelaide implored in a whisper.

She began walking on tiptoes, trying to reach up to Fred's mouth so he could whisper the answer in her ear, but she was too short.

"Damn!" she pouted, punching her palm.

The bots laughed heartily.

"Poor wittle short stuff!" George mocked, giving Adelaide a messy pat on the head.

"I am not short!" Adelaide said vehemently. "I'm just younger than you."

"Yeah right!" Lee chortled. "Even Harry's taller than you!"

"By an inch!" Adelaide exclaimed outrageously. "A puny little inch! Nothing to get excited about!"

Out of the blue, Harry appeared beside her.

"Yes it is," he said. "It's a very unusual thing for me to be taller than someone."

Adelaide snorted.

"Yeah! Well, how do ya reckon I feel?! I always look up to people. It's so annoying!"

Harry raised his eyebrows and put on a fake sympathetic smile.

"Aw, don't worry, Phoenix. "I'm sure you'll have a growth spurt one day later or sooner. Most likely later. Bye, short stuff."

He put on a dazzling smile, ruffled her dark curls and dodged through the Gryffindor crowd with Adelaide on his tail.

"Not so fast, Mr I'm-So-Arrogant-That-I-Take-Advantage-Of-A-Darling-Sweet-Little-Girl-That-Is-Only-One-Inch-Shorter-Than Me!" Adelaide squealed, ducking under some seventh year's arms. "I can get you with me eyes closed!"

"Whatever you reckon, short stuff!" Harry called back to her.

Adelaide was reaching the front of the group where all the goody two shoes and Prefects were striding along, looking responsible and superior. Several had tried to grab her, but being so small in height and figure had its advantages. She was easily able to dodge their grasping hands.

Adelaide finally spotted Harry. He was walking backwards right behind McGonagall's back, his back facing the oblivious Transfiguration Professor's. Adelaide grinned inwardly and her eyes glinted mischievously. Putting on an extra burst of speed, she raced forward, smiling with satisfaction at the startled expression Harry was wearing.

"You're going down!" she panted as she ran. Than adding as an after thought, "Literally.

Before Harry could voice his bemused thoughts, Adelaide pounced on him, knocking both Harry and McGonagall onto the ground in the process.

"Bullseye," Adelaide muttered pleasingly to herself.

"HARRY POTTER! ADELAIDE WELLER! GET UP THIS INSTANT!"

McGonagall's face emerged at Adelaide's feet.

"No can do, Professor," Adelaide said good-naturedly as all the Gryffindors crowded round the odd sight of their strict Head of House, Harry Potter, a world celebrity and Adelaide Weller, trouble maker extraordinaire all tangled up in a heap of limbs. "Harry's legs are kinda on top of me."

"Sorry," came a muffled voice, belonging to Harry. "But I can't move either. Professor McGonagall is on top of my stomach."

Somebody in the crowd of Gryffindors huffed and stepped forward. Adelaide raised her head to see Hermione with three-quarters annoyed and a quarter amused expression on her face.

"Let me help you," she sighed, lifting a pair of legs that belonged to Harry up.

Adelaide then managed to scramble away from the knot of limbs and watched, amused, as Hermione began entangling McGonagall from Harry.

"Now what happened?!" McGonagall demanded, dusting her robes off.

"Um… I needed to ask Harry something," Adelaide began, racking her brain for a story. "And he was right behind you and I accidentally bumped into him and knocked you and him over."

McGonagall eyed her suspiciously; not believing any of the lies that Adelaide had fed her.

"You'll both attend a detention with Mr Filch this evening in the hospital wing at seven sharp! Be there!"

Once McGonagall turned sharply and resumed leading them wherever, Harry and Adelaide scowled at each other.

"Look what you did, Adela!" Harry sulked as they wandered over to Tahnee, Hermione, Kristen, Bryce and Ginny.

"Me!" Adelaide screeched. "It was you who insisted on me bringing you down."

"I didn't say that!"

"Fine. But you practically had a sign on your forehead say 'I need a good thrashing so bring me down!' Besides…" Adelaide added enigmatically with a teasing smile. "It's in the hospital wing. And you know what that means."

Harry stared at her blankly.

"Nope. What?"

"Boys!" Adelaide said, rolling her eyes. "Do you remember the little compartment in the cabinet? Well, I read that book on locks and stuff that Hermione fetched for me and I've got some ideas on how to open it. Detention is the perfect time! Filch won't stay in there the whole time so we'll do it when he goes and strangles Peeves or something."

"I suppose. But what if we get caught?" Harry said cautiously.

"Tut tut. Haven't I taught you anything?" Adelaide shook her head worriedly. "For one thing, always think of good stuff. Not the baddie side of stuff. Got it?" (Harry nodded, looking at her curiously.) "Number two: Make up something! I'm sure you've got an imagination in that head of yours. Use it. The worst he can do is not believe a word of it and give us another detention for lying."

"That's just what I don't want," Harry pressed.

"Use the detention to your advantage. Like when we painted that cave that Snape calls a classroom black we dressed up and had fun. It's as easy as one two three. Trust me."

"You're weird," Harry stated flatly, eyeing her inquisitively.

"Thank you," Adelaide said, bowing low as she walked.

Reaching the Great Hall, McGonagall's destination, she ordered them to seat themselves at the Gryffindor table and rushed out.

"This is boring," Tahnee complained. "And I'm hungry."

As if on cue, the plates and bowls became laden with bacon, sausages, eggs of all sorts, baked beans, toast, muffins and all the breakfast dishes you could dream about.

"Great!" Ron said happily, his eyes lighting up as he snatched away a blueberry muffin and began gobbling it down.

"Ron!" Hermione scolded.

"What?" Ron asked, his mouth full of the fluffy cake.

Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"So, Hermione," Adelaide commenced, taking a quick bite of her toast that was smothering with fried tomatoes. "How long does the Suspension Charm we cast on the rooms last?"

"Forty-eight hours," Hermione answered.

The friendly chatter at the Gryffindor table faltered as a horrible scream sounded from the dungeons. The one shout was followed by more and more.

"I do believe they've found out about our surprise in their Common Room," Harry said calmly, munching on some raisin toast.

"And I think you're right," Tahnee murmured, looking intently at the entrance.

There were thuds and thumps of a whole group of people rushing up the dungeon stairs and every single slimy Slytherin stormed in the Great Hall led by Snape.

"We know you did it!" Malfoy roared, pointing an accusing finger at the Gryffindor table.

"Now, now, Mr Malfoy," Snape said steadily, his voice showing a hint of calm menace. "No need to point fingers yet, even though it is most likely that someone from Gryffindor House did it."

The Potions Master was looking directly at Harry and Adelaide, who were looking at the Slytherins with interest.

"Oh, Professor!" Adelaide said innocently, her eyes wide with sweetness. "Please tell us what they did!"

Snape glowered.

"Surely, Miss Weller, you know what happened," he said silkily, his voice alight with intimidating tranquillity.

Adelaide tried to look puzzled.

"Sorry, Professor. I don't know what you're talking about."

Snape opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the Ravenclaws hurrying in, then the Hufflepuffs. Snape had to allow himself to be whisked away by Sprout and Flitwick. The Hall broke into endless chatter, but soon was halted by Dumbledore entering with news of their Common Rooms.

"It seems," Dumbledore began grandly with a trace of amusement. "That each of the House Common Rooms has been given a make-over. We have inspected each room and found no danger in you returning except for some Dungbombs planted in places.

"We have tried to reverse the changes, but with no avail. Each room has been hit with a forty-eight hour Suspension Charm that allows no one to remove the objects placed in the room. There is no counter-charm so you will have to with do with the décor arrangements.

"So far we have only suspicions of who peformed the changes, but no real evidence. Now your breakfast and then you will be able to return to your Common Rooms."

Dumbledore's eyes flashed to the Gryffindor table to where Adelaide was listening with a look of innocence plastered on her face and he chuckled, sitting down and beginning his own breakfast.

"Ugh! This school is so biased!" Malfoy hollered from the Slytherin table. "We have to live in a Gryffindor sanctuary for two days! My life can't get any worse."

"I think you might have spoke too soon, Malfoy!" Adelaide called, giggling.

For her comment, she received an icy glare.

The day proceeded as any other day would. The boys now began avoiding the Common Room though and stayed in their dormitory or hung out around the school. Colin had developed the pictures of the rooms and the night on Halloween, making a copy for everyone.

"Hey, Ginny, you've forgotten to sign mine," Adelaide said, thrusting the photo of Halloween and a quill into her hands.

"Sign mine will you, Adela," Ron said.

"Adela!" Harry shouted above the Common Room racket. "We're late for detention!"

Adelaide scribbled her name on Ron's photo and stuffed a piece of parchment in her robes and followed Harry out of the Common Room.

"What's on the parchment?" Harry asked.

"I copied down a bunch of ways to unlock the padlock in the Hospital Wing from the book," Adelaide answered, running her fingers along the wall, watching Harry.

Somehow, in a way she couldn't really pinpoint, he looked different. He was always usually paler than the others' were, but now he was more pallid than normal. There were huge purple-blue shadows under his eyes and he seemed thinner.

"What?" he spluttered noticing Adelaide's eyes upon him.

"Oh, nothing much. It's just that you look… look different. More tired than usual," Adelaide responded.

"I suppose that comes with staying up the whole night for midnight adventures," Harry said.

He put on a smile that didn't meet with his eyes. They were usually a vivid green full of excitement, but they had developed a growing shadow during the short time that Adelaide had known him.

"I suppose," Adelaide said unconvincedly.

Perhaps she should mention it to Hermione and Ron. Hermione was very clever and might be able to figure out what was up.

They reached the Hospital Wing in silence and were greeted by Filch who was wearing a nasty grin.

"Ah, two little, pesky troublemakers, just as Professor McGonagall said," he sneered, leading them inside the sparkling room. "Buckets are there. Rags are there. You're to clean the walls, floor, cupboards, doors and every inch of the room. I don't want to see one speck of dirt. No magic is to be used. Begin!"

Adelaide and Harry skulked over to the two buckets full of soapy water.

"This sucks," Adelaide moaned, dipping the rag into the water and sloshing it about.

"You said to use detentions to your advantage. What happened?" Harry muttered, making sure Filch didn't see them talking.

"Some things you can't do it. Besides, while that jerk is here, we've gotta do everything correctly and look miserable," Adelaide said.

Time went past and Filch didn't show any sign of leaving. He just sat comfortably in a chair by the door, watching them with relish.

"There are times when I would pay Peeves to be annoying," Adelaide admitted gloomily.

"Yeah."

They continued to clean the already spotless Hospital Wing, falling deeper into gloom. But that was destroyed when a series of deafening crashes sounded from up stairs. Filch jumped to his feet.

"Stay where you are!" he hissed, glaring. "I'll be back."

He then sprinted down the corridor yelling threats at the poltergeist.

"Finally," Adelaide sighed, wiping away sweat on her forehead. "I thought he'd never get out of our hair!"

She stood up and helped Harry stand up and walked over to the cabinet that contained the secret compartment. She swung the door open and pulled out the piece of parchment.

"Some locks need a spell or mixture of spells to open it. Well, here goes. I'll try a spell on this list then you try the next one," Adelaide explained, pulling her wand out.

What seemed like an eternity of spell later, they still hadn't opened the lock.

"This is hopeless," Adelaide grumbled, burying her head in a nearby pillow.

"We haven't tried any spells at the same time," Harry suggested, trying to cheer her up.

"I suppose. But I don't know what good it'll do."

"Right. You do a Stunning Spell and I'll do a Tickling Charm. One. Two. Three!" Harry said.

They both said their spells, Adelaide a little half-heartedly. Nothing happened. Harry furrowed his eyebrows.

"Try harder. You're doing it with no oomph!" he said, giving her a nudge in the ribs.

"Fine. But this is it. If this doesn't work, I give up."

Firing their spells at the lock that had caused so much trouble, Adelaide used all the energy that remained in her. And amazingly, the lock opened with a simple click.

"It worked," Adelaide breathed, not believing it.

"See. All you had to do was actually mean it," Harry said, grinning.

But footsteps coming down the hall wiped the smiles off their faces instantly.

"Filch is coming!" Adelaide panicked, snapping the cabinet shut. "Get back to your bucket!"

But they were too slow in resuming their positions.

"What's the meaning of this?!" Filch exploded angrily, bearing down on them. "I leave the room for two seconds and you disobey my commands! What's your reason then? Most likely to be a story."

"Um… I'm cleaning over here," Adelaide fibbed.

"Then what's Potter doing there if you're cleaning there?" Filch asked, a sneer playing on his lips.

"Er… I needed to go there because…" Harry began, searching his brain for a decent lie. "Because Adelaide wanted me to get rid of this spider. She's terrified and wanted me to get rid of it."

Adelaide was half pleased, half irritated at his idea. She wasn't scared of spiders!

"The things little girls run from," Filch scorned, believing the lie. "Now continue!"

Knowing now they hadn't a single hope of going through the compartment that night, Adelaide managed to sneak the cabinet door open and snap the lock shut. They knew how to open it and they'd do it tomorrow or sometime.

"I hate cleaning," Adelaide groaned as their way back to Gryffindor Tower at eleven that night.

"And you only realised that now?" Harry inquired, giving her a sideways glance.

"Oh, ha ha," Adelaide said dryly. "What was with the spider idea anyway? I am not under any circumstances afraid of those little eight legged things!"

"It got us out of another million detentions, didn't it?" Harry exclaimed. "Besides, Ron is."

"Just coz your scaredy-cat best friend is terrified of harmless spiders, doesn't mean the whole world is!"

"I know that," Harry replied, saying the Gryffindor password. "Hermione's okay with them. I'm okay with them. But it just came into my mind so don't complain unless you'd rather suffer in detentions."

The flowery, pink Common Room was nearly empty except for Tahnee, Hermione and a couple of older girls giggling over some flowers in a corner.

"Did you manage to open the lock?" Tahnee said eagerly, dragging Harry and Adelaide over to where Hermione had her head in a book.

"Yeah," Harry answered, collapsing on the couch and closing his green eyes.

"Well, what was in it?" Tahnee urged.

"Don't know. Filch came in as we unlocked the damn thing," Adelaide said, plonking herself next to Harry.

"Was the book any help?" Hermione spoke up, placing her book face down on the table.

"Yeah. It was a mixture of two spells," Adelaide said. "The Stunning Spell and the Tickling Charm."

"Well, goodnight. I'm exhausted. And Harry, I think you should go to bed too. You look horrible," Hermione said soothingly, watching Harry with concern as he stretched.

"Nah. Might stay here for a bit. Don't feel tired yet. You can go though," he answered, stifling a yawn.

Adelaide eyed him with worry. Something certainly was wrong.

"Well, 'night, Harry," she said. "Don't stay up too late."

Tahnee, Hermione and Adelaide climbed the stairs silently to the dormitory. While Tahnee was in the toilet, Adelaide decided to talk to Hermione.

She pulled back the hangings on Hermione's bed to find the girl staring blankly at her pillow, lying on her stomach. Adelaide carefully settled herself by Hermione's feet and softly prodded her on the back.

"What's wrong?" Adelaide whispered as Hermione sat beside her.

Hermione looked at her warily.

"It's Harry. He's changed."

She looked as if she was going to burst into tears. Adelaide wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"I know. I was just going to ask you about that. He hasn't told you anything?" she said.

Hermione shook her head.

"Nothing. Adela, I'm so worried about him. He's so thin and tired looking. He looks so sick."

Hermione buried her head into Adelaide's shoulder, crying. Adelaide hugged her.

"I noticed. Do you think Ron will know something?"

"I don't know. I thought he would tell us, but he hasn't. Ever since last year he's been so secretive…"

"That's coincidental. But let's hope he tells us for his sake at least. You should get rest, Hermione. We'll ask Ron tomorrow."

Adelaide gave Hermione a quick hug, said goodnight and slipped under the safe covers of her bed, staring vacantly in front of her, deep in thought. With a shuddering sigh, she turned and plunged into a restless sleep.

A/N: Sorry it's a shorter chapter then usual. I couldn't exactly think of a way to finish it properly so that had to do. Cya!