Kaeera: *crawls
out under a rock* "Hello? Is anybody here?" *silence*
Latrisha: *follows
her and brushes dirt of her tunic* "It has no use - they probably all thought
that this story has died!"
Kaeera: *lips
quivering* But...but...we never abandonded it! Our life was just too busy to
write...and we don't see each other anymore!" (That's right; we used to drive on
the same bus every morning and afternoon, but then Kaeera moved and uses a
different bus, so we hardly see each other)
Latrisha: *dryly*
"Well, tell that to the people..." *points at empty space around them*
Kaeera:...."Which
people?"
Well, we are really sorry for the lack of updates. For endless times, we had absolutely NO idea how to continue. originally, this story was intended to very short, about the time span when they visited the Granger, but it made so much fun to write that we couldn't stop - and now we have the misery. Writer's Block with no end in sight...well, at least we have a plan now for the next few chapters, so please don't kill us.
If there's anybody who still reads this.
By: Kaeera & Latrisha
Chapter 14: The first Day
A thick white blanket of sticky snow covered the lands of Hogwarts, and the students who stayed over Christmas threw hexed snowballs at each other while the younger ones tried to form snowmen. (Colin's, with its big scar that looked like a lightening bolt on its forehead, was obviously supposed to be Harry.)
Soon big snowflakes fell down from the sky again. Most of the Gryffindors got tired of jumping around in the snow and freezing after a while. When the last rays of sunlight lightened up the grounds of Hogwarts and made them shine almost orange, glittering in the last rays of the evening sun, even the last students went inside.
But not all of them, no, one boy stayed outside, sitting alone in the snow. He didn't even feel the coldness which climbed up his feet and sneaked under his clothes. And the reason why he did not feel it was that he was virtually glowing inwardly.
His pulse was fast and his chest felt so warm inside that he thought he might soon explode. And all because he always had to think of Hermione, that very special girl, the girl he loved so much that he had difficulty in understanding the strength of his own feelings.
And there he was, sitting in the icy cold snow, opening his jacket and looking down at himself. He only wore and orange t-shirt underneath, and he swore himself never to put it off anymore.
He was already shaking when he watched the sun go down completely, but his brain didn't notice it. This was a special moment, and he wanted to enjoy it as long as he could….
Harry was the first to notice that Ron was gone. It was okay that he had been missing for one or two hours, but it definitely was not okay that he missed dinner.
"Where the hell is Ron?" he asked at the table, hoping that Hermione had a simple explanation for him. But she only shook her head. "I thought you know it."
Fred raised his head and spied along the huge Gryffindor table, on which only seventeen people were sitting at the moment.
"Hey, Ronnie isn't there!" he said and cuffed his brother with his elbow. "Since we are responsible for him, we should perhaps search for Ronnie." he added with a serious expression on his face, but soon broke out into laughter.
Hermione did not even take notice of this glorious joke, but stood up and said: "Harry, I'm gonna search for him. Would you help me?"
They left the Great Hall and separated, Harry ran upstairs to the Gryffindor Tower and Hermione walked out. Perhaps he had decided to go on a little walk…
It was already dark now, but moon gave enough light for her to see where she was going. She walked along the sea and back, spied through Hagrid's window and made her way back to the castle. He was not out there, so she thought, and sighed.
"Hermione?" someone asked weakly from behind her. She turned around and
noticed to her surprise that it was Ron who had spoken. "Ron!" she yelled, "What
are you doing out here?!"
And he was shivering. His lips had the colour of light blue and his nose had the
look of Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer. "Oh my God, come in now!"
Without thinking, she pulled him near to her and put her arm around him. What the hell was he thinking, staying outside for hours?!
She was terribly worried about him, and immediately took him to the Hospital Wing, without even telling Harry.
Madam Pomfrey widened her eyes in shock when she saw Ronald Weasley,
virtually being carried through the door by Mrs. Granger. She advised her to lay
him down on one of the beds and quickly examined him. "I do not know what has
happened, Mrs. Granger, but I do know that if you had come any later this
evening, he certainly would not have been able to move anymore. I really have to
thank you, and also Mr. Weasley has to."
Hermione blushed at the thought that she had eventually rescued Ron's life, but an inner voice told her not to exaggerate. Madam Pomfrey would make him healthy again with one simple swish of her wand, and tomorrow Ron could return to Harry and her.
Madam Pomfrey asked Hermione to stay a little and pay attention, while she was going to fetch some potion for Ron.
Finally alone in the room with Ron, she sat down on his bed and watched him. He had immediately fallen asleep, without even saying a single word. Slightly disappointed she pulled the blanket completely over him, and to her own surprise, gave him a little kiss on his cheek.
Whatever he had done out there, when he was well again, she would verbally kill him for it. How could he dare scaring her so much?
It was only then when she noticed the orange t-shirt he was wearing. Wasn't that…? Yes it definitely was the Chudley Cannons tee shirt she gave him this morning. A dark suspect knocked on the door to her mind. Was it possible? No, Ronald Weasley did not sped half of the day sitting out in the snow because of her. Be honest, Hermione, that was certainly not the reason.
Madam Pomfrey returned with a small, silver bottle in her hand. "Mrs. Weasley, um, sorry, Miss Granger, someone will have to put on his pyjamas, and I know that it is not me. He cannot sleep in these clothes."
"But…-but I can't!" Hermione shouted. It was one of the rare times she did not do what an authorized person told her to do. "I will not undress him, he would kill me if he knew!"
"I'm surprised, I thought you'd be rather… um, well, used to see him…undressed?"
Hermione's jaw dropped. "What?"
"But never-the-less, he will need pyjamas, and you do not have to fully undress him. I am not asking you to make him naked. He will leave on his underwear of course. Afterwards," she added, "give him two drops of this simple potion, and he will sleep like a stone and be alright tomorrow. Good night. And thank you."
Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come out.
Instead she only said "You're welcome." and was alone with Ron again.
Meanwhile Harry had had some other problems to be worked out. After not having found Ron, he suspected that Hermione had, and now they were happily hugging each other in the romantic evening outside, finally confessing their love for each other…
They simply had no idea how lucky they were to have each other. Harry did not exactly know what it was like to be in love. He really did not. Okay, there was this thing with Cho, he liked her and he had to confess that she had awoken some feelings inside him he never had felt before, but that was all. It was not love.
He walked, however, back to Gryffindor Tower, because Neville had asked him to help him with his exercises and Harry did not know what else he could do. Actually it was pretty boring without his best friends. Most of the time he had one of them around, and so he was not used that they suddenly left him, more or less, alone to do something together.
Standing in front of the Fat Lady's picture, he murmured the password and prepared to climb through the hole. But the Fat Lady did not pay attention to him. In fact she did not even move.
"Hey, Grandma, what's the matter? Don't stare at me like that!" Harry shouted impolitely as he was unnerved enough now. "I'm not gonna stand outside here the whole night!"
It was just in that instant that he realized that the Fat Lady didn't only not move, but even had completely stopped breathing. It was only a normal picture. Not-moving. Not magical. No magic.
"Oh damn!" Harry let out a sharp breath and knocked against the oil colours of the picture. He could here voices inside. "Hello?"
The portrait was pulled aside and Harry looked into Ginny's white, beautiful face. "Harry,"she started, but he interrupted her.
"Yes. Folks, I think it has begun."
"Oh wait!!! I'm gonna get you these damned pyjamas, if you want to or not!"
Hermione looked down at the half naked Ron, who was lying under her and seemed as if he did not notice anything. She had pulled the pullover over his head, but now had the difficulty of putting his arms through the right holes. It was a battle. And she was not going to lose it. But that was nothing compared to the following task: taking off his trousers.
"Please Ron, please, please, please, please, please, wake up and do that yourself." she said, but knew that he wouldn't. There he lied, sleeping like a little child, cuter than ever. "Oh come on, Hermione," she told herself and raised his left arm to put it through the hole.
But before she was able to do that, his arm pulled her close to Ron and wouldn't let go off her. His arm developed a force she had not expected Ron to have. She had to lie down on his body, her face buried in his soft chest. She was so shocked that she just did not move because she did not want to wake him up, and let her fingers run up and down his stomach.
Lying there, she noticed that he was shivering more than before, shivering
like he was taking a bath in a barrel of ice water. Yes, he was extremely ill,
and she needed to give him his potion.
So she managed to free herself out of his hug and finally finished dressing him. It was already ten past nine, when she opened his mouth slightly and let some of the potion drop into it. Ron gulped and stretched his arms, and then he turned over, let out a soft grunt, and continued sleeping.
"Professor Dumbledore. We need to talk."
"What's the matter, Severus?"
Professor Snape walked towards Dumbledore and sat down next to him. It was already late but Dumbledore was still sitting in the Great Hall. He looked at his watch and nodded.
"I bought this muggle watch because I hate it not to knowing what time it is," he explained, and Snape nodded.
"So you know that it has begun?"
"Of course I know. And I'm sure that right in this moment there are already a few problems to be solved. So why do you need to talk?"
"It is about Professor McGonagall. She… well, she cannot transform back. She's a cat."
Dumbledore leaned back into his chair, his old face showing dismay and pity, his eyes looking tired, but at the same time they seemed to glow. The old wizard had power that no one else in the wizard world was able to reach. But even Dumbledore, who was supposed to manage everything and always knew an answer, sometimes needed help in certain situations.
That was one of those situations, and his best help now was a cat.
"And there's still something I should tell you. Some of my students are locked magically into their room. I have no idea why they locked it, but it won't be opened again until this week is over."
Snape was a little ashamed that students from his house out of all had to do such a stupid thing, and he hoped some of the Gryffindors would also be in trouble.
But unfortunately neither of the two teachers, nor anyone else (like Madam Pomfrey), had only the slightest idea, that one boy was lying up in the hospital wing and got his medicine exactly ten minutes too late.
In this night, the whole castle did not close an eye, except of aforementioned boy, who was shivering so hard that it was a wonder he did not wake up because of it.
All students had to come down to the Great Hall, although there weren't much left, because the parents knew about this week and wanted their children to be at home.
At about eleven o'clock, thirty-six of the forty-two remaining students were standing around in the Great Hall, chatting and waiting for Dumbledore to give them advice.
"Where's Ron?" Harry asked both excited and worried, when Hermione appeared next to him.
"Don't worry about him. He's sleeping in the hospital wing. Was a bit too long out in the cold." She grinned and tried not to look worried, but the thought of his shivering body made her feel worse. She hoped it was not her fault that he sat out there for so long. But luckily he had got his potion…
"Hey guys!" Fred appeared behind them. "Bet you dunno the latest news!" he said, elbowing George who immediately started laughing.
"You won't believe it!"
Harry stared at the two of them, wondering instantly how it was possible to be in such a good mood all the time. "Then tell us." Hermione said disinterested, spying over to Dumbledore. She noticed his extremely stressed facial expression and got even more worried.
"McGonagall is a cat!"
"No?!"
"What?"
"That's terrible!"
"Yes!"
"You are kidding!"
"Cool!"
Some of the students standing around overheard the news.
"Come on, Fred, don't make fun of us!" Hermione said dryly. "If that was true, she wouldn't be able to transform back. And I think she knew that exactly well, so that can't be."
"Ok, don't trust me. That's OK." Fred said and played the insulted little baby, but grinned from one ear too the other. "You'll see." Then he added somewhat louder: "Who wants to bet?"
But in this moment, finally, Dumbledore spoke to them. He left out the story about Professor McGonagall being a cat, but told them everything important.
They had to sleep down in the Great Hall, they had to cook for themselves, and the ghosts had disappeared. The locked Slytherins had to be helped, and all while Hogwarts could be seen by every muggle walking around outside. It was the total chaos when Snape handed out the muggle things they would need to cook.
Even the magical ceiling had disappeared and only an old, shabby stone ceiling was left, hanging so unusually low above their heads that some of them had to look up all the time to keep sure that it wouldn't come down on them.
So the first hours of the week of fuming Neptune went by, and already thousands of problems had appeared in the whole wizarding world. The Ministry had all hands full of work to hide a whole world, since charms couldn't be spoken to make muggles forget, and it was nearly impossible to manage everything.
So, for example, nobody able to prevent a young skater girl going for a
little walk through the forest the next morning…
To be continued....
Yay! It has finally started! The week of the fuming Neptune...*smirk* Well, we'll see what happens...Thanks for the reviews, people, unfortunately there won't be answers today, because we wanted to get this chapter up as fast as possible!