Disclaimer: I own naught.
A/N: Right, now I want you to keep in mind that Sudafed was responsible for the plot of these stories,
okay? NOT ME. I took the medicine, and this bizzarre story popped into my head and it wouldn't leave
until I started writing it all down. Now I'm stuck with it, and I know it's really odd, but bear with
me, okay? Thanks...
Lost - Part 10
By Veralidaine
The rest of the classes were relatively normal, save one minor alteration in Charms--they had an
assistant teacher. By the name of Cho Chang. And, Hermione discovered, Harry still had it bad for her.
Ron kept sniggering at Harry, and though Hermione tried to make him stop, spent most of the class period
teasing him. Harry seemed not to notice, though, so Hermione merely sighed and went back to her note-
taking, occasionally sending Ron a Leave-Him-Alone look, which, of course, he ignored.
After class, Harry stopped to talk to Cho, and Hermione pulled Ron out into the hallway, elbowing him
to make him stop laughing. "You leave him alone..."
"Aw, c'mon, Hermione," Ron laughed. "He didn't leave me alone back in the summer before fifth year..."
Hermione stared. "before fifth year? THAT long ago?"
Ron went a bit red around the ears. "Well, he didn't."
Hermione sighed. And to think she'd had to wait a whole year before Ron finally plucked up enough
courage to ask her to Hogsmeade...
Ron turned around, ignoring Hermione's giggling attempts to make him stop, and shouted, "Oy, Harry! You
done yet?"
"RON!" Hermione said, tugging on his arm and grinning. "Leave him be...He'll come down to dinner when he
feels like it."
"Oh, I know," Ron said. "I'm just doing this to annoy him."
"Well, you're annoying ME, and we don't want that, now, do we? Come on, let's get something to eat."
Harry arrived in the Great Hall about ten minutes after Hermione and Ron had, and looked positively
thrilled with himself. He sat down across from Ron, who leaned over the table and muttered, "So?" (A/N:
Think "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more," Ebony! Teehee...^_^)
Harry broke into a grin. "I've got a date!"
While Ron and Harry exclaimed over this, Hermione couldn't help but disapprove slightly. Cho was, after
all, a teacher, not a student. Yes, she was only a year older than Harry, but still...Well, it wasn't an
action Hermione would take, anyway...Hermione didn't know much about Cho, except that she was a very
good seeker, and, apparently, was beautiful and popular and intelligent (according to Harry, anyway...).
Hermione sighed. Well, she had Ron, he had her, and Harry had no one. So it was probably a good thing
that he had a date. Maybe it would take his mind off of Voldemort's uprising...
"So, when is this date?" Ron asked, grinning.
"Tomorrow night."
"Where're you going?"
"Hogsmeade; she says she can get special permission." He paused. "What are you two going to do?"
"Oh." Ron glanced at Hermione. "What d'you want to do now that he's abandoning us?"
"Well..." Hermione shrugged. "I dunno...Play chess?"
Ron rolled his eyes. "We'll figure something out," he told Harry, grinning.
***
Harry walked rather casually to the library. Only one more hour until he went with Cho to Hogsmeade...
Only one. And he got to spend it in the library! Granted, he was still doing work for class, but at
least he wouldn't have to endure another class period watching the clock as he listened to long, rather
boring lectures...
Harry yawned, sitting in one of the rickety oak chairs near a large window at the back of the library.
He chose this particular spot only to avoid Madam Pince's staring--he honestly wondered WHY a woman like
that would want to work in a SCHOOL if she hated having children around--and busied himself with a book
Hermione had reccomended: "The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts."
He'd never thought to read it before, and now that he was, he wondered why he bothered to waste his
time speculating about all of this as he had for so long, when it was readily available right there in
the library...Hermione and her endless discussion about books deserved more credit than they got...
There he was. Harry blinked at his own name, which appeared more than once on the page he was reading.
He skimmed through it and frowned--it made him sound like...Well...Something Professor Binns would
lecture about. It was utterly unreal, there on the page. Just another chapter with famous names in it.
It held no real meaning.
And there was Voldemort.
Son of Tom Riddle, the Muggle, and daughter to...Violet White, the witch. Harry wondered vaguely whether
she'd gone to Hogwarts. There weren't any records, as far as he knew...He'd just have to ask someone. He
didn't know quite why it was important to him, but it was. Maybe just so he could make sure Voldemort
DIDN'T have any relatives left. Not that Harry didn't trust Dumbledore...He just wanted to be sure...
For the time being, though, he stored the name Violet White in his brain and set down "The Rise and Fall
of the Dark Arts," bored. There were only about twenty minutes left in class, and he really needed to
reply to the owl Sirius had sent him...He'd wait 'til tomorrow for the records.
And yet...
"Madam Pince?"
The librarian looked up sharply, not bothering to disguise a glare as she snapped her book shut. "What?"
"Uhm...Are there...records of the students who attended school here?" he asked carefully.
She eyed him beadily and nodded. "In the back, near the restricted section. Why?"
"I'm doing a research project," Harry said quickly. Well, it was true, wasn't it?
She stared at him hard for a moment longer, making him exceedingly uncomfortable, and then stood up and
walked around her desk, leading him into the back of the library. There was a rather small side room
full of, well, books, and in the center was a large wooden podium with what had to have been the
thickest book Harry had ever seen. It was at least one foot thick, maybe more, and the worn leather
cover sported a huge, fiery opal, about the size of the glass in a hand-mirror.
Madam Pince blew a layer of dust off the top and looked at him. "It is indestructable, so I'm not too
worried that you'll ruin it, but I do want you to watch what you're doing..."
Harry nodded. "These are the records?"
She sighed exhasperatedly. "Yes. Look." She turned to the book, looked into the opal, and said, "Potter,
Harry."
The book's cover snapped open, and the pages flipped violently as though being blown by a very strong
wind. Suddenly it stopped, and when Harry looked closer, he saw his name, birthday, and his parents'
names, all written in miniscule writing. The heading at the top of the page was "Magical Births--1980"
Madam Pince cleared her throat, and Harry, startled, looked up at her. "I'll check back with you in a
few moments. Don't touch anything--just say the name and it will find it." And with that she scurried
out of the room.
Harry turned back to the book. "Weasley, Ron."
The pages flipped for a few seconds, and Ron's name came up, next to October 4, and Molly Connor and
Arthur Weasley.
"Granger, Hermione." September 19, Cassandra Johnson and Paul Granger.
He thought for a moment. "Riddle, Tom." December 31, Violet White and Tom Riddle.
"Violet White." December 7, Elise Corren and Fred White.
"Fred White." February 18, Mary Kelley and Albert White.
"Albert White." Nothing.
"Okay...Mary Kelley, then." May 8, Alice Burns and Johnathan Ellis.
This went on for some time as Harry kept notes on a spare bit of parchment, drawing up a sort of family
tree. Finally, he got to Johnathan Ellis' parents, Margaret and Tom, and yet there was no record of any
other siblings of Johnathan, who was about as far back as Harry could get without suffering severe
confusion. Dumbledore had done all this--why was he bothering? But then something occurred to him: What
if Voldemort's only living relative was a Muggle? No one would ever know that they were related, really,
because magical records wouldn't show Muggles...
Harry sighed and looked down at the book. Well, it was something, anyway. He had most of Voldemort's
family tree written down, and now if he could just verify that that was ALL there was to it... "I wish
you showed siblings," he muttered.
The book, which had still been pointing to Johnathan Ellis, suddenly started flipping its pages
violently to the very back, and here the heading was, "Graduated."
And there, in the middle of the page, was Johnathan Ellis, and next to his name was "Siblings: none"
Well, that was something.
Maybe he was running in circles. He kept trying to tell himself that it was extremly likely that he was
merely doing extra work--Dumbledore must have already gone through with all of this. And yet, there was
something bothering him...And he wasn't sure why...It was as if something was crouching in the shadows
of his mind, and refused to come out, and he couldn't shed any light on it at all...
He glanced at the clock. About five minutes until his date with Cho...He needed to pack up his supplies.
He left the small room that held the book of records and started shoving his various bottles of ink and
rolls of parchment, all the while thinking hard...
***
"Okay," Ron said, shutting the broomshed's door behind him and shouldering his Nimbus 2001. "Right. Now,
you can't very well be a witch if you can't even fly on a broomstick, can you?"
Hermione crossed her arms, the breeze lifting her hair slightly in the dim evening. "I took flying in
first year, just like you did. And Harry."
"Yeah, only you never actually got more than four feet in the air, did you?" Ron said, grinning. "C'mon,
it's not going to kill you..."
"Actually..." Hermione muttered, but trailed off, obviously realizing he was ignoring her. Which he was.
"Who knows?" Ron muttered after a moment of adjusting the tail-twigs. "You might actually need to know
this someday. I mean, it could be important. What if it was an emergency?"
"I'd Apparate," she muttered sullenly. "Ron, why--?"
He'd shoved the broomstick into her arms. "This is much better than the school ones; it should be easy."
He waited for a moment, watching her stare, bewildered, at the broomstick, and sighed. "You hold onto
the handle--that's the long wooden part--and then you swing one leg over it and--"
"I KNOW, Ron."
"Then why aren't you DOING anything?"
"I'm...I don't want to."
"Scared?"
"Y--No."
He laughed. "You are, arent' you?"
"No," Hermione said defiantly. "I'm not afraid. After all, it's only flying, and I've read loads of tips
for it, after all."
"Then fly."
"No," she whined. "Ron, I don't WANT to..."
He looked at her, smiling slightly and crossing his arms. "Are you going to make me ride with you?"
"No, I--"
He grabbed the broomstick back and sat down on it, raising it a few feet off the ground. "C'mon." He
offered her a hand.
She looked at him as if he were insane. "Ron, we'll be too heavy."
"Nah," he said, grabbing her wrist. "Look, I'm not going to drag you up here--climb up."
Hesitantly, Hermione climbed up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Ron, I really don't
know if this is a good idea, I mean--"
He ignored her babbling for a moment, then turned the handle of the broom straight up in the air--
"Ron, this isn't going to work, we're too heavy and we'll faAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--!"
He laughed as that last word ended in a yell and she tightened her grip around his waist, almost cutting
off his breath. He let out a whoop and did a few sharp turns, and then, grinning rather evilly (A/N:
Give him a break, guys, he's a teenaged boy...^_^), took a dive from about twenty feet in the air,
causing a rather high-pitched shriek to issue from behind him as he pulled away from the ground just in
time.
He finally evened out the flight at about twenty feet from the ground, refraining from dives and loop-
the-loops. Being too high to crash into anything, he turned around slightly and glanced at the top of
Hermione's head. "You okay?"
She looked up as he turned back around to steer. "I'm...I'm okay...That was..." He felt her shudder
slightly. "That was...fairly amazing."
"Oh, just fairly? I'm hurt..." He landed rather hard, catching them with his feet and allowing the both
of them to climb off. "Okay, your turn."
"What? No, Ron, I don't think--"
"Aw, go on."
Hesitantly, she took the broomstick. "I'll fall..."
"No, you won't." She opened her mouth to argue, and he sighed. "Look, let's pretend it's an emergency.
You can't Apparate yet, and Harry and I are going to die. The only way you can get help is by
broomstick--"
"Ron, that's just stupid. There is no situation where--"
"JUST work with me here," he interrupted, grinning at her. "So you have to fly on a broomstick in order
to save us. But you don't know how, do you? So now what?"
"Ron, this is beyond idiotic..." she looked at him and sighed. "Oh, fine, then."
She brought her leg up over the broomstick and gripped the handle so hard it made her knuckles turn
white. She swallowed roughly and glanced at him. "I can't do this..."
He grinned. "I'll borrow another broom from the shed. We can fly together."
***
"So, Harry," Cho said, grinning at him and pushing her shiny black hair behind her ears, "how are your
classes?"
"Oh, pretty good," Harry said nervously, trying to find some way of making intelligent conversation. "I
like having Professor Lupin back."
"Yes, he's nice, isn't he?" Cho said softly. Then she grinned. "Isn't it nice not to have Professor
Snape teaching Potions?"
Harry laughed, feeling much more relaxed. "Yeah, really. I don't know much about Professor McLellan, but
she seems awfully nice, and she's not Snape, so I've got no problem with her..."
Cho nodded. "So I heard you get to skip Defense?"
Harry shrugged. "Not really. I get to do research in the library. That's about it."
"What are you researching?"
Harry thought for a moment. Was it...WISE...to discuss this with her? Well...She WAS a teacher...And he
DID trust her, after all... "Vo--sorry--You-Know-Who's family. It just made me nervous..."
Cho's face clouded over. "Yes..." she muttered. "I understand why it would..." She looked up. "Is there
any living relative?"
"Not that I can find," Harry muttered. "Dumbledore says there isn't, and he's probably right, it's just
that I'm...I dunno...paranoid, maybe."
She smiled lightly. "You're not paranoid, Harry. You've got every reason to want to check up on that..."
"Thanks, I guess..." Harry said.
Cho leaned across the table in a conspiriatoral manner. "So...Did you find anything interesting?"
Harry shrugged. "Well, I traced it back pretty far..." He pulled the crumpled bit of parchment from his
pockets and showed it to her, tracing his fingers along the lines, until it came to Johnathan Ellis.
"This is as far as it went. It said he didn't have any siblings, but I wonder if that's wrong..."
"Did you use the record book in the library?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah..."
"Well, that's never wrong...I don't think, anyway..." Her brow furrowed in thought. "Hmmm..." Suddenly,
her face lit up and she snapped her fingers. "Aha! What if...Well, maybe not..."
"What?"
"Well, what if they were, you know, a squib, or something?"
Harry shook his head. "They'd still be listed under siblings, wouldn't they?"
Cho smiled triumphantly. "What if they were, like, given up for adoption or something, though? Wouldn't
that legally keep them from being considered siblings?"
Harry's eyes widened. "You know...you're probably right..."
Cho grinned. "See? I'm not the mindless idiot most people think I am..."
"I don't think you're a mindless idiot," Harry muttered, smiling.
"Thanks," she said brightly. "Shall we get some butterbeer?"
As Madam Rosmerta set down the tankards in front of them, Harry's mind was reeling. Okay, so if Cho was
right--and it was quite likely that she was--then the living heir would be a Muggle. And unlisted. So
Dumbledore wouldn't have known at all...But how on earth was Harry supposed to figure out who it was?
"So," Cho said softly, interrupting his thoughts, "How's your friend? You know, the red-haired one?"
"Oh, Ron's good," Harry said. "He's always worried about Hermione, though."
Cho nodded. "Yes, that was rather odd, that whole thing about Hermione, wasn't it? I mean, why would the
Death Eaters want her?"
Something clicked in Harry's brain, and the thing that had been hidden in shadows suddenly was flooded
in brilliantly bright light.
And he promptly fell out of his chair.
Hermione was Muggle-born. The other side of Voldemort's family tree was made up of Muggles. And Hermione
had to have had some magic SOMEWHERE in her family, in order to have inherited the traits and become a
witch... "Oh, God..."
"What is it? What's wrong?" Cho asked worriedly, helping him up. "Are you alright? Does your...Does your
scar hurt or something?" she asked nervously.
"No, no, it's not that..." Harry murmured. "It's just...Hermione's Muggle-born, and..."
Cho's eyes widened. "Oh...Wow...So that's why...?"
Harry nodded slowly. "I think so..." He glanced at her. "You won't tell anyone yet, will you? I think I
ought to discuss it with her first, don't you?"
Cho nodded quickly. "Of course! Wow..."
Harry slapped a few coins on the table. "D'you mind if we head home now? I'm kind of anxious to tell Ron
and Hermione about this..."
"Sure," Cho said amiably. "Madam Rosmerta! We're done..."
***
"That's it!" Ron yelled from across the field. "You've got it! Now, just turn the handle up a bit--yes,
that't it exactly!"
Hermione giggled to herself, involuntarily enjoying the giddiness, and the soaring feeling in her
stomach. Without meaning to, she let out a little whoop as she soared upward about ten feet, making Ron
laugh. "What?" she laughed, glancing down the field.
"You're doing great!" he called. "But it's getting a bit dark, don't you think?"
"Okay," Hermione said, gliding as gracefully as she could manage to the ground, and stumbling as her
feet hit the grass. Laughing, she dismounted and jogged over to the broomshed, where Ron was storing his
broomstick. She leaned hers up in its proper place and grinned at Ron. "Thanks for teaching me," she
muttered.
"Well, sure," he said softly, shutting and locking the broomshed door. "You were doing great by the end,
you know."
"Well, at least I don't have to constantly worry about how to save you and Harry if ever there arose an
occasion where I could only escape by broomstick..." She giggled. "That was really lame, Ron."
"Yeah, I know," he said, slinging an arm around her shoulders as they walked up to the castle. "But you
would have, wouldn't you? Gone for help, I mean."
Hermione sighed. "Ron, I would've gotten on the stupid broomstick regardless of whether or not I knew
how to use it. I probably would have fallen flat on my face just TRYING, but..."
He smiled and his arm slid down from her shoulder to her waist. "Thanks, 'Mione."
She leaned her head on his shoulder. "Least I could do..."
***
A/N: Righty, then. I know it was a tad rushed and bizzarre and so on and so forth, but it is kinda an
important part of the plot. Also, By the By, I need reviews more than ever now, since my self-esteem and
ego generally have suffered greatly today. My English teacher basically told me I can't write, and my
History teacher basically told me I'm stupid. So if you can at least confirm ONE of these as wrong, it
would be appreciated ever so much...^_^
~ Veralidaine
A/N: Right, now I want you to keep in mind that Sudafed was responsible for the plot of these stories,
okay? NOT ME. I took the medicine, and this bizzarre story popped into my head and it wouldn't leave
until I started writing it all down. Now I'm stuck with it, and I know it's really odd, but bear with
me, okay? Thanks...
Lost - Part 10
By Veralidaine
The rest of the classes were relatively normal, save one minor alteration in Charms--they had an
assistant teacher. By the name of Cho Chang. And, Hermione discovered, Harry still had it bad for her.
Ron kept sniggering at Harry, and though Hermione tried to make him stop, spent most of the class period
teasing him. Harry seemed not to notice, though, so Hermione merely sighed and went back to her note-
taking, occasionally sending Ron a Leave-Him-Alone look, which, of course, he ignored.
After class, Harry stopped to talk to Cho, and Hermione pulled Ron out into the hallway, elbowing him
to make him stop laughing. "You leave him alone..."
"Aw, c'mon, Hermione," Ron laughed. "He didn't leave me alone back in the summer before fifth year..."
Hermione stared. "before fifth year? THAT long ago?"
Ron went a bit red around the ears. "Well, he didn't."
Hermione sighed. And to think she'd had to wait a whole year before Ron finally plucked up enough
courage to ask her to Hogsmeade...
Ron turned around, ignoring Hermione's giggling attempts to make him stop, and shouted, "Oy, Harry! You
done yet?"
"RON!" Hermione said, tugging on his arm and grinning. "Leave him be...He'll come down to dinner when he
feels like it."
"Oh, I know," Ron said. "I'm just doing this to annoy him."
"Well, you're annoying ME, and we don't want that, now, do we? Come on, let's get something to eat."
Harry arrived in the Great Hall about ten minutes after Hermione and Ron had, and looked positively
thrilled with himself. He sat down across from Ron, who leaned over the table and muttered, "So?" (A/N:
Think "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more," Ebony! Teehee...^_^)
Harry broke into a grin. "I've got a date!"
While Ron and Harry exclaimed over this, Hermione couldn't help but disapprove slightly. Cho was, after
all, a teacher, not a student. Yes, she was only a year older than Harry, but still...Well, it wasn't an
action Hermione would take, anyway...Hermione didn't know much about Cho, except that she was a very
good seeker, and, apparently, was beautiful and popular and intelligent (according to Harry, anyway...).
Hermione sighed. Well, she had Ron, he had her, and Harry had no one. So it was probably a good thing
that he had a date. Maybe it would take his mind off of Voldemort's uprising...
"So, when is this date?" Ron asked, grinning.
"Tomorrow night."
"Where're you going?"
"Hogsmeade; she says she can get special permission." He paused. "What are you two going to do?"
"Oh." Ron glanced at Hermione. "What d'you want to do now that he's abandoning us?"
"Well..." Hermione shrugged. "I dunno...Play chess?"
Ron rolled his eyes. "We'll figure something out," he told Harry, grinning.
***
Harry walked rather casually to the library. Only one more hour until he went with Cho to Hogsmeade...
Only one. And he got to spend it in the library! Granted, he was still doing work for class, but at
least he wouldn't have to endure another class period watching the clock as he listened to long, rather
boring lectures...
Harry yawned, sitting in one of the rickety oak chairs near a large window at the back of the library.
He chose this particular spot only to avoid Madam Pince's staring--he honestly wondered WHY a woman like
that would want to work in a SCHOOL if she hated having children around--and busied himself with a book
Hermione had reccomended: "The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts."
He'd never thought to read it before, and now that he was, he wondered why he bothered to waste his
time speculating about all of this as he had for so long, when it was readily available right there in
the library...Hermione and her endless discussion about books deserved more credit than they got...
There he was. Harry blinked at his own name, which appeared more than once on the page he was reading.
He skimmed through it and frowned--it made him sound like...Well...Something Professor Binns would
lecture about. It was utterly unreal, there on the page. Just another chapter with famous names in it.
It held no real meaning.
And there was Voldemort.
Son of Tom Riddle, the Muggle, and daughter to...Violet White, the witch. Harry wondered vaguely whether
she'd gone to Hogwarts. There weren't any records, as far as he knew...He'd just have to ask someone. He
didn't know quite why it was important to him, but it was. Maybe just so he could make sure Voldemort
DIDN'T have any relatives left. Not that Harry didn't trust Dumbledore...He just wanted to be sure...
For the time being, though, he stored the name Violet White in his brain and set down "The Rise and Fall
of the Dark Arts," bored. There were only about twenty minutes left in class, and he really needed to
reply to the owl Sirius had sent him...He'd wait 'til tomorrow for the records.
And yet...
"Madam Pince?"
The librarian looked up sharply, not bothering to disguise a glare as she snapped her book shut. "What?"
"Uhm...Are there...records of the students who attended school here?" he asked carefully.
She eyed him beadily and nodded. "In the back, near the restricted section. Why?"
"I'm doing a research project," Harry said quickly. Well, it was true, wasn't it?
She stared at him hard for a moment longer, making him exceedingly uncomfortable, and then stood up and
walked around her desk, leading him into the back of the library. There was a rather small side room
full of, well, books, and in the center was a large wooden podium with what had to have been the
thickest book Harry had ever seen. It was at least one foot thick, maybe more, and the worn leather
cover sported a huge, fiery opal, about the size of the glass in a hand-mirror.
Madam Pince blew a layer of dust off the top and looked at him. "It is indestructable, so I'm not too
worried that you'll ruin it, but I do want you to watch what you're doing..."
Harry nodded. "These are the records?"
She sighed exhasperatedly. "Yes. Look." She turned to the book, looked into the opal, and said, "Potter,
Harry."
The book's cover snapped open, and the pages flipped violently as though being blown by a very strong
wind. Suddenly it stopped, and when Harry looked closer, he saw his name, birthday, and his parents'
names, all written in miniscule writing. The heading at the top of the page was "Magical Births--1980"
Madam Pince cleared her throat, and Harry, startled, looked up at her. "I'll check back with you in a
few moments. Don't touch anything--just say the name and it will find it." And with that she scurried
out of the room.
Harry turned back to the book. "Weasley, Ron."
The pages flipped for a few seconds, and Ron's name came up, next to October 4, and Molly Connor and
Arthur Weasley.
"Granger, Hermione." September 19, Cassandra Johnson and Paul Granger.
He thought for a moment. "Riddle, Tom." December 31, Violet White and Tom Riddle.
"Violet White." December 7, Elise Corren and Fred White.
"Fred White." February 18, Mary Kelley and Albert White.
"Albert White." Nothing.
"Okay...Mary Kelley, then." May 8, Alice Burns and Johnathan Ellis.
This went on for some time as Harry kept notes on a spare bit of parchment, drawing up a sort of family
tree. Finally, he got to Johnathan Ellis' parents, Margaret and Tom, and yet there was no record of any
other siblings of Johnathan, who was about as far back as Harry could get without suffering severe
confusion. Dumbledore had done all this--why was he bothering? But then something occurred to him: What
if Voldemort's only living relative was a Muggle? No one would ever know that they were related, really,
because magical records wouldn't show Muggles...
Harry sighed and looked down at the book. Well, it was something, anyway. He had most of Voldemort's
family tree written down, and now if he could just verify that that was ALL there was to it... "I wish
you showed siblings," he muttered.
The book, which had still been pointing to Johnathan Ellis, suddenly started flipping its pages
violently to the very back, and here the heading was, "Graduated."
And there, in the middle of the page, was Johnathan Ellis, and next to his name was "Siblings: none"
Well, that was something.
Maybe he was running in circles. He kept trying to tell himself that it was extremly likely that he was
merely doing extra work--Dumbledore must have already gone through with all of this. And yet, there was
something bothering him...And he wasn't sure why...It was as if something was crouching in the shadows
of his mind, and refused to come out, and he couldn't shed any light on it at all...
He glanced at the clock. About five minutes until his date with Cho...He needed to pack up his supplies.
He left the small room that held the book of records and started shoving his various bottles of ink and
rolls of parchment, all the while thinking hard...
***
"Okay," Ron said, shutting the broomshed's door behind him and shouldering his Nimbus 2001. "Right. Now,
you can't very well be a witch if you can't even fly on a broomstick, can you?"
Hermione crossed her arms, the breeze lifting her hair slightly in the dim evening. "I took flying in
first year, just like you did. And Harry."
"Yeah, only you never actually got more than four feet in the air, did you?" Ron said, grinning. "C'mon,
it's not going to kill you..."
"Actually..." Hermione muttered, but trailed off, obviously realizing he was ignoring her. Which he was.
"Who knows?" Ron muttered after a moment of adjusting the tail-twigs. "You might actually need to know
this someday. I mean, it could be important. What if it was an emergency?"
"I'd Apparate," she muttered sullenly. "Ron, why--?"
He'd shoved the broomstick into her arms. "This is much better than the school ones; it should be easy."
He waited for a moment, watching her stare, bewildered, at the broomstick, and sighed. "You hold onto
the handle--that's the long wooden part--and then you swing one leg over it and--"
"I KNOW, Ron."
"Then why aren't you DOING anything?"
"I'm...I don't want to."
"Scared?"
"Y--No."
He laughed. "You are, arent' you?"
"No," Hermione said defiantly. "I'm not afraid. After all, it's only flying, and I've read loads of tips
for it, after all."
"Then fly."
"No," she whined. "Ron, I don't WANT to..."
He looked at her, smiling slightly and crossing his arms. "Are you going to make me ride with you?"
"No, I--"
He grabbed the broomstick back and sat down on it, raising it a few feet off the ground. "C'mon." He
offered her a hand.
She looked at him as if he were insane. "Ron, we'll be too heavy."
"Nah," he said, grabbing her wrist. "Look, I'm not going to drag you up here--climb up."
Hesitantly, Hermione climbed up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Ron, I really don't
know if this is a good idea, I mean--"
He ignored her babbling for a moment, then turned the handle of the broom straight up in the air--
"Ron, this isn't going to work, we're too heavy and we'll faAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--!"
He laughed as that last word ended in a yell and she tightened her grip around his waist, almost cutting
off his breath. He let out a whoop and did a few sharp turns, and then, grinning rather evilly (A/N:
Give him a break, guys, he's a teenaged boy...^_^), took a dive from about twenty feet in the air,
causing a rather high-pitched shriek to issue from behind him as he pulled away from the ground just in
time.
He finally evened out the flight at about twenty feet from the ground, refraining from dives and loop-
the-loops. Being too high to crash into anything, he turned around slightly and glanced at the top of
Hermione's head. "You okay?"
She looked up as he turned back around to steer. "I'm...I'm okay...That was..." He felt her shudder
slightly. "That was...fairly amazing."
"Oh, just fairly? I'm hurt..." He landed rather hard, catching them with his feet and allowing the both
of them to climb off. "Okay, your turn."
"What? No, Ron, I don't think--"
"Aw, go on."
Hesitantly, she took the broomstick. "I'll fall..."
"No, you won't." She opened her mouth to argue, and he sighed. "Look, let's pretend it's an emergency.
You can't Apparate yet, and Harry and I are going to die. The only way you can get help is by
broomstick--"
"Ron, that's just stupid. There is no situation where--"
"JUST work with me here," he interrupted, grinning at her. "So you have to fly on a broomstick in order
to save us. But you don't know how, do you? So now what?"
"Ron, this is beyond idiotic..." she looked at him and sighed. "Oh, fine, then."
She brought her leg up over the broomstick and gripped the handle so hard it made her knuckles turn
white. She swallowed roughly and glanced at him. "I can't do this..."
He grinned. "I'll borrow another broom from the shed. We can fly together."
***
"So, Harry," Cho said, grinning at him and pushing her shiny black hair behind her ears, "how are your
classes?"
"Oh, pretty good," Harry said nervously, trying to find some way of making intelligent conversation. "I
like having Professor Lupin back."
"Yes, he's nice, isn't he?" Cho said softly. Then she grinned. "Isn't it nice not to have Professor
Snape teaching Potions?"
Harry laughed, feeling much more relaxed. "Yeah, really. I don't know much about Professor McLellan, but
she seems awfully nice, and she's not Snape, so I've got no problem with her..."
Cho nodded. "So I heard you get to skip Defense?"
Harry shrugged. "Not really. I get to do research in the library. That's about it."
"What are you researching?"
Harry thought for a moment. Was it...WISE...to discuss this with her? Well...She WAS a teacher...And he
DID trust her, after all... "Vo--sorry--You-Know-Who's family. It just made me nervous..."
Cho's face clouded over. "Yes..." she muttered. "I understand why it would..." She looked up. "Is there
any living relative?"
"Not that I can find," Harry muttered. "Dumbledore says there isn't, and he's probably right, it's just
that I'm...I dunno...paranoid, maybe."
She smiled lightly. "You're not paranoid, Harry. You've got every reason to want to check up on that..."
"Thanks, I guess..." Harry said.
Cho leaned across the table in a conspiriatoral manner. "So...Did you find anything interesting?"
Harry shrugged. "Well, I traced it back pretty far..." He pulled the crumpled bit of parchment from his
pockets and showed it to her, tracing his fingers along the lines, until it came to Johnathan Ellis.
"This is as far as it went. It said he didn't have any siblings, but I wonder if that's wrong..."
"Did you use the record book in the library?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah..."
"Well, that's never wrong...I don't think, anyway..." Her brow furrowed in thought. "Hmmm..." Suddenly,
her face lit up and she snapped her fingers. "Aha! What if...Well, maybe not..."
"What?"
"Well, what if they were, you know, a squib, or something?"
Harry shook his head. "They'd still be listed under siblings, wouldn't they?"
Cho smiled triumphantly. "What if they were, like, given up for adoption or something, though? Wouldn't
that legally keep them from being considered siblings?"
Harry's eyes widened. "You know...you're probably right..."
Cho grinned. "See? I'm not the mindless idiot most people think I am..."
"I don't think you're a mindless idiot," Harry muttered, smiling.
"Thanks," she said brightly. "Shall we get some butterbeer?"
As Madam Rosmerta set down the tankards in front of them, Harry's mind was reeling. Okay, so if Cho was
right--and it was quite likely that she was--then the living heir would be a Muggle. And unlisted. So
Dumbledore wouldn't have known at all...But how on earth was Harry supposed to figure out who it was?
"So," Cho said softly, interrupting his thoughts, "How's your friend? You know, the red-haired one?"
"Oh, Ron's good," Harry said. "He's always worried about Hermione, though."
Cho nodded. "Yes, that was rather odd, that whole thing about Hermione, wasn't it? I mean, why would the
Death Eaters want her?"
Something clicked in Harry's brain, and the thing that had been hidden in shadows suddenly was flooded
in brilliantly bright light.
And he promptly fell out of his chair.
Hermione was Muggle-born. The other side of Voldemort's family tree was made up of Muggles. And Hermione
had to have had some magic SOMEWHERE in her family, in order to have inherited the traits and become a
witch... "Oh, God..."
"What is it? What's wrong?" Cho asked worriedly, helping him up. "Are you alright? Does your...Does your
scar hurt or something?" she asked nervously.
"No, no, it's not that..." Harry murmured. "It's just...Hermione's Muggle-born, and..."
Cho's eyes widened. "Oh...Wow...So that's why...?"
Harry nodded slowly. "I think so..." He glanced at her. "You won't tell anyone yet, will you? I think I
ought to discuss it with her first, don't you?"
Cho nodded quickly. "Of course! Wow..."
Harry slapped a few coins on the table. "D'you mind if we head home now? I'm kind of anxious to tell Ron
and Hermione about this..."
"Sure," Cho said amiably. "Madam Rosmerta! We're done..."
***
"That's it!" Ron yelled from across the field. "You've got it! Now, just turn the handle up a bit--yes,
that't it exactly!"
Hermione giggled to herself, involuntarily enjoying the giddiness, and the soaring feeling in her
stomach. Without meaning to, she let out a little whoop as she soared upward about ten feet, making Ron
laugh. "What?" she laughed, glancing down the field.
"You're doing great!" he called. "But it's getting a bit dark, don't you think?"
"Okay," Hermione said, gliding as gracefully as she could manage to the ground, and stumbling as her
feet hit the grass. Laughing, she dismounted and jogged over to the broomshed, where Ron was storing his
broomstick. She leaned hers up in its proper place and grinned at Ron. "Thanks for teaching me," she
muttered.
"Well, sure," he said softly, shutting and locking the broomshed door. "You were doing great by the end,
you know."
"Well, at least I don't have to constantly worry about how to save you and Harry if ever there arose an
occasion where I could only escape by broomstick..." She giggled. "That was really lame, Ron."
"Yeah, I know," he said, slinging an arm around her shoulders as they walked up to the castle. "But you
would have, wouldn't you? Gone for help, I mean."
Hermione sighed. "Ron, I would've gotten on the stupid broomstick regardless of whether or not I knew
how to use it. I probably would have fallen flat on my face just TRYING, but..."
He smiled and his arm slid down from her shoulder to her waist. "Thanks, 'Mione."
She leaned her head on his shoulder. "Least I could do..."
***
A/N: Righty, then. I know it was a tad rushed and bizzarre and so on and so forth, but it is kinda an
important part of the plot. Also, By the By, I need reviews more than ever now, since my self-esteem and
ego generally have suffered greatly today. My English teacher basically told me I can't write, and my
History teacher basically told me I'm stupid. So if you can at least confirm ONE of these as wrong, it
would be appreciated ever so much...^_^
~ Veralidaine
