THE MANOR
Disclaimer: It's JKR's, okay? Not mine!
Chapter 7 – Failed Mischief
'It's not going to work,' Hermione warned Harry and Ron one Friday morning.
Harry threw her a cheeky grin. 'It will.' Hermione couldn't help smiling back involuntarily, and stifled the smile at once, replacing it with severity.
'We've gone through this countless times with Fred and George, and we even consulted Sirius,' Ron added, a satisfied look on his face.
The two of them were intent on playing their plan on Draco Malfoy today. Hermione shook her head, rolling her eyes heavenward, and settled down to spread herself some jam toast.
Stage A of Harry and Ron's plan involved making Draco Malfoy talk all day long. The two had enlisted Fred and George, and with a bit of experimentation, the twins came up with what they declared was a flawless plan. With great ceremony (despite the secrecy of the plan), they had presented Harry and Ron with a sugar cube in which they claimed they had put their spell.
'A sugar cube?' Hermione had asked dubiously.
'We've been watching him for almost two weeks, Hermione,' Harry explained to his friend. 'Malfoy always has a cup of tea in the morning, with one sugar cube in it.' Ron snickered slightly at this routine that sounded rather mundane and tame to him.
'How will you be sure he gets your sugar cube?' Hermione questioned.
Harry grinned. 'We enlisted Dobby's help. Dobby will be tracking Malfoy from below, and when Malfoy reaches for a sugar cube, Dobby will know. Then, once Malfoy is about to pick up the sugar cube, Dobby will send up our special sugar cube. Malfoy will pick it up, drop it into his tea, stir it in, and drink it.'
Harry and Ron sat back, smugly contented expressions on their faces.
'What if he doesn't drink tea that day?' Hermione had demanded. 'What if he doesn't want sugar? What if he just happens to pick up another cube?' She had never heard of such a flawed plan. And they had thought her plan in second year with the Polyjuice Potion was faulty! Hermione had a distinct feeling Draco could get past their somewhat bumbling plan.
'We go to stage B,' Ron shrugged, not concerned at all.
Hermione watched then, as Draco walked through the massive doors to the Great Hall. It was odd, but ever since flying on Pegasus with him last Sunday, she found him more approachable. He wasn't the cold, heartless Malfoy any more. He could be cold and heartless, but he wasn't only that.
During the week, in Arithmancy, he would sit next to her, and to Hermione's surprise, she had found herself enjoying those lessons with his intelligent and humorous comments. He had a very sardonic sense of humour, Hermione had discovered.
Back to the revenge. Hermione watched as Draco sat down, and true to Harry and Ron's words, prepared himself a cup of tea. The last step, after he added milk, was the sugar. Using a silver spoon held by long fingers, he picked up a sugar cube. Was it the right cube?
Fred and George winked at Harry and Ron. Evidently, according to the manufacturers, it was the cube.
The sugar cube was dropped into the tea, and Draco stirred the tea absently. Then, he picked it up, and drank a large sip. And drank more.
'We added a little compelling charm as well,' George whispered. 'It makes him think he really wants to drink it all quickly.'
Fred nodded, smiling slightly. 'I wasn't about to wait the whole morning just for the ferret to finish his cup of tea.'
'Clever,' Ron said admiringly.
'You have to be, if you want to be in the business,' Fred shrugged matter-of-factly.
The tea was finished, and the five Gryffindors watched with baited breath. Draco began talking. And talking. For about a minute, he talked non-stop, his voice getting louder as he did.
'We also added a sonorous charm,' Fred murmured.
'It worked,' Ron said, grinning.
'Of course it did,' George said, all wide-eyed innocence. 'We've tried it on Perce before when we went to visit him at his office.'
'That was a bit easier though,' Fred admitted. 'We made Perce's tea for him.'
'But we didn't think the ferret would drink any tea we went near,' George added.
'Couldn't possibly imagine why,' Fred said, voice mild.
But before Draco attracted the general attention of the Hall, he had clearly realised something was wrong. He tried to stop talking, but couldn't. Puzzled, he tried very hard to stop, and they could see the muscles in his throat struggling phenomenally, and the deep frown that creased his forehead in effort. It took a mammoth effort for the twins, Harry and Ron to not completely crack up. Hermione just watched intently.
'The victim's sense of frustration is the best bit!' Fred crowed. 'He can't get out but he sure as hell knows what's going on!'
'Victim?' Harry objected.
'That's the most accurate term,' Fred half-apologised.
'It doesn't sound very nice,' Harry remarked critically.
'Would you like us to find another name for the situation?' George questioned.
'Never mind,' Harry said, rolling his eyes.
Draco was grabbing something from his robes even as he gabbled and babbled non-stop to the confused looking goons, Crabbe and Goyle (that is, more confused than usual). His hand fumbled about, and then, all of a sudden, he had a wand in his hand, and he swished it just slightly.
And stopped talking with just the faintest hint of orange light fading from around him.
The Weasleys and Harry gaped.
'Damn,' Harry muttered.
'What?' Ron's jaw had dropped.
'How?' Fred's look was disbelieving.
'Impossible,' George said with finality, despite the clear evidence before him that Draco had stopped talking.
Hermione nodded to herself, smiling quietly, aware of how Draco had shaken off the compulsion to speak. The spell Fred and George had placed on the sugar cube had basically been a curse, not unlike the truth potion. And Draco Malfoy was very good at curse breaking, as he had demonstrated in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. However, he had managed to break the relatively simple curse this time without words, although he had used his wand to direct his magic. That impressed Hermione very much. That he was powerful enough to be able to break his curse without words, because he wasn't exactly saying the correct incantation.
Stage A had quite clearly failed miserably. Draco had only embarrassed himself before Crabbe and Goyle, which of course, did not count to Harry and Ron. They wanted revenge, which meant humiliation in front of the whole school.
Ron sighed glumly. 'Stage B.'
'You'd better step carefully,' Fred warned them as they finished the breakfast, slightly downcast. Draco was looking over at the Gryffindor table, of course, and was giving them very suspicious looks.
Stage B failed too. Harry and Ron, using the levitation spell, lifted Draco's potions textbook from his bag, so that he was minus his potions textbook in Potions. Snape had said in a fit of anger last lesson, when over half the class had "forgotten" their heavy Potions textbook, that anybody who did not bring his potions textbook to the next lesson would lose fifty points from his house and serve two detentions with him. Unfortunately, Snape didn't turn up to the lesson on Friday, probably doing work for Dumbledore, and instead they had Fleur Delacour who infuriatingly didn't require them once take out their Potions textbook, so that Draco wasn't even aware that his book was missing, just to rub salt into the wounds.
Stage C didn't go too well either. The plan had simply been for Draco to get soaking wet. With the help of Fred and George, they created a rather sophisticated little mini rain cloud to follow him around when they went outdoors for Care of Magical Creatures. The twins had been quite proud of their creation. So proud, that they forgot to realise that this particular plan could easily be overcome, as it was by Draco, who banished the cloud with a lazy, barely visible flick of his wand. The rain cloud began raining on Hagrid's pumpkins instead. The plus from plan C was that the pumpkins needed the rain, so that turned out rather well in the end, although it didn't fulfil the hoped for goal.
'What is Stage D?' Hermione asked curiously.
Harry and Ron gave each other nervous looks. 'It'd be better if you didn't know,' Harry said finally.
Hermione instantly looked at them warily. 'Why?' she asked carefully.
'You might object,' Ron suggested.
'Then you'd better not do it,' Hermione said firmly.
'We need revenge,' Ron shrugged.
'You've been throwing that word around a bit too much lately,' Hermione said acidly.
'We need this revenge,' Harry repeated Ron, completely serious.
Hermione retrieved Draco's potions book from Ron's bag to return to him, and during Care of Magical Creatures, listened as carefully and as inconspicuously as she could to snippets of conversations between Harry and Ron, and finally pieced together their final plan.
And decided she had better lend a hand. It wasn't that extreme, although she would object a little since it was more publicly humiliating as a last-straw-plan than the others. But because she was more than a little annoyed that her friends hadn't wanted to tell her their plans, she followed Draco on the way to the castle after Care of Magical Creatures for lunch.
'Malfoy,' she called him. He was walking alone, having popped off to visit Pegasus first.
He turned. 'Granger?' he asked.
'Missing anything?' Hermione asked him. He frowned.
'Not that I've noticed,' Draco said. Hermione handed back his potions book. 'When did that go missing?' he asked, surprised. Hermione decided it was better not to tell him.
'Er, Draco, don't eat your lunch today,' Hermione said furtively as they parted in the Entrance Hall. Ron and Harry were nowhere in sight, but she still felt slightly guilty, even though she was irritated with them. 'More specifically, don't eat the chips.'
He raised one eyebrow queryingly, but nodded. 'I'll take steps.'
'You do that,' Hermione responded, grinning.
She went into the Great Hall, and sat down near Harry, Ron and the Weasley twins. They were watching Draco carefully, and she nonchalantly began eating her meal of fish and chips. She told herself that it was a good thing she had betrayed (she winced as she thought of that word) her friends, because such a trick could easily be traced back to Harry and Ron and get them into trouble. It was just a bit obvious.
Draco came in accompanied by Crabbe and Goyle, and to Hermione's dismay, began eating, deliberately picking up one of the chips with a fork and sticking it in his mouth. And then another. Hermione stared at him in dismay. Was he mad? Harry and Ron were watching eagerly, as were Fred and George. She tried to catch Draco's eyes, and when he did glance her way, she imagined she saw him wink just slightly. He calculatingly looked at Harry and Ron who were staring at him, and raised one eyebrow, with just a hint of a smirk on his face.
'It's not working!' Ron hissed at Harry.
'I know it's not working,' Harry said, also horrified.
'It was fail-proof,' Fred protested.
'Not any more,' his twin noted dryly.
Grumbling, the foursome continued their lunch, talking in low voices as they did so. Their final stage too, appeared to have failed. What to do?
Their discussion suddenly stopped. Harry and Ron had abruptly jumped up, and ran to the middle of the Great Hall, dancing and singing off-key at the top of their voices. The Gryffindors looked at them in surprise, then began laughing. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw chuckled. Slytherin snickered.
Harry and Ron looked at each other, aghast. Their plan had backfired, and now they couldn't stop dancing and singing. And their dancing and singing were both terrible. And very obvious.
'When will they stop?' Hermione asked Fred and George, just a little concerned for her friends.
'Another minute,' George said, chortling along with the other Gryffindors. 'How did Malfoy do it?' he wondered out loud, half admiringly.
'Nobody's that good,' Fred grudgingly agreed.
Minute up, Harry and Ron stopped being forced to sing and dance, and they fled, red-faced, back to their seats, amidst huge cheers from the Gryffindors led by Fred and George, who covered the incident up commendably.
'A dare,' the twins explained to all and sundry.
'Bow,' Fred hissed at Harry and Ron.
They looked at him doubtfully.
'Come on,' Fred said impatiently. 'You have to do it with style.'
Sheepishly they did so, forcing grins on their faces, to increased cheers. Once the hullabaloo died down, the four looked at one another.
'What happened?' they said simultaneously.
Hermione decided at this point it would be a good time to leave.
'Granger,' she heard Draco come up behind her in the corridor.
Hermione turned to him. 'How did you do that?' she asked him. 'You didn't go anywhere near Harry and Ron's food!'
'Didn't have to,' Draco smirked, satisfied. 'It was so easy. You told me not to eat the chips, so I knew the kitchens must have been involved. I went to the kitchens, found Dobby, threatened him just a bit, and told him to switch my chips over to their plates. Simple, really.'
'Not bad,' Hermione said, smiling slightly.
His eyes darkened. 'It's interesting though, isn't it, to compare the reactions,' he said lightly. 'Had it been me who had swallowed that spell, I would have been laughed at with derision by the Gryffindors, shame and scorn by the Slytherins, and sneered at by the rest of the school. Interesting, isn't it, Hermione.' His voice was bitter. 'Potter and Weasley just get a few minutes of extra fame.'
Hermione stared at him momentarily, before she lay a hand on his arm. 'Don't think of it like that,' she said, realising how true his words were. She stumbled for something to say, but he spoke.
'Thanks for warning me,' he said, changing his tone of voice.
'You owe me one,' Hermione said flippantly, glad he had changed the subject.
That night in the Gryffindor Common Room, Harry and Ron were the subject of much good-natured teasing, and Hermione realised that Draco's words had been very true. She avoided discussion of the events while they all worked, preferring not to reveal her role in their little song-and-dance, and eventually, went to bed, tired after a long day.
Some time during the night, Hermione sat bolt upright in bed, awoken by a strange feeling, her slumber broken abruptly. Something was not quite normal. Something was wrong. Quietly so as not to disturb the other girls in her dormitory, she got up and put on a thick cloak, and then padded downstairs on silent slippered feet. She reached the common room, and started to see Harry sitting by the fire, head bent over his hands, gazing into the flames.
'Harry?'
Harry turned to look at her, and Hermione gasped. His scar was vividly red, a jagged streak on his forehead.
'What is it, Harry?' Hermione asked, voice quiet and frightened. 'What's the matter?'
'Hermione, you shouldn't be here,' Harry said tiredly.
Hermione went over to him and sat down next to him. 'Why are you up?'
He said nothing.
Hermione decided that now was the time to be firm and strict about it all. There had been things Harry hadn't been telling her and Ron, and it was time he did. After all, what were friends for? 'You've been dreaming,' Hermione said flatly.
He gave her a weak smile of affirmation.
'Tell me,' Hermione encouraged.
'No,' Harry said fiercely.
'You have to tell me,' Hermione said, exasperated. 'You've been wandering around the past month or so, obviously not very happy about something. Can't you tell us? We're your friends for a reason'
Harry shook his head, hands holding it up. 'You wouldn't understand, Hermione. I can't tell you this. I can't load everything onto you two.'
'It's Voldemort, right?' Hermione said. She took Harry's hand in hers, and tried to get him to look at her in the eye. 'What has he done?'
Harry's green eyes stared back into her brown eyes, unblinking, before he sighed. The sound was sad, and lost. 'I've been having dreams, ever since the holidays started. First, it was dreams about Cedric's death,' he shuddered. 'I remember it like it was yesterday, and my memory is refreshed, and refreshed nearly every night. And I remember the Hufflepuffs mourning, and Cho crying.'
Cho Chang, the girl who had gone out with Cedric, and whom Harry had had the biggest crush on, no longer attended Hogwarts. She had transferred to Beauxbatons in her grief, a move that significantly increased Hermione's respect for the girl.
Hermione touched him tentatively on the shoulder. 'You couldn't do anything about it,' she tried to comfort him. She felt her efforts were futile – Harry had been dealing with this the whole summer, and she felt helpless. Like she didn't know what to say.
'I should've,' Harry said, angrily. 'I should have just taken the cup. He told me to. I should have listened to him.'
But that wasn't it. There was something more. 'What else have you dreamt about, Harry,' Hermione asked him.
Harry drew back. 'I can't say.'
'Try,' Hermione urged.
Harry looked at her directly in the eyes, the bright green startling her slightly with the flicker of flames. 'It was about you. And Ron.'
'What?' Hermione asked, gripping the sofa underneath her tightly. 'Tell me,' she ordered curtly.
Harry bit his lip. He didn't want to say it, but Hermione's forceful stare left him no choice. 'A dream. I have it as often as the dream about Cedric. You, and Ron. Both of you … lying in a dungeon. It is cold, and dark, and I feel so afraid for you. You are both white with cold …' his voice was almost as if it were in a trance as he recollected the dream. 'Ron has a cut across his forehead, you look like your arm and cheek has been scratched … you both lie, so still … it is as if you were dead …then the scene changes, and you lie alone in the dungeon, and there are tears falling over your face …'
Hermione's blood chilled with this, and she stared at Harry, her eyes wide with fear. 'What does it mean?' she whispered. 'Is it a premonition?'
'No!' Harry snapped. 'It cannot, will not be.' He stared again into the fire, the firelight shining off the lenses of his glasses.
All of Hermione's old qualms came back. That Voldemort would try to attack Harry by attacking his best friends. Was this a vision of the future? Was this what Voldemort was planning? Or was it merely an attempt to psychologically and mentally shake Harry up? Hermione was completely unsure, but the only way she could help Harry, was to act like she were convinced it were the latter.
'Harry, Voldemort is just trying to scare you,' she said, voice firmer than she had ever imagined possible.
'And you are just trying to comfort me,' Harry said, voice slightly muffled, seeing through her ploy.
'No,' Hermione said steadily. She had to convince herself to convince him. 'Voldemort is just trying make you mentally unbalanced,' she said it more bluntly than she had intended. 'He knows you're a caring person. He knows nothing would hurt you more than to see your friends in a helpless position. So he tries to make you think that we're in danger.'
'Hermione, the dreams are very realistic,' Harry said, voice dead.
'All the more to terrify you. And it's worked,' Hermione warmed to her case. 'That's why you keep dreaming of Cedric over and over. They're sent by Voldemort. And these dreams too. All of them – they're there to unsettle you. Dreams of you being tortured or something wouldn't worry you,' she said confidently. 'What would, would be dreams of your friends being hurt. Of others being hurt indirectly by you. And Voldemort knows that. So he's attacking your vulnerable side with dreams. Which is clever,' she conceded, 'but not clever enough. He's overdone it, so that it made others notice it, like me'
Harry looked at her, and the light that shone on her face. He smiled slightly. She looked almost angelic in her conviction. 'You really believe that,' he said, voice more alive.
Hermione nodded decisively. 'Because it is true,' she told him. She even believed it, for a while, if only to convince Harry.
'Have you told anybody? Sirius, Professor Dumbledore? Professor Figg?' she asked.
Harry shook his head. 'I was thinking of trying to contact Sirius when you came,' he gestured to the fireplace. 'I kept thinking I should tell the Order, but I never did,' his voice trailed off.
'The Order?' Hermione asked quickly. Why was she always trying to prise information off Harry?
Harry blinked. 'It's supposed to be secret.'
'Not any more it isn't,' Hermione said quickly.
Harry shrugged. 'Dumbledore did say I could mention it to you and Ron if you ever asked.' Hermione cursed herself for not asking earlier. 'The Order of the Phoenix has thirteen members. It was set up by Dumbledore, and is basically his closest gathering of people to help in the fight against Voldemort. It's top secret, theoretically.'
'Who's in it?' Hermione asked, fascinated.
'Sirius, Lupin, Mrs Figg,' Harry began. Hermione smiled to hear him still call her by his childhood term. 'Moody – the real one, Snape, McGonagall, and some others as well.'
'So why do you know about them?' Hermione inquired.
'You know that day after the Quidditch trials when Sirius led me away from you and Ron?'
Hermione remembered.
'He took me to the Order of the Phoenix meeting. They wanted me to talk about last year, and who I had seen and everything. It seems they think I could be a link with Voldemort, because of my scar,' he gestured towards it. 'So, I told them all I could. They're trying to find the location of Voldemort's power base.'
'Good luck,' Hermione noted.
'They'd need it,' Harry agreed. 'I've been to a few of their meetings. Sometimes they describe somebody, and I'd remember them, or something like that. It's all terribly essential stuff, I suppose.' He sighed then. 'Today was nice,' he said, a wistful smile on his face.
'In what way?' Hermione asked him.
'It was so, normal. You know – just playing tricks on other people. Not worrying about the fate of the world. Not having an evil dark wizard breathing down your neck. Even dancing about in the Great Hall was fun,' he said, giving a wry laugh. 'You had something to do with it, didn't you? I noticed your avoiding the topic,' his green eyes twinkled.
Hermione's heart lifted. Harry was better. 'Maybe,' she said, pretending to hide her involvement.
'Don't worry, I won't bug you,' Harry assured. 'I wish everyday could be like that.' His forehead creased with thought. 'Wouldn't it be nice to be somebody whose every day were like that? To not worry about anything except for school work, to have fun playing pranks, having fun with friends, instead of dreaming nightmares for them?' His voice was dreamy as his green eyes stared, unfocused, into the fire.
'Once Voldemort is gone, life will be like that again,' Hermione said, trying to keep her voice steady. She felt tears pricking up in her eyes hearing Harry talk so.
'You should go back to bed,' Harry advised. He stood up, and offered her a hand, which she took. They headed to the stairs.
'Thank you,' he said simply to Hermione.
Hermione nodded, hugged him briefly, eyes wet, then went back up to her dormitory. Harry's dream plagued her thoughts. Now that she no longer needed to convince Harry, her real opinions on the dream kept her awake for much of the remaining night.
Author's note: I thought I'd better mention now that I've been borrowing unconsciously certain styles of speaking and phrases from the fantastic series The Belgariad and associated books by David and Leigh Eddings. My mistake, but I love these books so much, the sayings just crept in! This series is truly wonderful, and I would recommend it to anybody who hasn't read them.
And thank you so much Cinammon and Lady Prongs! Reviews are so encouraging.
