Sorry about the longer than usual wait for this chapter - it is MUCH longer than the usual chapter length and I hope you enjoy it…
Please, please, please review - your comments always make me smile, and I need to do more of that! It'll also give me an indication of what's happening with the author alerts as well (ie if you're getting one or not!) Thanks
"I skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day
So still I could hear each set of ripples
As they crossed. I felt each stone's inertia
Spend itself against the water, then sink."
Detention and Deductions
Snowdrops bravely left the warm, dark earth and poked their heads through the remaining patches of snow on the lawns, shivering in the bracing January air. Ginny saw them first, and was utterly enchanted by the tiny, fragile flowers. Harry watched her bend to touch them gently, her vivid hair whirling around her in the breeze, casting a beautifully stark contrast with the whiteness of the world.
He'd clambered up onto the stone wall surrounding the rose garden, and was sitting kicking his feet against it, as he waited for her to take notes on some of the plants she needed for an essay. He was brooding badly, but trying hard not to let it show. Ginny knew; her expression when she looked at him sometimes told him that, but she never pressed him on it, for which he was eternally grateful. The incident at Christmas had really bothered him, far more than he cared to admit. It wasn't so much the threat of Voldemort wanting to kill him that was churning away inside him; more a sickening sensation of guilt.
He did feel guilty; very guilty. He was alive; Cedric was dead. His parents had died because of him too. How many other people were going to meet a terrible fate in the clutches of Lord Voldemort and his supporters? It had been his choice that had let Wormtail escape, and worst of all, it was his blood which had allowed Voldemort to rise again. He should have been able to do something to prevent that. He kicked the wall hard in frustration, and little fragments of stone splintered and crumbled on the earth.
That report in 'The Daily Prophet' had made him uneasy. He'd known that Voldemort's hold was growing, and that people were starting to live in fear again, but it all seemed so safe here at Hogwarts. It was easy to forget about it all sometimes. Too easy. That man they'd seen, Athenasius Scott, had been tortured to the very brink of death by the Death Eaters, seeking information for Voldemort. The newspaper told of the final action that ended his life; a laughing hooded figure had used the Imperius curse on the broken man, and made him blast through his brain with his own wand.
Seeing that body in the moonlit corridor had brought it all back. The contorted, twisted face of a soul in fiendish torment; of suffering so bad that death was an ally. Harry could hear the cold thin voice, mercilessly penetrating the back of his mind, casting the curse on him with such relish:
'Crucio!'
He could hear his own screams, as the agony ripped through his body; nerve endings ablaze in the most excruciating torture, pain blistering its way from the core of him, severing through every inch until it exploded through his very skin. He closed his eyes. Heart beating fast.
Yet he had survived.
***
Term had already begun in earnest, and the castle was filled with voices clamouring in the hall and reverberating through the corridors with happy news of this and that. Harry felt strangely alienated from it all, like being underwater whilst everyone else was conversing on dry land, but the colossal increase in workload for the fifth years as they approached their O.W.L.s was enough to shift his mind from the worst of his worries.
"I can't believe they expect us to do all this," Ron moaned at regular intervals, from behind large stacks of books. "What do they think we are? House elves or something?"
"Don't say that!" Hermione snapped, as she wearily lifted her head from the long roll of parchment covered in her tiny handwriting. "Anyway, the work's not so bad. Some of this is really interesting."
"It's not so bad if you have 30 hours in the day, Hermione," he retorted, rolling his eyes at Harry. It said a lot about how much pressure they were under that Ron didn't even have time to argue with her properly, but contented himself with a mere shrug before he submerged himself in his books, sighing heavily, once more.
Between this and regular Quidditch training sessions neither Ron nor Harry had much time to themselves. The Quidditch was both exhilarating and exhausting, and Harry pushed his team to their very limits of endurance under the pretext of the forthcoming match against Slytherin, which none of them had any intention of losing. Harry wasn't complaining about the pressure like the rest of his peers; he was all too thankful for it. Sheer exhaustion made him collapse in bed each night into dreamless sleep, rather than nightmares.
Time with Ginny was also incredibly scarce. Breakfast was the only opportunity they had to be together some days, and both of them regarded this half-hour jealously. Harry would often smile at her as she passed him in the corridor, heading in the opposite direction, surrounded by a chattering gaggle of the rest of the Gryffindor fourth years, but rarely got an opportunity to say more than a couple of words to her. He was elated when she began learning summoning charms with Professor Flitwick, as once or twice he was hurrying to class and heard her delighted voice, somewhere behind him, giggle,
"Accio!"
Before he'd realised what had happened, he'd been magically abducted into a nearby broom cupboard, where Ginny was waiting, wearing that innocent expression that he found utterly irresistible.
"Fancy seeing you here," she laughed softly, her eyes twinkling up at him as he pulled her into his arms to kiss her. "Such a coincidence." Five minutes later, Harry would be found running down the corridor, hair untidier than ever, late for his lesson, but with a completely irrepressible grin on his face.
The lessons themselves were also increasing in pace and intensity as their exams grew ever closer. Tiredness lined every face, tempers were short and on more than one occasion Lavender Brown had fled a classroom in floods of tears. Neville looked permanently woebegone and he was developing something of a mental block about even the simplest of spells, to the extent where he couldn't even transfigure a match stick into a needle and they'd been doing that since the first year.
"I've had enough of this," Ron muttered to Harry, as they trudged down the dimly lit underground passageways to the Potions dungeon one Friday afternoon. "We could all do with a good laugh, if you ask me, and anyway, it's about time I got that detention with Snape to see what we can find out about what he's up to." He grinned over at Harry and pulled a small glass jar out of his bag. "Blasting Beetle Eyes," he whispered, eyes sparkling in anticipation. "Fred and George's new prototype."
Gryffindors lined up along one wall of the corridor, with the Slytherins opposite them. Little was said until they caught the end of a conversation that Malfoy was having as he strolled up with Crabbe and Goyle and joined the end of the Slytherin line.
"Of course, Father always said that this O.W.L.s year would sort out the sheep from the goats. I don't know why everyone is complaining; we wouldn't want just anyone getting qualifications as a wizard, even if Dumbledore does let them into the school." The stress levels became almost audible at this, and the air crackled with tension. Emotions, which had been wound up tightly like coiled springs, exploded all at once and the small underground passageway rang with sheer fury. Malfoy regarded them in disdain, not looking in the slightest bit disconcerted, but as Harry quickly realised, this was mainly because Snape was now standing in the doorway.
A total hush fell over the class, and they made their way silently into the dungeon, despondent to have lost ten points for Gryffindor. They sat at their regular tables, and without any bidding, rescued their text books from their bags, opened them and waited. Snape strolled around the cavernous room, black eyes glittering with malice as they rested briefly on Harry, and then moved on. Harry glared back, loathing the Potions Master every bit as much as Snape hated him.
As he listened to Snape explain about the potion they were to be attempting that lesson and asking questions directed straight at class members like bullets, part of Harry's brain was elsewhere. He regarded Snape dispassionately for once, and wondered what it was that had persuaded him to return to Voldemort's service. A lot of things really didn't make any sense at all. If Snape had been responsible for the death of the man in the fifth floor corridor because he'd been with the Death Eaters, then why had he brought the body to Hogwarts, and how? Why was it that Dumbledore trusted him? Harry frowned deeply, and wished he understood.
"The Revalescere
Harry and Ron worked almost silently round their cauldron, focusing on exact measurements for the potion. Snape drifted around the room, peering at their work, and criticising harshly.
"Finnegan, it says two teaspoons of ground bat bones. You'll have to learn to read better than that," Snape's voice echoed through the quietness of the room, and Harry saw Seamus scowl at his teacher when his back was turned. Hermione was next to Ron and Harry. She had instantly paired up with Neville in a desperate attempt to protect him from the worst of Snape's malevolence, but nervously kept checking up on what Ron and Harry were doing.
"She doesn't trust us," Ron said in an undertone, grinning at Harry when Snape's back was turned.
"I'm not surprised," Harry chuckled beneath his breath. "What do these things of Fred and George's do exactly?"
"No idea," whispered Ron cheerfully. "Let's find out."
He unscrewed the lid from the jar and prodded the contents curiously with his index finger. Harry had to fight to keep himself from laughing out loud when he saw the expression of utter revulsion on Ron's face.
"How many do we put in?" Harry asked, watching Snape bend over to praise Malfoy's potion.
"This many," Ron grinned, letting a pinch of the beetle eyes fall into their cauldron. They stepped backwards. Rapidly.
It was better than they could have ever imagined. The 'Blasting Beetle Eyes' certainly lived up to their title. The emerald potion bubbled furiously, building up momentum as the rumbling increased. Within seconds, a massive explosion caused the entire contents of their pewter cauldron to hurtle from the confines of the container, and ricochet off the ceiling. Liquid shot across the dungeon at every conceivable angle, drenching the entire class with a greenish slimy substance. The screams and shrieks rang through the cavernous room, as both Gryffindors and Slytherins felt the impact and scattered for shelter.
"Potter and Weasley!" Snape's voice cut coldly through the chaos that reigned in the room. He surveyed their charred and partially molten cauldron, and moved towards them looking rather menacing. "I might have guessed." The class froze and watched anxiously. A large gloop of green slime dripped silently from the ceiling and landed on Snape's greasy black hair, in what would have been an absolutely hilarious manner, had it not been for the expression on his face. Harry's vision was partially obscured by the sludge covering his glasses, and he hurriedly wiped them on the only clean bit of his robes he could find. He pushed them up his nose again to find Snape's face merely inches away from his own, staring at them with thinly veiled disgust. "Detention," he spat the word out. "You will be here tonight until this place is spotless, and you will not be using magic to achieve it. I think that and fifty points from Gryffindor will persuade you never to attempt something like this again."
The class slipped and slid on the slime as they silently struggled to leave the dungeon, hair glued against their heads by the sticky remains of the potion. None of them looked at each other, until they were halfway back to the Gryffindor common room, and Harry sneaked a sideways glance at Hermione. He could see her lips firmly pressed together, and her eyes were fixed on the floor in front of her. His heart sank. They clambered through the portrait hole, squelching and dripping the potion everywhere, and stood regarding one another in stunned silence. Seamus caught Dean's eye as a glob of the greenish liquid oozed from Parvati's hair onto her nose, and they suddenly exploded into fits of laughter. A couple of seconds later the entirety of the Gryffindor fifth years, still covered in slime, were howling with absolute pleasure at what had just happened.
"Did you see Malfoy?" Hermione giggled hysterically. The tension, which had been weighing her down recently, disappeared like summer morning mist. "He was absolutely covered in the stuff. And Snape!"
"It was so cool!" Dean's laughter was uncontrollable. "I mean, you've upset the Slytherins and got us out of Potions early. You can't get better than that."
***
Detention that evening was every bit as grim as they expected, although it did turn up something quite curious. Harry was on his hands and knees, thoughtfully scrubbing his way around the floor where they had been sitting. He paused every now and then, dipped his brush back into the soapy water, and began scouring more green potion off the stone flags. Ron was equally busily engaged in wiping down the walls at the furthest end of the dungeon. He was moving vigorously to get it done. Muggle cleaning never had been Ron's favourite past time. Both of their wands lay untouched on Snape's desk.
Snape watched them for a while, and then wandered into his little office at the back of the classroom, leaving the door ajar so he could hear if they did anything extraordinary. It was at this point that their secret weapon came into play. Hermione's hand and wand appeared out of thin air, and Harry just heard her voice softly casting a scouring charm on the ceiling, which was miraculously clear a few minutes later. They had argued with her about coming with them, but she'd been quite insistent about it; she had needed a laugh as much as any of them, she explained. Besides, being safely concealed within Harry's invisibility cloak, she could examine the contents of the dungeon at leisure, whilst giving them a hand with the cleaning at the same time.
At last, Harry knelt back on his heels, his back aching and hands sore, and wiped his brow on his sleeve. A disembodied hand was clearly visible turning papers on Snape's desk. It paused, waved cheerfully at him, and then continued with its work.
"I think that's it from down here," he said in relief. "How's it going over there?"
"Oh, I'm having more fun than I've ever had in my life," Ron retorted with sarcasm, balancing precariously on a tall wooden stool to reach an awkward splatter of the substance above the door. "If anyone comes in now, I'm done for. You've missed a bit under that desk, Harry."
Harry groaned and crawled to the spot Ron had indicated, banging his head on the table as he did so.
Suddenly, he was distracted from his task by a frantic waving from Hermione's hand, more of her arm appearing into view in her desperate efforts to attract their attention. He scrambled to his feet, listening carefully for sounds of Snape returning, but there were none.
"There's a big bit across here," he said meaningfully to Ron. "Want to give me a hand when you've finished that?" Ron twisted round to see, and gave a startled yelp as the stool unexpectedly overbalanced and came crashing to the floor with him. Hermione's hand instantly vanished, and Snape's profile appeared in the doorway.
"Do try and be more careful, Weasley," he said nastily, down to where Ron was sprawled across the floor. "I think you've caused enough damage in here already." He turned to Harry, his dark eyes filled with more hatred than ever. "Potter, you need to scrub over again by my desk. It's not clean enough." Harry silently sank back to his knees, not far from where he reckoned Hermione was, and began washing the floor again. He was seething inwardly; the floor was spotless, and he knew Snape was doing this deliberately to provoke him. However, Hermione had obviously found something, and the sooner Snape went back into his office, the better. He diligently scoured the flags, and to his relief, Snape soon lost interest and disappeared.
He straightened up, and raised his eyebrows quizzically at the thin air before him. The hand appeared again and pointed to a series of press clippings half-hidden beneath a stack of parchment. Harry stared in disbelief when he flicked through them. They were all articles about Death Eater activities from The Daily Prophet, but if Snape was so heavily involved, why would he want to keep the reports? It was definitely odd for him to leave evidence like this lying around. Hermione's hand grabbed his arm and tugged him further along the desk, letting go to jab frantically at a thin leather bound volume, emblazoned with the legend, 'Palliative Potions'. Harry tried to fathom what this could mean, but before he could whisper the question forming in his mind, he heard a gruff voice drifting through the door to Snape's office.
"Severus, they say the next one is going to happen tonight," the new voice said, filled entirely with panic. Ron stood, stock still, near the door, leaning slightly sideways to try and see who was speaking.
"It can't," Snape's tones too were uncharacteristically tense as he spoke to the other man. "Everything isn't in place yet." He paused, and they heard a scraping of a chair. Ron and Harry immediately began cleaning with a vengeance, and the door creaked open. "Potter. Weasley. Get out of my sight!" Snape snapped at them. Harry and Ron looked at each other and mutely began to collect the cleaning utensils together. "Just go!" Snape yelled. They did as they were bid, Hermione kept a hand on Harry's back, so he could feel where she was, and they all hurried out of the dungeon safely.
"What's going on?" Ron asked in a hushed voice, when they were safely ensconced in the common room once more. It was late now because the detention had taken far longer than they had expected, and Harry noticed, with a pang of regret, that Ginny appeared to have gone to bed.
"I'm not sure," Hermione said slowly, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. "Whatever the whole story is, I don't think Snape has gone back into You-Know-Who's service. I really don't." Harry and Ron looked at her in surprise, and she gazed back steadily. "Look at it like this," she explained. "He's keeping track of what the Death Eaters are up to because we found that pile of press clippings. If he honestly was one of You-Know-Who's trusted inner circle, he'd know all that stuff anyway."
"But there was that man telling him what was going to happen tonight," Harry objected.
"I know," Hermione said, frowning even more deeply. "But what if... what if Snape's involved from a different angle? There was that book on palliative potions, and they're designed to reduce the suffering of the dying. Suppose he's double-crossing You-Know-Who and not Dumbledore. He can't stop the killings, but he can do something to help those being attacked."
"What about that body, then?" Ron asked, sounding completely incredulous at Hermione's far-flung theory. "He wasn't taking that for a picnic."
"Cedric wanted his body returned to his parents," Harry said quietly, and he felt a bit awkward as his two friends looked at him with sudden concern; he had spoken very little to them about this. "Maybe that's what Snape was doing at Christmas." He stared into the crackling flames in the grate, and watched them dancing, hundreds of shades of orange and yellow entwining and casting a warm glow around them. At length he looked back up, and smiled wryly. "I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, Hermione, but I think you're right."
"Hey!" she protested in mock-outrage, throwing a cushion at him and laughing. Then she suddenly became quite serious once more. She leaned forwards and spoke in a lower tone. "The thing that really worries me is that there are obviously ways that people can get in and out of Hogwarts. Snape did it with the body, and someone was in his office visiting him tonight. If You-Know-Who is after you Harry, you might not be as safe here as we thought." Her expression was full of anxiety and her voice quivered slightly as she added, "Oh Harry, you will be careful, won't you?"
***
Harry's eyes flickered open the following morning to see the inky blue darkness of the dormitory being slowly diluted by the watery light of morning. For a moment, he couldn't understand what had woken him, but then he felt a dim throbbing in his head; the echo of what would have been excruciating pain shooting through his scar, had it not been for Ginny and the charm. At six in the morning, he reasoned it was pointless to try and go back to sleep, so he slid out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and took his book of Quidditch tactics downstairs for company.
He had just settled into one of the chairs by the fire, when a set of footsteps rapidly pattering down the stairs made him glance up. Ginny emerged through the shadows of the stairwell, blinking sleepily as she struggled into a rather large chequered dressing gown, which Harry recognised as an old one of Ron's from his second year. He smiled at her dishevelled appearance, her hair completely wild and untamed, and saw her dark eyes dart around the common room apprehensively, until they came to rest on him.
"I thought it was you," she exclaimed in relief. Harry noticed her rubbing her left wrist as she hurried towards him. "Are you OK?"
"Fine," he said, grinning and reaching out for her. "Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you with scar pains, but it's so good to see you for a change."
She smiled softly at him, and to Harry's delight, responded to his touch by curling up contentedly in his lap, a wayward lock of scarlet hair tickling his ear.
"Well, at least it shows the charm's still working," she said, stretching up her hand to trace his scar and sending shivers of pleasure down his spine. "It must have been a bad one this time."
"Mm." Harry could feel her still warm from sleep as he held her closely in his arms, and kissed her forehead. "Y'know," he teased her gently. "I never thought I'd be doing this with Ron's dressing gown."
"I'm glad to hear it," she laughed, and settled into silence, content simply to be there with him. Harry could feel happiness flooding through him, waging a war against the worries which had recently taken up residence and were squatting in his heart. He could feel her head nestled right beside his own, her steady breath drifting over his skin and the wonderful smell of her hair. His fears about Voldemort were cast aside as the enchantment that was Ginny Weasley overpowered his every sense.
"Harry?" Her voice broke through the stillness, after a while. "You don't have to bottle all of this up and deal with it on your own. You do know that, don't you?"
He subconsciously tightened his grip on her. Ginny had this uncanny ability to see straight through him, and it was quite unnerving sometimes. He'd always dealt with things on his own; even Ron and Hermione only got an edited version of most things. With Ginny, he wanted to trust her; he did trust her, but this was difficult.
"Yes," he said quietly. "Gin, do you want to go for a walk round the lake or somewhere?"
"OK," she smiled at him, and wriggled off his knee. "Although I'm passing up the chance of a wonderful row with Ron. Can you imagine his expression if he caught us now?" Her eyes danced impishly as she pictured her brother's confused horror. "Ginny, what are you doing down here with Harry at this time in the morning? Go and put some clothes on. I mean, you're wearing clothes, but you should be wearing clothes." Harry snorted with laughter.
Fifteen minutes later they were outside in the crisp stillness of the morning air. Dew drenched the grass still, and the hems of their cloaks absorbed the moisture rather like sponges, as they trampled their way down the lawns to the edge of the lake. The water itself was a steely-grey colour, mirroring the coldness of the sky. It was deadly calm, not a ripple shattered the surface. Clouds hung heavy overhead, as the entire world seemed to be holding its breath. They turned, as if with one mind, to stroll clockwise round the lake, the earthen path worn smooth by feet of yesteryear. He briefly wondered if his parents had been amongst those who had walked this way once, and half-smiled to himself. Ginny slid her hand into his, but said nothing as they wandered along the undulating track beside the shore, stepping around tree roots, and glancing out over the tranquillity of the stretch of water on their right.
They rounded the final bend, the castle turrets looming large above the trees, and Harry came to a sudden halt. Ginny whirled round to look at him, her hair rippling over her shoulders in its myriad of colours.
"Ginny, is your wrist still hurting?" Harry asked with some trepidation.
"Not now," she replied, moving closer to him. "It gave a bit of a stronger twinge just before, then it stopped altogether. Why?"
"Mine too," he said, a sensation of dread beginning to form. He pulled away from her, and began to walk restlessly in the opposite direction.
"Harry!"
He turned to face her, and was torn apart by the conflicting emotions struggling to explode from within. Her eyes were clouded with confusion and concern, and he saw her nervously fiddle with her fingers as she tried to work out what to say to him. He sank down on a nearby log, and ran his fingers through his hair, as he gazed fixedly over the water, not knowing what to say either.
"Gin," he whispered, hardly trusting himself to speak. "The pain stops when Voldemort has finished whatever it was he was up to. Something's just happened. Something awful. It must have been. I've not felt the scar much since you did the charm in October."
"You can't do anything about that, Harry," she responded softly, sitting down next to him. "It's not your fault."
Harry picked up a stone and threw it forcefully into the lake. A large splash of water sent hundreds of tiny droplets into the air, tumbling down on the glassy surface. Tiny ripples spread out and collided with one another as they stretched across the calmness of the lake.
"It feels like it's my fault," he said angrily, as he picked up another stone to hurl.
"Harry!" Ginny said his name so forcefully that he looked up at her in surprise. "All you're guilty of is not dying when he tried to kill you, and saving me from the Chamber of Secrets. Personally I think they're good things."
"You don't know the whole story," Harry replied grimly, skimming his second stone across the water and watching it bounce four times before it sank. He explained to her, haltingly at first, then words tumbling out of his mouth so fast he could barely stop them; Wormtail's escape, the rebirth of Voldemort, all that had happened. Ginny listened, blanching when she heard what he'd been through, but gazing steadily at him all the while with those deep brown eyes. She heard every word without interruption, until he could speak no more.
"It's not your fault," she repeated, holding him in her arms. "It's like you said to me last summer; none of this is your fault. Let go of the past, Harry."
"It's not easy," he said wryly.
"I know. It takes time, but you can't keep blaming yourself like this."
"How did you get to understand me so well?" he smiled, and leaned to kiss her.
"Ah, well…" Harry was entertained to see her blushing.
"Ginny?"
"OK," she giggled. "You'll like this. You know that massive crush I had on you in my first and second year?"
"I had noticed something of the sort," Harry teased. "I seem to remember being pinned to the floor and serenaded in a corridor by a dwarf."
"Don't remind me," she turned puce, and buried her head briefly in her hands. "Anyway, I must have spent hours following you around. I watched every single Quidditch practise from the library, and found out things about you from everyone who knew you. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, I even had to resort to reading every book I could get my hands on with you in it…" Her voice trailed away, and she joined in with Harry's laughter.
"You're wonderful," Harry said, grinning at her, when he had finished chuckling.
"I think that about you as well," she said quietly. "I want to help if I can. Don't shut me out, Harry."
"I won't," he promised.
The castle was strangely silent when they returned from their stroll. A swift glance at his watch told Harry that it was time for breakfast, yet the Great Hall was entirely deserted. None of the tables were even laid for the meal. Ginny looked at him quizzically, and they hurried up the marble staircase, and along various deserted corridors and more stairs until they reached the common room.
They almost collided with Professor McGonagall as they clambered past the fat lady and into the room.
"Where have you been?" she said sharply, her eyes surveying them seriously through her spectacles.
"Just for a walk around the lake before breakfast," Ginny explained, looking extremely confused by everything, especially as they hadn't broken any rules, for once. Harry was not surprised she was bamboozled; the whole of Gryffindor were crowded into the common room, and Ginny's three brothers were now descending upon her with huge hugs of total relief.
"What's happened?" Harry asked quickly.
"You are to stay in the common room," Professor McGonagall told them both. "We need to complete a thorough search of the castle and grounds. A student has been taken from the castle, and we fear…" She took a steadying breath. "Stay here, Potter. That's all I ask."
As Professor McGonagall swept out of the room, Harry turned to Ron and Hermione.
"We thought something had happened to you," Hermione explained.
"McGonagall reckons it's one of those ways in here we were talking about last night that was used to take this kid," Ron added. "That's what they're searching for. They think it's to do with You-Know-Who."