Seeing the Past, Present, and Future
Which Weasley
Harry stared blankly at the sheet of paper. Had Sullivan simply known them as friends or was it something more sinister that Harry wouldn't allow his mind drift to? "A" was the single letter marking that column and, looking at the five numbers in front of Painsthorpe, he realized it stood for address. There were three other columns and each one held a few numbers—the first 4-10, the second 22:30, and the fourth (the Address was the third column) simply said "2." Harry frowned at the numbers. Was the second one a ratio?
His mind struggled back to a stuffy muggle classroom where his 5th grade teacher had written the word "ratio" on the word and was asking for a definition. There were…three ways to express a ratio, he mouthed to himself. As a fraction, using the word "to" or…yes, a colon. So it could be a ratio. Or a time, he thought to himself, wondering why his mind hadn't thought of that first. 22:30, so that'd be 10:30 at night if it was a time. He looked at the acronym labeling the column. TOA. Harry noted its similarity to the first acronym, DOA. The third acronym, well it hardly counted as an acronym, more a letter, was A but he had already figured that one out, Address. The fourth column, the one with just a single number, was labeled NOEP.
Harry looked at the next row and saw that in the column labeled NOEP there was a question mark with a number 4 in parenthesis. The number in the first column was 31-10 and the time in the second column was 23:30, 11:30 at night.
Harry moved his attention to the first column and frowned slightly, concentrating. 31-10, 31-10. And then it struck him was such forcefulness he was surprised he didn't fall over. 31-10, the 31st of October. So it was a date; the D probably stood for Date and the O for of, or another word if "of" was not normally represented in acronyms. And that meant, in the next column, the T must stand for Time! Time of…something. He didn't know what the A stood for in either one, but he didn't really care. Harry glanced at the last column. NOEP and a single number in almost every row…he had no idea what that could stand for. The messy-haired boy stretched. "Well, at least I got some stuff," he quietly spoke to himself, returning the sheet to its hiding place in the invisibility cloak before deciding to join his friends.
A few days had passed and school had resumed with the teachers not relenting on their endless stream of homework. The Boy-Who-Lived sighed and ran a hand through his inky black hair. He had to read 30 pages for transfiguration homework today and he was still on page 1. Ron, on the other side of the room, also seemed to be having trouble concentrating. He was shaking his wand in a way that Harry recognized as something Muggles did to their pencils to make it look like the pencil was bending. "Blimey," Ron quietly said to himself, evidently fascinated by this simple trick, if his wide eyes were any indication.
Harry shook his headat Ron's antics and looked back down to his book. Why did the pages have to be so big? And with so many words? The messy-haired boy looked around, desperately wanting some distraction so he wouldn't have to do his reading, at least not right now, anyway. Surprisingly enough, a distraction did come, this time in the form of Ginny Weasley bursting through the door to the common room, heavily panting.
"Whoa! Ginny, what happened?" her older brother asked, sitting up and setting down his wand.
"Hex…teacher…ran…" she said before collapsing onto one of the couches. She swallowed, and after a brief moment tried again. "Malfoy…was heckling some second years….Got mad, hexed him….saw some teacher, though….Didn't want to get caught so I ran up here to hide," Ginny finished, her breathing becoming slightly more calm.
"Do you know which teacher?" Harry asked, concerned.
"Merlin, I think it might've been Snape, but I sure hope not."
Lupin's niece walked quietly in through the portrait. Harry waved hello and Ginny sat up to see who it was before lying back down again. "Oh, hello."
She waved in response before walking over to Hermione. "I think McGonagall wants to see you," she told the bushy haired girl.
Hermione frowned slightly, obviously trying to think of reasons McGonagall would want to see her. "Hmm, well, alright," she said standing up and walking out of the portrait hole.
The brown haired year took her seat and looked over to Ginny. "What happened?"
"Hexed Malfoy but I think a teacher saw me so I'm hiding up here," the red-haired girl stated, giving the briefer version.
"Which hex?" Ron asked eagerly, obviously very proud of his little sister.
"Bat bogey," she said, smiling evilly.
"Nice," her older brother replied, sharing the smile.
Harry laughed slightly, smiling. He wondered what it would have been like to have a sibling; after all, Dudley hardly counted.
Hermione appeared again, passing through the portrait hole with a slight confused frown on her face. "McGonagall said she didn't want to see me; she wanted to talk with Ginny."
At this point Ginny responded with a word that made the first-year Gryffindor's eyes open wide. The fifth year fell back onto the coach from her upward position after this exclamation.
The first-year Gryffindor looked towards Ginny. "Oh, is your last name Weasley, too?"
"What do you mean 'too'? Your last name isn't Weasley," she said with a slight attitude, looking towards the brown haired girl.
"Oh no, not me, I meant Hermione."
Awkward silence passed between them as Harry noticed his bushy-haired friend had a slight pink tinge to her cheeks that was not normally there. "Um, my last name's not Weasley," she finally stated, looking at her shoes as though they were the most interesting thing in the world. Well, except for her books, of course.
"It isn't?" the first year replied, genuinely confused.
"No, it's Granger," she said in an embarrassed manner. For whom she was embarrassed Harry couldn't tell: was it for herself or Ron, whose ears had turned an extraordinary shade of red?
"Oh," the young brown-haired girl seemed to be thinking. "Oh well," she said in a cheery voice, apparently oblivious to the fact she had seriously embarrassed both Ron and Hermione with one innocent sentence. "My mistake, McGonagall wants to see you, Miss Ginny Weasley."
"Are you sure it's me?" Ginny spoke, obviously dreading the answer as well as the reprimand she was about to receive.
"One Miss Weasley," her friend said, still very energetic.
"Arrgh," spoke Ginny, obviously hoping to procrastinate from whatever her punishment would be.
A/N: My apologies for this chapter being kind of short, but please review anyway. (Please?)
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or the world he resides in.
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