I didn't manage to leave the hospital wing until late afternoon. Madame Pompfrey (it seems to me that she is simply fading here from boredom) did not want to let me go, complaining about dangerous sports and careless behavior on the field. I decided to pester her with questions about magical medicine. Oh! How many new things I have learned. Yes, one Pepper Potion can earn millions! And why am I suddenly talking about money?... He asked if it was possible to restore poor eyesight. With a sinking heart, of course, because take off my glasses and please - Voldemort, kill me as much as you want, I can hardly figure out where you stood... And give a fuck to me. It turns out that you can't, if it's from childhood. Now, if mechanical damage (I imagined with horror how sharp branches gouge out my eyes...) or as a result of some kind of spell (but not from the realm of dark magic). Yeah. Broke off my best . Me too, wizards. Bones are restored, a cold is instantly treated, but here they can not think of anything. After all, I finished off the school nurse. Seeing me so talkative, she agreed that I was indeed quite well. True, she forbade me to go to classes tomorrow. Well, okay, no one has died from one day's absence. Since they let me go after dinner, I immediately went to Gryffindor Tower. And I noticed that the students who come across to me look at me somehow wrong. And although I could not get used to catching all these looks - interested, inquisitive, sarcastic - something has changed in them. In a deserted corridor I ran into a wobbly boy - a first grader from my faculty. I remembered him - he was from the company that the teachers had already called the new Hogwar nightmare. Three more of his friends immediately fell out from behind the tapestry.
"Hi, Harry" said the swaggering boy, and then, giggling, laid out to me the purpose of his stay here, "we want to catch Mrs. Norris."
You are desperate guys! I laughed, looking at the slyly happy faces of the boys. And, for some reason, envious of them slightly.
"And paint her," said the little Slytherin.
"Do you know the spell?" I wondered. The boys giggled at the naivety in the face of innocent Harry Potter, and the second Gryffindor showed me a package of hair dye. The color was similar to that of an eggplant that had survived a strong radioactive outbreak. I laughed again. "Well, good luck."
Hard case. If there were two of the Marauders in the four, then in this company there are clearly a couple of James Potters and a couple of Sirius Blacks. Hogwarts is facing a tough seven years. Hold on, Filch! Climbing the stairs to the third floor, and hearing from above the familiar, viscous, like molten rubber (we had such an experience with Pat in Mrs. Random's kitchen), I just sighed wearily.
"Look, who is this?" grinned Malfoy at his bodyguards, "this is Harry Potter, the hero of Quidditch. Maybe now that your skull has been broken, you can learn how to catch the Snitch?" Crabbe and Goyle laughed obsequiously.
What are the idiots. Even in our class there were no such idiots. Malfoy stood on the upper aisle, his companions stood at each side, blocking the entire passage. It is unlikely that they were tracking me down, it is absolutely necessary to go crazy. I boldly climbed up, checking with my left hand whether the stick was in place. Left - because the right was still on the bandage and was in terrible pain. No, what do they think? That I will throw myself headlong back?
"Your red-haired misunderstanding has already come to console you, Potter? Or did she have a flash in her head and she kicked you off the team?" continued to "scoff" Malfoy.
Well, does he seriously think that such words can knock me through? Yes, I've heard this about myself in my life... I had almost reached the end of the stairs, when suddenly intuition, like a flash of inspiration, told me that I should stop. Right now. Stop. And I stopped a couple of steps from Malfoy, holding the railing with my left hand and smiling triumphantly. Here is a good example for you - confuse the enemy with unexpected behavior, and he no longer knows what to do. I felt a slight tremor under my feet, and my ladder floated to the side. Malfoy, apparently hoping that now they would arrange a "dark" for me, opened his mitten and looked after me. From the outside, this whole scene probably looked cool - as if I had figured everything out from the very beginning. Or even personally arranged the stairs.
"Sorry, Malfoy," I shouted, waving goodbye to him, "not destiny. Apparently, Hogwarts itself does not want me to look at your pale face."
What he answered, I did not hear. Or rather, he didn't listen. Am I even going to get to the Gryffindor tower today or not?
As usual, some commotion reigned in the common room. Although, no, not as usual.
Apparently, the joy of an unexpected victory has not yet passed. I was greeted friendly, but not without some irony. I automatically searched my eyes for Hermione. Today she ran over to me for a couple of minutes, but of course I didn't tell her anything about Dobby - Madame Pompfrey was spinning around. Ron and Lavender were kissing at the fireplace where she usually did her homework. Hmm. Apparently Ron decided not to spend much time courting Hermione, with whom they had been getting along lately, and, taking advantage of Quidditch fame, grabbed Brown, who had long sighed for him. I felt sorry for Hermione.
"Looks like it's eating her face, doesn't it?" said Ginny, grinning as she approached. "But I think he will improve his technique soon.
"That's right… You shouldn't open your mouth so wide," I muttered thoughtfully, not at all intending to say it out loud.
Ginny jumped:
"You are an expert!"
It's another sign that my fame is finally fading. Ginny used to be a bit embarrassed to talk to me. Now we are already quietly chatting about kisses.
"What more!" I made scary eyes, "where's Hermione?"
"At herself. She said that she could not do her homework in such a noise."
I trudged to the girls' bedrooms. But as soon as I climbed three steps, the stairs turned into a smooth descent, and I shamefully slid down, almost falling on my sore arm.
"What the hell?" burst out from me.
A giggling Romilda Vane slid down this "slide".
"Who did you want to sneak up on, Harry?"
Certainly not to you, I almost answered, already starting to get annoyed.
Damn, you just need to talk to a person, and then some kind of devilry.
"Aren't you calling Hermione?" I asked.
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"She's already gone to sleep."
Sleep, how. I saw the red tail at the top of the stairs waving and calling Crookshanks. He came down imposingly and looked at me carefully. Sometimes it seems to me that this is either a bewitched person, or an unfortunate wizard stuck forever in his animagus form. I picked him up - he probably weighed six kilograms - and somehow stroked him with my sore hand. The cat did not resist and looked at me with interest.
"Well, kitty, will you work as a postman?" I muttered as I turned towards my bedroom. There I wrote a short note about a house elf visiting me. It is necessary to distract Hermione from personal problems - let her better think about public problems. Especially considering Hermione's fad on the brownies - I'll definitely be able to tear her away from her sad thoughts.
"Well? Will you take it to the your owner?" I asked the cat.
He purred affirmatively and, seizing the note between his teeth, solemnly left the room. Postal cat. And nothing worse than owls.
And what I didn't expect was the visit of Crookshanks' owner fifteen minutes after the note had been sent. I had just gone to bed with a fascinating reading from the forbidden section "The Darkest Creatures of the Wizarding World" when Hermione came into my room with a contented ginger cat in her arms. She didn't look like a man about to go to bed.
"A rather original way of sending letters," she told me.
I shrugged.
"Your frenzied stairs didn't let me through. Do you have such a fancy face control?"
"It's an old rule, the creators of the castle believed that boys could not be trusted." Hermione waved her hand.
"But the girls, then, can be?"
"Harry," she looked at me seriously, "are you sure that poor elf said that a murder was being prepared at Hogwarts?"
"Sure. And judging by the force with which Dobby banged his head against the nightstand, it's true."
Hermione bit her lip.
"Didn't you think it was... About you?" "Hermione, the only reason I've been in danger of death lately is the way that elf wanted to save my life," I answered confidently, though treacherous goosebumps ran down my spine, "maybe Dobby has got the whole picture wrong. He saw something, heard something, understood everything topsy-turvy and immediately ran to save me.
"House-elves are always aware of what's happening in the house," Hermione said doubtfully, "and an elf can't just leave the house like that without the owner's permission. He must have been treated very badly if he decided to come to you like this... Why do you always read about something dark?" She exclaimed, reading the title of my book. I shrugged again.
"Like." And after a moment's reflection, he added: "And it is highly likely that you will meet with this sooner or later."
"You know," Hermione looked at me carefully, "for someone who doesn't believe in You-Know-Who's return, you're preparing too hard for war."
"Hope for the best and prepare for the worst," I concluded philosophically, "I never said Voldemort wouldn't come back at all. It's just not the case right now. And why don't you call him by his first name? Such nonsense-you-know-who went you-know-where and brought you-know-what…"
Before she could answer, Dean, Seamus, and Neville entered the bedroom. Ron, apparently, could not be unstuck from Lavender... Seamus gave us such a triumphant look, in which the thought was clearly read - "I told you!". Damn, what kind of people? It was as if Hermione and I had been caught doing some dirty work!
"You're absolutely right, Harry," Hermione replied calmly, making it clear that we had, in principle, a serious conversation here, "he should be called Voldemort. So much less confusion. Okay, let's talk tomorrow."
She got up and left the room, wishing everyone goodnight. Dean looked after her, and then turned to me:
"Harry, if it's not a secret - what were you talking about?"
"About being afraid to say the name 'Voldemort' out loud is stupid. What did you think?"
My classmates immediately pretended that they thought just about it.
In the morning at breakfast I was still bandaged. My hand almost did not hurt, but still I did not dare to make sudden movements.
At the Gryffindor table, Ron got the most attention, as the man who gave the House a heroic victory in the match. And for a while I felt that everything was falling into place, and I was just Harry again, and no one stared at my forehead when they met. Do you know what I thought? How have I not said to anyone: "Hi, I'm Harry Potter." When everyone knows you, you feel so... Old.
"So you waited," Hermione leaned over to me.
"What?" I didn't understand.
"Well, you've been waiting for the moment when everyone stops paying attention only to you," she explained.
"That's what you mean," I chuckled, "that's for sure. Such relief is like a mountain lifted off my shoulders. Believe it or not, at school, Pat, Lou, and I were the main underdogs."
"Really?" Hermione asked, surprised.
It turned out that doing nothing was not so easy. After breakfast, I heard from Ron all the details of the last match. Went to see Hagrid to see if my sleeping snake beauty had woken up - but ended up in a Care of Magical Creatures class in the fifth year. Hagrid was just talking about unicorns, demonstrating his little one-horned orphans, and even allowed me to attend. I felt like some kind of guest star, so I decided not to stay. But my joy at not being a celebrity was short-lived. At the end of lunch, when Hermione was telling me what was at Potions today, a giggling Parkinson walked by and tossed her a magazine.
"Take it, Granger, read about the adventures of your hero. Page twenty eight."
Hermione automatically opened the magazine. I pulled him towards me and the first thing that caught my eye was a photo in which Lou pounces on me with hugs.
"The Heart Secrets of the Boy-Who-Lived" was the title of the article. It did not immediately dawn on me that it was about my heart secrets that someone decided to tell here. Well, the first part was just a plagiarism of that first article about me - where I appear as an asocial type with criminal habits. But the second part was just a miracle - "the rebellious spirit of the young Harry Potter did not find any obstacles at Hogwarts... Breaking the rules..." No, well, that's understandable, I now know how bad I am... But here it is - "Harry's success in mastering magic cannot be compared with his success on the love front. As soon as he got to Hogwarts, he immediately began dating his classmate, Hermione Granger. By the way, this young lady, despite her young age, is unusually ambitious - love for celebrities is in her blood. And, if readers remember, it was she who struck the heart of the gloomy Viktor Krum at the Triwizard Tournament (see. No. 2 for 1995). So Harry Potter, who earned fame by his mere existence, served as a perfect substitute for a Quidditch star. But the Boy-Who-Lived, who had managed to change several girls before Hogwarts, was also not easy to keep. As soon as he saw a worthy replacement on the horizon, he immediately rushed into her arms. And who was his chosen one? Louise Van Der Heim, the youngest daughter of Christoph Van Der Heim, a banker known throughout the magical financial world who conducts exchange transactions with Gringotts Bank. Louise does not have outstanding magical abilities, she does not even study at Hogwarts, and some believe that she is a Squib - but the young aristocrat inherited her beauty from her Veela grandmother and, of course, will also inherit part of her father's huge fortune. So she is undoubtedly one of the most enviable brides in magical Britain... "I could not finish reading. I was bent... no, just twisted from wild laughter. Damn, what a world! Almost every day you learn something new about yourself! Hermione laughed nearby. I'm amazed - this girl is outraged by rumors about us at school, and when it was written in the newspaper - she doesn't care!
"Her… Her… mione, I'm sorry," I breathed out, "that's all… It's all about the money...
"No, not at all... I won't forgive you," Hermione muttered, wiping her tears from laughter.
"I won't… l… survive," I said, already hiccuping with laughter. Someone obligingly pushed a glass of water "damned despicable metal!"
"That's it, stop laughing, fucking Casanova," a familiar voice rang out from behind and a wand touched my shoulder. The laughter stopped. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thanks, Pat, or else it's starting to look like a tantrum."
"Rita Skitter," Hermione said, also taking a deep breath, "I hate you."
"And she managed to annoy you?" I was surprised, getting out of the table "organize a secret society and kill her."
"I wonder where she got this picture from?" Said Hermione thoughtfully. "Dumbledore forbade her from Hogwarts even during the Triwizard Tournament."
"What's the secret?" Pat chuckled, "anyone could send her pictures - even the same Parkinson, and any fool can suck the article out of his finger. For normal people, this is called "gutter press,"" he concluded.
"By the way, we're working off our punishment this Thursday, Harry," Hermione looked at us meaningfully.
Pat and I looked at each other.