Chapter Four

Life at Hogwarts

The fire in Gryffindor's Common Room hearth crackled merrily as Hermione droned on and on about the history of Hogwarts to Kit, Dairine, and Nita, all of whom were glancing around as if looking for an escape route from the lecture on the Founding Four.

"And, of course, Ravenclaw would have none of that, and she and the founders she deemed worthy of her partnership, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, united against Slytherin. And so…"

Oh, God, there's more? Kit thought in utter despair.

Make a break for it, Dairine suggested, her eyes flickering from Kit to Nita and back to Kit again.

On my count, she continued.

Three…

Two…

One…

Hermione was rudely interrupted as her audience suddenly made a mad dash for the staircase to the boy's dormitory, apparently intent on fleeing from the incredibly boring lesson on Hogwart's history. All two thousand, nine hundred and forty-eight years of it.

With a sigh, she turned to Ron and Harry, who both cowered in their snug armchairs, with no way of escape.

"Am I really that bad?" she asked in an exasperated voice. "People never seem to want to hear what I have to say… and it's important matters, too."

"I wonder why," Ron muttered.

Hermione, already in a very short temper and under a huge amount of stress because of the botched Apparation, snapped.

She whirled on him, snarling, "What was that, Ronald Weasley?"

Ron merely gulped.

Elsewhere in Hogwarts

Dairine lay sprawled out on Kit's bed, reading her copy of A Brief Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, The Time-Space Continuum, and Gamma Radiation, an insanely thick, incredibly boring-looking book, completely absorbed in it.

Nita rolled her eyes at her younger sister. "You and that Hermione would get along well together, you know that?"

Dairine, not taking her eyes off the book, scoffed. "Yeah, right. I'd probably die of boredom from listening to her little hour-long lectures before I could introduce myself properly."

Nita snorted. "Not to mention you're too smart for your own good."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dairine asked lazily, flicking her fiery hair out of her eyes.

Nita opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted as the door banged open, revealing a very battered-looking Harry and a semi-conscious Ron.

Kit gaped.

"What happened to you two?"

Harry unceremoniously dumped Ron onto his respective bed and flopped down on Kit's, next to Dairine.

"Kit," he started. "Don't ever, ever, insult one of Hermione's lectures, unless you can run really, really fast."

Kit nodded, not sure if he really wanted to hear the rest of the macabre tale, and looked around again as he heard someone stomping up the stairs.

"Hermione," Harry hissed, panicking. "Hide me."

Kit was only too glad to do so. In conjunction with Nita, they grabbed his and quickly chucked him through the curtains shielding the underside of the bed from sight and under the bed. As an afterthought, they managed to grab Ron, and slid him under the bed to join Harry.

Unfortunately, there was a thump that made them all wince, and Harry made a small noise of agony.

The dormitory doors banged open, and Hermione stormed in.

"Where are they?" she snarled, her eyes flashing dangerously.

Kit did his best to look innocent.

"Where are who?"

Nita plastered on a wholly fake smile and beamed up at the enraged girl.

"Who're you looking for, Hermione?"

"You know very well who I'm looking for, Kit, Nita. Harry and Ron. Now, where are they?"

Kit, sensing this was not a good time for jokes, quietly shielded.

Nita followed suit.

Dairine, on the other hand, was so immersed in her book, she had no idea what was going on around her.

Typical.

"Nope, sorry, haven't seen them," Kit said, beaming up a little too broadly at Hermione.

Hermione studied him suspiciously, then glowered.

"Why is there an arm sticking out from beneath the bed?"

Oh shoot, Kit thought. Think fast, Rodriguez.

"Um. Er, well, that's our… our pet Gila Monster!" he explained brightly.

Nita stared at him, horrified.

"Okay, if that's really a Gila Monster, then, you should be able to show me your license," Hermione told them.

"It's really my dad's… he lent it to us for the time being," Nita said quickly.

"I see. And how is it I didn't see it when we were in Middle-Earth?"

"We have a type of otherspace claudication," Kit explained. "Here, let me show you."

He muttered a syllable, and unzipped his otherspace pocket, revealing a small, dark space floating in midair.

"Want to take a look?"

"I'll do that, thanks."

Hermione paced over to the claudication and poked her head in.

Reckon we can push her in? Kit asked, looking hopefully at Nita.

Nita just scowled at him and nervously watched as Hermione poked around in the claudication.

She emerged, looking triumphant.

"Where's its food? And its toys?"

"He's eaten all of his meat?" Nita inquired, trying her best to sound incredulous. "Kit, you gave him all of the meat?"

Kit looked blank.

Play along with me, stupid!

"Ooooohmmmmm… Yeah."

Nita looked eagerly back up at Hermione, trying not to sound as relieved as she felt. "See? And as for his toy, we made a replica of a human arm, knowing how much he prefers Homo Sapiens, and gave it to him."

Hermione looked dubious, but bent down and yanked on the arm.

Hard.

Beneath the bed, Harry let out an agonized hiss of pain and jerked his arm back into the safety of the bed, hoping Nita and Kit were doing all right out there. The fact that Ron's shoulder was lying over his right ear and his left was pressed solidly into the carpet didn't help his hearing much.

As it was, that probably saved his and Rons' life.

Hermione, startled, jerked backwards.

Kit, looking concerned, bent down.

"All right, Ha…"

He trailed off as Hermione looked at him triumphantly.

"…aaaaailey?" Kit finished quickly.

Hermione looked disappointed, but she quickly found another point of evidence against Kit.

"How is it your lizard's name is Hailey, when you kept referring to it as 'he'?" she inquired.

Nita thought fast. "We couldn't tell at its birth."

"Oh."

She, once again, looked disappointed.

Beneath the bed, Harry clutched his arm, biting his lip to keep from screaming out in agony. It was then that something crawled down the back of his shirt.

And Harry was positive it wasn't Neville's toad Trevor.

So, naturally, he rammed his back against the bottom of the bed, trying to smash whatever was now merrily skittering up and down his spine.

Hermione, Kit, and Nita stared at the shaking bed, more than slightly apprehensive as Dairine's form shuddered under the force of Harry as he desperately tried to crush the spider that skittered back up his spine.

"He suffers from… um… indigestion," Kit said weakly. "Very violent."

"Okay, then… I'll just go look for the boys, then… as they're apparently not in here…" Hermione said, beginning to fume once more, and stomped out of the dormitory, slamming the doors behind her.

Nita waited a few seconds to make sure she was gone, then turned to Kit.

"Gila Monsters?"

Kit looked at her defensively. "I didn't hear much from you. And, besides, what would it have been? A palomino?"

Nita flushed. Only Kit and Dairine knew how secretly crazy she was about horses.

"But, honestly, Kit… a Gila Monster…?"

Their pending argument was interrupted by Ron's woozy voice.

"Harry… that had better not be a spider on my forehead…"

Harry muttered something, and Ron screamed.

"SPIDER! GET IT OFF GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF…"

An improvement, Kit mused; his voice was definitely no longer woozy.

The bed shook again, and Ron came tumbling out, clawing violently at his forehead, where a very small, completely harmless House Spider clung for dear life, terrified out of its wits.

Nita grabbed him, holding him still as Kit gently picked the spider up and placed it on the dormitory windowsill, where it scuttled up into the shadowy recesses and vanished from sight.

Ron, breathing hard, promptly looked around for any sign of Hermione as Harry rolled out from under the bed, clutching his shoulder, his face chalky white.

"Aaaaah, wow she can pull hard," he gasped. "Feels like she dislocated my shoulder… ahhh, hurts like the dickens…"

Dairine seemed to have found a new object of her affection, as she instantly snapped out of her reverie and slid down beside Harry.

She laid a hand on his shoulder, and he winced as she squeezed it gently.

"Nah, not dislocated. It'll be sore for a few days… but here."

She began gently massaging his sore shoulder, prompting a roll of Nita's eyes.

She cleared her throat.

"Anyways," she said loudly, receiving a dirty look from Dairine. "…what are we going to do now?"

Harry looked up.

"New York," he said flatly. "I want to go to New York."

Ron was in full agreement with his friend.

Nita looked from Kit, to Dairine, and back again.

"What about Legolas?"

"Yeah, what about him?" Kit inquired bluntly.

Which earned him scowls from Nita and Dairine.

Nita opened her mouth to say something extremely cutting, when the doors burst open again.

A small redhead burst in, all smiles as she plopped down beside Harry.

"Hey, Harry," she purred, touching his hand, evoking a jealous look from Dairine. "Gonna introduce me?"

Harry grinned at her, then motioned to each of the Manhattan wizards in turn.

"Ginny, this is Nita, Kit, and Dairine."

Ginny smiled at them and shook hands.

"Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister. Pleased to meet you all," she said politely, her gaze lingering on Kit before travelling on to Dairine.

She's hot, Kit sent to Nita. She rolled her eyes at him.

She's younger than you.

So? Doesn't stop her from being hot.

Nita sighed, then watched as Ginny struck up a conversation with Dairine.

Nothing to do with them if it concerned Dairine.

It was then that Harry asked the dreaded question.

"Hey, Ginny, wanna see New York?"

"In America? Sure."

Kit merely ground his teeth together.

How, how had he gotten himself into this?