In Every Darkness
Chapter Eighty Seven
5.2.1997
"How was your meeting with Blaise?" Hermione asked when Harry walked through the portrait hole and into the Gryffindor common room where his friends were waiting for him.
"Fine," Harry replied, "We may have the beginnings of a plan to help her out in Slytherin. I'll tell you about it if it gets any further."
"OK," Hermione replied.
"Where's Ron?"
"Playing chess with Lily over there," Hermione pointed, and Harry found his other two friends in a circle of enthusiastic house-mates, who were all supporting one side or the other, and giving advise, whether it was wanted or not.
"Have they been playing long?"
"This is their third match, they've decided for best of three. They each won one of the other two matches," Hermione replied, smiling faintly. "Ron won the first, narrowly, and then Lily won the second."
Harry nodded. "I might go over and watch. It'll be interesting, watching Ron play against someone who actually stands a chance."
Hermione smiled slightly, "I'll just finish this extra-credit assignment for Professor Flitwick," she said, "and then maybe I'll join you."
"It's not like you need extra credit," Harry pointed out.
"I know, but I liked studying," Hermione replied, "and we've had a two day break from homework, so it's not like I had anything else to do."
Harry smiled slightly and walked away. Hermione had become a lot looser in some respects, but she still loved to study. The one thing that he thought she would retain for the rest of her life.
"Who's winning?" Harry asked as he joined the crowd around his friends.
"At the moment it's a tie," Seamus replied from beside him. "They've lost equal number of players, and neither has gotten into a check mate yet."
Harry looked at chess board, and immediately noted that it didn't seem to have changed amazingly from the original set-up for a game. There were a few pawns, a bishop and queen on the centre field, but that was about it.
"How long have they been playing this game?" He asked.
"Twenty minutes, I guess," Seamus shrugged. "They've each moved maybe five times now. It's Lily's move," he added.
Harry nodded.
A little over an hour later, Lily won the game – they'd ended up with Ron having a king and one castle (or rook), and Lily having her king and a bishop left, and Lily had managed to corner Ron to emerge the victor of the tournament, much to Ron's disgust.
"Well, you won the last time you two played," Hermione pointed out, to try and sooth Ron's injured ego. Chess was one of the few things at which he excelled, and Harry thought it was probably a good thing that he had some competition.
"Good game," Lily said, grinning at Ron. "I haven't met as good a player as you in quite a while – you've actually beaten my in two of three best-of-three matches!"
Ron cheered up a little now, realizing this for the truth. It was OK for Lily to win once in a while, he still held the chess champion's title.
"Finished that extra-credit?" Lily asked Hermione, rolling her eyes at Ron and Harry.
"Yes," Hermione replied, delicately scribing in the last word on a three-feet long parchment. "Just finished."
"What shall we do now? It's not even dark yet," Lily asked.
"Hmm. Well, Harry and Ron, you two could certainly use some extra-credit work in Charms and Transfiguration," Hermione pointed out.
"No!" Ron protested immediately.
"Ron, you've had three days practically free of work, it won't kill you to do something now," Hermione pointed out in exasperation.
Harry was thinking. He was very good at the practical part of Charms now, and fairly good at Transfiguration too, but he was still quite behind on theory, as Sirius usually couldn't be bothered to cover much of it in their dreaming lessons.
"If you will I will," he offered Ron. "You can chose the subject."
Ron sighed, "I suppose you're right," he admitted grudgingly to Hermione. "May as well do some work on Charms … You've already done an essay though, so what are you going to do?"
"Some background reading on the founding of the Ministry of Magic," Hermione replied promptly. "I got interested in it last year – wondering how someone like Fudge got into power."
Harry smiled slightly. "Have fun," he said doubtfully.
"Oh I will!" Hermione assured him. "We only covered it briefly in History of Magic, and it's really quite interesting. Did you know that the Ministry was first founded by Merlin as a means of controlling the rising numbers of wizards turning to the Dark Side? So Aurors are the oldest Ministry sub-division, around which everything else formed!"
"Whatever," Harry smiled slightly. "What about you, Lily?"
"I should probably do some extra-credit Potions work," Lily admitted tiredly. "I'm still not very good at the theory of potions. I get all the practical stuff, it seems second nature when I see the ingredients, but if you just ask me what I need to get something, I just don't know … I totally screwed up on my last test though. I really need to do some extra-credit."
"OK then, we three are doing extra credit work, and Hermione's reading. Let's go," Ron said wearily.
Harry reflected that it was good thing that all of their professors had posted lists of extra-credit assignments they could do to catch up if they fell behind. Hermione, being Hermione, was calmly working her way through all of these, plus all of their class work, so it would come as no surprise when she got the highest in their year, a fact of which there was absolutely no doubt.
"I can't believe that Potter could come up with an answer to my problem in all of ten minutes," Draco remarked as he and Blaise walked down to the dungeons together.
"I don't know. Maybe he was already thinking of something. I told him a little bit about what you were going through before the meeting, because he wanted to know if I thought you were sincere," Blaise replied.
"Then why did he ask to hear it all from me again?"
"Probably to make double sure that you were sincere," Blaise shrugged, "he's a pretty smart guy, Harry. I think he was testing you. You hear about those people who can read lies in peoples eyes, maybe he was doing something like that to you."
"Yeah, maybe," Draco agreed.
They went by way of the entrance hall and Blaise glanced over at the notice board. "Hogsmeade weekend in two weeks," she remarked.
"You going?" Draco asked.
"Yeah," Blaise replied, "I need to buy some supplies, plus a present for a cousins birthday."
"Would you like some company?" Draco asked.
"Depends on who's offering," Blaise smiled back.
"Me," Draco said simply.
"Then company could be nice."
"It's a date then," Draco said with a smile, and Blaise was surprised that her insides were quivering slightly when he said it. She'd gotten over her two year long crush on Draco by the end of third year!
Not trusting her voice to speak, Blaise just nodded.
"Luciusss."
"Yes my lord?"
"You have failed me again," the Dark Lord hissed angrily, baleful red eyes glaring down at his kneeling servant.
"I cannot apologise for that failure enough, my lord," Lucius Malfoy said, knowing that there was no chance of avoiding torture. Hopefully, however, he could escape this experience with his life.
"Yet you failed along with many of my servants, so the failure is not completely your fault, I suppose … still, all who fail must be punished, so … crucio!"
Lucius Mafloy fell to the ground, writhing in agony, his tortured screams music to the dark lords ears. But in some deep, well hidden corner of his brain, Malfoy Senior was glad that he still had his life.
Suddenly the agony disappeared, and Lucius raised his trembling body to his knees, "Thank you my lord, you are merciful," whispered the man.
"I am rarely merciful. But you as yet serve a purpose for me, and therefore I will let you live … for now. You had better hope that your son is more promising than you, Lucius!"
"He will be, my Lord! And will be here to be marked in but a few weeks."
"I hope so Lucius, for your sake, as well as his."
"Yes, my Lord!"
"Get out of my sight!"
Lucius scrambled to obey, stumbling from the chamber on quivering legs.
"How do you like England?" Headmistress McGonagall asked of Neko, as the two women stood, looking out over the serene lake in front of Hogwarts.
"I really like it," Neko said, staring into the still waters, not looking at her companion. "I know I a lot of my companions look forward to returning home to Japan, but I fee like I've just arrived home, here in England."
"Would you consider staying here?" McGonagall enquired, "if you like it here so much?"
"You know, perhaps I will. I know Tatsu would like to have one of his old friends around, and I've missed him. He was the closest thing I had to a brother for many years – when he came back to England last June, I really felt that I'd lost someone," Neko replied. "Harry's a nice kid, and if I stayed here, I'd be living with them, most likely."
"I'm sure they would be happy to have you. If you do decide to stay, I hope you know that you, like Tatsu, will always be welcome here at Hogwarts," Minerva said.
"Thank you," replied Neko, and meant it.
Minerva smiled in return, "You're welcome. I hope that you will make use of the invitation."
"I hope so too," Neko smiled. "I think most of us will be leaving in a couple more days, after we've done the sheilds."
"There are some that I won't be missing at all," Minerva remarked. "That American, Sam, for one."
"We don't much like him either – but we swore that we would train any who had the Modifying talent, and he is one like that. We are bound."
Harry put the last sentences on his charms extra-credit assignment, and then handed it over to Hermione to read through it one last time, make absolutely sure there were no spelling errors or the like.
"Perfect Harry," she told him with a slight smile. "You're done!"
"How about me?" Ron handed over his work, which he had just copied onto a fresh piece of parchment, as Harry had been doing not long before.
Hermione skimmed over it. "Yes, that's done," she said.
"Finally!" Ron threw down his quill and looked at Harry, "Why did I do that?"
"Because you needed the extra marks," replied Hermione sternly. "You've been handing in several of your assignments late, you only got seventy per cent on that last test. This should get your marks up again."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ron replied dully.
"Now how about you do some transfiguration extra-credit?" Hermione suggested, grinning wickedly.
"No way!" was the response from both of her friends.
"Well, why don't we go down to the kitchens and have a midnight snack?" Lily suggested.
"At ten-thirty?" Hermione asked dubiously.
"Why not? We'll probably be asleep by midnight, so we won't be able to then," Lily said practically.
"No," Hermione replied. "It's not fair on the house-elves."
The rest of the group sighed in exasperation. "May as well stay then, I suppose," was the eventual decision they reached – mostly because they didn't want to get a lecture on house elf rights from Hermione.
On the next day, classes went on with the normal dull monotony that was school work, occasionally given flare by performing new spells.
All through the day, something in Harry's head itched, and he knew that it was the Modifiers working with wizards from the Ministry of Magic setting up the new, never seen before warding spells.
Despite the fact that he would lose Neko as a teacher when the Modifiers left, Harry half hoped that the job would be over soon – it was very hard to concentrate in classes, and as Hermione was reminding them far too often, the exams were coming up in just one and a half months time.
He was glad when the school day finished, and he went down to the Great Hall to eat lunch with his friends. During the meal, he made eye contact with Draco and nodded slightly. He wanted to see the Slytherin boy after lunch.
"Well?" Draco asked, as he and Harry met up in an out of the way corridor on third floor, where they had agreed to meet the day before.
"We can help you," Harry replied.
"Who's we?" Draco asked suspiciously.
"Go to Professor Snape's office – he's expecting you," Harry replied.
"Snape!" Draco hissed, "he's a Death Eater!"
"He is that … but he is no longer loyal to that cause. Go and talk to him, he'll help you out."
"…Thanks," Draco said unwilling.
"Don't mention it," Harry shrugged.
"And look, Potter – just because you helped me, and I've changed sides, doesn't make us friends, just to be perfectly clear," Draco warned.
"I know," Harry replied, "My becoming friends with you would be more than Ron could bare anyway – we'd have to send him gibbering to St. Mungo's mental ward. We don't have to like each other, Malfoy – just be able to work together … on the rare occasion."
"I'll be acting the same as I always have," Draco added.
"I know that to. You'd jeapordise your position if you did otherwise," Harry agreed. "I'm fine with keeping going the way we are. I know you don't mean things completely anymore, and besides, we've been acting this way for nearly six years – it'd be weird to stop. Good luck, Malfoy, you're going to need it."
Draco nodded, and watched the Gryffindor boy stride away down the corridor, heading, no doubt, for the library. Then, with a little shake, he turned and walked down towards the dungeons, and the office of one Severus Snape.
That's it for today folks! In the next two weeks I have a grand total of 7 tests (four in Japanese, one in Quadratic Equations, one on the History of Woman and Aboriginal rights and one on Chemistray – yay.) So I don't know what you can look for in the way of updates. On a lighter note, I've just started week 5 of nine, and another two week holiday is rapidly aproaching! Yay! (really this time!)
Thanks:
Wadeva, fcuking cathy, dweem-angel, Surarrin, torifire126, PhoenixPadfoot89, ThunderCN, RoguesHeart, walker-of-the-shadow-path, athenakitty, jbfritz, Nphipps, Dumbledave, HermioneGreen, Carolina06, Charmed88, Laen, Tortie, Wytil, Kelei, Stix-the-Rebel, Y401-F4N, Nicoletta, Nerwen Elendil, Call-me-00Kat, Nerwen Faelvirin, cantfindagoodname, gaul1, pixilax06, Nasser Himura, LunaLovegood61, moonypadfoot, TuxedoMac, texasjeanette, parts-of-a-fish-girl, dnd4ever, MinyLou, NarcolepticSheep, EriEka127, HPBeatles, Hunta, The Lady Reaper of the Shadows, HPBeatles, aschowin, telpesir, MindyLou, uNoeWho, hptotshot3, Maestra, Killersponges, Y401-F4N, jess, jess.
ThunderCN: I'm sorry, but I fail to see your reasoning with Lucius loving Draco – besides, he loves himself more. I'm going from my interpretation of the books, not yours, so please just accept what I'm doing. Lucius is the most important thing to Lucius, and he thinks that maybe his son will do well, which will refelct on him and help him win the Dark Lord's favour back.