Chapter 2

CLIMBING

At ten o'clock that night, Harry left the library with Hermione and Ron feeling wrung out. Torches in wall sconces lit their way down the long corridor. As they trudged along, he counted the pools of flickering light they cast on the flagstone floor.

"Doesn't it seem like all we do these days is study?" Ron grumbled. "I haven't played a game of Exploding Snap since we climbed off the train."

"We're not little children anymore." Hermione sniffed, then twisted to keep a book from toppling off her stack.

Harry shifted the five he was balancing and used his shoulder to straighten Hermione's eight. The cauldrons, ingredients, and potion-making paraphernalia they'd been practicing with in the student laboratory filled their rucksacks, so all the research they'd checked out for their other subjects had to be hand carried. "Too bad we can't use magic in the hallways. A shrinking spell would do wonders in lightening these loads of ours."

"I wish I had a lighter load altogether," Ron growled. "I already know I'm going to fail Temporal Transfiguration. We should never have let Hermione bully us out of signing up for Divination again. I'd like at least one professor who's a soft touch."

Hermione harrumphed as they rounded a crook in the hallway.

Harry grinned. Then he stopped dead, staring at that softest of all touches, Professor Trelawney. She was fingering her way along the rough, granite walls towards them. Without her oversized, highly-magnifying glasses, she appeared almost blind. The way she tiptoed through the shadows, then tottered quickly past the light reminded him of a furtive daddy long-legs.

"What's she doing here?" he breathed. Nothing but a special occasion or an omen of calamity could have enticed the Divination master from her high tower chamber.

At the sound of his voice, Trelawney gave a start. "James? James Potter? Is that you?"

Harry grimaced. He hadn't thought the ethereal professor aware enough of her surroundings to catch his mumbled words. The fact that she'd mistaken him for his father showed she believed those surroundings of another time and place. "No, professor. Harry Potter," he called back.

She puckered her forehead as if wracking her memory.

"Divination the last two years?" Harry said helpfully. "Visions of a Grim? The first to leave the Christmas table out of thirteen? Fell into a trance during a lesson?"

Trelawney's pale eyes shot wide. Then she scuttled towards them.

On one side of him, Hermione groaned. On his other, Ron took a step backward. Harry stayed where he was, hoping to get through this encounter without too many predictions of catastrophe.

Trelawney didn't stop until she'd stuck her pointed nose within an inch of Harry's. Abruptly, she clutched his hands—using more strength than he'd have thought the frail woman could muster. "I must see Albus. Immediately. Tonight the crystal was hideously clear. Doom! Heartbreak! A sight no mortal woman should have to bear!"

As if we'd expected you to say anything else. Harry cleared his throat. "Er, the headmaster. His office is off a passage up on the seventh floor. You must have been there before, but if you'd like, we could—"

Her grip tightened. In a strangely guttural voice, she intoned, "Red and black—they shared a room but not a house."

While Harry was still trying to figure that out, another voice pierced the darkness.

"Sybill. Let the students be."

Harry had never imagined he'd feel relieved to hear Snape's imposing whisper.

Trelawney dropped his hands as if she'd been caught stealing them. "Must. Must see Albus," she muttered.

Without warning, Snape swept out of the shadows, cutting the Divination master off from Harry. "Enough, Sybil. Whatever you've seen cannot concern these children." He turned his unfathomable black eyes on the three Gryffindors. "You have just enough time to return to your dormitories before you break curfew."

"Yes, sir." Hugging his books, Harry sidled around Professor Trelawney. She closed her eyes, one claw-like hand touching her throat.

Beside him, Hermione blew out her breath. Ron was already scooting up the corridor. As Harry quickened his pace to catch up, he heard Trelawney's portentous murmur: "Red and black. My vision was true, was it not? Tonight ghastly fate has unveiled itself to me once more!" Then Snape's forceful reply: "Albus is sleeping. He cannot be disturbed. I suggest you talk to him tomorrow. For now, I shall escort you back to your rooms."

Tomorrow. Harry snorted softly. By morning, the Divination master's attention would have drifted on to another devastating prophecy, this one all but forgotten. With that conclusion, he hurried with his friends through the maze of passages that led to Gryffindor Tower.

Not until they were halfway up the stairs did Ron break their silence. "I take it back, Hermione. I'm glad you talked me out of Divination. Not having a new excruciating death foretold every week is certainly helping me sleep better."

Saturday morning, Friday's test on memory potions now behind them, Harry dawdled with Hermione and Ron over brunch in the Great Hall. The enchanted ceiling showed that the October sky outside was clear, blue, and cloudless.

When Harry finally pushed away his plate, leaving one last morsel of French toast in a puddle of maple syrup, he sighed in satisfaction.

Daintily, Hermione sipped her pumpkin juice. "The least we could do is thank them."

"Thank whom?" Ron mumbled around a bite of sausage.

"The house elves who prepared this wonderful meal. The least we could do is thank them." Hermione slanted a glance at Ron, then looked away. "After all, they're not getting paid."

Ron slammed down his knife and fork. "Not that again. The house elves don't want to get paid."

"And you think they don't even want to be thanked?"

Ron shot Hermione a superior look. "No. I don't think so. It would only make them ill-at-ease."

"As if you'd know," Hermione taunted. "As if you're the expert."

"Honestly, you two," Harry muttered. The electricity that sparked each time his friends stole a peek at each other was so powerful, it was embarrassing. He wished they'd kiss and be done with it—preferably in some secret corner of Hogwarts where he couldn't stumble across them accidentally.

His roving eyes fell on another teenager sitting one table over with a crowd of Ravenclaws. Surrounded by laughter, Cho looked melancholy. Her sadness only made her large, dark eyes more beautiful. When he saw her gaze drift across the Great Hall, Harry's stomach clenched. Quickly, he stared down at his plate.

There had been moments, scattered over the last two years, when he'd sensed electricity between him and Cho. Before he could summon the courage to act on it, Cedric Diggory had stepped in. Alive, Cedric had been a rival he could have faced. With Cedric dead—martyred, in fact—Harry didn't stand a chance. This year he'd subjected himself to an optional course with Professor Binns, History of Oriental Magic, just because he'd overheard she'd be taking it. Even so, he hadn't had the courage to strike up a conversation even once.

"There's the expert," Ron said suddenly. "Ask him."

Startled, Harry looked up. Across the hall, Dobby was walking slowly towards them, but he didn't look like himself. His newly acquired stocking cap looked bedraggled, and his polka-dotted tie hung askew over the maroon pullover Ron had given him the Christmas before. Harry frowned. What kind of a day was it when even a house elf looked pensive?

Ron seemed oblivious to their little friend's mood—oblivious to everything, in fact, except the chance to prove Hermione wrong. "Hey, Dobby. Settle an argument for us—"

Hermione shushed him. When the house elf drew near she asked gently, "What's wrong?"

"Winky. Winky is what's wrong." Dobby sighed. Then he flopped to the floor. "Wrong is what Winky is. All wrong."

"Maybe if she took a holiday—" Hermione ventured.

"From work?" Dobby shook his head furiously. "Work is what Winky needs. All she does is drink butterbeer and moan about the Crouches. Working for the Crouches was all Winky knew."

"See?" Ron murmured under his breath.

"What about you?" Hermione asked. "You like having a day off, don't you?"

"Indeed Dobby does." A large tear glistened at the corner of one saucer-sized eye. "Dobby would like it a lot more better with Winky."

"See?" Hermione whispered to Ron.

Harry surveyed his friends. Hermione and Ron were gearing up to renew their argument. Dobby was lost in his own misery. Across the room, Cho rose from her table.

Harry screwed his eyes shut, making a deal with himself. If Cho left with a group, he'd go visit Hagrid. If she left by herself—

Harry opened his eyes. Cho was passing through the far door alone. Hastily, he pushed back from the table. With an abrupt good-bye—unnoticed by his friends—he took off after her.

I saw your Quidditch match against Slytherin last week. Great flying. But at the end, Wilhelm Avery, the new Slytherin Seeker, had knocked the Golden Snitch from Cho's hand to win the game—mostly because both beaters on his team had just hit her in the head with Bludgers.

Harry hurried as the door closed behind her. I saw your last Quidditch match. Madame Hooch must have been blind not to call foul against Slytherin.

Harry opened the door only to see one of the side doors across the entry hall swing shut. What he really wanted to say was, I feel awful about Cedric. I feel it was my fault. He was really a fine fellow.

But when Harry exited Hogwarts and scanned the quilt of flower and herb beds that spread to the edge of the cliff, he couldn't see Cho anywhere. How could she have crossed the patio that quickly? On either side of the oak doors, massive stone statues of dragons crouched as if eager to ambush unwelcome visitors. If he could climb one, he might catch sight of Cho.

Picking a dragon, Harry began to scramble upward. Finding a foothold on a scale, lifting a hand to the curve of a folded wing, up he went. As he grabbed the gritty rock collar encircling the neck, he heard a noise above him like a sharp release of breath. His surprise almost made him lose his grip. He peered up at the narrow balcony that arched the front door. There, elbows on the stone railing, pointed chin cupped in his hands, eyes staring into the distance—for all the world as still as one of the gargoyles on the battlements—stood Snape.

The muscles in Harry's legs went weak. His toe slipped off the dragon scale, and his whole body swung away from the folded wing to hang down the sheer drop of the dragon's breast. Nervously, he cast his eyes to the porch a sickening few yards below his dangling feet. Again he glanced up—this time straight into Snape's cold black eyes.

"Potter," the thin lips mouthed without sound.

Harry's arms lost their power, and he began to fall. But as the paving stones rushed towards him, he felt himself slowing. Still, he suffered a good jolt when his feet hit ground.

Above him, Snape was leaning over the railing, stiffly pointing his black wand. Harry realized that the wizard had just saved him from once again breaking several bones in his body, an experience he was grateful not to repeat. But from the nasty glimmer in the dark eyes, he was afraid Snape had saved him for a punishment even worse.

Snape disappeared from the balcony. Harry didn't need to be told to stay put. After an agonizing wait, the front door opened and the professor stalked towards him.

For a moment, Snape looked him up and down, as if prolonging his own pleasure. Then he said the one thing Harry dreaded most: "Explain yourself."

"Uh, I—"

"Yes?"

"I—"

Miserably, Harry slid his gaze away from Snape, across the patio. There, unbelievably, was Cho—strolling up the steps with Professor Daine. The two were so close in height, so lively in their conversation, that they looked more like girlfriends than teacher and student.

When she saw him, Cho's animation drained away. She nodded vaguely. Her reaction brought a sicker feeling to Harry's stomach than the threat of Snape had done.

Beside Cho, Professor Daine brightened. "Hi, Severus. Hi, Harry."

"Good morning . . . Ariel."

Snape's hesitancy made Harry dart him a glance. The Potions master's face had gone expressionless, and his eyes had lost their evil glint.

Cho murmured, "Excuse me," then hurried into the castle. Professor Snape and Professor Daine remained.

Snape wasn't finished with him, yet Harry had the distinct impression the older wizard wished he'd go away. When neither professor broke the silence, he looked sidelong at Daine. Her shoulders had drooped.

"Well, bye, now. See you at lunch."

Snape's gaze followed her until she passed through the door. Abruptly, his eyes snapped back to Harry. "Tomorrow at sunrise, detention with Mr. Filch." With that, Snape pivoted on his heel, strode across the porch, and descended the steps.

For a moment, Harry stared. Then relief flooded him. He'd done detention with Filch before, and it wasn't so bad. Better than having points docked from Gryffindor. For once the opportunity to advance Slytherin seemed to have slipped Snape's mind.

All in all, Harry felt lucky.