Chapter 17: No One Needs to Know Right Now
Harry woke the next morning to find his dormitory empty, Hermione and Alexis having left without a trace. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked around the room. He knew that he'd fallen asleep sitting up next to Hermione, but now he was lying down, head flat on top of his pillow. The only proof that there was of the girls' stay in the room were the two water cups, which Harry had moved; his was still halfway filled with water, standing on his nightstand.
The boy swung his legs out of bed and ran a hand through his hair as he stretched. According to Ron's watch, which the boy had left on his nightstand, it was eight o'clock. Harry had an hour until his first class, Defense Against the Dark Arts.
On his way down to breakfast Harry almost collided with Professor McGonnagal as he came around a corner. The teacher was carrying a mug of tea, which jolted at the sudden stop and sent liquid spilling onto the floor. Papers, which the teacher had evidently been carrying in the same hand as her mug, scattered in every direction, several fluttering into the puddle of tea.
"Oh goodness! Not now!" The professor bent down, supporting herself on an unstable walking stick. Harry quickly fell to his knees, feeling his face burn red as he gathered tried to help rescue the papers.
"I'm sorry Professor- I wasn't looking- I should have-"
"Dear- it's alright. Don't worry. It's as much my fault as it is yours."
Harry held out the tea-sodden papers to the professor, still feeling guilty.
"Thank you." The elderly teacher straitened herself shakily and smiled. "I need- I need to get myself one of those- what do you call them- a rucksack." She took the frenzy of parchment and nodded her good-bye, turning away from her student in the same hurry that she'd been before the collision.
"Professor?" A question from the night before erupted in his mind.
"Yes?"
"There was- a scream, last night." Suddenly the professor's eyes flickered around the hallway and refocused on him, surprised and slightly worried.
"You were out of bed? Potter-"
"No." Harry interrupted her, then quickly apologized. McGonnagal seemed slightly taken aback, but Harry still continued in a less abrupt tone.
"I was- Hermione- Hermione Granger, and Alexis Garcia- we were coming back from Astronomy and we heard someone… something."
Professor McGonnagal studied her student's face for several moments, exhaled slowly, and spoke.
"No one else was outside?"
"I don't know Professor. I think everyone else from Gryffindor was already inside the common room."
"Then there is nothing to worry about. I really must be going." She turned one last time and began walking away from Harry.
"But Professor-" Harry skipped so that he was facing her again. "Who was it- is someone hurt, because-?"
"It was a portrait," McGonnagal said somewhat sharply, catching Harry by surprise. "We have spoken with the painting, and all the information that can be gathered has been gathered. It was a mere flicker of the light and a trick of the mind. There is no proof that anything- anything out of ordinary was inside this castle."
"It was a portrait? Which-"
"You or your fellow students are not in any immediate danger, Mr. Potter. I can remind you again that the situation has been taken care of. Good day." She brushed past him once more.
"But-"
"Good day Mr. Potter." McGonnagal disappeared around the next corner, leaving Harry staring at an empty corridor. Feeling slightly defeated, he turned and resumed his trek to the Great Hall.
Professor McGonnagal didn't seem to want to tell him the whole truth. Or was it the whole truth? Harry studied the slate under his feet as he neared the Entrance Hall. Perhaps she had told him everything that was known. But- a portrait? Harry shook his head, shaking his hair out of his eyes. If it were a portrait then it wasn't whatever Hermione claimed to have run into. Portraits couldn't move across corridors. He sighed and brushed the thoughts from his mind. As long as the others didn't seem concerned with the incident, then he wouldn't mention his meeting with the Transfiguration teacher. He hadn't learned much from their conversation in the first place.
When Harry reached the Great Hall for breakfast he found Ron, Hermione and Alexis all eating together in a subdued state. Alexis' knife violently mashed butter onto a piece of toast, but Ron and Hermione didn't seem to be very hungry.
"Good Morning." Harry announced his presence, sitting beside Ron and across from Alexis, who merely glanced up at him, then went back to vandalizing her bread.
"Good Morning." Hermione murmured back at him, her fork dragging a piece of bacon to and fro, along her plate. Ron grunted his hello, not even looking up from his food.
"What time did you two leave?" Harry after he had helped himself to some porridge, the quickly explaining to Ron what he meant; "They came up-"
"I know-" Ron cut him off. "They spent the night. You could have woken me up, you know."
"I-"
"Don't fight." Hermione glanced up at them, still animating her bacon. "We've had enough of that this morning."
Harry glanced back and fourth between the three, watching as Alexis shot Hermione a look, grumpily eating her mutilated bread.
"You- uh- you never said when you left."
"The wrong time." Alexis snapped at him, catching Harry by surprise. At Harry's hurt look Hermione tried to explain.
"We left the room before anyone else- well- any other 6th years woke- so that we wouldn't cause a scene or anything- but- well, right when we were moving our stuff out the door, Jack came down the stairs." Harry raised his eyebrows at Hermione and quickly glanced at Alexis. The girl met his eyes for a second and he realized what had probably happened.
"No!" He stared at Alexis, open-mouthed.
"He took it totally the wrong way!" Alexis exclaimed, finally putting down her toast. "He- he thought that we were- you know- with you- and- God!" The girl picked up her fork and angrily pierced the bread several times until Hermione stilled her hand and made her stop the mutilation.
"They woke us all up." Ron said. "You were the only one who didn't hear it- some row- never heard better. Well, actually, when Mum found the twins smuggling their candy-"
"Ron!" Hermione glared at him and he wiped the grin from his face.
"So- so it's over?" Harry said quietly.
"Well- no one ever really specified-" Hermione tried to speak, but she was immediately interrupted by Alexis.
"Yes! It is totally over! I have never been more 'over' with someone in my entire life!"
There was silence for several seconds as the other three studied their food with great intensity. Finally Hermione spoke up and met Alexis' eyes.
"I don't think that Jack- well, you should tell him that- that you're through. If you really feel that way." She looked back down at her bacon and finally decided to put the strip in her mouth.
"Quidditch is going to be a nightmare now." Alexis said a while after Hermione had finished her bacon. "But- it's better than having to say I'm together with- with it." Harry made a face at the others, which Alexis thankfully did not see. Ron raised his eyebrows back at his friend. He knew that whatever happened between Alexis and Jack- it would be Harry's problem when he tried to get the two to work together on the field.
"I'm much too good for him anyhow. I can find another boyfriend." Alexis said, sipping her pumpkin juice. "I mean- he thought that I was cheating on him! For Christ's stake!" Ron grinned slightly, but Harry felt his face turning red. Hermione saw his expression and bit her lip to keep from smiling.
"Yeah- I guess you do have a good reason to dump him." Ron almost choked on his breakfast, failing to keep himself from laughing. "But really, from his point of view, if you were cheating and with Harry! What a scandal!"
Harry grinned and punched his friend in the shoulder.
"Knock it off, Weasley."
Ron looked back down at his plate, but you could still see his smile.
"Ron!" Hermione said, looking slightly sick of the conversation. "Seriously! I was right there! They couldn't have done anything!"
This time it was Alexis's turn to snort with laughter. "Well, Hermione, once you think about it, you, Harry and I would make and awesome three-some!"
"Alright, that's enough!" Harry felt his hand move to Hermione's shoulder as he noticed the girl's horrified expression. He wasn't sure if she was going to laugh or cry.
After several moments the group was able to move away from their previous topic and the conversation became much more relaxed. The foursome then continued to their nine o'clock defense class, the foursome uncomfortably passing Jack and some other boys in the hallway. Alexis' boyfriend- well, one could say 'Alexis's ex-boyfriend'- looked completely trodden on when the girl did not look at him, and he tried his very best to get her attention.
"Alexis- wait! Let's talk about it." But he didn't get to talk to anything other than a cold shoulder. Alexis walked on, chin high as she herded her friends away from the fifth year. Harry felt slightly sorry for the younger boy, though he had brought Harry and Ron into the argument with his comment about Alexis being in their room. He shot his teammate a glance that he hoped was of sympathy; then followed Alexis into the Defense classroom.
"He is such a retard." Alexis snorted as they got themselves settled. She looked expectantly at the others, waiting for them to agree with her. She looked pleased when Hermione, though the girl didn't seem to mean it entirely, said,
"You know, I always thought he was too young for you anyway."
"He hangs around with Zacharias Smith, you know? That wart in Ravenclaw." Ron added absentmindedly.
"Ron!"
"What!"
"Lavender- she's right over there! She's going out with Zach, you know?"
"Well, then she's a wart too."
"Let's change the subject." Hermione glared at Ron.
"Lavender isn't a wart!" Alexis exclaimed passionately. "She's one of the coolest girls in school! I've been talking to them lately, and she really likes Zach; he can't be that bad, can he?"
"She's right over there!" And with those words, the conversation was silenced.
In that class, after handing in their assigned essays, they worked on meditating and concentration. Neither Harry nor Ron seemed to get the gist of either. The class was taking a dangerous lean towards Divination, and the two boys couldn't help raising their eyebrows at each other. Hermione however, pushed any mention of divination aside, trying her best to excel in the new subject of Karate, just as Alexis was doing.
………………………
Over the next month the portrait's scream was only mentioned once, and when Harry tried to insert his meeting with McGonnagal, Alexis pushed it aside, moving on to the next topic of conversation.
Alexis received a bouquet of flowers (sunflowers again) and chocolates from Jack, which immediately jolted the two back into 'couple' mode. Alexis denied ever being mad at the younger boy and whenever their fight would come up in a conversation, Alexis would once again push the event away, as she did with many other conversation topics. After the couple's first row, Jack somehow decided that it was his duty to supply Alexis with all the candies and flowers that Hogsmeade shops could supply. Jack had the sweet personality of carrying her presents with him and popping up next to his girlfriend in the hallway. He'd give her a quick kiss on the cheek and then disappear, leaving all the girls to comment on how 'lucky' Alexis was to have someone bring her so many gifts. Through it could have been considered an act of bribery, and it happened almost once or twice a week, Alexis still acted surprised every time Jack handed her a present, and blushed over it whenever someone mentioned his romantic sense.
September 30th, almost two weeks after the two had exchanged words outside the 6th years' dormitory, was one of these gift-giving days.
Hermione and Alexis were walking down the lawn to Herbology, discussing the action-packed potions lesson from the period before. All the students in Snape's N.E.W.T. class had finished their Polyjuice potions the previous class and had taken the concoctions during the two-hour class that day. They spent the lesson studying the effects that the potion had on thinking, speech and other functions. By the end of the lesson each student had taken notes on the disadvantages and advantages of a Polyjuice transformation and were given an assignment for an essay on their experience, due the next week.
When the two girls first noticed Jack approaching them they were discussing the difficulty in not being able to control the amount of time that the Polyjuice potion would last.
"It would be much better if you could set a number of hours or days while you were putting the potion together," Hermione said as she and Alexis passed under a group of trees. "Or if you could take something to change back into yourself."
"Yeah." Alexis said, swatting at the leaves of the trees overhead. "If- like the first thing you said- if someone, like, jinxed your potion that you just wanted to use for an hour and fixed it to ten years, then you'd be in big trouble without the antidote."
The two laughed, and Hermione pointed towards three figures coming up the green slope towards them. "Look who's coming!" She smiled teasingly and Alexis elbowed her in the ribs, turning slightly red.
"Hi!" Alexis waved, grinning as Jack, Andrew and to their dismay, Zacharias Smith, stopped to talk to them.
"How's your day been?" Alexis gave Jack a one armed hug, smiling up at him.
"Alright." He grinned back. "We just came from Herbology; Professor Sprout really loves to pile on the homework early for O.W.Ls."
"Who doesn't?" Alexis joked. "Even in New York the teachers drove us crazy with work."
"My mother, for her second marriage," began Andrew, "wanted to go to New York for honeymoon, but their flight got canceled because of a snowstorm in the US and they just took a ferry to France instead."
"I'd much rather go to France than New York!" Alexis laughed, as did Hermione.
"I've been to France so many times," Hermione said.
"Yes, France is wonderful, it's a pity that the flight was canceled though."
"Well- we'd better go- we don't want to be late." Alexis smiled and stood on her tiptoes to kiss Jack on his cheek. As they were walking down the slope he called out her name.
"Alexis!"
"Yeah?" She turned back up the hill and walked backwards, grinning. Jack smiled and reached into his bag, pulling out a red carnation and skipping down the lawn until he reached the two girls, when he gently tucked the flower into his girlfriend's hair.
"Perfect," he said, kissing her softly and then turning to jog back up the hill to where his friends waited for him, both grinning madly.
Alexis turned, blushing as Hermione smiled. The girl plucked the carnation from her hair and smelled it, her face exquisite bliss.
"So you're over Ron now?" Hermione grinned as they continued their walk towards the greenhouses. "You've made up your mind?"
"Hermione!" Alexis put the flower back in her hair. "I have a boyfriend, right? How about you?"
"Well," it was Hermione's turn to go pink. "We'll see; Harry's been very- I don't know- Harry's been very nice lately."
"Oooooo!" Alexis jumped up and down, almost knocking her flower from her hair. "I knew it! I totally said that I thought you and Harry were perfect! Oh, I am the best matchmaker ever!" She hugged Hermione with one arm as she fixed her carnation with the free hand. "Oh it's so great; we're both over Ron. We've both chosen other guys and we're both going to-"
"Hold your horses!" Hermione laughed. "Nothing's official yet; I haven't made up my mind." She paused for a moment, playfully kicking at the grass, then added; "And don't you dare tell anyone; especially him, alright?"
Alexis grimaced. "But I love setting people up!" She put on a pout and fluttered her eyelashes at Hermione. When the older girl kept her face firm; she took off her expression and refocused her eyes on the path ahead. "Fine. If it has to be that way, I'll abide your wishes." She swung her bag and skipped the last few steps to Greenhouse 6. "But you have to tell me when you want my help. I love talking to guys about stuff like that."
Hermione grinned at her friend. "I accept your offer."
AN: If this were a movie: I would put "No One Needs To Know" on the soundtrack- (BTW- I've developed a soundtrack CD for my FF, and I'm going to be posting the lyrics of the songs as they come up in the story.
Am I dreamin' or stupid?
I think I've been hit by Cupid
But no one needs to know right now
I met a tall, dark and handsome man
And I've been busy makin' big plans
But no one needs to know right now
I got my heart set, my feet wet
And he don't even know it yet
But no one needs to know right now
I'll tell him someday some way somehow
But I'm gonna keep it a secret for now
I want bells to ring, a choir to sing
The white dress the guests the cake the car the whole darn thing
But no one needs to know right now
I'll tell him someday some way somehow
But I'm gonna keep it a secret for now
We'll have a little girl a little boy
A little Benji we call Leroy
But no one needs to know right now
And I'm not lonely anymore at night
And he don't know only only he can make it right
And I'm not lonely anymore at night
And he don't know only only he can make it right
I'm not dreamin' or stupid
But boy have I been hit by Cupid
But no one needs to know right now
No one needs to know right now...