Harry Potter
and the
Secret Prophecy

Alternate Universe Remix
fanfiction by Fox in the Stars

Chapter Seventeen
Umbridge Strikes Back

The next morning the school paper was late, Harry thought probably because of all the last-minute reworking for the sake of the Hogwarts Junior Thespians, but at least they had the decency to help the newspaper staff pass copies out at the doors of the great hall as students left for the village. Before Harry and his friends were halfway down the path to the school's outer gates and their winged boar statues, scattered laughter broke out as people flipped through the paper.

His curiosity thus piqued, Harry found the drama club feature first; it announced an open rehearsal for their winter production to be held on the lawn of the Three Broomsticks --- with thanks to the proprietor, Mme. Rosmerta, from whom they had gotten permission in advance via owl-post. Then, strangely, they went on to print large portions of their script. Glancing over the list of scenes, Harry was rather put off by the title "Sirius Brown Isn't Such A Loser After All," but Ron was ahead of him and urged him to read on. "If I can laugh at Don Stoatley, you ought to be able to laugh at Sirius Brown," he whispered.

At Ron's behest, Harry started skimming the scenes and immediately broke into a grin despite himself --- the drama club's production was a pastiche of all the guided practices out of the Slinkhard textbook! Unbelievable cardboard characters lurched through a tenuously strung together series of slightly tweaked scenarios whose laughable fakery was left wholly intact. Sirius's doppelganger had been cast as the attacker who wept over a gift of conjured flowers, and Harry at last relaxed into the realisation that his godfather would surely find the skit hilarious. Every scene somehow levered in a fearful mention of the infamous "Don Stoatley," who appeared at last to bring Sirius and the shop clerk's wedding crashing down in flames as a sudden yet triumphant conclusion.

As if it weren't enough on its own, that "special feature" was paired with Ginny's "investigative report" about the textbook. She must have taken advantage of a professor's willingness to forward mail as, according to the article, she had indeed sent a donated copy of Defensive Alternatives to Tonks at Auror Headquarters to see what the people there thought of it. Tonks --- who gave an aside greeting to a "Cassy" whom she had known in her own student days and who was still at the school --- had simply found the book dull, but had asked around the office as Ginny's proxy. Kingsley Shacklebolt could be glimpsed scratching his head between the lines as he tried to say that it was useless without insulting it directly. Alastor Moody, however, laughed himself out of breath before all at once realising that Hogwarts students were actually being taught this drivel, at which point he suddenly refused any further comment.

In the village, students ran hastily in and out of Honeydukes for their candy and flooded the yard of the Three Broomsticks, where the Hogwarts Junior Thespians were putting on their show and Mme. Rosmerta was serving hot butterbeer outside in the chilly autumn air; hosting the production was probably the best business move she could have made. Quite a few students also flocked to the Hogsmeade Owl Post Office with letters for their parents. Dean caught Harry and his friends for a moment with word that Blaise Zabini had even taken out a post-office box for students to receive replies, but while Harry was overjoyed to see more and more of his schoolmates slip through Umbridge's fingers, neither the forwarding professors nor the Hogsmeade post office could surmount the problems preventing him from writing home. The Weasley Twins also led a sizeable expedition to Zonko's to stock their practical joke arsenal, and Ron said that they were smuggling a number of Headless Hats that they hoped to sell on consignment.

As much as Harry enjoyed the script in the paper, he wasn't sure that seeing it performed would much heighten the effect, nor that he really wanted to see Sirius portrayed by Michael Corner in a messy black wig, so he went with Hermione to do more practical shopping. At the Herbs and Potions market, which was being held in the open air for this one last weekend before moving indoors for the winter, Harry was shocked at how much a bottle of Catalytical Potion cost, but he took a deep breath and bought one. Scrivenshaft's actually had a red-marked black quill just like Umbridge's, locked in a glass case and labelled "Cutting Quill, 60 Galleons; License and Identification Required for Purchase." Harry decided against asking a clerk for the details, but as he wandered around waiting for Hermione to make her purchases, he kept coming back to it and staring at it. They looked around Gladrags, and Hermione found a wildly colorful pair of stockings that reminded her of Dobby so much that she bought them for him, and she picked out a small square shawl for Winky also.

"I don't want her to feel left out," Hermione explained, "and I thought maybe this wouldn't look so much like clothes and upset her... Of course I wish I could just buy something for all of them, but I think the staff would have to do that. I mean, surely if a student could free the school house-elves, somebody would have done it just for a prank..."

An old wizard who was examining a thick winter robe next to them did a double-take and stared at Hermione, apparently just catching what she was talking about. She went off to check out, pretending not to notice, and Harry shamefacedly mouthed to the man, "That's saner than she used to be."

Finally he followed her into Sister Grimm, the village bookshop where the window superimposed the words "New - Used - Rare - Unique" over a view of jumbled but brightly-lit shelves. Again Harry just tried to busy himself as Hermione avidly browsed. The shop owner, a graying witch who introduced herself as "Eulalie Grimm," noticed him and took him to a table nestled in a back corner, where she offered tea and biscuits.

"Sit tight, I've got something for you to look at," she said. She hurried off and returned presently with a brightly-colored volume of "Locke Augurey: Magical Super-Spy." "I remember your father always used to have me save those comic books for him, good rest his soul," Ms. Grimm said. "I thought you might find it interesting."

"Yes, thank you," he said, and looked through it as Hermione sat down beside him and began sorting through the large stack of books she had pulled down, mostly Defense texts in varying states of age and disrepair.

Locke Augurey turned out to be a sort of wizard superhero take on the Cold War spy movie theme, and indeed with moving wizard pictures, the comics took on more the effect of patchwork cinema. Harry wasn't making much of the stories even if they had been favorites of his father's, but when Ron came to fetch him and Hermione, he decided to buy the book anyway.

The trio reunited, Ron took charge of the heavy load of books Hermione had just bought. They went to Honeydukes for their favorite sweets and then to the Three Broomsticks; the pub thronged and roared with Hogwarts students. Laughs recalling the Thespians' parody rippled at various points around the room --- "They actually called me up to take a bow at the end of it," Ron crowed --- and Harry felt that the air was alive with freedom and relief on a day out from under Umbridge's thumb. Even the citizens of Hogsmeade who were there were basking in that atmosphere, and Harry saw that a few of the older witches and wizards had gotten hold of the Hogwarts X-Press and were reading it with interest, a few laughs, and a few raised-eyebrow frowns.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had found a table and were just placing their orders when Cho and Marietta approached. "Excuse me," Cho cut in on something Hermione had been saying. "Would you three mind if we sit with you?"

"No, of course not," Harry immediately answered.

"Just a Gillywater for me please," Marietta told the waiter.

"Butterbeer ice cream float for me," Cho said.

"Yeah, change mine to that, too," Harry added hastily. That had been good at the start-of-term feast...

"Should we just get one and put two straws in?" Ron asked drolly. Harry gave him a strange look and Cho squirmed a little.

"So, are you planning a newspaper article about anything in town today?" Hermione asked Marietta.

"Well, not really. Of course there was the drama club thing, but I figure Ginny will probably write all about that --- no offense!" she added swiftly to Ron, as if realising a second too late just who she was complaining about her rival reporter to. "I just don't see why everyone has to give Professor Umbridge such a hard time anyway."

Ron had been handed his butterbeer just in time to spit it. "She---!! She..." He sputtered, no doubt choking on the realisation that the worst of Umbridge's crimes were things Marietta couldn't know about. "She's been teaching you out of the same book as us, right??"

"And what about this 'Educational Emergency' business??" Hermione demanded.

"She didn't declare that; the Ministry did. She's probably just trying to do her job, and sure she's having some bumps, but that's no reason to rip her apart. Maybe your classes with her would be going better if you'd give her a break."

Ron was struck speechless; he breathed out half-laughs one at a time. Harry looked away so he could roll his eyes.

"I do think, though..." Cho turned him around again, toying with her float. "Well, everybody's heard about the first time you had class with her and... I thought it was brave of you, standing up for Cedric like that."

"Well, I... ah..." Harry fumbled for a reply, then met her eyes. They looked at each other for a moment, and Cho's gaze again washed Harry in that warm peach glow, the same as he had felt on the train. His heart swelled happily into his throat and he couldn't speak.

He was too overcome to take much notice of Ron and Hermione's knowing smiles.

The students returned to the castle for dinner to find the High Inquisitor barely clinging to her composure. She accosted Flitwick as he came in the castle doors and confronted him about forwarding students' mail --- she must have caught wind of the students' talk and put two and two together as to how Ginny got a book to Tonks and the Thespians got permission from Madame Rosmerta. Flitwick nodded at her broadly-implied threats to sack him with all the patience of someone who had taught at Hogwarts a hundred times longer than Umbridge had, but forwarding mail through him was clearly no longer an option. When McGonagall came to see what the trouble was, she got an earful about the "urgent answers" she had specifically requested not being posted in time --- because the printing facilities were busy, she explained. However, turning Umbridge to the subject of the paper was opening a floodgate.

At the mention of "urgent answers" being posted, Harry and his friends hurried to the announcements board. Sure enough there were more emergency measures:

Students are not to utilise Owl-Post facilities outside the school, including those in the Village of Hogsmeade
Students are not to hold organisation or club activities outside the school grounds.
Students outside school grounds on holidays or Hogsmeade visits are not to purchase or otherwise procure items of a dangerous or disruptive nature.

That last measure meant a blanket ban on Zonko's products, and the first two would have ruled out the main events of the day: the crowd at the post office and the drama club's open rehearsal. Apparently Umbridge had on second thought not found even that condemnation sufficient, however; another parchment was pasted to the announcement board just beside that one, handwritten in her own mechanical script:

All student clubs, organisations, "Societies", et cetera are hereby disbanded by order of the High Inquisitor.
Permission to re-organise must be sought from the Senior Field Minister for Education.
Students are not to post letters or other materials by any means except the Hogwarts Owlery. Hogwarts Staff mail may be monitored to assure compliance.

Straggling shamefacedly onto a corner of the board was one final pertinent announcement:

On Quidditch Weekends, the Hogwarts X-Press will come out not on Saturday but on the following Monday, in order to avoid conflicts with games and provide prompt reporting thereupon.

Pertinent, Harry thought, assuming that the school newspaper still existed.

Where the first round of Educational Emergency Measures had been met with surreal calm, these new ones sent the entire school into a panic. Every student club at once disbanded! The Hogwarts Junior Thespian Society was of course turned down immediately when they applied to reorganise --- probably, people said, they had known that Umbridge would shut them down as soon as they began rehearsals, and had made such a production in the Hex and in the village so as many people as possible would see their parody first. Other clubs' efforts to resume activities set the school abuzz with rumors that Umbridge was demanding loyalty oaths from every member. Word had it that the school chapter of Save Our Snidgets was destroyed for good because some of the key student officers refused to sign.

Worse yet, what did this mean for the Halloween festivities? What did it mean for the first Quidditch game coming up the week after that? Did the demolition of student organisations extend to the Quidditch teams? Did it extend to the yearbook, or the paper? Lee and his staff kept working until someone told them not to, even putting out an issue the following Saturday covering the Hogsmeade visit and the new rules, but they did so under constant uncertainty.

After a week of chaos, Dumbledore stood up at dinner Monday and tried to put everyone at ease by announcing that as a staff-sponsored event, the school Halloween celebration would go on the following evening as planned, and further that there was no cause for alarm about the Quidditch season as "clubs, organisations, societies, et cetera" certainly did not imply athletic teams or publications. This was met with a literally audible sigh of relief that Quidditch would be spared this year, but Harry knew that it was only a momentary reprieve for the Hex. The paper was living dangerously, and with the best friend of Fred and George Weasley as its editor, it was certain to continue doing so.

Judging by the look on Umbridge's face and the way she hurried over to talk to Dumbledore after the announcement, he obviously had not consulted her, and quite likely she had intended it to include the student newspaper, but the Headmaster answering her complaints was the picture of innocence. "Terribly sorry if I mis-spoke, Dolores, but I simply had to put to rest all the wild speculations. Some of the rumors reflected quite badly on you, and I simply can't bear to see a colleague unfairly maligned..."

That weekend's issue of the Hex was relatively tame and avoided condemnation, but Harry was sure it was because of the holiday distraction, not capitulation; at worst Lee must be biding his time. Most of the issue reported on the Halloween celebration in a safely innocuous way. Marietta had done the job of "society reporter" and reported on the party decorations and activities and the food at the feast; meanwhile, Ginny had gone behind the scenes. Hermione had coaxed her along when she went to deliver Dobby's new stockings and Winky's shawl, and in honor of the feast, the Hogwarts House-Elves were that week's staff interview. Mostly, however, that meant that Dobby was the staff interview, because none of the others were half as loquacious, and Harry had to defend his friend when other students scoffed about what a nutter of an elf Ginny had gotten hold of, who loved to wear clothes work for pay.

Dumbledore, however, heartily approved and even buttonholed Ginny over breakfast one day. Harry felt strange to have the Headmaster standing so close, but again his back was turned to Harry as he spoke. "Brilliant interview this issue, Ginger. My compliments."

"Oh, thank you! It was really Hermione's idea."

"Who are you planning to shine your spotlight on next?"

"Well, I was thinking maybe one of the elective professors a lot of us don't hear about so much, like maybe Trelawney or Kaana, or Conrad over in Muggle Studies..."

Dumbledore gave a great sigh. "Ah, me, passed over again... I do keep hoping..."

Ginny jumped up after him as he started away forlornly. "Well, if you want an interview, that's all you have to say! Just let me know when you would want me to come --- I mean, I've got a lot of Quidditch practice this week, but..."

"Oh, would you? I'd be delighted!" he said. "Perhaps over breakfast on Friday?"

"All right."

"I'll have some lovely pastries for us."

"That would be great, thank you."

"No, please, it's my honor."

As he returned to the head table, Ginny sat back down with a bright smile but wide eyes. "That was odd," she said.

"That's Dumbledore for you," Ron said, but not bitingly. "Never do anything in a normal sort of way if you can make it a bit odd..."

"Would you do me a favor?" Harry asked Ginny.

"Sure, what?"

"While you're there for the interview, ask him why he won't look at me."

"Won't look at you?" she questioned.

"Just ask him that, will you?" he said. He took another moment before he was willing to explain himself in a low voice. "He hasn't looked me in the eyes once since this summer. It's getting to the point there has to be a reason..."

"Oh, come on," Ron said. "Most students don't come face-to-face with the Headmaster hardly ever. Sure, it's different with you, but still."

"Maybe he just doesn't want to make you any more of a target for Umbridge, like if she saw him showing you any special attention," Hermione concurred.

"Maybe," Harry said with a slow nod. "I still want to ask, though." Of course he was not being totally honest; Ron and Hermione hadn't been there that night in Dumbledore's office, when the Headmaster had literally fled the room rather than turn and look Harry in the eye. Harry was still keeping that to himself, but hoped he could get Ginny to raise the question anyway...

"Sure, I'll ask if you want me to," she said. "I always use the tape for things like that, so I can play back what he says, no trouble at all."

"Thanks."

Ginny was as good as her word. She had to skip the beginning of a Quidditch practice Friday morning --- to which Ron went looking rather white --- but she was thus missing only a small part of Angelina's last-minute frenzy before the next day's grudge match. Harry was trying to catch up on his Charms Review assignments and practicing Summoning Charms with the throwpillows off a nearby couch when Ginny literally ran into the common room out of breath and dashed over to him.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Ginny, did something happen?" Hermione questioned also.

She shook her head with a grin. "No, I just wanted to hurry to practice," she panted, and rummaged Sirius's cassette out of her bag. "Got the tape for you Harry; your question's at the end. I'm afraid he didn't really answer it exactly, but I said you could hear the tape so there it is. ---Say," she fell suddenly into a new tone and topic, "did you ever decide whether you're coming to the game tomorrow?"

"I definitely am," Hermione said.

Harry, on the other hand, was still diffident at the idea of watching his favorite game, and even his favorite activity of flying, when he couldn't do it himself. "I don't know..."

Ginny shocked him by dropping to her knees and seizing his hand with both of hers. "Oh, please come!" she insisted. "The whole team wants to win it for you! It'd be so sad if you're not there!"

"Ah---" he started back and caught her eyes without really meaning to.

"Fred and George are going, so surely you can," Hermione said. "Besides, I know Ron's really worked up about it. He's always been there when you needed someone to cheer for you, so it's really the least you can do, I should think..."

Her arguments would have inspired no more than a grudging "I suppose maybe...", but Harry barely heard them; he had fallen into Ginny's blue eyes. He knew at once why she'd so happily run here and was so eager to get to practice. In her eyes he could see the azure sky; he felt the wind against his face, the thrill of the ground twirling far below --- the joy of flying, just as he felt it every time he got on his broom...

"I want you to see me, too, just once."

Harry couldn't tell whether she had said it aloud or merely thought it, but it hardly mattered. "I... I'll try to come," he said.

"Hooray!" Ginny leapt up and released his hand, but she gave him a peck of a kiss just above his left eyebrow before she ran back out the portrait hole.

He sat rubbing it for a moment.

"Listen to that upstairs?" Hermione finally asked him, indicating the cassette.

"Right."

Lavender giggled. "Two at once, Harry, what are you going to do?" she called at him as they crossed the common room.

What is she on about?? he wondered hotly.

Fred looked up from where he and George were working on something Harry didn't care to pry into the nature of. "Oh, that wasn't a flirt, she's just bouncy," he said. "She's done that to us dozens of times."

"Trust me, you'd know if she was flirting," George concurred.

Upstairs in the boys' dormitory, Harry and Hermione sat down on the edge of his bed with the tape. Harry commanded it to "Play," and then told it "Advance" over and over to skip to the end where his question would be.

"Now, I would like to hear it," Hermione protested.

"You can hear it later; I want to check my bit first," he said, but the dialogue he heard during the pause caught his attention.

"Is Fawkes okay?" Ginny was asking. "That is, I remember how he was my first year, and next to how he looks now..."

"He's in a perfectly normal condition," Dumbledore replied, "but yes, I fear he is beginning to decline. Rather soon for it, but I haven't been paying him all the attention I should... Probably by the end of term he'll burn out and be a chick again."

"But I guess while he's shedding you can sell these to Ollivander, right?" Ginny jovially suggested.

"I'm afraid he wouldn't give me very much for them," Dumbledore said. "It's sort of an open secret of the wandmaker's trade that only certain very special feathers should be used."

"Really? What kind?"

"Oh, they are tail feathers," Dumbledore said, as if Ginny had been looking Fawkes over, "but ones with a unique quality. Now and again, very rarely, when a phoenix dies and revives, it will return with a special feather amid the down in its tail, one mature in size and... Well, I've seen it only twice, and I don't know that there are proper words to describe it. It glows, not really white but every color at once, so bright that it looks very white."

"I didn't know that about Phoenix Feather wands," Hermione said over the whirring tape.

"It sounds beautiful," breathed Ginny's recorded voice.

"It is very beautiful," Dumbledore told her. "When a Phoenix finally leaves our world, every feather has that light, but I wouldn't suggest attempting to pluck one then. Of course in Fawkes' case it isn't something I'll be there to see..." He trailed off, but presently took a deep breath. "Well, I believe we had wrapped up the interview; I should hardly be keeping you from your team practice boasting about my pet --- even though he is so terribly beautiful. Yes, aren't you...?"

"There is one more thing," Ginny said. "This isn't to go in the paper, but Harry just wanted me to ask you why you haven't looked at him lately."

Dumbledore didn't even seem to hear her. Harry's face went hot as the Headmaster continued cooing over Fawkes, who twittered happily at the attention. "Oh, isn't he just the most handsome thing in all the wide world, yes he is..."

"Um... Headmaster...?" Ginny mercifully interrupted the pantomime of kissy noises.

"Hm? Was there something else?"

"Harry asked me to..."

"Oh, yes, yes! I fear I was a bit standoffish with him the last time he wanted to see me... Do tell Harry that he will not have to wait to be admitted to my office in the future."

"Okay, I'll tell him that."

"Have a good practice and a good day, Ginger," Dumbledore said amid the sound of footsteps as if he were showing Ginny to the door --- it still struck Harry as bizarre to hear anyone actually address her as "Ginger." Indeed, next thing, he heard the office door close.

Ginny said "stop," and the tape reels froze.

Harry threw himself back on his bed. As Ginny had warned him, Dumbledore had given no answer to his question; had indeed given him practically the same "lemon sherbet" treatment Umbridge had gotten. No wait to be admitted to his office? What could that really mean when it was a nonanswer that Ginny had nonetheless had to badger him to get?

"You went to see Dumbledore?" Hermione asked him.

The tape had caught him in his secret. "Yeah..."

"Did you tell him about Umbridge and that quill after all? Is that why McGonagall---?"

"No, it wasn't that," he insisted --- As if she doesn't know perfectly well who tipped off McGonagall! "I wanted to ask him how Sirius was."

"Oh? What did he say?"

"He said everyone in the Order was fine, but that was before Hestia Jones disappeared. I think she was one of us..."

"Oh..." Hermione said. An awkward silence followed for several moment before she looped back to the more comfortably academic point. "Did you ever know that about Phoenix Feathers for wands?"

"No. Ollivander even sold me one and he never mentioned it," he said. In fact, when Dumbledore had said that he'd only seen such feathers twice, Harry knew what had become of each one: one was in his own wand, and the other was in Voldemort's. The fact that he and the Dark Lord had "brother" wands from Fawkes' own tail had saved Harry's life when Voldemort returned.

"Mine, too," Hermione said, oblivious to his musings. "Apple and Phoenix Feather with gold tips; what was it he said...? 'Good general spell wand with a bright, strong nature'...? I wonder if he knows anything about the phoenix the feather came from..."

Harry blinked at her. Was she so oblivious? She hadn't been there when Dumbledore described the brother-wand effect; there was no way for her to know... No, Harry thought, he was the one who'd been sneaking into other people's minds, not the other way around. With a touch of shame, he thought he liked it that way.

"It's probably too late to listen to the whole thing through before class," Hermione mused, picking up the cassette. "If you don't want to, I can just listen to it with Ginny sometime while she's writing it up..."

"That'd be fine," Harry said. "I'll just stow it in my trunk until after dinner..." In part he was just jumping on a chance to hold onto Sirius's handiwork, however briefly, but he saw no problem with the plan and took the tape.

When he opened his trunk to put it in, however, there staring back at him was his Firebolt. Seeing it brought rushing back to him the feel of the air, the blue sky... He came to a hasty decision, put the tape in his pocket, and lifted the broom. "On second thought..."

"What are you doing with that??" Hermione asked in slight alarm.

"I'm not going to fly it, just... Well, I thought it would be a good idea to try myself out on watching Quidditch before the real game, you know, so why not just go out there now?"

"Fine by me..."

"We can take Ginny her tape and... Well, it would be pretty silly to send her up against Draco on a Fourteen Hundred while this is sitting here, now wouldn't it?"

Hermione beamed at him.

On the way out through the Gryffindor Common room, the Weasley Twins shouted "Way to go Harry!" "Don't get caught!" and he waved the broom at them with a grin. Ginny squealed with joy and kissed Harry several more times --- all of them safely away from his mouth --- when he handed her the Firebolt and told her that she could borrow it for practices and games. Angelina also landed to shake his hand and thank him. As Ginny took off on the Firebolt, Harry located her worn old satchel sitting on the stands, slipped the cassette into it, and sat down there to guard it while he and Hermione watched.

They caught Ron's eye and waved to him, accidentally causing him to miss a save and be hit by a throw from Katie, who pulled him upright on his broom apologising profusely. The blow must have affected him, though, because from that point on, he fumbled every play so badly that Angelina at length sent him to the stands to collect himself. He sat down at a distance from the two of them, and Hermione made to move closer, but he waved her and Harry away; Harry understood that he wanted his own space to prepare himself to go back to the game.

Meanwhile, Harry at first feared that lending Ginny the Firebolt had been a mistake; the broom was so fast and powerful that she could hardly control it, and she went careening wildly around above the Pitch. By the time they all had to go back inside for lunch, however, she seemed to be getting the knack of it, and when she finally handed it back to Harry, her face glowed with exertion and glee. "That was fun!" she exulted.

Ron gave her the kind of disgusted expression that the proverbial fox must have given the grapes; he walked back with them wearing a downcasted look.

"Sorry," Harry tried, in case Ron was feeling snubbed, "I'd have lent it to you, but it's not really a Keeper broom..."

"No, it's not," Ron grumpingly agreed.

"Yeah, try to fly that thing over to the next hoop and you'd find yourself halfway across the pitch," Seamus remarked. Walking on Ron's other side, Harry couldn't see the look his friend gave in reply to that, but it made Seamus hastily add "Not you you, I mean --- 'you' just as a general, uh, you know..."

After lunch, Umbridge's teaching now seemed the most innocuous aspect of her, with no injurious detention promised afterward and everyone thoroughly numb to the weekly House Points bloodletting. Ron must still have been bothered by the Quidditch, though, as this week his Guided Practice --- which most of the other students shamelessly paused to watch --- took on an unusually joyless and excessive level of fictional savagery. This even though Umbridge hadn't even appointed him as the main character who was supposed to make a spell-casting decision!

That night when they went to bed, Harry fell asleep slowly, all the while hearing Ron toss and turn in the bed beside his. He managed no more than a catnap before a breeze from his bedcurtains and Ron's voice roused him. "Harry? Harry, you awake?"

"Yah..." he managed, dragging himself up. "Can't sleep?"

It was a stupid question; Ron sat down beside him, stiff and tight as an overwound toy. There was a shiver in his voice. "I've never felt more tired or more awake in my whole life," he said. "Was the night before your first game like this?"

"I don't think so, not quite as bad..." Harry said, finding his glasses and putting them on. "To tell you the truth though, I don't remember it very well..."

"Oh, you'd have remembered this," Ron said. "I don't know what to do! I swear, I'm usually good in practice, really, but... But you saw that this morning! At the evening practice it wasn't bad but... Just every now and then I fall apart and I don't know why!! What if tomorrow's like that??"

"Then working yourself up over it will make it worse, not better. It's nerves that does it," Harry said offhandedly; he was too tired to consider his words before they came out.

"I know," Ron whimpered. "When I told myself that, then I started working myself up about having nerves and getting nerves about how worked up I was. ---Am."

"Look, do you want to get some sleep?" Harry asked.

"I've got to get some sleep," he moaned. "If I don't, then I know I'll be useless but I don't know what to do..."

"Okay, get back into bed," Harry said. As Ron complied and awkwardly pulled the blankets up around himself, Harry found his wand and took the two steps across to his friend's bedside. He touched the wand-tip to Ron's forehead, just as Hermione had done for him after a detention; a simple, harmless spell... "Morpheosa."

In the charm's puff of lavendar smoke, Ron seemed to untighten just slightly, but he blinked up at Harry in the dark. "Didn't take. Try it again."

"Morpheosa!"

"That's getting better," Ron said, finally sounding relaxed. "One more, I think."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

Harry shrugged. From what he knew of the Sleeping Charm, it couldn't actually hurt someone no matter how many times it was done, but three might be a bit excessive. Still, letting Ron decide for himself seemed best. "Morpheosa."

"Mmm... thanks, mate..." Ron at last relaxed into his pillow and was snoring by the time Harry had put away his wand and glasses and nestled back into his own bed, hoping that he hadn't just made a mistake.

to be continued in...
Chapter Eighteen: Rules for the Last Second

Author's Notes on Chapter Seventeen

With the Guided Practice pastiche, I didn't feel like I could just say "We will now perform a scene from 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town' by Rankin-Bass" but the "not such a loser after all" scene title is a reference to that classically campy Christmas TV special. In it, the evil Winter Warlock (voice of Keenan Wynn) is reduced to tears and immediately becomes Kris Kringle's dear friend when Kris gives him a toy choo-choo train. He loses most of his powers, but later in the program still manages to make the reindeer fly and thus effect the heroes' escape from the evil Burgermeister Meisterburger. As they all fly off into the night, "Winter" exults "I'm not such a loser after all!" ---which the grown-up kids at my house always find very amusing.

The more I write Ginny and get a feel for my own version of her, the more I love her. I think it's an important part of her developing character that she acts kind of bouncy and immature ("genki" as the anime fan in me would put it), but in a way filled with genuine positivity and even unconditional love, and in that perhaps a kind of ultimate wisdom. But all of that is of course balanced with a goodly share of sass. Must make a note to let her use her bat-bogey hex at least once this "book"...

At the risk of saying too much, if you fed six pounds of sugar to my Lily, you'd probably create a fair approximation of Ginny. And yes, for a Freudian twist on that last comment, I am playing a certain amount of Harry/Ginny romantic tension on the side of the Harry/Cho thing, but neither Harry nor Ginny is acknowledging it as such yet.

Tonks' shout-out to "Cassy" I thought was good as a reminder of how much older than the characters Tonks is not, but was also a very private homage. Don't worry about it or try to guess it; the only person who needed or was likely to get it already did in beta. I suppose it's kind of dated now, but it stays.

Oh, yes, and in the last few chapters I have managed to lever in the names of the two Mystery Professors --- the fact that the Runes and Muggle Studies teachers had never been seen or named as of OotP bothered me, so I rectified it in my own stuff here. I think last time I mentioned the Runes Professor, Kaana; it's prounounced "Kay-nuh" and her first name is Rhiannon, so yes, the Runes teacher does indeed sign correspondence "Prof. R. Kaana" (a shameless joke, but frankly it's no worse than naming a werewolf Remus Lupin). This time mentioned Conrad of Muggle Studies, whose first name is "Ansam" (rhymes with "ransom"); this is kind of a joke, too, but it's based on such a common-sounding name that it would probably be hard to pick up on. It refers to the Roddy McDowall character in the classic Twilight Zone episode "People Are Alike All Over," which strikes me as applicable to the whole "Muggle Studies" concept.