Declaro IX: A Love Letter
LAVENDER:
Argh, it just has to happen, when I have the very biggest news and, half- way to find Padma, who'll just die when she hears, I get caught in the corridor by Morag McDougall asking about the Astronomy quiz. Of course she needs to make me worried about it so she can feel better. I think that's what happens with clever girls who are, well, not pretty.
I shake her off by sidetracking into the nearest girls' bathroom. It's the haunted one, which is desperately unpleasant, but not Morag. Not that I think Hermione is really not pretty, but she's so concerned not to be. Really, it's embarrassing.
Myrtle is escalating the moan. You'd think by now she would save it for the junior students. The only scary things that happen in here have nothing to do with her.
"Shut up, Myrtle. Nobody cares!" Honestly.
I can't find the round brush. If Padma has 'borrowed' it again. . . And Hermione's face. That declaration was from Justin Finch-Fletchley, I just know it was, because she went pale and looked right at him and I saw he had a hand on Ron Weasley's arm and Ron looked really cross, although that's hardly anything unusual. I couldn't ask though because every one was in a panic about Harry.
Lavender smoothed her hair and brushed up the colour on her cheeks. She settled the fit of her green robes against her stomach and hips (it was strange to wear something so very closely fitted from class to class). She brushed off the fall of her robe for stray crumbs with the only available towel (and Mrytle made a new noise of outrage).
Personally, I think Hilary Malkin has to be worth considering, but Hermione seemed almost offended for Harry. It's not like every future is academic, or anything, and Harry was never like that. That is, like her. And who wants to be left with Snape as an option, I ask you? And, after all, he is Harry Potter. Oh but it's really Ginny Weasley that has all of Gryffindor in a state. Some people were saying she's not allowed, because she's only 15, after all, and some people that she can but she's too young to. . . propose things to a boy. The look on Harry's face. And she just fled. And not even Ron thinks Ginny means anything else by it. Parvati says she must have had help and I know just who would have done it, nobody would like to embarrass Harry right now more than Pansy. Who knows why, just some Slytherin thing and. . .
And that's the really big news. I wonder if Morag's gone yet, Padma is going to just die. It was just the most amazing thing, more amazing than anybody's - I wonder how he did it - this great bright white light that just hung there and then dropped into a silver ball - like a metal quaffle with scratched-in writing all around it and the Malfoy crest on top. And Draco, you've got to give him points for such poise. . . he just stood there.
Oh Circe! Myrtle - that's disgusting. . .
* * *
Ron lay on his stomach in the common room surrounded by books and papers. When Hermione asked where he was, Neville just threw his hands in the air and, already moving down to lunch, pointed the way. In the doorway she passed Ginny, very red in the face, who she'd managed not to say anything to all morning. Judging from her tearful expression, now wasn't the time either.
Hermione took a seat, stepping over open books. She was impressed to see one she didn't know. "Have you been here all morning? I was worried."
He rolled up to sit at her feet. "Did you know that the Declaro spell doesn't have to have the whole owl deal? What am I saying; of course you do."
"Oh, yes, that's just the version in the pamphlets - there are others. Ron?"
"I want to try." She didn't say anything to that. "And I do have things to say," he gestured vaguely at a satchel on the floor, "which, maybe they're not any good, or as good as other things, maybe - but the part I can't do is where I have to find a way to say, you know, that I want to try."
"Oh." Hermione sat down. "Well. What have you got so far?"
He passed her the blank piece of parchment.
Avoiding his eyes, she picked up his quill and quickly wrote, "I love you, Hermione". With only the briefest hesitation, she handed it back to him.
He blew on the ink. She looked away at the window. He rolled it into a scroll and placed it on the floor. He picked up the knife sitting on the hearth and poised his hand above the paper. He began: "ipse. . ."
"Ron!"
He looked at her sharply, brightly.
"You've done the rest?"
He nodded.
Hermione watched while he cut, carefully, along the life line, "ipse", along the heart line, "inhaereo", along the spirit line, "aliusmodi", horizontally, "habeo in animo", and vertically, right down to his wrist. There was loud silence and a singing warmth and she was in his arms with her mouth to his, her tongue sliding into his kiss. He wrapped his free arm around and dragged her in close up against him. Although he didn't watch, the cuts closed and the blood dried on his hand, suspended above the scroll now covered in white ribbons. When she pulled away he said breathlessly, "etiamnum declaro".
* * *
Suddenly everyone seemed to know that, apparently, it was possible to invoke the Rite without owls specifically, using older or newer versions of the spell. But according to Hermione, today was definitely, absolutely and, she said - with no 'I was really rushing with this' clauses, either - the last day.
So, after the rapid dissemination of Ron and Hermione's news - or some of it, they both looked embarrassingly happy - everyone who had obsessed over anyone else in the 7th year was finding reserves of courage. While it had seemed taboo to declare anything for another student - Blaise and Harry had been talked about furtively as something rather freakish - today that unspoken rule vanished. Dozens of students were suddenly looking for new research skills, or a smart friend.
There was a small flurry of unpracticed declarations in Herbology, involving everything from canna lillies to mandrake. Most of them didn't trigger the spell correctly despite coaching. Ron and Hermione held hands all the way from the greenhouses to the castle.
But it was not the happy couple who inspired Professor McGonagall's irritation in last period's Transfiguration class. It was the doves (and one pigeon; Ron bet Hermione was Neville's). She frowned and, when one knocked over the inkwell which was the object of today's lesson, glared - but as no one was obviously responsible, the glare more or less floated around the room looking for somewhere to land.
Between the ad hoc declarations and ensuing bird-related mess it took McGonagall more than 15 minutes to notice.
"Exactly where is Mr Potter?"
* * *
HARRY:
I watch the giant squid rake a tentacle across the grey surface of the lake and pull my outer cloak a bit tighter. It's that cool autumn day that seems cold because it's been so warm before, and I'm skipping class. Well, class- es. Detentions will follow, even in my 7th year, even for a prefect.
It's early this year - the hell my life routinely becomes. And I sound like an angst-ridden teenager. If Snape were here he'd properly flay me. . . hmm, which seems, not quite like it should seem.
God, I'll never be able to look at Ginny the same way again. There probably were better ways I could have. . . things I could have said. It's not her fault - really I'm not quite sure why it's not, but she feels the way she does and I just don't. Still, I thought we'd settled that years ago, and today she was. . . really she was just the extra easier-to-deal-with problem. Because there was Draco.
I give the thing another look. Still shiny, still spectacularly public, and still says the same thing. The ball wouldn't really fit in the pocket of my robe even if I had on proper robes and not these things - so I have to carry it. It makes my palms sweat. If I read it one more time will I find out, between the lines, what it means? What they want with me this time?
What Draco knows about it I have no idea. I could see him, though only between the movements of other people. Only the people near me knew who it was from, because Ron had to blurt out that it was the Malfoy seal, although I bet that by the end of breakfast the whole Gryffindor table. . . I saw him leave, flanked by the imbeciles.
Even the news that Remus is moving back in today couldn't make this a good day. But, in the end, I'm not sure whether I'm more scared by Malfoy - leaving aside which Malfoy I should be most scared of - or me.
~~ Cho: Poor Harry, always at the centre of the worst kind of attention. You really should have skipped Draco's party. I think you encouraged him.
Harry: What? It's not. . . it doesn't say anything like that.
Cho: Of course not. Slytherin subtle. And, you have to have noticed. . .
Seamus: She's right. Think about it - Zabini, Parkinson, Malfoy. . .
Terry: It'd be all that self-indulgent alienation.
Harry: What?
Seamus: We're just joking, Harry. It doesn't matter. ~~
* * *
At the bottom of Gryffindor tower, a little after dark, Harry came in through the side door - invisibility cloak, moving quietly - there would never have been a problem if Headmaster Dumbledore hadn't been standing at the stairs to the tower basement talking with Draco Malfoy. Harry froze at the door, but Dumbledore looked directly at him.
"Harry," Dumbledore said. "I'm glad you're here. People have been worried."
Harry removed the cloak. There was never any point with Dumbledore.
"Mr Malfoy was just about to go in to dinner, I believe."
"Headmaster, please. I said I wasn't hungry."
"Well I'm sorry to hear that because I've already arranged for your meal to be sent in to Professor Lupin's quarters."
"Remus is here?" Harry asked.
"Indeed. Draco has been helping him move in all day."
Harry looked at Draco in surprise, but the other boy was barely paying attention. Harry realized he was still holding the silver sphere.
"Let me just ensure Harry's meal comes as well." He went slowly down the stairs, leaving Harry and Draco in the corridor. There was a pause. It seemed long.
"Shows some style and effort," Harry finally said, lifting the ball towards Draco.
"Of course," Draco said, sort of relaxing into Draco Malfoy, and Harry could see how tense he had been before.
"You did know? You have to consent to it being sent on your behalf, don't you?"
Draco stiffened again, every so slightly, but nodded. "May I?"
Harry handed it over. He noticed their fingers touch.
Intently tracing the script, Draco said, "I knew last night. But, I haven't seen it."
Dumbledore re-appeared saying "Well now, I really must join dinner in the Hall." He gave the ball an interested look, at which Draco swiftly passed it back to Harry. "And Professor Lupin is waiting on you both."
With some hesitation, offered the ball to the Headmaster. "Did you want to. . ?"
"Oh no, my dear boy. That's entirely between you and Draco." Which seemed more than ironic, considering not only his presence but absolutely everything else about the situation. It was even ridiculous, which seemed a suddenly Snape-like thought.
The Headmaster gave Harry a particularly irritating twinkle as he said goodbye.
LAVENDER:
Argh, it just has to happen, when I have the very biggest news and, half- way to find Padma, who'll just die when she hears, I get caught in the corridor by Morag McDougall asking about the Astronomy quiz. Of course she needs to make me worried about it so she can feel better. I think that's what happens with clever girls who are, well, not pretty.
I shake her off by sidetracking into the nearest girls' bathroom. It's the haunted one, which is desperately unpleasant, but not Morag. Not that I think Hermione is really not pretty, but she's so concerned not to be. Really, it's embarrassing.
Myrtle is escalating the moan. You'd think by now she would save it for the junior students. The only scary things that happen in here have nothing to do with her.
"Shut up, Myrtle. Nobody cares!" Honestly.
I can't find the round brush. If Padma has 'borrowed' it again. . . And Hermione's face. That declaration was from Justin Finch-Fletchley, I just know it was, because she went pale and looked right at him and I saw he had a hand on Ron Weasley's arm and Ron looked really cross, although that's hardly anything unusual. I couldn't ask though because every one was in a panic about Harry.
Lavender smoothed her hair and brushed up the colour on her cheeks. She settled the fit of her green robes against her stomach and hips (it was strange to wear something so very closely fitted from class to class). She brushed off the fall of her robe for stray crumbs with the only available towel (and Mrytle made a new noise of outrage).
Personally, I think Hilary Malkin has to be worth considering, but Hermione seemed almost offended for Harry. It's not like every future is academic, or anything, and Harry was never like that. That is, like her. And who wants to be left with Snape as an option, I ask you? And, after all, he is Harry Potter. Oh but it's really Ginny Weasley that has all of Gryffindor in a state. Some people were saying she's not allowed, because she's only 15, after all, and some people that she can but she's too young to. . . propose things to a boy. The look on Harry's face. And she just fled. And not even Ron thinks Ginny means anything else by it. Parvati says she must have had help and I know just who would have done it, nobody would like to embarrass Harry right now more than Pansy. Who knows why, just some Slytherin thing and. . .
And that's the really big news. I wonder if Morag's gone yet, Padma is going to just die. It was just the most amazing thing, more amazing than anybody's - I wonder how he did it - this great bright white light that just hung there and then dropped into a silver ball - like a metal quaffle with scratched-in writing all around it and the Malfoy crest on top. And Draco, you've got to give him points for such poise. . . he just stood there.
Oh Circe! Myrtle - that's disgusting. . .
* * *
Ron lay on his stomach in the common room surrounded by books and papers. When Hermione asked where he was, Neville just threw his hands in the air and, already moving down to lunch, pointed the way. In the doorway she passed Ginny, very red in the face, who she'd managed not to say anything to all morning. Judging from her tearful expression, now wasn't the time either.
Hermione took a seat, stepping over open books. She was impressed to see one she didn't know. "Have you been here all morning? I was worried."
He rolled up to sit at her feet. "Did you know that the Declaro spell doesn't have to have the whole owl deal? What am I saying; of course you do."
"Oh, yes, that's just the version in the pamphlets - there are others. Ron?"
"I want to try." She didn't say anything to that. "And I do have things to say," he gestured vaguely at a satchel on the floor, "which, maybe they're not any good, or as good as other things, maybe - but the part I can't do is where I have to find a way to say, you know, that I want to try."
"Oh." Hermione sat down. "Well. What have you got so far?"
He passed her the blank piece of parchment.
Avoiding his eyes, she picked up his quill and quickly wrote, "I love you, Hermione". With only the briefest hesitation, she handed it back to him.
He blew on the ink. She looked away at the window. He rolled it into a scroll and placed it on the floor. He picked up the knife sitting on the hearth and poised his hand above the paper. He began: "ipse. . ."
"Ron!"
He looked at her sharply, brightly.
"You've done the rest?"
He nodded.
Hermione watched while he cut, carefully, along the life line, "ipse", along the heart line, "inhaereo", along the spirit line, "aliusmodi", horizontally, "habeo in animo", and vertically, right down to his wrist. There was loud silence and a singing warmth and she was in his arms with her mouth to his, her tongue sliding into his kiss. He wrapped his free arm around and dragged her in close up against him. Although he didn't watch, the cuts closed and the blood dried on his hand, suspended above the scroll now covered in white ribbons. When she pulled away he said breathlessly, "etiamnum declaro".
* * *
Suddenly everyone seemed to know that, apparently, it was possible to invoke the Rite without owls specifically, using older or newer versions of the spell. But according to Hermione, today was definitely, absolutely and, she said - with no 'I was really rushing with this' clauses, either - the last day.
So, after the rapid dissemination of Ron and Hermione's news - or some of it, they both looked embarrassingly happy - everyone who had obsessed over anyone else in the 7th year was finding reserves of courage. While it had seemed taboo to declare anything for another student - Blaise and Harry had been talked about furtively as something rather freakish - today that unspoken rule vanished. Dozens of students were suddenly looking for new research skills, or a smart friend.
There was a small flurry of unpracticed declarations in Herbology, involving everything from canna lillies to mandrake. Most of them didn't trigger the spell correctly despite coaching. Ron and Hermione held hands all the way from the greenhouses to the castle.
But it was not the happy couple who inspired Professor McGonagall's irritation in last period's Transfiguration class. It was the doves (and one pigeon; Ron bet Hermione was Neville's). She frowned and, when one knocked over the inkwell which was the object of today's lesson, glared - but as no one was obviously responsible, the glare more or less floated around the room looking for somewhere to land.
Between the ad hoc declarations and ensuing bird-related mess it took McGonagall more than 15 minutes to notice.
"Exactly where is Mr Potter?"
* * *
HARRY:
I watch the giant squid rake a tentacle across the grey surface of the lake and pull my outer cloak a bit tighter. It's that cool autumn day that seems cold because it's been so warm before, and I'm skipping class. Well, class- es. Detentions will follow, even in my 7th year, even for a prefect.
It's early this year - the hell my life routinely becomes. And I sound like an angst-ridden teenager. If Snape were here he'd properly flay me. . . hmm, which seems, not quite like it should seem.
God, I'll never be able to look at Ginny the same way again. There probably were better ways I could have. . . things I could have said. It's not her fault - really I'm not quite sure why it's not, but she feels the way she does and I just don't. Still, I thought we'd settled that years ago, and today she was. . . really she was just the extra easier-to-deal-with problem. Because there was Draco.
I give the thing another look. Still shiny, still spectacularly public, and still says the same thing. The ball wouldn't really fit in the pocket of my robe even if I had on proper robes and not these things - so I have to carry it. It makes my palms sweat. If I read it one more time will I find out, between the lines, what it means? What they want with me this time?
What Draco knows about it I have no idea. I could see him, though only between the movements of other people. Only the people near me knew who it was from, because Ron had to blurt out that it was the Malfoy seal, although I bet that by the end of breakfast the whole Gryffindor table. . . I saw him leave, flanked by the imbeciles.
Even the news that Remus is moving back in today couldn't make this a good day. But, in the end, I'm not sure whether I'm more scared by Malfoy - leaving aside which Malfoy I should be most scared of - or me.
~~ Cho: Poor Harry, always at the centre of the worst kind of attention. You really should have skipped Draco's party. I think you encouraged him.
Harry: What? It's not. . . it doesn't say anything like that.
Cho: Of course not. Slytherin subtle. And, you have to have noticed. . .
Seamus: She's right. Think about it - Zabini, Parkinson, Malfoy. . .
Terry: It'd be all that self-indulgent alienation.
Harry: What?
Seamus: We're just joking, Harry. It doesn't matter. ~~
* * *
At the bottom of Gryffindor tower, a little after dark, Harry came in through the side door - invisibility cloak, moving quietly - there would never have been a problem if Headmaster Dumbledore hadn't been standing at the stairs to the tower basement talking with Draco Malfoy. Harry froze at the door, but Dumbledore looked directly at him.
"Harry," Dumbledore said. "I'm glad you're here. People have been worried."
Harry removed the cloak. There was never any point with Dumbledore.
"Mr Malfoy was just about to go in to dinner, I believe."
"Headmaster, please. I said I wasn't hungry."
"Well I'm sorry to hear that because I've already arranged for your meal to be sent in to Professor Lupin's quarters."
"Remus is here?" Harry asked.
"Indeed. Draco has been helping him move in all day."
Harry looked at Draco in surprise, but the other boy was barely paying attention. Harry realized he was still holding the silver sphere.
"Let me just ensure Harry's meal comes as well." He went slowly down the stairs, leaving Harry and Draco in the corridor. There was a pause. It seemed long.
"Shows some style and effort," Harry finally said, lifting the ball towards Draco.
"Of course," Draco said, sort of relaxing into Draco Malfoy, and Harry could see how tense he had been before.
"You did know? You have to consent to it being sent on your behalf, don't you?"
Draco stiffened again, every so slightly, but nodded. "May I?"
Harry handed it over. He noticed their fingers touch.
Intently tracing the script, Draco said, "I knew last night. But, I haven't seen it."
Dumbledore re-appeared saying "Well now, I really must join dinner in the Hall." He gave the ball an interested look, at which Draco swiftly passed it back to Harry. "And Professor Lupin is waiting on you both."
With some hesitation, offered the ball to the Headmaster. "Did you want to. . ?"
"Oh no, my dear boy. That's entirely between you and Draco." Which seemed more than ironic, considering not only his presence but absolutely everything else about the situation. It was even ridiculous, which seemed a suddenly Snape-like thought.
The Headmaster gave Harry a particularly irritating twinkle as he said goodbye.
