Disclaimer: I do not own anything Harry Potter related but all OC's, invented spells, new objects and AU circumstances are my own...please do not steal them.
Summery: Dedicated to all those in this world who feel they have nothing left to hold on to. This is for friendship, the build up of feelings that can result after a tragic single moment…the sacrifices people must make to insure that good can come out as the superior at all times. Unsure of slash situations…mostly focuses on friendship and moralistic issues. Set in Harry's seventh year…and beyond.
Warnings: Angst, drama, slight romance but it is mostly what many hope to be future canon. There are also adult themes in the future and violence.
Author's Note: I never dared to write a Harry potter fic before…I usually focus on Lord of the Rings but this is actually stemming from an original short story of mine…but here, it will be extended. I felt like I needed to share this in a Harry Potter format, because the issues focussed on here are aiming for the teenage age groups mostly, but can be read by adults too. I have placed it under pg-13 for now…but as situations become more serious and the more adult things come forward, it will be upped to R.
This chapter is dedicated to my best friend Amny. She has pulled through with so much grief in her life that it just goes far beyond the norm…and yet she always manages to give me a good proverbial kick in the backside whenever I get moody and down. Just this week she gave me some advice on how to be positive…and mean it…it forced me to write this chapter faster (That day off last week turned out to be a working day anyway…they had called me) and get it to you now. Thank her for this.
Also I have given the first chapter some extra bits…like the quote at the top. It is advisable to go read that now for it is practically the basis of this whole story…you will see as it evolves.
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"One of the important innovations that created modern science around the year 1500 A.D. was the idea that the laws of the material universe could be understood meaningfully only by expressing physical properties as quantified measurements, that is, in numerical terms and not just in words." (Dr. Matthew A. Trump, 'What is Chaos?')
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Chapter 2: The Important Things
They sat dully in the common room. Harry was dumbly picking at a small hole in a large armchair that simply got bigger at ever pick he made. Ron was quietly petting Scabbers II (the new rat the boy had found in his closet at home one Christmas and had made his father cast numerous spells on it to ensure it wasn't an Animagus, before getting his twin brothers to do the same as an extra caution and therefore inadvertently turning the poor rat a permanent nuclear vermilion yellow), while staring blankly into the fire. Hermione was sitting on the same couch as Ron and, for once, wasn't even touching her books, simply contenting herself to knitting some bright purple socks for Dobby and Winky (the latter having finally conceded to accepting gifts) as a goodbye present of sorts seeing graduation was coming up…or so she said.
The real reason they were all still sitting up at midnight, long after the rest of the house had gone to bed, was that they were plain and utter sulking and trying not to show it.
Hermione was privately incensed, the continuous clicking of her needles being the only sound to come from her apart from a harsh wheezing emanating from her mouth. She was hissing through her clenched teeth, as a form of breathing it was really a danger sign.
Ron had petted Scabbers so much now that the poor rat was starting to squirm in his grip, his bright colour increasing in luminescence the more distressed he became. If one looked closely they would be able to see a bald patch forming along his back…poor rat. Ron himself though, looked a cross between nervous and confused…more the latter than anything.
And Harry…well…he was really not thinking much at that moment. He stared at the hole he was picking blindly, mulling over nothing and everything and really just wanting to sleep. But he wasn't tired.
Click went the needles.
Pet went the continuous stroking of the rat.
Pick went the finger at the hole.
Click click.
Pet pet.
Pick pick.
The individual sounds continued and even started to escalate, soon sounding ten times as loud as they should..
Pick, click, pet, scrape…Harry had snagged a nail on a loose thread.
Pet pet pet, click click, pick p…
"I can't TAKE this anymore!!" Hermione threw down her knitting in a huff and drew her legs up, sitting cross-legged on the couch with her chin in her hands. She looked mad and neither of the other boys could disagree with her on this one. "Cheating!" She continued. "Cheating he says…I do NOT cheat! If anyone would cheat it was be that damned insufferable little blond bast…"
"Mione…calma." Ron reached over the settee and grasped her hand. "Snape's got nothing on us…he only speculates and doesn't have any proof…"
"Except a cheat sheet he found on the floor and now will hold all seventh years to ransom with." Harry finished. "According to Snape…that's all he needs. And it will work too."
"Yeah but not on any Slytherins."
"And what if it was a Slytherin…we all fail then or have to take the exams all over again!" The girl started to look panicked. "We'll never get into anything with that on our records." She looked defeated and Harry gave her a small smile.
"Sure we will…we'll just have to…er…find loopholes?"
Hermione snorted at the lame try at comfort but smiled back anyway, shaking her head and sighing.
"At least we got through Charms before he raised the alarm. And I wonder how the cheater was able to smuggle that sheet in past the wards? Must have been pretty stealthy-like."
"Yeah." The two other boys breathed simultaneously, all going quiet while they mulled over their current situation in their minds, eyes often drifting to the ironically cheerful fire for some sort of answer to their dilemma.
This had to be one of the worst things to happen to them that didn't involve Voldemort…next to Filch's latest prowl obsession since the final retirement his cat, Mrs Norris. He seemed to like faulting people for breathing wrong; it was one thing the trio knew they wouldn't miss.
After a while, Harry broke the silence with a quiet question.
"What was up with that thing this morning between Malfoy and that girl…Fleecy?"
"Felicity," Hermione corrected him, curling up in the couch with Ron surreptitiously edging closer. "Felicity Field to be exact. She's a fourth year Slytherin, very smart, has a slight stutter problem and is muggleborn. Not a typical Slytherin stereotype at all…one could almost call her quiet and unobtrusive. A nice person if she got her confidence up."
"How do you know all that?" Ron looked at her in disbelief and she raised a brow at him. He took the hint and raised his hands in defeat. "Forget I even asked."
"Mmm." She seemed to mull over this before giving him a smile and their hands started playing little games with each other, just poking at the other's fingers and playing a strange romantic twist to Thumb Wars.
"Ahem." Harry still wanted more information and the cough broke the two apart and they stared at him. "Why'd Malfoy go and call her Fleecy then?" he looked confused. "I got the Bottle-eye bit, but not the sheep."
"Harry, how long have you been thinking about this?" Hermione asked.
"Since it happened," he shrugged. "I dunno, just something Snape did after kind of bothered me I guess. It's been playing on my mind all day.
"I'm surprised you even managed not to blow up the classroom." She muttered, but Harry didn't comment. He was wondering about that himself actually.
"Apparently it's Professor Binns' fault all the way back when she was a first year." She continued, and studiously ignored Harry's growing smirk at the way her and Ron's hands just couldn't stop fiddling around with the other's, even as she was talking. "You know how slow he can talk." Harry and Ron nodded. "Well, he was especially slow on her first class and he was doing roll call. And when he called out her name it came out like 'Fleeecithy'." She tried not to spit too much when she said that. "Anyway, it spread around and soon people adapted it. That with her last name being Field and all somehow turned it into a type of agricultural slur of sorts…poor girl."
"And Malfoy became a smart-alec and played around with it even more then I suppose." Ron started drawing circles with his fingers in Hermione's palm. "Must be the Mudblood grudge…no offence of course." He looked up at his girlfriend at this point and she just smiled and shrugged.
"Got over that a long time ago."
If sweetness and fluff were solid matter and floated in the air as flowering coloured particles of loveliness, Harry would has been smothered a long time before and choked to death. He often wondered how long it would be before his two best friends got out of the mushy stage of their relationship and moved onto something more realistic…like not French kissing every three minutes. Like now.
"Okay, get a room, innocent eyes here."
The two detached themselves and chuckled at the discomfort of their friend.
"It's too bad your stairs become a slippery dip when males are present so we can 'get a room', as Harry put it." Ron grinned at the girl and she blushed.
"But yours' doesn't."
"Yeah, but we have Dean and Seamus."
"Good point."
"Then there's the R.O.R." Harry muttered, while trying to hide his reddening face in one of Hermione's books.
Ron grinned even wider. "Harry, you're brilliant! Can we borrow…"
"It's in my trunk where you last put it, haven't touched the bloody cloak since." The blushing dark-headed boy waved his hand up the stairs while trying to keep his eyes glued to the page in front of him.
'…With the Character, Heart, and Social numbers in mind (4, 2, 7) it is now possible to sketch out a portrait…'
"So we'll…see you later then?" Ron had practically gone into blur mode and was already holding the invisibility cloak, readying it around Hermione's and his own shoulders.
"Uh huh." Harry muttered and squinted his eyes at the words.
'The Pythagoreans considered three to be the first "complete" number because, like three pebbles laid out in a row, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Three indicates talent…'
"Seeya, Harry."
"Mmm…bye, Mione."
'The Pythagoreans regarded six as the perfect number because it was divisible by two and three, and was the sum as well as the product of the first three digits (1 + 2 + 3 = 6, 1 x 2 x 3 = 6)…'
The swishing noise of the cloak being draped over his friends and the creak as the portrait opened and they let themselves out finally reached his ears and he lowered the book, blinking hard.
He had read the words, trying to cram his head with enough unknown Hermione brainpower to feed a muggle power plant to drown out the borderline sickening sweetness of his friends…and he still didn't understand a damn thing.
I bet it's something advanced. Like a minor subject within a subject…not necessarily known by all. He thought to himself. It was something that would place her in high ranks within the Ministry and therefore would be too complex for his grounded mind. He smiled at the logic that prevailed over the disturbing images still crowding his mind at the thought of those two in the Room of Requirement…with anything they may need at their complete disposal.
He shuddered and turned the book over and read the title, blinking once more.
'Arithmancy For Beginners'
Tbc…
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AN: Kind of sweet and fluffy I know…but the title of this chapter is important, as is the content. This all leads up to something much bigger…trust me. I know I said the sensitive issues would be outlined in this chapter…but I guess I was being unrealistic. I have a strange and eerie feeling that this is to be a very long fic. I know the issues will be addressed in the next chapter…it's where Chaos diverts and begins (taken from the actual study of the Chaos Theory and many essays on the subject).
Review Replies:Silvercross: Harry/Draco? I am glad you like the story so far but I don't think there is to be any in depth slash within this story and I'm afraid none between those two. Any slash that is mentioned will be probably based on the prejudice I am explaining throughout the story…oops! Was that a spoiler? *winks*
Lady V: First…I got commented on by Lady V? Is that a self-esteem booster or what!? Anyway…APTA is currently under construction…physical construction. I really do need to find someone who can build sites better than my lousy beginner status as I have finally figured out logos that I can copyright and be made to use for the site itself as guiding signs. It's a fiction, essay, fanart and discussion site…and Minka doesn't mind you being there. And you taking an interest in this story is wonderful…thankyou for the time it took to read and review…mucho appreciated. And yes…my name needed to be shortened as it was too Suey back then. And Fleecy? Well…it hadn't even been mentioned how she got it in the last chapter but if you missed it in this one…I would be quite worried.
Elvish Fairy: Thankyou for enjoying the story so far…and may you continue to enjoy it in time to come. And yes, I had my first ever Thanksgiving with some American friends as I am an Auzzie living in Holland…so it's a totally non-practiced tradition in both countries. Thought the cranberry sauce was raspberry jello…I don't like cranberries now.