In an upbeat evil mood, humming "Bye, bye baby, baby, goodbye!" under my breath, stuffing a box full of "true passion" chocolate cauldrons into my bag, I walked over to the very end of lunch. There were already few students, although all my friends were there - Pat, a lover of slow and thoughtful eating, lived at the Slytherin table, Hermione stubbornly tried to explain something to Lou.
"It's an evaz, take a closer look," Hermione insisted, "it doesn't look like a mannaz in any way..."
Runes, probably. Although it sounds like fashion brands... It's definitely Chanel, Chanel, I'm telling you, and you're Fendi... Ugh, what stupid things come into your head, all because of the abundance of pink... As soon as I grabbed a bun, with the intention of refreshing myself, because thoughts of revenge whet my appetite, a gloomy dwarf appeared in my field of vision, clearly directing his feet towards my person.
"Well, I do not!" I growled and pointed my wand at "the postman".
The dwarf opened his mouth, tried to say something, but nothing came out of it. He goggled his eyes angrily, panted, then angrily threw the harp on the floor, tore the acid-pink heart into pieces, trampled furiously on them and ran away.
"That we are!" I exclaimed triumphantly.
"Harry, you're making progress with your non-verbal spells!" Hermione said to me, but then her tone changed abruptly and she made a desperate attempt to hide behind my back, "Oh! This is where McLaggen is coming... trying to get something out of me all day... Will. I urgently need... I need..."
"…to the library?" Lou suggested.
"No, he'll get me there," Hermione began to look around in a hunted way, in search of salvation.
"I can run for my invisibility cloak," I suggested.
"I will think about this offer… McGonogall! I urgently need to speak to Professor McGonogall!" And she jumped up from the bench and rushed towards our dean, who was just leaving the hall.
"I see that I am not the only one who has a merry holiday," I remarked.
"Well, where have you been?" inquired my friend, finishing his meal and coming up to our table.
"Chatted with Ginny," I replied, finally getting my hands on the roll.
Lou and Pat looked at each other, and our friend had a victorious look.
"Well, where are you doing it?" Pat asked.
"And she went to make up with Dean."
"Ha!" my friend exclaimed joyfully and looked pointedly at Lou.
She looked uncomprehending and looked at me absently.
"Aren't you… uh… that…"
"We are not "uh" and not "this", Lou" I looked at her firmly, "what kind of hints? Ginny and I are friends and there's nothing going on for us together.
"Well, here it is," she muttered.
Pat joyfully held out his open hand to her and said:
"You lost the galleon to me, friend.
Lou, pouting her lips, reached into her wallet.
"So, what is this tote?" I demanded, "I'm not a stallion yet, to place bets on me!"
"I like that word 'yet'," Pat grinned.
"No one bets on you,"Lou supported him, "just think, a small bet. What don't you like about Ginny?"
When a couple of minutes later Lou went out of grief to Hagrid's to visit the unicorns, I turned demandingly to my friend.
"If you're talking about this bet," he began, but I cut him off.
"How long before the Transfiguration?"
"Twenty minutes, and what?.. "
In the evening, during dinner, the whole school was amazed by the spectacle that presented itself. Gryffindor fourth-grader Romilda Vane fled with all her might from the attention-seeking Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Blaize Zabini, and, to everyone's shock, Millicent Bullsroad. I sobbed. Laughing. And I was not alone. Probably half of everyone who was in the Great Hall at that moment was almost hysterical with laughter. Those who were not present in the Hall at that historical moment later regretted their failure bitterly and for a very long time. Romilda yelled "Someone save me!" and "Get them away from me!", cutting circles with obstacles around the common area of the Hall, her fans accordingly rushed after her, the general laughter and the courageous attempts of volunteers to stop the pursuers created an even greater dump. So even the teachers did not immediately manage to stop this farce.
The action plan was negotiated in a minimum amount of time. I dragged Pat into a nook between rattling armor and a statue of a ferocious witch. From her belligerent face, I assumed that this was the first suffragette witch, if, of course, there were any. When I showed my friend dangerous chocolate cauldrons, he opened the box and, taking one of them with two fingers, began to examine it with purely laboratory interest.
"Are you sure that Love point is here?" He asked ingratiatingly.
"I bet you with my hoof," I chuckled grimly.
"Potter, Potter…" he shook his head with a wry smile, "Old Reggie didn't enjoy even half of the popularity that fell on your shaggy head!"
Reggie Osborne - another former classmate of ours, was the main dream of half the girls from our school... But he never dreamed of such a thing!
"Did she inject her with a syringe? Are you sure this present is from Romilda Vane?" Pat stated.
"From whom else?" I shrugged my shoulders and slyly added, "Moreover, it can be checked."
"Have you decided to experiment on yourself?"
My friend raised his eyebrows, "to eat the whole box and run after it, swallowing saliva and saying: "Oh, Romilda, my love"?"
I shook my head, smiling mysteriously.
"You are thinking too small, Sir Patrick. Bigger, bigger!"
"Yeah," Pat took on a solemn, ceremonial look, guessing the course of my thoughts, "it seems that Sir Heinrich decided to awaken marauder genes in himself! And who is you going to treat with sweets?"
"Treat with sweets" was decided by the Slytherins. Pat, without spending much time searching, whistled a first-grader Slytherin from the same four. His name was Morton, he had blond hair and such honest blue eyes that it seemed blasphemous to simply doubt his words.
"Don't eat yourself, don't let your people in," Pat admonished him. And when we were already late for McGonogall, he remarked:
"Jay says that if he had the same honest eyes as Morton, he would rob half the world!"
The twist of the plan was that some Slytherins who weren't overweight, but weren't overweight, had taken a liking to stealing sweets from juniors. Moreover, the baby has spread to the other ideological side. Therefore, my friend and I decided to arrange a mini-holiday for the triumph of justice with one box of chocolate filled with Amortentia. Having reproduced the chronology of events with the help of various sources, the whole action unfolded like this. After class, Morton dragged the box into the Slytherin dungeons, defiantly dragging it in front of Crabbe's nose. He, of course, could not resist and took the candy from the child. But in defense of Crabbe, it is worth saying that he was not greedy, and treated everyone. Who was among those wishing, could be seen with the naked eye... They say it all started in the library. For some reason, Vane jumped in there for a second - there old Gregory Goyle overtook her. And he tried... no, you won't believe... He tried to read her poetry! Moreover, his own composition. How Romilda didn't faint after that, I don't know, because where is Goyle, and where are the poems... Although who knows, maybe it is a person's talent? While trying to get away from Goyle, she ran into Crabbe. He, sensing a happy rival in his friend, immediately attacked him. Romilda got a great chance to escape from annoying admirers while they were sorting things out, but immediately around the corner she was overtaken by an absolutely happy Blaze Zabini, timidly presenting her with a bouquet of transfigured daisies, from which the cloves of former forks occasionally stuck out... According to the testimony, Romilda backed away with a frightened cry of "Mom!" But then the most piquant began.
Pushing Zabini away with a powerful wave of her hand, heavyweight Bullsroad entered the arena with a statement:
"Back off, cross-eyed half-breed, and don't meddle in true female love!"
This is where Gryffindor courage cracked and Romilda Vane took off in third gear. All the victims of her incomparable charm - to her. And so they ended up in the Great Hall, where dinner was just beginning. It was a sensation. The audience wept, as did I, from laughter. The professors and prefects tried to catch the campaign for quite some time. Snape, pale with anger, quickly figured out what was what and went to his room to prepare an antidote. His faculty suffered... McGonogall was also not happy about what had happened, but the other teachers were openly giggling. Dumbledore didn't exist. The investigation into this case immediately reached a dead end. According to Hermione (she was present), Snape immediately lashed out at Vane and accused her of adding them Amortentia.
The same, being in a semi-hysterical state (Hermione will not let you lie), shouted to the Potions Master right in the face:
"Why would she pour Amortentia on your stupid Slytherins?!"
Even Snape had no answer to that sacramental question. The victims, who came to their senses, could not remember anything sensible, only the gloomy Zabini said that they ate chocolate cauldrons. Where did they take it from? Dal Crabbe. According to Hermione, he hesitated and stated that he had found an ownerless chocolate. Apparently, a miracle happened and the rudiments of conscience woke up in him, because he did not admit that he had taken chocolate from a first-grader. I lounged blissfully in a chair by the fire in the Gryffindor common room with a sense of accomplishment. Lou sat nearby and drew ink doodles of different sizes on a piece of parchment. When Hermione entered the room, Ron vainly trying to hide a giggle, and Romilda, evil as the devil, I showed the most charming smile of all available. Vane glared at me furiously and waved her clenched fist in the air, apparently imagining it was my neck.
"Do you want to tell me something?" I asked kindly.
She let out an inarticulate growl and ran off to her room. She was seen off with ironic sympathetic looks, and laughter was heard among those present. But under the menacing gaze of Hermione, everyone shut up.
"Or maybe the unfortunate girl suffers from unrequited love?" Our fair-haired beast looked at me cheerfully, "are you so cruel to her?"
"For what she fought, she ran into something," I issued a verdict.
Hermione sat down on the arm of the chair Lou was sitting in and looked at me sternly.
"Is this your doing?" she asked me.
"Actually," I replied cheerfully, "this is her doing. And you know perfectly well that in the place of our Slytherin friends, I should have been."
"And it was impossible to do without demonstration performances?" Hermione asked quietly.
"But she put me off for the rest of her life," I said confidently. "She deserved it. There is nothing to throw any rubbish. Only her self-esteem has suffered... Well, the vanity of the victims of her charms, of course."
"Harry!"
"What, Harry? Hermione, they took chocolate from children!"
This incident was discussed, of course, for several more days. Although I had to admit to myself that I gave Romilda a nice present. No, it's not that I saved her from some shaggy bespectacled guy as a boyfriend. I provided her with great publicity. Ginny told me that her popularity skyrocketed after this incident.
"Of course, the chocolate with the potion was a very sneaky move," Hermione stood her ground, "but I still think that the issue should have been resolved differently."
"How?" Lou didn't understand. "Harry should have come up and told her to fuck off, I don't like you?"
"And now she's looking at me like... She doesn't even look at me!" I supported.
"She gets angry, of course... But now it turns out that you accepted her challenge, and thereby warmed up her sports passion" Hermione said wisely."
"Sports passion?" Lou exclaimed cheerfully, "do you think she wants to get our Harry just because of the excitement of sports? Look how pretty he is!"
She tousled my hair, and I carefully batted my eyes.Hermione laughed and said:
"Should have just ignored her."
"But it was fun," Lou and I retorted.
"Yes, it's fun. You didn't have to hunt down the Slytherins!"
As expected, the company of unfortunate victims of love provocation could not just forget their shame. That same evening, Crabbe called little Morton to account and promised to shake his soul out if he did not tell who gave him the boilers.
Morton (may Merlin bless him for such honest eyes) did not become heroic and confessed with all the penitence he was capable of:
"I stole them!"
Frustrated, Crabbe (of course, they didn't let the soul be shaken out of the child) turned to Malfoy with the question: "What should I do now?"
But he could not answer him, because he burst into hysterical laughter along with Parkinson and Nott, portraying the timid lover Zabini. everyone had fun.
March was approaching, the weather was changing and instead of snowstorms, disgusting cold rains fell on us. Time passed, not paying attention to the prophecies and the situation in the Ministry, the change of which was already spoken by many students. Time passed, not paying attention to the prophecies and the situation in the Ministry, the change of which was already spoken by many students. But the lessons continued, I went to training sessions that nothing could cancel - neither rain, nor snow, nor hurricane winds, nor a UFO crash on a Quidditch field... Pat and I continued to do animation, albeit with relative results. My friend was an optimist about experiments and science, so he was sure that just a little more, and we would succeed. I was no longer sure of anything. Pat continued his scientific research, complaining from time to time about the lack of literature, then about the lack of an electron microscope. At Potions, he slyly smiled at his own creations, affectionately promising: "I will split you into formulas!" and kept scribbling either in a textbook or in his thick notebook chemical hieroglyphs interspersed with question marks and exclamation marks. With Snape, their relationship entered a phase of armed neutrality. The son silently worked, the father silently watched. To call it "building relationships" language did not turn. The girls believed that everything would end well (Hermione, it seems, secretly hoped that the professor would become kinder and would bully the students less). I knew Pat's character, which meant I could judge Snape's character as well. So I was more pessimistic. Of course, it is worth talking about the apparition classes that have begun. Classes were taught by some frail freak from the Ministry - Mr. Twocross. The action took place in the Great Hall. Before the first lesson, my sick imagination drew me many pictures of suddenly appearing in the most inopportune places at the most inopportune time. As a result, I decided that I would definitely put anti-apparition protection on my house. We tried to dissuade Lou from going to these classes for a long time. Pat scared her that she would end up in Antarctica, or even in some place unknown to people, where she would never be found. But everything was in vain - Lou resisted, and went to learn to apparate with us.
"Why are you so nervous?" She said nonchalantly to Pat, "Hermione says no one gets it right the first time."
While Mr. Twocross was explaining something about predestination, predestination, or some other nonsense that I could not concentrate on, Pat, who was standing nearby, was wondering if Lou, trying to apparate, could shift space so that we were all sucked into black hole.
"You went too far with the black hole," I expressed my opinion.
"Are you sure?" Pat asked softly.
"…and now…" Twocross said loudly and waved his wand.
Old-fashioned wooden hoops appeared on the floor in front of each student.
"When Apparating, you must remember the three things!" Exclaimed Twocross.
"What should we remember?" I hissed at Pat.
"Destiny, predestination and predisposition," Hermione said, "weren't you listening?"
"No," I answered honestly.
"…so, at my command," Twocross continued, "time…" I sincerely tried to focus on the wooden hoop, "two..."
"Oh!" resounded loudly throughout the Hall.
Everyone turned to Lou.
"I didn't mean it," she murmured with the air of a repentant sinner, offering her hand to Neville, who fell when she broke into his hoop.
It doesn't matter that he was across the Hall from her.
There were chuckles.
"Fabulous!" Twocross came to his senses, "only you need to think more about the destination, and then you, miss, will fall into your hoop!"
Throughout the session, Lou apparated perfectly into the hoop to Pat, to me, to Terry Booth, to Ernie MacMillan, to Neville again, and finally to the teachers, right between McGonogall and Snape. He grimaced from such a neighborhood. Pat and I didn't even try to Apparate anymore and just watched to see who else our crazy friend would be taken to. Hermione then asked Lou all evening how she had mastered the Apparition technique so quickly. Needless to say, she did not achieve anything intelligible from her.
"I don't know, it came naturally," Lou reported, "it just… Whoop! And already in another place. True, for some reason I always end up in the wrong place, but... Maybe I'll learn later!" she added optimistically.
The Hufflepuff game was coming up. The tension, as always before Quidditch, grew. Malfoy & Co. exuded dubious witticisms about our team and myself. He prophesied that I would be smashed to pieces by the Bludgers, Ron would miss all the quaffles, and Cathy would not pick up the broom. Katie could not stand such an insult and sent damage to him, from which he began to stutter, for which she received punishment from Snape. Ron, as before, became nervous and distracted closer to the game, even his birthday and Lavender Brown fluttering around him did not help. Ginny shook her head and hoped that he would perform the same on the field as he had in the last match. Based on this, my tactics were built - if Keeper is in shape, do not rush with the Snitch and let the team earn more points. If not, catch the Snitch and ensure a quick bloodless victory. On the eve of the match, I again could not sleep, and all sorts of nonsense climbed into my head. For some reason, I remembered how Uncle Vernon had threatened to send me into the army for the last year and a half as soon as I finished school.
"That's right, Vernon, they'll make a man out of a boy," Aunt Marge agreed and immediately remembered that boys can be sent to the army at sixteen. I don't know if I would have become an rank Potter if I hadn't found out that I was a wizard or not. But in a dream, I, in a red uniform, of course, fought in the Battle of Waterloo, smashing the French to smithereens. For some reason, the French looked like either trolls or manticores. But suddenly Ginny galloped up in a Napoleonic cocked hat and angrily yelled at me:
"What are you doing here? You missed the match and we lost embarrassingly with a score of 3025:0! Now those damn Slytherins are going to win the Cup!"
"Merde!" I exclaimed in my sleep as Ginny galloped away (it seemed like sparks were beating from under her hooves) and the whole battle disappeared into a gloomy haze.
Then old Archie appeared to me - he laughed, shook his fist in the air, and shouted to me in his thunderous voice:
"Show them son!"
On this I woke up.
And again the stadium, the roar of the crowd, hooting from the Slytherins (Malfoy after defeating Ravenclaw felt like a Quidditch star and was ready to tell anyone who would listen to him that he could catch the Snitch and not be knocked down by the Bludgers), cheering cries from sides of the Gryffindors. A slight wind was blowing, there were clouds in the sky here and there, dazzling glimpses of sunlight flashed here and there.
"Jimmy, Richie, fly from the sun," our captain cheerfully navigated the area, "Harry... Well, you know what to do."
I saluted her with the most serious look, and after the captains shook hands, the game began. I want to say that after the last match, when two crazy Bludgers were chasing me, this one even seemed somehow boring to me. The Hufflepuffs played cleanly, Ron only missed two Cfuffles, the Snitch just didn't show up, Hufflepuff Smith couldn't hold the ball for more than a minute... In the end I caught the Snitch and everyone was happy.
If you believe the famous anecdote, according to which a person can consider himself a real Irish, if he considers St. Patrick's Day the most important holiday of the year, then my friend Pat Random was one. If Christmas, New Year and all other significant dates did not cause him special enthusiasm, then he perceived the seventeenth of March in a completely different way. Pat was terribly impressed by the fact that this day is celebrated from New York to Sydney.
He laughed and said that for the sake of his birthday in Ireland they even have a day off. This year's birthday just had to be special. On the seventeenth of March, seventeen years old - and my friend became an adult wizard who has the right to wave his wand as he pleases. It was Monday, and the first lesson was, as usual, Potions. Lou walked us all the way to the dungeons, and left only after Snape flew up. In parting, she winked at me, but she looked worried. And I know why - two days ago we had a little conversation about my friend. Lou sat in the common room spreading the cards. Each time she looked at the result with a grim look, she folded the deck and began to lay it out again.
"Damn, what the hell!" she exclaimed, and stared at the cards.
"What you have there?" I looked up from my Potions essay. "Centaur invasion and global cooling?"
"I'm divinating at Pat," Lou said.
"Oh… He won't get a Nobel Prize?"
"Fool," she waved her hand, but her face was very serious, "I try different layouts, but I get the same result."
"Yes?"
Lou looked into my eyes.
"He is in mortal danger."
I also looked at her carefully and replied:
"Lou, you go to Divination too often. It's all nonsense."
"Yes?" she raised her eyebrows, "then why does it come out the same every time?"
"Are you saying that someone wants to kill Pat?" I said sarcastically.
"Not Pat" Lou answered gloomily and looked at the cards, "but his."
She pointed her finger at the cross king.
"I didn't understand anything," I admitted honestly.
"Look, it's simple," Lou began, "here's Pat. Next is the Clubs king. Next is danger. Pat is in danger through the king."
I think it's his father.
We exchanged glances.
"OK, I get the idea," I said, adjusting my glasses, "whoever wants to kill Snape can hook Pat. Yes?"
Lu nodded her head
"Tell him," I advised.
"Oh!" she rolled her eyes. "You know Pat doesn't believe that."
"Yes, you know," I chuckled, "I, too, somehow, not very..."
"Just be careful," Lou said very seriously.
"You know, I've reached a dead end," Pat admitted sadly to me and handed me a long beaker, "hold it. Just be careful, don't spill."
We walked down the corridor on the third floor, heading for the Room of Requirement. Pat began to rummage through the bag, and I peered carefully at the clear liquid.
"What is it? Hopefully not sulfuric acid?"
"It's distilled water," my friend replied abstractly, "don't even ask how I got it."
"Hm. So what's your dead end?" I inquired.
"Very lacking real laboratory," he sighed sadly, "you see, most of the ingredients for potions include substances unknown to science, with strange characteristics. I can't tell from the periodic table what they are."
"So they just aren't there," I shrugged.
"They're not there!" Pat mimicked me, grimacing, "what do you mean "they're not there"? All substances... Brilliant, Potter!"
My friend stopped dead in his tracks and, having stopped rummaging in his bag, looked at me with enthusiastic eyes.
"Indeed, they are simply not there. Where can they come from?"
"Brilliant," I agreed, as usual not catching up with the scientific genius of my friend, "but what is brilliant?"
"It's just… oh shit!" Pat groaned.
While we were talking, we did not notice how we stumbled upon Malfoy and his retinue.
Well, why, of all the possible options, do you stumble upon either Snape or Malfoy? One of the unpredictable results of magical interaction?
"Well, will we stand like this, or will we each go our separate ways?"
I asked.
"If you think it gives me pleasure to look at you, Potter," Malfoy hissed, adjusting his cuffs, "you are even more stupid than I think."
"What can you think?"
Pat was surprised.
"Spit on him, let's go," I pushed him with my free hand.
I suppose you can guess that you can't just pass Malfoy like that without getting into a fight. All peacefulness is shattered by the stupidity of some members of society. We were about to leave, but Malfoy can't keep his mouth shut. Therefore, I will implicitly hint that it is stupid to insult a person holding a bottle with an unknown liquid in his hand. In short, everything turned into a dump anyway.The funniest thing was that I completely unconsciously splashed Malfoy with distilled water... Oh, how he screamed! Maybe he really was convinced that it was acid. Pat laughed, Crabbe took out his wand, I managed to disarm him... And the fight that was about to begin was interrupted by the Potions Master flying around the corner himself.
"What's going on here?" he glared, "Potter?"
Immediately Potter, always.
"He doused Draco with some stuff," Goyle boomed immediately.
Snape turned sharply to the victim, apparently expecting to see tatters of skin slipping down.
"Stop yelling, Mr. Malfoy, it's just water," the professor said ingratiatingly to him.
"Truth?" instantly stopping the hysteria, the victim of distilled water asked, and, feeling his pale face for visible damage, burst into obscene curses.
Pat and I couldn't help but burst into laughter. But this was not necessary. Snape narrowed his eyes angrily and hissed:
"Potter. Random. To my office."
"You spilled my distilled water."
"But the effect was great."
"Yes, the effect was what we needed."
We were in the already familiar office with pickled worms on the shelves, and we were waiting for the terrible owner of all this cheerful interior. When we reached the office, Professor Flitwick called our guard for a couple of minutes, and we were left to wait for the trial in the company of alcoholized flobberworms.
"He did it on purpose," Pat told me.
"Who?"
"Malfoy. To ruin my holiday. Petty man," my friend said, looking at the shelves, "I wonder how Snape will punish us?"
"I don't know," I shrugged my shoulders, and for some reason I remembered his fluttering robe, "but he really looks like a bat, agree?"
Pat turned and we looked at each other for a few seconds. And then at the same time we burst out:
"Batman!"
We were probably the first to desecrate this crypt with loud laughter. Imagining Snape with his stony expression, slicing through the streets in a Batmobile, I laughed so hard that tears came to my eyes. Pat clutched his stomach and whispered:
"Oh, that's it, I can't laugh anymore!"
My friend reached for the jug that was on the pedestal behind the desk.
"Are you sure it's safe to drink something in the professor's office?" I asked.
"Yes! It's water," Pat said confidently, "I myself saw how he drank from there."
When he poured water into a glass and raised it to his lips, something pulled me to exclaim:
"Do not drink!"
"Paranoia?" my friend grinned and drank the water, "you see? This is not at all…"
Pat shuddered all over and dropped the glass from his hands.
"What…?" I began, but then Pat collapsed all over on the floor, his limbs twitching in a spasm, his eyes rolled back, and foam came out of his mouth. I acted like an automaton. Frantically opening drawers, discarding jars and pouches, searching for the only cure for poison I knew. Pat turned blue and gasped when I found the shriveled, kidney-shaped stone. It seemed to me that the search took forever, and I was already too late. It was much later that I realized that it had all taken no more than a minute. I jumped up to Pat, with difficulty unclenched my cramped jaws and threw a bezoar into his mouth. He shook, and then his body went limp and motionless, but his breathing seemed to even out. The door to the room swung open.