And voila, here it is. Mysecond update on this story is now officially done. More to come soon, hopefully:)
tawnyfawn: Thank you for reviewing! You'll have to wait and see...
emgurl: lol thanks for reviewing!
JayC-WCHS: Hope this wasn't too long a wait, although the story is far from over. Well, not that far, but you get the point.
kitties-rule: I'm glad I have you intrigued! Keep reading and you'll find out if your suspicions are confirmed :)
Cesca Marie:Geez, you made me blush! Thank you very much! Keep reading (and reviewing):)
FairyPrincess: Well, everyone's got their own convictions... But I'd like to thank you for not flaming, beacause there are so many people who are not tolerant on other ships' stories... Anywho, thanks for reading and reviewing! Make sure you keep doing it:)
browneyedgoddess: Here you are, another chapter for your consolation! Hope you like it!
The Gryffindor Drummer: You are suspicious, yet you don't know what's going on... Are you right? Are you wrong? Who knows? (I do, hehehe) Keep coming and you'll find out :)
Tammy Tamborine: lol, wait and see, wait and see... Thanks for reviewing!
Now, on to the second chapter! Enjoy!
"Are you done yet?" asked Hermione, sighing.
Ron shoved one more slice of pumpkin pie onto his plate. "Just one more. I promise."
Hermione chuckled. "Ron, I'm sorry to announce that you've officialy crossed the line between eating like a little beast and devouring like a dragon." she said, slightly amused to see her best friend sweeping his plate clean in less than a heartbeat.
"Aaaah… now that's better…" he said, relaxing after his eighth slice of pie, massaging his stomach in a lazy way.
Hermione snickered.
"What's so funny?" Ron asked, not really caring at all about the answer.
"Nothing" she answered. "It's just that you seem like you're preparing yourself to hibernate all through the next two or three years."
He just shrugged. "A man needs to eat."
"Alright, let's get going. We still have work to do" Hermione said, getting up from her place at the Gryffindor table.
"You mean, I still have work to do, while you just knit scarves…" he replied bitterly, having a little trouble getting up straight.
Hermione chose to ignore his comment.
They went upstairs towards the Gryffindor Tower, Hermione jogging lightly and Ron crawling as best as he could with almost a week's worth of food inside his stomach.
Halfway up the steps they saw Hannah Abbot coming the opposite direction, down the stairs from the Tower.
"Hi, Hannah" Ron said casually, crawling another step.
Hannah didn't seem to have noticed them before Ron spoke and, startled, she jumped in surprise and almost fell down the remaining steps towards the Great Hall. Fortunately, Hermione caught her by her cloak before any harm was done.
"Thank you" Hannah said. She was panting, her hair was a bit messy and her cheeks were very red. If it was from recent intensive physical activity or from being suddenly too close to falling down the staircase and paying Madam Pomfrey a visit with a few broken bones, Hermione didn't know.
"You're welcome" replied Hermione, letting go of Hannah's cloak. "I'm sorry if we scared you."
Hannah mumbled something incoherent while shaking her head and forcing a smile. She ran down the remaining stairs and disappeared towards the Hufflepuff quarters.
Hermione and Ron resumed their climb towards the Gryffindor Tower, but moments later Hermione stopped short.
"What?" asked Ron, seeing Hermione frown. She was thinking.
"Something's not right here" she said.
"There's always something -----"
"Why would she be walking down these stairs?" Hermione frowned even more, not listening to Ron. "They only lead to our Tower."
"Hermione, the stairs are always moving" explained Ron, wondering if she had suddenly suffered from amnesia. Maybe Seamus put something in her drink. He was acting quite odd lately…
Hermione gave him one of her 'Don't-you-think-I-know-that-?' looks. "I know the stairs are always moving, Ron." She resumed her frowning and thinking process. "But at this present time these stairs lead to our Tower, so she could have only descended from there."
Ron rolled his eyes. "So what, if she came down from -----"
"She's a Hufflepuff, Ron" Hermione interrupted, looking at him in a McGonagall kind of way. Honestly, the boy could be so slow at times! She wondered if she'd lose her temper and wack him with a club some day.
Ron had to give her credit this time. "What's a Hufflepuff doing in our Tower?"
Hermione looked up at the ceiling and silently thanked Merlin for Ron's sudden realization. "That's what I'm trying to find out" she said, looking back down at her friend.
"Maybe she got lost?" he wondered.
Hermione didn't seem convinced. "Hmm… I don't think so… I believe she's up to something" she said, biting her lower lip.
"Good lord, Hermione, you think too much." Ron resumed his crawling up the way to the Gryffindor Tower, shaking his head in disapproval for Hermione's overly active mind.
"Raging Penguins" Ron said to the Fat Lady, who swung the portrait open.
He walked inside and stopped short at what his eyes saw. Hermione, who was just two steps behind him, couldn't stop or dodge on time and crashed onto him, almost making them tumble to the ground. Another large noise was heard.
"Ron, why did you -----" Hermione didn't finish her sentence as she too saw what was going on inside the Gryffindor common room.
In front of them, Harry Potter was lying on the ground, scratching his head. A couch was beside him, turned upside down. Around him, most of the common room seemed like a war scenario, with tables, chairs and couches lying against the walls in a rather unfashionable way.
"What in the name of Honeydukes were you doing, mate?" asked Ron, with his mouth agape.
"Uhm…" Harry tried to find an excuse, but didn't need much time to think of one. "I was just exercising my levitation skills…" He tried on an innocent smile.
"Oh, I see…" Ron seemed to ease.
Hermione, on the other hand, didn't look too pleased. "Explain" she demanded in her most authoritary voice.
Ron excused himself from the scene and went as fast as he could without running towards his dorm, all the while mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like "He's fried meat".
Harry got up on his feet and walked towards his girlfriend, who had her arms crossed and a 'I-demand-explanations' look on her face.
"Hermione… I swear, I was just practising my levitation skills" he said, hoping he sounded convincing. Puppy dog eyes. Yes, that's it! Puppy dog eyes and a cute pout! He did his best to look like an abandoned bambi.
"As far as I remember, you've never felt the need to practise them before" she said, fighting hard to keep her cold stare and her angry, commanding voice. Oh, that look! He knows I can't resist it! Must… fight… bambi… eyes… sweet… cute… pouty… lips… beautiful…………
Harry smiled as he witnessed the transformation of Hermione's face from an angry, stern and demanding expression to one of warmth, lazyness and exhaustion. "That's my girl…" He proceeded to kiss her forehead and hold her as she burried her head on his chest, pulling him closer by his waist.
No words were necessary. Well, at least until a group of fourth years entered the common room and stopped short at the sight of the place all turned upside down.
"I'll fix this" Harry said, and proceeded to put the room back to its normal state.
Meanwhile, a small croud had gathered, watching him put the room back as how they remembered it. All of them were eager to know what had happened, but Harry was in no way going to explain everything. Looking at all the anxious faces waiting for a juicy story, he thought of something to tell them. If it included complicated names or chaos and destruction, they'd all buy it.
Unfortunately for him, he chose to speak of total mayhem.
Putting a smile on his face and taking a very natural pose, he spoke up. "Well, it just so happens that the… errr… uhm… the- the Weasley twins decided to pay a visit to our good ol' common room."
Harry slapped himself mentally with a large and smelly trout as soon as he realized what he had just said. Great idea, Potter! Why did you have to mention THE Weasley twins? Great going, genius. Now how are you going to get yourself out of this?
At the mention of the heroes of last year's events everyone bombarded him with questions, all at the same time, turning the quiet common room into a large press conference.
Harry massaged his temples. Everyone talking at the same time asking "How?", "When?", "Why?", "How come?" and things alike made even his nightmares seem like a tranquil walk in the park.
"Okay, everyone, that's enough!" yelled a commanding voice.
All noise immediately ceased to exist. The decibels were now at a tomb's level.
Hermione could have smoke coming out of her ears the way she looked mad. "Things are back to normal! What happened here is none of your business, so go back to your own lives and stop bugging around! And no more questions!"
Her orders were complied at once with no complaints. Everyone knew Hermione meant business and no one was willing to try her limits.
Harry sighed in relief as everyone around him turned back to their own lives, but as he saw Hermione staring at him with a cross expression his relief quickly turned into fear for his own personal safety. Choosing not to try the puppy dog eyes approach again, he put on a serious face as well and stared back.
This seemed to make Hermione's apparent wishes to preech him about his little show to vanish, but she still looked serious.
They gazed at each other for a few seconds, until Harry found the silence unbearable. "Look, I didn't ask for the attention…"
"You should have thought of that before you started making things fly around at this time of night" she replied. "Honestly, Harry, you couldn't have picked a worse time and place to do this."
Harry was about to reply but she spoke up again.
"And I thought you were sleeping."
Harry now looked at her with fear slowly starting to creep in. "I was. I mean, I just got up a while ago and I felt like practising a little. As you very well know, there's still a threat -----"
"You could have gone to another room to practise this. The common room is no place to do it" she interrupted.
Some nearby students dared to glance sideways at the verbal exchange, but as soon as Hermione gave them a look of pure loathing they all decided it was best to go on as if nothing was happening.
Harry shrugged and sighed in defeat. Arguments with Hermione were never won by his side of the fence, and many times the best thing to do was just to prevent the fire from spreading. "Alright, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done this here, at this time." He put his hands up in the air, a visible sign of surrender.
This made Hermione ease a little. She mentioned him to follow her, and both sat on a comfy couch by the fire.
"I don't want you to do this again. McGonagall would kill me if she knew about it" she told him, now in a calm tone. This, more than everything, calmed Harry down.
Taking hold of her hand, he promised her never to do that, ever again.
"Honestly, the Weasley twins?" she said, a smile starting to play across her lips. "Even you could come up with a better excuse." She let her head fall on top of his shoulder and closed her eyes as he snaked his arm aroud her, the Hannah incident long forgotten.
Breakfast the next morning was going as usual.
That is, until Ron brought up an uncomfortable topic of conversation.
"So, Fred and George decided to show up yesterday?" he asked, amused.
Harry shot a dirty look at Hermione, who just shrugged and smiled.
"I had to tell him" she explained.
"It just came out, okay? I didn't mean to say that" Harry said, grabbing his cup for a sip of pumpkin juice.
"Talking about showing up, you know we saw Hannah Abbot yesterday?"
Harry choked on his pumpkin juice, and had to cough for a few seconds to let all the droplets of liquid fall down the right tube.
"You okay, mate?" Ron asked, slapping his friend's back.
Harry took a deep breath. For reasons he knew too well he found it impossible to look Hermione in the eye, so he decided to turn to Ron.
"Hannah, you say?" he asked, trying his best to look as if he had mild, innocent interest in the topic.
"Oh yes, I forgot to mention that yesterday" said Hermione, as if she had been awoken from a long dream. "We saw Hannah Abbot."
Harry tried to hide his nervousness but, to make things worse, his face turned to his girlfriend against his own will, as if responding to a wrong impulse.
He gulped. What if they had found out? No, my plan was perfect! Don't go with their bluff.
"And what's so special about Hannah Abbot?" he asked, trying to make his voice as natural as possible.
At that exact moment Hannah sat down with her fellow Hufflepuffs. As easy as it seemed, though, Harry didn't resist the urge to at least look at her, but quickly shot his eyes back at his girlfriend before she could realize who it was he was looking at. Irony, it seemed, always had a wicked sense of humour and a perfect sense of timing.
"She was walking down the stairs… the ones that connect our Tower to the Great Hall" answered Hermione with the glint in her eyes that meant she was definitely on to something. "It's not usual having a Hufflepuff on our stairs."
"Maybe she got lost?" Harry tried.
"Ron suggested that too." Hermione shook her head slightly, not taking her eyes from her boyfriend. "But I don't think so. She was up to something…"
"Your girlfriend thinks too much, you know? I say she's becoming bloody neurotic" Ron told Harry, shaking his head in disbelief. His remark made Hermione huff at him indignantly. "She sees conspiracy everywhere!"
"Yeah" Harry said, laughing slightly. "What would Hannah Abbot want from me anyway?"
