The sun was already bright when Harry woke up; he hadn't gotten much
rest as he'd been disturbed in the middle of the night by a strange dream
and hadn't gotten back to sleep until the early hours of the morning. He
smiled drowsily as he looked around the room at the familiar surroundings.
He saw the other four large four-poster beds, covered with scarlet
bedclothes and canopies, the trunks of his roommates at the end of each
bed, and everything else he was used to seeing.
He rubbed his head as he stood to get dressed and he thought about his dream. He had seen images of himself year after year, gradually growing older and older, until he became an old man. He saw images of his friends too. Getting older and older but unlike him, they left Hogwarts and got careers and families. The details of these careers and families weren't important or real clear, just the fact that they existed. At the end of the dream, he died, an old man and still a student at Hogwarts taking classes and writing homework. Hogwarts. Funny, as much as he detested homework and some students and a few teachers Hogwarts was the place he wanted to stay. Forever. Maybe. There was something comforting about the familiar corridors, and knowing what teachers to avoid, how to command a Quiditch team, and that he was safe here. There was no doubt about life at Hogwarts; he went to classes and Quiditch practice. Life was fairly peaceful. But he couldn't stay here forever. Not really. He gave a final, rueful sigh before slamming the door shut to go off in search of his friends.
He didn't find them in the common room. No one was there, in fact.
"Hello? Where is everybody?" There was no answer; it would have greatly surprised him if there had been. He left the Tower and went back down to the Great Hall to see if they were eating breakfast.
Owing to the late hour that was somewhere between breakfast and lunch there was hardly anyone there. Ron, Renata, and Hermione weren't among the ones who were. He went outside to look for them, searching around the lake, a few students were milling around the lake and the grounds outside but his friends were not among them.
He furrowed his brow in concentration trying to think of where they would be. He sat in the shade of a tree to help him think, it was getting warmer outside. He took off his sweater. Where could they be?
A voice in his mind spoke and it sounded somewhere between Draco Malfoy and Dudley Dursley, it had Draco's coldness and Dudley's taunting. Maybe they're tired of you. Didn't think of that, did you, Potter? They spent the summer with you. Isn't that enough to make anyone sick? Harry glared at the ground in front of him. No! His friends wouldn't do that to him. They wouldn't just get tired of him. Maybe Ron had heard him wake up in the middle of the night and known that Harry would be tired in the morning. Or Renata. She had not been in the room of course but sometimes she knew things, especially about Harry, without anyone telling her and for no reason. He continued to glare at the ground. He remembered Hermione's fall the day before. They would probably go wherever she wanted. He grinned, not hard to guess her favorite part of the school: the library. Hermione lived for books. Renata seemed almost the same on occasion.
He got up to make his way back up the stairs to the library. He found it to be abuzz with students, which in itself was unusual. Apparently people of all houses had things to discuss and the library was a good place to discus them, if they could be quiet enough to suit Madam Pince's standards.
He passed Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors talking earnestly. He heard snatches of conversations.
"What do you think is going to happen?"
"I don't know. It can't be good."
He moved on past that table and was about to pass by another when he stopped in his tracks.
"Will You-Know-Who attack?" asked a shy-looking girl with a single dark ponytail.
"Never! Not in a million years while Dumbledore is here," replied a young boy at the table.
"Are you mad? I'm not sure even Dumbledore can stop him." This boy was older than the first and he looked worried. His was brow full of lines and cares.
"You-Know-Who wants to kill Harry. Everybody knows it. Couldn't we just give him up?" asked the shy-looking girl.
Most everyone at the table, there were probably a half dozen or so of them, glared at her.
"I think you're the one who's mad."
"Why?" she pouted.
"Because!" replied another girl. "He's Harry Potter. He's the one that killed Voldemort the first time and ended the Dark Days. He can kill him again. I know it."
"Besides," said one of the boys, "He's really good at Quiditch."
"I don't know. Do you think he'll survive the fight?" said one.
"Fight?" asked another.
The girl lowered her voice and Harry crept closer to hear.
"The prophecies! I learned them when I was young. It was part of my mother's work."
"What does your mother do?"
"That's not important. So I learned a lot of them. And one of them mention the final battle between a Dark Lord and a boy who would save the world."
"Oh come off it. You can't really believe a prophecy. It's just mumbo jumbo."
"It is not!" she protested. "Do you know how many of the other prophecies came true? I'll tell you-"
"But if the prophecies were true," asked one student who, 'til then, had been silent. She was obviously choosing her words carefully so as to offend no one but still say what she meant to. She looked familiar, a little younger than Harry, but he couldn't place her. "Then would Harry Potter be the boy? He's nearly graduated. He'll be 18 by next July and next September he won't even be back at school. I'd say he was almost a man if age has to do with anything. So if the prophecies are true the last battle comes soon."
Harry saw the circle of people shiver, except the speaker. He didn't stay to listen longer. He couldn't. His knees were weak but he concentrated on looking for his friends.
When he found them they were near the window at the far end of the library, near the windows.
Hermione's crutches were propped against the wall and she sat with Ron and Renata. They had some books out, but had apparently been doing more discussing than researching, whatever it was that they were researching. For some reason they hid the books at his arrival, Renata and Hermione leaning over the table and covering them with their arms and Ron dropping his behind the chair.
Hermione remarked, "Harry, you look as though you've seen a ghost."
Renata laughed and Harry could understand why though he couldn't bring himself to laugh. Though "looking like he'd seen a ghost" would be the appropriate Muggle expression for the way he probably appeared, it was quite inappropriate at Hogwarts. At Hogwarts there were many fine resident ghosts including Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, the Grey Lady of Ravenclaw, and Professor Binns the history of magic professor.
Renata's mum had made sure that she had had a more than a fair amount of exposure to Muggles because as Renata had told Ron when he'd asked about why she gave the answer her mum had "We share this world". Hermione was also well aware of what she'd said, after she'd said it of course. She was a Muggle-born. Her parents didn't have a drop of magic in their blood but she was an oddity that had turned up in the family. Harry, like Hermione, had grown up thinking magic was nonsense until they finally each got a letter from Hogwarts at age 11. Though his parents were both magical he had been raised as a Muggle. Only Ron was in the dark, quite unaware of most aspects of Muggle life and culture; though his father was fascinated by Muggles and liked to collect plugs and batteries.
At any rate their laughter died on their lips. Harry frowned at his friends. "What are those books you're trying to hide?" At this point his saw the girls lean in further, perhaps somewhat unconscious of what they were doing.
"Nothing," Renata said casually.
"What books?" Ron demanded, raising his arms to show he hid nothing.
"Come off it. You know I'm not blind. Let me see that book, Renata."
"I don't know what you're talking about." She kept a straight face.
He went for the least able liar. "Hermione, I know you have a book under your arms. You can't possibly deny it."
"You don't need to see this book, Harry. It's nothing important," she protested, leaning down harder on the book and completely covering from sight.
He insisted, "Let me see it. Now."
"No, Harry," Renata told him firmly. She stared at him with hard eyes. "You don't need to see these books and we will not show them to you. So forget it." She waited a fraction of a second longer before suddenly standing and saying, "Ron, he's going to try and take your book!"
She said this in the nick of time for Ron to snatch the book Harry had just been plotting to grab.
Harry glowered at Renata. "You were reading my mind again! Weren't you?" He hated when she did that.
She glared right back at him. "I did not! Not this time."
"Then how did you know?"
"I." Her face fell. "I just did," she muttered. She said no more about the subject but scrambled to another. "So why did you look so strange when you came over here?"
He avoided the question. "Why didn't any of you tell me where you'd be this morning?"
"We're not your dogs. We don't have to report to you whenever we're going to go somewhere," she told him coldly.
"I never said you were!" he started to go red in the face, but he wasn't sure whether it was embarrassment or anger, probably both.
"So, are you going to sit down and give us an explanation or not?"
He hesitated. He didn't want to tell them. But they were all staring at him. He only had two choices: speak or leave. He hesitated a moment longer before sitting down. "Do any of you know about the prophecies of the Dark Lord and the boy who saves the world?"
Ron and Renata shook their heads. Hermione cast her eyes at the table, not looking at Harry.
Harry noticed this. "Hermione, this is really important. What do you know?"
"Nothing. Nothing. I.I have to be going."
"Hermione?"
"Yeah?" She still didn't look at him.
Harry knew she couldn't and wouldn't stare him in the face right now. "Never mind. I'll see you later. Ron, Renata, I'm going to be going too. I'll see you later."
Hermione had already left the library. Harry turned to leave when Renata rose and said, "We're not through with you yet, Harry."
He took two or three steps and stopped dead. He could feel Renata's eyes on his back.
"Harry, if you're going to go look for Hermione and try and get her to talk, forget it."
"I'm not." He still stood with his back to her.
"Look at me, Harry. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you're not going to look for her."
He turned and with an effort kept her gaze as he told her, "I'm not going to look for Hermione. I'm going for a walk."
She studied him another moment or so after the words had left his mouth and nodded, satisfied that he'd told the truth. "Fine. Go. Leave us alone."
Harry was glad to get away. He couldn't bear to stand another moment there. He walked through the library, and a lot of the people who had been there when he came in were still there, but that one table he had paused near on his way to look for his friends was now empty. * * * * * * * * * *
After lunch, Harry couldn't find Ron or Renata. He wasn't too upset. He didn't want them asking questions. He had a lot to think about. Prophecies. Prophecies couldn't be real. No one believed anything about Destiny, did they? No one but bats like Trelawny ever believe anything about prophecies and telling the future. Or did they? Harry was confused. He needed time to think, but he was afraid he wasn't going to have it. He sat in the common room that night, withdrawn and staring into the flames of the fire, contemplating. He'd have to do some research and it would have to be on his own.
Harry glanced up at the door every so often, waiting for Hermione to come. She'd been in the library all evening; he knew that's where she'd been. He had paid close attention at lunch and watched where she went after leaving the table and he couldn't mistake the purposeful look of her face when she limped off on her crutches in the direction of the library. A few hours later he'd checked in on her at the library, careful that he didn't see her and again an hour after dinner he checked. She was still there, but he'd no idea why. Renata had probably spent most of the day on the Quiditch field but he couldn't say it for a fact. Ron had likely been with Renata; discussing the conversation from that morning.
Ron and Renata entered the common room together and stayed a few minutes, not talking to Harry, before going up the separate staircases.
Finally Hermione showed up.
He knew he'd have to be careful in approaching Hermione. If he said the wrong thing she might not speak to him, and he had to know what she knew. Whatever that was.
He didn't approach her. He knew she'd come sit at a chair opposite of him. She did, and he waited.
"Harry." She said nervously.
He looked up at her.
"I don't really want to tell you but I know that you need to know." She took a few breaths of air. "I have heard about the Prophecies. It was a book I was reading in the library."
"What book, Hermione? You don't have to tell me about the Prophecies. I'll read them myself."
"You can't. After I returned the book Madam Pince was so shocked that it had been in the library in the first place and that I'd been allowed to check it out, she did something drastic."
"She put it in the restricted section?"
"Worse." She sighed miserably. "She took out her wand and made the book burst into flames."
Harry's eyes widened. Madam Pince went crazy if so much as a drop of ink was spilt on one of her books or a single page torn, her destroying one on purpose made no sense. "Why?"
"I'm not sure. She said it was unfit for student eyes."
"Two years ago."
"So you don't remember the Prophecies?"
"I.I wrote them down. They sounded important." She reached into her pocket and extracted a neatly folded square of paper. "It's been sitting at the bottom of my trunk all this time. Read the paper. Don't give it back to me. Tear it and throw it out the window. Burn it in the fireplace. Don't give it to me." She rose and quickly departed.
The common room was nearly empty. Harry stared at the square of paper in his hands. It had gone yellow with age. He opened it to reveal Hermione's tidy printing.
"The Prophecies of the Boy to Destroy the Dark Lord, the Man Reborn. The Dark Lord can only be destroyed by an inferior with something more. A young man with wisdom beyond his years, gone through too much heartache to know fear, heard too much to be able to still hear. The Boy to fight will be called the Lion's Warrior and the People's Protector. Not yet of an age with manhood he is a boy to destroy. Only with companions 5 can he remain alive though he resist help to the bitter end. 1 of the 5 will be lost forever before the end. An orphan young he was born to die, as were his parents, but he must survive, else all will die. Parents, Protectors of the Night, gave their lives in the line of duty knowing they would save us all. The Boy to Save us will be Crowned King of all if he wins and lives to tell the tale, but doomed to torment eternally if he does not." He stared at the paper. "What does any of this mean? It's all gibberish."
He stared at his hands for a few moments wondering what it could all possibly mean. None of it made any sense. Protectors of Night? Lion's Warrior? He'd never heard these titles. He she was inches from his face by the time he realized she was there.
"Harry?"
He gave a start. "Huh? What are you doing up? I.I thought you were already in bed." His face colored with guilt, he tried to hide the piece of paper by putting it in his pocket. He only got it halfway in.
"That was a trick, Harry. You should know me better than that. I knew as well as you did that Hermione would come here and give you some sort of information she'd hidden from the rest of us and I mean to find out what it is. I just had to wait for her to go to sleep. Tell me about the Prophecies."
"Not so loud. The other people." He waved in a vague direction to the left where a few stragglers had been earlier. "How did you know I'd still be here?"
"Because, I know you too well, Harry. I know you maybe better than you know yourself. I more or less know how your mind works. I knew that after Hermione left you would be too preoccupied to go to bed despite the fact that we have school tomorrow. And there are no other people here, Harry. Just us."
He looked around and saw that she was right. The common room had emptied. "Oh." Suddenly he realized just how empty the room was, just him and Renata. He scooted his chair back toward the fire a few inches. "Give me some breathing room, will ya?"
She didn't step back at all; on the contrary, she stepped forward. "No. Not until you let me see that paper."
"No. You're not looking at it." The truth was that he needed somebody to talk to about it. Ron wouldn't understand it anymore than he would and Hermione wasn't going to speak about it. But he was not just going to hand the paper over. "You can't have it, Renata."
"Harry, I'm going to get that paper sooner or later. Just hand it over."
Harry knew that it was inevitable but still he delayed. "No, Renata."
She finally backed away, but not far. She took the chair opposite of him and moved it right next to him. "Okay, you have options. But not many. One, you can give me the paper now and let me read it and save you a lot of grief. Two, you can refuse to give me the paper and I'll take out my wand and curse you, jinx you, and hex you until you give me the paper or I can take it of my own free will. Trust me, you won't like that last option because I don't know all the counter-curses and I intend to have fun hexing and not pay attention to what I know or don't know."
"I don't have to take this, Renata. You've no right to see this paper about the prophecies so you aren't going to see it. I'm leaving. I'll see you in class." Harry tried to stand and found he couldn't.
He saw that Renata had her wand out and was muttering. His legs wobbled if he stood and he collapsed back in the chair. Jelly-legs. He knew the counter-curse. Where was his wand?
"Accio!"
His wand came sailing out of his pocket and landed in Renata's outstretched hand. "Give up?" She asked in a too-sweet voice.
"No."
"Have it your way. I discovered a very interesting effect caused by crossing Jelly Legs with another spell."
Harry missed the words of the spell but he knew the effect. When he tried to stand again it felt like all parts of him connected to the chair, were connected by bubblegum. He couldn't even stand; the invisible "gum" wouldn't allow it. "Let me up, now!"
"Shut-up. You're going to wake everyone up. Give me the paper." She went to his chair and took the page, meanwhile cruelly holding Harry's wand just out of his reach. She settled into her seat and as she read the words her eyes got wide. But soon her normal expression returned, along with a satisfied smile. "See? Was that so bad? I managed to get the paper with out putting you in any pain. I could have."
"I have no doubt you would have."
"Someone's going to die. But you're going to have help. Five.you don't count, then Ron, that's 1; Hermione, that's 2; and of course me, that makes 3. Who are the others?"
"You're not going to help do anything. First of all that stupid thing isn't even about me and if it were, you wouldn't be allowed to help. I'm not letting any of you get hurt on my account."
"Yes, but you see, you don't have any say in the matter. It says here you're going to resist any help. Just like you always do. This sounds encourage, you win and live you'll be crowned King, you live and lose and you'll face eternal torture. It doesn't give the options about if you die. Although I suppose you could die and win and I'm fairly sure you can die and lose. Did Hermione tell you anything about this or the book it came from?"
"No," he told her through gritted teeth.
She looked at him for a long minute that seemed to be an eternity. "You're lying." She reached in her pocket and approached his chair.
Harry saw her take a vial of liquid out of her pocket. He closed his mouth but he couldn't stop her pinching his nose and jamming the vial between his teeth as she tilted his head back when he had to open his mouth to breathe.
She didn't let going of Harry's nose or head until she was sure he'd swallowed all of it.
"I'm just going to ask you a question or two. Is that all right with you?"
"No."
"Too bad. Question one: What did Hermione tell you about the book she got that from?"
"She told me that Madam Pince burned it when she returned it to the library."
"Did she tell you the title?"
"No."
"Did she tell you the author?"
"No." He said this with a certain amount of satisfaction; he still frustrated her despite her attempts.
"I'm trying to decide whether or not I should ask my last question." She had a wicked gleam in her eyes as if whatever the question was; he wasn't going to like it. He doubted he would.
"Don't." He shook his head hoping his protest would come to some affect.
"Now let's see. I laced that truth potion with a sleeping draught. I wonder if I'll have time to hear your answer before you drift off. That will be any minute or so. I guess I won't ask you. Goodnight." She got up and started toward the girls' staircase.
"What about me?"
"Oh. The spell binding you to the chair will wear off sometime in the night. You'll get your wand back at breakfast." She waved her own wand and some blankets appeared on top of Harry. "Better?"
He had to admit that he was.
"Good. Then I'll see you at breakfast."
"What about the truth potion?"
"I haven't the faintest idea when that will wear off." She grinned and left before he could say another word.
Harry couldn't have said another word if he had wanted to. The sleep potion was strong, he only hoped he didn't oversleep the next morning.
* ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ *
Author's Note: Okay I know all this business about Prophecies makes it sound like the Rowling's Order of the Phoenix business but I swear this stuff was written before that came out. The next couple chapters were written before that too.
He rubbed his head as he stood to get dressed and he thought about his dream. He had seen images of himself year after year, gradually growing older and older, until he became an old man. He saw images of his friends too. Getting older and older but unlike him, they left Hogwarts and got careers and families. The details of these careers and families weren't important or real clear, just the fact that they existed. At the end of the dream, he died, an old man and still a student at Hogwarts taking classes and writing homework. Hogwarts. Funny, as much as he detested homework and some students and a few teachers Hogwarts was the place he wanted to stay. Forever. Maybe. There was something comforting about the familiar corridors, and knowing what teachers to avoid, how to command a Quiditch team, and that he was safe here. There was no doubt about life at Hogwarts; he went to classes and Quiditch practice. Life was fairly peaceful. But he couldn't stay here forever. Not really. He gave a final, rueful sigh before slamming the door shut to go off in search of his friends.
He didn't find them in the common room. No one was there, in fact.
"Hello? Where is everybody?" There was no answer; it would have greatly surprised him if there had been. He left the Tower and went back down to the Great Hall to see if they were eating breakfast.
Owing to the late hour that was somewhere between breakfast and lunch there was hardly anyone there. Ron, Renata, and Hermione weren't among the ones who were. He went outside to look for them, searching around the lake, a few students were milling around the lake and the grounds outside but his friends were not among them.
He furrowed his brow in concentration trying to think of where they would be. He sat in the shade of a tree to help him think, it was getting warmer outside. He took off his sweater. Where could they be?
A voice in his mind spoke and it sounded somewhere between Draco Malfoy and Dudley Dursley, it had Draco's coldness and Dudley's taunting. Maybe they're tired of you. Didn't think of that, did you, Potter? They spent the summer with you. Isn't that enough to make anyone sick? Harry glared at the ground in front of him. No! His friends wouldn't do that to him. They wouldn't just get tired of him. Maybe Ron had heard him wake up in the middle of the night and known that Harry would be tired in the morning. Or Renata. She had not been in the room of course but sometimes she knew things, especially about Harry, without anyone telling her and for no reason. He continued to glare at the ground. He remembered Hermione's fall the day before. They would probably go wherever she wanted. He grinned, not hard to guess her favorite part of the school: the library. Hermione lived for books. Renata seemed almost the same on occasion.
He got up to make his way back up the stairs to the library. He found it to be abuzz with students, which in itself was unusual. Apparently people of all houses had things to discuss and the library was a good place to discus them, if they could be quiet enough to suit Madam Pince's standards.
He passed Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors talking earnestly. He heard snatches of conversations.
"What do you think is going to happen?"
"I don't know. It can't be good."
He moved on past that table and was about to pass by another when he stopped in his tracks.
"Will You-Know-Who attack?" asked a shy-looking girl with a single dark ponytail.
"Never! Not in a million years while Dumbledore is here," replied a young boy at the table.
"Are you mad? I'm not sure even Dumbledore can stop him." This boy was older than the first and he looked worried. His was brow full of lines and cares.
"You-Know-Who wants to kill Harry. Everybody knows it. Couldn't we just give him up?" asked the shy-looking girl.
Most everyone at the table, there were probably a half dozen or so of them, glared at her.
"I think you're the one who's mad."
"Why?" she pouted.
"Because!" replied another girl. "He's Harry Potter. He's the one that killed Voldemort the first time and ended the Dark Days. He can kill him again. I know it."
"Besides," said one of the boys, "He's really good at Quiditch."
"I don't know. Do you think he'll survive the fight?" said one.
"Fight?" asked another.
The girl lowered her voice and Harry crept closer to hear.
"The prophecies! I learned them when I was young. It was part of my mother's work."
"What does your mother do?"
"That's not important. So I learned a lot of them. And one of them mention the final battle between a Dark Lord and a boy who would save the world."
"Oh come off it. You can't really believe a prophecy. It's just mumbo jumbo."
"It is not!" she protested. "Do you know how many of the other prophecies came true? I'll tell you-"
"But if the prophecies were true," asked one student who, 'til then, had been silent. She was obviously choosing her words carefully so as to offend no one but still say what she meant to. She looked familiar, a little younger than Harry, but he couldn't place her. "Then would Harry Potter be the boy? He's nearly graduated. He'll be 18 by next July and next September he won't even be back at school. I'd say he was almost a man if age has to do with anything. So if the prophecies are true the last battle comes soon."
Harry saw the circle of people shiver, except the speaker. He didn't stay to listen longer. He couldn't. His knees were weak but he concentrated on looking for his friends.
When he found them they were near the window at the far end of the library, near the windows.
Hermione's crutches were propped against the wall and she sat with Ron and Renata. They had some books out, but had apparently been doing more discussing than researching, whatever it was that they were researching. For some reason they hid the books at his arrival, Renata and Hermione leaning over the table and covering them with their arms and Ron dropping his behind the chair.
Hermione remarked, "Harry, you look as though you've seen a ghost."
Renata laughed and Harry could understand why though he couldn't bring himself to laugh. Though "looking like he'd seen a ghost" would be the appropriate Muggle expression for the way he probably appeared, it was quite inappropriate at Hogwarts. At Hogwarts there were many fine resident ghosts including Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, the Grey Lady of Ravenclaw, and Professor Binns the history of magic professor.
Renata's mum had made sure that she had had a more than a fair amount of exposure to Muggles because as Renata had told Ron when he'd asked about why she gave the answer her mum had "We share this world". Hermione was also well aware of what she'd said, after she'd said it of course. She was a Muggle-born. Her parents didn't have a drop of magic in their blood but she was an oddity that had turned up in the family. Harry, like Hermione, had grown up thinking magic was nonsense until they finally each got a letter from Hogwarts at age 11. Though his parents were both magical he had been raised as a Muggle. Only Ron was in the dark, quite unaware of most aspects of Muggle life and culture; though his father was fascinated by Muggles and liked to collect plugs and batteries.
At any rate their laughter died on their lips. Harry frowned at his friends. "What are those books you're trying to hide?" At this point his saw the girls lean in further, perhaps somewhat unconscious of what they were doing.
"Nothing," Renata said casually.
"What books?" Ron demanded, raising his arms to show he hid nothing.
"Come off it. You know I'm not blind. Let me see that book, Renata."
"I don't know what you're talking about." She kept a straight face.
He went for the least able liar. "Hermione, I know you have a book under your arms. You can't possibly deny it."
"You don't need to see this book, Harry. It's nothing important," she protested, leaning down harder on the book and completely covering from sight.
He insisted, "Let me see it. Now."
"No, Harry," Renata told him firmly. She stared at him with hard eyes. "You don't need to see these books and we will not show them to you. So forget it." She waited a fraction of a second longer before suddenly standing and saying, "Ron, he's going to try and take your book!"
She said this in the nick of time for Ron to snatch the book Harry had just been plotting to grab.
Harry glowered at Renata. "You were reading my mind again! Weren't you?" He hated when she did that.
She glared right back at him. "I did not! Not this time."
"Then how did you know?"
"I." Her face fell. "I just did," she muttered. She said no more about the subject but scrambled to another. "So why did you look so strange when you came over here?"
He avoided the question. "Why didn't any of you tell me where you'd be this morning?"
"We're not your dogs. We don't have to report to you whenever we're going to go somewhere," she told him coldly.
"I never said you were!" he started to go red in the face, but he wasn't sure whether it was embarrassment or anger, probably both.
"So, are you going to sit down and give us an explanation or not?"
He hesitated. He didn't want to tell them. But they were all staring at him. He only had two choices: speak or leave. He hesitated a moment longer before sitting down. "Do any of you know about the prophecies of the Dark Lord and the boy who saves the world?"
Ron and Renata shook their heads. Hermione cast her eyes at the table, not looking at Harry.
Harry noticed this. "Hermione, this is really important. What do you know?"
"Nothing. Nothing. I.I have to be going."
"Hermione?"
"Yeah?" She still didn't look at him.
Harry knew she couldn't and wouldn't stare him in the face right now. "Never mind. I'll see you later. Ron, Renata, I'm going to be going too. I'll see you later."
Hermione had already left the library. Harry turned to leave when Renata rose and said, "We're not through with you yet, Harry."
He took two or three steps and stopped dead. He could feel Renata's eyes on his back.
"Harry, if you're going to go look for Hermione and try and get her to talk, forget it."
"I'm not." He still stood with his back to her.
"Look at me, Harry. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you're not going to look for her."
He turned and with an effort kept her gaze as he told her, "I'm not going to look for Hermione. I'm going for a walk."
She studied him another moment or so after the words had left his mouth and nodded, satisfied that he'd told the truth. "Fine. Go. Leave us alone."
Harry was glad to get away. He couldn't bear to stand another moment there. He walked through the library, and a lot of the people who had been there when he came in were still there, but that one table he had paused near on his way to look for his friends was now empty. * * * * * * * * * *
After lunch, Harry couldn't find Ron or Renata. He wasn't too upset. He didn't want them asking questions. He had a lot to think about. Prophecies. Prophecies couldn't be real. No one believed anything about Destiny, did they? No one but bats like Trelawny ever believe anything about prophecies and telling the future. Or did they? Harry was confused. He needed time to think, but he was afraid he wasn't going to have it. He sat in the common room that night, withdrawn and staring into the flames of the fire, contemplating. He'd have to do some research and it would have to be on his own.
Harry glanced up at the door every so often, waiting for Hermione to come. She'd been in the library all evening; he knew that's where she'd been. He had paid close attention at lunch and watched where she went after leaving the table and he couldn't mistake the purposeful look of her face when she limped off on her crutches in the direction of the library. A few hours later he'd checked in on her at the library, careful that he didn't see her and again an hour after dinner he checked. She was still there, but he'd no idea why. Renata had probably spent most of the day on the Quiditch field but he couldn't say it for a fact. Ron had likely been with Renata; discussing the conversation from that morning.
Ron and Renata entered the common room together and stayed a few minutes, not talking to Harry, before going up the separate staircases.
Finally Hermione showed up.
He knew he'd have to be careful in approaching Hermione. If he said the wrong thing she might not speak to him, and he had to know what she knew. Whatever that was.
He didn't approach her. He knew she'd come sit at a chair opposite of him. She did, and he waited.
"Harry." She said nervously.
He looked up at her.
"I don't really want to tell you but I know that you need to know." She took a few breaths of air. "I have heard about the Prophecies. It was a book I was reading in the library."
"What book, Hermione? You don't have to tell me about the Prophecies. I'll read them myself."
"You can't. After I returned the book Madam Pince was so shocked that it had been in the library in the first place and that I'd been allowed to check it out, she did something drastic."
"She put it in the restricted section?"
"Worse." She sighed miserably. "She took out her wand and made the book burst into flames."
Harry's eyes widened. Madam Pince went crazy if so much as a drop of ink was spilt on one of her books or a single page torn, her destroying one on purpose made no sense. "Why?"
"I'm not sure. She said it was unfit for student eyes."
"Two years ago."
"So you don't remember the Prophecies?"
"I.I wrote them down. They sounded important." She reached into her pocket and extracted a neatly folded square of paper. "It's been sitting at the bottom of my trunk all this time. Read the paper. Don't give it back to me. Tear it and throw it out the window. Burn it in the fireplace. Don't give it to me." She rose and quickly departed.
The common room was nearly empty. Harry stared at the square of paper in his hands. It had gone yellow with age. He opened it to reveal Hermione's tidy printing.
"The Prophecies of the Boy to Destroy the Dark Lord, the Man Reborn. The Dark Lord can only be destroyed by an inferior with something more. A young man with wisdom beyond his years, gone through too much heartache to know fear, heard too much to be able to still hear. The Boy to fight will be called the Lion's Warrior and the People's Protector. Not yet of an age with manhood he is a boy to destroy. Only with companions 5 can he remain alive though he resist help to the bitter end. 1 of the 5 will be lost forever before the end. An orphan young he was born to die, as were his parents, but he must survive, else all will die. Parents, Protectors of the Night, gave their lives in the line of duty knowing they would save us all. The Boy to Save us will be Crowned King of all if he wins and lives to tell the tale, but doomed to torment eternally if he does not." He stared at the paper. "What does any of this mean? It's all gibberish."
He stared at his hands for a few moments wondering what it could all possibly mean. None of it made any sense. Protectors of Night? Lion's Warrior? He'd never heard these titles. He she was inches from his face by the time he realized she was there.
"Harry?"
He gave a start. "Huh? What are you doing up? I.I thought you were already in bed." His face colored with guilt, he tried to hide the piece of paper by putting it in his pocket. He only got it halfway in.
"That was a trick, Harry. You should know me better than that. I knew as well as you did that Hermione would come here and give you some sort of information she'd hidden from the rest of us and I mean to find out what it is. I just had to wait for her to go to sleep. Tell me about the Prophecies."
"Not so loud. The other people." He waved in a vague direction to the left where a few stragglers had been earlier. "How did you know I'd still be here?"
"Because, I know you too well, Harry. I know you maybe better than you know yourself. I more or less know how your mind works. I knew that after Hermione left you would be too preoccupied to go to bed despite the fact that we have school tomorrow. And there are no other people here, Harry. Just us."
He looked around and saw that she was right. The common room had emptied. "Oh." Suddenly he realized just how empty the room was, just him and Renata. He scooted his chair back toward the fire a few inches. "Give me some breathing room, will ya?"
She didn't step back at all; on the contrary, she stepped forward. "No. Not until you let me see that paper."
"No. You're not looking at it." The truth was that he needed somebody to talk to about it. Ron wouldn't understand it anymore than he would and Hermione wasn't going to speak about it. But he was not just going to hand the paper over. "You can't have it, Renata."
"Harry, I'm going to get that paper sooner or later. Just hand it over."
Harry knew that it was inevitable but still he delayed. "No, Renata."
She finally backed away, but not far. She took the chair opposite of him and moved it right next to him. "Okay, you have options. But not many. One, you can give me the paper now and let me read it and save you a lot of grief. Two, you can refuse to give me the paper and I'll take out my wand and curse you, jinx you, and hex you until you give me the paper or I can take it of my own free will. Trust me, you won't like that last option because I don't know all the counter-curses and I intend to have fun hexing and not pay attention to what I know or don't know."
"I don't have to take this, Renata. You've no right to see this paper about the prophecies so you aren't going to see it. I'm leaving. I'll see you in class." Harry tried to stand and found he couldn't.
He saw that Renata had her wand out and was muttering. His legs wobbled if he stood and he collapsed back in the chair. Jelly-legs. He knew the counter-curse. Where was his wand?
"Accio!"
His wand came sailing out of his pocket and landed in Renata's outstretched hand. "Give up?" She asked in a too-sweet voice.
"No."
"Have it your way. I discovered a very interesting effect caused by crossing Jelly Legs with another spell."
Harry missed the words of the spell but he knew the effect. When he tried to stand again it felt like all parts of him connected to the chair, were connected by bubblegum. He couldn't even stand; the invisible "gum" wouldn't allow it. "Let me up, now!"
"Shut-up. You're going to wake everyone up. Give me the paper." She went to his chair and took the page, meanwhile cruelly holding Harry's wand just out of his reach. She settled into her seat and as she read the words her eyes got wide. But soon her normal expression returned, along with a satisfied smile. "See? Was that so bad? I managed to get the paper with out putting you in any pain. I could have."
"I have no doubt you would have."
"Someone's going to die. But you're going to have help. Five.you don't count, then Ron, that's 1; Hermione, that's 2; and of course me, that makes 3. Who are the others?"
"You're not going to help do anything. First of all that stupid thing isn't even about me and if it were, you wouldn't be allowed to help. I'm not letting any of you get hurt on my account."
"Yes, but you see, you don't have any say in the matter. It says here you're going to resist any help. Just like you always do. This sounds encourage, you win and live you'll be crowned King, you live and lose and you'll face eternal torture. It doesn't give the options about if you die. Although I suppose you could die and win and I'm fairly sure you can die and lose. Did Hermione tell you anything about this or the book it came from?"
"No," he told her through gritted teeth.
She looked at him for a long minute that seemed to be an eternity. "You're lying." She reached in her pocket and approached his chair.
Harry saw her take a vial of liquid out of her pocket. He closed his mouth but he couldn't stop her pinching his nose and jamming the vial between his teeth as she tilted his head back when he had to open his mouth to breathe.
She didn't let going of Harry's nose or head until she was sure he'd swallowed all of it.
"I'm just going to ask you a question or two. Is that all right with you?"
"No."
"Too bad. Question one: What did Hermione tell you about the book she got that from?"
"She told me that Madam Pince burned it when she returned it to the library."
"Did she tell you the title?"
"No."
"Did she tell you the author?"
"No." He said this with a certain amount of satisfaction; he still frustrated her despite her attempts.
"I'm trying to decide whether or not I should ask my last question." She had a wicked gleam in her eyes as if whatever the question was; he wasn't going to like it. He doubted he would.
"Don't." He shook his head hoping his protest would come to some affect.
"Now let's see. I laced that truth potion with a sleeping draught. I wonder if I'll have time to hear your answer before you drift off. That will be any minute or so. I guess I won't ask you. Goodnight." She got up and started toward the girls' staircase.
"What about me?"
"Oh. The spell binding you to the chair will wear off sometime in the night. You'll get your wand back at breakfast." She waved her own wand and some blankets appeared on top of Harry. "Better?"
He had to admit that he was.
"Good. Then I'll see you at breakfast."
"What about the truth potion?"
"I haven't the faintest idea when that will wear off." She grinned and left before he could say another word.
Harry couldn't have said another word if he had wanted to. The sleep potion was strong, he only hoped he didn't oversleep the next morning.
* ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ *
Author's Note: Okay I know all this business about Prophecies makes it sound like the Rowling's Order of the Phoenix business but I swear this stuff was written before that came out. The next couple chapters were written before that too.
