Harry's Dilemma
Chapter Two
Harry added a final
stroke to his commentary on Charms for the Curing of Warts: Arguments for and
Against, looked at his watch and sighed. He carefully cleaned his quill, rolled the parchment containing his
essay and began to close and pack up his books in preparation for
detention. Ron looked up, glanced at
the common room clock and grimaced sympathetically.
"See you later." He
said. Save for a wry smile, Harry did
not respond at all but quietly left the Common Room for the Library. One of the reasons Harry had made no comment
to Ron regarding his detention was that it was virtually impossible for him to
do so honestly and still remain friends. To be sure, there were far worse detentions than with Madame Pince in
the Library - Fred and George would probably attest to that the following
morning – but this evening Harry would have sooner followed Snape into the
Forbidden Forest to hunt for werewolves.
"What is it with Ginny
these days?" he muttered between his teeth as he made his reluctant way through
the seemingly endless corridors. "She was so sweet when she was little – I used
to really enjoy playing and reading with her during the holidays when I stayed
with the Weasleys. Now – well, everyone thinks her practical joking has got seriously
out of hand and something has got to be done. The trouble is, I'm the only one who believes that she's doing it not
out of mischief but out of real dislike." He stopped suddenly and put his hands to his forehead.
"Oh Ginny!" he
murmured, "What have I done to make you hate me so much?"
"Got a headache,
Potter? Hope it's a bad one." The nasal drawl oozed down the corridor
after Harry as a grinning Malfoy appeared.
"Evening Malfoy."
responded Harry coldly. Malfoy's grin
grew wider.
"On our way to detention
with the delightful Miss Weasley, are we?" he continued, "Better hang a few
counter-curses on the way – you might need them." Harry sighed and faced his enemy with a resigned expression.
"I'm sorry, Malfoy,
I'm afraid I just don't have time for you at the moment. Come back at breakfast time and I'll play
the game, but right now I've just got too much on my mind. Excuse me." And he turned his back on a gaping Malfoy to make his weary way to the
library. It was only when Harry had
nearly reached the carved oak doors that he realised exactly what he had
done. His face creased into a small
smile as he entered the library and squared his shoulders for the ordeal ahead
– at least he'd silenced his enemy without the need for any of the usual
abusive words or magic. Left him
standing speechless, no less!
******************************
Ginny was already
there being lectured by Madame Pince. On hearing his footsteps, she turned her head and her cold gaze swept
indifferently over him before she turned her attention back to the
librarian. Harry felt crushed, but
continued into the room, having no other choice.
"Ah, Mr. Potter, so
good of you to come." Harry was never
sure whether Madame Pince was being sarcastic or not when she greeted him in
this manner, particularly for a detention.
"As I was just
explaining to Miss Weasley, there are twelve trolleys of books which need
replacing on the shelves. Some of them
are from the restricted section. These
you may not replace: you will stack them together neatly on one of the
empty trolleys when you have finished filing the non-restricted volumes. Afterwards," Madame Pince gave a ghost of a
smile on seeing a panic-stricken look cross Harry's face, "You may go to your
beds. However," and here she fixed them
with a beady-eyed look, "I trust that the recent, ah, disagreements between the
two of you will not spill over into this evening's work; in fact, I suggest you
use this opportunity to try to resolve your differences. Good evening to you both." And with that final shot, she swept out of
the library, leaving Harry open-mouthed. He shook his head helplessly and ran his fingers through his unruly
hair; he should have guessed that Ginny's pranks would not go unnoticed by the
teaching staff. Presently, he turned to
her to suggest that they make a start, but to his annoyance she had already
turned on her heel towards the great trolleys packed with books and was
starting to drag one slowly into the centre of the room where both access and
light would be better. Harry leaped
towards her.
"Let me help." He
offered. She scowled, refusing to meet
his eyes.
"I can manage. Get your own trolley." Having no other option, Harry did as he was
bid.
Their detention time
passed in silence, occasionally broken by Harry's increasingly desperate
attempts to initiate conversation, which always met with the same crushing
sarcasm. As the trolleys grew steadily
emptier, and the books were carefully replaced, Harry's determination to make
some sort of communication with Ginny became stronger. Finally, having replaced several books on a
very high shelf at the top of a library ladder, Harry decided to grab the bull
by the horns. He slid down the ladder, marched
over to Ginny's trolley and stepped around it.
"Ginny," he began,
then stopped. She was deeply involved
in a chapter of one of the books. Her
head snapped up guiltily, and she quickly closed the volume, but not before
Harry had seen the crucial "Restricted" inscription.
"Hey, you're not
supposed to be reading that!" he exclaimed, and reached for the book. Ginny backed away, holding the book high in
the air.
"And who are you to
tell me what to do?" her eyes were bright with fury, both at his discovery and
his protest. Harry made another grab
for the book, but she eluded him. In
the lamplight, he could just see the title "Countercurses: Resistance against
the Major Attacks and the Art of Reversal".
"Ginny," he repeated,
"You will be in serious trouble if anyone discovers you've been reading
restricted material." She made a face
at him.
"Going to stop me
then, are you?" she sneered, "The great Harry Potter, so much stronger and more
talented than any of the rest of us poor squibs." Harry felt anger rising.
"If you don't put that
book back on the trolley, that's exactly what I'm going to do." He reached out
a hand – and suddenly found he couldn't move it any further forward. Ginny grinned delightedly and pulled her
wand out of her pocket.
"Any more of that and
it'll be a full body bind." She announced. Harry's fury at her and all the grief she had caused him over the last
few months suddenly overflowed. He
didn't even stop to think how adept she must have become to cast that curse
without using her wand. Hardly even
feeling it, he broke her enchantment as easily as if it had been gossamer, and
physically started towards her. Ginny's
grin faded and an anxious look appeared in her eyes as she registered how angry
he had to be to achieve that. Still
clutching the book, she turned and ran swiftly from the library, her feet clattering
down the corridor.
"Ginny, the book …"
Harry was left in a state of indecision. On the one hand, he could let her go, keep the book and take the ton of
trouble which would descend very quickly upon her head once her actions became
known. It was likely that her
punishment would be enough to ensure that he did not suffer many more of her
pranks this term. She might even be
expelled – there his mind baulked. How
could he explain to Ron that he had seen Ginny in a potentially explosive
situation, and done nothing to help her? Besides, his own feelings … he cut short that particular line of
enquiry, and took off quickly in pursuit.
Once outside the
library, Harry paused. He had no idea
even of the direction Ginny had taken – she seemed to have disappeared into
thin air. Perhaps she had, but Harry
doubted it. There was no way Ginny
could have mastered the advanced magic of a dematerialisation spell, even from
a restricted book, at her young age, and besides, no one could disapparate or
apparate in Hogwarts Castle – strong magical wards prevented this. Suddenly, his eyes fell upon an object on
the floor of the corridor. He sprinted
towards it and picked it up: it was a handkerchief, and it was lying outside
the room known amongst Hogwarts students as the gym.
The Hogwarts gym was
similar to rooms given the same name in muggle schools in that it was big and
empty-seeming, and with a springy wooden floor. There, however, the resemblance ended. The ceiling was extremely high: so high, in fact, that had the
floor area been larger, an entire Quidditch match could possibly be played
solely within the confines of the room. In fact Quidditch was never played nor even practised in the Hogwarts
gym, but broomstick practice for awkward manoeuvres, obstacle flying and
broomstick aerobatics did take place here, and consequently the room was
designed appropriately. There was
nothing else in the room at present: during broomstick practice hoops, rings
and ropes, fire, water, earth and air obstacles were conjured out of the walls,
floor and ceiling to confuse the participants. Mists, fogs and rain could descend upon the hapless students, hail and
lightening could frighten the unwary into an unplanned manoeuvre, or even unseat
them at a critical moment. However, these
impediments were always provided through the skill of the teacher, and were
never solid physical bodies for long. When not in use, the room was as vast and empty as a cathedral.
Harry drew an unsteady
breath, advanced firmly on the huge wooden doors and stepped into the cavernous
darkness.
"Ginny." He whispered,
"Ginny, are you there?" He was answered
only by a faint mocking laugh, and suddenly the gym was flooded with
light. Shielding his eyes against the
glare, he could just make out a small, flame-haired figure standing in the
centre of the huge room. Ginny was
holding only her wand: there was no sign of the restricted book. Harry advanced on her angrily.
"Ginny, stop messing
about." He commanded, "We're in enough trouble as it is. What have you done with that book?" She smirked knowingly.
"It's in my pocket,
Harry." Her eyes dared him to challenge
her. Harry paused. Shrinking objects was no big deal – Harry
had mastered most of that art in his first year at Hogwarts – but a restricted
book of that quality always had protective charms woven around it (one reason
why Harry was so worried about Ginny removing it from the library), and
interference with its size and shape would be very difficult indeed. Ginny would have to have grown considerably
in stature as a sorceress since Harry had last spoken properly with her to
achieve that level of expertise. But if
she had not enchanted it, what had she done with it? He began walking towards her, but she twitched her wand slightly
in his direction and he stopped. She
shook her head, still smiling.
"No further, Harry
Potter." Harry stopped.
"Ginny, look," he
began, "We need to get back to the library to get finished before …" She was
shaking her head.
"Not yet." She said
quietly, "First, we see if you can make me return the book." Harry stared in astonishment, then swallowed
on a suddenly dry throat.
"Are you talking about
a duel? Ginny, we're neither of us
licensed wizards. That's strictly
against the law – we wouldn't just be expelled if anyone found out, it'd be
much worse!"
"But they won't – not
unless you tell them." Harry fell
silent debating his best course of action. Ginny's grin widened.
"Not scared of little
old me, are you – Famous Harry Potter, wizard extraordinaire, the great white hope
of Hogwarts and the magical world, the only one who can defeat Voldemort." Here, Harry gave a gasp. Years ago, Albus Dumbledore had advised him
to call a spade a spade when it came to naming the unnameable, but to his
knowledge, no-one else had ever followed suit. It shocked him to hear Ginny following the same path. Wait a minute. Ginny had once been possessed by a shadow of Voldemort inside a
book – was she thus possessed again? Was this the reason …
"No, Harry, I'm not
working for Voldemort, not this time. This time I'm just working for me." He stared.
"How did you…?" She laughed.
"Perhaps I can read
minds." She said flatly, "Or perhaps your thoughts were just as plain as
daylight on your face. You
choose." She raised her wand, "I'm
getting impatient, Harry." Harry came
to a decision. Ginny was in the year
below him, had not yet started the extra tuition which was making such a
difference to his own abilities, and was, after all, not – well, not special
in the same way as he was. It was likely
that he could take her on and win in reasonably short order, and then no-one
need be any the wiser as to the enormity of their transgression. Removal of a restricted book from the
library was an extremely serious offence, one of the lesser penalties for which
was expulsion. Surely he would merely
be protecting her from the consequences of her hasty action - after all, it
wasn't as though he was likely to lose – was he? If he could get this settled quickly, replace the book in the
library and retire gratefully to his bed, then no one would ever know what he
had done – and he wouldn't have to explain anything to Ron either. Harry pulled his wand out of his
pocket. He held it vertically before
him, both hands around its base, and touched his forehead to the tip in the
classic wizard's acceptance of challenge. Looking up, he saw that Ginny had mirrored his action and was standing,
waiting passively for him to make first strike, as was his right. Taking a short time to organise his
thoughts, Harry opted for a simple confusion spell to begin with. Ginny cottoned on to that one almost
immediately and brushed it aside with contempt. Her response was a devastating wave of illusion that totally
destroyed his sense of perspective. Distracted, he abandoned all pretence at gentlemanly conduct and
unleashed a sneaky side attack using a little-known fire curse which affected
only the soles of the feet. Ginny was
at first puzzled, then screamed partly in pain, partly surprise. Taking advantage of her distraction, Harry
immediately volleyed in with a disabling spell, but she was too fast for
him. Ignoring the pain in her feet,
Ginny drew a swift circle in front of her body and muttered quickly. The circle became a shining disc acting like
a magical trampoline: Harry ducked just in time to avoid being hit by his own
curse. Ginny's retaliatory thrust came
directly on its heels – a nasty little lightening strike spell which partially
caught Harry, immobilizing his right arm.
It was at this point
that Harry's irritation with Ginny sharpened into real resentment, and he
started working towards winning the duel for itself, rather than simply trying
to curtail her maverick behaviour. His
right arm quickly recovered – the spell had not been a powerful one, and most
of it had been deflected by reflex action – and he suddenly unleashed a barrage
of different fire attacks, each following closely on the previous. When the smoke cleared, to his amazement,
she was still standing. Beads of sweat
stood out on her forehead and her breath was coming in slow gasps, but she was
still very much a going concern – as Harry quickly found out when an arctic
lake upended itself on top of him. The
next few minutes were very busy indeed. Harry had a good idea that if he were to pause, even for a moment, he
would drown – Ginny seemed to be determined on dousing any possibility of a
renewal of his fire attacks with water in all imaginable forms. Harry concentrated on defence, a small part
of his mind involved in strategy even as he fought for survival. Eventually Ginny had to make a small pause
in her salvo to regroup, and it was then that Harry struck, hard and swiftly,
ruthlessly clawing back lost ground. Lightening attacks followed by howling tornadoes, arrows of wind and
helicopter gunships – all of these she managed to deflect, repel or neutralize
before they did her any serious damage. Suddenly, to his astonishment, she not only bounced his final and most
deadly air attack, a kind of electric tornado, right back at him, full speed,
but also began another onslaught of quite different curses and spells.
"Good Lord!" he found
himself thinking as he battled furiously for the upper hand, "My word, but
she's good. No wonder Ron thinks she's
going to be the best in his family. The
question is, am I going to survive it?" He ceased that line of thought and
directed all his energies into a sudden and very imaginative attack – he threw
a surge of raw power directly at Ginny, together with a small camouflage charm
which made it look like a muggle express train. If he expected to phase her, he was wrong. One startled glance was enough: she held up
her wand, once again drawing her magic circle.
"Reversus!" Her voice
rang out sharply, there was a sudden roaring noise, and the next moment he was
crashing against the rear wall of the gym, fully ten feet distant. Harry blacked out briefly and came to with a
whistling in his ears and stars revolving round his head. He lay, his eyes shut, unable to move,
registering nothing – not even the humiliation of defeat. There was a deafening silence, then –
"Harry?" a small voice
pierced his stupor.
"Harry?" the voice
repeated, louder this time when he didn't reply. Then he heard running footsteps getting closer, and a cool hand
rested on his head.
"Harry, are you
alright?" the voice was breathless and worried, "Oh, what have I done? I didn't mean to …" Ginny never finished her
sentence. Harry, no longer unconscious
and beginning to feel the faint stirrings of his previous anger, hooked his
right leg around her ankles and pulled hard. Crying out sharply in surprise, Ginny lost her balance and fell heavily
on to Harry. With an effort that set
his ears whistling again, Harry heaved himself on top of her, the weight of his
body pinning her to the floor, flung her wand arm above her head with his left
hand and with his right forced the tip of his own wand under her chin.
"Expelliarmus!" he
rasped, between clenched teeth. Ginny's
wand flew out of her hand to land with a clatter on the floor ten feet distant. For a moment there was silence broken only
by Harry's ragged gasps for breath. He
began to speak, mouth almost touching her ear, his breath hot on her neck.
"Never relax your
guard," he began in a low voice, pausing every few words to catch his breath,
"Until your opponent - has conceded your victory. The Art of Sorcerous Duelling from the Fourteenth - Century to
the Present Day by Rosamund Rochard. I
recommend it." Ginny couldn't look at
him.
"Capitulatus." She
whispered almost inaudibly, without relaxing her expression of bitter chagrin.
Harry did not move
away from her immediately. He felt
extremely tired, disappointed and, in some peculiar way, guilty as if he
himself had been at fault. She had,
after all, issued the challenge and had all but obliged him to pick up the
gauntlet despite the obvious law-breaking, but, looking now at her pretty face,
miserable in defeat and humiliation, Harry could not but feel that he had won
under false pretences. With an effort,
he levered himself away from her and climbed wearily to his feet. She sat up, but paused before rising
further. He extended a hand to help
her; she shook her head, and got to her feet under her own steam.
"Where is it, Ginny?"
she looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, then gave a small, mirthless
laugh.
"It never left the
library, Harry." She told him, "I sent it back to the trolley before I even
passed through the doors. A book like
that would have a number of magical alarms attached to it – I wouldn't have got
further than the corridor." Harry
stared at her, incredulous.
"Then – then what was
all this about?" he gestured to the now silent and empty gym, "Why this
terrible risk, this ridiculous challenge?" She shook her head, then squared her shoulders and raised her eyes to his. Irrelevantly, Harry noticed that she was
only an inch or so shorter than he was.
"I wanted to see how
good I was – and you're the best, Harry Potter. Oh, I know Hermione gets better grades, and Parvati has the edge
in divination, etc. etc. But in the
things that really matter – the things one needs to defend oneself, to preserve
ones life in the face of danger – well, no-one can touch you, everybody knows
that." She gave him a small smile.
"And I nearly beat
you, I really did." The smile faded, she
dropped her eyes and turned on her heel, "Let's finish those books before
sunrise, otherwise we'll be in even deeper trouble." Glancing at his watch, Harry was appalled to realise that it was
4.00am. He followed her back to the
library where they finished replacing the books, tidied up and finally,
wearily, went in search of their beds without exchanging another word.