Chapter 34: Revenge After the evening was over and he had walked Rachel back to her own common room, Harry returned to the Gryffindor dormitories. As he entered the common room, he noticed only a few students had not yet gone to bed; it was late and Saturday night, so they were either sleeping or had managed to sneak out to visit their friends. He saw Ron to the right and went over to him immediately. "Ron?" he asked uncertainly; he seemed to be leaning on the arm of the chair and was facing the wall. "Ron?" he said again. He let out a loud snore and awoke suddenly, falling out of the chair. "Huh?" he asked, dazed and confused as he looked around the room trying to find what had woken him up. "Earth to Ron," Harry said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Oh, hey mate," he replied, bleary-eyed. "I should probably go upstairs, huh?" he added sheepishly. "Er - not yet, Ron. I wanted to talk to you about something." Harry said solemly. Ron seemed to wake up immediately. "What's wrong?" he asked, a sense of urgency in his voice. Harry sighed. "When I was hanging out with Rachel a while ago, we were talking about how she's been kind of weird lately. She thinks I was ignorning her. Well, it ends up that Michael Corner guy, you know the one..." "The one that dumped Ginny?" Ron asked, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Exactly. He's been trying to pressure her into cheating on me..." "What?" Ron cried. "That's insane!" "I know," Harry replied, looking down. He still felt guilty that Rachel had said he was ignorning her, even though he knew he had no control over the situation. He looked up to see Ron grinning. "What're you so happy about?" he asked, confused. "Mate," Ron began slowly, still smiling. "This calls for some serious revenge." Harry smiled. "So what's the plan?" ************************ The next morning, Harry Potter slipped quietly into the kitchens before breakfast. House elves came rushing over to meet him. Dobby was in front of them all. "Harry Potter, sir, at your service!" he cried, bowing low. Harry smiled. "Dobby, could I, er, speak to you alone for a moment?" he asked. The other house elves quickly backed away and hurried back to their jobs. "I was wondering if you could do a really big favor for me," he began, taking a deep breath. "I was wondering if you could put this in someone's pumpkin juice?" he asked, holding up a small flask. Dobby's eyes grew large. "Harry Potter, sir, Dobby will do it... but leave at once, we isn't wanting to get into any trouble..." He grabbed the flask and began pushing Harry out the door. "And whose glass is Harry Potter wanting this in?" he asked. "Er- Michael Corner. He's in Ravenclaw," Harry muttered quietly. Dobby nodded before shoving Harry completely outside the door and slamming it shut. Harry wandered up to the Great Hall, hoping that everything would go okay. He saw Ron waving at him from the Gryffindor table and went to join him. "So?" Ron asked expectantly. "Step two is completed," Harry muttered. "Now we wait..." Ron grinned. Hermione entered the Great Hall and sat down tiredly next to Ron. He looked at her, concern in his eyes. "How are you feeling, 'Mione?" Ron asked gently. She looked up at him, rubbing her swollen eyes. "Okay," she mumbled, pulling out a book and immersing herself in it immediately. Ron turned to Harry and shrugged. A sudden loud commotion from across the room made the entire Gryffindor table look up. "HELP! HELP!" someone was shrieking. Someone from the Ravenclaw table. Grins slid across Ron and Harry's faced immediately but they quickly wiped them away to avoid looking guilty. People all through the Great Hall were craning their necks to see; the younger Creevy brother was standing on the table to try to get a better look. The students soon found this wasn't necessary as a huge figure began to appear over the heads of all of the other Ravenclaws. Michael Corner's body seemed nearly ten times its original size. People all around the Great Hall began talking and yelling, the noise increasing drastically inside the room. "Someone cursed him!" a frightened voice yelled. "Of course not," came a rational and more calm voice, probably from the Ravenclaw table. "It looks as though he's swallowed some Swelling Solution..." "He's going to explode!" a scared Hufflepuff cried. Secretly, Harry glanced over to the Hufflepuff table. Rachel had collapsed into a fit of giggles, as had some of the girls surrounding her. Michael was still swelling, his size increasing rapidly every few seconds. The hall was now ringing with laughter and gasps as it continued. Harry looked around; it seemed as if every person in the room had their eyes focused on Michael. He deserves it, he thought, satisfied. Looking to his left, past Ron, however, he saw that Hermione was still completely focused on her book. What's wrong with her? he thought, a little worried. Ginny sat across the table, giggling madly as she watched her ex-boyfriend. A disappointed "awww" rang through the room as Professor Snape hurried in with a Deflating Draught. Michael slowly began to shrink back to his old size. Snape turned around and glared at the students angrily; all noise ceased. "When, and I do mean when, I find out who did this... the consequences will be most unpleasant," he sneered, staring straight at Harry. It was all he could do to keep from grinning. It had worked, and they had no evidence against him. None whatsoever. ******************** Harry was still experiencing a sort of high from the breakfast incident halfway through his day; he was startled from his thirtieth mental reliving of his sweet revenge by someone calling his name. He turned and was surprised to see Parvati Patil behind him. "Oh, hey Parvati," he said, confused about why she would be talking to him. "Hi Harry," she replied, a serious expression on her face. "I wanted to talk to you about something, and we don't have Defense Against the Dark Arts for another 30 minutes. Would you mind?" "Oh, er, that's fine," he agreed, confused about what she meant. Parvati simply nodded and pulled him into the nearest empty classroom. They both sat in desks and turned them so they were facing one another. "It's about Hermione," Parvati began, and Harry felt his heart sink. He knew, as did Ron, she had been acting weird, but there had just been so much going on that he hadn't given it much thought. "Yes?" he questioned, a bit uncomfortable. "Well, I'm sure you've noticed she hasn't been herself lately. She rarely sleeps, she's always moody, I was just wondering if you knew what was going on with her? I would have asked Ron but I didn't know if he would get upset," she said sincerely. Harry frowned. "I have no idea. She really blew up at Ron the other day, but she was acting weird before that, too." "So maybe she and Ron are just having problems?" Parvati asked, obviously relieved. "That could be it," Harry answered, trying to convince himself more than Parvati. Of course, he thought. They had a fight... they'll make up soon, and everything will be back to normal. As he and Parvati left the room, however, he couldn't get rid of the nagging thought that Hermione had been like this since about a week after Christmas. ******************** Thanks to my faithful readers! I love you all!!! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I know it's not a very long chapter, but I wanted to post something - I know it's been a little longer than usual for this update, mostly because of the holiday.
