This chapter ought to be interesting. J
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Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter.
Rating: PG-13 just in case.
Love in the Stars Chapter SixRon and Harry stared at Hermione dumbfounded. Hermione waved her hands at them, "Well?"
"Hermione," said Ron slowly, "Samantha's – she's dead."
Hermione rolled her eyes, "Goodness you two. Have you been listening to anything I've been saying? Samantha is alive! All the wands never killed anybody! Now the problem is, where is Samantha? And why would she clone herself. Maybe she wanted to run away from something she's done or, oh I don't know. But however, this proves Terry innocent."
"So… Samantha's alive, huh?" muttered Harry frowning, "It makes absolutely no sense at all. We've hit a dead end if Terry's innocent, but – but he's a death eater!"
"We are still not sure of that year," said Hermione slowly, "and well, do you think we should tell Professor Dumbledore?"
"No," said Harry, "we'll tell Sirius tomorrow when he comes."
"I don't want to go to that dance tomorrow," said Ron stubbornly.
"Do you think I want to?" scowled Harry.
"Fine, I'll come," said Ron, and then turned to Hermione, "if you noticed her body cold, then why didn't anyone else? I mean, someone must have realized it…"
"Not many people really wanted to touch her, Ron," said Hermione patiently, "after all, she was dead. We watched Mr. Ackins use his wand to put her in a magic sling and take her up the school, that's all."
"Hermione," said Harry suddenly, "a few days before that Tuesday you said something about dispensing the horror of Terry Larkam publicly, what did you mean by that?"
"Oh nothing, but no that you've mentioned it, maybe I'll just do a little something tomorrow…" Hermione smiled.
"Yo, Christmas presents!" Ron was howling.
Harry bolted up and started ripping apart the pakages. The Dursleys had sent him a single cotton ball. Not knowing what to do with it, Harry decided to enchant it with a sparkle spell making it turn red and green, then threw it onto his bed. He turned to the rest of the pakages and smiled as he picked up Mrs. Weasley's usual lump. It contained another green sweater with a picture of a castle, the one of Hogwarts, on it. She had also sent a homemade chocolate cake and a pack of mince pies. He opened the present from Hagrid, which was a box of Sugar Quills (he had given up on sending homemade rock cakes and stoat sandwiches which were always too hard to eat). Ron had given him a set of Wizard disks including the Weird Sisters and Sisha Vosha which also came with a free player. Harry played around with it for a bit, he who had never heard much Wizard music before except at dances. The disks well the size of almonds and were of the oddest shapes ever. The player happened to be something that looked like a clip which Harry supposed was to clip the disks in. He clipped one it, but since it did nothing, he whispered "Play" to it and it almost immediately started playing at a loud volume. It took a while to get the player to be quiter as he supposed that it couldn't hear him over the loud noise. Hermione's present was yet another interesting present, but not so surprising, as it was a book of useful little hexes, charms, and spells. He decided he could use it for bedtime reading and try them all out with the cotton ball the Dursleys sent him if it was possible. Just before he left, he flipped the book open and tried a horn growing spell on the cotton ball. A teeny tiny horn of cotton spurted out. Harry grinned, then stored it in his drawer.
When the three friends walked into the Great Hall, the dance floor was almost finished. Since it was a semi-formal, the teachers had done a better job than the last casual dance. The four long desks were set aside and there were about five round tables which each seated 12 instead. The forks, knives, and spoons had red and green ribbons tied onto them. The goblets were exchanged into special gold rimmed wineglasses and they had a silver ribbon tied to them. The napkins were of red and green. Both the dance floor and the ceiling were not finished yet. The usual 12 christmas trees were placed slightly different with the 11 of them in a circle surrounding the dance floor while an extra big one which was usually at the teacher's deak now in the center of the dance floor. The crackers that were mounded in piles in the middle of the tables made Harry, Ron, and Hermione much more cheerful than usual and they raced to a table for breakfast. It was good that they picked a desk in the corner, so Harry didn't see Cho walking in with Terry talking and laughing.
Harry soon was laden with a new Magic Quillcase which could expand endlessly on the inside, more Wizard disks which also included muggle music, a self-dusting feather duster, a poket knife which could move around by the person's mind wandlessly, and a funny little horn which made the blower's ears smoking while emitting a high screeching sound. Just as they were laughing and pulling more crackers, Hermione looked down at the table and hissed, "Harry, Terry's coming this way…"
Harry froze and tried to act as natural as possible while Ron quickly stood up and turned towards Terry. "What the hell is he doing?" whispered Hermione.
Ron's ears were bright red and he had his hand out, "Terry Larkam, I'm sorry I ever suspected you of murdering Samantha. Can't you forgive me?"
Harry's jaw dropped and swung around staring at Ron and then at Terry who said smoonthly, "Of course, and I'm sorry about me accusing you too. I really don't believe that you would ever kill your ex-girlfriend."
Suddenly, Terry's sleeve shot up baring the skull. Harry turned and saw Hermione's wand out while several out people who saw the skull on the arm screamed. Even Ron's jaws dropped and backed away quickly. Terry frowned and, angry with shock, said, "No, calm down everyone! I will not hurt you." But the damage was done and whispers of 'death eater' were heard. Everybody was standing up and backing towards the exits now staring at Terry as if he were some contagious disease.
"I am not a death eater," shouted Terry angrily ripping his sleeve back down, "it's a tatoo I had since I was born! For goodness sake!"
Hermione's wand was now blinking red and green, and she whispered to Harry, "He is not telling the truth completely. When it's red, it means it's all lies. Green means truth, and blinking means both." It was quite clever of her to use this spell because nobody thought of it as anymore than just Christmas decoration. Professor Dumbledore and the rest of the teachers all had their wands out pointing at Terry and slowly moving forward towards him. Then both Dumbledore and Snape put their wands down at the same time, which surprised Harry.
Ron, who was the closest to Terry and expecting death any moment now stood frozen, but Terry only looked at him with a pleading look. "Everyone, please listen to me," said Terry pleadingly almost to the point of tears, "Yes, it is the sign of a death eater, but I am not one. You see, my mother told me that father was a death eater without a mark, and then she left him as soon as she found out he was one. She took me with her, right after the dark lord drew the mark, but had not activated it you see, and she was scared that he would come after me. However, he did not, and to this day, I do not know why. I also do not know who my father was because my mother never told me. There, that is the truth. All of it."
Hermione gave a huge sigh of relief because her wand was all green now. Harry was relieved too and spoke out loudly before Dumbledore could say anything, "Terry is speaking the truth."
Everyone turned to him. Harry pointed at Hermione's wand and said, "She is doing a lie-detector spell on him and her wand is green which means he spoke the full truth now."
Snape's curt voice sounded unpleasantly, "Be quiet, Potter, do not step into things you don't understand. The lie-detector spell can be fooled easily, especially the one Granger is doing now."
"Severus!" Dumbledore said sharply, "That will do. Terry is speaking the truth. Now, all of you, students, be ready for the Hogsmeade visit while we finish this hall for the dance tonight."
Everyone headed towards their common rooms for cloaks, still giving Terry suspicious looks however. Terry walked up to Harry and grasped his hand gasping, "Thank you, Harry, you have no idea what that meant to you. After all," he sighed and then looked away, "and – and well, I'd like to apologize for me suspecting you that day. I suppose it must have been a clone of you that attacked me."
Harry frowned, "A clone of me? What are you talking about?"
"Don't worry, I never suspected you really," said Terry quickly, "it's just that when you suspected me, I jumped to my own defense."
"What do you mean, Terry?" asked Harry again.
Terry looked around quickly and then said in a low voice, "That day I was at the field you see, and I saw you there, or a clone of you rather because I knew something was wrong when the clone patted me on the back and it was cold. Then Samantha came running along looking for Ron saying something about wanting to make up again. Your clone took out a wand and shot it at Samantha shouting those deadly words. I knew it was dangerous so I ran for my life dodging the attacks as the clone turned to me after Samantha fell. I feared that someone would suspect me, like you did, so I came back with a sort of happy face."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione all nodded, and then Harry said, "Come on, let's get to Hogsmeade and we'll go to the Three Broomsticks for butterbeer and talk more. Meet you there."
"Deal," Terry gave a weak smile.
Harry gave a sigh as he headed back to the Gryffindor common room with Ron and Hermione for their cloaks. He fully believed Terry now, but it also meant a terrible dead end. Was Samantha truly dead or not? And who's the one doing all this work? Then as he grabbed his cloak, he turned to his friend with eyes wide open, "Do you – do you suppose Samantha did all this stuff and ran away, just like you suggested earlier, Hermione?"
"I can only give you my suspicious," said Hermione with a puzzled look, "but I don't get it either."
"No way, I don't believe it," said Ron, "Samantha would never do something like this. She's a wonderful girl! It must be… I don't know. Maybe Terry was lying all along and is just leading us into a trap?"
"If so, we'll just have to watch out at the Three Broomsticks then," said Harry frowning.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione headed through the cold wind cutting their faces. Finally they reached the Three Broomsticks. Just as they were about to head in, they heard two familiar voices talking. Harry signaled to the other two and they tried to slip in through a crowd. They managed to get a table near the corner covered by a christmas tree. Hermione did the see through spell again and they could see Terry and Professor Snape shaking hands.
"I want a quick word with you Terry," said Snape, "won't take any time…"
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Well well well… anyway, I'm still thinking about when should Cho at least be nice to Harry again… meanwhile, there's the rest of the plot on this cloning business.