CHAPTER NINE:  PROMISES AND COVER-UP'S

        "Harry!"

        Harry looked up through the crowds of students shoving their way through the halls in an attempt to get to class, and spotted Oliver Wood making his way towards him.

        "Hey, Oliver," Harry greeted him.

        "Do you have class now?"

        Harry sighed.  "Yeah, potions,"

        Oliver grinned.  "I definitely don't miss that great git Snape at all."

        "How's flying lessons going?"

        Wood gave a slight shrug.  "I don't see them being Quidditch players anytime soon, but they'll learn."

        "How long do you think you'll be on the injured reserve for Puddlemere?"

        "Dunno," he said, scratching his head.  "The doctors figure it'll be another couple of months before I could even think about practicing with the team.  But what do medwizards know anyways?"

        Harry noticed how the hallway had emptied considerably since his conversation with Wood had started.  He groaned inwardly.  It would be the second time that week he was late for potions.  Snape would not be pleased to say the least.

"I heard you've started up practices already," Wood said admiringly.

        "We're all a bit a rusty so I thought it was a good idea."

        "And you all used to call me crazy for practicing a month before the season started," Wood said in a reminiscent tone.

        "Yeah, well, you were a bit crazy, Oliver."

        "You have to be to play Quidditch," Wood told him.  "Listen, I've got a class to teach, but I'd like to come watch the next Gryffindor practice – maybe even offer your team some pointers."

        "Come by the pitch tomorrow night around six, we'll be there."

        Wood nodded, smiling.  "Great, I'll see you then."

        He gave Harry a slap on the shoulder before taking off in the opposite direction.

        Harry didn't know why he was running to get to class.  Whether he was two minutes late or ten, it made no different to Snape – especially if it was him.

        He raced down the stone steps to the dungeons, finding the classroom door already shut.  Gritting his teeth, he opened it and walked in.  It was bad enough that all eyes turned to face him, but then he had Snape advancing on him.

        "Potter, how many times have I told you tardiness will not be tolerated in my class?"  The Potions Master snapped at him.  "But I suppose if it didn't sink in the first hundred times I told you, I'm just wasting my breath."

        "Sorry, Professor," he said in his best, fake apologetic voice.

        "Take a seat, boy and ten points from Gryffindor for your second late this week."

        Harry hurried to take his seat at the back of the class where Ron and Hermione already had a cauldron set up.

        Malfoy didn't miss the opportunity to leer in his direction as he walked passed, but Harry ignored him.  He did not need any more points taken off by Snape.

        "It's probably not a good idea to piss Snape off this early in the semester," Ron said to him in a low voice as Harry took a seat beside him.

        "I was talking to Wood, he's going to come watch practice tomorrow.  Maybe offer his advice."

        "We're working on sedative potions," Hermione's voice broke in, mildly annoyed.

        Harry, taking the hint, dropped all Quidditch talk and removed his Potions text from his bag.  If he had a hope in hell of passing his NEWTS for this class, he was going to have to work extra hard this year.

        "Hey Weasley," came the drawling voice of Draco Malfoy, "what happened to your girlfriend?  She actually looks somewhat decent now – for a half-breed."

        The vial of bat eyes Ron had been holding slipped from his hand, shattering into tiny, jagged pieces on their table.  Snape looked over at them in mild irritation at the disturbance.

        "Are you deaf as well as poor?" 

        Harry looked to Ron, ready to restrain him if it came to that.  It was the worst possible place to pick a fight with Malfoy with the Head of Slytherin house standing only a few feet away.  Ron's face was a mask, but he was staring down at his notes so hard, he looked like he was trying to see right through them. 

        "I have to say, Granger has pretty nice legs for a mudblood."

        Ron slammed his textbook shut so hard there was a resonating echo in the class.

        "Weasley!" Snape shouted at him.  "What are you doing besides wasting time?"

        Ron grumbled some response and went back to adding ingredients to the cauldron before Snape could take any points off.

        Harry could see Ron and Hermione exchanging looks, and there seemed to be some unspoken communication going on between them.  He couldn't believe Ron's restraint.  Harry, himself was ready to pound Malfoy into tomorrow, but Hermione silently shook her head, telling him Malfoy wasn't worth a semester of detentions with Snape. 

        For a good portion of the lesson, whenever Snape was on the other side of the room, Malfoy would continue to taunt Ron.  But his insults died down near the end when he realized he wasn't getting the response out of the Gryffindor that he would have liked.  Harry admired Ron's restraint.  He had never seen him keep such a cool head before, though he could see how much it was killing him to say nothing.

        When class was over, Ron was one of the first people out.  Harry had to hurry to catch up with him.

        "Hey, what happened in there?"  Harry said to him.

        "What do you mean?"  Ron asked as they walked.

        "How did you keep cool like that?  Malfoy's said less insulting things in the past and you've been ready to jump him."

        Ron sighed.  He glanced around to make sure no one was listening, before saying in a low voice,  "I made a promise."

        "A promise?"  Harry echoed.

        Ron indicated his head towards Hermione as she passed them.  She gave Ron a timid smile before continuing on.  "I promised her that I wouldn't let Malfoy draw me into another fight."

        So that's what all the looks between Ron and Hermione had been about during class.  "Are you sure you can keep it?"

        "I know we're not on the best of terms right now but I made her a promise.  And I plan on keeping it."

        Harry marveled at his friend's maturity.  It looked as though Ron had done a lot more growing up over the summer then he had given him credit for.

        The Gryffindor team had greatly improved its play since the last practice, Harry was happy to note.  They were starting to come together as the team they had been last year.  Harry had originally worried that Ron's suppressed anger at Malfoy would rear its ugly head at practice, but so far it hadn't.  Wood sat in the stands the whole time watching them.  Halfway through practice, Harry had looked down from his spot high in the air and saw Ginny sitting beside Oliver in the stands.  He found it rather unusual that she would come without Hermione. 

        When Harry had called the practice after a grueling two hours, he was barely on the ground before Wood was patting him on the back.

        "Nice job, Harry.  It's nice to know I left Gryffindor in such capable hands."

        "Thanks," Harry said, accepting the professional Quidditch player's praise gratefully.

        "You've got a lot of talent to work with.  Now, if the Chaser's work on their timing a bit, you would score a lot more points…"

        Harry found himself only half-listening to Wood's words.  He knew he should be taking any pointers he could get, but Ginny was standing right there with him and he wanted to ask her something before they got back inside.

        The team had already started back to the castle as Wood rattled on to Harry.  Harry didn't miss the suspicious look Ron gave Ginny as she stayed behind to listen to their Quidditch talk.

        "I'll try that next practice," Harry said, when Wood paused between thoughts.  "There's still time to improve.  The season doesn't start for another month."

        Wood nodded.  "I'll see catch you later, Harry.  Good practice again."

        He started back to the school, leaving Harry and Ginny alone.

        "Good practice, Captain," Ginny congratulated as they started walking back, just the two of them.

        "I didn't know you were coming."

        She smiled sheepishly.  "There's only so much history of magic homework a person can do."

        "There's a Hogsmeade trip next weekend," he brought up suddenly.

        Ginny looked a bit surprised at the abrupt change of topic.  "Are you going?"

        "I'm going with Ron and Hermione, but I figured that if you were going too you should just come with us.  That is if you're going."  He said it all so fast he sounded like a babbling idiot.  Where was his Gryffindor confidence at the moment when he needed it most?

        The first coherent thought that entered Ginny's brain was did Harry Potter just ask her on a date?  She immediately banished the idea.  It was best not to let herself fall down that path again.  Besides, he had asked her several times last year to come to Hogsmeade with them.  But somehow it felt different this time.  Maybe it was because he sounded so nervous.  He had never acted that way any of the other times.

        "Sure, I'll come with you guys.  I don't think I have anything else planned."

        She thought he looked disappointed when she said the last part, but as soon as it flashed in his eyes it was gone, so she could not be sure.  She knew then she needed to stop reading into something that wasn't there.  She had decided to give up her crush on Harry last year.  It had been the only way for her to a form a friendship with him, and she did not want to start falling back on those feelings now.  But old habits die hard, she thought, remembering the muggle saying her father had told her once.

        As abruptly as it had been brought up, the subject of Hogsmeade was dropped, surprisingly replaced by the topic of Quidditch.  Harry began explaining to her the team Wood played on and why he had taken the temporary position at Hogwarts.  To her surprise, she found herself enjoying it.  Perhaps it was because he wasn't a fanatic about the sport like Ron.  Harry was passionate about it, but he knew there were other things in life besides Quidditch.  Like the Hogsmeade trip next weekend, for example.  Try as she might, she couldn't help herself from looking forward to it.

"It must be obvious by now those of you which will never possess the inner eye as a true Seer would, and those of you which are destined to do great things with your powers…"

        While Professor Trelawney drowned on and on about the majority of the class not living up her expectations, Harry did his best to look up every once in awhile and fake interest in what she was saying.  The rest of the time he was looking down at the letter hidden on his lap that he had received from Sirius.

        While Harry had been hoping that it would just be one of Sirius' usual letters wanting to know how he was doing, the tone throughout it had been rather grim.  If he had known that he would have opened it at breakfast, but he had too busy rushing through the last of his Divination homework to bother with it until now.  It said:

        Harry,

Hope you're doing all right.  Moony tells me he's been working the seventh years pretty hard.  I told him to relax a bit and remember what our seventh year was like.

 I didn't want to write you about this, but I think you should know what's going on so you can keep a head's up.  Over the past week there have been several attacks at different locations here in England.  No muggles were involved, thankfully.  Ministry authorities confirmed it to be the work of Death Eaters.  The dark mark was left on the skin of each of the victims.  As of yet, the ministry hasn't been able to find any connection between the attacks.  A few of the victims came from muggle heritage, but others have wizarding blood going back centuries. The theory going around is that You-Know-Who wants to get rid of anyone that didn't worship him during his first reign of power.   Naturally, the ministry is doing its best to cover up the attacks, not wanting to start a countrywide panic that the Dark Lord is on the move.  So far they've been able to keep it out of the Prophet but who knows how long that will last with all the reporters nosing around the crime scenes.

        Sorry to just end this here but the ministry has asked me to do some investigative work for them since they are severely overworked and understaffed in recent weeks.  Take care of yourself, Harry, and I'll be in touch with you soon.

        Sirius

        The one piece of news that stuck out in Harry's mind was the ministry was actually trying use a cover story to keep the press from knowing what was going on.  When something eventually leaked out, there would be a scandal at the ministry.  People would demand to know why they had kept news of attacks from them.  Harry didn't blame them.  He could understand the ministry not wanting to cause a panic, but people had a right to know what was going on right under their noses.

        Harry handed Ron the letter under the table for him to read. 

        Harry watched as Ron shook his head while he read the letter.  "Dad must be exhausted with all this," he said in a low voice so as not to be heard by anyone except Harry.  "Jesus, Harry, this isn't good news."

        "I know," Harry said, taking the letter back from him.  He stared down at it, frowning.

        "Stop it."

        "What?"  Harry said, looking up and seeing Ron's expression.

        "I know that look Harry, and whatever idea you're forming in that brain of yours, forget it.  You'd be an idiot to leave here.  Hogwarts won't be any safer with you gone.  You heard Sirius, even the families with long lines of wizarding blood are being attacked." 

        "I wasn't planning anything," Harry insisted.

        "But you were considering it,"

        "Maybe the thought had crossed my mind – "

        "Well, get it out of there.  Because the only thing that would come from you leaving is the rest of the school being left alone to fight your battle for you.  Do you think that for a second You-Know-Who would decide not to attack the school just because you've upped and left?"

        Harry fought down the urge to shiver.  Ron had called it his battle.  No one had ever worded it like that before.  On some level he had always known it was his fight and his fight alone, but hearing Ron say it out loud struck something within him.  It might be his battle but he wasn't the only one fighting it.  He couldn't abandon any of them, no matter what happened. 

        "I'm not going anywhere," Harry assured him.

        "Good," said Ron, giving a nod of satisfaction.  "Glad to see I finally got through that bloody thick head of yours,"

        Harry had a comeback in mind, but Trewlany had begun giving them their homework assignment, and he figured he should probably listen even if he wouldn't understand the point of what she wanted him to do. 

        Five minutes later, they had the homework copied down (discuss how planetary shifts affect mood changes as shown on pages 105 to 112 of your text), they were exiting the perfume scented tower and on their way down to Professor Lupin's classroom.

        They ran into Hermione half way there, coming back from her Ancient Runes class.  She and Ron were actually having a normal voice, blame-free conversation while they walked to class.  Though the two of them seemed to be on better terms in recent days, Harry had a feeling the rows that had resulted following the Modern Teen Witch incident were far from water under the bridge.

        The trio went to take their usually spots near the front when they heard someone say, "Hermione, come sit over here!"

        Harry and Ron both looked puzzled when they found the source of the voice was Lavender.  Hermione gave them both a quick, apologetic look before sitting two aisles back at the end of a row with Lavender and Pavarti.

        "I must be losing my mind," Ron said to Harry in disbelief.  "She didn't actually ditch us to sit with the gossip queens, did she?"

        "Then I must be losing my mind too," Harry said, taking a seat.  "Because I'm seeing the same thing."

        "You know," Ron began, taking out his Dark Arts books, dropping each one on to the desk with more force then was necessary, "I thought once I started being nice to Malfoy things would get better and she would go back to being the old Hermione.  I mean, she couldn't stand sharing a room with those two for four years and now she sits with them at class and sometimes at meal times.  I don't get her sometimes," he grumbled, shaking his head.  "Scratch that, I never get her."

        "I think it's a girl thing," said Harry.  "At least that's what I understood from what Ginny was telling me."

        Ron cursed under his breath.  Why all of the sudden had she decided she wanted to become all girlie?

        "Good morning," Lupin said, walking into the class then.  He placed his tattered briefcase on the desk and pulled out some notes from inside it.  "Before we begin any fighting techniques with medieval weapons, I have some notes I'd like you to copy down and read over before next class.

        While Lupin began writing away on the blackboard, everyone took out their quills and silently began copying the note down.

        "Speaking of my sister," Ron said, while they wrote, "I heard she's coming with us to Hogsmeade."

        Harry's hand slipped, leaving a long, black smudge on his page.  "She's come with us before."

        "You could have told me you asked her."

        "I've asked her before.  Besides, I didn't think it was a big deal."

        "If it wasn't a big deal why didn't you say anything?"

        "Look, Ron if you have a problem with it – "

        "I don't," he cut in.  "Just forget I even brought it up.  She's coming and that's fine."

        Harry didn't understand his attitude.  It was like he had said, Ginny had come with them before, and Ron had never made a big deal out of it until now.  Ron had no reason to be suspicious of his motives just because he had asked his little sister to join them.  Was it his over protective brother instincts kicking in or did he simply not want her tagging along?

        They didn't talk much the rest of the class.  They had too many notes to copy that talking became a distraction that caused them to fall behind. 

        An hour later, Lupin dismissed them – all except for Harry.  Lupin asked if he wouldn't mind staying behind for a moment.

        Harry was at his desk, waiting for the last of the students to file out before his Professor spoke.

        "I guess I would be correct in assuming Sirius has been in touch with you?"

        Harry nodded.  "I got a letter from him this morning."

        "And you would like to know why I haven't told the class about the attacks,"

        "You went on the first day about wanting to be honest with us, and I just found out today that there have been attacks all week."

        Harry didn't mean to sound angry or upset, but he was.  That's why he found it difficult to keep the accusing tone out of his voice.  He thought that of all people Lupin would be the most honest with them.

"I wanted to tell them, Harry, believe me I did, but Dumbledore wants to speak with all Hogwarts professors before revealing anything to the students.  There's a staff meeting tonight to discuss how each grade should be told, and how – impossible as it may seem – to prevent panic from rising throughout the school.  By tomorrow night, every one will know about the attacks."

"What about the ministry?  Sirius said their trying to cover it up.  If they find out Dumbledore told us what really happened – "

"Don't you worry about Dumbledore, Harry.  He's had a lot of experience dealing with this sort of thing.  I'm sure he has already spoken with Corneilus Fudge and told him of his plans.  Fudge must realize the ministry will be a lot better off if people find out the truth now.  The public tends to be a lot less forgiving when they've been lied to for months.  People are irrational that way," Lupin said, smiling.

Harry wished he could make light of the situation like Lupin had just done, but he couldn't.  Maybe it was a trick one didn't learn until they became an adult.  He hoped he lived that long to find out.