Chapter Two: Lavender's Revenge

Harry woke up, reluctantly, to the noise of his roommates getting ready for classes. He blinked a couple of times thinking why everything still looked blurry. He then remembered why and felt for his glasses. Looking around, he saw he was not the only one still in bed. Ron Weasley was just waking up, scratching his messy head (which could easily rival Harry's at the moment) and yawning loudly.

'S'time?' he mumbled.

'Time for us to be up, we got exactly fifteen minutes till class,' Dean informed him.

'Fifteen minutes! But that means we haven't much time for brekkie. And it's pancakes today!' he moaned, 'Why didn't anyone wake me up?'

At this Dean began snickering and even Neville could not seem to control his laughter as he said, 'We tried to but you kept telling us to leave you and Hermione alone.'

'Oh, right,' was all Ron could say as his ears turned red.

After, ten minutes so, Ron and Harry were ready and they descended quickly down the stairs.

'Do you know how long I've been waiting? What were you two doing?' an annoyed looking Hermione asked them as soon she saw them.

Ron automatically clamped a hand over Harry's mouth fairly certain of the answer he would give her.

'Nothing.'

'Well, let's go then. We're going to be late.'

Just then, Harry's eyes fell upon a rather large group surrounding the announcement board. What was strange, was the weird glances the people in that group were giving him.

'What's everyone looking at?'

'Oh that? Um, it's nothing. Come on, let's go,' she urged.

Hermione's suspicious answer and the peculiar behavior of the group just encouraged Harry to go up and find out for himself. He squeezed through the crowd, who were quite willing to let him through anyway, and saw for himself what was catching their attention.

At first, he thought it was just a cartoon. He watched as a stickman with glasses and spiky hair walked down a hallway, bumped purposely into a stick girl, suddenly turn into a monster and tower the frightened looking stick girl. It only took him a few seconds to realize what this was about and his anger did not lessen as he noticed the paragraph above the cartoon. In bold letters it wrote:

Oh look! It's Potter (that rotter)

Scaring some poor little girl

You'd think with fame and glory

And with a well known story

He'd be far nicer to the world

But no, not he

With companions Granger and Weasley

He struts down the Hogwarts' halls

Ranting and raving

Acting like a baby

And showing his lack of balls

But Alas (yes class)

Not even his dear friends are spared

Constantly loyal

But even they recoil

When Potter's true face is bared

Watch his anger grow (seeing Cho)

Move on to the next bloke

He'll become the green monster

As she kisses Conner

And believe me this is no joke

So when you hear someone being nasty or rude

Be certain it's him (looking horribly grim)

Potter, the mean old scrooge

Harry was positively boiling with anger. He was going to get whoever wrote this rubbish.

'Who'd you think did this?' he heard Ron ask.

Fortunately, Harry did not have to say anything as his answer came walking down the stairs of the Girl's Dormitory.

Parvati walked the stairs, struggling to tie her thick her in a pony tail. She had only woken up a little while back and was truly annoyed with Lavender. The blonde had woken up way before and left her stuff scattered around the floor causing Parvati to trip repeatedly around the room while she tried to get ready.

Where is she anyway, she thought to herself. They usually went to breakfast and everywhere else together. Parvati was not surprised that Lavender woke up early because she was always the alarm clock for the two but it hurt when she had whizzed off without even waking her up. Her thoughts were interrupted when a loud voice boomed around the common room.

'YOU!' it simply said.

At first, Parvati, like everyone else looked around confusedly but when she saw a certain bespectacled boy pointing in her direction, she knew she was in trouble. But this time, she was not going to take it remembering Lavender's words.

'Yes?' she asked in a cool tone.

'Think it's funny, do you? Writing childish poems and taking the piss out of me? Does your thick brain even understand why I rant and rave? No, I didn't think so. I didn't ask to be famous or to have people constantly staring and pointing at me all the bloody time, especially people like you who have nothing better to do but discuss mindless gossip. I have to admit that after yesterday, I half expected a stupid rumour or two but YOU. You just showed how dense you really are, I really hope you're happy!'

Parvati felt her cheeks burning, like she had been slapped. The whole common room was staring at them, everyone, even Hermione, having forgotten that class had started five minutes back. Whatever ounce of confidence Parvati had had in her body when Harry had first spoken to her, had leaked through the floor during his little speech. Emotions swirled through her; confusion, anger but mostly hurt. All Parvati could think of was to escape the common room as quickly as possible and she was just about to do that when a hand held on to her gently. Parvati felt herself being enveloped in the arms of Seamus Finnegan, Lavender's boyfriend.

'Potter, you've crossed the line there. There you go having a go at some one for no reason. Pav didn't even do all of this. It was…'

'Me,' Parvati heard the dangerously low voice of Lavender say. 'And do you know what Potter? You just proved me right.'

Harry had received detention for a week, and so had most of the other Gryffindors after coming to class late. But that was the last thing on his mind. Once again, he had the Gryffindor house hating him and like last time, he did not blame them. He had been a complete prat. Hermione (and a few others) had told him so before class. He sighed heavily, what was wrong with him? He stared guiltily at the hunched back of Parvati who was being comforted quietly by Lavender. Though Professor McGonagall could see this, she chose to overlook it and continue her class in her usual manner. He started doodling on the corner of his scroll, finding it had to concentrate to the lecture. The only thing he could think about doing was apologizing but would he ever forgive her? Harry doubted it very much.

It was finally lunch time and Harry had tried, with no luck, at least three times to talk to Parvati. Every time he had gone near her, her faithful bodyguards, Lavender and Seamus, had scooted her away. The whole situation was extremely frustrating and Harry could have screamed with exasperation when his friends (especially Hermione) badgered him some more about it.

'For the last time, Hermione, I've tried! They're purposely avoiding me. What can I do about it?' Harry said finally, his voice strained.

'Oh, I know but I just feel so awful for her,' Hermione said tapping her fingers lightly on the table. Then she paused and looked nervously at Harry before looking at Ron and saying, 'You know, Lavender may have been harsh Harry but…but she had a point.'

'Yeah?' Harry asked his eyes narrowing.

'Well it's not as bad she made it mate. It's just you should calm down a bit, you know? We know that with V-Voldemort around, you're a little edgy but being angry about it all the time isn't going to make things better,' Ron said quickly his cheeks turning red as if he half expected Harry to explode again.

Harry tried not to get angry, he really did but they did not know about the prophecy and though they had talked about Sirius a couple of times, his death always brought about all the wrong emotions fueling his anger to the point of no return.

'I'm going outside, wouldn't want to bare my true face!' he said before storming off.