Author's Note: I don't own Harry Potter or anything in this fiction. Except
the plot, maybe, and some of the original characters. Not much, though.
1
2 Chapter 12
A Lesson, A dragon gone,
and
Hogsmeade
The next day, lost between the commotion of Halloween and Secret Ghost, a certain black-haired boy walked silently across the Quidditch field, his broom tucked into his hand. His glasses were cloudy since he had just stepped out from the warm insides of the castle and was faced with the freezing-cold, shockingly fresh blast of fall air outside.
The leaves crunched beneath his feet in a friendly-enough manner, and his green eyes smiled out gently at the world around him. He stopped, in the center of the Quidditch field, and then climbed unto his broom. He had about six days until his team played Slytherin and he knew he had to brush up on his flying.
He swept his finger across the slightly concave inside of his glasses to clear away the fog and he then climbed onto the broom. With a gentle kick, he found himself soaring above the field, and was soon out of the reach of the trees and their flying leaves. Harry ducked over and under dancing swirls of leaves, and then spat out a red maple leaf from his mouth. He practiced ducking, then he tried to make a fast turn and then do a nose-dive. He rounded it out and soon found himself soaring upwards again, his eyes settled on the lovely soaring clouds. They were whiter then spun cotton candy and the blue sky behind them seemed like a sea on which these cotton candy ships sailed.
He closed his eyes, enjoying the flight without much worry. Just as he readied to go back down after his practice, he found himself nearly skidding into Hermione. She was there, on her own broom.
" Hey, Harry." She grinned.
" Hi." He looked down at her on her broom, her robes spread over it so it was tucked backwards and rolled under the broom's end. " You're flying!"
" Sure!" She floated up towards him. " It's quite perfectly easy. Madame Hooch taught me."
" She taught you right." Harry complimented her.
" How'd you do that nose-dive?" She asked.
" Look." He brought his broom up higher, making sure that he had balanced himself up, then he suddenly pushed the tip of the broom down violently and it went down quickly and sharply. When he was about three feet from the ground, he jerked the nose of the broom upwards and he skidded sideways but managed it.
" Wow!" Hermione began to go upwards in an attempt to make a nose- dive, too.
" No! Don't!" Harry called after her.
" Why?" She asked.
" You're not ready. It took me half a year of practice, every day, to be able to do that smoothly. Not even Oliver Wood could do it as smoothly - he told me himself that it's only a one in ten chance that you won't tumble off your broom or skid when you pull out of the nose-dive, especially a sharp one." Harry lectured her.
" I can manage it." Hermione made her broom upwards, and then she wobbled on it dangerously.
" Herm - you're not ready." Harry repeated. " Come down."
She was too high up. Harry had watched her lessons with Madame Hooch outside of Professor Trelawney's classroom window and he had to admit that she wasn't ready in the least bit yet. Madame Hooch didn't even allow Hermione to fly up more then ten or twelve feet from the ground, and now Hermione dangled a good forty feet up in the air.
" Come down!" Harry said, exasperated.
Hermione slowly tilted the front of her broom down and readied to kick off. " Harry, really, if you can do it, so can I."
" You'll kill yourself!" He brought his broom upwards, ready to wrestle her off her broom (he knew that she'd probably let go if he tickled her, he had found out she was ticklish on her sides).
" No, I won't." Hermione dived down with her broom. She was going too fast from too high an altitude. Anyone who had ridden a broom once in their life should know that when doing a nose-dive you have to pick up some speed and make a well-rounded dive, not a sharp V-dive. It was extremely dangerous.
" Hermione!" He shouted after her, as her broom pummeled to the ground. She struggled to pull the front of it up but she couldn't, it was going with too much force.
" Harry!" She cried out.
He had never made his broom go as fast as he did just then. He had thought he might have gone fast after the Snitch, but now he was going so incredibly fast that the wind blew back his cheeks, his eyes widening as he wondered if he'd get to Hermione in time.
" Hermione. . ." He cried out, grabbing the back of her hood just as the broom was less then ten feet from the ground. Her hands immediately let go of the broom, her fingers uncurling from the tight hold she had on the wooden handle.
" Harry. . ." She whispered, pulling herself close to him.
He pointed at her broom, which, after losing it's passenger, had bounced off the ground with its nose and then sailed across and slammed into a pole, then slid down. It hadn't broken, but if Hermione had been on it, her weight would have exploded the broom as well as her with it.
Tears were in her eyes, he could see it. " I just wanted to be like you. . ." She whispered. " I thought. . ."
" See, Hermione? I always knew you were stubborn, but that wasn't pure stubbornness. That was stupid." He brushed her hair from her face. " What if something had happened to you? I'd have never forgiven myself."
" I'm sorry." She said.
He wiped a tear from her cheek. " Why do you insist on knowing how to fly a broom. It's really not that great."
" I thought you'd like me more if I'd be able to play Quidditch, just like you." She explained, pressing her face into his chest. He felt her wet tears, cold against his chest, through his shirt. He laughed.
" If you played Quidditch then I'd go crazy with worry."
She laughed too, then her eyes met with his again. Now that Harry had her uttermost attention, he told her, just as he brought the broom down to the ground: " Swear to me that you won't do something dangerous like that with your broom, ever again."
Hermione smiled through her tears and said: " I swear."
He kissed her. " Good." They were on the ground now, the broom held tightly in his left hand, his right still holding close to Hermione. " That was really stupid, alright."
He rested his cheek on the top of her head.
" I just thought I'd be able to. I calculated the force, and I tried to see whether the angle I was going to would balance with the acceleration, and when you take that into the same perspective as the work load on the broom. . ."
He kissed the tip of her nose. " You can't calculate Quidditch, or broom-flying. There's really no scientific explanation. Stuff happens, you know."
Hermione nodded, and then went to get her broom. Her fingers clutched the broom protectively and she said, softly: " Are you mad, now?"
" Of course not." Harry smiled at her.
" Good." She replied. " Because that was stupid of me, wasn't it?" Harry had never known Hermione to admit to something like that. She would have rather been force-fed poison, you'd think, then to admit she had done something stupid. But at this moment, she was utterly convinced her actions were stupid and she didn't deny it.
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Harry had gone to visit Hagrid and Lisa again about half a week later, one Wednesday evening, just as the sun was setting. He wanted to speak with the tall, burly man and to ask them a few things about the English Whitescale.
As he knocked on the door of the little cabin, he wondered if perhaps he shouldn't visit poor Hagrid and Lisa as much. Perhaps they would prefer having a bit of some 'alone' time as an engaged couple. Lisa didn't really live with Hagrid, actually, but she did come to his cabin more and more often.
It had gotten hard for the students and faculty at Hogwarts not to notice the giant woman walking across Hogwarts grounds towards Hagrid's hut. Draco had laughed at Hagrid and said that he had finally gotten the pity of some female.
Now Harry stood in silence before Hagrid's door, his mind filled with worry about whether he was intruding. Suddenly, he hard Hagrid call out: " It's open!"
Harry wrapped his fingers around the cold metal handle of the door and then gently gave the door a push. It swung inwards into the room. The cold air drifted inwards, extinguishing the little candle on the table with a WHOOSH! Harry stepped inside the dark hut and then slowly shut the door behind him, cutting off the wind. Immediately, the curtains hanging over the window stopped rustling in the wind and the doilies on the table stopped fluttering.
Hagrid was sitting at the table, and as Harry approached him, Hagrid suddenly lit the candle again. A warm glow filled the corner of the cabin.
" Hagrid! You look sad." Harry inquired.
" Yeh're right." Hagrid replied.
" What's wrong?" Harry sat down on the bench-like seats beside the table. " It's not Lisa, is it?"
" Not quite." Hagrid turned a tear-streaked cheek to Harry. "Somethin' yer not supposed to know about happened and I'm awful sad 'bout it."
" Why am I not supposed to know about it?" Harry asked.
" I can't say. Yer not supposed to know, after all." Hagrid said. "Nobody's supposed to know but me and Lisa."
" Not another magical creature gone bad, right?" Harry asked.
" Er. . ." Hagrid's eyes closed.
" It is." Harry couldn't even try to guess. " I can't really even guess, now! What poor creature this time?"
" Yeh'd better promise not to tell, Harry." Hagrid's black eyes looked meaningfully into Harry's.
" I promise." Harry said.
" In that case. . ." Hagrid leaned back. " Lisa and I'd tried to raise another dragon t'gether. Y'know, just for a pet."
" Another dragon!" Harry exclaimed. " You should know better then that, Hagrid."
" I know." Hagrid looked down at the kitchen table. A tear fell from his eye and splattered on the table. " What's worse is what happened to my poor Whitescale."
" A Whitescale!" Harry exclaimed. " You had an English Whitescale?"
" Sure. It's an acceptable breed an' all, Harry." Hagrid said.
" How'd you get one!" Harry demanded.
" Easily."
" No, but what I mean is, how, exactly?" Harry leaned forwards on the table just as another giant tear fell from Hagrid's eye and splashed into the other one. A small puddle was forming on the tablecloth.
" Well, it was like this. There'd been this man, yeh see. He was tall, huge fella. Stooped o'er, with about three or four eggs in a crate by his leg." Hagrid began. Harry could imagine a smoke-filled bar, with the tall man sitting in the corner of the room with dragon eggs beside his leg.
" Hagrid, you know better by now then to buy dragons, and even better to buy them from a stranger."
" Aw, but it wasn't a dragon egg. See, he also had a hatched dragon. Sold it ter me for real cheap, says they're mighty dangerous to own these days." Hagrid looked thoughtful. "Don't know what 'e meant by that."
" More the reason to stay away from weirdoes like that." Harry warned.
" I know, I know, Harry!" Hagrid sighed.
" Well, do go on, now that you're warmed up to the idea of talking about it." Harry prompted Hagrid to go on.
" Gulpin' Gargoyles, did that little thing squeal. I couldn't keep it 'ere! Someone could've 'eard it, eh?" Hagrid stopped to wipe off the puddle of tears on the table with his sleeve.
" No, I suppose not." Harry said, softly.
" That's right." Hagrid tapped his fingers gently on the table. "So, Lisa took the li'l thing. She kept it quiet, fed it, cared fo' it. It grew up, our li'l baby." Hagrid's back heaved as he let out a sob. "An' . . . an'. . . an' then!"
" You can stop if you'd like." Harry told him.
" Naw, I ought ter keep goin', now that I started an' all." Hagrid sniffled and another tear fell to the table. " Someone went an' stole'd 'im. Lisa'd watch 'im all the time, but for some reason or 'nother, someone found 'im out and stole'd 'im."
" Why'd someone steal the poor thing?" Harry asked. Suddenly, he wished it wasn't Voldemort. But Voldemort wouldn't just go out and take a stroll by Lisa's house, peek in the window like some sort of peeping Tom, and then go: "By Jove! They got a Whitescale in there!"
Whoever sold the dragon to Hagrid must have known Hagrid would take care of it; stupidly, yes, but still take good care for it. And then, once the time had come, the person would then take the dragon back.
" But. . . the dragon has to be a hundred to come to any magical use." Harry whispered.
" What's that, Harry?" Hagrid looked up from a massive handkerchief, which was rather odd-looking, with unequal corners in it, and it was obviously made by Lisa since she'd stitched her initials in one of the corners, and Hagrid's initials in the other corner.
" Nothing." Harry replied. " I'm really sorry, Hagrid. I'm sure you'll find something new - maybe some blast-ended skrewts?" Harry knew it was nothing too exciting for Hagrid, but he could always hope.
" Blast-ended skrewts." Hagrid shook his head. " I'm tired o' them."
" Well, I gotta go, it's getting real dark and if McGonagall catches me she'll take off a great many points from Gryffindor." Harry said. " I hope you feel better."
Hagrid smiled and then hugged him, and then finally let Harry go. Harry's mind filled with worry, since he knew that now he promised Hagrid he won't tell about what happened either. So he had a promise with Ron in which he would be going against Hermione's promise to tell her everything, he had a promise with Hagrid going against his promise with Hermione, and a promise with Hermione going against what Ron's and Hagrid's promise said. There was a horrible feeling inside of his stomach, since he wished he'd never made any of those promises.
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The day had come when the students were to go to Hogsmeade again. It was a joyous day, since it was, after all, almost Halloween. Harry still had no idea of what to get Draco. He hadn't taken any of Fred and George Weasley's suggestions into consideration, since most of them revolved in gifts that would produce harm to Draco.
Harry had just finished dressing himself for the trip, and since the cold of fall was taking in full bloom, Harry knew he'd have to make sure he's dressed warmly.
There was a soft ache inside Harry's scar as he pulled on a sweater. His glasses slid down, pulled by the woven collar. He sighed and pushed them back up.
Then, a twinge in his scar sent him up to his feet, staring into the mirror. The twinge was gone, but as he peered in the mirror he saw something behind him, moving up towards him, perhaps even breathing heavily, ruffling the hair on his head.
" Oh, my God!" Harry spun around, ready for any karate action necessary. His frightened eyes met with the laughing face of Hermione.
" Frightened you, didn't I!" She laughed, and then said: "Hurry up, Ron and Neville are waiting for you outside. They sent me to get you, they figured if anyone will yank you away from your bed it's me and my wand." She twirled her wand in the air. " I must say I'm disappointed. I could have done that new spell I learned - it's supposed to pummel a couch potato clear off it's couch."
" Sounds nice." Harry ran his fingers through his hair, trying not to sound as if he had just been frightened half to death.
Hermione laughed and then pushed him towards the door. "Let's go!"
Harry was forced out into the hallway, and he greeted Neville and Ron. " Hi, guys."
Ron held up a small pouch of coins. A little bronze Knut tumbled out and rolled to Harry's feet. " Get that for me, will you? I took all my allowance, since I have absolutely no idea what girl's things cost, and that's exactly what I'm buying Rebecca."
Harry turned to Neville. " Who're you buying a gift for?"
Neville held a little paper up. " Hannah Abbot." Harry remembered the blonde-haired, pink-faced girl from Defense Against the Dark Arts and he realized what a great couple she and Neville would be.
" That's pretty cool! Any ideas of what you'll get her?" Harry asked.
" None." Neville held up his hands in desperation. " I actually forgot all about Secret Ghost until about an hour ago. You wouldn't believe how hard I had to search our common room for this little paper." He held it up triumphantly.
" Well, good luck." Harry patted his shoulder.
" And you're the Secret Ghost for Malfoy, right?" Ron asked.
" Yeah." Harry tried to sound cheerful. " I'm still wondering about what to get him. Do you think that it would be alright with him if I got him candy?"
" Maybe he'll think that you want to get him fat or something." Neville said, softly.
" He's sort of hard to buy for, isn't he?" Hermione asked.
" I thought that perhaps you'd help me find something." Harry told her.
" I'd love to help, but I really have my hands full trying to find one of those expensive sticker-things for Dennis. Ron, you wouldn't have any idea of where to find one, now, would you?" Hermione turned to the red- haired boy.
" None whatsoever." Ron replied.
" Secret Ghost isn't turning out too fun." Harry said, ominously.
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Hogsmeade stood, waiting, welcoming the Hogwarts students like an old man, with open arms, gathering children around him for a story-tale to tell. Harry could never have enough of the warm glowing windows, yellow- soft in the candlelight. Reflections danced inside his dark pupils as his gaze ventured from one shop window to another.
He saw the shop in which he bought Hermione her two rings. She still wore them, proudly, one on each hand, and from the jealous gazes she got from Lavender and Parvati, he knew the rings were nice.
Hermione turned to Harry and said: " Let's stop here. I might find that weird sticker for Dennis in here."
" Alright. Let me tell Ron we're stopping here." Harry passed Hermione and then stopped Ron, who was traveling with Neville and Colin Creevey. Harry excused Ron from the company he held and then said: "Ron, we're stopping right over there. Wanna come with us?"
" Who's us?" Ron asked.
" Just me and Hermione." Harry replied.
Ron's face seemed to stiffen. " You can go ahead. I'll stay with these guys." Ron said, then turned to Colin, who was just moaning over how he missed the zoom function on his camera.
" Oh. Well, see you." Harry called after Ron.
He returned to Hermione and said: " Ron's going someplace else. I figure that he'd stick with Neville and Colin, they're all buying gifts for girls, and so they're probably heading for the same location."
" Yeah." Hermione and Harry walked into the familiar old shop and the bells on the door rang cheerily. The bells were new and the song they played was very cheery and at the same time a bit spooky, perfect for Halloween.
The old man at the counter smiled, and said: " Well! Welcome back, Harry Potter and Hermione. More rings to buy for the pretty lady?"
Hermione blushed and said: " We're here to buy gifts for the Secret Ghost game in Hogwarts. It's a rendition of Secret Santa."
" Ah! I have a whole new box of odds and ends, right here." The man ducked beneath the counter and reappeared with a heaping box filled with, indeed, trinkets and odds and ends.
" This stuff is marvelous!" Hermione exclaimed, flipping through them. A beautiful quill pen with a fluffy pink feather was tossed aside, a sack of marbles with miniature portraits in each clattered to the bottom of the box as she searched more.
Then, her eyes stopped on a little holographic sticker. It had a picture on it of a boy on a broom. The boy zoomed across the picture, then turned and zoomed back. On the bottom, it said to write in a name.
Hermione looked up at the man and he nodded his approval. She took the quill from the box and wrote in: Dennis, right into the given space.
Harry and Hermione both watched in surprise as the word 'Dennis' flew across the little hologram picture, in 3 dimensional letters. Then, it seemed to disappear into the picture. Just as it seemed the 'show' was over, it began again, with more little 'Dennises' flying around.
Harry laughed and said: "This is perfect!"
" How much?" Hermione asked.
" Hmm. . . twenty Knuts." The man said, after a while of thought. " It's been marked for twenty-five, you know, but nobody's buying it."
" I'll take it. And this feather quill - it's lovely." Hermione smiled. " How much for the feather quill?"
The man smiled and said: " Ten Knuts."
" Great! I have exactly enough." Hermione laid out thirty-five shining bronze Knuts on the counter. Harry busied himself with the other oddities in the box. His hand stopped on a white teddy bear, which heavily reminded him of Malfoy. Other then the fact it was pale-white, with two blue buttons sewed on for eyes and a stern little pink dash of thread for the mouth.
Harry put the teddy bear aside and kept searching. His fingers skimmed the glass surface of a little deer made of sheen light blue glass in which tiny bubbles were captured. He looked at it for a moment, then put it aside as well.
He searched for a while through the little things, then said: "No, enough."
" Can't find anything?" Hermione asked.
" Nope." Harry leaned on the counter with his elbows. " I don't think I'll ever find something for Draco. I'll have to go with the bag of candy."
Just as he leaned on the counter, the box moved forwards and a little parcel fell out from the crack on the bottom. It spilled at his feet. Harry dropped to his knees right away, his fingers picking through the things on the floor. It was something wrapped in hay, and very ancient-looking. His fingers finally found the object hidden inside - a beautiful diary/journal. It was very old, he could see that right away. The cover was the finest cow leather and thicker then the dragon hide gloves Harry had used when mixing deadly Potions in Snape's class. Into the black leather, in a golden thread, the fancy curlicue following word was stitched: 'Me'. Simply, those two little letters, yet it had such a powerful meaning and impact that Harry's fingers instinctually opened the well-bound cover.
His thumb was held with the little binding, which was simply a thinner strap of leather held down on both sides with a shiny golden snap. The pages inside weren't girlish at all. In fact, it was a strictly boy's journal, with crisp fresh pages smelling strongly still of bleached cedar wood. The thin blue lines across the pages were lined up well, along which there was enough space to write anything someone would like.
" This is perfect!" Harry stood up, one hand holding the journal and the other holding a handful of straw. " This is absolutely perfect!"
" What is?" Hermione leaned over his shoulder, her chin poking into his collarbone as he did, and she gasped out:
"Wow!"
He turned to show it to her, saying: " Isn't it great?"
" Yeah!" She agreed, gently tracing the word 'Me' on the cover. She looked up, her eyes meeting with Harry's, and said: " This will be perfect for Draco. He needs something to speak with. The only people he really opens up to, I bet, is his little sidekicks, Crabbe and Goyle. I bet he could use having a confidante like this."
" How much would this be?" Harry asked the man.
" That's a mighty expensive journal, Harry." The man said. "It's a good two hundred years old."
" Then it'll be. . .?" Harry ventured.
" I'd say about two Galleons." The man said.
" Harry, that's a fortune! You could buy a good five years of newspapers with that!" Hermione said into Harry's ear.
Newspapers were, after all, five Knuts. Twenty-nine Knuts made up the silver Sickles, and seventeen Sickles made up a Galleon. It was a fortune, indeed, to kids their age.
" I'll take it." Harry took out a small satchel of money that he had in his pocket and took out two Galleons. " I think that'd be enough?"
" Yes." The man grinned. " Thank you, kindly, for your business." He smiled even wider. " I can feed my cats now, you see."
Harry heard the mewling of cats the moment he entered the store. Now he thought out loud: " How many cats could there be?"
" I feed about twenty-six cats." The man said.
" Twenty-six!" Hermione's eyes widened.
" Someone's got to feed them." The man replied, and then patted the hands of Hermione's. " I'll see you young ones some other time, then?"
" Sure. Well, good bye! Happy Halloween!" Harry and Hermione left the store, smiling, knowing that they'd found the perfect gifts already.
Things were looking bright for Harry Potter again.
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Harry had made his way back to Hogwarts later that day. He caught up with Ron, Neville, and Colin at the doors. Neville stammered out, eyes full of wonder: "We found this awful store, full of pink and frilly things and ribbons and. . . ugh, it's too painful too explain."
" Did you buy your Secret Ghost gifts?" Harry asked them.
" Yep." They all raised a bag stuffed with frilly, pink, and abnormally girly things.
" I wonder what we're all going to get, and from whom!" Harry said, aloud.
" Same here." Neville murmured. " With just my luck, my name could've not been picked."
" Is that even possible?" Harry asked.
" Who knows!" Hermione laughed. " Dumbledore isn't saying anything at all. He had written down everyone and whom they're giving a gift to and then who is giving THEM a gift. It's a massive chart and he rolled it up, just this thick huge scroll he carries with him everywhere. He asked me twice already to double-check if he wrote down my Secret Ghost person right."
" He didn't ask me." Harry murmured.
" Dumbledore used a spell to find these things out. The cauldron was charmed, didn't you see? It watched who's hand went in and then it noted what scrap of paper came out." Hermione said.
" I wonder who Draco's getting a gift for?" Colin spoke up.
" Hah! I'd feel bad for whomever it was that's getting his gift! It's probably poison or something!" Ron laughed.
" Hey! Shut up!" Draco was walking by just then and heard that bit of their conversation. Draco's face was flushed with embarrassment and Harry suddenly felt horrible for him. Draco was storming off, the tops of his ears an odd maroon color, when Ron suddenly called after him:
" Sorry."
Draco turned around, his blue eyes ready to melt snow, and said: "Don't be. If you said it, you meant it."
There was a stunned silence as they all watched Draco storm into Hogwarts castle. Then, Neville said, quietly: " Wow. So he does have feelings."
A/N: Poor Draco. My favorite character. **sniff** Perhaps you noticed the coincidence of Harry and Ron getting the names they had from the cauldron. The reason for getting these names comes in the next chapter. (Hint: a certain spell was put on the cauldron, just to make sure everyone gets a gift, and this spell influenced who gives what gift.)
Oh, yes. . .
A/N: Did you read this far? Do you care for the author's feelings? If you answered yes to these questions, send a 100 dollars to the author and. . . no, no, just kidding. Actually all I want from my lovable audience is to read this one Harry Potter poem I wrote called 'The Treat'. It's by me and it's funny, it really is! You can even flame me if you hate it very much, I'd just like some reviews. O great I'll be quiet and start up ch. 13 before I start groveling. ::Puppy Dog Eyes::
1
2 Chapter 12
A Lesson, A dragon gone,
and
Hogsmeade
The next day, lost between the commotion of Halloween and Secret Ghost, a certain black-haired boy walked silently across the Quidditch field, his broom tucked into his hand. His glasses were cloudy since he had just stepped out from the warm insides of the castle and was faced with the freezing-cold, shockingly fresh blast of fall air outside.
The leaves crunched beneath his feet in a friendly-enough manner, and his green eyes smiled out gently at the world around him. He stopped, in the center of the Quidditch field, and then climbed unto his broom. He had about six days until his team played Slytherin and he knew he had to brush up on his flying.
He swept his finger across the slightly concave inside of his glasses to clear away the fog and he then climbed onto the broom. With a gentle kick, he found himself soaring above the field, and was soon out of the reach of the trees and their flying leaves. Harry ducked over and under dancing swirls of leaves, and then spat out a red maple leaf from his mouth. He practiced ducking, then he tried to make a fast turn and then do a nose-dive. He rounded it out and soon found himself soaring upwards again, his eyes settled on the lovely soaring clouds. They were whiter then spun cotton candy and the blue sky behind them seemed like a sea on which these cotton candy ships sailed.
He closed his eyes, enjoying the flight without much worry. Just as he readied to go back down after his practice, he found himself nearly skidding into Hermione. She was there, on her own broom.
" Hey, Harry." She grinned.
" Hi." He looked down at her on her broom, her robes spread over it so it was tucked backwards and rolled under the broom's end. " You're flying!"
" Sure!" She floated up towards him. " It's quite perfectly easy. Madame Hooch taught me."
" She taught you right." Harry complimented her.
" How'd you do that nose-dive?" She asked.
" Look." He brought his broom up higher, making sure that he had balanced himself up, then he suddenly pushed the tip of the broom down violently and it went down quickly and sharply. When he was about three feet from the ground, he jerked the nose of the broom upwards and he skidded sideways but managed it.
" Wow!" Hermione began to go upwards in an attempt to make a nose- dive, too.
" No! Don't!" Harry called after her.
" Why?" She asked.
" You're not ready. It took me half a year of practice, every day, to be able to do that smoothly. Not even Oliver Wood could do it as smoothly - he told me himself that it's only a one in ten chance that you won't tumble off your broom or skid when you pull out of the nose-dive, especially a sharp one." Harry lectured her.
" I can manage it." Hermione made her broom upwards, and then she wobbled on it dangerously.
" Herm - you're not ready." Harry repeated. " Come down."
She was too high up. Harry had watched her lessons with Madame Hooch outside of Professor Trelawney's classroom window and he had to admit that she wasn't ready in the least bit yet. Madame Hooch didn't even allow Hermione to fly up more then ten or twelve feet from the ground, and now Hermione dangled a good forty feet up in the air.
" Come down!" Harry said, exasperated.
Hermione slowly tilted the front of her broom down and readied to kick off. " Harry, really, if you can do it, so can I."
" You'll kill yourself!" He brought his broom upwards, ready to wrestle her off her broom (he knew that she'd probably let go if he tickled her, he had found out she was ticklish on her sides).
" No, I won't." Hermione dived down with her broom. She was going too fast from too high an altitude. Anyone who had ridden a broom once in their life should know that when doing a nose-dive you have to pick up some speed and make a well-rounded dive, not a sharp V-dive. It was extremely dangerous.
" Hermione!" He shouted after her, as her broom pummeled to the ground. She struggled to pull the front of it up but she couldn't, it was going with too much force.
" Harry!" She cried out.
He had never made his broom go as fast as he did just then. He had thought he might have gone fast after the Snitch, but now he was going so incredibly fast that the wind blew back his cheeks, his eyes widening as he wondered if he'd get to Hermione in time.
" Hermione. . ." He cried out, grabbing the back of her hood just as the broom was less then ten feet from the ground. Her hands immediately let go of the broom, her fingers uncurling from the tight hold she had on the wooden handle.
" Harry. . ." She whispered, pulling herself close to him.
He pointed at her broom, which, after losing it's passenger, had bounced off the ground with its nose and then sailed across and slammed into a pole, then slid down. It hadn't broken, but if Hermione had been on it, her weight would have exploded the broom as well as her with it.
Tears were in her eyes, he could see it. " I just wanted to be like you. . ." She whispered. " I thought. . ."
" See, Hermione? I always knew you were stubborn, but that wasn't pure stubbornness. That was stupid." He brushed her hair from her face. " What if something had happened to you? I'd have never forgiven myself."
" I'm sorry." She said.
He wiped a tear from her cheek. " Why do you insist on knowing how to fly a broom. It's really not that great."
" I thought you'd like me more if I'd be able to play Quidditch, just like you." She explained, pressing her face into his chest. He felt her wet tears, cold against his chest, through his shirt. He laughed.
" If you played Quidditch then I'd go crazy with worry."
She laughed too, then her eyes met with his again. Now that Harry had her uttermost attention, he told her, just as he brought the broom down to the ground: " Swear to me that you won't do something dangerous like that with your broom, ever again."
Hermione smiled through her tears and said: " I swear."
He kissed her. " Good." They were on the ground now, the broom held tightly in his left hand, his right still holding close to Hermione. " That was really stupid, alright."
He rested his cheek on the top of her head.
" I just thought I'd be able to. I calculated the force, and I tried to see whether the angle I was going to would balance with the acceleration, and when you take that into the same perspective as the work load on the broom. . ."
He kissed the tip of her nose. " You can't calculate Quidditch, or broom-flying. There's really no scientific explanation. Stuff happens, you know."
Hermione nodded, and then went to get her broom. Her fingers clutched the broom protectively and she said, softly: " Are you mad, now?"
" Of course not." Harry smiled at her.
" Good." She replied. " Because that was stupid of me, wasn't it?" Harry had never known Hermione to admit to something like that. She would have rather been force-fed poison, you'd think, then to admit she had done something stupid. But at this moment, she was utterly convinced her actions were stupid and she didn't deny it.
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Harry had gone to visit Hagrid and Lisa again about half a week later, one Wednesday evening, just as the sun was setting. He wanted to speak with the tall, burly man and to ask them a few things about the English Whitescale.
As he knocked on the door of the little cabin, he wondered if perhaps he shouldn't visit poor Hagrid and Lisa as much. Perhaps they would prefer having a bit of some 'alone' time as an engaged couple. Lisa didn't really live with Hagrid, actually, but she did come to his cabin more and more often.
It had gotten hard for the students and faculty at Hogwarts not to notice the giant woman walking across Hogwarts grounds towards Hagrid's hut. Draco had laughed at Hagrid and said that he had finally gotten the pity of some female.
Now Harry stood in silence before Hagrid's door, his mind filled with worry about whether he was intruding. Suddenly, he hard Hagrid call out: " It's open!"
Harry wrapped his fingers around the cold metal handle of the door and then gently gave the door a push. It swung inwards into the room. The cold air drifted inwards, extinguishing the little candle on the table with a WHOOSH! Harry stepped inside the dark hut and then slowly shut the door behind him, cutting off the wind. Immediately, the curtains hanging over the window stopped rustling in the wind and the doilies on the table stopped fluttering.
Hagrid was sitting at the table, and as Harry approached him, Hagrid suddenly lit the candle again. A warm glow filled the corner of the cabin.
" Hagrid! You look sad." Harry inquired.
" Yeh're right." Hagrid replied.
" What's wrong?" Harry sat down on the bench-like seats beside the table. " It's not Lisa, is it?"
" Not quite." Hagrid turned a tear-streaked cheek to Harry. "Somethin' yer not supposed to know about happened and I'm awful sad 'bout it."
" Why am I not supposed to know about it?" Harry asked.
" I can't say. Yer not supposed to know, after all." Hagrid said. "Nobody's supposed to know but me and Lisa."
" Not another magical creature gone bad, right?" Harry asked.
" Er. . ." Hagrid's eyes closed.
" It is." Harry couldn't even try to guess. " I can't really even guess, now! What poor creature this time?"
" Yeh'd better promise not to tell, Harry." Hagrid's black eyes looked meaningfully into Harry's.
" I promise." Harry said.
" In that case. . ." Hagrid leaned back. " Lisa and I'd tried to raise another dragon t'gether. Y'know, just for a pet."
" Another dragon!" Harry exclaimed. " You should know better then that, Hagrid."
" I know." Hagrid looked down at the kitchen table. A tear fell from his eye and splattered on the table. " What's worse is what happened to my poor Whitescale."
" A Whitescale!" Harry exclaimed. " You had an English Whitescale?"
" Sure. It's an acceptable breed an' all, Harry." Hagrid said.
" How'd you get one!" Harry demanded.
" Easily."
" No, but what I mean is, how, exactly?" Harry leaned forwards on the table just as another giant tear fell from Hagrid's eye and splashed into the other one. A small puddle was forming on the tablecloth.
" Well, it was like this. There'd been this man, yeh see. He was tall, huge fella. Stooped o'er, with about three or four eggs in a crate by his leg." Hagrid began. Harry could imagine a smoke-filled bar, with the tall man sitting in the corner of the room with dragon eggs beside his leg.
" Hagrid, you know better by now then to buy dragons, and even better to buy them from a stranger."
" Aw, but it wasn't a dragon egg. See, he also had a hatched dragon. Sold it ter me for real cheap, says they're mighty dangerous to own these days." Hagrid looked thoughtful. "Don't know what 'e meant by that."
" More the reason to stay away from weirdoes like that." Harry warned.
" I know, I know, Harry!" Hagrid sighed.
" Well, do go on, now that you're warmed up to the idea of talking about it." Harry prompted Hagrid to go on.
" Gulpin' Gargoyles, did that little thing squeal. I couldn't keep it 'ere! Someone could've 'eard it, eh?" Hagrid stopped to wipe off the puddle of tears on the table with his sleeve.
" No, I suppose not." Harry said, softly.
" That's right." Hagrid tapped his fingers gently on the table. "So, Lisa took the li'l thing. She kept it quiet, fed it, cared fo' it. It grew up, our li'l baby." Hagrid's back heaved as he let out a sob. "An' . . . an'. . . an' then!"
" You can stop if you'd like." Harry told him.
" Naw, I ought ter keep goin', now that I started an' all." Hagrid sniffled and another tear fell to the table. " Someone went an' stole'd 'im. Lisa'd watch 'im all the time, but for some reason or 'nother, someone found 'im out and stole'd 'im."
" Why'd someone steal the poor thing?" Harry asked. Suddenly, he wished it wasn't Voldemort. But Voldemort wouldn't just go out and take a stroll by Lisa's house, peek in the window like some sort of peeping Tom, and then go: "By Jove! They got a Whitescale in there!"
Whoever sold the dragon to Hagrid must have known Hagrid would take care of it; stupidly, yes, but still take good care for it. And then, once the time had come, the person would then take the dragon back.
" But. . . the dragon has to be a hundred to come to any magical use." Harry whispered.
" What's that, Harry?" Hagrid looked up from a massive handkerchief, which was rather odd-looking, with unequal corners in it, and it was obviously made by Lisa since she'd stitched her initials in one of the corners, and Hagrid's initials in the other corner.
" Nothing." Harry replied. " I'm really sorry, Hagrid. I'm sure you'll find something new - maybe some blast-ended skrewts?" Harry knew it was nothing too exciting for Hagrid, but he could always hope.
" Blast-ended skrewts." Hagrid shook his head. " I'm tired o' them."
" Well, I gotta go, it's getting real dark and if McGonagall catches me she'll take off a great many points from Gryffindor." Harry said. " I hope you feel better."
Hagrid smiled and then hugged him, and then finally let Harry go. Harry's mind filled with worry, since he knew that now he promised Hagrid he won't tell about what happened either. So he had a promise with Ron in which he would be going against Hermione's promise to tell her everything, he had a promise with Hagrid going against his promise with Hermione, and a promise with Hermione going against what Ron's and Hagrid's promise said. There was a horrible feeling inside of his stomach, since he wished he'd never made any of those promises.
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The day had come when the students were to go to Hogsmeade again. It was a joyous day, since it was, after all, almost Halloween. Harry still had no idea of what to get Draco. He hadn't taken any of Fred and George Weasley's suggestions into consideration, since most of them revolved in gifts that would produce harm to Draco.
Harry had just finished dressing himself for the trip, and since the cold of fall was taking in full bloom, Harry knew he'd have to make sure he's dressed warmly.
There was a soft ache inside Harry's scar as he pulled on a sweater. His glasses slid down, pulled by the woven collar. He sighed and pushed them back up.
Then, a twinge in his scar sent him up to his feet, staring into the mirror. The twinge was gone, but as he peered in the mirror he saw something behind him, moving up towards him, perhaps even breathing heavily, ruffling the hair on his head.
" Oh, my God!" Harry spun around, ready for any karate action necessary. His frightened eyes met with the laughing face of Hermione.
" Frightened you, didn't I!" She laughed, and then said: "Hurry up, Ron and Neville are waiting for you outside. They sent me to get you, they figured if anyone will yank you away from your bed it's me and my wand." She twirled her wand in the air. " I must say I'm disappointed. I could have done that new spell I learned - it's supposed to pummel a couch potato clear off it's couch."
" Sounds nice." Harry ran his fingers through his hair, trying not to sound as if he had just been frightened half to death.
Hermione laughed and then pushed him towards the door. "Let's go!"
Harry was forced out into the hallway, and he greeted Neville and Ron. " Hi, guys."
Ron held up a small pouch of coins. A little bronze Knut tumbled out and rolled to Harry's feet. " Get that for me, will you? I took all my allowance, since I have absolutely no idea what girl's things cost, and that's exactly what I'm buying Rebecca."
Harry turned to Neville. " Who're you buying a gift for?"
Neville held a little paper up. " Hannah Abbot." Harry remembered the blonde-haired, pink-faced girl from Defense Against the Dark Arts and he realized what a great couple she and Neville would be.
" That's pretty cool! Any ideas of what you'll get her?" Harry asked.
" None." Neville held up his hands in desperation. " I actually forgot all about Secret Ghost until about an hour ago. You wouldn't believe how hard I had to search our common room for this little paper." He held it up triumphantly.
" Well, good luck." Harry patted his shoulder.
" And you're the Secret Ghost for Malfoy, right?" Ron asked.
" Yeah." Harry tried to sound cheerful. " I'm still wondering about what to get him. Do you think that it would be alright with him if I got him candy?"
" Maybe he'll think that you want to get him fat or something." Neville said, softly.
" He's sort of hard to buy for, isn't he?" Hermione asked.
" I thought that perhaps you'd help me find something." Harry told her.
" I'd love to help, but I really have my hands full trying to find one of those expensive sticker-things for Dennis. Ron, you wouldn't have any idea of where to find one, now, would you?" Hermione turned to the red- haired boy.
" None whatsoever." Ron replied.
" Secret Ghost isn't turning out too fun." Harry said, ominously.
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Hogsmeade stood, waiting, welcoming the Hogwarts students like an old man, with open arms, gathering children around him for a story-tale to tell. Harry could never have enough of the warm glowing windows, yellow- soft in the candlelight. Reflections danced inside his dark pupils as his gaze ventured from one shop window to another.
He saw the shop in which he bought Hermione her two rings. She still wore them, proudly, one on each hand, and from the jealous gazes she got from Lavender and Parvati, he knew the rings were nice.
Hermione turned to Harry and said: " Let's stop here. I might find that weird sticker for Dennis in here."
" Alright. Let me tell Ron we're stopping here." Harry passed Hermione and then stopped Ron, who was traveling with Neville and Colin Creevey. Harry excused Ron from the company he held and then said: "Ron, we're stopping right over there. Wanna come with us?"
" Who's us?" Ron asked.
" Just me and Hermione." Harry replied.
Ron's face seemed to stiffen. " You can go ahead. I'll stay with these guys." Ron said, then turned to Colin, who was just moaning over how he missed the zoom function on his camera.
" Oh. Well, see you." Harry called after Ron.
He returned to Hermione and said: " Ron's going someplace else. I figure that he'd stick with Neville and Colin, they're all buying gifts for girls, and so they're probably heading for the same location."
" Yeah." Hermione and Harry walked into the familiar old shop and the bells on the door rang cheerily. The bells were new and the song they played was very cheery and at the same time a bit spooky, perfect for Halloween.
The old man at the counter smiled, and said: " Well! Welcome back, Harry Potter and Hermione. More rings to buy for the pretty lady?"
Hermione blushed and said: " We're here to buy gifts for the Secret Ghost game in Hogwarts. It's a rendition of Secret Santa."
" Ah! I have a whole new box of odds and ends, right here." The man ducked beneath the counter and reappeared with a heaping box filled with, indeed, trinkets and odds and ends.
" This stuff is marvelous!" Hermione exclaimed, flipping through them. A beautiful quill pen with a fluffy pink feather was tossed aside, a sack of marbles with miniature portraits in each clattered to the bottom of the box as she searched more.
Then, her eyes stopped on a little holographic sticker. It had a picture on it of a boy on a broom. The boy zoomed across the picture, then turned and zoomed back. On the bottom, it said to write in a name.
Hermione looked up at the man and he nodded his approval. She took the quill from the box and wrote in: Dennis, right into the given space.
Harry and Hermione both watched in surprise as the word 'Dennis' flew across the little hologram picture, in 3 dimensional letters. Then, it seemed to disappear into the picture. Just as it seemed the 'show' was over, it began again, with more little 'Dennises' flying around.
Harry laughed and said: "This is perfect!"
" How much?" Hermione asked.
" Hmm. . . twenty Knuts." The man said, after a while of thought. " It's been marked for twenty-five, you know, but nobody's buying it."
" I'll take it. And this feather quill - it's lovely." Hermione smiled. " How much for the feather quill?"
The man smiled and said: " Ten Knuts."
" Great! I have exactly enough." Hermione laid out thirty-five shining bronze Knuts on the counter. Harry busied himself with the other oddities in the box. His hand stopped on a white teddy bear, which heavily reminded him of Malfoy. Other then the fact it was pale-white, with two blue buttons sewed on for eyes and a stern little pink dash of thread for the mouth.
Harry put the teddy bear aside and kept searching. His fingers skimmed the glass surface of a little deer made of sheen light blue glass in which tiny bubbles were captured. He looked at it for a moment, then put it aside as well.
He searched for a while through the little things, then said: "No, enough."
" Can't find anything?" Hermione asked.
" Nope." Harry leaned on the counter with his elbows. " I don't think I'll ever find something for Draco. I'll have to go with the bag of candy."
Just as he leaned on the counter, the box moved forwards and a little parcel fell out from the crack on the bottom. It spilled at his feet. Harry dropped to his knees right away, his fingers picking through the things on the floor. It was something wrapped in hay, and very ancient-looking. His fingers finally found the object hidden inside - a beautiful diary/journal. It was very old, he could see that right away. The cover was the finest cow leather and thicker then the dragon hide gloves Harry had used when mixing deadly Potions in Snape's class. Into the black leather, in a golden thread, the fancy curlicue following word was stitched: 'Me'. Simply, those two little letters, yet it had such a powerful meaning and impact that Harry's fingers instinctually opened the well-bound cover.
His thumb was held with the little binding, which was simply a thinner strap of leather held down on both sides with a shiny golden snap. The pages inside weren't girlish at all. In fact, it was a strictly boy's journal, with crisp fresh pages smelling strongly still of bleached cedar wood. The thin blue lines across the pages were lined up well, along which there was enough space to write anything someone would like.
" This is perfect!" Harry stood up, one hand holding the journal and the other holding a handful of straw. " This is absolutely perfect!"
" What is?" Hermione leaned over his shoulder, her chin poking into his collarbone as he did, and she gasped out:
"Wow!"
He turned to show it to her, saying: " Isn't it great?"
" Yeah!" She agreed, gently tracing the word 'Me' on the cover. She looked up, her eyes meeting with Harry's, and said: " This will be perfect for Draco. He needs something to speak with. The only people he really opens up to, I bet, is his little sidekicks, Crabbe and Goyle. I bet he could use having a confidante like this."
" How much would this be?" Harry asked the man.
" That's a mighty expensive journal, Harry." The man said. "It's a good two hundred years old."
" Then it'll be. . .?" Harry ventured.
" I'd say about two Galleons." The man said.
" Harry, that's a fortune! You could buy a good five years of newspapers with that!" Hermione said into Harry's ear.
Newspapers were, after all, five Knuts. Twenty-nine Knuts made up the silver Sickles, and seventeen Sickles made up a Galleon. It was a fortune, indeed, to kids their age.
" I'll take it." Harry took out a small satchel of money that he had in his pocket and took out two Galleons. " I think that'd be enough?"
" Yes." The man grinned. " Thank you, kindly, for your business." He smiled even wider. " I can feed my cats now, you see."
Harry heard the mewling of cats the moment he entered the store. Now he thought out loud: " How many cats could there be?"
" I feed about twenty-six cats." The man said.
" Twenty-six!" Hermione's eyes widened.
" Someone's got to feed them." The man replied, and then patted the hands of Hermione's. " I'll see you young ones some other time, then?"
" Sure. Well, good bye! Happy Halloween!" Harry and Hermione left the store, smiling, knowing that they'd found the perfect gifts already.
Things were looking bright for Harry Potter again.
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Harry had made his way back to Hogwarts later that day. He caught up with Ron, Neville, and Colin at the doors. Neville stammered out, eyes full of wonder: "We found this awful store, full of pink and frilly things and ribbons and. . . ugh, it's too painful too explain."
" Did you buy your Secret Ghost gifts?" Harry asked them.
" Yep." They all raised a bag stuffed with frilly, pink, and abnormally girly things.
" I wonder what we're all going to get, and from whom!" Harry said, aloud.
" Same here." Neville murmured. " With just my luck, my name could've not been picked."
" Is that even possible?" Harry asked.
" Who knows!" Hermione laughed. " Dumbledore isn't saying anything at all. He had written down everyone and whom they're giving a gift to and then who is giving THEM a gift. It's a massive chart and he rolled it up, just this thick huge scroll he carries with him everywhere. He asked me twice already to double-check if he wrote down my Secret Ghost person right."
" He didn't ask me." Harry murmured.
" Dumbledore used a spell to find these things out. The cauldron was charmed, didn't you see? It watched who's hand went in and then it noted what scrap of paper came out." Hermione said.
" I wonder who Draco's getting a gift for?" Colin spoke up.
" Hah! I'd feel bad for whomever it was that's getting his gift! It's probably poison or something!" Ron laughed.
" Hey! Shut up!" Draco was walking by just then and heard that bit of their conversation. Draco's face was flushed with embarrassment and Harry suddenly felt horrible for him. Draco was storming off, the tops of his ears an odd maroon color, when Ron suddenly called after him:
" Sorry."
Draco turned around, his blue eyes ready to melt snow, and said: "Don't be. If you said it, you meant it."
There was a stunned silence as they all watched Draco storm into Hogwarts castle. Then, Neville said, quietly: " Wow. So he does have feelings."
A/N: Poor Draco. My favorite character. **sniff** Perhaps you noticed the coincidence of Harry and Ron getting the names they had from the cauldron. The reason for getting these names comes in the next chapter. (Hint: a certain spell was put on the cauldron, just to make sure everyone gets a gift, and this spell influenced who gives what gift.)
Oh, yes. . .
A/N: Did you read this far? Do you care for the author's feelings? If you answered yes to these questions, send a 100 dollars to the author and. . . no, no, just kidding. Actually all I want from my lovable audience is to read this one Harry Potter poem I wrote called 'The Treat'. It's by me and it's funny, it really is! You can even flame me if you hate it very much, I'd just like some reviews. O great I'll be quiet and start up ch. 13 before I start groveling. ::Puppy Dog Eyes::
