Part Thirty-Nine: The Grim, My Dear
The day after Draco fell asleep in the Gryffindor dormitory the dagger and the table that Draco had so violently stabbed were permanently removed from Gryffindor Tower. Draco kept going on about he hated being viewed by the other students as unable to be around a knife without freaking out, and various forms of the story had started to permeate through the school. Professor Dumbledore had been displeased to say the least about the incident, and both Draco and Harry had been called into his office at different times to discuss the matter. As neither one knew who put the dagger in Draco's bag in the first place, they weren't really lying when they told him they didn't know who it was. However, when asked if anyone specifically mentioned or hinted to being after Draco, they both played clueless. Harry was fairly certain Dumbledore knew they were lying, but he wasn't ready to admit he let someone get in and hurt Draco.
Hermione, meanwhile, drove everyone crazy with her study sessions for the N.E.W.T.s and Harry looked for every opportunity possible to escape her and her crazy color-coded schedule. The only time she was halfway normal was when Servius was around. Harry thought she may not want to appear fanatical around him but he soon realized that it was merely because when Hermione had gone on and on about the exams to Servius, he distracted her by bringing something else up she was excited to talk about. Harry didn't know how Servius got to know Hermione so well to know how to deter her (perhaps, he thought guiltily, it had something to do with the lack of attention he paid Hermione as of late), but he was grateful for the momentary escapes.
March was quickly coming to a close and everyone was starting to make holiday plans for Easter. Harry was fairly certain he was going home again and he would tell anyone who stood still long enough to listen about how he was going home, not to Sirius's, but home. Draco found it cute for the first few days but after hearing the same thing for Christmas, Draco threatened to break up with Harry if he kept on about it. It took a great deal of effort, but he calmed down.
As for everyone else, Sirius insisted that Harry invite their whole gang back for the holiday. Draco jumped at the opportunity right away as going back to the Manor for Easter would mean sitting down to dinner with his estranged grandmother who still wouldn't speak to him for not visiting Lucius. Professor Lupin also promised to return. Ron and Kali jumped at the chance and Harry got a great kick of amusement out of Kali's story when asking permission to go.
Her story went that she ventured down to the dungeons on evening after dinner, slipped into his rooms, and started reading through one of his many books until he returned. Once back, he had sat down to go over lesson plans and she went into asking almost the same way she had for Christmas.
"You see," Kali said, "Easter is coming up and since it's next month, I think it's time we make plans. What were you intending on doing?"
"Staying here and taking away points from anyone who annoys me over holiday," replied Snape. "Why?"
"Well, Harry invited me back to his place for Easter."
"With Black?" asked Snape, grimacing.
"Yes, Daddy. With Sirius. He doesn't seem like a bad guy. He was good friends with Momma."
"I know," he replied, grimace becoming more intense. "Why? You aren't . . . Please tell me you aren't asking me to accompany you."
"What? No! I just wanted to know if I had permission to go."
After the shock of thinking he would be bullied into spending Easter holiday with Sirius Black, Snape was more than ready to let her go. Servius and Hermione were staying at school because they wanted to spend the holiday together and Servius thought someone needed to bother Snape over Easter. He claimed it just wouldn't be a holiday without emotional scarring. That and it was too mean to expect Snape to spend Easter alone.
Blaise's mother, Gemma, had just had her sixth child, a boy named Jonah, and Blaise planned on going home to be with his new little brother. David had been invited with and, after convincing Blaise he wouldn't be scared away by how strange his family was, Blaise finally gave in and agreed to bring David along. Something about five other children and his crazy parents made Blaise apprehensive about bringing David home (especially since he had never even considered bringing Draco back there).
Harry sat in the Gryffindor common room plopped down right in the middle of the floor. The younger students were swerving around him whenever they had to get from one side of the common room the other. As it was late in Saturday afternoon, the traffic in Gryffindor was more congested that it usually was but Harry paid no attention. Sitting before him was a large stack of notes (blue: Charms) that Hermione had given him this morning and threatened to test him on when she got back from tutoring Servius for his upcoming Arithmancy test. As it was, Harry didn't want to rely on the chance that she would forget or depend on Hermione going easy on him for not having even looked at the material, and so he was doomed to spend his Saturday laboring over Charms notes for a test that was still three months away. He would go complain to Draco, but he knew his boyfriend would throw a fit if he knew Harry hadn't even started to really study yet.
Three hours had passed since Hermione first left and shoved the large stack of parchment under his nose. Harry's eyes were growing tired and blurry as he fought to keep the words sitting before him in focus. Taking off his glasses, Harry rubbed at his weary eyes and looked up upon hearing someone coming in through the portrait hole. A redheaded blob stood before him and Harry reached for his glasses, thankful when Ron came into focus.
"Hey, Harry," said Ron, dropping to the floor beside him.
"Hey, Ron. Just get back from work?"
"Yeah. Fred and George have been driving me crazy all day long. I'm so glad to be out of there. What are you doing?"
"Studying."
"You? Studying? What for? Why?"
"Yes, I'm studying. I'm not that bad, you know."
Ron arched his eyebrow and stared down at the large stack of parchment. "Hermione got on your arse?"
Nodding, Harry slumped over and said, "Yeah. She gave me all these notes for my Charms N.E.W.T.. Says I really need to get studying. Draco thinks so, too. I just can't win."
"Kali and I already started studying. We're primarily focusing on Potions as we all know Kali is kind of weak in that area. I can't believe how fast they're coming."
"You sound just like Hermione," said Harry, with a hint of a sneer on his face.
"It isn't funny, Harry. We're going to be taking our N.E.W.T.s in three months and then we graduate. I'm starting to feel old. And responsible. I don't like it. This growing up thing is almost scarier than anything else I've been faced with."
"Almost scarier?"
"I still haven't forgotten Aragog or McGonagall's chess set."
Nervously laughing, Harry said, "I don't know why you're friends with me. I've gotten you and Hermione into so much trouble over the years. I kept endangering your lives."
"Not that much trouble. Besides, things would be so dull around here if it wasn't for you."
"Ron, I led you into a hollow full of giant spiders that wanted to eat you."
"Details, details," said Ron, shaking his head. "Anyway, they wanted to eat you, too, or have you forgotten that little detail? You make things interesting, Harry."
"So did Malfoy, but I didn't see you making him your best friend. Well, until recently, that is."
"Back to Malfoy now, is it?"
At Ron's words, Harry's face went blank as he tried to think back over what he had just said. Then, his eyes lit up and Ron swore you could practically see the pieces clicking together behind his eyes.
"Oh! I didn't even realize! I guess thinking about him back then automatically turns Draco into Malfoy in my mind." A short silence followed as Harry stared straight ahead, but not really seeing. "Sometimes it's hard to believe they're the same person; he's changed so much. I never thought I'd like Malfoy, much less love him."
"I never thought you would love Malfoy, either."
"Hey, Ron, thanks a lot for being a friend to Draco and supporting him. Especially that thing in the library last month. I mean, I know I threw your party and everything but I never really said thank you. I know Draco isn't your favorite person but it means a lot to me. I hate to see him so down and depressed."
"I don't hate him, Harry. It's not a problem. You're my best friend and you love him. Any good friend would do the same. Besides, Draco isn't so bad once you get to know him."
"It still means a lot to me."
"Don't think on it."
"I can't help it, Ron. You don't realize what a huge difference it makes to both of us. By being there for him, too, you're helping me out loads. If it wasn't for you, I'd be falling apart. It was so hard to keep myself together when Draco showed up here with that dagger. I thought my heart was going to stop just seeing him with it."
"Did someone really plant a dagger in his bag?"
Any of the light that had been in Harry's face was drained as his entire face went dark and he nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Someone did."
"That's not right," said Ron, disgusted. "How can someone be that cruel? Draco used to be bad but he would have never done that to anyone. He doesn't deserve for someone to do that to him. When all's said and done, Draco's a decent guy. Do you know who did it?"
"Crabbe. Goyle. Parkinson. Pick a Slytherin. Who else would do it to him? No one else has it in for him like they do."
"That's sick. I never liked them but I didn't think Crabbe and Goyle would be capable of doing something that cruel and heartless."
"Strange how things turn out."
"Really. Snape and I are getting along. Okay, not exactly along, but at least we're tolerating each other."
"Talk about strange things," said Harry, forcing a smile as some of the color began to come back into his cheeks. "So, where's Kali?"
"Don't know. I thought you might."
"The last time I saw her was at breakfast. Maybe she's off somewhere doing her homework or with Blaise and David. Or maybe she's with Draco. I don't know where he got to today?"
"Where's Hermione?"
"With Servius."
Ron smirked. "Of course. I think I'm going to go look for Kali, okay? I'll see you later."
"Okay. If you see Draco, tell him I want to meet up tonight."
"Sure."
Crawling out the portrait hole, Ron left Harry in the common room with nothing else to do but go back to the monstrous amount of notes Hermione expected him to know by the time she got back to Gryffindor.
~*~
"So where were you, anyway?" asked Harry as he, Ron, Kali, and Draco climbed the steps to the North Tower together.
"The library and then the owlery," replied Kali. "I had my weekly mail to send out with Calypso and some of the school owls."
"You're always going to the owlery," said Draco. "Perhaps you should move in. I bet Calypso would like that."
"Perhaps," agreed Kali. "I could talk to Osiris and Calypso could introduce me to all her little owl friends."
"Who's Osiris?" asked Ron.
"My owl," said Draco. "Are we all going home with you for Easter, Harry?"
"Just the four of us," said Harry. "Well, us and Professor Lupin, anyway. Make it a point to call him 'Professor' a lot when we get there. Sirius thinks it's the funniest thing he's ever heard when someone calls him Professor Lupin."
"I can understand that," said Draco. "I mean, if ten years from now I heard someone calling you Professor Potter . . . Oh wow, that sounds really bad. Don't become a teacher, Harry. Ever."
"Because Professor Malfoy just sounds wonderful, doesn't it?" said Harry.
"It's better than Professor Potter," said Ron.
"I beat both of you, okay. Professor Kay-Lay is in the house," said Kali, nodding.
"What does that mean?" asked Ron, as they got to a landing where the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw students were congesting the area.
"Muggle slang," said Draco, rolling his eyes.
"Hush, you," commanded Kali.
The silver ladder that led to Professor Trelawney's classroom came down and Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil pushed their way to the front so that they could enter Divination class first. No one put up much of a fight, and as Draco entered the classroom, he could feel his eyes watering. Beside him, Ron was starting to choke on the perfumed air, and Harry pulled them as far away from the fire as they could get, all four sitting around the same table.
"Good day!" Trelawney's misty voice came and Harry saw her sweeping through the room, beads dangling from her neck. She sat with her back to the fire and gave both Lavender and Parvati warm, approving smiles before gazing across the class. "With the N.E.W.T.s coming up in June, the fates informed me that it would be wise to revisit the Orb. For the next two weeks, this class will be reviewing crystal gazing. Refer to your copy of Unfogging the Future if you are having trouble Seeing."
"We have to do crystal balls again?" asked Ron, sounding horrified.
"You know," said Kali, pulling a crystal ball closer to her, "I'm kind of offended by how you all dislike Divination so much. I won't say that I like Professor Trelawney, but I quite enjoy the subject."
"It's all a load of rubbish, Kali," moaned Ron.
"It is not."
"My dears," said Trelawney, swooping over them, "what do you see?"
"A staircase," said Kali, her brows furrowing. "It looks like someone's falling down the staircase."
"Can you see who it is, my dear?"
Ron stared at Kali as the lines in her forehead creased deeper and she bent over the crystal ball. Sighing and resigned, her face relaxed and she leaned back into her chair, shaking her head. "No."
"How does this person look when they land? Is the body mangled?"
"That's pleasant," murmured Draco. Ron tried to stifle a laugh.
"Not exactly mangled," said Kali, "though definitely injured."
"No wonder she gets such high Divination marks," mused Harry.
"Does either of you dears need help?" said Trelawney, coming between Ron and Harry. Then, looking at Harry's crystal ball, she gave a high-pitched shriek and backed away from his table. One of her thin hands was covering her mouth.
"Sweet Merlin," muttered Ron and Harry rolled his eyes. Kali, who didn't know what was coming, stared at Trelawney curiously, trying to figure out what she had seen in the crystal ball.
"The Grim, dear!" she shrieked, pointing at the crystal ball. "I see the Grim."
"And there she goes again," said Ron. Harry covered his mouth with his hand, trying not to laugh at the way Ron was pulling faces. "She's seen a Grim in Harry's tea leaves and in his crystal ball every time we did the units."
Draco grinned at this. "That's funny because she does the same thing to Finch-Fletchley. He was always going to die in our class."
"It must be a trend."
"And the really funny thing is that I'm the one who almost died this year."
"You can't even See into another person's crystal ball," said Kali as Trelawney swept away to Lavender and Parvati.
"What?" said Ron.
"You can't even See into another person's crystal ball. If I gazed into Harry's, I wouldn't See what he Sees. I wouldn't See the same thing I See in mine, but I wouldn't See what he's Seeing."
"You wouldn't See what I See because I don't see anything," said Harry. "I don't have the Gift."
"It's rare," said Kali, knowingly, "and I'm willing to bet that neither Brown nor Patil has it, either. They can be members of Trelawney's club all they want. I think I'll stick with the real Seers."
"What did you really see in the Orb?" asked Draco.
"I saw a person falling down a staircase and getting injured," said Kali. "You heard me tell Trelawney that."
"No, what did you see?"
"I saw a person falling down a staircase and getting injured," she repeated. "Wasn't anyone listening?"
"Yeah," said Ron, "I just thought you were making that up like that rest of us do. What are the odds that you'd actually see someone getting hurt?" Kali shrugged. "So how did your person fall down a staircase?"
"You're actually interested? What happened to Divination being a bunch of rubbish?"
"Nothing you say could ever be a bunch of rubbish."
Draco and Harry rolled their eyes.
"Well, there was group of people standing at the top of the stairs so either the person could have fallen but I think he or she was pushed."
"I'm going to seriously freak out if someone gets pushed down the stairs by the time school is over. Do you frequently make correct predictions?" Kali shrugged and nodded. "Oh bollocks. I wish you knew who it was in the crystal ball."
"All of a sudden putting faith in Seers?" asked Harry. "Kali certainly does have power over you, doesn't she?"
Turning a bright pink, Ron asked, "Don't you wonder if maybe she's right? We all know that Trelawney's buggered up, but Dumbledore says there are some true Seers. Maybe Kali is one."
"Yeah right," scoffed Harry. "No offense, Kali."
"None taken."
"Well I believe in you," said Ron, pointedly glaring at Harry.
"Okay," said Kali, shrugging.
"See, Ron," said Harry. "She doesn't even care."
"Well I care."
Draco snickered as the class continued. The bickering between Harry and Ron only stopped when Trelawney dismissed the class and they were back in clean air. As Harry told it, it was no small wonder Trelawney was off her rocker will all those fumes up in that classroom. If it was Harry breathing incense in all day long, he'd see visions, too. Ron laughed and they were friends again.
