"You know, Ron, you should really pay more attention in Snape's class. That lecture he gave on the nature of toadstools was very worthwhile," said Hermione, as she and Ron walked up the steps and out of the dungeons.
"I don't know, Hermione. What's so interesting about toadstools anyway? All they do is sit there. Besides, Neville and I were having much more fun playing Exploding Snap."
"And you call getting detention fun?" snapped Hermione. "If I didn't know better Ron, I'd say you were…" But what Ron was, he never found out, for Hermione was stopped short as Madame Pomfrey ran past them down the corridor. "Is everything okay, Madame Pomfrey?"
"Everything is fine, children. It's just Mr. Potter, again," yelled Poppy, as she quickly grabbed some towels from a linen closet, and sprinted again for Lupin's office.
"I wonder why she is heading for Lupin's office. Well better go and see if Harry is okay. Hermione?" said Ron, taking off after Poppy.
"Right behind ya, Carrot Top!" yelled Hermione, after Ron.
Running into Lupin's office, they saw Harry sprawled out on the floor with Professor McGonagall gingerly mopping his forehead with a wet rag while Madame Pomfrey looked on. Lupin looked genuinely concerned with something as he worked at his desk. As soon as she spotted them, McGonagall handed the rag to Madame Pomfrey and beckoned Ron and Hermione to come sit on Lupin's yellow sofa.
"Sit down you two. I just gave Harry some very hard news, probably the hardest news he has ever had to absorb, poor little one. And I will now tell the two of you that I am Harry's biological mother. That is all that you need to know for the time being and I will forbid any asking of questions, for now I need to be with my son.
In the Common Room later on…..
"Oh, my gosh. McGonagall is a mother and Harry's to boot! I wouldn't have just passed out. I probably would have died."
"It's nothing to joke about, Ronald! I feel so sorry for him. First, he thought his parents were dead and now he finds out his mum has been alive all this time. But, who's the father?"
"Snape?" asked Ron, innocently. Hermione coughed and bent forward over the couch. "Sick, Hermione?"
As soon as Hermione was done trying to push her dinner up and not succeeding, she said "Think, who looks like Harry. He obviously inherited McGonagall's black hair, but her eyes are nowhere near her stern gaze. Well, not most of the time anyway."
"Well, Snape has black hair, but you said McGonagall gave him that. (Do you obviously believe everything I say, thought Hermione). As for the eyes, I dunno. Dumbledore's are blue, but Harry's don't twinkle. Moody couldn't be it, because he has a glass eye. Sirius and Remus are too young and they would probably be in Azkaban for knocking up a teacher anyway."
"Honestly, Ronald. Moody did have real eyes at one time. I just wonder if there is an old Hogwarts yearbook or something around here that we can look through."
"Well why don't you just look in Hogwarts, A History?" asked Ron, innocently.
"No, I've already checked there. I've had the book the entire year," said Hermione half-heartedly. "I guess it's time to go back to the library."
Walking to the library at night was never fun especially when they knew that the one thing they were looking for might not be in there and their trip could be worthless. Both of them under Harry's invisibility cloak, Hermione and Ron crept in the library's restricted section.
"You know, Mione," said Ron, taking the cloak off of them so they could search for the yearbooks, "Harry is going to kill us when he finds out we swiped his cloak."
"He'll get over it. Besides I think I found something." Hermione uncovered a dark purple book emblazoned with a gold H. As she began flipping through it, Ron heard her muttering half-hazardly to herself about school photos and how fat the camera made people looked. When she got to the signatures part, she let out a half-muffled scream.
"Oh my gosh! Oh this is sick! Poor Harry! Poor Harry!"
