It was only when Harry got to Hagrid's doorstep that he reflected that this was probably a really stupid idea.
He couldn't quite get up the nerve to knock. He hadn't really even intended to come here. The small cabin was dark, and what was Harry going to say, once he'd managed to wake Hagrid? He wasn't about to explain what he'd just seen, or why he couldn't possibly sleep in that room tonight...and he certainly wouldn't be able to tell him about the second part of the Prophecy...he wasn't even sure if he knew about the first part.
He considered going back to the common room and setting up camp on one of the sofas, but he knew that Ron, Hermione, Ginny, or possibly all three of them would be sitting up waiting for him to come back. If Hermione didn't hear from him soon, actually, she'd probably go to a teacher, just to protect him.
"Protect me. Nice job of that, Hermione," Harry thought fiercely. He knew in his heart that's why they hadn't told him. He could almost hear Hermione and Ron arguing.
"He's got enough on his mind right now, Ron."
But how had they known it would bother him so much? And why did it bother him so much?
"You knew," said the nasty little voice that was by now quite familiar to Harry, "You knew this would happen. They don't need you anymore. It's you that needs them, and they feel sorry for you. All anybody wants you for is the scar on your head."
"That's not true!" he said, out loud. There was a canine snort and a yawn from inside the cabin. Harry froze – he'd managed to wake Fang up.
There was the click of claws on the wooden floor, and then a whine, and snuffling at the crack in the door. Harry's brow furrowed – Maybe...maybe Hagrid wasn't at home? Yes, come to think of it, if he'd been at home, surely he'd have left a fire going on a night like this, and he'd be snoring.
He walked around to the back door, and reached under the mat for the key, fumbling at the lock with cold fingers. The door swung open, and Fang jumped up and put his paws on his shoulders with a happy whine, panting and drooling.
"Get off!" Harry said, fiercely, pushing Fang away. He already felt as though he'd been slammed in the chest by a ton of bricks. The last thing he needed was reminding of Sirius. Fang whined again, and took a few cautious steps backwards.
"Sorry," Harry said, feeling like a prat, and reaching out to scratch behind his ears. A quick scan of the cabin revealed that Hagrid wasn't, in fact, at home. He wondered vaguely where he was.
"Probably at that Order meeting. Or out 'accelerating plans,' or whatever," he thought mechanically. He replaced the key under the mat, closed the door, and locked it from the inside.
There was a fluttering at the closed window, and Harry saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. Hedwig was trying unsuccessfully to perch on the narrow sill of the window, a piece of parchment in her beak. Harry opened the window to let her in, and she landed on Hagrid's broad oak table, ruffling her feathers and looking up at Harry sternly.
Harry took the letter, which hadn't even been folded. It was scribbled hastily in Hermione's handwriting.
"Harry, I know you're mad – wherever you are, please come back...It's not safe for you to be—"
Harry didn't bother reading the rest of it. So that's all she had to say. "It's not safe for you to be out at night." That's all they cared about – the Boy Who Lived. They'd probably just feel guilty if he got attacked by Death Eaters, or froze to death or something. He glanced around the cabin until he found a quill, and tore a scrap of parchment off the bottom of the letter.
"I'm fine. Go to back to bed," he wrote cruelly, and held out the parchment for Hedwig. She glared at him reproachfully.
"What? What do you want?" Harry asked irritably, "Take it. Ouch!"
Hedwig pecked painfully at his thumb. Apparently Hermione had taken a leaf out of his book, and instructed her to keep pecking at him until he read the letter, or wrote a lengthy reply...maybe even until he went back to the castle.
"Fine!" Harry shouted angrily, "Take it to her, or don't take it to her, I don't care."
He sat in one corner of the massive armchair near the fire, and curled up against the cold, his knees to his chest. Hedwig sat on the oak table for a few more minutes, then hooted reproachfully, and with the soft sound of feathers brushing against wood, took flight through the open window.
Harry shivered. He debated for a moment whether it was worth it to get up and close the window. He was freezing, yes, but he didn't feel like moving, either. And maybe Hedwig would want to come back...on the other hand, if she could get through the window, so could anything or anyone else. Finally, thoughts of security prompted him to cross over to the window and shut it irritably, closing the latch. If Hermione wanted to talk to him, she'd just have to wait until he was damn well ready.
Shivering, Harry wondered briefly whether it would be too rude to stay in Hagrid's bed – after all, it was massive, and the mess of blankets on top of it looked awfully warm. He decided, however, that that would be a bit rude – it was enough that he was already pretty much breaking and entering, and he didn't know when he'd be back from whatever errand he was currently on. He climbed back into the snug corner of the armchair, and settled himself in. Fang whined from the corner of the room.
"Psst...here, boy," Harry said, patting the saggy cushion near his feet. Fang gleefully lollopped over, jumped up onto the armchair, and after turning a few circles, settled down next to Harry, covering his frigid feet with his warm body.
Harry absentmindedly scratched behind Fang's ears some more, his mind wandering back to Sirius again. His eyes stung and watered. He would have given anything to be able to talk to him now. He'd know what to do. He'd probably tell him that he was being silly, and have something funny and warm and comforting to say, and make it seem like it wasn't really that awful after all.
"I'm so selfish," Harry muttered under his breath.
He knew he should just be happy for them – they were his best friends, after all. He'd caused them enough trouble lately, and they deserved to just be happy for once. Besides, there were so many more important things to worry about...
"Don't leave me," said a very small voice inside him, "Everyone always leaves..." The burning in his eyes intensified.
He blinked it away, and gradually drifted off to sleep with thoughts of Sirius, his parents, Ron, and Hermione dancing in his head.
He woke up with an angry crick in his neck, and bright, searing daylight in his eyes. He blinked, and grunted as he tried to move his neck. He suddenly realized that one of Hagrid's blankets was tucked around his neck, and Fang had returned to his own bed in the corner, and was snoring peacefully. Harry sat up, rotating his shoulder painfully against the stiffness, and saw that there were some glowing coals left in the fireplace, and a small black pot hanging on a hook over it, smelling of pumpkins and sausages. There was a note on the table, in Hagrid's untidy scrawl. Harry noted with horror that it was on the back of Hermione's letter, and he wondered if Hagrid had read it.
"Help yorself to soop. Haff to work. You can tell me abowt it later. Just make shure the fires owt before you go."
Harry folded up the parchment and stuck it in his pocket. As kind as Hagrid had been to him, he wasn't sure he could explain this.
After taking Hagrid's advice and helping himself to some pumpkin and sausage soup (which was uncharacteristically delicious), Harry felt warmed and ready enough to slink back to the Gryffindor common room. He wondered vaguely whether he'd missed breakfast, or if he ought to be going to class. With a start, he realized that Hagrid would be teaching Care of Magical Creatures this afternoon, and at that thought, he shoved his feet back into his trainers and pulled his robes back on over his clothes. Fang whimpered in his sleep from the corner, his paws twitching, and Harry quietly snuck out the back door, using the key under the mat to lock up behind himself.
He crossed back over the grounds, and realized by the position of the sun that it actually wasn't that late at all. Breakfast had probably started, but classes surely hadn't begun yet.
"You can't avoid them forever, you know," he told himself mentally, "Eventually you're going to see them again. You're not just going to skive off every class from now until March."
"Until June," Harry muttered aloud, defiantly, "Every class until June."
He realized, with an unsettled feeling, that his scar was not even prickling in the slightest – Voldemort must have been deliberately trying to close his mind to Harry, after realizing what he'd let slip the other night.
Harry took a deep breath and cleared his mind, more for his own benefit than to keep Voldemort at bay.
"You're fine," he told himself, "You've got other things to worry about."
When he reached the portrait hole, the Fat Lady eyed him a bit strangely.
"Well, good morning!"
"Mimbulus Mimbletonia," Harry muttered, a bit embarrassed.
The Fat Lady swung open, still eyeing him with a slight look of reproach – he was sure it was against school rules to stay at Hagrid's, but he didn't much care, and he had a feeling that once Hagrid had found him, nobody else had cared very much either.
"Oh, HARRY!"
There was a flash of red hair, and Ginny's spindly arms were crushing Harry's ribcage. Almost as instantly, she pushed him away from her, and put her hands on her hips, her face assuming a scowl worthy of Mrs. Weasley.
"Where on Earth did you go? Of all the stupid things to do, we stayed up half the night –"
"Sorry," Harry mumbled irritably, "Just...a bit of a shock."
Ginny's expression softened, and as she eyed him sympathetically. It was only now that Harry noticed his entrance had gone relatively unnoticed in the common room. In fact, there was rather a large crowd, laughing and gossiping over by the girl's staircase, which had gone quite smooth...
"Who tried to get up?" Harry asked, looking over Ginny's shoulder, but he was spared an answer by watching Viktor Krum push his way irritably through the laughing second and third years.
"Ah," Harry said, some odd, vengeful satisfaction clicking into place.
Viktor spotted him, and crossed over to Harry.
"Vere is Hermoninny? You know?"
"You won't find her there," Harry said, wryly. For a moment he thought about telling him exactly where she was most likely to be found, when he realized that he didn't really want to punish or embarrass Hermione, or Viktor for that matter...besides, it was none of his business.
"Right," he thought miserably, picturing Ron's closed bed hangings, "None of my business. I'll just leave you to it, then."
"I haff to speak to Hermoninny," Viktor said quietly, as though he were explaining this to a two year old.
"Well, how am I supposed to know where she is?" Harry lied, growing even more irritated, "I'm not her keeper."
Krum leaned in even further, and his voice dropped even quieter.
"I haff instructions from Dumbledorf."
Harry and Ginny's eyebrows both jumped for the ceiling, and Krum seemed to take some satisfaction in knowing something they didn't.
"Well, you're out of luck, then," Ginny said coolly, "Why don't you tell us what they are, and I'll see if I can go find her."
Krum shuffled his feet awkwardly. "They are for Hermoninny."
"HER – MY – OH – KNEE." Harry said, adopting Krum's tone of speaking to a two year old.
Krum straightened up a bit taller, which only made Harry realize that however burly Krum was, Harry still had about a foot on him.
"Vell, these instructions are for Her-my-oh-knee," he said, grumpily, "Not for you."
"Oh for heaven's sake, stop puffing out your chests," Ginny said, rolling her eyes, "Krum, I'm sure you'll find her either at the library or at breakfast by now."
Krum seemed to consider Ginny's words, and then nodded grumpily, and pushed his way through the portrait hole.
"As for you," Ginny said, rounding on Harry.
"Is Ron up there?" he deflected, jerking his head towards the boy's staircase.
"No," Ginny said, "When he didn't find you in bed this morning, he went down to the Great Hall to make sure he wouldn't be here when you came back. He's been sitting there since dawn."
"Trying to avoid me, is he?" Harry asked, glowering.
"Actually," Ginny said, her green eyes flashing dangerously, "He knew that you would want to avoid him, and thought he'd give you a little space. Would you like to know what I think?"
Her fists had wandered to her hips again.
"I think I already know," Harry muttered, quailing a bit under Ginny's glare.
"You were a complete prat last night," Ginny said, and Harry was surprised to hear an emotion other than anger hiding behind her scowl, "We'd no idea where you'd gone off to. I stayed up all night on the common room couch, like an idiot, waiting for you..."
"I did send a note back to Hermione," Harry shuffled guiltily.
"A note?" Ginny shrieked, and several of the second year girls who were still gossiping by the staircase turned to look at her.
"What are you looking at?" she demanded fiercely, and they scurried back up the staircase.
"If you can call six words a note, then yes, we got that," Ginny said, spitting like an angry cat.
Harry studied the laces of his trainers, unable to meet Ginny's eye. He knew he'd made a mess of things. Why couldn't he just be cool about this? Everyone else was fine with it, apparently. Why did he have to be the one to make everyone around him miserable?
"M'sorry," he mumbled sincerely.
"Oh, Harry," Ginny said, in another perfect imitation of Mrs. Weasley, and wrapped her arms around his trunk. For a minute Harry felt embarrassed, as he scanned the common room nervously...who knew who else was watching them? There were a few people studying over at the other end of the room...But then he figured that Ginny obviously didn't care, so why should he? Besides, what was there to be embarrassed about?
He wrapped his arms around her shoulder, and leaned his face slightly against her hair. He sighed deeply, and realized she smelled a bit like Ron – he could smell her wool sweater, and a certain type of soap that they both must use...But there was more to it. Something that smelled a bit like spice and flowers.
"Must be her shampoo," Harry thought, idly, feeling a bit warm about the face and neck, as he realized Ginny was pressed flush up against him.
Suddenly Harry wondered what Fred or George might say if they discovered him smelling Ginny's hair like some kind of lecher.
He broke away from the hug, and to compensate, patted Ginny on the back roughly.
"Thanks, mate," he said firmly.
Ginny's face was a bit red. Hang it all. She'd probably noticed. But she didn't seem too put off...
"Sure," she said, in a strangely high voice.
"I'm sorry I made you worry. I'll be fine. Really," Harry reassured her, "It's just..."
He looked at the ground.
"It's fine, Harry," she said softly, "You're a good friend. Well, most of the time!" she added, poking him sternly in the chest.
Harry nodded, and tried to chuckle, but it felt sort of strangled in his throat. Why was this so painful? Hadn't he just decided to focus on more important things?
"I wonder what those instructions were?" Ginny said, after a moment, obviously trying to change the topic.
"Yeah," Harry said, forcing his brain out of the rut it was in, and on to new fodder, "I suppose I'd better go up and change...and then I'd better get down to breakfast...Dumbledore mentioned that he might send an owl..."
"Take a shower, while you're at it?" Ginny asked, as though asking for a personal favor, "You smell like Fang."
