1 Author's Repetitive Note: Eh. I don't own Harry Potter. Sorry.
2 Chapter 5
A blissful kiss in remembrance
and
Shocks galore
" You kissed Herm? How did it feel like? Tell me!" Ron insisted, his voice barely loud enough for Harry to hear but to keep the other boys in the common room away from the conversation.
Harry smiled into his pillow, not knowing what he should say. It felt almost dirty to speak of it now, as he thought of it with somewhat a happy pleasure. " It felt alright."
" Alright? Did it taste like anything?" Ron demanded to know.
" Oh, Ron, do you honestly think I thought about what it felt like or tasted like or what it must have looked like if some bumbling fool where to see it out the Hogwarts window? No." Harry turned his head, facing Ron from his bed.
" It must have felt like one thing or another. You couldn't say it felt like kissing the back of your hand or something, because that's about as lousy as it gets." Ron replied, sitting up in his four-poster.
" What do you want me to say?" Harry asked.
" Is it true?" Ron asked, sheepishly.
" What's true?" Harry could feel something silly coming.
" That it tastes like chicken?"
" No!" Harry laughed.
" Hey, keep it down, will ya?" George mumbled wearily in his sleep.
" Sorry." Harry brought his voice down to a whisper: " I'd say it was anything but chicken."
" Really?" Ron frowned. " Did her lipstick get all over your teeth? That would be pretty disgusting."
" No! Nothing like that." Harry hugged his pillow closely. "Alright, I'll let you in on something sappy. Don't laugh."
" I won't."
" It sort of felt as if everything stopped and the only thing alive and existing were her and me. People are right, about fireworks and all going off. Maybe it was just my heart exploding." Harry could swear he'd burn a black hole through his pillow, the way his face was burning in a blush. " Great, I sound like a complete sap."
Ron was trying hard to muffle his laughter. Then, he said, trying to keep a straight face though the corners of his mouth were twitching upwards still in laughter: " How will you ever speak to her again?"
" I don't know. How will I talk to her?" Harry rolled onto his back now, looking dreamily out the window at the finishing touches of the downpour outside. " Will I be confined to only speaking about the kiss from now on? I mean, how can I speak to her about normal things again. . ."
" I can't believe its still raining." Harry added after a while of silence.
" It's England, Harry, what do you expect? If it's not raining, it's snowing, and if it isn't snowing, a great flock of seagulls is blocking the sun." Ron muttered.
" Now, that's not true." Harry replied. " England's got alright weather."
" Who cares about weather. What did you and her do? How did she react? How did you react?" Ron grinned, knowing how much it was torturing Harry inside to speak up about these things.
" Really, you guys, I couldn't care less." George was now sounding a bit angrier.
" She seemed surprised with herself. I was just kind of blanked out. It seemed to unreal that I didn't really believe it happened. I sort of kept telling myself: that did not just happen. That did not just happen." Harry admitted. " Then, we walked back inside and I couldn't speak to her much again through the whole dance except when we parted to go to our own beds."
" What did you say?" Ron leaned forwards.
" Don't make me shove a pillow down your throat." Now Fred joined in.
" That's what you said?" Ron laughed, thinking that the answer coming from Fred was Harry's reply.
" No!" Harry said, and then continued after giving Fred a sharp look: " I told her good night and she said the same and we just went out own way."
" You should have kissed her again." Ron commented.
Just then, someone stepped into their room. It was Professor McGonagall, her face stern and drawn wearily. " Boys! What's all this talking about?"
" Harry got his first kiss." George spoke up before Harry could say something neutral, like 'nothing'.
Professor McGonagall smiled at Harry, then turned stern again. " There will not be another word in this room, do we have an understanding? Just a little down the hall we have the girl's rooms and they aren't quite pleased with the chitchat."
" They could hear?" Ron gasped out.
" Of course not! All they heard was gibberish, but it was the fact that there was the noise in the first place." Fred commented.
" How would you know of the acoustics in the girl's rooms, Mr. Weasley?" Professor McGonagall questioned, then before any replies could be heard, she slammed the door with a firm: " Good night."
Harry was relieved, hoping that now he'd get to sleep a bit, but he was horribly wrong. Just as the door had closed, Ron whispered again:
" Lavender kept asking me about you, you know."
" Well, good for her." Harry mumbled sleepily. Then, she let out a low snore, which of course was fake since he himself knew he didn't snore. It did give Ron a hint, though.
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The next morning, just at the stroke of dawn, Harry was up and ready for breakfast. He hadn't slept too well at all, and his scar kept hurting at intervals all through the night, and once he'd be awake, the pain would be gone, almost on purpose. Harry felt the scar on his forehead anyhow, wondering whether the coming and going pains would ever turn out to mean anything. Perhaps he was having some sort of freak migraines, the kind Aunt Petunia suffered and blamed upon Harry if they were especially painful to her.
Harry rolled his eyes at the ridiculous thought as he dressed into his Hogwarts daily uniform and then looked in the mirror to check on himself. He noted how much more often he'd checked the mirror then before. Pretty soon he'd be like Fred and George, sitting in front of the mirror for a good hour, styling their hair just right and complaining about the tiny pimple that would sometimes appear on their foreheads or nose.
The silence in the hallway surprised Harry as he stepped out. It might have been a bit early, but not that early. His footsteps were loud and clattering compared to the peaceful serenity surrounding him.
He had promised Hermione to meet him that morning to work on the case of the mysterious letter a few hours before they'd gone to the dance. He intended to keep his word, despite how uncomfortable he'd feel now around her.
Harry stopped in front of the library to check his pocket if he'd taken his wand this time. He had. Then, he walked inside and seeing Hermione, he said:
" Well, hello."
She looked up from a thick black book the size of a good encyclopedia and replied: " Oh! Hello, Harry."
" So, what are you up to now?" He sat down across the table from her, biting his tongue hard not to smile foolishly though he desperately wanted to. It felt so strange speaking to her, as if something heavy and unsaid was hanging in the air above them like a little thundercloud.
" I think that I might have traced the writing to a list of people. I volunteered at every single one of my teachers to help them grade papers so I could get handwriting samples." Hermione said.
" Wow! All that for a prank note?" Harry questioned.
" It isn't a prank note. I have a feeling this is something SERIOUS." She pronounced the word as if it were a sentence all by itself.
" So what suspects did you get?" Harry inquired.
" There's a few. I have Lavender, Parvati, Ginny Weasley (I doubt that, truly, but the handwriting loosely fits it), a few girls you do not know but I do. . . she flipped through her note cards again. ". . . And Rebecca Crick, and Cho Chang."
" Cho has a different handwriting. She writes all bitsy and squeezed together." Harry protested.
" If you look closely, it looks that it could have been written by Cho if she had tried to fake a handwriting by increasing the size of the letters." Hermione pointed at the handwriting sample and then at the note menacingly.
" How did you get Cho and Rebecca's papers? They're in an older grade."
" I know that. Professor McGonagall had a few papers form Cho from a few years ago which she used to demonstrate the way a correct paper should be written, and Rebecca's writing was easily identified by a note from her to one of her friends in the waste."
Harry examined the handwritings. " They don't look that much alike, and yet they all have some characteristic of the note you got."
" That's right. I need more clues, perhaps another note to help me out. Then I can look for a pattern, you know, just like the government does it!" Hermione smiled excitedly.
" Oh." Harry bit his tongue harder, knowing any second now he'll crack up like a bloody fool. He couldn't explain his feelings at all, he just felt like laughing.
" Now, then, if you've ever seen the way Draco Malfoy writes, you'd undoubtedly assume he must either be a girl or a very neat young man, because all his letters are perfectly aligned and shaped just the most perfect way. Why on earth are you smiling so funny?" Hermione suddenly asked.
" Nothing. Can't I smile?" Harry replied.
" You can smile, but that's a pretty odd smile you have there." Hermione herself suddenly grinned.
" I wash up every morning, you know. If I look funny, I can't help that, can I?" Harry smiled even wider, knowing that Hermione didn't mean it that way.
" I didn't mean it that way." Hermione told him, nevertheless.
" Sure you didn't." Harry leaned back on the library chair and then picked up Draco's handwriting sample. " Moving on . . . I suppose you're right. This is terribly close to the note's handwriting, except see this. Malfoy likes to cap his T's and then draw lines through his A's and G's normally, while the note shows someone who takes the last letter of the word and takes the line to cap the T's and draw lines through. . ."
" Oh!" Hermione looked at the note closely. " Indeed. And even if you try to forge that, it wouldn't have been so convincing, it takes some practice to make loops like that."
Filch had by now walked into the library and stared at Hermione and Harry, saying: " Now, what are you young hooligans doing up at this hour?"
" We're studying. Huge exam today, Mr.Filch." Hermione lied, her honest and somber eyes full of a little twinkle of laughter.
Filch grunted and then said: "Carry on." His hunched back slowly disappeared behind a large bookshelf.
Harry gave her a thumb's up sign, then said: " Good job. You can lie better then anyone I know."
Hermione shrugged and then flipped the note over and held it up to the light. " I was inspecting this for maybe a water crest on it or some sort of marking to show where its from. Now, look at that."
Up to the light, Harry could see the words 'From the Office of Sir Malfoy'. " Malfoy's dad?" Harry exclaimed. " I really don't think his handwriting's that girly."
" No, silly! Not his dad, exactly, but perhaps his son, or someone who his dad might write to or give a notepad to or something." Hermione thought hard. " His dad does have lots of friends, and many people loll around their house all the time. There's not much we can narrow it down by."
" You're right. Someone might have even found this paper in the garbage or they could have stolen it, and then we can't trace that." Harry leaned on his elbows over the table again, his finger pointing at the point of the note where the word 'Potter' was evident. " Malfoy calls me Potter all the time, though, which annoys the heck out of me."
" You're right. Malfoy should be first on our list." Hermione scribbled in Draco's name on the top of the list of suspects.
" Should we question him or something?" Harry asked.
" Like he'll answer honestly." Hermione scoffed.
" That's true." Harry set his chair on its four legs and then stood up. " We should get going to breakfast. I'd say this was a productive meeting, won't you?"
" Sure." Hermione grinned again.
Harry helped her put the large detective book into its original slot on the dusty old mahogany bookshelf and then they were out the door.
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The breakfast hall smelled as it always did: sausage, pancakes, and a few new additions to the table, and as always, the faint smell of people.
" It's so cold!" Hermione shivered as she sat down at the table beside the Weasley twins and Ron. Harry slid in across the table next to Ron.
" I suppose they'll get around to making it warm up in here. I suppose it's a complicated spell to heat this place up a bit." Harry rubbed his numbed fingers together.
" They should, if they don't want to teach a school if icicles." Ron said, his teeth chattering.
Their heads turned as Draco Malfoy and Rebecca Crick strolled into the room, Rebecca's hand and Draco's hand twined somewhat together.
" That Rebecca couldn't possibly like Draco. I wonder what she wants from him." Hermione whispered to Harry, her eyes on the blond-haired boy and tall, dark-eyed girl.
" I don't even want to know." Harry replied.
They waited in silence for the food to come, and once it did, they ate slowly, trying to make the meal last longer then in was meant to. Usually they'd be full after ten minutes or so, and then there'd be almost half an hour left to just sit there and stare at other people eating. Harry planned to eat very slowly today.
" What's wrong, Harry? You're not even eating." Ron noticed this right away.
" I'm a turtle on Prozac. What can I do?" Harry replied, sarcastically, then added: " Truthfully, I just don't want to end up being done and waiting for everyone else to finish. It doesn't feel quite right to watch others eat while I don't."
" Harry, remind me, I need to say something very important to you, in private." Ron announced in his ear.
Just as Harry was beginning to puzzle over the secretive words, Malfoy's defiant scream rocked the air. " What did you do?" Hundreds of pairs of eyes turned to see what the infamous blonde was up to now.
The twins were behind his chair, cackling in an unusual way, while Malfoy's hair was a terrible mess, completely undone from its usual hair- sprayed position. Water trickled down his face and dripped finally from his chin. Harry had never seen someone this silently furious in his whole entire life.
" Hey, it was just a joke. Now you really need cooling off." Fred joked, nervously.
" Mr. Fred and George Weasley!" A loud shout came from Professor McGonagall. " I'd like to see you in my office at this very moment."
Harry was outraged. " I told them not to do that! Why are they so mean?"
" It's just Draco." Hermione replied.
" Just Draco? He'll think I made them do it, and then I'll get beat up again, and. . ." Harry felt his face flush. " . . . I'll look like an idiot again."
Just then, Rebecca crick shot up to her feet, her face shooting I'll- kill-you-all glances at Harry, Hermione, and Ron, for no particular reason other then what Harry said - they'll be blamed for making the twins do it.
Harry then looked at Draco. Draco's face was one of complete loathing, the kind of face only a lion could have when a stupid hyena stills its prey. For once, though, Draco was silent. So furious, that he was dead quiet, just like the room. Only his eyes blazed with a hate everyone knew they should never try to create.
Harry felt his scar explode with a sudden pain. He bit his lip until it hurt to keep from crying out. Nobody noticed, or so it seemed, and it went away quickly, but he wondered whether it was Malfoy who did it - with how his loathsome anger was beaming around.
Then, suddenly, more shock came - the water that had been curiously spilled onto Malfoy produced a horrible, red, swelling rash that nearly devoured all of Draco. His eyes shot open in horror as he jumped to his feet. His eyes met with Harry's and then slowly narrowed. Harry knew what Draco must have thought - that he was behind it.
Madame Pomfrey was summoned immediately and she helped walk Draco to the hospital wing. Everyone was laughing, nearly, except for a few faithful Slytherins and Harry. Harry didn't understand why the Weasleys were so insistent on making Draco be publicly humiliated. Malfoy might have been cold and mean but he was a person too.
" Gosh, Harry, it's only a joke. You look as if you've seen some sort of crime." Hermione whispered in his ear.
Harry looked at her, then looked away. " I think its just not fair."
Rebecca was still furiously shooting death looks around the room at all the laughing people, then Cho took her hand and tried to comfort her friend.
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As Harry walked down the hall to Potions class, the book held tightly in his hands, he felt as if he'd get a heart attack of fright as someone grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him backwards into the nearest room.
" What in the blazes. . .?" Harry gasped, ripping out of the person's arms and then glaring madly at whomever it was that had dared pull him like that.
Then, he realized he was in the old, dilapidated girl's bathroom of Moaning Myrtle's residence, which was no less comforting then the fact that Ron was standing in front of him, his freckles blending with his red and angry cheeks.
" Harry, I thought I told you I needed to talk to you." Ron told him. " Well, don't just stand there stupidly, you can't be all to surprised."
" Yeah, I suppose one minor heart attack isn't too great a shock." Harry muttered.
" Oh, cut it out. Listen, Charlie's being interrogated night and day now. All I know is that something awful is happening that the press can't hear about, and that it deals with You-Know-Who."
" What now?" Harry asked.
" Is that you, Harry?" Moaning Myrtle moaned out. " and I thought things would finally be back to normal. But no! Look how miserable I am now again!" Loud sobs racked the ghost from the stall next door.
Ron shrugged at Harry's puzzled face and continued, ignoring the ghost: " I think that the best thing for you, Harry, is to keep an eye out. And I mean a huge, thousand-watt eyeball, full-power."
" It's on my to-do list." Harry joked.
" Harry! This is serious! I'm in a girl's bathroom to help you, for goodness sakes."
" Alright, I'll watch out." Harry assured his red-haired friend. "Can I go to Potions now?"
" Yes." Ron stepped back and Harry walked out of the bathroom.
They walked in silence to Potions, and were greeted by Professor Snape at the door. "Late, are we?" Snape asked.
" Late?" Ron asked.
" Yes. If you look at the clock, Mister Weasley, it's precisely two and a half seconds past the beginning of class."
" Those two seconds passed while you were talking to us!" Ron protested.
" Is that so?" Snape took a deep and angry breath. "Five points from Gryffindor for not admitting to the truth."
Harry pushed past the teacher and into the room, sitting himself down with a huff by Hermione. She asked: "Where did you stop? You're late."
" I'm aware of that. Ron had to speak with me." Harry replied.
" Oh. I wonder what's wrong with Professor Snape today, it seems he's in a lousy mood again and I can't really understand why." She licked her lips tentatively.
" Black cat crossed his path, maybe walked under one too many ladders. Who knows." Harry opened his Potions book and then suddenly realized something: " A new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?"
" I doubt it. That position is fairly accursed in this school." Hermione sighed. " I wish, though, I'm sick of two classes with Snape."
Professor Snape dragged in another late student and then walked towards the class, his black hair fluttering in a wild mess behind him. Once he was facing all the students, he barked at them: " Open your books to page forty-seven! Today we'll be reading silently all class!"
Neville looked upset. He hated silent reading for he had the habit to read aloud to himself and the terrible Professor most certainly would point it out.
They read in silence until Harry felt Hermione slip a paper into his hand. He took it and then pulled it open, reading the words:
Malfoy wrote the note. I'm sure of it.
" How can you be sure?" Harry asked her, in a whisper.
" Mister Potter, would you like to share with us what you are whispering passionately to Miss Granger?" Professor Snape asked.
The class was flooded with giggles and a few sighs from the girls.
Harry didn't know what to reply. Finally, Hermione spoke for him:
" We were speaking of how he was late, and he was telling me why he was late." She once again managed to pull off a convincing lie.
" From now on, not a single whisper. Do not even breathe loudly." Professor Snape said menacingly. Everyone obeyed and a loud gulp was heard from Neville.
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In Professor Trelawney's class, some strange prophesies had occurred. Lavender had found out from the strange teacher about how her palm showed a fascinating love line, and then she commented on how Lavender was a deceitful lover, able to be in love with someone and at the same time wed someone else for pure spite.
Lavender turned red and glanced at Harry, who wasn't really paying too much attention to the prophecy until that point.
" Now, then, I will read Harry's palm, to give him an update, while all of you try and figure out how to read your love lines - it's the most popularly read one, you know." Professor Trelawney moved towards Harry, her mysteriously deep eyes focusing momentarily on his tightly-clenched hands, then asked: "Are you afraid?"
" No." Harry replied, then realized his knuckles had turned white and quickly unrolled his fists, showing all his private hand lines.
" Ah! Much better." She took his hand and then muttered something to herself in what sounded like Latin, reviewing an old book in her head on the subject of palm reading, most likely.
" Get ready to find out your dooms day." Ron whispered into his ear.
Neville laughed as he looked at his hand. "That's funny." He finally said to Ron and Harry. " My love line means that I am a popular lady's man, with great. . ." He stopped, pronouncing the word slowly: " affair d'amour. What the heck does that mean?"
" Means you have lots of romance in your life. Go figure." Ron then glanced at his own love line. " I can't translate this for all I'm worth."
" Patience." Madame Trelawney said in a hollow voice. Then, she suddenly stood up again. " My, Harry, there's incredible amounts of twists and misfortunes in your life. And a short life it will be - you'll die young."
" How young?" Harry asked.
" That I cannot say. It will distress you for the rest of the time you have on this Earth." Madame Trelawney shook her head with sadness and then walked over to Parvati, who was cursing openly at her palm, which didn't show her what she wanted it to read.
Madame Trelawney, after explaining gently to Parvati that she had to accept what her palm said, went to read Ron's palm now. Ron held it out eagerly, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
Madame Trelawney tapped his love line with her finger and said: " Now, this tells me that you are jealous of a relationship one of your friends is having, and this here tells me that you also like a younger girl, a friend of one of your relatives."
" That's crazy." Ron murmured.
" I'm just saying what I see." Madame Trelawney said gently.
" Well, I'll tell you what I see." Ron stared at his hand with a definite blank look in his eyes and then said: " I'll be rich and the Quidditch captain, and I'll be holding the House Cup with beautiful girls drooling on me, and. . ."
" Alright, that's enough, Ron, before you start drooling yourself." Harry teased.
" You shush, Harry." Ron continued: " Also, I think I can see myself winning the Noble Peace Prize. . ."
" For what?" Neville questioned.
" I'll get to that. Also, I'm riding a Firebolt, and I'll have the biggest house in the world. . ."
" Stop!" Madame Trelawney shouted. " Do not make a mockery of palm reading!"
" Right, then." Ron immediately grew silent.
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Dinner was unusually silent and upsetting, as if something doomed and frightening was hanging in the air, waiting to crash down like bad news usually does.
Hermione was oddly silent as well, her fork swirling through her mashed potatoes without any visible interest in the meal. "Hermione, it isn't quite nice to play with your food." Harry finally said, hoping to get some reaction from her.
" Harry, don't you feel that thing in the air?" She asked him.
" Uh. . . no." He lied. Harry didn't like speaking of bad luck hanging in the air, just in case it did come true.
" I think that perhaps we should speak of why I suspect Draco Malfoy?" She suggested. " It just might be a bit more of an interesting topic. Nothing seemed to happen all of today worth much noting."
" I am wondering, you know, why you suspect him so much." Harry admitted.
" Listen to this: see how Draco has the unique way of writing his C's starting from the bottom and up to the top instead of top to bottom like most people do? Well, it makes his C's curve to the left a bit and therefore the note shows exactly the same C's." Hermione sounded as if she's thought about this for a very long time.
" You know what?" Harry finally said, after letting a bit of a silence go by.
" What?" She asked.
" You need a hobby. I have a hobby - Quidditch. You - you have interpreting handwriting." Harry tried to sound somewhat friendly as he said it, though he was a little disgusted with her 'hobby'.
" It's not a hobby. This is very serious for me, I want to find out who wrote it since I think this isn't just a simple prank but a very serious thing." Hermione frowned.
" I know that it's somewhat serious, getting a threat letter, but we didn't get another one and nothing seems to be happening. Maybe somebody was just trying to scare you a bit and then gave up." Harry told her.
" I don't know." She looked down at her hands. " I just don't know."
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About an hour later, Harry stopped Hermione in the hallway and said: "Herm, I just wanted to apologize. I feel really bad about how I didn't seem to enthusiastic about that letter."
" It's alright." She said, trying to look happier then she was. "I can't force you to be interested in the things I am, that wouldn't be fair."
" Yeah, but I could have been nicer." Harry replied.
" It's alright." She repeated herself.
" Can I make it up to you somehow? Maybe you have some books you'd like me to read, or some investigating to do?" Harry took her hands. " Come on, don't hesitate."
She grinned. " You don't have to do anything."
" What if I do?" He leaned his head close, their foreheads bumping. Harry was decisive when he was feeling brave, and right now he was as brave as he could get.
" Well. . . well . . ." She stammered, embarrassed. Her eyes looked up to face his emerald green ones and she spoke: " You know how we will be going to Hogsmeade in two days, on a trip?"
" I know." He replied, her hair tickling his cheeks.
" I've been thinking if you'd like to be my partner on the trip. We all have to have partners, after all, and if you aren't going with Ron, then maybe you'd like to go with me?" She seemed hopeful. " I don't think I'd like to go with anyone else better."
" I'd love to go with you." He said.
She smiled. " Good."
" That's really more of a good thing for you and for me, though. Maybe there's a favor I can do just for you, that won't be fun for me?" He asked. " Like. . . reading those hard books you like so much." He grimaced.
" I wouldn't do that to you!" She exclaimed.
" Oh yes you would." He replied. Lavender walked by just then and seeing how closely together Harry and Hermione were standing, blushed furiously and quite angrily and then walked the other way quickly. " I know this means a lot to you, and if it does, then it will just have to mean a lot to me."
" Alright, fine!" She gave in. "It would be a huge favor if you could somehow try and see if you might now some other people with handwriting matches."
" I will." He replied. "Is that all?"
Her eyes dropped down again, her head moving down against his cheek. He kissed the top of her forehead.
Harry then blushed and said: " I should go talk with Neville. He's pretty upset about how he accidentally tripped Colin Creevey and broke his camera."
" He broke Colin's camera?" Hermione exclaimed, her face also red.
" Yeah. Well, see ya." Harry pulled away like a magnet does when meeting its pole with the same side - a force so instant and great that it was almost exaggerated.
As Harry walked away, Hermione's hand went up to feel the place on her forehead where he'd kissed her, then she slowly moved farther down the hall herself.
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Harry found himself in an especially crowded hallway, filled with people of all sorts pushing here and there in a general clamor and din.
A giant crowd was standing around a bulletin board in the hallway. Everyone was pushing and shoving to get a close view of what was hanging there, and others were exclaiming or crying with fright, especially the girls.
Harry made his ways through the crowd, wondering what it was himself.
His eyes caught a newspaper article, and then his jaw dropped:
" You-Know-Who kills first victim"
Author's Note: I know, I know, I slacked off and made this one the shortest - measly 5000 words. Next chapter will be better - I just wanted to end this one with a bit of a surprise. :)
2 Chapter 5
A blissful kiss in remembrance
and
Shocks galore
" You kissed Herm? How did it feel like? Tell me!" Ron insisted, his voice barely loud enough for Harry to hear but to keep the other boys in the common room away from the conversation.
Harry smiled into his pillow, not knowing what he should say. It felt almost dirty to speak of it now, as he thought of it with somewhat a happy pleasure. " It felt alright."
" Alright? Did it taste like anything?" Ron demanded to know.
" Oh, Ron, do you honestly think I thought about what it felt like or tasted like or what it must have looked like if some bumbling fool where to see it out the Hogwarts window? No." Harry turned his head, facing Ron from his bed.
" It must have felt like one thing or another. You couldn't say it felt like kissing the back of your hand or something, because that's about as lousy as it gets." Ron replied, sitting up in his four-poster.
" What do you want me to say?" Harry asked.
" Is it true?" Ron asked, sheepishly.
" What's true?" Harry could feel something silly coming.
" That it tastes like chicken?"
" No!" Harry laughed.
" Hey, keep it down, will ya?" George mumbled wearily in his sleep.
" Sorry." Harry brought his voice down to a whisper: " I'd say it was anything but chicken."
" Really?" Ron frowned. " Did her lipstick get all over your teeth? That would be pretty disgusting."
" No! Nothing like that." Harry hugged his pillow closely. "Alright, I'll let you in on something sappy. Don't laugh."
" I won't."
" It sort of felt as if everything stopped and the only thing alive and existing were her and me. People are right, about fireworks and all going off. Maybe it was just my heart exploding." Harry could swear he'd burn a black hole through his pillow, the way his face was burning in a blush. " Great, I sound like a complete sap."
Ron was trying hard to muffle his laughter. Then, he said, trying to keep a straight face though the corners of his mouth were twitching upwards still in laughter: " How will you ever speak to her again?"
" I don't know. How will I talk to her?" Harry rolled onto his back now, looking dreamily out the window at the finishing touches of the downpour outside. " Will I be confined to only speaking about the kiss from now on? I mean, how can I speak to her about normal things again. . ."
" I can't believe its still raining." Harry added after a while of silence.
" It's England, Harry, what do you expect? If it's not raining, it's snowing, and if it isn't snowing, a great flock of seagulls is blocking the sun." Ron muttered.
" Now, that's not true." Harry replied. " England's got alright weather."
" Who cares about weather. What did you and her do? How did she react? How did you react?" Ron grinned, knowing how much it was torturing Harry inside to speak up about these things.
" Really, you guys, I couldn't care less." George was now sounding a bit angrier.
" She seemed surprised with herself. I was just kind of blanked out. It seemed to unreal that I didn't really believe it happened. I sort of kept telling myself: that did not just happen. That did not just happen." Harry admitted. " Then, we walked back inside and I couldn't speak to her much again through the whole dance except when we parted to go to our own beds."
" What did you say?" Ron leaned forwards.
" Don't make me shove a pillow down your throat." Now Fred joined in.
" That's what you said?" Ron laughed, thinking that the answer coming from Fred was Harry's reply.
" No!" Harry said, and then continued after giving Fred a sharp look: " I told her good night and she said the same and we just went out own way."
" You should have kissed her again." Ron commented.
Just then, someone stepped into their room. It was Professor McGonagall, her face stern and drawn wearily. " Boys! What's all this talking about?"
" Harry got his first kiss." George spoke up before Harry could say something neutral, like 'nothing'.
Professor McGonagall smiled at Harry, then turned stern again. " There will not be another word in this room, do we have an understanding? Just a little down the hall we have the girl's rooms and they aren't quite pleased with the chitchat."
" They could hear?" Ron gasped out.
" Of course not! All they heard was gibberish, but it was the fact that there was the noise in the first place." Fred commented.
" How would you know of the acoustics in the girl's rooms, Mr. Weasley?" Professor McGonagall questioned, then before any replies could be heard, she slammed the door with a firm: " Good night."
Harry was relieved, hoping that now he'd get to sleep a bit, but he was horribly wrong. Just as the door had closed, Ron whispered again:
" Lavender kept asking me about you, you know."
" Well, good for her." Harry mumbled sleepily. Then, she let out a low snore, which of course was fake since he himself knew he didn't snore. It did give Ron a hint, though.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
The next morning, just at the stroke of dawn, Harry was up and ready for breakfast. He hadn't slept too well at all, and his scar kept hurting at intervals all through the night, and once he'd be awake, the pain would be gone, almost on purpose. Harry felt the scar on his forehead anyhow, wondering whether the coming and going pains would ever turn out to mean anything. Perhaps he was having some sort of freak migraines, the kind Aunt Petunia suffered and blamed upon Harry if they were especially painful to her.
Harry rolled his eyes at the ridiculous thought as he dressed into his Hogwarts daily uniform and then looked in the mirror to check on himself. He noted how much more often he'd checked the mirror then before. Pretty soon he'd be like Fred and George, sitting in front of the mirror for a good hour, styling their hair just right and complaining about the tiny pimple that would sometimes appear on their foreheads or nose.
The silence in the hallway surprised Harry as he stepped out. It might have been a bit early, but not that early. His footsteps were loud and clattering compared to the peaceful serenity surrounding him.
He had promised Hermione to meet him that morning to work on the case of the mysterious letter a few hours before they'd gone to the dance. He intended to keep his word, despite how uncomfortable he'd feel now around her.
Harry stopped in front of the library to check his pocket if he'd taken his wand this time. He had. Then, he walked inside and seeing Hermione, he said:
" Well, hello."
She looked up from a thick black book the size of a good encyclopedia and replied: " Oh! Hello, Harry."
" So, what are you up to now?" He sat down across the table from her, biting his tongue hard not to smile foolishly though he desperately wanted to. It felt so strange speaking to her, as if something heavy and unsaid was hanging in the air above them like a little thundercloud.
" I think that I might have traced the writing to a list of people. I volunteered at every single one of my teachers to help them grade papers so I could get handwriting samples." Hermione said.
" Wow! All that for a prank note?" Harry questioned.
" It isn't a prank note. I have a feeling this is something SERIOUS." She pronounced the word as if it were a sentence all by itself.
" So what suspects did you get?" Harry inquired.
" There's a few. I have Lavender, Parvati, Ginny Weasley (I doubt that, truly, but the handwriting loosely fits it), a few girls you do not know but I do. . . she flipped through her note cards again. ". . . And Rebecca Crick, and Cho Chang."
" Cho has a different handwriting. She writes all bitsy and squeezed together." Harry protested.
" If you look closely, it looks that it could have been written by Cho if she had tried to fake a handwriting by increasing the size of the letters." Hermione pointed at the handwriting sample and then at the note menacingly.
" How did you get Cho and Rebecca's papers? They're in an older grade."
" I know that. Professor McGonagall had a few papers form Cho from a few years ago which she used to demonstrate the way a correct paper should be written, and Rebecca's writing was easily identified by a note from her to one of her friends in the waste."
Harry examined the handwritings. " They don't look that much alike, and yet they all have some characteristic of the note you got."
" That's right. I need more clues, perhaps another note to help me out. Then I can look for a pattern, you know, just like the government does it!" Hermione smiled excitedly.
" Oh." Harry bit his tongue harder, knowing any second now he'll crack up like a bloody fool. He couldn't explain his feelings at all, he just felt like laughing.
" Now, then, if you've ever seen the way Draco Malfoy writes, you'd undoubtedly assume he must either be a girl or a very neat young man, because all his letters are perfectly aligned and shaped just the most perfect way. Why on earth are you smiling so funny?" Hermione suddenly asked.
" Nothing. Can't I smile?" Harry replied.
" You can smile, but that's a pretty odd smile you have there." Hermione herself suddenly grinned.
" I wash up every morning, you know. If I look funny, I can't help that, can I?" Harry smiled even wider, knowing that Hermione didn't mean it that way.
" I didn't mean it that way." Hermione told him, nevertheless.
" Sure you didn't." Harry leaned back on the library chair and then picked up Draco's handwriting sample. " Moving on . . . I suppose you're right. This is terribly close to the note's handwriting, except see this. Malfoy likes to cap his T's and then draw lines through his A's and G's normally, while the note shows someone who takes the last letter of the word and takes the line to cap the T's and draw lines through. . ."
" Oh!" Hermione looked at the note closely. " Indeed. And even if you try to forge that, it wouldn't have been so convincing, it takes some practice to make loops like that."
Filch had by now walked into the library and stared at Hermione and Harry, saying: " Now, what are you young hooligans doing up at this hour?"
" We're studying. Huge exam today, Mr.Filch." Hermione lied, her honest and somber eyes full of a little twinkle of laughter.
Filch grunted and then said: "Carry on." His hunched back slowly disappeared behind a large bookshelf.
Harry gave her a thumb's up sign, then said: " Good job. You can lie better then anyone I know."
Hermione shrugged and then flipped the note over and held it up to the light. " I was inspecting this for maybe a water crest on it or some sort of marking to show where its from. Now, look at that."
Up to the light, Harry could see the words 'From the Office of Sir Malfoy'. " Malfoy's dad?" Harry exclaimed. " I really don't think his handwriting's that girly."
" No, silly! Not his dad, exactly, but perhaps his son, or someone who his dad might write to or give a notepad to or something." Hermione thought hard. " His dad does have lots of friends, and many people loll around their house all the time. There's not much we can narrow it down by."
" You're right. Someone might have even found this paper in the garbage or they could have stolen it, and then we can't trace that." Harry leaned on his elbows over the table again, his finger pointing at the point of the note where the word 'Potter' was evident. " Malfoy calls me Potter all the time, though, which annoys the heck out of me."
" You're right. Malfoy should be first on our list." Hermione scribbled in Draco's name on the top of the list of suspects.
" Should we question him or something?" Harry asked.
" Like he'll answer honestly." Hermione scoffed.
" That's true." Harry set his chair on its four legs and then stood up. " We should get going to breakfast. I'd say this was a productive meeting, won't you?"
" Sure." Hermione grinned again.
Harry helped her put the large detective book into its original slot on the dusty old mahogany bookshelf and then they were out the door.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
The breakfast hall smelled as it always did: sausage, pancakes, and a few new additions to the table, and as always, the faint smell of people.
" It's so cold!" Hermione shivered as she sat down at the table beside the Weasley twins and Ron. Harry slid in across the table next to Ron.
" I suppose they'll get around to making it warm up in here. I suppose it's a complicated spell to heat this place up a bit." Harry rubbed his numbed fingers together.
" They should, if they don't want to teach a school if icicles." Ron said, his teeth chattering.
Their heads turned as Draco Malfoy and Rebecca Crick strolled into the room, Rebecca's hand and Draco's hand twined somewhat together.
" That Rebecca couldn't possibly like Draco. I wonder what she wants from him." Hermione whispered to Harry, her eyes on the blond-haired boy and tall, dark-eyed girl.
" I don't even want to know." Harry replied.
They waited in silence for the food to come, and once it did, they ate slowly, trying to make the meal last longer then in was meant to. Usually they'd be full after ten minutes or so, and then there'd be almost half an hour left to just sit there and stare at other people eating. Harry planned to eat very slowly today.
" What's wrong, Harry? You're not even eating." Ron noticed this right away.
" I'm a turtle on Prozac. What can I do?" Harry replied, sarcastically, then added: " Truthfully, I just don't want to end up being done and waiting for everyone else to finish. It doesn't feel quite right to watch others eat while I don't."
" Harry, remind me, I need to say something very important to you, in private." Ron announced in his ear.
Just as Harry was beginning to puzzle over the secretive words, Malfoy's defiant scream rocked the air. " What did you do?" Hundreds of pairs of eyes turned to see what the infamous blonde was up to now.
The twins were behind his chair, cackling in an unusual way, while Malfoy's hair was a terrible mess, completely undone from its usual hair- sprayed position. Water trickled down his face and dripped finally from his chin. Harry had never seen someone this silently furious in his whole entire life.
" Hey, it was just a joke. Now you really need cooling off." Fred joked, nervously.
" Mr. Fred and George Weasley!" A loud shout came from Professor McGonagall. " I'd like to see you in my office at this very moment."
Harry was outraged. " I told them not to do that! Why are they so mean?"
" It's just Draco." Hermione replied.
" Just Draco? He'll think I made them do it, and then I'll get beat up again, and. . ." Harry felt his face flush. " . . . I'll look like an idiot again."
Just then, Rebecca crick shot up to her feet, her face shooting I'll- kill-you-all glances at Harry, Hermione, and Ron, for no particular reason other then what Harry said - they'll be blamed for making the twins do it.
Harry then looked at Draco. Draco's face was one of complete loathing, the kind of face only a lion could have when a stupid hyena stills its prey. For once, though, Draco was silent. So furious, that he was dead quiet, just like the room. Only his eyes blazed with a hate everyone knew they should never try to create.
Harry felt his scar explode with a sudden pain. He bit his lip until it hurt to keep from crying out. Nobody noticed, or so it seemed, and it went away quickly, but he wondered whether it was Malfoy who did it - with how his loathsome anger was beaming around.
Then, suddenly, more shock came - the water that had been curiously spilled onto Malfoy produced a horrible, red, swelling rash that nearly devoured all of Draco. His eyes shot open in horror as he jumped to his feet. His eyes met with Harry's and then slowly narrowed. Harry knew what Draco must have thought - that he was behind it.
Madame Pomfrey was summoned immediately and she helped walk Draco to the hospital wing. Everyone was laughing, nearly, except for a few faithful Slytherins and Harry. Harry didn't understand why the Weasleys were so insistent on making Draco be publicly humiliated. Malfoy might have been cold and mean but he was a person too.
" Gosh, Harry, it's only a joke. You look as if you've seen some sort of crime." Hermione whispered in his ear.
Harry looked at her, then looked away. " I think its just not fair."
Rebecca was still furiously shooting death looks around the room at all the laughing people, then Cho took her hand and tried to comfort her friend.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
As Harry walked down the hall to Potions class, the book held tightly in his hands, he felt as if he'd get a heart attack of fright as someone grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him backwards into the nearest room.
" What in the blazes. . .?" Harry gasped, ripping out of the person's arms and then glaring madly at whomever it was that had dared pull him like that.
Then, he realized he was in the old, dilapidated girl's bathroom of Moaning Myrtle's residence, which was no less comforting then the fact that Ron was standing in front of him, his freckles blending with his red and angry cheeks.
" Harry, I thought I told you I needed to talk to you." Ron told him. " Well, don't just stand there stupidly, you can't be all to surprised."
" Yeah, I suppose one minor heart attack isn't too great a shock." Harry muttered.
" Oh, cut it out. Listen, Charlie's being interrogated night and day now. All I know is that something awful is happening that the press can't hear about, and that it deals with You-Know-Who."
" What now?" Harry asked.
" Is that you, Harry?" Moaning Myrtle moaned out. " and I thought things would finally be back to normal. But no! Look how miserable I am now again!" Loud sobs racked the ghost from the stall next door.
Ron shrugged at Harry's puzzled face and continued, ignoring the ghost: " I think that the best thing for you, Harry, is to keep an eye out. And I mean a huge, thousand-watt eyeball, full-power."
" It's on my to-do list." Harry joked.
" Harry! This is serious! I'm in a girl's bathroom to help you, for goodness sakes."
" Alright, I'll watch out." Harry assured his red-haired friend. "Can I go to Potions now?"
" Yes." Ron stepped back and Harry walked out of the bathroom.
They walked in silence to Potions, and were greeted by Professor Snape at the door. "Late, are we?" Snape asked.
" Late?" Ron asked.
" Yes. If you look at the clock, Mister Weasley, it's precisely two and a half seconds past the beginning of class."
" Those two seconds passed while you were talking to us!" Ron protested.
" Is that so?" Snape took a deep and angry breath. "Five points from Gryffindor for not admitting to the truth."
Harry pushed past the teacher and into the room, sitting himself down with a huff by Hermione. She asked: "Where did you stop? You're late."
" I'm aware of that. Ron had to speak with me." Harry replied.
" Oh. I wonder what's wrong with Professor Snape today, it seems he's in a lousy mood again and I can't really understand why." She licked her lips tentatively.
" Black cat crossed his path, maybe walked under one too many ladders. Who knows." Harry opened his Potions book and then suddenly realized something: " A new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?"
" I doubt it. That position is fairly accursed in this school." Hermione sighed. " I wish, though, I'm sick of two classes with Snape."
Professor Snape dragged in another late student and then walked towards the class, his black hair fluttering in a wild mess behind him. Once he was facing all the students, he barked at them: " Open your books to page forty-seven! Today we'll be reading silently all class!"
Neville looked upset. He hated silent reading for he had the habit to read aloud to himself and the terrible Professor most certainly would point it out.
They read in silence until Harry felt Hermione slip a paper into his hand. He took it and then pulled it open, reading the words:
Malfoy wrote the note. I'm sure of it.
" How can you be sure?" Harry asked her, in a whisper.
" Mister Potter, would you like to share with us what you are whispering passionately to Miss Granger?" Professor Snape asked.
The class was flooded with giggles and a few sighs from the girls.
Harry didn't know what to reply. Finally, Hermione spoke for him:
" We were speaking of how he was late, and he was telling me why he was late." She once again managed to pull off a convincing lie.
" From now on, not a single whisper. Do not even breathe loudly." Professor Snape said menacingly. Everyone obeyed and a loud gulp was heard from Neville.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
In Professor Trelawney's class, some strange prophesies had occurred. Lavender had found out from the strange teacher about how her palm showed a fascinating love line, and then she commented on how Lavender was a deceitful lover, able to be in love with someone and at the same time wed someone else for pure spite.
Lavender turned red and glanced at Harry, who wasn't really paying too much attention to the prophecy until that point.
" Now, then, I will read Harry's palm, to give him an update, while all of you try and figure out how to read your love lines - it's the most popularly read one, you know." Professor Trelawney moved towards Harry, her mysteriously deep eyes focusing momentarily on his tightly-clenched hands, then asked: "Are you afraid?"
" No." Harry replied, then realized his knuckles had turned white and quickly unrolled his fists, showing all his private hand lines.
" Ah! Much better." She took his hand and then muttered something to herself in what sounded like Latin, reviewing an old book in her head on the subject of palm reading, most likely.
" Get ready to find out your dooms day." Ron whispered into his ear.
Neville laughed as he looked at his hand. "That's funny." He finally said to Ron and Harry. " My love line means that I am a popular lady's man, with great. . ." He stopped, pronouncing the word slowly: " affair d'amour. What the heck does that mean?"
" Means you have lots of romance in your life. Go figure." Ron then glanced at his own love line. " I can't translate this for all I'm worth."
" Patience." Madame Trelawney said in a hollow voice. Then, she suddenly stood up again. " My, Harry, there's incredible amounts of twists and misfortunes in your life. And a short life it will be - you'll die young."
" How young?" Harry asked.
" That I cannot say. It will distress you for the rest of the time you have on this Earth." Madame Trelawney shook her head with sadness and then walked over to Parvati, who was cursing openly at her palm, which didn't show her what she wanted it to read.
Madame Trelawney, after explaining gently to Parvati that she had to accept what her palm said, went to read Ron's palm now. Ron held it out eagerly, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
Madame Trelawney tapped his love line with her finger and said: " Now, this tells me that you are jealous of a relationship one of your friends is having, and this here tells me that you also like a younger girl, a friend of one of your relatives."
" That's crazy." Ron murmured.
" I'm just saying what I see." Madame Trelawney said gently.
" Well, I'll tell you what I see." Ron stared at his hand with a definite blank look in his eyes and then said: " I'll be rich and the Quidditch captain, and I'll be holding the House Cup with beautiful girls drooling on me, and. . ."
" Alright, that's enough, Ron, before you start drooling yourself." Harry teased.
" You shush, Harry." Ron continued: " Also, I think I can see myself winning the Noble Peace Prize. . ."
" For what?" Neville questioned.
" I'll get to that. Also, I'm riding a Firebolt, and I'll have the biggest house in the world. . ."
" Stop!" Madame Trelawney shouted. " Do not make a mockery of palm reading!"
" Right, then." Ron immediately grew silent.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Dinner was unusually silent and upsetting, as if something doomed and frightening was hanging in the air, waiting to crash down like bad news usually does.
Hermione was oddly silent as well, her fork swirling through her mashed potatoes without any visible interest in the meal. "Hermione, it isn't quite nice to play with your food." Harry finally said, hoping to get some reaction from her.
" Harry, don't you feel that thing in the air?" She asked him.
" Uh. . . no." He lied. Harry didn't like speaking of bad luck hanging in the air, just in case it did come true.
" I think that perhaps we should speak of why I suspect Draco Malfoy?" She suggested. " It just might be a bit more of an interesting topic. Nothing seemed to happen all of today worth much noting."
" I am wondering, you know, why you suspect him so much." Harry admitted.
" Listen to this: see how Draco has the unique way of writing his C's starting from the bottom and up to the top instead of top to bottom like most people do? Well, it makes his C's curve to the left a bit and therefore the note shows exactly the same C's." Hermione sounded as if she's thought about this for a very long time.
" You know what?" Harry finally said, after letting a bit of a silence go by.
" What?" She asked.
" You need a hobby. I have a hobby - Quidditch. You - you have interpreting handwriting." Harry tried to sound somewhat friendly as he said it, though he was a little disgusted with her 'hobby'.
" It's not a hobby. This is very serious for me, I want to find out who wrote it since I think this isn't just a simple prank but a very serious thing." Hermione frowned.
" I know that it's somewhat serious, getting a threat letter, but we didn't get another one and nothing seems to be happening. Maybe somebody was just trying to scare you a bit and then gave up." Harry told her.
" I don't know." She looked down at her hands. " I just don't know."
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
About an hour later, Harry stopped Hermione in the hallway and said: "Herm, I just wanted to apologize. I feel really bad about how I didn't seem to enthusiastic about that letter."
" It's alright." She said, trying to look happier then she was. "I can't force you to be interested in the things I am, that wouldn't be fair."
" Yeah, but I could have been nicer." Harry replied.
" It's alright." She repeated herself.
" Can I make it up to you somehow? Maybe you have some books you'd like me to read, or some investigating to do?" Harry took her hands. " Come on, don't hesitate."
She grinned. " You don't have to do anything."
" What if I do?" He leaned his head close, their foreheads bumping. Harry was decisive when he was feeling brave, and right now he was as brave as he could get.
" Well. . . well . . ." She stammered, embarrassed. Her eyes looked up to face his emerald green ones and she spoke: " You know how we will be going to Hogsmeade in two days, on a trip?"
" I know." He replied, her hair tickling his cheeks.
" I've been thinking if you'd like to be my partner on the trip. We all have to have partners, after all, and if you aren't going with Ron, then maybe you'd like to go with me?" She seemed hopeful. " I don't think I'd like to go with anyone else better."
" I'd love to go with you." He said.
She smiled. " Good."
" That's really more of a good thing for you and for me, though. Maybe there's a favor I can do just for you, that won't be fun for me?" He asked. " Like. . . reading those hard books you like so much." He grimaced.
" I wouldn't do that to you!" She exclaimed.
" Oh yes you would." He replied. Lavender walked by just then and seeing how closely together Harry and Hermione were standing, blushed furiously and quite angrily and then walked the other way quickly. " I know this means a lot to you, and if it does, then it will just have to mean a lot to me."
" Alright, fine!" She gave in. "It would be a huge favor if you could somehow try and see if you might now some other people with handwriting matches."
" I will." He replied. "Is that all?"
Her eyes dropped down again, her head moving down against his cheek. He kissed the top of her forehead.
Harry then blushed and said: " I should go talk with Neville. He's pretty upset about how he accidentally tripped Colin Creevey and broke his camera."
" He broke Colin's camera?" Hermione exclaimed, her face also red.
" Yeah. Well, see ya." Harry pulled away like a magnet does when meeting its pole with the same side - a force so instant and great that it was almost exaggerated.
As Harry walked away, Hermione's hand went up to feel the place on her forehead where he'd kissed her, then she slowly moved farther down the hall herself.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Harry found himself in an especially crowded hallway, filled with people of all sorts pushing here and there in a general clamor and din.
A giant crowd was standing around a bulletin board in the hallway. Everyone was pushing and shoving to get a close view of what was hanging there, and others were exclaiming or crying with fright, especially the girls.
Harry made his ways through the crowd, wondering what it was himself.
His eyes caught a newspaper article, and then his jaw dropped:
" You-Know-Who kills first victim"
Author's Note: I know, I know, I slacked off and made this one the shortest - measly 5000 words. Next chapter will be better - I just wanted to end this one with a bit of a surprise. :)
