Chapter 4
"I don't know why you are even bothering mate." It was the fourth time Ron had expressed disbelief that Harry was willing to try and work with Greengrass in the past five minutes. If he was honest, Harry was growing tired of the negativity. 'It's not as if I really have a choice in the matter...'
"Oh for goodness sake Ron, how many times are you going to say that?" Evidently, Hermione was getting a little peeved as well. They were making their way down to breakfast at the Great Hall and had just reached the second floor. Harry had recounted the full tale of the meeting he had with his new partner in the Gryffindor Common Room a few minutes ago.
"It's just..." Ron started before Hermione cut him off.
"Yes, we know, she's a Slytherin, as is Zabini. We get it."
"But..."
Hermione cut the red-headed boy off again. "But nothing, end of story."
Harry shot Hermione a thankful look. Although still not keen on the idea of being paired with Greengrass, he was feeling more comfortable about the whole thing after the conversation they had last night. 'She at least seems willing to give it a go.' It was selfish, but he was glad that Hermione was paired with Zabini. He wouldn't be dealing with the uncomfortable situation alone.
Hermione had confided to Harry that she had no idea how to speak to Zabini. She was impressed by the fact that Greengrass had already contacted Harry; and perhaps a little envious as well. Now that he thought about it, Harry couldn't help but be grateful that she had confronted him so soon after learning that she would be working with him. 'I'd be a nervous wreck by now if she hadn't.'
They had just reached the lowest landing of the grand staircase in the Entrance Hall. The entire school's population seemed to be filing into the Great Hall at the same time. It was an almost comical site, at least at first. There was a lot of excitable chatter and then, quite suddenly, a few shrill screams erupted from the enormous mass of bodies heading into the Great Hall. Harry, now aware that something was wrong, stopped walking towards the top of the last flight of stairs and reached out to grab a hold of Ron and Hermione. He looked at the great mob of students, and realised that some of them appeared to be getting crushed and were falling to the floor. The screaming intensified. The mob was becoming more frenzied.
"Harry, what?" Ron sounded annoyed.
"Something's gone wrong," Harry said pointing frantically to the students gathered below them in the Entrance Hall. The crowd was now writhing about as if it was some great, many-headed beast. The screams were coming more frequently now.
"What are you talking about?" Harry looked at his friends and was surprised to find that they had not yet noticed what was going on just a few metres away from them. "They're going to crush everyone," Harry said starting to panic.
Hermione was looking at him with a concerned expression on her face. 'Why aren't they doing anything?' Harry shook his head slightly, then looked towards the doors of the Great Hall again. He was shocked to find that the students were now passing through the doors peacefully. 'What on Earth?' He could have sworn that he saw students falling to the floor.
"Didn't you hear that?" Harry's question fell on deaf ears. Ron and Hermione both looked at him quizzically. It was the same look they gave him three years ago when they thought he was hearing voices. The crowd at the base of the stairs had cleared and there was no signs that anything untoward had happened.
"Never mind, I must have been day-dreaming," Harry said as nonchalantly as he could as he tried to regain his composure. Clearly he had imagined the frenzy of a few moments before. It looked so real though and he was still rattled by what he had just seen. 'I definitely heard those screams.'. A terrible swarming mob of students had trampled towards the Great Hall, crushing people along the way, hadn't they? But as quickly as it had happened, the image was gone. And, disturbingly, no one else seemed to have seen it. Maybe he was sleep deprived; the weekend had been very stressful.
Harry, shaking his head as if to shake off the image, took a deep breath and began moving again. Ron and Hermione followed immediately. He could feel their questioning gazes burning in to the back of his head.
After the confusing and ultimately, scary experience Harry had before breakfast, the rest of the day passed fairly easily. Harry's Monday timetable was quite good compared to the rest of the week. His three classes – Transfiguration, Charms and Care of Magical Creatures – were all relatively interesting and fairly uneventful. Parvati Patil had accidentally set her practice doll on fire in Charms, but apart from that, there was nothing noteworthy to report.
McGonagall had the sixth years working on transfiguring shields from small everyday items. The magic itself was easy enough, shields weren't very hard to make because they were essentially just large blocks. The difficulty was creating a shield that would have the strength to withstand several heavy magical blows. It required a relatively extensive knowledge of how things like wood and stone were formed. His demure Head of House was careful to point out how important physical shields were. Some spells simply couldn't be blocked by Shield charms. Harry, thinking back to Dumbledore's fight with Voldemort, could clearly see the value of being able to form a series of strong physical shields. For one, after they are created they don't require any additional magic and thus don't drain your magical core. Even though it was exceptionally practical magic, Harry couldn't say that it was particularly exciting.
In Charms, they had been doing a lot of theory work. Basically, they were revising the spells they had learned in previous years with an emphasis on tightening up their wand movements, incantations and timing to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their spells. The way this was tested was to cast a spell and see how long it lasted. Parvati had chosen to test her flame spell on one of the small practice dolls they had been required to buy at the start of the school year. They were mostly used as practice targets for light bludgeoning spells to improve accuracy. Evidently, they weren't resistant to fire. Harry had to sympathise with Parvati, he also would have assumed that they wouldn't light on fire. The net result was that her parchment coloured, twelve inch doll was now charred black and smelt of burned cotton.
Unlike last year, Hagrid was present from the first day of term. Undaunted by his previous ordeals as the professor in charge of Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid had the students studying Thestrals again. Last years lesson had been largely interrupted by Umbridge, and so he felt that his students could use some more time with the great skeletal beasts. Harry and Neville still appeared to be the only students who were able to see the tTestrals. It was a mostly simple lesson that involved observing how the beasts moved about the paddock. The only problem was of course, that ninety per cent of the class couldn't see them. Harry and Neville were providing a running commentary of sorts describing how they moved much like Hippogriffs with a graceful, laconic swagger.
All in all, it had been a reasonable day. Although, Harry hadn't exactly forgotten what he had seen that morning. As the students sat down to eat their dinner – a delightful roast consisting of pork, potatoes, pumpkin, cauliflower cheese, gravy and Yorkshire puddings – Harry couldn't help but feel anxious about the future. As he looked around the Hall he tried to pick out the faces of those people he thought had fallen under the feet of the crowd in the morning. To his surprise, although he could clearly picture their faces, he couldn't recall seeing any of them before. Baffled and frankly, worried by this, Harry chose to concentrate on his meal instead. Hermione was the first to break the tense silence that had settled over the trio of friends.
"Harry, are you okay?" Her voice was pleasant and revealed her concern for Harry. 'She's probably been stewing on it all day.'
"Yes, I'm fine. I guess I just must have been a bit exhausted from the weekend." Harry let out a sigh. It was a lie, and Hermione probably knew it as well.
"Are you sure?"
"I could have sworn I saw a commotion at the Great Hall doors," Harry said neglecting to mention the fact that it was quite an unsettling experience. He didn't want to let on just how disturbing the scene was.
"You said that you thought everyone was going to be crushed," Ron said through a mouthful of Yorkshire pudding.
'Thanks Ron,' Harry thought. Hermione was now looking at him with greater concern. "It was nothing guys, really, just a simple case of seeing something that wasn't there." Harry flinched inwardly. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realised how ridiculous they sounded. Sure it wasn't unusual for people to think they've seen something that simply didn't exist, but to see a whole mob of people who ,as far as he could tell, didn't exist getting pushed to the floor and trampled on? That didn't sound like something that could be explained by a trick of the light.
Not wanting to dwell on the topic any longer, Harry tried to change the subject. "So, have you spoken to Zabini yet?"
An anxious look flashed across Hermione's face. "No, I haven't," she conceded. Harry already knew this. He had spent most of the day in her company, so it wasn't feasible for the two strangers to have met. The distraction worked as Harry intended, but he felt bad now that he had made his friend unhappy. "I suspect I'll just have to wait and see what happens tomorrow," Hermione finished morosely.
"I'm sure it will be okay," Harry offered. "As much as I'm not fond of Slytherins, he's certainly not the worst of the bunch." It was true. From what Harry could tell, Zabini was a bit of an oddity. He never seemed to be surrounded by the same group of people. It was like he tried to spend his time equally with all the older members of his House. 'Perhaps he doesn't like people getting close...'
"That's not saying much," Ron observed. It was not the ideal time to say such a thing, but Harry agreed wholeheartedly. Not that he would let Hermione know that, it was hard enough on her as it was. Ignoring the insensititvity of his male best friend, Harry turned to meet Hermione's gaze.
"You always did say that House rivalries were nonsense and that we should try to get along with all of our peers. We can be the ones to set a good example for the rest of the school to follow. " Harry didn't necessarily believe what he was saying but he knew that it would cheer Hermione up. "At any rate, with the way things are going with Voldemort, it seems silly to alienate a quarter of the population."
"You're right Harry," Hermione said, suddenly looking considerably happier, "Every person we can make friends with is one less ally Voldemort has."
"We can do this," Harry said optimistically.
As Harry fell into bed later that evening, he felt a deep uneasiness in his stomach. It was not what he witnessed that morning that was causing the discomfort. In fact, that was the least of his worries. His anxiety stemmed from the fact that he was so unprepared for what was coming. Harry knew that he was destined to fight Voldemort at some point and the very thought of that scared him to the bone. He would be facing a wizard with so much more magical experience than he had. A wizard who even Dumbledore acknowledged knew more about dark magic than anyone since Salazar Slytherin himself.
The only thing that kept Harry even slightly hopeful was Dumbledore's insistence that he had great power and that it would reveal itself in due course. Even so, it seemed like such a daunting and impossible task. He had spent almost his entire summer moping in his bedroom at Privet Drive about the unfairness of it all. Sirius's death still stung and if he thought about it for any length of time, it brought him to tears. The realisation that he had placed all of his friends in grave danger at the Ministry of Magic didn't help. That night had changed everything in Harry's mind. Cedric's death at the end of Fourth Year was devastating but he wasn't someone that Harry had much of a relationship with. Now, with Sirius's death, it all just seemed so much more personal.
Harry let out a frustrated sigh. 'It was personal a long time before that,' Harry mused. Voldemort had made himself Harry's mortal enemy before he was even capable of independent thought. The one positive of it all was that Dumbledore seemed to be making an effort to help him this year. He was under no illusions that a major reason why the Headmaster had changed the school curriculum was for Harry's sake. Yes, he had to be the one to fight Voldemort, but other witches and wizards would be required to fight in the coming war.
The students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were being trained as soldiers and Harry couldn't be happier about it. The more training everyone had, the more likely they were to survive.
