"Have you gone mad?"
"What?"
I dropped the drawing book on my bag. We were on the library, reading off a little bit of everything. Of course, Neville had wandered off to the Herbology section, while James had insisted that, if he was going to spend here his precious time (note the sarcasm in here, please), he was going to read something useful. So, he set off to the Restricted Section, where Madam Pince just had kicked him out, much to my enjoyment.
As for myself, I had gone towards the part I never thought I would try to pry on. The Divination shelve.
When I said shelve, I meant it was just that. There wasn't a long section like the Dark Arts one or the big Charms hallway. The Divination part was just conformed by a tiny Muggle shelve.
Incredulous, I almost read all the section in just half an hour.
Opting for something more interesting to do, I had pulled out the notebook, which I had become to think as the Prediction book. Trying and failing, I hid the notebook in very different places, but the curiousness won over the stubbornness. Humoring me, I found out all the rest of the pages were blank. Except that they all had a big star on the middle, and that's all. No more drawings, no more moments for me to dread.
Ah, but as you know me, dread was already a part of my organism.
Since the accident in which Krum was stunned, I had gotten a rather obsessive way of carrying the prediction book with me. Between classes, in lunch, when we were resting on the courtyard, I always took a peek to it, hoping to caught a change. The sight of the trickle red of crayon falling from Mr. Crouch's mouth was still burned deeply on my mind, and I certainly didn't want to presence another death in a drawing.
Neville had began to come suspicious of my actions, but he didn't mention it once. That's why I trusted Neville; he knew when was the right moment to talk about certain conversations.
James, of course, was all the contrary.
The first time he saw the notebook, he almost fell off his seat. I didn't pay any care for this, as Ginny had pulled his chair before he could sit at that moment.
Wonderful girl she is, by the way.
But then, he began to act jumpy. And believe me, James never could be jumpy in his life. Surprisingly, he too, didn't comment on this for a while. I had caught him glaring at my bag in the corner of my eye, but that was it.
Today, it seemed, was the day he finally took up his courage (or should I rather say, his Sherlock Holmes Syndrome?) and talked about this.
"I repeat," said James carefully, "HAVE YOU GONE MAD?!"
I put both my hands on my ears, blocking the loud voice.
"There's no need to yell!"
"I was making sure the question entered fully in that thick skull of yours."
"Thick? Says the pot to the kettle!" I glared at him.
"Don't change the subject," he said impatiently, waving his hand to what it looked to be a soothing way. It didn't work. "This past days you have been gloomier. You didn't seem our cheerful self - well, the amount of normal cheerfulness you do per day. Then you are looking everywhere, like if you were expecting to be attacked by, say - Finnigan!"
"What does Seamus has to do in this conversation?" I asked him, annoyance coloring my voice.
"That's the thing! You seem to be cautious of anyone!" James added pressure on the last word. I reached through my memories... and I winced.
Yes. Not only I have been obsessive with the prediction book but, rather afraid of another drawing, I had started to look around my classmates. What if one of them appeared on one of the next drawings? Would it be something good? Or something bad? Would I see... their deaths?
All the names I remember accumulated on my thoughts. Lavender... Parvati... Seamus... Dean... even the annoying Malfoy... Ron... Hermione... Neville... James... Uncle Sirius... Natasha... Harry...
In simple words, I was paranoid. Mad.
"Maybe I am," I whispered ruefully.
James didn't comment on it anymore. We didn't talk until Neville arrived.
Two days later, Harry approached me on the common room. He appeared to be nervous, as he was chewing on one of his thumbs.
"Hi Annie," he said casually. TOO casually.
"Hey Harry, how are you?" I asked him politely.
"Fine," he squeaked out. And trying to be subtle, he sat beside me.
There was only silence. The chatting of the other students was quieting down. As I read, I could tell someone staring intently at me. Maybe it was the chill down my spine, or the heat of my face that I knew whom it was.
"Do you need anything Harry?" I asked him, peering at him over the prediction book. He was fidgeting with his hands, not looking at my face. I pursued my lips.
"Actually - yeah," he sighed. I closed the notebook. Grabbing my bag, I opened it and stuffed it inside. Harry eyed my prediction book with interest but it was already hidden of view, so he stared at my brown bag instead. His eyes were shining with curiosity. Oh, right. He hadn't seen it before.
"It's a gift," I said to him, putting the bag beside the table.
"From James?" he asked with a hoarsely voice. I raised an eyebrow at Harry. There was this strange look on his face, but when I tried to peer more closely, he let his bangs hid his emerald eyes.
"No," I answered quietly. "Natasha sent it to me. It belonged to my father."
His body stiffened and slowly raised his head. I blinked to see if my eyes were not deceiving me. His face turned ashamed but the look disappeared as quickly as it came.
"Oh," he whispered.
I looked away. His staring was too much for me: I didn't want to end up blurting my arising feelings for him.
"So, what is it" I awkwardly looked to the side.
Harry scratched awkwardly his neck. How awkward.
"Well - um, do you remember that time you taught me the Summoning charm?"
How could I forget? "Yeah. I am still sorry about your cut, by the way."
He waved a hand. "Don't worry. Though, what I mean is, that the Third Task is approaching. And I need someone to help me how to make work the spells."
I opened my mouth, and stupidly enough, I said, "You have Hermione."
Harry sheepishly smiled and chewed on his thumb. "Yes, but with you, I found it easier to understand. Even if your method is kind of brute," he chuckled.
I blushed. Brute? James must have been rubbing on me too much.
"So, what do you say?" Harry asked me. He nervously watched my face (which I suppose looked blank), one of the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.
At least he hadn't made the puppy eyes and the pouting, or else, I'll be doomed.
Next few days I spend my time with Harry, Hermione and Ron, looking out for hexes that could be useful for the third task. I had brought my Discovery of Witches book, as it had written a lot of spells with explications.
Particularly, Harry practiced the Stunning spell on the past week, I which Ron, Hermione and myself had to do a few... sacrifices.
"Can't we kidnap Mrs. Norris?" Ron suggested on Monday lunchtime as he lay flat on his back in the middle of our Charms classroom, having just been Stunned and reawaken by Harry for the fifth time in a row. "Let's Stun her for a bit. Or you could use Dobby, Harry, I bet he'd do anything to help you. I'm not complaining or anything" - he got gingerly to his feet, rubbing his backside - "but I'm aching all over..."
"At least Annie had the sense of charming the cushions for them to move before you fall backward!" Hermione retorted. It was true. Since James had scared me with Billy the bunny, I had wanted to learn the Animate spell by myself.
"Yeah," I chuckled. "Imagine yourself falling on the hard concrete. I think you would end on the Hospital Wing with a lot of bruises."
"Well, I think Harry got it now, anyway," Hermione said while she gathered her books. "As we don't have to worry about Disarming - you learned that ages ago - "
"It's time for hexes!" I clapped my hands in enthusiasm. Grabbing my book and the list they made on the library, Hermione read thoughtfully.
"I like the look of this one," she said, "this Impediment Curse. Should slow down anything that's trying to attack you, Harry. We'll start with that one."
The bell rang. We hastily shoved the cushions back into Flitwick's cupboard and slipped out of the classroom.
"See you at dinner!" Hermione said, and she set off for Arithmancy, while Harry, Ron, and I headed toward North Tower, and Divination. Broad strips of dazzling gold sunlight fell across the corridor from the high windows. The sky outside was so brightly blue it looked as though it had been enameled.
"It's going to be boiling in Trelawney's room, she never puts out that fire," Ron said as we started up the staircase toward the silvery ladder and the trapdoor.
He was quite right. The dimly lit room was swelteringly hot. The fumes from the perfumed fire were heavier than ever. My head swam as Harry made his way over to one of the curtained windows. While Professor Trelawney was looking the other way, disentangling her shawl from a lamp, he opened it an inch or so and settled back in his chintz armchair. I walked to my table, were Neville was fanning himself with both his hands, face red as a tomato.
"How did it go?" he wheezed out. Once I sat down, I understood why the dramatic act. The fumes were more pronounced on this part of the room. I could barely see anything through the thick smoke.
I looked over at Harry. He was breathing very comfortably with the slight breeze ruffling his hair. As much as cute as I found him in that moment, I was jealous. The lucky bastard.
"My dears," Professor Trelawney said, sitting down in her winged armchair in front of the class and peering around at us all with her strangely enlarged eyes, "we have almost finished our work on planetary divination. Today, however, will be an excellent opportunity to examine the effects of Mars, for he is placed most interestingly at the present time. If you will all look this way, I will dim the lights..."
She waved her wand and the lamps went out. The fire was the only source of light now. Professor Trelawney bent down and lifted, from under her chair, a miniature model of the solar system, contained within a glass dome. It was a beautiful thing; each of the moons glimmered in place around the nine planets and the fiery sun, all of them hanging in thin air beneath the glass.
While she explained about the angle Mars was making to Neptune, I pulled out my wand and whispered softly, "Aeris."
A small gush of air passed in front of our faces. Neville sighed.
"You need to teach me that spell," he whispered gratefully.
It was hard to maintain the spell working while the perfumes washed over me. My head was tilting down, my chin touching my collarbone often. Neville insisted on me to teach him the air spell before I fell asleep. Like I had said once before, they underestimated Neville quite a lot. I just told him to whisper the spell and made the motion wand with my quill. It was a little more rougher with him, but Neville managed wonderfully compared to my first time. We took times on doing it, but a few minutes later Neville was mainly preventing us from losing air respiration. Once he took the lead, I started to become sleepy.
My eyes wanted to close, but I wouldn't let them. Even if this class was dead boring and easy to pass, there was something nagging me to keep awake. More than once, my forehead touched the red tablecloth of the table, successfully waking me up from the impact (more like the pain, actually). I just hope I don't end with a black spot on the forehead.
Finally giving up, I let my eye-lids close.
I was walking down a gloomy passageway. Everything was black, old. I finally entered a doorway, to a room with all the windows boarded up with wood. A chair appeared, its back in front of me. There were two dark shapes on the floor beside the chair. One of them was a huge snake, the other was a short man with balding hair: he had blue watery eyes and a pointed nose. A growl made its way into my chest.
"Pettigrew," I sneered.
"You're in luck, Wormtail," a cold, high-pitched voice said from the chair. "You are very fortunate indeed. Your blunder has not ruined everything. He is dead."
"My lord!" gasped Pettigrew from the floor. "My Lord, I am...I am so pleased...and so sorry..."
"Nagini," the cold voice said, "You are out of luck. I will not be feeding Wormtail to you, after all...but never mind, never mind...there is still Harry Potter..."
"I will wait with pleasure, Master," the snake hissed.
"Now, Wormtail," the cold voice said, "perhaps one more little reminder why I will not tolerate another blunder from you..."
"My Lord...no...I beg you..."
The tip of a wand emerged from around the back of the chair. It was pointing at Wormtail.
"Crucio!" the cold voice said.
Pettigrew screamed, screamed as though every nerve in his body were on fire, the screaming filling my ears as my eyes burned.
Opening my eyes, I found out that the Pettigrew from my dream wasn't the only one screaming.
With a pang of pain on my heart, I realized whom it was.
Trashing on the floor, Harry Potter screamed in tortured pain.