A/N: this chapter is dedicated to Cherie, who'll have her birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday!
Chapter 19
The chamber of…
It felt like eternity to Daniel – just falling and falling… lower and lower into the well… his hands tried to catch something on the well's inner walls to hold onto, but everything was smooth and slippery. Gravity kept pulling him downwards, pictures of his entire life flashed before his eyes, then a picture of a soft and large green cushion flashed into his mind, and with a bump he hit something – something that couldn't be the ground, or he would surely have died. No, the thing he was lying on felt soft under his fingers… after a minute or so he dared open his eyes, but couldn't see anything, it was so dark. No wonder, he must have fallen at least a hundred metres before touching down, so he must have been well beneath the cave, somewhere in the bowels of the earth. He dug his hand into his robes to pull out his wand – thanks heaven, it was still in one piece. "Lumos!" he said and looked around in the small circle of light produced by the spell. He ascertained that he was kneeling on some kind of a thick layer of moss. He had never seen moss so thick before.
Dan scratched his head, trying to remember the seconds before the impact, and suddenly he remembered that he had – instinctively – imagined a green cushion onto the bottom of the well. Perhaps he mis-imagined it a bit, given that he got a thick layer of moss instead to cushion his fall – but it was just as good as a huge pillow, wasn't it? He heaved a sigh – so, it was not a disadvantage being an Imaginer, eh?
He looked upwards to see a little greyish fleck very far above – that must have been the ceiling of the cave. "Norbert?" he called, hoping to see his friend's head appear in the small round hole, but it did not. "He must have gone to get help," he told himself. "At least I hope so, because I have no idea how to get out of here… I cannot imagine myself climbing these walls, I'm not that far into my training yet…"
He was sure, though, that there was no point in just standing there and staring upwards, so he decided to look around in the hole he had fallen into. He held his wand out in front of himself, casting a beam of light on the walls, and was surprised to see that on one side there was no wall at all – there was a huge – very long - cave opening out of the pit. If the pit had been a normal well, then it would have been filled with water, but to Dan's relief it wasn't. The 'floor' of the cave sloped a bit towards its end. Everything down here was quite damp and cold, the ceiling was dripping, forming pretty stalactites and stalagmites. The water that was dripping from the ceiling gathered into small puddles on the ground. Daniel tried to step to less wet spots, but his trainers still got soaked soon, making a funny squelching noise whenever he took a step.
As he got deeper and deeper into the cave, his eyes got used to the darkness and he started to enjoy the adventure, wishing that his socks weren't soaking wet. Somewhere, at least two hundred feet away, some feeble light could be seen, but the boy had no idea what could emit light down here. He got curious, of course, so he continued his way towards the source of the light.
After five more minutes of walk, he reached the end of the cave where, among some rocks, was a pool of water. It was not a small pool created by dripping stalactites – it was a much bigger one, which very possibly had been some kind of an underground part of the Hogwarts Lake. Daniel wished he had gillyweed - then he'd be able to submerge into this pool (however freezing it was) and swim up onto the surface.
Strangely the source of the mysterious light wasn't the pool itself - because the water was dark –, it was a door on the wall of the cave. The door seemed to have been made of some sparklingly white stone, maybe a magically boosted version of marble, Daniel didn't know.
He lifted his wand to have a closer look at the door, wondering who had placed a door into a cave like this, and why. His parents had told him about the Chamber of Secrets (his mother still started to shiver whenever it was mentioned), but he seriously doubted that this door was another entrance to that chamber. Salazar Slytherin wouldn't have built a possible escape route out of the chamber, now, would he? It wasn't possible, of course, given that the Chamber of Secrets was under the lake, while this one must have been at the same level with the lake's surface (at least Daniel supposed so, he had heard that the water's surface in communicating vessels for liquid level was always at the same level).
Before Dan could examine the door more thoroughly, he heard a splashing noise from the pool. He immediately pointed his wand in the pool's direction to see what was happening and saw two ugly mermaids emerge from the water, holding a familiar figure and tossing it out into the cave. They were gabbling something in Mermish and sounded rather angry, even shook their greyish fists at the figure they had brought, then disappeared into the water.
"Myrtle?" Dan raised an eyebrow.
"Daniel?!?" the ghost-girl gasped. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same. Why did those mermaids bring you in here? And how could they bring you in here? I mean… ghosts cannot be touched, can they?"
"In water they can," Myrtle shrugged. "Water gives us a little bit of solidity. Not much, or otherwise I wouldn't fit into the U-bend, but a little bit is more than nothing, isn't it? Do you want to try?" she put her hand into the pool, motioning the boy with her other one to come and touch her submerged hand.
Dan shrugged and reached into the icy cold water to feel Myrtle's hand. "Hm… it really feels a bit solid. Not much, but a little bit," he said, looking at the ghost.
Myrtle gave him a smile and blushed (she turned even more silver than usual), apparently enjoying the boy's touch. Daniel noticed this and jerked his hand out of the water. "Damn cold."
"Couldn't you… couldn't you put a heating charm on the water…?" the ghost pleaded. "You could touch me more then…" her expression was not only pleading, but full of desire as well. "Please…"
"Don't expect me to jump into the water and get all wet, Myrtle!" he snapped, feeling the water with his hand again, shuddering at how cold it was. Myrtle, however, must have been very devastated and deprived, because the second he put his hand back into the water, she slipped into it with her full 'body', clutched his hand and yanked him downwards.
"Myrtle!" he gasped as the icy water tore at his skin like a thousand daggers – it must have felt alike for the victims of the Titanic catastrophe. Daniel fought to escape the ghosts' vice-like grip, but she wasn't willing to let go of him. "I'm freezing, you idiot!" he shouted before Myrtle pulled him totally under water and caught his lips in a kiss, that would have felt searing if he had been able to feel anything else but cold. Suddenly he felt a huge amount of energy leave his body just like half an hour earlier and the water around them heated to a pleasant 26 ºC. He hadn't even noticed that he wasn't struggling anymore to resurface, because he could do without breathing. His lungs weren't clamouring for oxygen, he felt totally all right – or more than all right - in the girl's embrace. He couldn't see much in the darkness, only her pearly white body that felt solid and warm… he just started to enjoying the kissing when he suddenly realised what he was doing and hastily tossed her backwards as if she had burnt him. She must have been taken by surprise and didn't react quick enough – he was already out of the pool, gasping and shivering in the coldness of the cave.
"Why have you stopped?" Myrtle sniffed, rising out of the water. "It could have been good for both of us."
Daniel gave her a furious stare, snatching up his fallen wand trying a drying spell on himself – to no avail. It was ridiculous, he thought, that he could freeze acromantulas, save himself from crushing himself to death after such a fall, heat a pool of water without using a wand, but couldn't dry himself when he wanted. "Damn you, Myrtle, I'm going to freeze to death because of your uncontrollable teenage hormones!"
"Hah! My hormones?" the ghost snapped. "You seemed to be quite willing yourself!"
"This is my ill-luck. I come here to wish for the attention of Liu and end up snogging a ghost!" he sighed and padded back to the marble door to examine it closer.
"Oh, that's quite an old door, it has been there ever since I got killed. I think it has been here for centuries. I haven't managed to float through it so far, don't know why," Myrtle said, hoping to continue the conversation with her new crush. "Sometimes, when my toilet got flushed down and I got down into the lake, the merpeople would just take me and throw me into this hole, hoping to get rid of me, but they weren't in luck. I kept returning to them to annoy them," she drew herself up, as though she had been proud of it. "Today it was the same – some mermaid was getting married to a merman and I wanted to watch the ceremony… but the merpeople somehow didn't like the idea of me playing bridesmaid, so they got rid of me."
"What is behind this door?" Dan mused, not a bit interested in the merpeople's mating habits.
"No idea. As I've said I never managed to float through that door. And no one has ever come down here," she replied. "But there's some script on it."
Dan, with chattering teeth, lifted his wand to see a small, round dent in the middle of the door, right under a script. The script said:
Offspring of the great bear,
Sibling of the maiden,
Prove me you are my blood,
And enter you may, then.
"What does this mean?" he frowned, turning to the ghost-girl.
"How could I know?" she shrugged. "Come on, let's get back into the water and continue where we left off," she added with a wink.
"No way," he spat. "I should be going back, perhaps people have already arrived to save me…"
"DANIEEEEEL!!!!!" came a voice from the other end of the cave.
"Told you," young Potter grinned at the girl. "You've got to get yourself another partner for your little play," with that he turned his back on her and started running towards the source of the voice.
* * * * *
"Dad!" the boy yelled. "I'm here!"
"Daniel!" his father hurried towards him and they met in mid-way in the cave. "Daniel!" Harry closed him into a firm embrace, his body shaking.
First the boy thought that his own body was shaking because of the cold, but he had to realise that his father was shaking… and sobbing.
"Dad?" he looked up at Harry. "Why are you crying?"
"I thought… I thought I'd lose you, too!" Harry's voice quivered, just like his whole body. "Are you all right? Heavens, why are you so wet?"
"Er…" Dan began, not really feeling like telling his father about his mad snogging session with Myrtle.
Harry flicked his wand and dried him in an instant, then pulled him into another hug, tears still pouring down his cheeks. Daniel had never seen his father like this… well, perhaps the night their house had been burnt down and Hedwig had died.
"Don't worry, I'm fine, dad…" he said.
"Don't worry?" Harry shouted, suddenly stepping back and holding his son at arm's length, glowering at him. "You said don't worry?!? Hell, Daniel, you have no idea what I felt when Norbert turned up at Honeydukes, hyperventilating, and muttered something about you falling into a stupid well… I thought I'd die on the spot, and your poor mother, too! You have no idea what we felt! How could you be so irresponsible? How could you sneak out of Hogwarts? How could you…?"
"Dad…" Daniel looked down at his trainers. "Dad… I'm sorry…"
"SORRY????? And how sorry you'll be!" Harry shouted. "Detention! I don't know yet what, but… I'll consult your head of house, he'll surely manage to find you something suitable!"
"No! Not Snape, please!" Dan beseeched. "Anyone but Snape!"
"Dumbledore, then," Harry nodded. "You know that you might get expelled for this?"
"I know," the boy croaked, feeling that a possible love affair with Liu wasn't worth getting expelled. On the other hand – if he got expelled, then how would he ever get close to Liu?
Harry led his son to the well's bottom where ground was still covered by the unusually thick layer of moss.
"Strange kind of moss," Professor Potter said.
"Yeah, strange, dad. Because I imagined it there to cushion my fall."
Harry shook his head. "I still can't believe what you did, Daniel. I'm deeply disappointed in you. Imaginer or not, I'd totally understand Dumbledore if he expelled you, and you'd deserve it."
"Harry?" called Ginny's trembling voice from above. "Harry, where's Dan? Is he alive?"
"Yes, he's alive!" Harry yelled back. "Don't worry, dear, he's all right!"
"Oh, thank God!" she cried.
"Come on, start climbing!" Harry instructed his son, pointing at the ladder he had conjured into the well.
The boy nodded and started climbing with a heavy heart. He didn't dare imagine what would happen to him and Norbert when the headmaster got to know about their little escapade. He felt that they did deserve to get sacked out of Hogwarts. His heart sank even more when he reached the top and caught a glimpse of his mother.
Ginny had been stressed and hysteric for a couple of times and Dan remembered pretty well what she had looked like when she had miscarried, but it had been nowhere near to what she looked like now: her face was red and tear-soaked, her eyes blood-shot, her hair tousled as if she had been tearing it in nervousness. As she saw him emerging from the well, she flung herself on him like a mother-tiger and held him in an embrace even tighter than Harry's had been. As if Daniel hadn't got wet enough that day, Ginny flooded him with her tears of relief.
"It's okay, mum…" he whispered, wishing she'd release him. "I'm fine, really."
"How… how did you survive? How did you survive falling so deep into that well?" she asked with a hoarse voice, the flow of her tears ceasing slowly.
"I imagined moss to fall on, mum," he replied. "I fell on soft stuff and didn't even hit myself."
"Oh, Daniel!" she started sobbing again.
"Gin, leave him. He needs to breathe," Harry gently peeled his wife's arms off their son. "Come, I'm taking you back to Mrs. Figg's. You'd better not go back to Honeydukes now."
She nodded and let him steer her out of the cave. Daniel followed them, feeling terribly guilty.
Outside, he found Norbert, whose face tucked into a huge grin when he spotted him. "You're all right, mate!?!"
"Yeah, suppose so," Dan shrugged. "But I won't be soon… we are very likely to get expelled for this, you know…"
"We won't be expelled," Norbert said, though he didn't look half as confident as his words sounded. "Dumbledore is known to give everyone a second chance…"
"I wish you were right," young Potter sighed, then leant to his friend to whisper into his ear: "You'd better hide the map and your cloak, we don't want Dumbledore or even my parents know about it."
"Okay," Norbert said and surreptitiously cast a vanishing charm on the contents of his rucksack – a charm that made the map and the cloak become invisible. Hopefully, Dumbledore wouldn't raid his sack…
* * * * *
"I'm deeply disappointed in you. Both of you," Albus Dumbledore said, giving a piercing look to the two boys standing in front of him. "I thought that at least you had more sense of responsibility than to leave the castle without permission, Mr. Malfoy. As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought that you had learned enough from the tales your father told you about his own dangerous adventures… but apparently you haven't. I thought you'd be clever enough not to follow his example, but as I see you aren't. I should expel you both, you know… or at least deduct two hundred points from Slytherin… but if I punished you, then your classmates would get to know where you have been and they'd swarm to the well, hoping to have their wishes fulfilled. That is something I don't want to. That well is dangerous, we don't want anyone to break their necks there," Albus looked at the boys in a way that made them have a feeling of being X-rayed. "At least tell me – how did you get to know about that well?"
"About the well? Well…" Dan drawled, looking at his trainers. "It happened so…"
"…that I've read about it in a book," Norbert replied.
"What book?" Dumbledore knitted his eyebrows. "What kind of book? I don't think that any decent book would give you information about a well that has been sealed away from the outside world for centuries, presumably for good reason. Not even I knew about its existence."
"I found that book in father's library, in Malfoy manor," said Norbert hastily.
"Indeed?" the headmaster gave the boy a quizzical look. "Silly me, I supposed you might have got it from the Restricted Section."
"The Restricted Section?" Dan gasped. "No! Why would we go in there? It's… restricted!"
"I'm aware of that," Albus nodded. "I just wasn't sure whether you two were also aware that sneaking into that section entails a serious detention."
"Oh. Does it?" Norbert breathed.
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy, it does," Dumbledore squinted at them jovially, making Dan have a feeling that the old wizard knew everything. One could never lie to Albus Dumbledore. "Well, of course I should not feel surprised to hear that good old Lucius has books on such things… I do not advise you to return there, boys. Forget that place forever. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," Dan nodded.
"Certainly, sir," Norbert added.
"Good. Mr. Malfoy, please, wait outside the stone gargoyle, I have something to discuss with Mr. Potter."
Norbert left, leaving Daniel alone with the headmaster.
"Have a seat, Daniel," Albus said, "and tell me about your mysterious survival. How did you stay alive after such a fall? Does it have something to do with your powers?"
"Yes, Professor. I imagined a cushion to fall on a second before the impact. I guess I mis-imagined it a bit, because I got a thick layer of moss instead of a pillow, but it was just as good. Though I'm not sure I could have imagined it there if I hadn't been scared to death… Sir, when will I be able to use my powers whenever I want to? When will I be able to control them properly?"
"Well, Daniel, you'll need to learn a lot before you are capable of that," Dumbledore replied. "I believe you still cannot complain – you are proceeding rather fast. That diary only contains the basic things an Imaginer can learn, but there's more to being an Imaginer than just knowing the basics. I fear that soon we are going to run out of syllabus. In a couple of weeks, you'll be able to perform greater things intentionally, and after that… I don't know."
"Isn't there a book for Imaginers? Like An Imaginer's Guide - How to Use Your Powers to a hundred percent?" Dan asked hopefully.
"I'm sorry, but I have no knowledge of a book like that," Albus shook his head. "That is why we've been using my ancestor's diary."
"Is it possible that I'll never be able to control myself totally?" young Potter worried. "Did Godwin Potter ever manage to control himself a hundred percent?"
"Well, not a hundred percent, I fear…" Dumbledore shook his head.
"So this means that the diary will only give me a 70 or 80% knowledge? Will I never be fully trained?"
"Daniel… I promise you to train you as long as it is possible relying on the diary's contents, but if you reach a certain level, the diary might not be enough."
"I hope it will be enough, sir," the boy said. "I'd like to be totally in control of my powers, I don't want things to happen just because I'm angry or aroused…"
"Aroused?" Albus raised an eyebrow and Dan turned red to the roots of his hair. "All right, I'm not asking anything," the old wizard said with mischievously twinkling eyes. "You may go, Daniel. I'll be awaiting you Tuesday evening in the dungeons."
"I'll be there, sir," Dan smiled. "And thank you for not expelling us."
The boy left the headmaster's office, let the escalator take him down to the hidden door and exited to see his father and Norbert standing next to the stone gargoyle.
"I heard you were in luck," Harry said with his arms akimbo. "Dumbledore was gracious as always. I do hope that you won't get the idea of sneaking into Hogsmeade in the near future, young men," he told both his son and his son's best friend. "I've been wondering how you got there at all without anyone noticing you. Or was that…" suddenly understanding dawned on him. "It was you! In an invisibility cloak! You bumped into me at the door of Honeydukes!"
"What are you talking about, dad?" Daniel frowned, trying to look innocent.
"I know that look, son. You cannot deceive me," Harry said. "But you know what? I don't care how you did it, as long as you don't do it again. Promise me that you won't."
"I promise, dad," Dan said, crossing his fingers behind his neck.
"Good," the Charms Professor nodded. "By the way, Dan… is that a hickey on your neck?"
"What?" the boy blanched and clamped his hand over his neck to hide whatever was there. "No. I don't know… I've got to go, dad."
With knitted eyebrows Harry watched the two boys hurry off and wondered whether his son really had a love-bite or had he just imagined it?
* * * * *
"Harry!" Lily Potter ran up to her father. "Mum's just told us what happened! Is Dan all right? Has he got expelled?"
"He's all right and hasn't been expelled, don't worry."
"You know, it's all your fault!" the girl said with an angry expression.
"Mine?" Harry's eyes widened.
"Yes, yours! You have spoilt Daniel ever since he was born! He, being your first-born son, has always been your favourite child, hasn't he? You have always made him feel that he was allowed to do anything and get away without a real punishment! No wonder that he thought he could just sneak out to Hogsmeade!"
"Now wait a minute, young lady!" Harry replied. "You said I have spoilt Daniel, but that's not true at all. I might have been a little bit lenient with him, but it was just to make up for…"
"It was just to console him because he was born a squib and wasn't really good at magic later on, right, Harry? But you know, that is no reason for favouring someone!"
"You are talking as though you were jealous of your brother," the young wizard said, barely believing what he just heard and saw. Lily had always been a good little girl who never rebelled against her parents and teachers, who never talked back… and now here she was, accusing him of having spoilt Daniel.
"I'm not jealous of him, I love my brother dearly!" she replied. "But I still think that you have spoilt him! It would have been your fault if he had died!"
"My fault? And what about Norbert-Devilsmoor Malfoy?" Harry grunted. "He admitted having come up with the idea of going to Hogsmeade. It was his fault, not Daniel's and definitely not mine!"
"Norbert wouldn't do such a thing!" Lily's eyes gleamed with fury. "I know that you have prejudice towards him because he's a Malfoy, but he's a nice boy, really!"
"Aha… that is why you have been snogging with him?" Harry crossed his arms.
His daughter cringed. "How do you know?"
"Half the school saw you kissing, Lily, so it isn't surprising that it came to my ears. And I do not approve of it at all."
"Why not?"
"Because he's a Malfoy. Because he's years younger than you. Because…"
"Because you just cannot endure seeing me with a boy, right?" she shouted. "Because you think that I'm still a little girl! But I'm not! Just to inform you, I have at last started my period… I'm a woman! And I'm dating whomever I want!" with that she stormed away, leaving her gobsmacked father behind.
* * * * *
"I can't believe you two were this irresponsible!" Gilda fumed after her friends told her about their little Hogsmeade adventure. "You could have died, Daniel!"
"Would you be very sad if he did?" Norbert asked with an impish grin.
"Of course I would!" she said, blushing a bit. "I like Dan – as a friend."
"Aha," young Malfoy made an amused expression, but Daniel didn't seem to have noticed what he was referring to.
"By the way, Dan… how could you survive a fall like that?" the girl asked.
"Well…" young Potter knew that he had to lie. "I… don't remember. All I remember was that I was falling and falling and falling… then I woke up on a carpet of very thick moss… perhaps that was what saved me. It lessened the impact, I guess… Anyway, guys, there's something I've got to tell ya."
"What?"
"Something happened to me down there."
"Yeah, you got a hickey," Norbert chuckled.
"What?" the girl gasped. "How?"
"Norb's just kidding. No hickey at all," Dan waved.
"No? Then why are you wearing that even in the warm common room, eh?" his friend asked, pointing at Dan's green-grey Slytherin scarf that was wound around his neck.
"Ehm… it was freezing in the pit and I… caught a cold," Dan produced some fake coughs.
"Have you been to Madame Pomfrey yet?" Gilda worried. "No? Then you should definitely go, she'll give you some Pepper-up potion and you'll be all right soon."
"I'm not that ill…" Dan replied. "Anyway, I wanted to tell you what I saw down in the cave… there was a door in there. A door of white marble that must have been magical somehow, because it emitted some light – glowed in the dark, you know… it looked so… ethereal, so mystical… and there was some script on it…" he started chewing his lips, his mind reeling to retrieve the words engraved into the door. "It was… offspring of the… great bear… sibling of the maiden, prove me you are my blood, and… enter you may, then."
"Hm… sounds cryptic," Norbert said. "Some kind of a riddle."
"Maybe I should ask my Aunt Hermione to help and solve it," Dan said. "Or rather not. We don't want the teachers to know about our little secret, do we? Perhaps we could solve the riddle together."
"Perhaps," Gilda shrugged. "What exactly did you say? Child of the bear and sibling of a maid?"
"Offspring of the great bear and sibling of the maiden," Dan corrected. "If only I knew what it meant!"
"Offspring of a bear…" Norbert mused. "That could be some American Indian stuff, I mean the Indians have totems like bears, ravens and eagles… but I have no idea about the maiden part."
"I don't think that it could have anything to do with American Indians," Dan shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. I mean… that door looked ancient. There's no way that the person who built it knew about America, it must have been built long before Christopher Columbus discovered that continent."
"What makes you think that the door is older than 500 years?" asked Gilda.
"Well… the letters looked terribly ancient. I barely could decipher them. They looked like the text in millennium-old codices…" Dan said.
"What about the second half?" said Norbert. "It's about proving that you are of the blood of the writer and then you can open the door, right?"
"I suppose so," Dan shrugged. "But I think that we can only find out who the writer was if we solve the riddle of the first two lines… so we are stuck. What the hell could be the offspring of the great bear and the sibling of the maiden? Who is the great bear and who is the maiden? Bugger."
The three friends spent the next days trying to find out what the riddle meant, but they didn't manage. They had checked out books from the library – books on bears, hoping to find some legend about a possible offspring of a possible 'great bear', but they didn't find anything.
"I give up," Dan sighed on Tuesday. "There's no point in wasting our precious free time for stupid things. I have other things to do," that was true – he had Imaginer training with Dumbledore that evening.
On his way down to the dungeons (where he was supposed to meet the headmaster), Daniel met Kevin Weasley who gave him a mocking grin.
"I heard what happened to you. How on Earth did you survive?"
"Good that you aren't asking how did I dare survive," Dan crossed his arms. "How do you know about it at all?"
"Ah, Lily told the twins and the twins told me," Kevin shrugged. "I know that you have reconciled with Viv and Val, but don't expect me to go all emotional on you like they did…"
"Just say it straight into my face, Kevin, that you are sad that I haven't died. I'd understand it a hundred percent, because the only thing that would have been good about dying is not seeing you again!"
"Oh, I'm sorry 'bout that, but you'll definitely see me again and again – for example at the wizard-knight tournament… if you dare enter, that is…"
"Of course I dare enter," Dan replied.
"Wonder why… someone who cannot perform a simple cooling charm would suck at the tournament, don't you think?"
Dan shrugged. "Just wait out. You might get surprised."
"Surprised? By what? Seeing you fall off your broomstick after three seconds?" Kevin laughed. "That wouldn't surprise me at all, you know!"
"You don't know me, Kevin," Dan whispered, his eyes boring deeply into the other boy's. "You know nothing about me," his face didn't exactly show fury or the state of being offended, – no, it rather sent Kevin a silent message, a message saying 'do not cross me'.
"Maybe I don't know you. But I'm not even interested in you," said his cousin, infuriated by the fact that Dan couldn't be upset, then turned on his heels and hurried away.
"Idiot," Dan muttered and continued his way downstairs. On a corner, he almost bumped into two embracing figures, who – he realised – were his second-cousin David Dursley and Lily's best friend, Circe Diggory. *Good for you.* he thought wistfully, continuing his way towards the dungeons, picturing the pretty Liu. After a short fantasy about Miss Chang, he shook his head. He wouldn't carry on pining for her forever, because it was totally silly! He had almost died because of his enormous crush on that girl, and realised that she wasn't worth dying for. So, probably he didn't even love her that much… he didn't know. Perhaps he was too young to tell the difference between a crush and true love, too young to tell the difference between hormones and heart-felt emotions… speaking of emotions, Daniel had to jump behind the statue of an old wizard riding an ostrich to hide from Professor Snape who stormed out of a nearby classroom, seething with rage.
"Okay! I understand!" Bert Bradley called after him, sounding just as angry as Snape looked.
"What do you understand?" Severus turned around to face the caretaker.
"I understand why you don't want to teach me Potions anymore!" Bert yelled. "Because you feel ashamed about the Shrieking Shack!"
"I don't feel ashamed…" Snape tried to protest, but the caretaker interrupted:
"Oh, yes, you do! You feel ashamed because you had sex with me!" Daniel, behind the wizard-with-ostrich-statue gasped. "I know that it is why you have been avoiding me for two months now! But listen to me, Professor Snape – do not think that I don't feel ashamed about the events! You have no idea what I feel! I didn't want it to happen! It wasn't my fault! You took the wrong flask, oh mighty Potions Master! You made us drink that potion – because we did drink some potion, didn't we? I for one would never have acted like that if I hadn't been affected by that stuff! You made a mistake, and you brought about everything! It's all your bloody fault, so don't give me that despising look, because it should be you whom you should despise! Yes, you're to blame, only you! I'm not playing the scapegoat in this story, understood? I'm not…" Bert suddenly clutched at his head, as though he had felt dizzy, and the professor could barely catch him as he blacked out.
"Mr. Bradley! Mr. Bradley! Bert, wake up!" Snape patted the caretaker's cheeks, trying to revive him, to no avail. "Damn, don't do that to me, you hear me?" his voice sounded totally desperate. Daniel had never heard this man's voice tremble, neither had he seen him looking so worried. From behind the statue, he watched as Severus picked up the caretaker's fragile body and hurried upstairs, obviously into the hospital wing.
"Why are you looking as though you had seen the Bloody Baron?" Albus Dumbledore asked Daniel five minutes later.
The boy blushed, "I have unintentionally witnessed a rather… peculiar conversation between Snape and Mr. Bradley."
"Have you, Daniel?"
"Yes… Mr. Bradley yelled at Snape…"
"Professor Snape," Albus corrected.
"Yes, him," Dan nodded. "So, he yelled at Professor Snape that Professor Snape shouldn't be blaming him for having uh…"
"Having uh what?" Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with interest.
"Well…" Dan leant closer, "Bradley said that they had… sex. And then Mr. Bradley fainted."
"Fainted, indeed?" Albus' face seemed contemplative. "How curious."
"You think it's curious that the caretaker fainted, but not that they have… slept together?" Dan was downright surprised. On the other hand – what was he expecting from someone like Albus Dumbledore? He knew no stranger person than the old headmaster – well, probably his brother Aberforth…
"I think that this is not the right time to discuss Professor Snape's sexual life, Daniel," the old wizard smiled. "And I must ask you not to mention this to your classmates. We do not want to embarrass our Potions master, do we?"
"Ehm… no," Dan grinned and Albus winked at him.
"Well, then, let us see today's task – imagining animals turning into other kinds of animals. I have brought you a nice flobberworm to practice on, I believe it wouldn't be that much of a loss to the world if you happened to mis-imagine it."
* * * * *
Snape was pacing in front of the infirmary while Madame Pomfrey examined Bert Bradley. He was beside himself with worry: could the caretaker have got a heart attack? Or did he have respiratory troubles? He felt terribly guilty – and this time not for having slept with Bert, but for having caused him to collapse. Had he not behaved like that, Bert wouldn't have got all riled up and wouldn't have lost consciousness. That poor little guy had always been so thin, he could have been sick all along… suddenly a thought struck Severus: what if Bradley's illness was a sexually transmittable one? His heart skipped a beat.
Meanwhile, in the hospital wing, the caretaker came round and blinked up at the Hogwarts matron who was looking down at him with a concerned and seemingly shocked face.
"Madame Pomfrey?" Bert whispered, looking around. "Why am I here?"
"Because you have fainted, Mr. Bradley," Poppy said. "Or should I say Miss Bradley?"
* * * * *
On his way back to the Slytherin common room, Daniel met Professor Longbottom who greeted him jovially.
"Have you been training for the upcoming Slytherin-Ravenclaw match, young Potter?" he asked.
"Well, of course. Ted Avery is making the team train four times a week, even on weekends. He's a bit over-enthusiastic, I'd say," Dan replied.
"I can totally understand Mr. Avery," Neville said, "Slytherin need to pull up their socks if they want to beat Ravenclaw – Ravenclaw has an exceptionally talented team this year."
"Yeah, with Liu Chang…" Dan muttered. "By the way, Professor, are you also playing in the teacher-parent Quidditch match in May?"
"I'll be playing Seeker," Longbottom said. "First I wanted to play referee, but your father convinced me that it wouldn't be fair if he played against a non-professional Seeker. So, the referee will be Albus, so I heard."
"The headmaster? Wow!" Dan's face lit up. "I had no idea. I'd really like to see him riding a broomstick! So, the Seekers are you and dad. Who else is on team B, Professor?"
"Well…" Neville scratched his jaw, "There will be Marcus Flint – not that I'm happy about having to play in one team with him… Gilderoy Lockhart has also volunteered, but between the two of us, I don't dare imagine what he'll be doing up in the air…" he added with a wink.
Dan chuckled, imagining Lockhart's sexy little hat being blown off his head by the wind while criss-crossing on the sky on a broomstick. "Who else?"
"Hm… let's see… I heard that Aberforth Dumbledore also wanted to play, and poor Minerva almost got a heart-attack when he announced that he'd be playing, you know 'you're too old for that, Aby, it's enough for you to ride that sled of yours, but forget about riding a broomstick!'" Neville imitated the voice of an irritated McGonagall. " … oh yeah, and there's Snape, too."
"Snape?" Dan raised an eyebrow. "Can he ride a broomstick at all?"
"He can, I remember that in my first year he insisted on refereeing the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match. Though I haven't seen him making loop-the-loops and Wronsky Feints yet, so I have no idea what he is capable of…"
"I don't think it would be wise for Snape to play," Dan said. "He's been looking so pale lately… as if he were sick. As though he hadn't been able to recover since the spider-attack."
Neville gave the boy a surprised stare. "Why do I get the impression that you are concerned about him? I thought you didn't like him."
"I don't like him. Still… I think he's not as nasty as he looks… he does have a heart. For example just two hours ago he looked damn worried when the caretaker fainted…"
"What?" Neville seemed shocked. "Mr. Bradley fainted?"
"Yeah… they were quarrelling, and Mr. Bradley just collapsed," Dan shrugged. "He must be in the infirmary."
"Thank you. I must hurry now," Professor Longbottom said and stormed away.
Daniel stared after him, having no idea why the Flying teacher had looked so scared when he got to know about the caretaker. Maybe he shouldn't have told Professor Longbottom about it at all… on the other hand, Dumbledore had only asked him to keep his mouth shut in front of his classmates, not in front of other teachers… he shrugged and continued his way down into the common room.
* * * * *
"Why can't you let me in?" Severus Snape growled at Madame Pomfrey. "I want to know how he's feeling. I have to see him!"
"Calm down, Professor!" Poppy said. "Mr. Bradley does not wish to see you. He requested in particular that I do not let you enter. I'm sorry, Professor, but I must respect my patient's wish."
"But is he okay? What's the problem with him? Is he very ill?"
"No, he isn't," Poppy shook her head. "Just a case of… er… clupea."
"What?" Snape blinked.
"Er… a rare but not dangerous illness, don't worry, it won't last long. And now you'd better leave… oh, good evening, Professor Longbottom!" the nurse greeted Neville as he rounded the corner.
"I heard that the caretaker passed out," Neville said. "Can I see him, please?"
"I don't think that Mr. Bradley feels like having visitors right now," Madame Pomfrey replied.
"Then ask him whether he wants to see me, please! I'm sure he won't say no!" the Flying teacher pleaded.
"All right," the matron shrugged and disappeared into the infirmary.
"Don't think that he'll let you see him," Snape told Neville with a dark expression. "He doesn't want to see anyone."
The door of the hospital wing opened and Poppy waved at Neville. "You can come, Professor Longbottom, my patient is willing to talk to you."
"See, he is willing to talk to me," Neville sent Snape a nasty smirk and entered, leaving a fuming Potions Master behind.
Poppy closed the door and hurried off to her adjoining room, leaving the patient and the visitor to themselves.
"Hi," Neville smiled at the caretaker and took place on a chair next to the bed.
"Hello, Nev," came a feeble reply.
"What happened to you?" Longbottom asked with a worried expression. "How are you? Is your illness very dangerous?"
"How could it? Then Madame Pomfrey wouldn't have let you in. Anyway, I'm fine."
"I heard that you had some kind of an argument with Snape and suddenly collapsed."
"That's true," Bert nodded with a small smile. "We had an argument… I told him what I thought of him."
"Did you?" grinned Neville. "And what did you tell him?"
"I told him that it was all his fault – he was the one who mistook the flasks for each other, not me, so he has no right to blame me."
"Clever," Neville patted Bert's hand. "But tell me, why did you faint? I'm worried about you."
"I'm pregnant, Neville."
"WHAT???" the young wizard gasped. "You… you don't mean it! You must be joking! Beryl, come on, tell me that you're joking!"
"I can't Nev. That's the truth," she shrugged.
"I can't believe it… you're having… Snape's kid?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, you silly goose, why didn't you come to Pomfrey and ask for some contraceptive after that… that night in the Shrieking Shack? Why, for heaven's sake?"
"Well… first of all: it didn't occur to me that I could have got pregnant," Bert/Beryl said. "You know that my ex-husband and I had been trying to conceive for years, but didn't succeed. I thought that I couldn't have children. But now… now I must believe that it was Philippe who couldn't get me pregnant. Number two: I didn't want to come to the school matron and reveal her that I was a female. You know that Dumbledore told me to hide my sex as long as possible. You know that Hogwarts can only accept male caretakers… and you know that Hogwarts is possibly the only place where I'm safe from Philippe."
"Of course I know," Neville sighed. "It was me, after all, who asked Albus to employ you and keep you safe from your criminal ex-hubby. I know that the only condition on which he employed you was to make you appear as a male, but… you could have trusted Pomfrey. She's not a gossip, she would have kept your secret. Perhaps she can still help you get rid of this pregnancy."
"Neville!" Beryl sat bolt upright, her eyes gleaming with fury. "I – don't – want – to – hear – about – terminating - my - pregnancy! Look, Severus might not be the ideal father for a child, and he doesn't even need to know about it, but there's no way that I'll let anyone kill my baby!"
"Okay, okay, sorry for even mentioning it!" Professor Longbottom soothed her. "But… how will you keep it a secret from the staff and the students? I mean that's okay that you cut your hair and put on male clothes, because people did believe you to be a man, but… how can you hide a baby? After a while it shows, you know…"
"Neville," Beryl reached out to squeeze his hand. "Let us hope that Philippe will be caught by the Police soon and taken back to prison. As soon as it happens, I'll leave Hogwarts and continue my life in the normal Muggle world."
"But… even if your ex is taken back to jail, how will you be able to carry on with your life? I mean… you're teaching at a Muggle school. But if you have a child, you cannot teach, especially when you are raising it alone. How on Earth will you manage it?"
Beryl heaved a sigh. "I don't know, Nev. And I don't even want to think of it right now. It all belongs to the future. Let's carry on with our lives as though nothing happened, okay? Poppy gave me some medicine that will prevent me from collapsing again and will also reduce the possibility of morning sicknesses. No one needs to know what is happening to me, no one else but you and me."
"And Dumbledore," the young wizard added. "Because you have to tell Dumbledore."
"I don't think I have to. But you can tell my sister. She'll surely be thrilled."
"Okay, I'll tell Mary-Sue," Neville nodded. "When can you leave the infirmary?"
"Tomorrow, I suppose."
"And what about your work as a caretaker? I mean… caretakers are supposed to work hard, and pregnant women shouldn't."
"Don't worry about me, Nev," his sister-in-law smiled. "You know that I'm a tough lady, I'll manage it. And now, go. We don't want Severus to get suspicious about us being together so long, do we?"
"Nay," Neville grinned. "You know what? I think he's jealous of me. He thinks that you and me are… sort of… together. He thinks I'm also gay."
Beryl slumped back into the pillows, giggling, her voice sounding like the jingle of a dozen little bells… Neville wondered how no one – especially Snape – realised that Bert Bradley was a woman. "You know, Nev, I feel sorry for poor Sev," she said, still chuckling. "It must feel terrible to think that you're gay. I wish I could tell him that he's not. I wish I could tell him what I feel for him… oh, keep dreaming, Beryl Bradley, keep dreaming!"
Professor Longbottom gave her a sad smile. "One day it might turn out to be more than a mere dream – it might turn reality. And if Snape's the man of your dreams, then all I can do is wish that that day comes soon."
"Thanks, Neville. You're a true friend."
* * * * *
While writing his homework in the Slytherin common room, Daniel's thoughts kept wandering away from goblin revolutions and Transfiguration essays… he wished he hadn't been made by Dumbledore to swear that he wouldn't talk about Snape and Bradley's quarrel… he was sure that Norbert would think it was very funny. Maybe even Gilda would laugh.
With a sigh, Dan put down his essay on Dick the Dirty and reached for his Astronomy homework.
"Have you guys done this yet?" he asked from his friends.
"Of course, ages ago," Gilda replied, not even looking up from her book on Egyptian battle-techniques.
"I haven't yet," said Norbert, rolling out his star chart on the table. "So, what exactly is the task? To depict the movement of the planets in May, or what?"
"Yeah," Dan said, his gaze falling on the star chart. Suddenly he tensed, as though he had been petrified. His body was rigid, but his eyes were skimming the chart, the expression of excitement and realisation spreading on his face.
"What happened?" Norbert waved his hands in front of his friend's eyes. "Anybody home?"
"Yeah…" Dan looked up. "I think I got it!"
"What?"
"The riddle! I think I understand the riddle!"
Gilda slammed her book shut, her face revealing the same amount of excitement that Dan was feeling. "How could you understand it?"
"Look!" young Potter pointed at the chart. "There is Ursa Maior, or The Great Bear. See what constellation is under it?"
"Leo. And?" Norbert frowned, having no idea what his friend was getting at.
"Look, what constellation do you see next to Virgo?"
"Leo," said Gilda.
"Yeah. Don't you two still understand?" Dan asked, amazed how his friends could be this dim. "Offspring of the great bear, sibling of the maiden!" he recited the verse. "It's like a family-tree on the sky: Ursa Maior is above Leo, as though Leo had been its offspring. Virgo is next to Leo, as though it had been its sibling! In family trees the parents are up and the children are under them, next to each other!"
"You mean… that Virgo was referred to as the maiden?" Gilda knitted her eyebrows.
"Yeah. At the old times, when the verse was written, maidens, who hadn't got married yet, were supposed to be virgins, right? And virgin in Latin is Virgo! All fits!" Dan replied, his face flushed with excitement. Being good at Astronomy had its benefit, after all…
"So… the first two lines referred to the constellation Leo?" Norbert asked.
"It had to," young Potter nodded. "I just don't know about the next two lines… I mean there's something that you have to prove that you're of the blood of… the lion? It doesn't make sense to me."
"Oh, don't be so dense, Dan!" Miss Lockhart waved.
"I'm not dense!" the boy protested. "Had I been dense, I wouldn't have been able to solve the first two lines!"
"You're still dense if you can't find out who 'the lion' is!" she retorted. "Think, Dan! Where was the chamber built? In a cave near the Hogwarts lake. And who had anything to do with lions at Hogwarts?"
Daniel's eyes widened with recognition. "Gryffindor. Godric Gryffindor."
A/N: I don't know what the English name of the Great Bear is, perhaps you write it as Ursa Major instead of Ursa Maior, but since I had no idea, I just used the Latin names for the constellations.
You might wonder how a ghost could be a bit solid in water. The idea came from the Chamber of Secrets book/movie: when Myrtle jumps into a toilet, she sprinkles water out of it – that means she has to have some kind of solidity in order to make the water sprinkle, don't you think? So I assumed that in water ghosts had a little bit of solidity. I might be wrong, of course, we should perhaps ask Rowling ;)
Originally the Daniel/Myrtle scene was a bit racier, but on my mother's advice I re-wrote it, so this is a less-racy version. Now don't even ask for the original one, because I didn't keep it. The only existing copy of it is in the possession of a Hungarian friend whom I've sent the whole story months ago, but I don't feel like asking her to return it to me. She said she found the Myrtle/Dan scene very funny, though a bit morbid. You aren't getting the morbid version, because I don't want to corrupt any of my under-thirteen-year-old readers ;) Anyway, don't worry, Dan never really had sex with Myrtle, not even in the original version, he's way too young for that and I wouldn't spoil my dear little Daniel that way, would I? *innocent look*
King Jasbon: there was nothing wrong with Dan's wish and it might come true… just perhaps not the way he wanted.
Imagine-Gurl210: yes, Cho and Liu are getting on my nerves as well! Welcome in the Cho-Hater-Club (other members: Bucky and me)
rebkos: yeah, wishes can backfire like curses cast by idiots like Gilderoy ;)
Indigo Ziona: well, now you know who Philippe is. I liked Dan's poem, too, but soon he'll write an even nicer one (hehe, I had so much fun writing those poems!) Wow, do I really have an eloquent way of writing grief? Thanks, that comment made my day! About 'Liu forever' – well… it will be a surprise, but trust me, it won't be that bad.
Tap Dancing Widow: oh, you actually felt sorry for Gildy? ;)
Cassandra Antheymst: yep, he's a girl, glad you managed to find out! Nope, Philippe didn't turn Bert into anything, because he's no wizard, he's a Muggle. Yes, you're 100% correct about Dan's wish :)
Altec: yes, I'm really a master (mistress) of cliffhangers, and the recent cliffies weren't even bad compared to the ones coming up *evil cackle* Well, you got a bit of Kevin again. I don't hate Dobby at all – I found him very irritating in the CoS book, but I got to like him in GoF. However, I can't stand Winky. Death to Winky! Yup, Voldie DID kill people. For example Harry's parents, Bertha Jorkins, the Muggle gardener Frank Bryce…
sabby: yes, Dan will soon notice Gilda :D Glad you like the Lily/Norbert thing.
C-chan: I agree, I also missed the Valentine's Day from the movie. Oh, keeping Gildy in character is the easiest thing in the world – he's the character that I love writing the most, because he's the funniest :D Yeah, the Bill Gates quote was really funny :)
Katrina: glad to hear that you're addicted :D Yes, Bradley is pregnant, the poor thing – it must be hard for her to carry Sev's kid ;) Dan's wish was deliberately phrased in that stupid way, so that Liu wouldn't fall in love with Dan. If she did, when what would be of poor Gilda? Red herring? Big LOL! You know why I find that funny that you should mention red herring? Because my Public Relations professor told us the real story of the red herrings and analysed why the PR work was done wrongly in that case and what the PR managers should have done to solve it. It was very interesting. Bert has nothing to do with Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans :) Sirius? You're the second person who insinuates poor Siri. The mere reason for the Potters not going back to Black Manor was that Ginny was working at Honeydukes and it was more comfortable for her to stay in Hogsmeade. No, Dan did nothing to the house. Lily Malfoy? Does it sound really good? Hm… never thought of this before ;)
Houou: no, that book won't play a key role. But another book might… just wait it out. "Young love… Snape's gotta be 40-something!" – LOL :D Well, in fact he's around 50-52 in this fic.
Mage: what's with Liu being such a bitch? Well, that's easy to answer: she's Cho's daughter ;)
Alexander Phoenix: glad you liked the Shrieking Shag ;) I'll try and review you again soon, but I've been asked by several people to review them, so I won't be that quick now.
ruffled owl: you wrote: "gay Snape. Something else I thought I would never see." Well, you haven't seen it, have you? ;) He's not gay, after all.
Lioness-07863: I usually update once a week. Last week I was in good mood and updated twice. Yep, Dan will end up with Gilda.
AmandaPanda: noooo, Albus isn't bisexual, the goat was a female… really. Just wait till the beginning of April, and you'll be able to read a short story about Albus and goat (it won't be anything perverse, just funny, I promise). Yes, you're right about Dan's wish.
Romina: of course he lives :D Yes, most people would usually die if they fall down a well, but not an Imaginer.
Black Ice: the name of Neville's wife was a pun intended, but has nothing to do with the plot. Sorry about Snape NOT being gay. I hope you're not too disappointed… About Snape liking Lily Evans: I think that some fanfic writer made that up and others used it in their fics, but no, Rowling has never said that. She might in book five, though. We'll see.
Lupin's Angel: ummm… what does the abbreviation OMFG stand for? I know OMG, but what is F in there? Yay, I loved your long list of Harry-torturing! :D And you have no idea what the 'crowning glory' of the torturing-list will be… it'll be something terrible *insert evil laughter* I hope you won't send your orcs after me, I hate the orcs, they are soooo ugly! WHAAAAAT??? Voldie disguised as Angel? Holy heavens! You deserve 50 points for your extremely vivid imagination (I don't think that even my imagination has ever been this vivid). I can't tell you what the last word of this fic is, because it might spoil a good joke. But it isn't scar.
bucky: those poor hungry spiders… *Agi wipes off tears of her face* Well, you got the pregnancy you wanted ;) Yes, the story will have a happy ending and its final sentence will be very funny – perhaps even funnier than the ending lines of the first two fics. Btw, now you can view the 'hated b*tch' in my GTnet portrait gallery, I'm curious about your opinion ;)
VegaKeep: you wrote: "Snape gay? Say it isn't so." Well, I'm saying: "it isn't so" :D
weirdo_without_a_clue: well, some readers aren't that clueless, but none of them really KNOWS the truth about certain things. I'm really good at misleading the readers, LOL. Nope, Trelawney is totally innocent.
Lee: I did.
Wizzabee: no, Dan's wish won't magically connect them so that they couldn't be apart from each other. The wish will come true in some way, but not that way.
Inigma: I'm glad that my story could make you feel better :)
X-Tow-Naga: hey there, I've been missing you! Aha. So the temporal paradox has something to do with time travel. Well, there won't be time travel in any of my fics, that's for sure. Yes, I'm sure that Sirius wouldn't have turned them down if they wanted to move back to him, but Ginny had Honeydukes to work at, and it would be a bit difficult for her to live at Black Manor and work at Hogsmeade. Whew, what a theory you made up about Dan's wish! You also have a vivid imagination! :D I know that Dan's wish wasn't phrased well, I deliberately phrased it this way (Dan's just a young kid, after all, and didn't realise that he phrased it wrong.) I didn't want him to ask the well 'make Liu fall in love with me', because then it would come true, and what would be of poor Gilda? "This wishing well has been closed due to the fact that it swallows people, RUN LIKE HELL!" – LOL, I was rotfl when I read this!
Bamboo Anime: oh, I hope you won't hate poor Dan just because he reminds you of someone you hate.
Lady Schezar: glad you are happy about Lily and Norbert ;) Dan and Gilda will make it soon, too :D
goldenstar555: yep, Dan didn't phrase his wish correctly.
Punky Poet: clever. Very clever! :)
figgiesblazin: yep, Dan is a bit Slytherinish :) I'm glad you like Norbert so much, I like him, too :D
The Millennium One: sarcasm in my reply? Hm… I don't remember what I wrote you, so no idea. Well, now you KNOW why they aren't gay ;)
seashell: I agree, my fave part of PoA is the same as yours: the Marauder's Map insulting Snape, it's so cool and funny :D Yeah, Liu is bitchy, but what can you expect from a Chang? ;)
Colibi: why does Dan bother with Liu? For the same reason Harry used to bother with Cho.
Wood's secret lover: glad you liked the Shrieking Shag - I giggled quite uncontrollably when I made that up ;) Ginny might have another baby… about the enemy being in canon or just my stories… I can reply you the same I told C-chan last time: both. *hehe, that must have confused you a lot*
tyleet: not every chapter can be action-packed, there has to be time for plot-developments. Excitement will be in chapter 24, and 27-29. There'll be a lot of it, don't worry.
Hermione We@s!ey: glad you like Norbert, I like him too :D And thanks for the praise, there's really no bigger praise than that. Are you still shocked about Bert and Snape?
Aimee: yes, Dan's wish was formulated wrong. I deliberately phrased it wrong, of course, so that Liu wouldn't fall for him. On the other hand, the wishing well might be just a 'hoax', to hide the chamber under it, perhaps it doesn't even fulfil wishes just people believed it to be able to fulfil wishes. However, I won't really go into this, since the important thing is the chamber, not the well. Well, now you know that Bradley isn't gay. Neither is Snape a bisexual.
Princess Ginny: I get the hilarious emails from British and American friends (most of whom I have got to know here on ffnet).
SiriDragon: glad you think Dan and Gilda would make a cute couple, I also think so :D There'll be a very cute scene with them in the next chapter.
Lana Riddle: thanks :D
PhoenixFire: Dan's wish worked, but not the way he wanted. In the final chapter you'll see how it did.
HP Blonde Crazy Chick: glad you liked my drawings on GT :) But I'm not going to draw another Petunia, one was just enough! You're paranoid because of racoons in U-bends? LOL :D
Inken: glad you liked the poem. Yes, I deliberately phrased Dan's wish in the wrong way. I know that Snape was ooc, but just imagine him in such a situation: even if Rowling wrote him in a situation like this, I don't think she would have written him in another way. I thought he behaved in a way that was expectable from him in a crazy predicament like this. I think that someone like Snape wouldn't bear the thought of having Bert around after what had happened between the two of them :D
Shazzman: no, that astronomy program cannot be downloaded, at least I got it on a CD years ago, and it was a CD that my mum bought in a shop, so it was 'legal' and everything. But there was a website mentioned on the CD: Go there, perhaps you'll find something.
No Longer a Lone Wolf: I never thought that Lily/Norb resembled Harry/Ginny at all. Strange that you think so…
Makayla P.: what? You and your cousin Amanda read this out to each other and she fell off the bed laughing? You know that this was one of the funniest reviews I have ever got? :D Your cousin isn't AmandaPanda, is she? (I have a reviewer by that name). Anyway, if she is another person, say hello to her for me and tell her that I'm happy I could make her laugh so much! Well, now you understand why Snape isn't gay.
DJRowley: would it make any use if I denied it was Cho? Well, I'm not going to deny it, but I'm not going to say that it's her, either. Just be patient, you'll get to know in time.
Myr Halcyon: you're the second reader who accuses poor Angel. Now come on, she's just a cute lil animal! I'm glad I managed to write Bert/Beryl in a femmy way, that means I've done a good job with her! :D How did you like Crime and Punishment? I had to read it during the high school, in third grade, and at first I thought I'd be reading something terrible, but as I continued reading I was surprised that I liked the book! It was very interesting to see how Raskolnikov was suffering from the thought of what he had done. My friend and I have been joking about Raskolnikov's bloody socks ever since ;) I had to read quite many works of Russian writers (Anegin by Puskin, Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, The cloak by Gogol and Crime and Punishment). I hated Anegin, Ivan Ilyich and The cloak (that's why I made a ridicule of Anegin and Ivan Ilyich in TGSaWCS), but I really liked Crime and punishment, a very well written novel, I could barely put it down, I found it so captivating.
starheart20: yup, I just love annoying my poor readers with cliffies ;)
Mistri: please read my answer to Shazzman.
Jennifer W: glad you liked it so much, it always thrills me to get to know that I can make people laugh :D
LilGinny: yep, Norbert's really hot ;)
2Coolio: any comments now?
apple-pie: don't worry about Dan and Liu, there won't be anything between them. But Dan and Gilda… just wait for the next chappie, you'll be happy ;) About the necklace… can't tell you yet. Glad you liked the Albus/Sev conversation, I was having so much fun when writing it! You wrote: "Severus could be a nice but grumbling husband!" LOL:) "I don't hate him anymore." Why, did you use to hate him? I never hated him, I like him. Bert/Beryl is about 32-33 years old.
Nefertiri: nothing happened to Harry's cloak, it was left in the school for the Christmas holidays, so it didn't get burned in the fire.
jasper: yes, Mr. Bradley is a Miss Bradley ;)
Kamatazi Yumi: you wrote: "You take another persons world and make it your own." What can I say for this? THANKS. :D
Danimpa: I'm glad you've decided to send a review at last :D No, I'm not going to write a sequel to this one, but I'll be doing outtakes. There's already one about Ron and Hermione, and there'll be soon another one about Albus and the goat *grins stupidly* don't worry, it won't be a perverted story, it will be nice and funny, and PG-13 rated, so everyone will be 'allowed to' read it ;) Yep, you were right, Bert is a Beryl.
zzxm: of course Snape was a bit ooc, but imagine what anyone would do in such a situation: I think everyone would behave strangely (I surely would if I were in Snape's place;).
Toby Haine: you wrote: "So Snape slept with a guy." Eeeep! No, he didn't! "I know its still about six or seven seperate subplots but I can tell its starting to become one big story at last which is just what we all want." Yes, hopefully I won't disappoint :)
heavenly182angel: no, there wasn't water in the well – luckily :)
luza: thanks. It's always nice to see a new reviewer! :D
SparkleCharm: I didn't make Snape a homo :) Harry is 31 years old. Sirius must be around 50. Yes, Draco and Gabie will get together.
candycaneOgram: why the title Love hurts? Because both Snape and Beryl were suffering from love, and also poor David, and a little bit Lily, too. And of course Daniel who got rejected by Liu. They were all hurt by love :) No, Julie won't have an important role, she's just there because I had to put someone in Hufflepuff as well. Yup, Dan will be a bit mad at Norbert when he finds out about his relationship to Lily.
Katie Bell: is there a problem with Katie being Chris' mum? ;)