Dates & Duelling
Chapter 32
Sunday, November 3
The Gryffindor celebration party was in full swing in the common room after their victory against the Slytherins. Harry was surrounded by a mob of people congratulating him, and it was some time before he could try and find Ron. At last, he extricated himself from Romilda Vane, who was hinting heavily that she would like to go to Slughorn's Christmas party with him. As he was ducking toward the drinks table, he walked straight into Ginny.
"Looking for Ron?" she asked, smirking. "He's over there, the filthy hypocrite."
Harry looked into the corner she was indicating. There, in full view of the whole room, stood Ron wrapped so closely around Lavender Brown it was hard to tell whose hands were whose.
"It looks like he's eating her face, doesn't it?" said Ginny dispassionately. She clearly had not forgotten the incident where Ron and Harry had walked in on her snogging Dean. Harry flushed as he remembered the scene. He had never even imagined Ginny in such a way before that. Ginny, still scowling at Ron and mercifully oblivious to Harry's thoughts, continued, "But I suppose he's got to refine his technique somehow. Good game, Harry."
Harry smiled as she walked off to help herself to more butterbeer, ignoring the swooping sensation in his stomach when she had patted him on the arm. He turned away from Ron, just as the portrait hole was closing, a mane of bushy brown hair bobbing out of sight.
Harry left the common room to search for Hermione. He found her in the first unlocked classroom he tried. She was sitting on the teacher's desk alone except for a small ring of twittering yellow birds circling her head, which she had clearly just conjured out of midair.
"Oh, hello, Harry," she said in a brittle voice. "I was just practicing."
"They're really good…" said Harry as he walked to stand next to her.
She spoke in an unnaturally high-pitched voice, "Ron seems to be enjoying the celebrations."
"Er… does he?" said Harry.
"Don't pretend you didn't see him," said Hermione. "He wasn't exactly hiding it, was he?"
"I s'pose," said Harry, shrugging. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."
"Don't go apologizing for him," she said sharply, her voice regaining her usual bossiness. She looked at Harry and tried to soften her expression. "You should go, Harry. You're missing out on the party."
"I don't want you to miss out on it either," Harry pointed out, as he leaned against the teacher's desk that she was sitting on. "And since you're in no mood to go, I'd rather stay here."
Hermione smiled as she twirled her wand lazily, one of the birds sat on her shoulder, twittering.
"You know, I feel really bad now that I gave you that lavender-scented diary," said Harry after a while.
"Oh, please! I'm not that sentimental. I do love lavender, the flower I mean," she added with a scowl and Harry sniggered.
"Do all girls like lavender? Alicia did too," said Harry absently, failing to notice the curious gleam enter into Hermione's eyes as she asked, "Alicia who?"
"Alicia Bloomwood. The muggle girl I met in France. Surely, I've told you that," asked Harry, feeling a flush creeping up his neck.
"No, you didn't!" exclaimed Hermione, now turning to look at him fully. "What's the deal with her?"
"Well, she's seventeen, budding photographer," said Harry distractedly. "I'd like to think we became friends."
"You liked her a lot more than that, didn't you?" said Hermione, a smile in her voice.
Harry looked at her properly. "Am I that obvious?"
Hermione waved her hand wiggling her fingers. "You've got that look about you, almost like how you looked when you used to see Cho."
"She's way better than Cho," defended Harry quickly.
Hermione hadn't heard as she started laughing. "You have a girlfriend and I never knew! Is that why you're not asking out any of the other girls in school?"
"She's not my girlfriend," said Harry and scowled when Hermione smiled disbelievingly.
He folded his hands in front of his chest. "We shared a kiss— alright, we snogged once— or twice. But, that's not got anything to do with my lack of girlfriends here. It was nice with Alicia, because she didn't swoon as soon as she heard my name."
Hermione grimaced as she nodded in understanding. "I hear you. Well, you better smarten up and get yourself someone because the girls in fifth and fourth year are getting hysterical. They reckon they're going to somehow get you to ask them to Slughorn's Christmas party."
Harry muttered under his breath. Slughorn had found Harry's schedule through Hermione just to make sure Harry wouldn't miss the party this time.
"I'm not taking anyone I don't know," said Harry, standing up. "I would ask Ginny. But, she's with Dean, so that's a no."
Harry had heard enough stories from Sirius to know never to ask out a girl who already had a boyfriend. Sirius might have enjoyed the challenge, but Harry did not fancy being turned down. He had already had one bad experience with Cho. And besides, Harry thought gloomily, Ron would probably murder him if he ever asked Ginny out.
Harry did not miss the slight widening of Hermione's eyes and mentally berated himself for slipping up. He sighed exasperatedly. "I'll figure it out."
Hermione scoffed. "Right, like you always do at the last—"
The door behind them burst open. To Harry's horror, Ron came in, laughing and pulling Lavender by the hand.
"Oh," he said, drawing up short at the sight of Harry and Hermione.
"Oops!" said Lavender, and she backed out of the room, giggling. The door swung shut behind her.
There was a deafening silence. Hermione was staring at Ron, all pretence of her light-heartedness vapourizing into thin air. Ron refused to look at her, but said with an odd mixture of bravado and awkwardness, "Hi, Harry! Wondered where you'd got to!"
Hermione slid off the desk. The little flock of golden birds continued to twitter in circles around her head again.
"You shouldn't leave Lavender waiting outside," she said quietly. "She'll wonder where you've gone."
She walked very slowly towards the door. Harry glanced at Ron, who was looking relieved that nothing worse had happened.
"Oppugno!" came a shriek from the doorway.
Harry spun around to see Hermione pointing her wand at Ron, her expression wild. The little flock of birds was speeding like a hail of fat golden bullets toward Ron, who yelped and covered his face with his hands, but the birds attacked, pecking at every bit of flesh they could reach.
"Gerremoffme!" he yelled, but with one last look of vindictive fury, Hermione wrenched open the door and disappeared through it, a sob echoing in the silent corridor.
Harry quickly waved his wand at the attacking birds saying, 'Finite Incantatem.'
They stopped dead and he quickly vanished them with a wave of his wand and walked towards a slightly bleeding Ron.
Ron was blustering furiously, "What the bloody hell was that? Was she trying to kill me? She's bloody mental!"
"I'm sorry, but you had it coming, don't you think?" said Harry, standing at an arm's length away from him, in case Ron decided to vent out his frustrations on him.
Ron was breathing heavily but did not say anything more as he got up and stomped off.
Harry tried not to feel too upset by the behaviour of his two best friends. He wandered back to his common room, where the party had become even rowdier than before. There were a lot of snogging couples near the shadows and Harry was growing uncomfortable. He saw Lavender talking to Ron near the foot of the staircase that led to the boys' dorms and wishing to not interrupt them, he stayed back waiting for them to finish whatever they had to speak… or do.
He suddenly noticed Romilda waving at him from a distance and getting up from the couch to come over to him. Before Harry could even make up his mind to turn tail and run to his dorm, the-snogging-Ron-and-Lavender-be-damned, someone else joined him. It was Parvati Patil, who smiled up at him, clutching a butterbeer. "Hey, Harry. Fancy a butterbeer?"
"Thanks," breathed out Harry in relief, accepting the bottle. He saw Romilda's disappointed look and was momentarily satisfied.
"How are you? I heard your parents wanted you to leave," said Harry, distracting himself with the girl in front of him.
"I managed to talk them out of it for the time being," said Parvati. "That Katie thing really freaked them out, but as there hasn't been anything since, they've agreed to let me and Padma stay. With all that's going on outside, they understand that Hogwarts is safer, relatively."
She paused taking a sip of her butterbeer and Harry mirrored her. He didn't know what prompted him to, but he got the words out of him. "Say Parvati, what do you think about going to Slughorn's Christmas party with me?"
Parvati froze as she looked at him with something akin to surprise and hesitation, "With you?"
"As a friend," said Harry, hastening to make himself clear. After his talk with Hermione, he thought it would be better if he asked out someone he knew and hoped the other girls would leave him alone.
Parvati sighed with obvious relief. "Oh! Thank God. Yes."
Harry let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. "Great! Wait… what did that mean?"
"Harry, I do not fancy you in that way," said Parvati as if it was very obvious. "And I know you don't too. But, I'd love to go with you as a friend. You do owe me one after that disastrous date to the Yule Ball."
Harry laughed, his anxiety melting away at her assurance. "It's a deal then. Please don't expect me to dance though."
"That's okay, I'm sure there would be someone in that party who's better at dancing than you are," she said smirking before she left. Harry headed straight up to his dorms, when he noticed Lavender going up the girls' staircase with Parvati, and Ron was nowhere to be seen.
Predictably, there was only one occupied bed with the curtains around them and Harry did not wish to disturb Ron lest he bring up the topic about Hermione. He was changing into his pyjamas when he remembered that he had to talk to Sirius. Harry had sent his godfather a present for his birthday that morning along with a long letter through Hedwig. Still, he thought he could talk to Sirius just then to tell him about their victory against the Slytherins. He shut the curtains around his four-poster bed and cast a silent 'Muffliato'.
"Sirius?" he called out to the mirror to no response. He tried again but when there was no answer, h left it at that. Maybe, Sirius was already asleep or on some mission for the Order. He made a mental note to call him in the morning, before he went to sleep.
oOo
Monday, November 4
The weak sun that fell on her face was a blissful way to wake up, mused Tonks. She yawned as she rolled over on the bed and opened her eyes to find herself in the now familiar guest room of Potter Manor. Since the day Remus had left, she had dropped in here for the night about three times. She tried to avoid Remus' room as much as possible and so took one of the guest rooms that Twitchet had made up for her.
She lay awake on her bed, thinking back to what had prompted her to come to this place last night.
She had been on duty outside Hogwarts, as usual, then she had had lunch with Catherine at the Three Broomsticks. Though she was a Trainee, she was the only girl in their team of six and Tonks liked having another Order member with her, who could tell her about the meetings she couldn't make it to. Even if she hadn't been a member, Tonks genuinely liked the girl and enjoyed spending time with her, to keep away the boredom of being a security detail and also to take her mind off of Remus.
She had headed to her room in Hog's Head and had been ready to retire for the night, when she belatedly remembered the date. It was Sirius' birthday, and if he was anything like last year when he had been stuck in Grimmauld Place, he was probably drinking away. And Remus wasn't there for his friend this time.
She had grabbed a cloak and Disapparated straight to Rosedale, Yorkshire and was momentarily startled by the howling wind whipping through the trees. She tugged her cloak around her tightly and entered the gates to Potter Manor and was met with Twitchet, who had sadly told her that Master Sirius was in Master Fleamont's study.
She had hurried up to the study to find Sirius, looking pale and staring unblinkingly at the window, a goblet of something like gin in his hand.
She didn't quite know what to say or how to console him and was heartbroken when he told her that he wished Remus was there. Oh, how she wished he was here too!
He had abruptly decided to leave the house and had told her that she could take a kip if she wanted to. She chose to take him up on his offer as she didn't want Sirius to feel lonely when he returned home.
Tonks rolled over in her bed and shrieked when she fell right out. She cursed as she tried to untangle herself from the twisted blankets, now fully awake.
She headed downstairs to the dining area which was empty to her surprise; she had thought Sirius would have returned by now. He was always an early-riser, very much the opposite of Remus who slept in like there was no tomorrow, just like herself. Unbidden to her, she smiled at the thought before quickly frowning as another horrible thought crossed her mind.
What if Sirius had been captured by Death Eaters?
She nearly fell off her chair when Twitchet popped in from thin air. "Miss Dora, breakfast is served."
At the snap of her fingers, there was a delicious breakfast spread in front of her, but Tonks was growing panicked.
"Twitchet, did Sirius come home yet?"
"Master Sirius is in his room. He came home at four in the morning, miss."
She breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness."
Considerably cheerier, she dived into her breakfast with gusto. It had been a while since she had had a good home-cooked meal. "This is really delicious, Twitchet!"
"Thank you, Miss Dora," said the elf happily, making a bow. "Twitchet loves to serve the friends of her Young Master!"
Tonks smiled at the old house-elf, when Sirius came in looking distinctly dishevelled.
"Good morning," she said and Sirius simply nodded in her direction before taking his seat. There were dark circles under his deep-set eyes, making them look sunken and reminding her more of the Sirius she had seen in the papers when he had escaped Azkaban.
He propped his elbows up on the table and buried his face into his hands. Tonks asked, "Are you okay?"
"Just have a raging headache is all," came his mumbled reply from under his hands.
Almost immediately, Twitchet was bustling in with a goblet of potion, thrusting it into his hands. "Master oughtn't have become so drunk."
Sirius looked up and eyed the goblet inquiringly to which Twitchet squeaked, " 'Tis for your hangover, Master."
Sirius downed the entire goblet of potion in one and Twitchet tutted disapprovingly, "Young Master Harry would be very disappointed."
Sirius turned to look at her pleadingly. "Please, don't tell him!"
"Twitchet likes Master Sirius," she squeaked. "Twitchet will not tell Young Master unless there is another repeat, sir."
Sirius breathed out a sigh, closing his eyes. "There won't be, Twitchet. Thank you."
Twitchet simply smiled before disappearing with a pop. Tonks was smirking when Sirius caught sight of her and asked bluntly, "What?"
"Someone's got you under a leash," she laughed.
"Twitchet is a good elf. Even though I'm not her Master, she treats me like one. Unlike that bloody elf of mine," he growled.
Tonks was nearly finished with her breakfast when Sirius started his.
"Has there been any word from Remus?" asked Tonks quietly.
Sirius sighed as he shook his head. "I know you're worried. But, Remus will be fine."
"What if he isn't?" asked Tonks, desperately. "We know for sure that Greyback has joined the Death Eaters. What if he's done something to Remus?"
"There are other werewolves besides Greyback. We'll have to believe in Remus and trust that he can handle himself," said Sirius, not unkindly.
"That's not an answer!" exclaimed Tonks angrily.
"Look, I wish I had better news. You know I don't like this just as much as you. It was exactly like this the last time during the war. When Remus is sure there's nobody left to convince, he'll be home. You have to trust in him, Dora. That is all that we can do."
Tonks got up, angry tears threatening to spill. She knew that Sirius wasn't responsible for her plight, but she hated that that she could do nothing about it. "I have to be going. Thanks for the breakfast," she said and left as soon as possible.
oOo
As the sun was setting, Sirius turned up at the Longbottom's house in Blackpool for his daily shift. He relieved Charlie and took his place, making sure that Hestia and Angelina had arrived on the other side too. It was very dull work, patrolling the outskirts of the house and casting 'Homenum Revelio' every so often to make sure there was nobody around.
The night wore on and Sirius half-wished he had a partner like Hestia, so he would have someone to talk to. But the Order was already spread thin between tailing Death Eaters and having real-world jobs that Sirius was almost always assigned alone as he was more experienced than the rest on the field.
Then, it came to him. He could talk to Harry of course. He hadn't talked to him last night, because well… he hadn't been in his right mind. And it had been Harry's first match of the year yesterday. He had to know the details and also if they had won, which knowing Harry, they probably had. He thrust his hand into his pocket and was surprised to find it empty.
He wondered where he had put the two-way mirror, when he remembered that it was in his jacket that he had removed and left it at that in Mr. Potter's study last night. He made a mental note to pick it up later when there was a resounding crack.
Sirius whirled around, raising his wand arm at the ready. He hid behind a bush as he saw people with cloaks Apparating straight outside the Longbottom's house.
"Ah, the memories," came the shrill cackle of one of the persons he hated the most, Bellatrix Lestrange.
Sirius made a quick headcount and watched as five masked Death Eaters besides Bellatrix, joined in her mad laughter.
"Enough chattering, let's get this over with," came the deep grunt of one of the Death Eaters that Sirius couldn't identify.
"You don't give orders around here, Rowle!" snapped Bellatrix and the Death Eater, Rowle bowed down meekly.
Sirius knew he had to contact the Order immediately, but a Patronus would give him away in an instant. It looked like he had to hold his own, at least for a short time, before the Order got here. He braced himself and waited for an opportunity to attack.
Bellatrix walked up to the compound and was stopped by an invisible barrier, which was one of the Order's protective enchantments that they had offered for the Longbottoms. Sirius thought he could see her face contort into a frown before she stood back and raised her wand.
"No shield of theirs is strong enough to keep me away," she screeched as silver streaks of light were emitted from her wand. The Death Eaters too joined her in trying to take down the shield, and Sirius took it as his cue to attack, with their wands focused elsewhere.
He ducked out of the bush and cast a non-verbal 'Stupefy' which immediately stunned one of the Death Eaters and in the few moments that they were caught off-guard, Sirius conjured his Patronus and sent it away just as Bellatrix's eyes found him.
"There's someone over there by the bushes!" yelled Rowle, pointing near the vicinity of Sirius and shot a Stunning spell, which missed him narrowly.
"Go take care of him!" barked Bellatrix, still trying to bring down the shield with the rest of the Death Eaters. Rowle obeyed and walked forward cautiously and Sirius stood still waiting for Rowle to come into view. As soon as he did, Sirius immediately shot a stunning spell that missed Rowle, who had jumped out of the way. But now, Sirius' cover had been blown and it became an outright duel.
Just then, a lot of things happened at once. There was a loud crack as people Apparated onto the scene and Sirius noticed two women, whom he guessed were Hestia and Angelina as they were in disguise, running towards them from the other side.
Two of the Death Eaters stopped trying to take down the shield and started to duel them. One of them went up to the fallen Death Eater to revive him leaving Bellatrix, the lone person who finally brought down the shield.
The air crackled with energy as the barrier dissolved and the few moments that Sirius had been distracted, Rowle caught him off-guard and sent a hex that slashed a long gash on his cheek, blood oozing out immediately. Sirius was now fully focussed on Rowle, and after a minute, he finally managed to incapacitate him.
He quickly Incarcerated him and rushed forward just as the Longbottoms came running out of their house, wands at the ready.
Two more Death Eaters now surrounded Sirius, who swore as he began to duel them. He saw Hestia and Angelina had taken down one of the masked men and the other, Crabbe, was giving them both a tough time.
Bellatrix was cackling madly. "I always did have a thing for you Longbottoms."
The three Longbottoms were engaged in a duel with Bellatrix, who seemed to be enjoying herself. One of Sirius' opponents was down and Sirius took a moment to shoot a Cutting hex from behind that caught Bellatrix's attention when a large gash appeared on her shoulder. She snarled, her eyes bulging, "You!"
Sirius wanted to make some snarky comment but he used that moment to inform the Longbottoms, "I can handle her."
Enid and Algernon took his place in fighting his opponent, but Augusta stood her ground and Sirius joined her, engaged in a duel with Bellatrix, whose smile had left her face and was replaced by a snarl.
More cracks of Apparition sounded and Sirius knew the Order had arrived. Augusta was a very formidable witch and Sirius was impressed with her range of spells. He called out to her just as he ducked a curse from Bellatrix, "You're really good!"
The woman smirked as she sent a spell that caused an explosion under Bellatrix's feet, throwing her backwards. Sirius thought it prudent to stun her quickly, 'Stupe-'
"Incendio!" yelled Bellatrix, pointing her wand at Augusta and rolling out of the way of Sirius' spell. In the space of a second, Sirius processed it instinctively that Augusta would not be able to duck as fast as he could because of her age and he didn't know what came over him, but he pushed her out of the way.
A flash of bright, yellow flames blinded him as he crumpled to the ground, heat searing his left side making him yell in pain. He thought he heard a shriek and then the cracks of a number of people Disapparating nearby.
Fragile hands turned him over and he bit his lip, groaning. The pain was excruciating and he tried to stop himself from screaming out, but the sheer effort made him moan in agony. He felt something warm trickling down the side of his face and the darkness of the night was not helping his hazy vision. He put a hand to his side to stem the pain, but he felt sticky skin and hyperventilated in panic.
Someone was talking above him. "—go to St. Mungo's—" and "—put him out of it—"
He thought he saw a bright flash of red before he slipped into blissful unconsciousness.
oOo
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