Dusty Discoveries

Ginny wakes up reluctantly.  She is having the best dream.  She suddenly realizes that she's not alone and opens her eyes quickly.  She sees Johnny lying on the edge of her bed with one hand on her back and another over her face.  Ginny sits up and taps Johnny on the back.  Johnny jerks up and looks at Ginny, confused at first.  "If you wanted to have a slumber party, you could have just said something."

Johnny shakes her head.  "I try to take care of you and you tease me," she sighs dramatically and flops onto her cot.

Ginny giggles and jumps from her bed onto the cot.  They fumble around together, tickling and wrestling till Johnny has Ginny's arms pinned above her head and her legs straddled at her sides.  "Cry uncle!"

"Never!" Ginny squeals.  She struggles in vain, giggling mercilessly.  She finally realizes where she is and pauses, breathing hard.

"Give up?" Johnny asks, pressing her forehead against Ginny's.  They look deep into each other's eyes.  "Wow…"

Ginny takes a deep breath.  "What?"

Johnny gets up.  "Never saw eyes that rich before, that's all…" she says nervously.  She looks at the floor.  "Time for breakfast, eh?"

Ginny nods.  "Yeah," she sighs and gets ready to shower and dress.

Harry is staring at the list of players nailed to the door of the Great Hall two weeks later.  The Slytherins have finally been selected.  A huge grins spreads across Harry's face when he sees that Draco Malfoy is not on the team.

"Something funny, Potter?" Draco's voice fumes from nearby.  Draco looks rumpled and tired, as though he has been up staring at the list all night.  "You think that my not being on the team is going to make winning any easier for you?  Just because I'm not on the team doesn't mean that we're not going to mop up Hogwarts with your team."

"What would you know about mopping?" Daniel asks suddenly.  "You probably grew up teething on your wand and still felt like you were doing too much work."

Draco just sneers at Daniel.  He knows better than to mess with any of the Americans.  He shakes his head and stalks off.  Harry and Daniel grin at each other.  "All right, buddy, what's the game plan?"

Harry sighs.  "I don't like this at all, I hope you know."

"Of course you don't…" Daniel says, throwing an arm over Harry's shoulder as they walk down the hallway.  They see Hermione and Colby waiting for them.  Ron is sulking behind them, trying to avoid Hermione's still angry glare.  "You're too British for your own good!"

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Hermione plants her hands on her hips defiantly.

Colby grimaces.  "What are we going to do?" he says, hoping to avoid an argument.

Daniel grins.  "We're going to find out what Zimmermann's up to!"

"What?" Hermione gasps.  "But… he hasn't done anything!"

"Why wait till he does something if we already know he's going to?" Ron asks, already excited.  "What do we do first?"

Daniel just holds up a hand.  He waits a few minutes and grins when he hears heavy footsteps running toward them.  "Yo, Daniel, you called?"

"Just the crazy cowboy I wanted to see, Johnny, my man," Daniel says eagerly.  He pats Johnny on the shoulder.  "We need you to distract Zimmermann for us."

Johnny looks horrified.  "No way!  If it weren't for him, I never would have even tried to work on working with my quills.  I might turn out to be a halfway decent wizard… er, witch, yet!"

"Besides, what would we be doing while he was kept busy?" Hermione says anxiously.

Harry smiles.  "Going through his things, of course.  He must be up to something.  Snape wouldn't be friendly with him if he didn't want to find something out from him.  And that means he's involved with Voldemort.  Why else would Snape be sticking close to him?"

Ron shrugs.  "Unless he's in on it, too."

"He's helping Professor Dumbledore!  How can he be here if he wasn't sincere?" Hermione says harshly.  "Dumbledore would catch him in a heartbeat!"

Ron sets his jaw.  "That's your opinion.  But even in your infinite wisdom, you've been wrong.  Especially when it comes to judging people."

"Hey, back off, Weasley," Johnny growls.  She turns to Daniel.  "What do you expect me to do?"

"What you do best," Daniel says.  "Be dense at magic!"

Johnny cracks her knuckles.  Harry puts a hand on her fist.  "Whoa, just act it!  You're a lot better than you used to be!  Besides, Hermione'll be there."

"What do you need me for?" Hermione frowns.

"You need to be there to ask for advice on how to better tutor Johnny, of course," Harry replies.  "And while you're busy with him, we'll sneak off to his office and have a peek around."

Hermione shakes her head.  "I don't like this," she sighs.

"See?" Daniel says cheerfully.  "Overly British."

"Doc?" Johnny knocks on Zimmermann's office door.  She chews her lip nervously.  "This ain't going to work."

"Did you know that you're accent get worse when you get edgy?" Hermione asks.  She knocks on the door.  "Hello, Doctor Zimmermann?"

Johnny smiles warmly.  "What's wrong with my accent?"

"Nothing if you're main goal in life is to round up cattle," Hermione says.

"What's wrong with that?" Johnny asks.  "It's good, honest work.  Better than the hocus-pocus this place will fill you full of and then unleash you on a world you're not prepared for."

"Hocus-pocus, you say?" Zimmermann says suddenly.  He smiles.  "Good afternoon, Parker.  Granger, vhat can I do for you?"

Hermione freezes.  She hates lying to faculty.  Johnny cuts in.  "She said that the only way I'm going to learn anything is to finally just accept who I am and weigh out my options.  And you're the only guy who's refused to tolerate my reluctance so we thought maybe you'd help us."

Johnny hopes that Hermione is impressed with her quick thinking but is disappointed to see that Hermione doesn't even seem to notice her.  Zimmermann just smiles and strokes his mustaches.  "Vell done, Granger.  I vas thinking zat ve'd never get through Parker's hard head.  Please, join me in ze library and ve'll go over ze many possibilities ze vizarding vorld has to offer a bright and talented young vitch.  Zis vill be good for ze both of you.  Come along."

Zimmermann leads the pair away from the office.  The door swings shut and closes with a bang.

Harry pulls the invisibility cloak off of Daniel, Ron, and himself as soon as the door is shut.  They stand in silence for a few minutes and then breathe easily when they're sure they're safe.

"Now what are we looking for?" Ron asks.  "You don't think he's going to have a file labeled You-Know-Who, do you?"

Harry shakes his head.  "It'd be more subtle than that.  Maybe a lot of information about giants or Dementors, since they're going to be targets for Voldemort's cause.  Or maybe lists of former Death-Eaters.  I don't know.  Anything suspicious."

"Ew, this is gross!"  Daniel wipes the dust away from a pile of books.  "He hasn't been here long enough to collect this much dust."

"This used to be storage for old school texts and things like that.  Most of it's out of date, I expect," Ron says.  "He probably does a lot of research for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named here."

Harry rolls his eyes.  "Dumbledore told me that fear of a name adds to fear of the thing itself.  Call him by his name.  Voldemort."

Ron shakes his head.  "Old habits die hard, Harry.  Sorry."

"Hey, look at this!" Daniel calls.  He has a book that looks only slightly less dusty than everything else.  It had been lying on an arm chair, open.  Two people had been circled.  "Marcus Corey and Margaret Nurse.  I wonder who they are."

Harry turns the book over.  "This is a year book.  For the American Hogwarts.  These were both Slytherin students."

"Why are they in Muggle format?" Ron asks.

"The student council thinks it's cute," Daniel says.  "Does it matter?  Why would Zimmermann have this?"

"Maybe they're famous for something?" Harry suggests.

Daniel shakes his head.  "Nah, we'd have learned about them by now."

The boys look around for a bit longer.  Then, they hear a thump at the door.  That's Colby running by and banging his hand on the door when Zimmermann's on his way back.  The boys duck back under the invisibility cloak and wait by the door.

"Thanks so much for your help, Doc," Johnny says loudly, shaking the teacher's hand.

"My pleasure, Parker.  Come back anytime you need anything.  My door is alvays open to an open-minded individual vith a future as bright as yours."

 Zimmermann opens his door a crack.  "That's the second time you've made reference to my future," Johnny says hesitantly.  "Why?  Do you see the future?"

Hermione snorts.  "Divination is an imprecise art.  Even if he feels something, it's not guaranteed."

Zimmermann glares at Hermione.  "You are destined for great things," he says mysteriously.  "Do not let ze jealous interfere vith your goals."

He flings open the door and leaves the girls in the hallway.  They walk away silently and wait till they get into the Gryffindor common room before looking around.  "Harry?"

Casting aside the cloak, the boys start exploding with information.  Hermione listens to them with a bemused expression on her face.  Johnny just flops onto the couch, watching Hermione.  "What does a couple of old Slytherins have to do with anything?  Maybe they were former pupils of his?  Maybe they were friends?  Classmates.  We don't even know when that was.  It could be anything!"

"What could be anything?" Ginny asks suddenly.  She plops down by Johnny, who flashes her a wary smile.

"Nothing," Harry says quickly.  He smiles.  "Hey, you interested in going to the Masquerade Ball with me?"

Ginny's eyes widen.  She glances at Johnny briefly.  She sighs when she sees nothing there.  "Sure."

They all hear the heavy footsteps of Neville barging down the stairs from the boys' dorms.  He looks at Ginny, a slight hurt expression crosses his face but he turns and walks up without saying anything.