New chapter guys! If anything, I updating more now than I did during the summer holidays. It's weird, but then so am I.
Enjoy :)
Harry's POV
Five weeks later, every student in Hogwarts boarded the train and left for King's Cross Station, excluding Hermione, Ron, Draco and I. We were still in our dorms and were instructed to do so until the Hogwarts Express left at eleven o'clock. At ten, we three Gryffindors met down in the common room to discuss the matters at hand.
"Okay," Ron began. "Hermione."
She looked up in surprise.
"Yes?"
"Just because everyone left in the castle knows about you two, doesn't mean that you and Draco can go at it whenever you want. You gotta get a room." Ron pulled a face to emphasize the point.
"Ronald Weasley. Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon." She punched him hard in the arm.
I chortled, remembering when she had said the exact same thing last year.
"'Mione!" Ron grumbled. "You gave me a dead arm!"
"Serves you right." Hermione grinned mischievously, but then she put a straight face on. "Anyway, what do you think? Will he bring them in?"
I pondered for a bit and said "If he didn't intend to, then why would he be sending me little help messages everyday?"
"He's been WHAT?" Hermione yelled.
I leaned away slightly.
"Tom sends me snippets of what he has to put up with. It's pretty bad." I explained. "I can kinda get some emotions too. All I ever feel from him is loneliness and misery."
Ron scrunched up his face.
"I never thought it was that bad." He scratched at his ear. "Maybe he's trying to fool you?"
"No." I was sure. "When he used that image of Sirius against me, it was almost as if it had a kind of sheen to it. A shiny quality. Nothing about the ones he's been sending me are shiny."
"Shiny?" Ron scoffed. "I'm so glad I'm not the one with a sparkly brain, mate."
This time, I punched him, but lighter than Hermione did.
"Ow. What is it, bully Ron day?"
I snorted.
"Yep" I said, and attacked him.
Hermione laughed and joined in, tickling Ron when she got the chance.
"Gerroff me" Ron chuckled.
We all sat back panting. The grandfather clock that sat in the corner bonged eleven.
"Time to go." I clambered to my feet.
We had agreed to meet Draco in the entrance hall as soon as the train had left. We leisurely strolled down the corridors, reveling in the emptiness of the halls. Usually, the castle's passages would be blocked with students trying to get to the last lesson before lunch at this time. But the hallways were eerily quiet. Thanks to a shortcut I had found in my second year, we were at the entrance hall in less than three minutes. The doors were open and Draco was already there, sat on the stone steps just outside. He stood and swiftly crossed the distance between him and Hermione, planting a smacker on her mouth.
"Hermione, didn't we talk about this?" I moaned.
"You're no better, Draco. You encouraged her." Ron covered his eyes.
"Good to see you too." Draco drawled in his old manner, but a grin lit up his face. "What are we going to do today?"
"Study" said Hermione sharply, earning a groan from all three of us. "We need to get our homework done before we can worry about the other thing" she continued sternly.
"Library it is then." Draco said , kissing Hermione's cheek and making her blush.
A thud from behind us made us whip our heads round and stare at a Ravenclaw second-year girl. Her face went bright red when she saw she had been caught. Leaving her trunk, which had made the thud when she dropped it, she ran back up the staircase. Cursing, I dashed after her, closely followed by the other three. I veered off through a secret passage to cut her off at the end of the corridor, but when I rounded the corner, I found it empty, with Hermione and Draco at the other end.
"Where'd she go?" Ron grunted at my shoulder. "She can't have disappeared."
I shook my head and silently pointed at a tapestry with a slight bulge underneath it. I signalled for Draco and Ron to lift the tapestry from the sides and motioned to Hermione to stand in front of it with me. Slowly, they lifted the tapestry away to reveal the small girl holding a wand that looked too big for her. She had blonde hair and big, blue eyes and she was crying.
"Hey, there." I said, gently. "What's your name?"
"Galenia Roque" she sniffled, hesitantly. "But most people call me Lia."
"Why were you running, Lia?" Hermione asked, reaching out a hand to help the small girl up.
"Be-because..." she hiccuped and peeked sideways at Draco.
"Ohh" I snapped my fingers. "You thought it was really strange for us to be getting along with him?"
She nodded, chewing on her fingernails.
"My dad is a wizard and he's told me a lot about everything, including you." She was now gazing at me in awe.
Ron shifted. "Can we go sit down somewhere? I'm tired. I don't like running in the mornings."
Hermione sighed. "You're such a wet blanket, Ronald."
We went back down t the entrance hall and sat in the Great Hall at the Gryffindor table.
"You see, Lia, Draco's not as bad as most people think," I told her. "He's a really nice guy actually."
Hermione beamed and hugged me. I rolled my eyes and looked at Draco, meaningfully. He coughed.
"Erm. I really didn't mean to freak you out, so... um, sorry. " he muttered. "Why aren't you on the Hogwarts Express anyway?"
She shrank back a little , but answered anyway.
"My friends thought it would be funny to put a sleep spell on me" she said, a bit crossly. "They only made it last long enough so I would be late for the train, not actually miss it. But I'm not much of a morning person, so I take about ten minutes to get up. They unpacked all my stuff too, so I had to repack my trunk and then try and get to the train."
I realized that Lia was quite the chatterbox, which reminded me of a certain someone.
Hermione was looking a bit angry. "Who exactly are these friends of yours?"
Lia glanced at her lap. "I don't want to get them into trouble."
Ron grinned. "Maybe the Sorting Hat put you in the wrong house. You sound more like a Hufflepuff than a Ravenclaw."
She glared at Ron.
"Wit beyond measure is a man's greatest treasure" she chanted. "Putting on a facade of weakness was the best option until I was sure you weren't going to do something to me."
Draco laughed. "Outsmarted by a second-year. That's got to be a record, Ron."
Ron grumbled and Lia giggled.
"Harry's right," she said, thoughtfully. "You're not so bad."
"Glad you think so" he replied. "But you HAVE to keep this a secret. No one can know what you saw here today."
"Got to keep appearances up, huh?" Lia asked. "Well it's just as well it was me that was late and not Cynthia. I can keep any secret, but she has the biggest mouth in Hogwarts. Don't worry, I saw nothing."
"Thank you, Lia" sighed Hermione.
She turned and kissed Draco on the cheek. Ron made vomiting sounds.
The second-year grinned sneakily. "But my silence comes at a price. I want to know everything."
Hermione glanced at me.
"We can't tell you absolutely everything, but we can tell you some things. What do you want to know?" I offered.
"How serious are you two?" she nudged Hermione cheekily.
"Yeah," Ron said. "How serious are you two?"
I gazed intently at the pair and Hermione blushed.
"I love Hermione" stated Draco.
"And I love Draco" murmured Hermione.
"Aw, that's so cute! Imagine if you two had babies. They would be adorable! Oh, if you did, could I babysit? I really need a summer job and I would really enjoy it. Hey, do you guys even like babies?" she rambled.
"Next question!" yelled Ron.
Lia twisted her mouth. "Er- oh, yeah! What are you guys doing here? Students were told that they had to go home."
"We're doing something top-secret. We can't tell you that one." I patted her on the shoulder when her face fell. "But everyone will know if it all goes well." I said in an attempt to cheer her up.
She still looked down.
"Any other questions?" Ron inquired.
"Hmm. YES!" she exclaimed. "What's You-Know-Who like?"
Panicked, I cast a glance at the others for help. Unexpectedly, Ron spoke.
"He's terrifying. He looks like a snake and he talks really weird."
It was a vague description, but it must have worked, because she shuddered and moved on to her next question.
"Um," she was suddenly shy. "Harry?"
"Hm, yeah?"
"Can I have a hug?"
It was such an oddly simple request that it took me by surprise.
"Um, yeah, sure." I answered.
She threw her arms around my neck and squeezed me just as tightly as Hermione normally did. I hugged her gently back.
"Thank you for keeping You-Know-Who away. He really scares me" she whispered in my ear.
"You're welcome." I whispered back and she withdrew.
I suddenly thought of something that might help her.
"You know," I said, slowly. "Fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself. You're a Ravenclaw, so maybe you should take that advice and call him by his real name." Or at least one of them, I added in my head.
"You mean out loud?" Lia gasped.
"Yep. Voldemort" Lia flinched when I said his name. "Or you can call him Tom Riddle, but no one would know who you were talking about."
"Go on," Hermione urged. "Try it."
Lia took a deep breath.
"Voldemort" she whispered.
Wide eyed, she clapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes danced and she giggled.
"Voldemort" she said, louder this time. "I did it!"
"Great, just don't yell it around all the time, or people will think you're crazy." Ron flicked her.
"Hey!" she flicked him back.
They then had a flicking fight, seeing who could get the most flicks in. Ron was bigger and had more experience, but Lia was faster and flicked him far more times than he flicked her. I had just cheered as Lia got Ron on the nose when someone said 'hem hem' behind us and all of us froze. The memory of Umbridge was etched in my mind, so I snapped my head round to see who it was. Thankfully, it was only McGonagall.
"Professor, don't creep up on us like that!" I complained.
"Well, Mr Potter, it wasn't hard." She surveyed us through her glasses. "Would you kindly explain what is going on here."
"Well, Professor," Hermione proceeded to throw some light upon the events that had led us to this point in time. "So we had to give her some information. Not about that, but about us." She gestured to Draco and herself, who happened to be holding hands.
Lia smiled up at the severe-looking teacher. "Don't worry, Headmistress. I'm the best in our year at keeping secrets. I won't tell anyone."
"Good. If I find out that you have told anyone, Miss Roque, I will have to take drastic measures." McGonagall warned, but Lia wasn't intimidated.
"Yes, Professor." She frowned. "How am I going to get home now?"
"I will ask for a volunteer among the staff to get you home via side-along apparition. Please go back up to your common room and wait for a member of staff to collect you." McGonagall smiled. "Have a good holiday, Miss Roque."
"Okay." Lia stood and picked up her trunk. "See you later, guys!"
"Bye, Lia" we chorused.
She skipped away, looking for all the world like Luna Lovegoods younger sister. I shook my head and made a mental note to introduce them sometime. I was sure Luna would take a liking to this strange young Ravenclaw. ]
"Come, you four." McGonagall walked away. "I want you to meet the aurors and teachers that will help detain the Death Eaters."
My mind was still on Galenia Roque and what would have happened if we hadn't seen her watching.
Crisis averted, I thought.