Chapter 10: Confusion
Last time, on "Take My Hand":
Harry is attacked at Number 4 by Dementors where he manages to do underage magic and conjure a patronus to scare them away, thus saving himself and his porky cousin from certain death. In process, he manages to acquire for himself a familiar in the form of an adder by the name of Serin. When he escapes in the night, he is picked up by the 'Harry Potter Retrieval Squad' ™ and brought to 12 Grimmauld place where he has a fight with Ron and the two break it off. Hermione breaks things off with Ron as well and gets a tattoo of 'trust' in ancient runes on her left hip. Upon their arrival at Hogwarts, Harry notices that something is odd with Draco Malfoy, though he can't place it, and has bigger fish to fry in convincing the Headmaster to allow him to keep Serin with him at Hogwarts. With the intervention of Fawkes, Dumbledore agrees and Harry and Hermione head to the dorms for their first night back at Hogwarts – Home.
Harry's return to the dorm that night was…uncomfortable. Room changes could be made during the first two weeks of the return to dorms, and on the first of every month after that, but for the first night, and until either Harry or Ron could find new room arrangements, they would just have to deal.
For Seamus and Dean, who hadn't been in the same compartment with them on the train, the tension was confusing and obvious, and though the two of them looked back and forth between Ron and Harry with consternation, neither of them actually asked what had happened, apparently not willing to begin an argument between two people who had been the best of friends only the year before.
Harry did his nightly routine quickly and quietly, with a minimal amount of fuss and slid into bed, carefully not listening to what Ron was mumbling under his breath as he did his own quick clean up. The house-elves apparently were told about the schism between him and Ron because instead of putting their things on adjacent beds like previous years, the house-elves had placed their things on opposite sides of the room, as far apart as they could make them, displacing Neville from his bed by the door and moving him next to Harry. Ron, from his grumbling, thought that Harry had used his contact with the house-elves, Dobby, to get Ron moved from his rightful place in the room.
Harry thought Ron was being ridiculous; after all, he didn't really want to sleep by Harry anyway, but Ron felt shunned and that Harry was, once again, getting the preferential treatment that he never deserved, and that Ron never got.
That morning, Harry woke up early to slip quietly out of the room without dealing with Ron and was instead faced with a Ron who was awake and suspiciously alert; he usually was hell to wake up in the mornings for his classes. For a moment, they both paused in their beds, simply looking at each other from across the room, their antagonism forgotten in a moment of mutual surprise that Ron was lucid at…..4:00 in the morning? Harry shook his wrist with Dudley's broken-faced watch on it, then glanced out the window at the sun just beginning to peep over the horizon; no way it was 4:00, more like 6:30. Harry gave his watch a shake again, and then remembered that he was at Hogwarts again and that the gears and wheels of watches had just as hard of a time operating properly at the more delicate wires and switches of his CD player.
Harry frowned at that last thought as he climbed out of his bed, Ron's wakefulness momentarily forgotten in the face of this new problem. Harry had always known somewhere in the back of his mind that he'd be unable to listen to his music during his stay at Hogwarts, after all, he never had been able to before, but it never bothered him so much as it did now. Always before he'd had Ron and Hermione to distract him, Hermione more so with homework then anything else, but Ron was always up for a discussion about Quidditch, or, even better, a rousing game of chess in which he always beat Harry soundly. But now…Harry raised his eyes and met the curious look in the redhead's eyes. Harry supposed he must have been making some funny faces the past few minutes as the various thoughts ran through his head. Shaking his head slightly to clear away the morning cobwebs, Harry snatched the first pair of pants and shirt that his hands touched from his trunk and retreated to the bathroom away from Ron's gaze. There was a time when a moment like that would have ended in a smile and with Ron rolling over to go back to sleep, knowing that Harry would return from the showers and proceed to poke and prod Ron until he also got up and into the showers at a reasonable time. Now, Harry didn't know what would happen, but he desperately wished that Ron at least would continue with the norm and go back to sleep so that Harry could escape with a minimal amount of fuss.
"Make it warmer." Serin hissed at him from his now-almost-constant position in Harry's hair.
"Sserin…" Harry rolled his eyes as he lathered up "It's plenty warm right now."
"No it'ss not. Make it warmer."
"I'm going to put a warming charm or ssomething on you, becausse thiss iss ridiculouss." Harry said as he increased the heat of the water "I don't know how you can sstand it to be sso hot."
"If I get warm now, then your hair will keep me warm later." Serin explained as if to a little child. "Fur keepss walkerss warm."
"Walkerss?" Harry paused in the act of detangling Serin from his hair so that he could wash it. "What do you mean walkerss?"
"You walk, do you not?" Serin questioned, curling around Harry's wrist.
"Well, yes..." Harry said, seeing where it was going.
"Then you are a walker."
"Thank you for that" Harry sighed as he squirted a portion of soap into his hair, washing it one-handed.
"You're welcome." Serin lifted his head off of Harry's wrist and posed, nose in the air, as the water sprayed down. "Ahh, nice and warm." Slowly, Serin opened his mouth and unhinged his jaws, his fangs descending from the roof of his mouth and sliding foreword to lock into place. The water beading on his head slowly ran down the length of his fangs and dripped off the ends, making him look menacing, with poison dripping from his exposed fangs. Taking a deep breath, Serin let out a low hiss, letting the whole world know that he was an Adder and they had best tread lightly.
Harry chuckled weakly at the antics of his familiar, glad there were still things he could laugh about, with his life falling down around his ears.
Eventually, Harry and Serin both got cleaned up, this time avoiding the dreaded soap-in-the-scales condition, and Serin settled back into Harry's hair with a minimal amount of fuss. Emerging from the shower, Harry was pleasantly surprised to discover that Ron had indeed gone back to sleep, or at least, he was lying down and pretending to sleep. Either way was fine with Harry and he tip toed around the room as he gathered some books and paper, getting ready to start the new day.
Descending the stairs to the common room, Harry was unsurprised to see that Hermione was up and awake, already surrounded by a mountain of books and she frantically scratched something out with her quill.
"Morning, Cat." Harry said as he flung himself onto the couch next to her.
"Morning, Harry." She said brightly, her voice cheerful, though here eyes were suspiciously bright when she turned to greet him.
"Cat…?" Harry said, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm. "Are you alright?"
"Not really, no." Hermione admitted in a soft voice. "Things didn't go well last night when the queens of gossip discovered the 'golden trio' had broken up."
"Were they that bad?"
"Not terribly so, no. It's just that they're all so certain that we can patch things up, and I know that we can't." She shook her head, causing her ringlets to dance about her shoulders.
"You did your hair." Harry reached out with a hand to gently tug on one of the curls. "Looks nice."
She laughed derisively. "Thanks. Sad that it takes a break up with Ron to get me to actually care about my appearance."
Harry quirked a smile at her. "Let him see what he missed out on?"
"Not quite. More like, I've got to look nice for the rest of the world because I am NOT remaining single my whole life. I'll not let him ruin me for the rest of the guys. Though," she made a face. "there are some I'd rather stay away from."
Harry made a face as well, and then laughed, "I see what you mean, Crabbe and Goyle!"
"Ugh! Harry, that is disgusting, go wash your mouth out!" Hermione cried, grabbing up one of her oversized reading books and miming a smack at his head with it. "C'mon you, breakfast will be served soon. We might as well get there before the masses do."
ooOO00OOoo
Harry grumbled and groaned the whole way down the stairs and into the main hall. In fact, he was still mumbling under his breath as he and Hermione were taking their seats at the Gryffindor table.
"What are you so upset about, Harry?" Hermione asked him as she rearranged her books in her book sack at her side. "You seemed fine in the tower, so what's wrong now?"
"Ugh, I just remembered that I can't listen to music while I'm here. And I'm not sure what I'm going to do instead." Harry replied, a sour look on his face.
"What do you mean, 'what you're going to do'? Just do the same thing you do every year." Hermione replied, "Or talk to professor Flitwick you know he's always looking for a challenge."
"Flitwick?" Harry stared, gape-mouthed.
"Professor Flitwick, Harry." Hermione corrected tiredly.
"That's an awesome idea, Hermione! Why didn't I think of that? If anybody can charm my CD player to work, it's him! Thank you!" Harry leaned over and gave Hermione a quick hug before jumping up and dashing up to the teacher's table where Flitwick sat, cheerfully wide awake and unashamedly grinning at a very sour looking Professor Snape. Harry dutifully ignored Professor Snape and struck up a conversation with Professor Flitwick, becoming more and more animated as the conversation progressed, gesturing wildly.
Hermione watched Harry hurry away with a small smile on her face before returning her attention to the papers she'd arrayed before her. Riffling her fingers along the side of the largest stack of papers, she lifted up the top quarter of an inch of paper and grabbed one of the pieced of paper in the middle. Without looking at it, she placed it on the bench beside her and then began to meticulously put all of her books and papers back into her satchel.
"It always creeps me out when you do that." Ginny said, sitting down across the table from Hermione with a yawn.
"Do what?" Hermione asked, picking up the paper from next to her and finally looking at it.
"That." Ginny said, picking up a glass of pumpkin juice and taking a sip. "When you just pick one paper out of a whole stack without even looking." She waved her hand at the paper in Hermione's hand. "And what's worse, is that you've always got the one you were looking for, no questions asked. How do you do it?"
Hermione gave Ginny a mysterious smile. "Organization, Ginny. Organization."
"He agreed!" Harry came running back to the table, a huge grin on his face. "Professor Flitwick agreed to try and charm my CD player to work at Hogwarts!" In his enthusiasm, Harry leaned over and gave Ginny a quick peck on her check, completely disregarding the rules of etiquette that stated that a male does not do such things to a female when she is in a relationship with another man, like Ginny was with Dean? at the moment.
Harry moved on quickly to load his plate with food, completely ignorant of the blush staining the cheeks of the redhead he had just kissed, or of the knowing smile on Hermione's face.
Due to Harry's overwhelming cheer, breakfast was a lively affair from then on and neither Ron's arrival, nor the distribution of the school schedules did much to diminish the glow that emanated from Harry.
"Geeze, Harry, turn it down a little would ya?" Neville asked as he stumbled into his place at the table, one of the last still open. "Since when are you this cheerful in the mornings?"
"Since Flitwick ("Professor Flitwick, Harry!!") agreed to design a charm to make my CD player work." Harry answered, his 1000-watt smile blazing bright.
"Really?" Seamus asked, loading his plate with food. "Think he'd be willing to do the same with mine?"
"Probably." Harry responded. "If you promise not to listen to it while in his class. That's what I had to do."
"I think I can manage that." Dean said with a grin.
"All right everybody." Hermione said eventually, grabbing her satchel and standing from the table. "I'm off to class, and if you don't want to be late, so should all of you."
ooOO00OOoo
"Uugghhh…" Harry moaned dramatically as he followed Hermione down the steps to the dungeon where his torturer awaited with, no doubt, newly thought out schemes to make Harry's life miserable. "Why did they have to make Potions after lunch, anyway? I think I might puke."
"It wouldn't be so bad, Harry, if you hadn't stuffed yourself with food at breakfast." Hermione admonished mildly, no sign of sympathy in her voice at all.
"What's this I hear?" A voice sneered at them from around the next corner. Stepping out from behind it was none other than Draco Malfoy. "Harry Potter eating like a pig at breakfast? How shocking. And here I thought it was the Weasel who always ate with more enthusiasm than any animal has a right to. Are you trying to take his place in Hermione's heart by imitating him now, Potter?"
"Ah, there you are, Ferret-boy. I was wondering when you'd crawl out from under your rock. Then again, you probably only came out because you'd eaten all the bugs that were under there, and you're starving for more." Harry responded smoothly, looking unperturbed.
"And I've found one, haven't I? Best be careful, Potter or I might just snap you up. A fitting end to an unfitting life, no?"
"I like thiss one." Serin hissed his observation into the argument."Sshut up Sserin, not now." Harry hissed back, annoyed.
"What's this? Talking to yourself are you, Potter? And in parseltongue no less? Are you trying to come off as an agent of the Dark Lord?" Malfoy sneered his best; the new additions to his wardrobe making his words seem crueler, somehow.
"Oh, no. Not again. It's the first day of school, guys, don't you have anything better to do?" Hermione said, dejected.
"No." Came the double response from both Harry and Malfoy at the same time.
"Well, well. Who'd have thought, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy actually agreeing on something? The world must be ending." Harry recognized Ron's voice and knew things were only going to get worse.
"Ah, speaking of bugs, I believe I've found one. It's your lucky day, Potter, now I don't have to eat you." Malfoy turned his head towards the approaching Ron gracefully, not a hair out of place on his shining head.
"A bug, am I?" Ron replied, anger creeping into his voice already. "Then what does that make you? A leg-less worm?"
"Ah, excellent observation, Weasel, a worm has no legs. Did your mommy teach you that last night when she came to tuck you in? I hear you can't sleep unless she sings you a lullaby." Malfoy brought one of his hands up and casually inspected his nails.
"I think you're mixing up Ron's mother with your own." Harry said, unwilling to see Ron go undefended against Malfoy, friend or no.
"Don't you go defending me to my face Harry Potter!" Ron spat at him, the rage in his face beyond that which would be expected. "I know the things you say about me behind my back, and they're no better what Malfoy says now!!"
"Ah, what joy." Malfoy said, bringing both his hands up and placing them over his heart dramatically. "It warms my heart to see such good friends interacting. Truly, it does." He dropped his hands and lowered his brows. "I always knew you were too stupid to live, Weasel. Potter is one of those sickeningly good-hearted people. He is actually incapable of talking bad about anyone—other than myself, and our dear Potions master—behind their backs."
Hermione plucked Harry on the sleeve, and he bent over, the two of them placing their heads close together, speaking softly. "Did Draco Malfoy just defend you to Ron?" she asked incredulously.
"I—I think so." Harry said, dumbfounded. "But—why?"
She shook her head, mystified. "I'm not sure. I never expected this to happen."
"Me neither. I wonder what's gotten into him." Taking a glance at the other two boys, he continued. "Actually, what's gotten into both of them."
"I don't know. From the way this year has started, I'd say it's only going to get stranger." Her lips twisted in a wry smile. "Of course, I'm not really one to say much about strange stuff, being Muggle-born, sometimes the idea that magic is real is still surprising to me."
"Really?" Harry asked. "I get that sometimes too. For me, it's even stranger, because I should know about this stuff. I just don't."
"Yeah, I know what you—" Hermione paused, her eyes glazing over for a second. "Uh-oh."
"What?" Harry asked hurriedly.
"We'd better get out of here. Snape's coming, and it's not going to be pretty."
Harry nodded and grasped her elbow, both of them hurrying away towards the classroom. As they rounded the corner, Harry couldn't help but take a glance back towards the two squabbling boys. Ron's face was cherry-red and he was gesturing wildly, his voice overly loud, and his wand in his hand, sparks flying from the tip. Malfoy was speaking softly, Harry couldn't hear his words, but his face remained calm, almost serene. Glancing down at the hands half-hidden in sleeves, Harry noticed the tip of Malfoy's wand peeking out of his left-sleeve, ready to defend its owner.
"Sly little bastard." Harry muttered before turning the corner and hurrying after Hermione.
ooOO00OOoo
Potions, was both better and worse than it had been in the past for Harry. Without Ron at his side to distract him, Harry found that he did marginally better on his potion. Or perhaps that was because Snape was busy sneering down at Ron from his position at the front of the classroom. Snape had somehow acquired an old cone that was now sitting atop Ron's head, the words 'dunderhead' emblazoned in large letters around the side of the cone and a bright, flashing red arrow pointing down at Ron, whose face was just as red as it had been in the hallway, thought now from embarrassment instead of anger, though there was a bit of that as well.
"Sick, isn't he?" Hermione mumbled under her breath as she reached across the table in order to grab a jar of newt's toes.
"Yeah, kinda. I just wonder what went wrong with him, y'know?" Harry nodded, his eyes still on Ron, his hands stirring the cauldron mechanically.
"There's no telling. You never really know what kind of childhood these purebloods get. What kind of things they're taught. I'll bet there are all kinds of spells and things that he knows and we don't. And we'll probably never learn them, because he has years of experience on us." Hermione frowned into her potion and stirred it counter-clockwise once before adding a drop of ashwinder's venom to the exact center of the mixture.
"Yeah, you're probably right, but what does it matter? He's over there, and we're over here, and nothing is going to bridge that gap." Harry stated sadly.
"I don't know about that. He's doing a pretty good job of bridging that gap from what I hear." Hermione increased the heat on her potion by 3 and a half degrees centigrade.
"Calling people names and trying to start fights does not count as bridging a gap between purebloods and Muggle-borns, Hermione." Harry stated, copying her.
"No, but he has done other things as well."
"How? Hermione, it's only the first day of school." Harry frowned at her.
"Yeah, but we've been in school for 4 years now, we've had time to make and burn bridges. I'm just saying that he has a history of such bridge building. Too bad he's chosen such a…" she paused an curled her lip disdainfully, "distasteful way of doing it."
"He's being distasteful about things alright. Though right now, I'm sure he wishes he was anywhere but where he is." Harry said, laughter coloring his voice.
"Hmm." Hermione tapped her finger against her bottom lip, frowning in concentration as she stared at the ingredients laid out before her. Removing her hand, she ran one finger down the page of the book at her hip before deftly snatching a mysterious glowing green powder and throwing it into the fire under her cauldron. Instantly, the metal of her cauldron changed color and texture to from pewter to something more closely resembling a muddy brown paste. "I'm not so sure about that. He looks like he's having a lot of fun over there. What with Professor Snape being so preoccupied with Ron over there"
Harry paused and looked over at Hermione, his hand half-raised to drop the next ingredient in. "'Ron over there.'? Who are you talking about, Hermione?"
Hermione pause as well. "Why, Blaise Zabini, of course."
"What? Since when?" Harry asked, mystified.
"Since always, Harry. Who did you think I was talking about?"
"Why, Ron Weasley, of course." Harry echoed.
"Oh." Hermione made a small sound of surprised horror.
"Talking about your dundehead friend again, Potter?" Snape sneered from directly behind Harry.
Harry took in Hermione's distressed gaze and then turned slowly about to meet his fate. "No, sir, Professor. I was just talking to Hermione about the potion we are working on."
Harry heard a small gasp of surprise from Hermione when she heard him telling such a bald-faced lie to their teacher.
Snape's lip curled in a parody of a smile
"Ten points of Gryffindor for talking in class without permission and another twenty for lying to a teacher. You really should work on that compulsive need to lie you seem to have acquired, Potter. You're never going to get anywhere like that. Not like you'll go anywhere in life anyway."
Harry simply nodded and went back to work. Sometimes, fighting with Snape just wasn't worth the energy. After all, Snape was the Professor, and he would always win.
ooOO00OOoo
It was later on that night after all classes had been dismissed that Harry and Hermione got back onto their discussion from Potions class.
"So what were you talking about in Potions anyway, Hermione?" Harry asked, setting his quill down and lacing his fingers together. Raising his linked hands above his head, Harry arched his back and felt the bones down his spine snap back into alignment.
Hermione cringed, then said, "I do wish you wouldn't do that." She shook her head. "Anyway, I was talking about Blaise, why?"
"Well, it seemed rather random is all. I mean, where did he come from? Since when did you pay any attention to Blaise Zabini?"
"Hmm, I guess it would seem rather random to you, since you don't always walk in the same circles I do." Hermione frowned. "I don't think I'm supposed to tell you this. Since you're a guy, but…" she thought for a moment more, then shook her head. "No, it's okay, you can tell best friends."
"Uhh, Hermione? What are you babbling about?"
"Nothing." She sat up straighter in her chair. "Girls have a list, of sorts, of all of the most attractive boys in school, and they keep replacing the places on the list with different people, depending on how they act and who they date."
"What?"
"Well, Draco Malfoy was on the top of the list for a long time, but he's slowly been declining since he hasn't dated anybody. People are starting to wonder."
"Wonder? What?" Harry asked dumbfounded.
"Shh, I'm sharing secret information with you, be patient." Hermione admonished. "Well, Malfoy's not at the top anymore, since he's not dating, and a couple of the other guys were about to move into his spot at the start of this year, but they've all just turned into assholes over the summer so it seems that the number one spot is still open for now. But!" Hermione held one finger up into the air. "There is one guy who is attracting a lot of female attention right now, and that is Blaise Zabini."
"That guy? Why?" Harry leaned across the table towards Hermione, as if that would help him understand the mysteries of women.
"Because he's being kind."
"Kind? What does that have to do with anything?"
"Everything, you goof." Hermione gave a slight huff of annoyance. "He's being nice to girls of all ages, and from all houses. Sarah Hutchins, a first year here in Gryffindor, got lost after breakfast and somehow ended up down in the dungeons. Blaize found her, and instead of making things worse and laughing at her like he could have, and how, honestly, you know we would have had we found a Slytherin up here, he was kind to her and showed her back up to the Great Hall, explaining things about how the stairs worked and how to avoid getting lost in the future. He even drew her a rough map of how to get to her next class so she wouldn't be late."
"Yeah, okay. I guess that counts as kind." Harry nodded.
"Of course it counts! And not only does it count, he's gotten more attractive over the summer as well. By potions, Blaise had most of the school's female population about to fall to his feet in wonder and it was just making me sick. I'm sure he knows exactly what he's doing and he's enjoying it." She made a disgusted face.
Harry snorted. "Heck yeah, he's enjoying it. I would too!"
"No you wouldn't, Harry. If all of the schools females fell to your feet in adoration, you'd run screaming in the other direction, sure they'd all been cursed."
Harry nodded with mock sincerity. "There is that. Girls are scary creatures."
"Mmm…indeed we are. Best be careful, Harry. One of these days, we'll all turn into Zombies and try to eat your brains. What you'll think is adoration, will really be a cleaver ploy to get close enough to crack your skull open."
They both nodded solemnly.
They stayed straight faced for a moment more, and then both of them cracked up laughing.
ooOO00OOoo
Would you look at that! A new chapter! Will wonders never cease?