Why, hello there! It's certainly been a while, hasn't it? But no, I haven't abandoned this story. I've just had all kinds of real-life things to deal with. But you don't want to hear me going on about that, do you? You'd rather we start Chapter Eight straight away, right? Well, so do I, so let's go!
WEASLEY GIRL: SECRETS OF THE PAST
Based on the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Lot Of Questions, Not A Lot Of Answers
Harry Potter had very many admirable qualities. He was brave, he was resourceful, he was good at thinking on his feet in a crisis, he was one of the most talented broomstick fliers Hogwarts had seen in a century, and he had pretty nice hair.
What he wasn't, however, was a very good actor.
And so, anyone who paid attention to him as he approached the teacher's desk after the day's Defence Against The Dark Arts lesson, would probably have seen the "earnest and friendly smile" on his face for what it was; an incredibly fake and pasted-on grin that bordered on a grimace.
"Excuse me, Professor," he said, in a tone of voice that more than suggested a boy bracing himself for something particularly unpleasant.
Had the Professor in question been anyone but Gilderoy Lockhart, he would definitely have caught on to the fact that Harry really did not want to be there. But Lockhart, who was busy putting away today's textbooks (all of them sporting dashing pictures of himself on the front cover) was an expert at not noticing things he didn't care to notice, and he certainly wasn't about to let a little thing like tone of voice spoil the moment when the famous Boy Who Lived wanted a word.
"Certainly, Harry, certainly," he said, flashing the boy one of his trademark award-winning smiled. "Good job as the Bandon Banshee today, by the way. Your screeching could have used a little work, and the way you clasped your throat when I removed your voice was less than convincing, but all in all, nice work. It really makes the material come alive, doesn't it, to add these small dramatisations. Gives you a whole new insight in how dangerous the Dark Creatures are and the ingenuity needed to deal with them."
"Yes, sir," said Harry dutifully. Ever since the fiasco with the Cornish Pixies, Lockhart had decided that practical demonstrations probably were a little too demanding for the second-year students and had instead started to use the Defence classes to tell the students about all his great accomplishments. To make it more exciting he's taken to act out highlights from various battles against Dark Creatures — usually with Harry in the unwilling role as the Dark Creatures.
"I was thinking about recounting my famous stand against the vampire Bellemare for next lesson," Lockhart went on. "Tell me, how is your Transylvanian accent?"
"Er, Professor," Harry hurried to say, "I was really hoping to talk to you about what you said on the Quidditch pitch the other day. You know, about giving me some pointers?"
Lockhart beamed, all thoughts of vampires and Transylvanian accents immediately gone. "Ah, of course!" he said. "Yes, of course, I would be happy to give you some advice there. You know, my old flying teacher always said that professional Quidditch lost a great star player when I decided to dedicate my life to fighting the Dark Arts. But Quidditch was only ever a hobby to me, you understand, a nice way to relax and take my mind off things for a while."
"Yes, sir," said Harry patiently.
"Well, no use in sitting here thinking about what could have been, is there?" Lockhart raised himself. "If you have the time to accompany me to my office now, I'll be more than happy to —" he paused, then went on in a slightly softer voice: "Actually, could you perhaps give me a couple of minutes first? I just remembered that I might have a few bits of, er, research lying around in my office — purely for academical purposes, you understand, but nevertheless nothing I would feel comfortable letting a twelve-year-old see, even if it's you. I'm sure you understand."
"Oh, I do, sir," said Harry, giving Lockhart what he probably thought was an understanding nod. "I'll just wait here while you put, er, your research away, shall I?"
"Splendid, splendid! I'll be right back!" Lockhart let the neatly-stacked pile of books lie on the desk as he hurried over to the stairs that led to his office.
Underneath the Invisibility Cloak, Ronnie lightly touched Harry's shoulder and whispered, in as close a parody of Lockhart as she could manage when having to keep her voice to a whisper: "Splendid, splendid!"
He shot her an annoyed look, though since he couldn't actually see where she was, the look missed her by several inches. "Just go," he mouthed.
Making a mental note to do something nice for her friend as a thank-you for what he was willing to put himself through for the sake of her investigations, Ronnie hurried after Lockhart.
She had pondered taking either Hermione or Neville with her under the Cloak, but had decided against it. After all, even if the Cloak was more than big enough for two, one person made a lot less noise and was less likely to give herself away, as long as she made sure to stay silent. And so Ronnie took great care not to make too much noise as she climbed up the stairs after the clueless Professor.
Traditionally, the Defence against the Dark Arts teacher had his (or her, on the occasions when the teacher was a witch) office and personal quarters just by the Defence classroom, and this office that was connected to the classroom itself for easy entrance and exit. All right, there was another entrance to the office as well, in a second-floor corridor, but a Defence teacher in a hurry would never bother with that detour when it was so much more convenient to just take the stairs to or from the classroom.
(When Ronnie was younger, Fred and George had amused her and Ginny with tales of of extra lazy or extra paranoid Defence teachers who through their entire time at Hogwarts had only ever been in those two rooms in the castle, even eating all their meals in their office. None of them had lasted beyond a year at Hogwarts, and at least one had turned out to be a vampire.)
Lockhart had reached the top of the stairs now, where the door to his office waited, locked and ominous as only a door to a teacher's office can be. Ronnie stopped on the step below to see what he did now — there were probably all kinds of protections, hexes and curses on the door...
Lockhart made a casual wave of his wand, and with a soft click the door swung open.
Making sure to stay silent, Ronnie took the last step up to the door and hat just enough time to slip into the room before the door slid shut behind her. And she didn't feel so much as a tiny Stinging Hex.
Well, that was bloody anticlimactic. If this had been one of those rooms Bill broke into for Gringotts, there would have been curses here that would have turned her into a gerbil, or given her two heads, or at the very least put her into a deep sleep for a hundred years. All right, any of those might have been overkill for a teacher's office, but Ronnie couldn't help feeling a little cheated that there didn't seem to be any protections at all. Mad-Eye Moody would have been ashamed.
Still, no point in complaining because sneaking in had been easier than she had supposed it would be.
Ronnie had never seen the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher's office before, but vaguely knew that all teachers were allowed to decorate their offices and personal quarters in the way they saw fit — and Lockhart had definitely done that. The room was lit by dozens of flickering candles, and the walls were do filled with posters, photos and paintings of Lockhart himself that you could hardly see the wall, and all of them were turning and flashing their famous award-winning grin at the real Lockhart when he came in. Huge piles of books, all signed and sporting equally-smiling pictures of Lockhart, were stacked neatly on several smaller tables around the office. And, just in case this wasn't enough, each wall also sported a full-body mirror, so that no matter which direction you were facing you could see your own reflection (useless if you were invisible, annoying if you were ugly; heaven if you were Gilderoy Lockhart). In short, the entire room was a gigantic love letter from Gilderoy Lockhart to Gilderoy Lockhart.
Ronnie really wasn't surprised; nor was it particularly surprising that the "research" the Professor had talked about didn't seem to be anywhere in sight.
However, there were two surprises in the room.
The first surprise was the small cage just by the door, where two grey rats (somewhat smaller, sleeker and more healthy-looking than poor old Scabbers) were running about, both of them making a minor commotion when Lockhart came in; they stood on their hind legs, sniffing out in the air towards him and making squeaky noises. It was all Ronnie could do to stop herself from taking the two steps to the side to say hello to the rodents — but she wasn't stupid enough to give herself away. It was a surprise that someone that Lockhart would keep rats; he struck Ronnie more as the type to have handsome owls or exotic birds; possibly a pedigree cat or even a Kneazle. Not common grey rats.
The second surprise was further in - In a large, stuffed chair by a crackling fireplace, surrounded by smiling and waving Lockhart picture, was a man. A strange man that Ronnie had never seen before. And judging by the way he started when Lockhart entered, he had been asleep, but the panicked expression on his face was replaced by one of relief when he saw that it was Lockhart who entered.
"Gilderoy," he said, his voice strangely high-pitched, as he lowered the wand he'd been brandishing. "You startled me. I thought it was — no, never mind."
Ronnie was stunned. Who was this man? He was small, fat and balding, with watery eyes and a rather twitchy disposition; certainly he was a far cry from the perfectly-groomed, tall and handsome Lockhart.
"Dreadfully sorry," said Lockhart, in his customary flourishing way. "But I have to warn you that you had better change. I've got young Harry Potter coming here for a chat."
"Harry.. P-Potter?" The smaller man winced, looking up at the closed door as if afraid that Harry would be standing there. "No. Oh, no. Not him. Not Harry Potter. He can't see me. He'll know."
"But he doesn't have to see you," said Lockhart. "You can just —"
"I said no!" The man's already high-pitched voice turned shrill. "He can't see me in any form! You'll just have to go out and — and tell him you can't talk right now!"
"Me, tell Harry Potter I don't have time for him, when he's specifically sought out my advice?" There was a curious undertone to Lockhart's voice now; he sounded as self-interested and ridiculous as ever, but... there was something else there too, something almost...contemplative.
"Fine, fine, just don't talk to him here," the man snapped. "Take him somewhere else! Anywhere else! Just, just not here, not where..." he made vague motions with his wand towards the door.
For a few moments, Lockhart stood impassive. Then he beamed again and his expression was the same vapidly jovial one as before. "Right you are, then! I'm sure I can find a place to talk to him about Quidditch in peace... Begged me for advice, you know. The boy's clearly not untalented on a broomstick, could easily become a Quidditch star with the right tutelage... but of course he'll want an expert's help with the finer details..."
"Yes, yes, just go!"
Ronnie watched as Lockhart turned and went back to the door, the caged rats once again getting up on their hind legs in the hope of getting attention as he walked past.
She needed a new plan; she'd thought she could search the room unnoticed while Harry kept Lockhart busy with pointed questions and suchlike, but now it looked like she would be locked in the office together with a man she didn't know who was, and with no convenient distractions for him to stop him from noticing her if she made even the slightest bit of noise.
The safest thing would be to follow Lockhart, to slip out after him unnoticed and wait for a new opportunity. But — no. She had Harry's Invisibility Cloak, the same Cloak that had proved effective against both mountain trolls and You-Know-Who. She only had to be careful, and this one man wouldn't ever know she was there.
So she remained where she was, even as Lockhart opened the door and stepped out of the office with a "Harry, dear boy, I see my office is a little too unorganised right now for visitors. So I was hoping instead that maybe we could go —" His voice was cut off as the door clicked shut behind him, leaving Ronnie alone in the room with the strange man.
She felt her heart beat in her chest as the man looked around... But no, she wasn't going to be intimidated by this weird little man who didn't even know she was here. She steadied her breathing and now allowed herself to take a closer look at him.
He certainly did look twitchy. His head darted back and forth as he looked around the room. For some reason — and Ronnie did not know where this thought came from — it wouldn't have been all surprising if he'd decided to get into the cage and hang out with the rats.
He didn't do this, of course. Instead, he seemed to relax, and he cautiously retreated back to the chair. "Nobody's there," he murmured as he slid down back down into his seat. "Get a grip on yourself, Wormtail. Nobody knows. Nobody suspects anything."
Wormtail? What kind of name was that? Ronnie waited in case he was going to say anything more, but he didn't. Neither did he do anything particularly interesting; he just sat there in the chair and stared out at nothing, with a nervous look on his face.
He didn't seem to be aware that she was there, but the way he was sitting she couldn't start moving about and examining things without him noticing.
Ronnie had to bite her lip so she wouldn't groan or scream in frustration. Here she was, invisible in the very room of her Number One Suspect, the perfect opportunity to look for the diary, but she couldn't do anything thanks to this... this weird little man.
Who was he, anyway? And what was he doing here? Obviously he couldn't be part of the school staff, or he wouldn't have been so nervous about being seen. Probably he wasn't supposed to be here at all.
Are he and Lockhart gay lovers?! Ronnie thought (and was glad she was invisible, because she felt herself go pink again). Oh, God! Maybe he's Lockhart's secret sex slave! Maybe Lockhart is his secret sex slave! (She'd once spent an informative if vaguely disturbing hour secretly thumbing through some of the books at the Burrow that Mum didn't think she knew about, those books with covers where women with big tits were swooning in the arms of impossibly-muscular men.)
She frowned. No, that didn't seem right. And it was strange, but there was something oddly familiar about this Wormtail character, almost as if she should know who he was. But for the life of her she couldn't imagine why she felt like that. She was certain she had never seen him before; someone so odd-looking, she would have remembered, wouldn't she?
Harry, she thought. Harry had to know who this man was. After all, there had to be a reason why Wormtail didn't want Harry to see him. Maybe he was one of Harry's Muggle relatives, one that she hadn't met? No, that wasn't right either, he was dressed like a wizard and was holding a wand. He had to be a wizard. But of course, Harry did have a lot of fans and had met a lot of people, not to mention he had an uncanny gift for remembering the people he'd met, even if it had only been for a few minutes. So probably he'd met Wormtail at some point, maybe back when he first visited the Leaky Cauldron with Hagrid...
She stopped in her thoughts as Wormtail sagged and buried his head in his hands, his shoulders starting to shake.
To her amazement she realised he was crying.
For almost a minute she stood motionless, unable to tear her eyes away from this grown man — be he ever so small, fat, and funny-looking — weeping like a little child. She had never seen a grown man cry before, and she felt a pang of sympathy for him. What could it be that had him so upset? Had it just dawned on him that he was forced to spend time with that ponce Lockhart? That'd probably make her cry.
The rats were making quite a racket from their cage, she noticed now, and apparently he did too, because he swallowed his tears and looked up and towards the cage. "What is it now?" he said. "Going stir-crazy again? Well, chin up. That cage is quite big enough. I should know."
Ronnie would later ponder these particular words, but for now she was too busy with another thought that had struck her: Rats didn't have much in the way of eyesight, but they had an extremely good sense of smell and hearing. Was it possible that they were sensing Ronnie's presence?
It seemed like Wormtail was coming to a similar conclusion, because he raised himself and looked around, his movements even more twitchy than before. He was brandishing his wand, and spoke, in a trembly squeak: "Who's there?"
Ronnie stiffened. Then, a flash of inspiration hit her. She slid up to one of the walls and, careful not to let any part of her show, tore one of the Lockhart posters down (the Lockhart on the picture fell over as the poster went down, looking like he was cursing up a blue streak) and let out a mad, cackling laugh. "Lockhart looks better on the floor!" she announced, trying to make her voice sound as male as possible.
"Peeves!" Wormtail exclaimed, confirming Ronnie's suspicions that he was indeed a wizard — a Muggle wouldn't have recognised her attempt at imitating Hogwarts' resident poltergeist.
Ronnie let out another mad cackle, upset one of the book piles on the table, and under the cover of the noise the books made as they fell to the floor, ran up to the door.
Luckily, Lockhart hadn't bothered locking the door when he had exited, and so it was the work of a moment to tear it open and escape back into the Defence classroom.
"Peeves!" Wormtail's voice sounded behind her. "Come back here! I can explain —"
What he thought he could explain, she never knew, because his voice was cut off as she threw the door shut and, still invisible, ran down the stairs.
It had been a bit of a gamble. Peeves usually didn't enter the teachers' offices or the dorm rooms, and while he could make himself invisible he generally preferred to be seen when making mischief. But Wormtail had seemed to buy her little deception anyway; at least hopefully he wouldn't know that it had been her.
But it was still a good idea to put as much distance between herself and the mysterious Wormtail as possible. Ronnie ran out of the classroom and hurried towards the safety of the Gryffindor common room.
She almost collided with Professor McGonagall, who was coming the other way and looking worried about something, but she managed to avoid the collision just in time, moving aside to let the teacher pass — and luckily, McGonagall didn't seem to notice she was even there.
It wasn't until Ronnie was almost by the portrait of the Fat Lady that Ronnie risked taking off the Invisibility Cloak.
To her surprise, Harry was already in the common room, and he was surrounded by people. There was Hermione and Neville, of course, but Ginny, Fred, George and Percy was there too, as were all their fellow second-years, Colin Creevey and even a few others. There seemed to be a sort of commotion going on, so Ronnie made her way through the crowd and towards Harry.
They all parted. Of course they did; they should all knew what she might do to anyone who didn't let her reach her best friend, but they were all looking serious. Even the twins were looking uncharacteristically grave, and Hermione, Neville and Ginny all met Ronnie's eyes with pained looks.
What had she missed?!
"Harry, what's up?" she said, feeling worry rise up inside her. "Thought you'd still be with Lockhart! Are you all right?"
Harry looked up at her, with a strange expression. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "Well, I mean, nothing's the matter with me. Lockhart had just started listing off all the Quidditch games he'd won, when Professor McGonagall showed up and said she had news for me."
Ronnie nodded, her worry just rising even further. McGonagall had looked very concerned when she passed her in the hallway. "What did she say?"
Harry paused, looking at Neville and Hermione, then back at Ronnie. "My Aunt and Uncle are gone," he said.
"Gone?!" Ronnie blinked. "They're dead?! But they looked perfectly fine this Summer —"
"No!" said Harry. "They're gone. Vanished. Without a trace." He shook his head. "Happened last week. Uncle Vernon left work at five o'clock as usual, and that's the last anyone's seen of him. None of the neighbours have seen Aunt Petunia since then either. The milkman noticed that they'd stopped taking in the milk. The house is abandoned, but all their things are still there. They just — vanished."
"Bloody hell!" said Ronnie. "What about your cousin?"
"Dudley? He's at Smeltings. You know, that boarding school he goes to. Nothing's happened to him, except he broke a window or something when they wouldn't let him run out and look for his parents." Harry grimaced. "Apparently he's blaming the freaks."
"You think —?"
"—that some wizard found them, yeah," said Ginny with a grimace. "Reckon Harry's cousin has got it right there."
"Well — if if a wizard did find them and kill them, you can't say they didn't deserve it," said Fay. As everyone looked at her, she blushed and continued, a little defensively: "Everyone knows that they tortured Harry!"
A lot of the other students nodded.
"Treated him like a slave," one nodded.
"Beat him every night," said another.
"Whipped him, I heard!" said a third. "Then locked him up in a cupboard!"
"And then," said Dean with more than a trace of sarcasm, "they made him get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before he went to bed, and drink a cup of sulphuric acid before he'd go work twenty-nine hours a day down at the mill — and when he got home, his Uncle would kill him and dance on his grave, singing Hallelujah!" He looked around and groaned at the number of shocked stares he got. "Come on! Monty Python? No?"
"Maybe this isn't the time, Dean," said Seamus with uncharacteristic tactfulness.
"Look," said Dean, sounding slightly peeved, "the point is that those stories in the Daily Prophet were a load of tosh! I know you all think Muggles are a lot of uncivilized brutes who should be put down —" ("No, we don't!" a couple of students protested, just a tad too quickly) "— but those stories are just stupid! As if anyone would make their nephew sleep in a cupboard!"
Harry opened his mouth, but then closed it again.
"Obviously nobody's been whipping Harry to within an inch of his life," said Hermione, coming to his rescue. "Harry's relatives were, I mean are, terrible guardians who shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near him, but don't you think it would have been discovered by someone if they'd tried to murder him?"
"Hah!" said one of the older students. "Muggles, noticing things? They're all like sleepwalkers! My Dad says that if Harry's relatives were torturing him out in the open, not a single Muggle would notice anything!"
A number of Muggle-born students protested at this, and within seconds everyone was shouting.
"My Mum's a Muggle Professor in Mathematics, she's ten times smarter than you!"
"Oh yeah? If your Mum's so smart, why isn't she a witch?"
"My Mum says that Potter's relatives just show what monsters all Muggles are!"
Ronnie was speechless. The growing anti-Muggle sentiment among the adult wizards was of course something she had witnessed, with all the letters, the newspaper articles, and of course the treatment of Hermione's parents at Diagon Alley — but it had never even crossed her mind that such thoughts would transfer to kids her own age, and certainly not to kids in Gryffindor. Muggle-hatred was something you found in Malfoy and Slytherins like that, not in, well, not in Gryffindors. Not in people she'd always thought were decent.
But here they were, an alarming number of students she knew, yelling about how Muggles were monsters an deserved to die. A few Muggle-borns. Like Dean, were protesting loudly, but weirdly enough even a few of them looked uncertain. To her relief, none of her family were yelling; even Percy looked too astonished to say anything. Likewise, Neville, Hermione and Harry remained silent, (though Harry was hiding his face in his hands) and a handful of others, like Colin Creevey and the rest of the first-years, looked ready to bolt and hide in their dormitories.
"—but Professor Flamel said that Muggles were more important than wizards, remember?"
"Flamel's a nutter, and so are you, if you believe that!"
"I tell you, Potter's relatives were scum, but all Muggles aren't like that!"
"You're just making excuses for them!"
"The Daily Prophet is right, we should all go out and show those Muggles that we won't stand for them anymore!"
"That's Mugglism, that is!"
"There's no such word as Mugglism, you clod!"
"Oh, excuse me, is my inferior Muggle upbringing showing?!"
"If you love Muggles so much, why don't you just go and f—"
A loud, sharp BANG echoed through the room. Everyone stopped yelling and stared wide-eyed at Neville, who stood there with his wand raised, its tip still smoking slightly from the spell he had fired off.
The boy's round face was white and his eyes bulging, and he was breathing so hard that Ronnie worried he was having a fit or something. "You — you should be ashamed of yourselves!" he screamed, his voice cracking and getting high-pitched. "Are you even listening to yourselves?! Muggles are monsters? Why don't you all just go join You-Know-Who and be done with it?"
The common room was completely silent. This was Neville Longbottom. Neville Longbottom did not get angry and start yelling at people. It was like a natural law had just been broken or something.
"And why don't you think about Harry?!" Neville yelled, still white as a sheet. "The Muggles were his family! Never mind how awful they were! Standing here in front of him and saying they deserved to die...! Don't you think he has enough to worry about without this, this bloody nonsense?! Last week it was 'Gryffindors stick together' and now —" He had to stop in order to take several deep breaths. "I just — think — you should be — more — considerate," he finished, his voice sinking to a more normal level.
Complete silence fell, and for a few moments the only sound audible in the common room was Neville's heavy breathing.
Harry was the first one to break out of the stupor. He raised himself and very carefully patted the still-heavily-breathing Neville awkwardly on the shoulder. "Thank you, Neville," he said. "But, you know, I am fine."
Neville looked at him.
After a moment, Harry looked away. "Well, all right. Maybe I'm not that fine." He blinked, as if surprised at himself. "I always hated the Dursleys. They were never anything but awful to me, but... I suppose I never really wanted them to die. I just wanted to get away from them..." he trailed off, and then looked at the gathered room.
Most of the students, at least the ones who had screamed the loudest, had the good graces to look sheepish. There were a few mutterings of "Sorry..." Some of them even sounded sincere.
"But you don't know that they're dead, right?" said Colin, Official Ray Of Sunshine. "They're probably just kidnapped by some villain or something, and locked up somewhere! Any day now, there'll be a ransom demand!"
"I wouldn't hold my breath," said Ginny darkly.
The students were starting to relax a little. Neville was still pale, his hands shaking a bit, but he didn't say anything more. Ronnie supposed it took some time to stop being that angry.
Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around him. "That was some speech."
He stiffened and took in a sharp breath, surprised at the sudden hug, but he softened when he saw it was her. "I'm sorry," he said in a quiet voice. "I didn't mean you."
"Don't you dare say you're sorry for that," she whispered, so that nobody else would hear her. "You said what needed to be said. I'm proud of you."
It was amazing how fast Neville's colour changed from pale white to an embarrassed red, so Ronnie let go of him, deciding that the hug had probably gone on long enough. Besides, people were starting to talk again, and she wanted to hear what was being said.
"— It's not like the wizarding world in general made it a secret what they'd like to do to Harry's relatives, is it?" said George. "All those letters we got! It was just a matter of time before someone found out where they lived."
And the wanker from Gringotts, Ronnie thought, and could see in Hermione's eyes that the same thought had struck her. He looked angry enough to do something horrible.
"But you don't have the slightest idea who might be behind this, Harry?" said Hermione quietly.
But Harry just shrugged, and even Ronnie could understand how impossible it would be to even begin guessing. Even taking into account that most of the letter-writers were probably all talk and no action, it wasn't easy to say just which of the hundreds of letters were written by people who were serious about taking revenge on the abusive Muggles on Harry's behalf. Or, chilling thought, who would be serious about doing something nasty to the Weasleys for their supposed using of Harry? Mum and Dad would be okay, wouldn't they...?
Fred seemed to have had the same thought. "Suppose we're next," he said. "They weren't too fond of us either."
"Don't even joke about that!" Percy snapped.
"Who's joking?" Fred muttered, though his tone was not very convincing.
Ronnie edged herself closer to Harry. He looked like he needed a hug as well, but she knew him well enough to know that he would never in a million years ask for one or initiate one. But she had hugged Neville, so she might as well...
She wrapped her arms around him very gently. Unlike Neville, he didn't stiffen; he just turned his head sightly and looked at her from behind his glasses, and a very slight smile touched his lips.
They stayed like this for quite some time. Ronnie wanted to say something, something encouraging and comforting, but she really had no clue what that might be.
Finally, as the silence started to get awkward, she drew a breath. "Harry, do you know anyone named Wormtail?"
And then she blinked at herself. Whatever she had meant to say, she was pretty certain that wasn't it. Yes, she had wanted to know, and it did seem important, but this didn't really seem the time, did it?
Harry, who clearly hadn't expected a question like that either, blinked as well. "What?"
Quite unexpectedly, Fred and George were all of a sudden right by them. "Did you say Wormtail?" they chorused in almost perfect unison.
Ronnie couldn't believe her ears. She stared at her brothers with what she suspected was probably a rather stupid look on her face. "You know who Wormtail is?"
"You know who Wormtail is?" said Fred.
"I don't know who Wormtail is," said Harry, with a very poorly-hidden hint that he wished someone would make him a little less ignorant about the subject.
"The question is," said Fred, "how does our dear sister know?" He frowned at Ronnie. "You haven't been spying on us, have you?"
"Spying?!" Ronnie blinked. "You mean you two go gallivanting off with Lockhart's gay lover?!"
A loud gasp rang through the common room.
"Lockhart's what?!" said George.
Then, all at once, everyone was talking again, but this time it wasn't all angry yells. Five different girls, including Fay and Parvati, began telling Ronnie to stop making up such accusations about Lockhart, while Lavender smiled wolfishly and wanted to know if this gay lover was as good-looking as Lockhart. Ginny and a number of the boys were laughing hysterically, Percy and Hermione were both telling everyone to be quiet but not getting much attention.
"Ronnie, what the hell are you talking about?" George shouted over the din. "Wormtail and Lockhart?"
"Would have thought he'd have better taste in blokes than that," said Fred, and then added, almost inaudibly thanks to the commotion. "All right, I didn't really think he was the sort to go for the blokes in the first place, but —Lockhart?"
"Not everybody has good taste when it comes to love," said George. "I do seem to remember a certain twin brother of mine who once was moaning about a certain Hufflepuff girl, who —"
"All right, point taken." Fred suddenly looked around at the gathered Gryffindors. "Don't you people have dormitories to go to?" he said.
The commotion was starting to die down. A few students were still talking, but they were starting to split up into groups like they usually did in the common room; there didn't seem to be any more shocking revelations and Fred's words seemed to be the cue for the crowd to break up. Not, of course, to the dormitories, but to separate parts of the common room; everyone seemed eager to discuss all that had occurred with their closest friends.
Soon enough, Potter's Gang were almost alone again — well, apart from Fred, George, Ginny and Percy, all of whom were determined to stay; as well as Colin, who never seemed capable of taking a hint that perhaps he should go elsewhere for a little while. Maybe it was out of concern, or maybe he just thought this was an exciting game or something, but he stayed close to Harry. Even more surprisingly, Lavender stayed as well, instead of going off with Parvati like she usually did.
Percy looked at Fred, George and Ronnie. "All right, you three," he said. "Who is this Wormtail, and how do you know him?"
"We don't!" said Fred.
"Never met him in our lives," George agreed.
"But —" Ronnie sputtered. "You said —! Didn't you just say—?!"
"Drop it, Ronnie! Never you mind what we said!" Fred paused, and then leant in close to ask, in a low voice: "Actually, if you know him, I mean personally..."
"...could you introduce us?" said George, joining his twin.
All her life, Ronnie had thought she understood Fred and George fairly well. They were clowns, true enough, but usually their antics or their banter had some kind of logic behind them. They might occasionally get secretive when they didn't want you to know what they were getting up to, but they never got totally incomprehensible. Until now.
"What?" was all she could say.
"Right, right," said George, holding his hands out in a disarming way. "Not the time, of course not. Not with Harry's situation and all. Forget we asked."
"Yeah," Fred sighed reluctantly. "I suppose it should wait until a more appropriate time. Exploding Snap?" he said, turning to George.
"Sure, why not," George answered. "Let's see if Lee's up for a round. If you people need us for anything, we'll be over here," he added as he and Fred moved away from the group.
Percy opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then, he straightened his glasses and got a determined look on his face. "Oh, no!" he snapped, hurrying after the twins in his most blustery manner. "You two aren't getting off the hook that easily! This time I demand an answer!"
Ronnie watched him hurry off after the twins. Then, she slowly turned to the rest of Potter's Gang. "Is it just me, or does nothing today make any sense?!"
"Maybe because you're not making any sense," said Ginny. "Who is Wormtail? Did you walk in on him and Lockhart —" (and here she stifled a giggle) "—shagging or something?"
"That's not funny!" said Hermione in a disapproving tone. "And what are you still doing here?" she snapped at Lavender.
Lavender, who had been giggling at Ginny's comment, stopped and looked hurt. "It's my common room just as much as it is yours," she said. "I have just as much right to stay here as you do. Besides —" and her wolfish grin returned. "I wanted to hear about Lockhart's gay lover. Is he handsome?"
"Merlin's arse, Lavender!" Ronnie groaned. "We're twelve!"
"Says the girl who has been keeping an eye on him." Lavender began giggling again. "And I'm not the one who says 'arse' every five minutes."
"Could we talk about something else?" said Harry hurriedly. "Anything else?"
"Anything else is good!" Neville agreed.
"What are we talking about now?" said Colin.
"Boys," Lavender laughed. "So immature." But then she seemed to regret this, and stroked back her long hair while looking apologetically at Harry. "I'm sorry, there I go again, speaking without thinking. You probably don't want to hear this now, with your relatives and all. You know," (and this was directed to Neville) "I don't really think Muggles are monsters. I just think they're silly. Not in a bad way!" she hurried to add. "In a — in a cute way. Cuddly."
"Cuddly," said Harry in a deadpan voice.
"Lavender, have you even met any Muggles?" said Hermione.
"Of course! Lots of them! Well, one or two. It's possible one of them was a Squib," Lavender reluctantly admitted.
"What's a Squib?" Harry and Colin both chorused, earning themselves surprised looks from most of the ones present. Harry especially was surprising; he was so much at home in the wizarding world now that it was easy to forget that he had only actually known about it for little over a year. That is, until something like this happened and he turned out to be completely ignorant about things everyone knew, like Squibs.
"Er, it's like a Muggle-born in reverse," said Ginny. "Magical parents, but they don't have any magic themselves."
"I thought all people without magic were called 'Muggles'!" said Colin, trying to keep up.
"Yes, unless they're Squibs, in which case they're called 'Squibs'!"
"All right, so what about animals that don't have any magic, is there a name for them too?"
"Don't be silly! Animals are just animals, magic or not!"
It was at this point Lavender decided to ignore the discussion between the two first-years and instead turned back to Ronnie. "All right, I'll leave you to your, er, discussions. But!" (She pointed at Ronnie.) "Tonight, in the dormitory, I want all the details about Lockhart!"
With that, and without waiting for an answer, she skipped off — no doubt to go and find Parvati.
There was a brief silence. Even Colin and Ginny stopped talking.
"...Arse," said Ronnie. She had enough on her mind without having to worry about talking to the silliest girl in Gryffindor about the biggest ponce among the teachers.
Hermione, however, had other concerns. "This," she said, "is exactly what I've been saying! This is what we get for isolating ourselves from the Muggle world! Pure-bloods like Lavender don't know anything about Muggles, so they end up believing anything!"
"I didn't know so many people hated Muggles that much," said Neville, echoing what Ronnie had thought. "Not before today, anyway. I mean, yeah, all those people who wrote letters to the Prophet and all, but... not Gryffindors. Not people we know."
Hermione made a grimace, shoeing her large front teeth. "Ignorance breeds hatred."
"It's true," said Harry. "I'm still ignorant about who Wormtail is, and I'm really starting to hate the fact that nobody wants to tell me."
"How can you joke about —" Hermione began, but Ronnie cut her off.
"Sorry, Harry, I'll tell you what happened. Er, got your Invisibility Cloak too."
"Oh. Thanks."
"Hermione," said Ronnie, turning to the still-frowning girl, "Remember last year when you made that list with all the questions that we didn't know the answers to?"
"Yes?"
"Think you can do it again? We just got a whole lot of questions, and not a lot of answers."
Hermione sighed. "Don't be silly. Last year we didn't have any opportunity to sit down and talk about those questions. Nobody's stopping us from doing it now."
"And Fred and George know something," said Ginny. "How about we start with them?"
TO BE CONTINUED...
Author's notes: Yeah, I know, we already know the answers to a lot of the questions from canon, such as the identity of Wormtail, how Fred and George know the name, things like that. And with that in mind it's easy to get frustrated with the characters for not figuring out the stuff that we, the audience, know when the clues are so obvious. But let's be lenient with Potter's Gang here; after all they don't have the luxury of knowing what to look for because they've read the books.
Besides, I hope that there are enough original questions here to keep the interest, like what happened to Vernon and Petunia, and that not all the answers are too obvious.
And finally: I know, Ronnie's "sex slave" conclusion was ridiculous. But can't you just see Molly Weasley reading romance trash novels where such things might occur? And hiding them from her children? And of course said children finding and reading them anyway?