"Wake up, Harry. C'mon. Get up."
Hermione's voice was the first thing Harry heard when he was -- back at Hogwarts?
Harry sprang up in his four-poster atop Gryffindor Tower. Suddenly wide awake, Hermione was peering at him with his glasses in her hands. He snatched them from her and put them on, the better to notice the expression she was wearing. She wasn't giving him a look that suggested someone else had died but she wasn't smiling, either. His first question was answered by her before he'd gotten a word out.
"Dumbledore forced us to cough up the entire story," she admitted. "No one knew you were there but Dumbledore started to believe some of the rumors and, well, let's face it, it was no secret that Ron and I would know if they were true."
Harry's stomach dropped out of him.
"He knows about Animus Speculum?" he asked, biting his lip.
Hermione nodded gravely.
"Where's Ron?"
"I saw him at breakfast. He wasn't looking so good and then he went off with Ginny somewhere."
"And -- how exactly did I get here?"
Harry now got out of bed, seeing that all of the things he'd taken out of his trunk from Hogwarts and had put in drawers in Lodi Hall were now back at Hogwarts. Sitting on top of the table next to his bed were all his quills and slips of parchment, one with handwriting he distinctly recognized as Cho's. Not knowing whether Hermione had seen it yet, he hastily stuffed it in the drawer.
"Dumbledore Stunned you in your sleep" -- Harry frowned -- "and brought you back here. He didn't tell us why he didn't just ask you quietly," she said quickly, seeing Harry ready to open his mouth. "But he's furious, Harry and please, please promise me you won't do anything stupid again?"
Harry longed to throw her a diatribe about doing stupid things, about how often those stupid things had gotten him into trouble and how he still found himself doing stupid things though he had no idea why. Upon reflection of what good it would do, he restrained himself.
"Voldemort's trying dearly hard to do whatever he wants to do --"
"Get me sent to Azkaban or have my soul sucked out by a dementor," Harry muttered.
"-- to kill you, send you to Azkaban so he can kill you there, whatever" -- Hermione was sounding really frantic now -- "and Dumbledore's trying his best to stop whatever it is from happening. You already know the only reason you're still in school, Harry," she continued in such a sharp tone she would have made a great substitute teacher for Professor McGonagall in Harry's opinion, "is because they don't want you outside where you'll be killed in two seconds."
Harry knew this very well, but he didn't say anything. Once before had he suspected that Hermione and Ron had rehearsed a conversation while he'd been asleep...
"Voldemort's trying his very best to frame you for all of this, you know that," she proclaimed, a tear leaking out from under her eyes, "if it isn't already obvious to you! And you just can't give him a chance! More people are going to die before the year's up, Harry and -- and I don't want you to be one of them!"
"What are you so worried about?" Harry snapped.
"I'm worried about you!" cried Hermione.
And then, without warning, she positively flung her arms around him. Harry shrugged her off.
"You're doing it again," said Hermione in a small voice.
"Doing what?" said Harry, truthfully not knowing.
"No one know's what's going on --" Hermione said and to Harry it sounded like the beginning of another speech.
"Except Voldemort," he again muttered, now putting on a cloak.
"-- and everyone agrees with me that you should just -- just let whatever happens happen and stay out of it."
"And let everyone get killed," said Harry flatly, "that's your plan, is it? And who is everyone?"
"Everyone!" Hermione cried, helping herself to a tissue. "Professor McGonagall, Figg, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Parvati, Lavender -- and Dumbledore!"
Again, Harry didn't say anything. Hermione just didn't seem to understand. Should he tell her about Ron killing Liam and the Memory Charm he'd placed Ron under? She didn't seem to understand how it felt to be called a murderer wherever you walked, how it felt to wake up unexpectedly during the night in a cold sweat, shaking, reliving a frightening murder, just as scared about someone hearing you scream as you were about that curse hitting you. She didn't know how unsettling it was to be around Raides and how she reacted in many a situation, almost happy, cheerful, when someone died. Raides had gotten him out of many tight situations but he didn't like it. And he had the distinct feeling things were going to get a lot worse before they were going to get any better.
"Cho had sent you letters -- but I didn't read them -- and Dumbledore wants you to dispell your clone. He also wants to see you later. And eat something, Harry!" she said, eyes still tearing, looking at his back.
Harry was now in the portrait hole, Raides in hand, leaving Gryffindor Tower.
"I'm not hungry," he lied.
Not even paying attention to where he was going, Harry ended up in the exact spot where his clone was. It was looking ready to be dispelled, sitting on the bottom stair of the marble staircase in the entrance hall. With a wave of Raides and a puff of smoke, the clone had vanished. Harry certainly expected some new memories and indeed, he got them. Some of them were of letters Cho had written, others still were about things that had been said over breakfast, lunch and dinner in the Great Hall but the one that made him wish he was still upstairs being yelled at by Hermione was pretty bad.
It was a dream. One of those dreams involving Voldemort. And people he had at Hogwarts doing his work for him.
"You weren't supposed to kill that one," rang Voldemort's high, cold voice in Harry's head and he suddenly stood rigid in the entrance hall, hearing it play out. "But, good job... and clean, too..."
"Thank you, my Lord. The one I was supposed to kill had gotten away and I couldn't possibly find him. I had to take an easy one so I could get away with my life."
Harry didn't recognize the second voice at all. It had to be a new Death Eater, a woman.
"Very well, then. Very --"
But the dream ended very suddenly, leaving Harry to clutch the railing for support. Not feeling hungry at all now, he ran flat-out and stopped dead in front of the ugly stone gargoyle that prevented passage into Dumbledore's office. Whether Dumbledore expected this or not, Harry didn't know but he was standing there, his long, silver beard gleaming in the sunlight, peering at Harry out of his half-moon spectacles with the most disappointed face Harry had ever seen him wear. Again, Harry wished he was still upstairs being yelled at by Hermione.
Neither of them said anything aside from Dumbledore giving the password to the stone gargoyle. They then walked silently up the spiraling staircase to Dumbledore's study. Dumbledore himself sat in his chair and beckoned Harry to sit opposite him. Then he said simply, "Why?"
At first, Harry felt like telling him everying that was bothering him. About Fudge's attitude towards him, his disgust towards Fudge for it, everyone even at Hayden's calling him a murderer, the incident with Liam, Ron and Hermione not speaking to him (well, Hermione was speaking to him now but it was only to stop him risking his life)... The old dream, the new dream, Raides, the Mark of Ancients, Mr. Weasley...
Quite unexpectedly, it all became tangled up in his head and instead what came out took even him by surprise. It wasn't something he'd normally say to Dumbledore.
"You've spoken to Hermione, haven't you?" said Harry quietly in a you're-all-plotting-against-me sort of voice. "She's telling me you all think Voldemort's trying to pin this on me."
"And he's doing a good job of it, am I wrong?" replied Dumbledore in a would-be calm voice except Harry saw his beard twitch as though his lip was slightly curled in anger. "Miss Granger tells me you're having the unsettling dreams --"
"Unsettling isn't the word for it," said Harry loudly.
"-- you had under the influence of the Mark of Ancients. We don't understand this, Harry --"
"No one seems to," Harry commented grimly.
"-- but we're trying."
"Trying," said Harry doubtfully.
"What do you have in mind, then?" Dumbledore asked Harry. "Two people dead. Do you want to do something? What can you do?"
A sort of explosion took place in Harry's insides, frying them to cinders. All he knew was that it was too much for him to take, Voldemort walking free, torturing, murdering, while he, Harry, was locked up in Hogwarts being treated not much better than Voldemort himself.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT! I DON'T WANT TO JUST SIT HERE WHILE EVERYONE GETS KILLED BY SOME DARK WIZARD --"
"AND WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU PLAN TO DO, MR. POTTER?" Dumbledore bellowed.
Harry had never heard Dumbledore yell so loudly and it had been a long time since he referred to Harry as Mr. Potter. However, Harry was too angry to stop now. Let Dumbledore yell, let him even curse Harry. He almost wanted him to so he could curse him back with Raides.
"Arthur Weasley -- dead," stated Harry frantically. "Lucius Malfoy -- also dead. Who's next, Sirius? You? Me? Karkaroff?" Harry walked straight up to Dumbledore's desk who ever so slightly recoiled and slammed two closed fists down on it in anger. Then he said coldly, "Voldemort's just randomly killing until enough people believe I did it, and then what?"
"Harry, calm yourself."
Harry wasn't listening.
"I'm not going to Azkaban," he assured Dumbledore though he was shaking all the same.
Dumbledore now offered a few words of comfort.
"Lucius was killed in Hogsmeade. Arthur was killed in New York. You will notice, Harry, that neither of these took place within the walls of Hogwarts. I assure you, with the Ancient Anti-Disapparation Charm on the castle, they stand no chance of killing anyone within these walls which is, I'll state again, the only reason you have not been expelled this year. You've heard this many times, Harry and I'll say it again. You're only here because we care more about your life than a bag of magic tricks. I don't want you putting yourself in danger; you seem to have a knack for this."
Harry stopped staring at Dumbledore and, after taking a seat, instead stared at his knees. His insides churned horribly and he dropped his death gaze.
"Nothing," said Dumbledore firmly, "is getting in these castle walls without my permission. This includes Lord Voldemort. Voldemort never dared set foot in this school since he graduated and I swear for as long as I live, he will not."
Here, Dumbledore actually smiled. Harry smiled back weakly. Just seven years ago, Harry would have given anything to have someone actually care for him. A year later, he'd found out what it was like to have such a thing when he'd spend part of his summer vacation at Ron's house. Now, he didn't know what he wanted. Cho's letters demanding he stay out of trouble, Hermione pleading with him, all these thoughts... feelings... They were confusing.
There was a pause while Dumbledore seemingly gave Harry ample time to brood on his thoughts before he asked, "Before you go, is there anything else you'd like to say?"
Yes, thought Harry quickly. The dream he'd gotten from his clone.
"I had one of those crazy dreams again," Harry explained which made Dumbledore lean back in his chair, looking generally concerned.
"Go on," he prompted Harry.
"Well, er, my clone had it. There was only one person besides Voldemort. Voldemort said that whoever was with him wasn't supposed to kill whoever he did -- he didn't say who. The one he was supposed to kill got away and that he killed that other one instead."
Harry stopped talking, waiting for Dumbledore to respond; he didn't respond right away.
"I see," he said in an off-hand voice. "And?"
"But Voldemort was happy anyway... and, of course, the rest's all going to go as planned," said Harry grimly.
There was a pause. Dumbledore's silver mustache twitched.
"I cannot deny, Harry, that I am concerned," Dumbledore informed Harry like he expected Voldemort to come crashing in and kill the both of them.
"Ron and Hermione seem to think that he's trying to pin these on me."
"Yes, it does seem that way, doesn't it --"
"But you can vouch for me, can't you?" Harry interrupted, a desperate look on his face now.
Dumbledore sighed gravely and Harry sat back, put out, that look not leaving him.
"I've told you before, I've told you a thousand times. I cannot make other men see truth --"
"-- but --"
"-- and, I daresay, you do not look particularly innocent."
Dumbledore was peering at him over the tops of his half-moon spectacles like Harry was a disobedient son and Harry fell silent at once. Harry dared not tell him about the Hand of Glory. That wouldn't come back to get him, would it? Yes, Harry assured himself right away, it would. At this, Harry tried not to look too guilty, knowing Dumbledore would see straight through it like he always did.
And how could that have happened? Harry had gone from being fuming mad, to desperate to feeling horribly guilty in just a manner of minutes. More interesting, perhaps was why hadn't his clone told Dumbledore about the dream? Maybe -- maybe he wanted the real Harry to talk to Dumbledore about this.
There was another pause in which Fawkes, resting on his perch by the door, let out a few notes of phoenix song as he cleansed his feathers. Making Harry feel slightly better, this must have shown on his face because after he said "No," --
"You had better get back to Gryffindor Tower," suggested Dumbledore. "Miss Granger was quite the hysterical one this morning and if I'm not mistaken, she'll be personally watching guard on you."
His eyes were twinkling and he chose to ignore Harry's delayed response which Harry was grateful for.
"I'm sorry to say it is the will of the majority of the school staff to remove three hundred points from Gryffindor." Harry wanted to be angry for this but found that he couldn't. "I daresay, this year will end, regardless, with Gryffindor in the lead. Oh, and Miss Quirrell will be joining us shortly," he added as Harry went down the spiraling stairs.
Harry's mind was racing. He had just been caught in another huge deception. What was going to happen to him? Was Dumbledore going to eventually crack and put Harry on trial? Or simply expel him from Hogwarts outright and let Voldemort get him? Where would he sleep? The Dursleys wouldn't take him in, he didn't think they'd even acknowledge his existence anymore... Perhaps he could kip at Arabella Figg's... Would she even let him? Hiding at wherever Sirius was sounded like a good idea as well. Or would Sirius disown him? Harry sure hoped not... Why do crazy thoughts always come to you when you're feeling so panicky? Harry thought furiously.
Before long, he found himself in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady. Harry had passed Ron on the way, who was not looking happy at all and merely grunted to show he had seen Harry. He couldn't blame himself yet but the guilt was starting to creep up on him...
The rest of the day passed in somewhat of a blur. When it seemed like it was time for bed, Harry was dragged right to the library by Hermione and a very glum looking Ron to spend a good hour on the Explicatrix. Their search, to Harry's great not-surprise, had yielded nothing as usual. Harry was used to this; he was starting to believe the entry in Amazing Artifacts saying that the Explicatrix doesn't exist ("But it's in your hand, Harry," said Hermione, glaring at him).
Classes were to start again the next day. Both Ron and Ginny had been, in Harry's opinion, rightfully excused from attending any of their classes that day which neither of them said they were going to. Personally, Harry didn't think Ginny would ever be the same; she spent the greater part of the past several days sitting in the common room by herself, speaking only when spoken to. Everyone thought Ron would try to cheer her up but Ron wasn't much better off. It was hitting them very hard... losing their dad...
Breakfast wasn't a boring affair that morning either, though it was far from being a pleasant one as well. It was an innocent looking screech owl carrying a black envelope that did it. Soaring into the Great Hall among the chatting crowd, it made its way over to the Slytherin table. Harry couldn't believe his eyes. Millicent Bulstrode, a rather heavy-set girl with a face only a mother could love, the letter in her hand, went dashing out of the Great Hall, her face in her other hand. Everyone watched her dash out and Harry strongly suspected she was crying.
"What was that all about?" asked Hermione, though no one had any idea... yet.
"Didn't that happen once before?" asked Harry, staring but he then turned quickly to Hermione to see that she had indeed gone white. A groan of understanding spread between he and Hermione.
"Millicent's parents too?" Harry asked Hermione. "But -- she's Slytherin!"
Just then, another screech owl flew in carrying Hermione's copy of the Daily Prophet.
"See if there's anything in it about this," said Harry impatiently, also thinking of what Voldemort could possibly be up to this time.
"I am, I am," said Hermione, distracted by flipping through page after page.
After some thirty pages of Neville, Harry and Ginny looking on (Ron wasn't very interested) and Parvati, Lavender, Seamus and Dean crowding around, bits of toast in their mouths, Hermione stopped. Her face fell as she read aloud.
"Late last night, Muggle authorities found a man with silver-blond hair, which quickly got covered by his hood, wearing a black cloak' -- Lucius Malfoy," Hermione commented darkly.
"Lucius is dead, Hermione," Ron reminded her, abandoning his porridge just long enough before he turned slightly white and went back to it.
"Don't remind me," said Harry, staring some place to the right of his scrambled eggs.
"-- 'was found fleeing the Bulstrode manor' --"
"That cow has a manor too?" Ron burst out angrily which made all their heads snap up at him. "Sorry," he said sheepishly.
Hermone shot a nervous look at Harry, who glanced back indifferently, and went on.
"-- 'this morning. Mr. and Mrs. Bulstrode were both found dead in the kitchen, untouched and unmarked, which leaves only one thing as the cause of death: one of the three Unforgivable Curses. The Minister of Magic refuses to comment on the rumors of several Muggle bodies being pulled from the Bulstrode's separate garage, also dead' -- wait a minute, who wrote this crap?" she interrupted herself. As she came across a name, a smile of savage triumph spread a cross her face. "Rita Skeeter. And listen to this: 'You-Know-Who's sign, the Dark Mark, was over the scene as Paul Weasley' --"
"Paul?" Ron hissed. "I'll kill her! Someone needs to tell her to think before she writes!" Harry thought this was asking rather a lot. He also thought of how Ron had killed Liam. This made him nervous. "Spill the beans on her, Hermione!"
"Don't worry," Hermione assured Ron.
"What beans?" asked Dean, his toast in his hand.
Hermione smiled again.
"Remember during the last Triwizard Tournament? All those interviews she was getting off the Slytherins? The stories? And how she was supposed to be banned from the grounds? Well, I found out how!" Here, Parvati gave a very audible "ooh" of anger while Lavender stared blankly, waiting. "Oh, you'll find out," said Hermione in a very superior voice.
"But, how can she not care?" Harry thought aloud slowly, forgetting about Lucius in an instant, jerking his head up at Hermione now.
Hermione's face became screwed up in thought.
"Unless she," Hermione began slowly -- and then she let out an even louder and more threatening "ooh" of anger than Parvati, "unless she already -- oh I'll get her. Come on, we're sending the Ministry of Magic's Office of Animagi an owl."
And with that, all of the Gryffindor seventh years left for the Owlery. Their toast lay forgotten.
What with Rita Skeeter, Arthur Weasley and Liam, Harry was glad to start classes again to take it all off his mind. Far removed from doing that, however, the looks, stares and accusing finger-pointing from his classmates, especially the Slytherins who were wholly convinced that Harry had killed Lucius, made him uptight and irritable. Add in the three hundred points he lost for Gryffindor and for a few moments in the coming days he thought about giving Voldemort a shovel to get on with it.
Thinking it would do nothing, Harry didn't bother pressing the matter, asking people whether they thought he would really kill Arthur Weasley but the rumor persisted: "He didn't pay Potter back, all those galleons. He wanted his revenge, he got it. Potter must enjoy killing by now. I wonder who's next?"
Gryffindors still believe me, Harry kept repeating to himself, they still think -- or rather, know -- I'm innocent...
Hermione's and Dumbledore's speech had done one thing. Wherever Harry went, so did Raides. Out to the greenhouses for Herbology or up into the towers for Astronomy and Divination, Raides went, however grudingly. She didn't like going to Potions with Harry, being around Professor Arabella, because she said she could smell the cats on her robes. Harry wondered how the smell of cat could linger on clothing for so long; she hadn't seen her cats since she left her house.
But Raides' presence did have another marked effect. Whether it was her presence, or for some strange reason Professor McGonagall was intimidated by Raides, Harry couldn't tell, but she was being all around much nicer to everyone. It seemed that her way of dealing with stress these days was to be extra strict and sometimes gliding around like a Leithfold, a tropical creature resembling a floating black cloak. Hagrid had talked about this creature in class but not even he dared to show it to them. It was to be on their N.E.W.T.s, which Harry still dreaded, and that was the last they'd ever hear of it.
"The Patronus is the on'y spell that can repel it, and yeh never have to hear me talk about it again," Hagrid had said, giving an involuntary shudder.
Professor Trelawney went right back to predicting Harry's death on Monday, which he found increasingly annoying. All through class that second Monday back, Ron had been staring at his rune, Hagaliz, while Harry was avoiding looking up what Algiz meant; Professor Trelawney had been hinting that someone with dark hair would be able to find out what was coming. Harry was paired with Neville Longbottom while Ron, Dean Thomas.
"But I don't want to know what's coming," Harry told Ron, who wasn't listening.
"Say something?" said Ron absentmindedly.
Harry turned to Neville who said to him, "He's been like that all period."
Harry, biting his lip, turned to page three hundred and sixty in Runes as Limns.
"Hagalaz stands for sudden loss, a great ordeal, disaster, testing and drastic change," he read. "Do not shy away from the challenge life is presenting; it is merely a test that you will and should overcome. It will make you better, stronger, more wise. Do not fear the test, embrace it for you will conquer it. If it conquers you, you will miss out. The storm of change may seem daunting but once the clouds pass, the sun will shine right through."
Ron must have been listening because he stood right up, knocking his chair down, stuffed his books in his bag and shouted, "Embrace it, yeah! I'm going to become a whole lot stronger living out my dad's death! Sudden loss and drastic change," he muttered, "I'll give you sudden loss and drastic change."
He pulled open the hatch, climbed down the ladder and was gone.
The class was staring at the ladder where Ron was just a second ago. It was Parvati who spoke first.
"Wow, I've never seen him react like that."
Later that night, Ron had not come to dinner and was sitting alone by the fire in the common room with a very glum looking Ginny who was at least talking to people.
"I think she's doing better than he is," Parvati told Harry quietly as he just came back from dinner. "My God, Padma's not even in Gryffindor and she's concerned over him. I wonder what Hermione's going through? And speaking of which -- er -- how are you feeling these days?" she asked cautiously.
"Oh just peechy," Harry replied testily. He picked up his quill to get started on homework, pulled a face and imitated Malfoy. "'Hello, Potter. Kill any more people's fathers lately?' I was so mad at him I snapped my phoenix feather quill in half," he said as he absently squeezed on his owl feather quill between two fingers -- and it snapped in two pieces. Letting out a groan like an angry troll, he slammed his book shut. "I'm never going to finish all my homework and this stupid term-long paper on Dark arts!"
"You're still doing that?"
"YES!" Harry snapped -- just like the quill in his hand again which was now in four pieces. "That's two quills in two days," he muttered darkly.
There was a pause, and then, "Did you --" Padma began timidly.
"NO!" Harry shouted, uncomfortably aware of everyone staring at him.
Looking around at all of the faces, not one of them, he saw, didn't look concerned or downright scared. He threw the bits of his quill into the fire, slung his bag over his back and marched up the spiral stairs to his four-poster, everyone looking uncertainly after him -- except Ron.
Earlier that day, Dumbledore asked Harry to hang around in the entrance hall fifteen minutes before dinner on Friday and it must have been this that told Harry it was Hermione whose footsteps were coming up the stairs to him.
"You're not supposed to be up here," said Harry accusingly as she approached him.
"How'd you know it was me?" she asked gently, breaking a small smile -- and this didn't smooth over well with Harry.
"Guess," he said simply.
He then pulled open the drawer on his bedside cabinet to find a quill that wasn't broken; there was only one left. His books spread out over his bed and trying to ignore Hermione, he continued his essay for Professor Sinistra on Astronomy.
"Look, I know what you're --"
"No you don't," snapped Harry dismissively. "And didn't we have this conversation before?"
"Why are you being so difficult!" said Hermione, all of a sudden frantic. "This isn't you!"
Something in Harry told him she was right... but he wasn't about to tell her that.
"I have work to do, go back to the common room."
Hermione ran over to Harry, a pleading look on her face. She pulled the quill out of his hand, put his book on the end of his bed, put her hands on his face and turned his head to look at her.
"Something's not right, Harry, I know it, you know it, Ron knows it, Dumbledore's gonna know it soon enough. It's like that summer three years ago when you were all -- all --"
"All what?" Harry demanded, pushing Hermione's hands away, taking his book and quill back.
"All crazy!"
"Oh, so now I'm crazy --"
"You weren't yourself, Harry! You were all strange and spontaneous and you were scaring all of us --"
"Am I scaring you now?"
For a moment, Hermione looked straight into Harry's eyes and then shouted, "Yes! -- Harry just admit it's happening again! Please? Soon you'll be doing all that strange stuff again, on the floor crying your eyes out, your scar hurting for no apparent reason -- this isn't you! You weren't yourself then and you're not yourself now!" she went on while Harry stayed silent... but now he had something to say. He let her finish first, though. "All the things you said, you weren't -- you were rash, Harry, and scary! You nearly got yourself killed! You acted like a completely different person!"
"How d'you know what I'm like?" he asked as if they had never seen each other before.
"Because I've known you FOR -- SEVEN -- YEARS!" Hermione bellowed fiercely. "That year you weren't yourself in the slightest bit! You changed completely under -- under --"
She was having trouble getting the words out and while this much was obvious, the rest wasn't. Again, he knew she was right. When were the only times he'd ever been really, really angry? Sure, he broke Snape's nose last year, but... not since...
"So are we talking about the Mark of Ancients again?"
Standing defiantly like a proud soldier next to Harry who was still sitting in bed, a pleading look in her eye, she went all timid and said, "Harry, I know it was removed but, don't you think -- that, maybe, just maybe, it found a --"
"IT'S GONE!" Harry roared, standing up to his full and considerable-over-Hermione height. She backed away. "THREE PEOPLE DIED ON ME THIS YEAR, HERMIONE, AND WE ALL HAVE GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE THERE'S GONNA BE MORE!"
Tears were silently beginning to stream down Hermione's face.
"Please, Harry, you were saying things I know you'd never say, and doing things and I just don't want a repeat of that! None of us do! And you -- and you --"
"Yes, I nearly got myself killed, you already said that. Are you done now?" he asked her as if they'd done nothing more than finish a session of studying. "I've got homework to do."
Hermione made a motion with her hands as if to hug him out of extreme worry but thought better of it at the look on his face and instead turned on her heel and walked out, crying freely -- and loudly, in Harry's opinion.
At this point, Harry would have gone back to working and no sooner had he written a period than Ron came up.
"Hey," he began angrily, "what did --"
"Nice to see you too, Ron," said Harry, looking up.
"-- you say to Hermione?"
Harry noticed that Ron was quite mad but this didn't stop from him saying, "I don't know. Why don't you ask her?"
"She came to me crying her eyes out! Now she's with Parvati and Lavender and they're having a job at calming her down!" Had he not been so angry, Harry would have been happy to hear that Ron and Hermione were getting on so well together -- but he wasn't. "What -- did -- you -- say?" Ron demanded fiercely.
"And what did she have to say." It wasn't a question.
Ron stood there, in the middle of the dormitory's door, stumbling over words but finally managed to come out with, "She seems to think that the Mark of Ancients is back!"
"Oh, so you don't believe it either, then," said Harry, trying for dear life to sound calm just to upset Ron, looking back down at his paper now.
"LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M YELLING AT YOU!" Ron screamed which Harry thought was very funny.
But Ron didn't. Next thing Harry knew, Ron was walking towards him, his hand outstretched. Harry was waiting for a punch, but he didn't get it. Instead, Ron snatched the quill out of his hand, snapped it in half and poured the ink bottle right on Harry's head.
"Now you've got no quills left," said Ron.
His hair dripping with black ink and fuming, Harry wasn't sure what made him do it. All he knew was that he was suddenly extremely angry, angrier than he'd just seen Ron act. His hand balled up into a fist seemingly all on its own but he was fully aware of directing it towards Ron's large, freckled nose.
This seemed to be Ron's breaking point because, his nose bleeding, he threw an ink bottle right at Harry who dodged it and, Harry, standing up, got a fist in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Before he could move, he felt Ron's other fist hit him hard on the nose.
Winded and his own nose bleeding freely as well, Harry kicked Ron in the stomach to knock him back. He then stood up, pulled his fist back as far as possible and, ignoring the look of abject terror on Ron's face, threw it forward with all of the force inside of him.
Harry must have underestimated his own strength, he thought, because he heard a crack which he guessed was Ron's nose breaking and the force of his punch had Ron up against the opposite wall. Ron ran, as fast as he could and Harry finally noticed what was so scary: it was his fist. It had grown at least three times normal size but was now shrinking back to normal.
He stood frozen, his heart sinking horribly, a block of cement the size of his overgrown fist resting inside his stomach. That had only happened once before, when he had...
Harry had a very strange dream that night. He had a funny feeling he'd had something similar before because it took place down in an underground pit. Before him stood a dementor, Voldemort a strangely familiar rope ladder and -- James Potter.
Nothing was moving except the arms of Harry's father which were frantically waving him over. Harry didn't need to think long, his knees weak, thanks to the dementor's presence, everything strangely blurry, to know where he wanted to go. A weak smile now across his face, Harry didn't walk, he ran, but as he ran it seemed to become farther and farther away.
Harry felt a rising panic. At first it seemed to be so very close, then a few feet, then it looked like ten feet, several meters... Now he was running as fast as his rubbery legs and clouded-up head would let him, the dementor's aura of cold and dark thoughts overcoming him. He needed to escape, he had to, but the obvious made him feel distinctly sick: the closer he thought he was getting, the farther away he really was.
Harry turned around to see what had become of the dementor and Voldemort or at least where they had gone. What he saw made him stumble backwards and fall. Both of them had grown tremendously in size, at least fives times the height Harry first saw them as. As his eyes darted back towards the rope ladder and his father, whose arms were still flailing, there appeared to be only one hope left: the rope ladder. As he uncertainly edged toward the ladder, James Potter's arms stopped moving and he started yelling. And his words tore viciously at Harry's heart.
"Harry!" he cried desperately. "Harry, where are you going? Come and get me! Don't leave me down here!"
Harry stopped dead, staring longingly at the picture of his father who seemed to be haunting his son's dreams a lot lately. He didn't want to leave him down there! The look on his face... those words... But how was Harry going to get to him when the space just seemed to get bigger and bigger? He wanted to, he had to, but what could he do?
He had been waiting too long. Harry felt a cold, clammy rotting hand on his shoulder and it was this that made him wake up with a start in a cold sweat.