None of Harry's friends mentioned the prophecy for several days, until Harry himself bought the subject up. He was in the Gryffindor common room with Hermione, Ginny and Neville. Ron had gone to the owlery to send a letter to Fred and George. Ginny was practicing vanishing spells, Hermione was working on a rune translation, Harry and Neville were writing an essay for professor Sprout. Neville, who was very good at Herbology, had written several feet, but Harry had only written a few sentences.
"Harry, are you all right?" asked Hermione.
"Yeah I'm fine" said Harry "I was just thinking about..." he lowered his voice "about the prophecy"
Before Hermione, Ginny or Neville could say anything, Katie Bell marched over to them.
"Ginny, Quidditch practice in ten minutes!" she said sharply before striding off.
"I wish I was still playing" said Harry more to himself than anyone else.
"You can have my place" said Ginny half jokingly. "Katie's becoming a fanatic"
"I'm sure she's not that bad" said Hermione just as Katie shouted across the common room, "Ginny, hurry up!"
"She is" whispered Katie "She's worse than Angelina"
"How much worse?" asked Harry. He had often been on the receiving end of Angelina Johnson's temper last year.
"Put it this way" said Ginny quietly "Half the team reckons that Katie's had lessons from Angelina in how to be obsessed with Quidditch or something. Well I'd better get going."
Ginny ran up the girl's staircase for her broomstick. Harry didn't feel like working anymore so he decided to go for a walk around the lake, and for once Hermione didn't try to stop him.
The next morning at breakfast Hedwig dropped an envelope in front of Harry.
"Harry, what's that?" asked Ron.
"Oh that it's..." now that Rowling had replied writing to her seemed a rather stupid thing to do. "It's er. Well I wrote to J.K Rowling to ask her if I'll live long enough to finish school" said Harry.
He opened the envelope and pulled out the very same letter that he had written to Rowling with one sentence written beneath it.
Do you really think I am going to tell you that?
"Harry, I could have told you that J.K Rowling wouldn't have answered your question" said Hermione in a know-it-all sort of voice.
"How would you know if she'd tell him or not?" asked Ron.
"Because J.K Rowling sometimes does online chats..." began Hermione.
"What?" asked Ron
Harry and Hermione explained how online chats worked.
"And obviously Rowling isn't going to say if Harry lives or dies because that's a very big part of the plot" Hermione explained.
"Oh er yeah" said Ron "You'd better hope my dad doesn't hear about that chat room stuff, Hermione. He'd be asking the Muggles how paperclips work and stuff like that."
Harry stuffed the letter back into his pocket before stalking off to his first lesson. "Stupid Rowling" he thought angrily "putting me in this stupid book and then not even telling me anything"
Ron and Hermione left Harry alone until morning break. It was unusually sunny so he thought he'd take a stroll in the grounds by himself but Ron and Hermione caught up with him.
"Harry, I don't think you're going to die" said Hermione.
"Why not?" asked Harry without looking at her.
"Because in case you hadn't noticed, Harry, you are the main character. All the books have your name on them. And if it's you or Voldemort that has to die, it makes more sense that it's Voldemort. The books are about you, Harry, not him. And besides these are children's books. Do you think anyone in their right mind would kill the hero in a children's book?"
The last Saturday in January found Ron pacing around the boy's dormitory looking very nervous.
"Just relax, mate" said Harry "It's Hermione, not a stranger. And you're only going to Hogsmeade. Not like it's a ball or anything, and you won't have to dance with her or anything?"
"But what if she starts talking about spew?" said Ron.
"I dunno" said Harry "talk about Quidditch?"
"Then she'll start going on about how all the houses should be friends" said Ron.
"You'll find something you can both talk about" said Harry "at least Hermione won't want to talk about her dead boyfriend."
"Yeah I s'pose" said Ron half heartedly "let's go then."
Harry and Ron went downstairs to the Great Hall. Hermione was already there reading the Daily Prophet.
"Good morning" she said in a voice slightly higher than usual as Harry and Ron sat down opposite her.
Harry noticed that neither Ron nor Hermione ate or spoke much during breakfast. He finished his cornflakes and joined the long line of students waiting to have their names checked by Filch. Most of them were making plans to meet friends in The Three Broomsticks or daring each other to break into the Shrieking Shack. Harry spotted Neville and Seamus standing just behind Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls. He went and stood in line with them.
"Hi, Harry" said Neville.
"Hi, Neville. Hi Seamus" said Harry "Where's Dean?" Dean Thomas was Seamus' best friend so Harry thought it was odd that he wasn't there.
"With Ginny" said Seamus in a low voice so Pansy couldn't hear. "Where's Ron?"
"With Hermione" said Harry in an even quieter voice, remembering how Pansy had reacted when she saw him going to Hogsmeade with Cho Chang last year. Harry and Seamus turned away from each other to hide their laughter.
Harry, Neville and Seamus went to Honeydukes sweet shop where they stocked up on Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Sugar Quills, Fizzing Whizbees and Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, although Harry noticed that Neville did not take any gum. Seamus bought himself some new quills from Scrivenshafts. They went into Zonko's joke shop which was not as busy as it normally was when Hogwarts students visited the village. Harry suspected this was because of the competition the Weasley twins were providing.
"We could go and have a look at the Shrieking Shack" suggested Seamus.
"Oh OK" said Harry not really feeling like it.
"Do you reckon anyone's ever got in there?" asked Neville.
"Probably not" lied Harry "Ron told me that Fred and George tried, and if they couldn't get in, I don't think anyone could"
Harry, of course, knew perfectly well how to get into the Shrieking Shack, but he wasn't about to share this information with anyone else. Perhaps it was because he had not seen the Shrieking shack for several months but for some reason something about it did not look the same to Harry.
Harry met Ron and Hermione at The Three Broomsticks at lunchtime. They both looked much more relaxed than they did at breakfast. The pub was very busy.
"I'll get us some drinks" said Harry "You see if you can find a table"
Harry paid for three mugs of hot Butterbeer and joined Ron and Hermione at a small table in the back corner.
"Thanks mate" said Ron.
Harry, Ron and Hermione spent the afternoon swapping Chocolate Frog cards and drinking their Butterbeers before heading back to school.
"We've got a bit of time before dinner" said Hermione "I need to go to the library"
Harry and Ron decided to join her. They headed for an empty table. Ron got their first.
"Someone's left their book" he said holding up a copy of The Standard Book of Spells; Grade One. It had pictures of cartoon characters pasted on the cover.
"Well it has to belong to a first year" said Hermione "See if there's a name on it"
Ron opened the book.
"Yeah here" he said "Adam Prince, Hufflepuff"
"Well we can give it to him at dinner said Hermione. "I just need to look something up for Arithmancy"
Ten minutes later Harry, Ron and Hermione headed downstairs for dinner. They stopped at the Hufflepuff table.
"Excuse me" said Hermione to a first year girl "we're looking for Adam Prince, we found his book in the library"
"That's him" said the girl pointing to a tall boy with light brown hair sitting about halfway along the table"
Harry, Ron and Hermione went to give Adam his book.
"Thanks" he said taking it.
"No problem" said Harry, but Ron was looking at the cartoon characters pasted on the cover.
"These are from television, right?" he asked.
"Yeah" said Adam.
"Oh are you Muggle born then?" asked Ron.
"Half Blood" said Adam.