CHAPTER EIGHT
SECRETS
There was more writing! It looked like a signature, but it was only a few letters.
Professe
D
Ron and Harry exchanged wide-eyed glances.
"Delacour did write it!" Ron said, taking the paper and looking hard at it, as if there were something hidden in the fibers. Suddenly, Harry swiped it back and stared at the front, eyes wide.
"Ron, this is the same paper that I saw sitting on Delacour's desk earlier today! Er... yesterday, I mean." he said, glancing up at the huge clock near the staircase.
"How do you know?"
"Well, for one thing, it's in purple ink. She always uses purple ink. And it also has that written on it." He pointed at the 'Professeur S'. "Remember when I told you and Hermione about it?"
"Oh yeah, huh!" Ron replied, sounding a little absent-minded.
"Yeah, huh!" Harry said in a mocking tone. He laughed and hid his face behind his arm as a pillow was suddenly chucked at him. He leaned over the side of the chair and picked the pillow up. "It's two-thirty in the morning. I think we should get to bed. We can show it to Hermione tomorrow, see what she thinks about it."
At this, Ron suddenly looked indignant. "Why are you always wanting to let her in on everything?! You know what she'd say! She'd simply tell us to show it to Dumbledore resulting in the both of us getting into trouble! That's always her logic."
Harry furrowed his eyebrows. "She doesn't always say that! Besides, she's better at solving these things than the both of us put together."
"But what if she tells a teacher on us?"
"She wouldn't!"
"But-"
"Has she ever?"
"Well... no."
"Then, there you go!"
Ron stared down at the floor, opening and closing his mouth several times like he wanted to say something but wouldn't allow himself to, as if it would incriminate him. Harry shrugged. "I just think it would be a better idea rather than to keep it from her. And you can imagine how she'd react when she found out we didn't let her know about it."
Ron's eyes widened slowly. Then, with an anxious sort of tone, muttered "We'd better tell her then, shouldn't we?"
"Uh huh." Harry grinned with amusement. All those familiar with Hermione knew never to keep major secrets from her. She always found out sooner than you planned, and that just made it all the more disastrous in the end.
Harry awoke the next morning with a dull soreness in his neck. Spending the whole night hunched over under the invisibility cloak sure didn't do much for his spine. He rolled over, sliding his feet out onto the floor and sat up. He reached for his glasses and put them on. Ron was still asleep, his form visible behind the scarlet curtains surrounding his four-poster bed.
Harry's eyes fell once again on the torn piece of parchment on his beside table. He read the strange words over and over to himself, though it still did no good. What did they say? There was no way to find out unless he asked Delacour herself... and he didn't dare. The only thing he did know was that they said something about Professor Snape. A voice in the back of his head told him that he somehow didn't want to know. Harry grinned and snorted, trying to hold back a laugh. He mentally slapped himself for being so sick-minded all of a sudden and pushed the idea away. That, hopefully, wasn't a possibility! Harry cringed at the thought.
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More to come soon!
