Silent Music
Chapter 25
Disclaimer: No no No No no no!! These characters are not mine!
Author's note: thank you for your reviews. I can't tell you how much I loved them!
"Tell me, how the heck are we going to get in?" Ron said, pointing at the big lock chained around the handles of the Great Hall's doors. Harry and the others had just reached the outside entrance of the school. Now they were all gathered around the lock in a semi circle thinking of ways to get in without breaking the windows or tripping the burglar alarms or worse…getting caught.
Ron was doing his best to break the lock by rattling it hard while Harry was staring at it with a perplexed frown. Meanwhile, Hermione was busy digging furiously through her bag, her head almost completely buried in the bag. A cold wind blew making them all shiver. It acted as a catalyst for speeding up each of their actions. Ron just started rattling the lock harder while Harry's frown became more intense. Hermione began digging so fast; she could have given a mole a complex. Finally, her head popped out of the bag. She gave a triumphant a-ha! And had something clenched tightly in her fist.
Nothing happened. Ron just kept on rattling the lock while Harry kept on staring at the lock. Trust them to ruin my special moment, Hermione thought as she pouted before raising her voice and nearly shouting A-HA! again. Only it came out louder than she expected. An owl in the nearby trees hooted in protest while Ron turned to stare at her as if she was mad. Harry took his cue from Ron and arched twin black eyebrows as he took in Hermione standing with one hand held up in the air and the other clamped over her mouth.
"O-kay, I hope you have a good reason for holding your arm up in the air like that" Harry said, suppressing a grin as Hermione blushed. She had forgotten about that in the excitement of getting her a-ha! just right. She just grinned at them sheepishly before Harry pointedly looked at her raised arm again. Her memory came back to her in a rush and she quickly brought her arm down and held open her hand.
"What's that?" Ron asked as he and Harry stared at the strange metal object in Hermione's palm. It was the size of Harry's thumb and bore a strong resemblance to a Swiss Army knife. Except that there weren't any blades but pointy screw-like objects. Harry couldn't understand what Hermione wanted to do with it or how it could help them in their present situation.
"It's a lock pick dummies" Hermione walked up to the big lock and started working on it with one of the attachments of the army knife look alike. The boys were really amazed and wanted to have a better look at what she was doing. But her long hair curtained her face and obstructed her face from both sides. Ron turned to Harry and signed, "Wait a minute, if she had a lock pick then why the hell didn't she tell us earlier?"
Harry just shrugged and signed back, "Ask her."
Ron shook his head furiously and made a motion of a knife cutting his neck, "Are you kidding me? She'll kill me!"
Harry grinned and signed back, "Wimp!" and to add emphasis, made a crying motion with his fists balled up near his eyes.
"Since you want to ask her so much, why don't you go ahead?" Ron challenged, waggling his eyebrows.
"Because I'm a wimp too." Harry grinned and both of them laughed patting each other on the back.
Meanwhile, Hermione was busy chewing her lip in concentration as she wrestled with a lock. Her cousin brother had given her the knife as a present on her birthday. He had winked at her and told her that it would come in handy someday. Well that 'some day' was now and she hoped she was going about it the right way. Please don't let it be one of those Murphy's Law days. I don't think we can take anything else going wrong now. She tried again with another pick, mentally crossing her fingers that it would work. She didn't what they would do if it didn't. Ron would probably break down a window and then they would get caught and then suffer a fate worse than death…expulsion! If Ron heard her now, he would probably say that she needed to get her priorities in order. Ok Hermione, concentrate! Think about-gulp- expulsion later! Hermione thought as her fingers worked nimbly as she manipulated the lock pick and finally after a few nerve shattering moments the lock gave away with a small groan.
'Alright then!" she thought pumping her fist. She stood up straight, pressing her hand to her aching lower back. She quickly signaled the boys over. They were really impressed when they saw her handiwork.
"Remind me never to park my car anywhere near you." Ron said the expression on his face one of newfound respect and awe.
Hermione rolled her eyes before replying sweetly, "But Ron, you don't have a car."
"Ouch!" Ron pressed a hand to his heart, an expression of mock-hurt on his face. He then leaned over and hooked his arm around her shoulder, winking at Harry and saying, "We-ll, you can always get me one with your lock picking skills" he waggled his eyebrows at her. She punched him in the arm and gave him a look which said, in your dreams.
Ron pouted at her but she just waved him away following after Harry who had quietly pushed the doors open and gone inside the hall.
Ron followed after her and quickly shut the doors behind him, not wanting the cold wind to blow in. They didn't see a dark figure come up outside and quickly lock the doors.
Harry was standing in the centre of the room, memories rushing into his mind. He remembered dancing with Hermione and then with Ginny…then the fight with Malfoy and finally rushing Ginny to the hospital from here. Was it only yesterday? Harry wondered as he looked around him. The memories had a somewhat distant feel to them. So much had happened since then. Harry's phone vibrated just then, snapping him out of his reverie. The message was from Ginny:
Hello love, I hope your treasure hunt is going well. Wishing I was there. I just wanted to remind you that you still haven't told me whether you're coming next weekend. I really want you too…don't keep me hanging.
Harry read the message with mixed feelings, smiling at her use of the word love. He still felt a little apprehensive but he would talk to his uncle. Provided he came out of here alive! He thought ruefully. He was still staring at the message when Hermione tapped on him on the shoulder.
"Is everything alright Harry?" Her face was full of concern. Harry tried to regain his bearings and tucked away the mixed emotions he had felt on reading Ginny's text to deal with later. He had to help Hermione find her bracelet, he reminded himself. Ron was already on his knees, crawling on the floor aided only by the silvery moonlight that poured in the through the glass roof of the Great Hall.
All the decorations of the Halloween Ball hadn't been removed. A few of the fake spider webs were swept up haphazardly in one corner which Ron was staring at with disgust. Hermione meanwhile was sweeping the dark end of the room with a torch. Harry decided he better start looking too. He walked up near the stage and started running his hands over the floor. There were many false alarms when each of them thought they had found Hermione's bracelet when it only turned out to be shiny party favors or streamers. Harry was feeling quite frustrated by the end of the whole ordeal. He was quite fed up. He had had a really tiring day, physically and emotionally and now crawling on the floor was making his hurts act up. Harry winced as he thought how much his punch must have hurt the already injured Ron.
Well I thought he deserved it then and we've made our peace, Harry thought defensively. He had been just about to get up when something sparkly caught his eye. It glittered in the moonlight. It must be another bit of decoration; Harry thought and turned to walk away. But something stopped him. He turned back and quietly admonishing himself for being foolish walked over to it.
He bent down and threw away the bits of paper and other odds and ends lying on top of it. He had almost reached the last paper partially covering the bracelet when a picture on it caught his eye. It was a newspaper about a few days old, dated for a few days before Halloween.
But it was the photograph on the front page that caught his attention. Harry found himself staring at the black and white shot of a man with a pale long face. His long hair was scruffy and his chin was covered with several days' worth of dark growth. His cheeks were painfully thin and sunken in. But it was his eyes that made Harry recoil with horror. The man's eyes were haunted like they had had a personalized tour of hell. These were the very eyes that had sparkled with life and laughter just three years ago. Harry knew this because he had made those eyes sparkle with laugher so many times himself. This man was Sirius Black, Harry's godfather and who many people believe killed Harry's parents.
He had been put in jail after Harry's accident.
Harry never could believe that Sirius had killed his parents. He had tried to protest when the authorities had come to take him away. Everyone had thought him to be too traumatized to know what he way saying. They had congratulated each other with self righteous smiles when they had Sirius put away in jail for a crime he never committed. Well they were in for it now; Harry smiled grimly, because Sirius Black had escaped jail.
And he was now coming after Harry.