"Dude!" Ron shouted from the kitchen. "We`ve got a whole little
kitchen in here."
"And a balcony," Walter observed, opening the french doors that went outside. "We can spit on people."
Harry was with Ron in the miniature kitchen, opening cabinets to see what was already there. There were some pretty generic-looking rations with the hotel logo on the package, but nothing he could really cook with. Then he wondered why he felt the obligation to cook, and grabbed a box of Cheezy Poofs.
"Where are the girls?" Harry asked Walter as he came up to get an eyeful of the balcony.
"The floors all go in circles," Walter recited a surprising amount of information. "The sheilas are in rooms directly behind us. If you go right or left from here, you can get there, maybe even without being seen if you stick to the wall curves and you're not visible from around the bend, y' know what I mean?"
"You have a girlfriend, don't you?" Harry replied.
Walter shrugged. "Two or three."
"I actually wasn't planning on sneaking into her room, I just wanted to know where she was," Harry was convincing, because if he really wanted to admit to that kind of thing, Walt would be the first to really care.
Ron was setting up his toiletries in the bathroom and Walter passed by.
"Hey, Walt?" Ron asked while checking his teeth in the mirror, "Did you happen to get one of the roommate lists?"
"Yeah," Walter appeared in the doorway, wearing a black wife-beater and flannel lounge pants. "Oh...but I rolled it," he added, holding up the joint in his hand.
"I don't suppose you could tell me who my sister's rooming with?"
"Uh, it was Granger, Warbeck, and uh...," he swirled the joint around in the air, trying to jog his memory. He took a drag from it and said, "- some fat chick."
"Great."
" 'Ey, Potter," Walter picked up a glossy black bucket from a long dresser at the front of the room. "I saw some sodas in the fridge in there. How about getting us some ice?"
Ron, forever disturbed by everything he knew of Harry's "home" life, always felt uncomfortable in any situation when Harry seemed to be doing all the work. He raced out of the bathroom to grab the bucket from Walter, but Harry beat him to it.
"Damn, Ron, come with me if you wanna get out of the room that bad." Harry flipped the bucket up in the air sportfully.
So they made their way through the hallway quite slowly, because it was rather crowded with excited students, until they found a small corridor with ice and vending machines.
"HARRY!" they both heard before they could get in the rapidly forming "ice line". Harry turned around to see Ginny Weasley running toward them.
"Hey, Gin," Harry said as Ginny hugged him, her arms only coming just above his waist. Harry had had his prementioned growth spurt, while Ginny was still quite small for her age.
The bond between Ginny and Harry was simply that of a timid girl with an older, unsteady but bright boy who had saved her life four years ago. They saw eachother very little, but Ginny always expressed her gratitude in some way that involved throwing her arms around him and demanding a piggy- back ride. Ron found this very annoying; when they had acted this way at the beginning of the year, he had asked Harry, "Aren't you both a little old for that stuff?" Harry was just relieved that Ginny no longer had a crush on him, and she was even seen often hanging out with boys her own age now.
Harry carried Ginny through the line on his back and she held the bucket for him while he pushed the button for ice. Then Ginny put some ice cubes down his overshirt and ran off. Ron laughed at him while he took off the plaid button-up and shook out the ice. Harry decided to keep the shirt off, noticing that many other students had changed into their informal outfits, and now only had the tight white t-shirt. During the first minute of this, he got asked twice if he'd been working out. He felt self- conscious and made a mental note to look for a bigger size at Goodwill.
When they came back to the room, Walter had removed any odor he`d caused by his last smoke (apparantly he wasn`t completely dense even when high). Not only that, but he was the only one who had thought to turn on the television and see what kind of channels they got.
"Is that the witch cooking channel?" Ron asked, looking over the couch at the large flat TV screen.
"They have witch and wizard channels here?" said Harry.
"Hey, lemme see," Ron said, grabbing the remote. He flipped channels, passing some muggle channels and what Harry was sure was a sorcerer`s home shopping channel, until he found what he was browsing for and stopped on a channel that was broadcasting a Quidditch match.
"Yes! I`ve always wished I had a TV and WWSN. The Witch`s and Warlock`s Sports Network."
"What do they show?" Harry asked.
"Quidditch," Ron said in a "you idiot" kind of tone, like it was obvious.
"Yeah, but what else?"
"What do you mean what else? Quidditch."
There was a knock on their door and Harry and Ron called, "Come in."
Hermione entered, looking very excited. She skipped over to the couch, saying, "Isn`t this great? The showers and faucets have no knobs or anything; you just tell them to come on... Well hello, Walt."
"Hey," he said, able to sound genuinely amiable in his not-quite- sober state. "Look, your hair`s up and stuff. Hey, you look hot, Hermione. And I mean that in whatever way is the least threatening or offensive to your boyfriend."
Harry was unable to protest and Hermione could only say, "Oh...thank you."
"Hey, Potter! Weasley!" Seamus Finnigan's voice echoed from the hallway as he came by their open door. "Check out channel fifty-one! I think it's in Parsel tongue!"
"Woah." Walt immediately reached for the remote and flipped up to that channel. Harry looked over to see a young man and woman holding microphones in flashy clothing. He could understand what they were saying, but he could tell it was dubbed.
"Yeah, it's definitely Parsel," Hermione confirmed, and then a couple people that seemed to be singing came on to the screen. "Harry, what are they saying?"
Harry didn't answer. He was getting up to look closer at the TV, his eyes narrowed.
"Uh, Harry, don't sing along," Ron advised. "That would just be creepy."
"It's..." Harry's eyebrow was cocked in total bewilderment. "It's...MTV!"
"Oh, I've heard of that," Walter said, interested, and yet never surprised by anything.
"I don't wanna watch this," Harry shook his head with sudden distaste. "I don't want to see anything that reminds me with so little decadence of my cousin."
"You got a cousin, Harry?" Walt asked while opening up a drink can between his legs that immediately fizzed over with a bright purple-colored foam, which he bent over with an impressive amount of flexibility to suck up from the lid.
"Unfortunately," Harry answered.
"He's one o' the non-magic tossers," came a voice from their doorway.
"Damn it, Malfoy, go away," Walter said without turning his head, wiping the sides of his soda can with the bottom of his shirt.
And Harry tried a more subtle approach: "Fuck off."
Draco laughed, inviting himself in and walking over to the group. "Right, I'm so scared of Harry Potter, the boy in the cupboard who gets beat on by Muggles."
Harry just sighed at his dull recycled insults.
"His little family had a pretty bad influence on him."
Harry's face was blank and uncaring. Draco added, "But I'd say he's homesick for those Muggles, seeing that mudblood tramp he's with," and then it was not.
"YOU CUNT! I'LL SEE YOU-MAAgHrehhh!!!" his insults were cut off by a swift Walter grabbing him by the shoulder and cupping a hand over his mouth.
"Calm down, mate, take it easy, take it easy," Walter struggled with Harry and shot Malfoy a look that seemed to say, "Now look what you've done."
The television said, "Exxxx Ssirissss msssss hhhhhossss isss Ssai...."
Neville, ignoring everyone else, siezed the remote and changed it back to WWSN. Malfoy`s attention was grabbed by what was now on the TV. "Quidditch match! Move over." He pushed Neville aside on the couch, who was easily bundgeable, and instantly was drawn into the TV screen.
"WhhhBddafffck!" Harry said into Walter`s hand, which translated to a confused "What the fuck?" Walter let go of him and started to watch the game.
"Who`s your team?" asked Ron.
"Black Cats," Draco said.
"All RIGHT," Ron responded approvingly, obviously a Black Cats fan himself.
Harry looked at Hermione. They were the only two who didn`t suddenly seem to be in a trance watching the Quidditch game. "Um..."
"Want to go find Fred and George?" she asked.
He nodded, and they both left, their absense quite unnoticed.
.
Within the next hour Fred and George were found and retrieved, and also into the room came Ginny, Benjamin, Seamus, Cynthia, Dean, and some more girls that apparently knew Walter. The boys who were watching the Quidditch match continued to cheer and boo at the TV simultaneously with every point that was added to either the Black Cats or the Pythons. Then around 6:45 the match ended and everyone came back to the real world, including Draco who looked around like he`d just woken from a coma and was wondering what he was still doing there. Shortly after that Crabbe and Goyle came looking for him and he left. Around this time dinner was being served downstairs in the dining hall to the few teenaged students who were actually choosing to eat there, the younger students who were required to, and all of the professors. All of the other students were either upstairs enjoying naughty unsupervised fun or going out into the city to eat and do heaven-forbid-what-else. Fred reported having looked out a window in Ginny`s room and seing a large group of Ravenclaws running around the block with a tambourine and drum. And then, when asked why every single member of Slytherin seemed to have vacated the hotel with the intention of going somewhere they were very excited about, he said, "You don`t want to know." Harry and his friends were not the only ones to discover in their room a menu for owl delivery that offered any kind of food imaginable. They took fine advantage of this and ordered three pizzas along with plenty of soda.
As the night became less young and less innocent, the crowd in Harry and Ron`s room grew proportionately. It got to the point where Harry would often lose track of where Ron or Hermione was, but mostly Ron who mysteriously would dissapear at the same time that Cynthia Warbeck did. As if by magic the clothes became less and less formal and the music became louder and the professors were appearing less and less in the hallways. Benji Arsonick discovered the twins` stereo and appointed himself DJ for the night, and one of Walter`s girls put a spell on all the lights in the room to make them blink like strobe lights. At one point the crowd in a corner cleared an open space where Dean Thomas was breakdancing (quite impressively, to everyone`s surprise). By 10:30 Hermione was lounging without her shoes because her feet had gotten sore and she was now wearing holes in the bottoms of her panty hose, George and a boy from Ravenclaw were kissing on the couch, and Ron was appearing from the bathroom looking very tired and happy at the same time.
Harry, who was moshing to Rage Against the Machine with a big crowd, stopped when he saw Ron. "There you are."
"Lights-out...is in ten minutes," he said.
"What?" Harry looked at his watch. "We have to get everybody out of here."
"They`re going to come around and do a head count. Everyone has to be in their assigned rooms to appear at the door and be checked."
"Oh. In that case you probably want to wash Cynthia`s lipstick off your face."
.
That night, about an hour after lights-out, everyone in the guys' room was still awake, except for Neville, who had fallen asleep with his headphones on in the bed he seemed to be reserving for only himself. Walter was sitting cross-legged against the bars on the balcony smoking a cigarette. Harry skimmed through some Divination notes by candlelight while talking to Ron, who lay on his back next to him.
"I don't know if they'll even listen to us about this petition, Harry," Ron admitted. "It would help if Linus actually seemed like a bad person, but he doesn't. He`s just not the best teacher."
"I thought about that," Harry said. "That's why I almost changed everyone's real grades, so that even Dumbledore would know about it. Because bringing out the truth that he`s a horrible teacher is really our only chance."
"But that`s an even worse thing to do. I kind of feel like we`re turning into the bad guys here. He`s probably got perfectly good intentions and we`re just idiotically trying to ruin his career."
Harry smirked. "It`s funny. I used to hate Snape. I thought he was the most terrible teacher in the world and I dreaded his class. Now that`s what it`s like with Linus. Even if he`s not a terrible murderer in disguise, don`t you think Dumbledore would like having a teacher who at least acts like he wants his students to get good grades? Especially the teacher of such an important subject."
"I guess you`re right. I don`t feel like I`ve honestly learned anything in that area since I`ve come to this school. And I think I`d like to know how to defend myself. You know, in the life and death situations you always seem to get us in."
"Shut up." Harry threw his notes onto the carpet and stretched his arms. "Well. Snape would come through in that position. I don`t think there`s anything he can`t handle in the area of defense. Linus just seems more like someone we want to defend ourselves against, not be taught by."
A chuckling was heard from the balcony. "Snape hates his ass," Walter said.
Ron and Harry looked at him. He was grinning widely, twistedly happy about his secret. He put his cigarette in his mouth for a moment and added, "He dislikes everyone who comes into that position, but he passionately hates Linus...I saw something he wouldn`t want me to see." He snickered.
Ron sat up and Harry stared at him alertly. "What did you see?"
"Oh, they were just arguing really late at night out in the hallways. I`d been sneaking into Dianne Fitton`s dormitory, and when I was coming back I heard them and hid behind a pillar. They were pretty far away but Snape was being really loud."
"That`s pretty weird," Harry said. "The teachers never talk of eachother negatively, so you never imagine anything like that would happen. What were they arguing about?"
Walter narrowed his eyebrows, straining to remember. "I don`t know...Something that didn`t make a whole lot of sense, now that I think about it. Whatever it was, Snape was so angry about it that he accidentally exploded a chandelier."
Ron laughed loudly, and Harry smiled as he recalled similar mistakes he`d made when pushed too far by the Dursleys.
Still laughing, Ron said, "I`m surprised there were no rumors circulating the next day about the chandelier parts all over the floor."
"I cleaned them up," Walter said. "I felt kind of sorry for Snape - I mean that`s really embarassing when you do stuff like that on accident. So when he was gone I cleaned up all the glass so no one would be questioning about it. You can`t tell there was ever a chandelier there."
Ron shook his head. "You`re pretty weird, Birdman."
"And a balcony," Walter observed, opening the french doors that went outside. "We can spit on people."
Harry was with Ron in the miniature kitchen, opening cabinets to see what was already there. There were some pretty generic-looking rations with the hotel logo on the package, but nothing he could really cook with. Then he wondered why he felt the obligation to cook, and grabbed a box of Cheezy Poofs.
"Where are the girls?" Harry asked Walter as he came up to get an eyeful of the balcony.
"The floors all go in circles," Walter recited a surprising amount of information. "The sheilas are in rooms directly behind us. If you go right or left from here, you can get there, maybe even without being seen if you stick to the wall curves and you're not visible from around the bend, y' know what I mean?"
"You have a girlfriend, don't you?" Harry replied.
Walter shrugged. "Two or three."
"I actually wasn't planning on sneaking into her room, I just wanted to know where she was," Harry was convincing, because if he really wanted to admit to that kind of thing, Walt would be the first to really care.
Ron was setting up his toiletries in the bathroom and Walter passed by.
"Hey, Walt?" Ron asked while checking his teeth in the mirror, "Did you happen to get one of the roommate lists?"
"Yeah," Walter appeared in the doorway, wearing a black wife-beater and flannel lounge pants. "Oh...but I rolled it," he added, holding up the joint in his hand.
"I don't suppose you could tell me who my sister's rooming with?"
"Uh, it was Granger, Warbeck, and uh...," he swirled the joint around in the air, trying to jog his memory. He took a drag from it and said, "- some fat chick."
"Great."
" 'Ey, Potter," Walter picked up a glossy black bucket from a long dresser at the front of the room. "I saw some sodas in the fridge in there. How about getting us some ice?"
Ron, forever disturbed by everything he knew of Harry's "home" life, always felt uncomfortable in any situation when Harry seemed to be doing all the work. He raced out of the bathroom to grab the bucket from Walter, but Harry beat him to it.
"Damn, Ron, come with me if you wanna get out of the room that bad." Harry flipped the bucket up in the air sportfully.
So they made their way through the hallway quite slowly, because it was rather crowded with excited students, until they found a small corridor with ice and vending machines.
"HARRY!" they both heard before they could get in the rapidly forming "ice line". Harry turned around to see Ginny Weasley running toward them.
"Hey, Gin," Harry said as Ginny hugged him, her arms only coming just above his waist. Harry had had his prementioned growth spurt, while Ginny was still quite small for her age.
The bond between Ginny and Harry was simply that of a timid girl with an older, unsteady but bright boy who had saved her life four years ago. They saw eachother very little, but Ginny always expressed her gratitude in some way that involved throwing her arms around him and demanding a piggy- back ride. Ron found this very annoying; when they had acted this way at the beginning of the year, he had asked Harry, "Aren't you both a little old for that stuff?" Harry was just relieved that Ginny no longer had a crush on him, and she was even seen often hanging out with boys her own age now.
Harry carried Ginny through the line on his back and she held the bucket for him while he pushed the button for ice. Then Ginny put some ice cubes down his overshirt and ran off. Ron laughed at him while he took off the plaid button-up and shook out the ice. Harry decided to keep the shirt off, noticing that many other students had changed into their informal outfits, and now only had the tight white t-shirt. During the first minute of this, he got asked twice if he'd been working out. He felt self- conscious and made a mental note to look for a bigger size at Goodwill.
When they came back to the room, Walter had removed any odor he`d caused by his last smoke (apparantly he wasn`t completely dense even when high). Not only that, but he was the only one who had thought to turn on the television and see what kind of channels they got.
"Is that the witch cooking channel?" Ron asked, looking over the couch at the large flat TV screen.
"They have witch and wizard channels here?" said Harry.
"Hey, lemme see," Ron said, grabbing the remote. He flipped channels, passing some muggle channels and what Harry was sure was a sorcerer`s home shopping channel, until he found what he was browsing for and stopped on a channel that was broadcasting a Quidditch match.
"Yes! I`ve always wished I had a TV and WWSN. The Witch`s and Warlock`s Sports Network."
"What do they show?" Harry asked.
"Quidditch," Ron said in a "you idiot" kind of tone, like it was obvious.
"Yeah, but what else?"
"What do you mean what else? Quidditch."
There was a knock on their door and Harry and Ron called, "Come in."
Hermione entered, looking very excited. She skipped over to the couch, saying, "Isn`t this great? The showers and faucets have no knobs or anything; you just tell them to come on... Well hello, Walt."
"Hey," he said, able to sound genuinely amiable in his not-quite- sober state. "Look, your hair`s up and stuff. Hey, you look hot, Hermione. And I mean that in whatever way is the least threatening or offensive to your boyfriend."
Harry was unable to protest and Hermione could only say, "Oh...thank you."
"Hey, Potter! Weasley!" Seamus Finnigan's voice echoed from the hallway as he came by their open door. "Check out channel fifty-one! I think it's in Parsel tongue!"
"Woah." Walt immediately reached for the remote and flipped up to that channel. Harry looked over to see a young man and woman holding microphones in flashy clothing. He could understand what they were saying, but he could tell it was dubbed.
"Yeah, it's definitely Parsel," Hermione confirmed, and then a couple people that seemed to be singing came on to the screen. "Harry, what are they saying?"
Harry didn't answer. He was getting up to look closer at the TV, his eyes narrowed.
"Uh, Harry, don't sing along," Ron advised. "That would just be creepy."
"It's..." Harry's eyebrow was cocked in total bewilderment. "It's...MTV!"
"Oh, I've heard of that," Walter said, interested, and yet never surprised by anything.
"I don't wanna watch this," Harry shook his head with sudden distaste. "I don't want to see anything that reminds me with so little decadence of my cousin."
"You got a cousin, Harry?" Walt asked while opening up a drink can between his legs that immediately fizzed over with a bright purple-colored foam, which he bent over with an impressive amount of flexibility to suck up from the lid.
"Unfortunately," Harry answered.
"He's one o' the non-magic tossers," came a voice from their doorway.
"Damn it, Malfoy, go away," Walter said without turning his head, wiping the sides of his soda can with the bottom of his shirt.
And Harry tried a more subtle approach: "Fuck off."
Draco laughed, inviting himself in and walking over to the group. "Right, I'm so scared of Harry Potter, the boy in the cupboard who gets beat on by Muggles."
Harry just sighed at his dull recycled insults.
"His little family had a pretty bad influence on him."
Harry's face was blank and uncaring. Draco added, "But I'd say he's homesick for those Muggles, seeing that mudblood tramp he's with," and then it was not.
"YOU CUNT! I'LL SEE YOU-MAAgHrehhh!!!" his insults were cut off by a swift Walter grabbing him by the shoulder and cupping a hand over his mouth.
"Calm down, mate, take it easy, take it easy," Walter struggled with Harry and shot Malfoy a look that seemed to say, "Now look what you've done."
The television said, "Exxxx Ssirissss msssss hhhhhossss isss Ssai...."
Neville, ignoring everyone else, siezed the remote and changed it back to WWSN. Malfoy`s attention was grabbed by what was now on the TV. "Quidditch match! Move over." He pushed Neville aside on the couch, who was easily bundgeable, and instantly was drawn into the TV screen.
"WhhhBddafffck!" Harry said into Walter`s hand, which translated to a confused "What the fuck?" Walter let go of him and started to watch the game.
"Who`s your team?" asked Ron.
"Black Cats," Draco said.
"All RIGHT," Ron responded approvingly, obviously a Black Cats fan himself.
Harry looked at Hermione. They were the only two who didn`t suddenly seem to be in a trance watching the Quidditch game. "Um..."
"Want to go find Fred and George?" she asked.
He nodded, and they both left, their absense quite unnoticed.
.
Within the next hour Fred and George were found and retrieved, and also into the room came Ginny, Benjamin, Seamus, Cynthia, Dean, and some more girls that apparently knew Walter. The boys who were watching the Quidditch match continued to cheer and boo at the TV simultaneously with every point that was added to either the Black Cats or the Pythons. Then around 6:45 the match ended and everyone came back to the real world, including Draco who looked around like he`d just woken from a coma and was wondering what he was still doing there. Shortly after that Crabbe and Goyle came looking for him and he left. Around this time dinner was being served downstairs in the dining hall to the few teenaged students who were actually choosing to eat there, the younger students who were required to, and all of the professors. All of the other students were either upstairs enjoying naughty unsupervised fun or going out into the city to eat and do heaven-forbid-what-else. Fred reported having looked out a window in Ginny`s room and seing a large group of Ravenclaws running around the block with a tambourine and drum. And then, when asked why every single member of Slytherin seemed to have vacated the hotel with the intention of going somewhere they were very excited about, he said, "You don`t want to know." Harry and his friends were not the only ones to discover in their room a menu for owl delivery that offered any kind of food imaginable. They took fine advantage of this and ordered three pizzas along with plenty of soda.
As the night became less young and less innocent, the crowd in Harry and Ron`s room grew proportionately. It got to the point where Harry would often lose track of where Ron or Hermione was, but mostly Ron who mysteriously would dissapear at the same time that Cynthia Warbeck did. As if by magic the clothes became less and less formal and the music became louder and the professors were appearing less and less in the hallways. Benji Arsonick discovered the twins` stereo and appointed himself DJ for the night, and one of Walter`s girls put a spell on all the lights in the room to make them blink like strobe lights. At one point the crowd in a corner cleared an open space where Dean Thomas was breakdancing (quite impressively, to everyone`s surprise). By 10:30 Hermione was lounging without her shoes because her feet had gotten sore and she was now wearing holes in the bottoms of her panty hose, George and a boy from Ravenclaw were kissing on the couch, and Ron was appearing from the bathroom looking very tired and happy at the same time.
Harry, who was moshing to Rage Against the Machine with a big crowd, stopped when he saw Ron. "There you are."
"Lights-out...is in ten minutes," he said.
"What?" Harry looked at his watch. "We have to get everybody out of here."
"They`re going to come around and do a head count. Everyone has to be in their assigned rooms to appear at the door and be checked."
"Oh. In that case you probably want to wash Cynthia`s lipstick off your face."
.
That night, about an hour after lights-out, everyone in the guys' room was still awake, except for Neville, who had fallen asleep with his headphones on in the bed he seemed to be reserving for only himself. Walter was sitting cross-legged against the bars on the balcony smoking a cigarette. Harry skimmed through some Divination notes by candlelight while talking to Ron, who lay on his back next to him.
"I don't know if they'll even listen to us about this petition, Harry," Ron admitted. "It would help if Linus actually seemed like a bad person, but he doesn't. He`s just not the best teacher."
"I thought about that," Harry said. "That's why I almost changed everyone's real grades, so that even Dumbledore would know about it. Because bringing out the truth that he`s a horrible teacher is really our only chance."
"But that`s an even worse thing to do. I kind of feel like we`re turning into the bad guys here. He`s probably got perfectly good intentions and we`re just idiotically trying to ruin his career."
Harry smirked. "It`s funny. I used to hate Snape. I thought he was the most terrible teacher in the world and I dreaded his class. Now that`s what it`s like with Linus. Even if he`s not a terrible murderer in disguise, don`t you think Dumbledore would like having a teacher who at least acts like he wants his students to get good grades? Especially the teacher of such an important subject."
"I guess you`re right. I don`t feel like I`ve honestly learned anything in that area since I`ve come to this school. And I think I`d like to know how to defend myself. You know, in the life and death situations you always seem to get us in."
"Shut up." Harry threw his notes onto the carpet and stretched his arms. "Well. Snape would come through in that position. I don`t think there`s anything he can`t handle in the area of defense. Linus just seems more like someone we want to defend ourselves against, not be taught by."
A chuckling was heard from the balcony. "Snape hates his ass," Walter said.
Ron and Harry looked at him. He was grinning widely, twistedly happy about his secret. He put his cigarette in his mouth for a moment and added, "He dislikes everyone who comes into that position, but he passionately hates Linus...I saw something he wouldn`t want me to see." He snickered.
Ron sat up and Harry stared at him alertly. "What did you see?"
"Oh, they were just arguing really late at night out in the hallways. I`d been sneaking into Dianne Fitton`s dormitory, and when I was coming back I heard them and hid behind a pillar. They were pretty far away but Snape was being really loud."
"That`s pretty weird," Harry said. "The teachers never talk of eachother negatively, so you never imagine anything like that would happen. What were they arguing about?"
Walter narrowed his eyebrows, straining to remember. "I don`t know...Something that didn`t make a whole lot of sense, now that I think about it. Whatever it was, Snape was so angry about it that he accidentally exploded a chandelier."
Ron laughed loudly, and Harry smiled as he recalled similar mistakes he`d made when pushed too far by the Dursleys.
Still laughing, Ron said, "I`m surprised there were no rumors circulating the next day about the chandelier parts all over the floor."
"I cleaned them up," Walter said. "I felt kind of sorry for Snape - I mean that`s really embarassing when you do stuff like that on accident. So when he was gone I cleaned up all the glass so no one would be questioning about it. You can`t tell there was ever a chandelier there."
Ron shook his head. "You`re pretty weird, Birdman."