Chapter 11 - Cho Ho!
'Oh, hey, great news, Harry. We've found a way out, but it unfortunately leads right into the Ravenclaw girl's dormitory. - Ron Weasley -
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Snape and Dumbledore had finally succeeded in wrestling the remaining Yama plant into its new pot under the stern surveillance of Professor Sprout.
It was with a relieved sigh and a whip of his forehead with a handkerchief from his pocket that Dumbledore took a seat on the ground next to Ginny, who had sat down to rest. "I tell you, at this age, you really begin to feel it," he stated to no one in particular.
Snape, with a quick flick of his wand, conjured up a dustpan and broom and sent the items to clean up the dirt and debris left over on the floor from the task. He then tucked his wand back in his robe pocket and headed towards Dumbledore.
"So, Serverus, tell me, what reason did you and Ms. Weasley have in visiting me and Ms. Sprout?" Dumbledore asked, patting a patch of ground next to him, indicating Snape to sit down.
Ginny stiffened beside Dumbledore, whose eyes flickered curious over at her underneath their half-moon spectacles.
Snape's lips thinned and he carefully took a seat down next to Professor Dumbledore.
Absentmindedly, Dumbledore magicked up a steaming blue kettle of tea along with matching teacups and saucers and began to pour Ginny a cup. He smiled encouragingly to her as she took the cup with trembling fingers.
Snape arranged his robes carefully around him and took the next cup offered to him by Dumbledore. "Oh, yes that." He took a sip of his tea. "Well, Headmaster, it seems that our Ms. Weasley here claims that she gave you the Amorae Potion I made you for your Defense Against the Dark Arts Class tomorrow. However, I had a distinct suspicion that you didn't receive any such potion and came to confirm."
Dumbledore looked thoughtful as he set the teakettle down in mid-air and took a quick drink from his own cup. "Hm," was all he said.
Snape watched him impatiently. "Well?" he demanded. "Am I right? Did she lie to me or not?"
"Oh, I don't think Ms. Weasley meant to lie," Dumbledore said casually. "She just didn't tell you the truth."
Both Ginny and Snape stared at Dumbledore blankly. Wasn't lying and not telling the truth the exact same thing?
"No, I didn't receive the potion you promised me," Dumbledore continued, "but then I'm sure that there is a very good reason why Ms. Weasley wasn't able to deliver it to me. Am I right?" Dumbledore's pale-blue eyes shifted to Ginny's and she found herself staring straight into the twinkling orbs. The intense scrutiny in those eyes was unreal and Ginny felt almost that every secret she had she couldn't hide from him. She swallowed hard and nodded.
"Well, then I suppose all we should do right now is to hear it all," Dumbledore said amicably, stretching his legs out and breaking eye contact with Ginny. "Go on, Ms. Weasley, explain yourself to Professor Snape and me."
Ginny looked from Dumbledore to Snape then back to Dumbledore. Dumbledore smiled benignly at her, and some of the fears that she was feeling ebbed away. Ginny looked down at her tea and took a long drink of it. It was warm but not too warm where it burned her throat and there was a sweet taste of chamomile in it with a hint of honey. It was very good. She drained half of it then brought the teacup back down on the saucer.
Letting the heat from the cup warm her hands and give her courage, Ginny opened her mouth and the whole story of what had happened came gushing out. She didn't even stop when Professor Sprout left the room carrying a tank full of baby Dugbogs or when Snape interrupted with a few swear words and statements of displeasure ten minutes in. She just plowed on until the very end, feeling as empty as the cup in her hand when it was over. So preoccupied she had been telling the story, Ginny hadn't even notice Snape pouring something from a hip-flask he had taken from his robes into his tea for the duration of the story.
He had a slight misty look in his eyes now and a peculiar half-smile on his face.
Dumbledore cleared his throat loudly and muttered a word. The teacups, saucers, and kettle disappeared in small puffs of blue smoke. He got up from his seat and dusted himself off of any dirt he may have gotten on him. "I must say, this is certainly an interesting turn of events."
Snape looked disappointed in his tea being gone and frowned. "Ms. Weasley's certainly put her foot in it this time," he stated.
"I don't really consider this to be Ms. Weasley's fault," Dumbledore said. "It was all an honest mistake, though a very grave one, grant it."
"What do you mean grave?" Ginny asked fearfully. "You can cure Harry, can't you?"
"Me? No, certainly not," Dumbledore said. "There's nothing I can do personally. The Amorae Potion is a very serious potion, I'll have you know. It's highly unstable and if decisive measures aren't taken right away... well, let's just say that our young Potter would probably do alright in a monastery for the rest of his natural life."
Ginny gave a small, horrified gasp.
"There, there," Dumbledore comforted. "I didn't say that it was completely hopeless. While there's nothing I can do, I still know a way to counter the spell. It would require your assistance however."
Ginny looked at Dumbledore with tears in her eyes. "I'll do whatever you ask," she said sincerely.
Dumbledore smiled. "I'm going to have to hold you to that, my dear."
"I don't suppose you'll allow me to subtract points from Gryffindor for Ms. Weasley lying to me?" Snape said irately.
Dumbledore gave a jolly chuckle and patted Snape hard on the back. "How about we not dwell on that for now. Here, you can go and inform the rest of the school that there will be no more classes today and for them to return to their dormitories. Ms. Weasley and I must see to finding our Mr. Potter."
"Couldn't I go looking for Potter also?" Snape asked with his tone of voice close to that of a beg. Ginny had a strong suspicion that Snape didn't want to miss seeing what the love potion he had created was doing to Harry.
"You may look for him after you've done what I've told you if you like," Dumbledore said, giving Snape a stern look.
Snape scowled.
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Ron blinked hard against the sudden brightness of light. As his eyes adjusted at last, he looked slowly around the room from the eyeholes. There was a picture on the wall in front of him and he could see the top of an old Grandfather cloak. Clearly, the tunnel he and Harry were in was high above this room.
Ron restrained himself from shaking his head at the peculiarity of the layout of the Hogwarts castle and tried looking down below him to see just what room they were at.
"What is the three most crucial wand-movements in the beginning spell for transfiguring a tea saucer into a rat?"
"Swish up, side sweep left, and center loop."
"And what do you say if you want to turn a cup of wine into water?"
"Aqua bibeo."
Ron gave a start and strained to see where the voices were coming from. His eyes swept down upon a group of students arranged on beds with the curtains swept away or else on the floor around the beds. They were all studying silently to themselves except a pair of girls who were drilling each other in Transfiguration questions, sitting on two stools near the door.
Ravenclaws, Ron realized as he spotted the blue bed curtains and Eagle badges on the girls' clothes. Cho Chang was one of the girls studying out loud Transfiguration while the other one was......
Oh, great, Padma Partil, Ron thought miserably, remembering last year's Yule ball with her. He looked around at the other girls, identifying them to be fifth years like Padma: Lisa Turpin, Mandy Brocklehurst, Su Li, and what's-her-name Morag something....
"Well?" Ron heard Harry hiss near his ear.
He sighed in irritation. What was he going to tell Harry? Oh, hey, great news, Harry. We've found a way out, but it unfortunately leads right into the Ravenclaw girl's dormitory? Yeah, right. That'd be perfect. But then again, what were they going to do? Go back? No. The bathroom would be nothing more then a pile of rubble now, not to mention Myrtle might still be there waiting. Ron shuttered.
He took his eyes away from the eyehole and smiled at Harry. "We may have a little problem on our hands...."
Harry gave him an apprehensive look then pushed him out of the way so he could look.
Ron held up his arms submissively and backed away from Harry. He then crossed his arms and waited.
It took a while before Harry at last spoke....
"No....."
Ron watched as Harry's hands convulsively tightened on the edges of the picture. "NO!"
Harry flung himself away from the picture as if it was suddenly on fire. "This just can't be!" he said loudly.
Too loudly.
Ron put his finger to his lips and sharply shushed Harry. "Do you want them to hear us?"
"Ron, Cho's down there!" Harry said, looking at Ron in panic.
"I know that, idiot! I saw her too."
"So what are we going to do?"
"I don't know! I thought you were the brains of this operation!"
"How come I'm the brains?" demanded Harry; "It's only because you're too stupid to be one!"
"Hey, who was the one who came up with the idea to hide out in the boys' Bathroom?"
"And who nearly got us blow up in the boys' bathroom?" Harry countered.
"You know what you're problem is: you're too quick to scoff other people's ideas but you never have a good one yourself."
"Me? I saved your life, you ungrateful git!"
"Saved my life! You were they one you put me in danger!" Ron yelled.
"Well, what were you doing chasing after me to begin with?"
"Trying to find out what you were doing making-out with my girlfriend."
"We were not making-out!" shouted Harry indignantly.
"What would you call it then?"
While Ron and Harry fought, the noise level emitting from their secret tunnel they were hiding in got louder and louder as their tempers raised. Cho stopped examining the flash-cards she had been drilling Padma with and peered curiously at the large picture above Lisa Turpin's bed wondering if she had just imagined the shouts of profanity coming from it or if they had been real.
Though it wasn't like she was unused to pictures talking every once in a while, it was the first time in her recollection that a picture ever used words of such profound crudeness. Plus there seemed to be two voices coming from it and the picture only had one person on it.
"Hey, Cho, can you hear that?" Padma asked, resting her notes on her lap. She joined Cho in staring at the suspicious picture above their heads.
"Yes," Cho said, "but I have no idea what it is."
"The guys next to us maybe?"
Cho was dubious. "Padma, do you know of any of the boys in our class who uses language like that?" she asked.
"If they had been around the Slytherins or Gryffindors, maybe."
Cho bite her bottom lip thoughtfully then put her quill down. "Let's go check it out," she suggested, bravely getting up from her stool and setting her things down.
Many of the Ravenclaw girls were now watching the picture as well. It was beginning to shake and rattle around as if something was banging against it from the wall behind it somehow. Su Li turned and whispered excitedly in Mandy's ear, who then giggled behind her hand.
Cho inched closer towards the picture, moving out of Lisa's way as she got out of her bed and huddled next to Su and Mandy on the opposite side of the picture. She stepped up onto the mattress and stood on her tippy-toes to see over the top of the bed.
The picture violently wobbled again.
She got back down and looked over her shoulder at Padma. "Hey, Pad, can you Wingardium Leviosa me towards the picture above us?" she asked.
Padma looked like she would really prefer not to but nodded anyway and got out her wand from her uniform pocket.
"Wingardium Leviosa," Cho heard behind her.
She felt herself gently being lifted from the bed she was standing on right towards the curtain's bar located above her.
BANG
"Ouch!"
"Oops, sorry, Cho," Padma apologized as Cho rubbed her sore head. She steered Cho away from Lisa's bed with her wand and brought her rising slowly above it towards the picture.
It was a hard task. Unlike some other more complex hovering charms, the Wingardium charm took a strong force of will from the person casting it. The heavier the person was, the harder it would be to cast it. While Cho was certainly one of the lightest girls in Ravenclaw, it still took a lot more effort to lift her then the feathers Flitwick had made them practice with in Charms their first year.
Padma was beginning to really feel the strain in her wand arm.
"Alright, I'm here," Cho announced as she came up level to the picture. She took hold of it to stop herself from going any higher. "You doing alright, Padma?"
"Yeah, I'm alright," Padma assured her, though she wasn't quite as confident as she tried to sound. "Uh, but don't take your time up there or anything, alright?"
Cho nodded, turned, and examined the picture in front of her, noticing that the eyes of the person in it were missing. She put her ear to one of the holes and listened.
"--Why don't you just go out and say it, Ron?"
"Say it? And what pray tell am I to say?"
"That you're jealous!"
"Jealous? Me? Of you? Ha! Don't make me laugh! What have I to be jealous of? Your great grooming habits, maybe?"
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"Have you looked in the mirror lately, Harry? Your hair's positively dreadful!"
"This coming from the guy who's dating the queen of bushiness?"
"Well at least she keeps hers clean!"
"And who says I don't?"
"Oh, you clean it. About as regularly as Snape does, that is."
"So first you're comparing me to Malfoy and now Snape?"
"Well, the Sorting Hat did almost put you into Slytherin..."
"Judging by the way you've been acting, you deserve to be in Hufflepuff."
"Take that back!"
"Make me!"
BAMM
Suddenly the picture that Cho had been leaning against flew open and slammed into her. She fell back, dazed at the blow, and was nearly dropped by Padma who had to shriek out the charm again to keep her afloat. Cho did a complete circle in the air before coming straight under the hole in the wall where the picture had been. She put her arms out to stop herself from hitting the wall and ended up thrusting herself too hard away from it.
Cho had no time to recover or even time to catch her breath before it happened again. Something fell right on top of her and it was very heavy. She screamed and was vaguely aware of Padma's charm failing and feeling her body falling rapidly towards the ground.
A chorus of voices from the girls below all at once shouted: "Wingardium Leviosa!" and a jolt of pain went through Cho's whole body as she came to a very abrupt halt in mid-air. Oh-no, was all her brain could register before it began to prepare for impact.
The charms had hit her hard and with the combined power of them all, there was no way to control them. The air started whistling in her ears as she and whatever had hit her shot straight into the air towards the ceiling.
This is going to hurt. Oh, this is so going to hurt, Cho thought to herself, only half aware that she was clinging to someone. Her only hope was that she wouldn't hit the large chandelier or one of the floating candles. The mental image of her hair on fire wasn't a very pleasant one. She wondered if Madam Pomfrey could even grow hair back if it happened.
"Stop it! You're going to kill them!" Padma yelled to the girls whose wands were still out. Quickly she brandished her own. "Finite Incantanium!"
Cho stopped only inches from the ceiling then started falling again.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Padma yelled.
Cho stopped again and then slowly floated down to the ground, landing lightly on her back. From there, she laid still.
Cho was so very dizzy. She felt like she had just gotten off of one of those Muggle Roller Coasters. She brushed her hand shakily across the ground around her, making sure she really was no longer in the air then took the courage to open her eyes that, before now, had been tightly shut. She blinked up at the blurry faces of her friends hovering above her looking worried.
"I think.... I'm going to be sick," she said shakily.
Everyone didn't move to comment.
"What?" Cho asked, confused.
Then she noticed that there was something on top of her. She lifted her head slightly and looked down. Black hair - a whole mess of it - met her view. Her head fell back again. "'Lo, Harry," she greeted wearily. "Comfy?"
Harry's face was red, as it appeared from in between Cho's two breasts where it had landed and stayed for sometime.
"Er...H-Hello there..."
Harry wanted to melt into the floorboards and disappear. He remembered Ron shoving him hard and falling back against the canvas they had been looking through…. And the next thing he knew was suddenly having his nose buried deep in his long-time crush's blouse while he was sprawled out awkwardly with her on the ground.
"I am so very sorry. I mean - that is to say - I had no idea that you were.... I mean - I was.... - Er, that is, that I was going to..."
"You can get off me now."
Harry nodded dumbly and got quickly off of Cho, trying very, very hard to stop blushing so fiercely. His eyes kept traveling back to where his face had just been, which wasn't helping his efforts very much, so he shoved his hands quickly in his pockets and stared hard at his shoes. They were very dirty, he noted. Cho's boobs. Probably from the tunnel. Booobs. Maybe he should clean them some. Boooobs! Alright. He could do this. Boobies-boobies-boobies-boooobies!
Harry started to silently curse teenage hormones.
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Wicker_b - Thanks for the feedback. ^^ I don't know yet if I can get Fleur affected or not. It would be very amusing if I did but also very hard to pull off, especially since she has a kind of 'love charm' of her own (being part Veela and all) that she could use on Harry if the potion affected her, and THAT would cause some definite complications somewhere in the plot line. With one love charm crossing with another, good god, it would be like a nightmare! For all we know, it could turn this story into a Harry/Fleur fic *shutter * and that would be scary.
AgiVega - hey, thanks for the review. ^_~ I really like your fanfics. H/G all the way!
Emily - I won't try to claim that I'm good at romance, but I'm going to try really, really hard to put a good bit of it in when Harry and Ginny meet again. It'll be a while though because they won't come together until near the end, which isn't exactly for a while yet and I also want their love to be believable. You know, not having Harry out of character. He tends to get that way in most H/G fanfics. ^_^;;; Anyway, thanks so much for reviewing!
RiddleStar - yep, my 200th. Aren't you so very happy (ok, maybe not…)? As for me, I'm just happy I made it to 200! Thanks for all the wonderful reviews. You have no idea how much of a review lover I am!
Animagus - Hey, girl! Thanks for the reviews. Don't worry, I'll get down to your profile and check your stories out eventually. Thanks for all the feedback. I'll hopefully be seeing you soon. And be careful that you don't burn your eyes out of their sockets for watching too much Fushigi Yuugi. Shojo overdoses tend to do that to you.