Chapter 22 - Very Special Cards
Ron plopped down next to Harry on the common room's best sofa. They had kicked the third-years who were occupying it unceremoniously off, and had sat down in silent but amicable agreement. After a while, Hermione and Parvati sat on both ends of them. It forced them to squish together. Harry didn't mind being squashed into Ron slightly, because being severely squashed into Parvati made it worth it.
"Hey Harry," Ron said conversationally, as if he hadn't spent the last week ignoring him.
"Hey Ron," he answered, just as indifferently.
"You know what all that money can't buy you?"
"I have a feeling you're going to tell me."
"I am," Ron agreed. He waited long enough for Harry to respond. When Harry didn't, he continued. "A clue."
"That would be pretty handy," Harry agreed, although in his mind, Ron was the one who needed a clue. That was his whole point in the beginning. Of course, Harry had spent the last week trying to get Ron to talk to him. He wasn't about to let some words get in the way. Besides, Ron had already seen him kneeling on the floor after breaking his hands and feet while kicking furniture. A little thing like misplaced pride wasn't going to stop reconciliation. Harry was trying hard to believe he was above that.
"I uh...owe you. You're the only one who saw what was going to happen to Ginny."
"I couldn't stop her from drinking it."
"You stopped her from drinking most of it. Knowing Malfoy, it was some stupid prank." Harry hoped so. Madame Pomfrey had examined Ginny thoroughly and then sent her back to the common room. They all had strict instructions to tell nobody what had gone on between the four of them in the great hall. Ginny was currently scowling at Dean, but she didn't look poisoned.
Hermione tipped her head up suddenly. "You know Harry, he's been awfully anxious to slip people potions."
"What d'you mean?" Ron asked, suddenly interested.
"Potions class," Harry said. "He swapped my potion out for something else. I had to use the flask your dad gave me for my birthday. I feel like bloody Mad-Scar Harry."
Ron chuckled, but only briefly. "Has it caught up to you?" his friend asked. Harry shook his head.
"Malfoy is just a squirming little rat, nothing more, nothing less, and I bet if his potion was supposed to do something, he probably messed it up," Harry said. Then he ominously coughed. It was a familiar sounding hack...and it wasn't from the potion. "Dean!" he shouted. That dirty, typhoid-ridden germ-box! It wasn't bad enough he had to walk around spraying everywhere...he had to infect Harry too.
"He's an arrogant twerp, but he's not ignorant," Hermione said.
Parvati who had had been silent this whole time, spoke up. Harry supposed she felt quite lost, as they hadn't included her in much of this. "You didn't tell me that...when did this happen?"
Harry went into high-alert mode. He was by far no expert on women, but experience had taught him to stop questioning himself; if he thought he was in trouble, he probably was. He couldn't say he didn't want her to worry, because actually Parvati seemed to have listened when he complained that everyone handled him like a baby. She hadn't treated him that way at all...and the last thing he wanted was to make her think he was lumping her in with them. All this went through his mind in the time it took a feather to fall to the ground. Harry decided to avoid the situation all together.
"It's just Malfoy being Malfoy. If there's one thing I don't want to lay on you, it's him being an ignorant jackass. You'd never get anything else done!"
"He never told me, either, if that helps," Ron added to Harry's relief.
Parvati looked satisfied...if Harry hadn't told Ron either then she wasn't totally out of the loop; never mind that Ron hadn't even been talking to him. Harry cursed to himself...if there was one thing Parvati Patil wanted it was to be in the loop. Harry resolved himself to tell her more...even if it seemed inane to him. He thought that he done pretty good so far, with the hints he dropped about McGonagall. He'd just have to keep trying. He shifted and put his arm up on the back of the lounge. For a moment he was afraid that she wouldn't try to get any closer, but then she leaned into him close enough for him to wrap his arm around her neck.
***
"What is 'tempus sinus'?" Professor Walken asked, pacing back and forth. "Weasley?"
"Time pocket," Ron announced certainly.
"Very good. One point. Why can't it be used instead of 'spatium sinus'? Chang?"
"Time stops with a tempus sinus, and not with spatium sinus."
"Close," Walken nodded. "One point. It's almost impossible to stop time. The tempus sinus does slow time down, however, within a pocket...You see, time and space are so intimately related that when we slow down, it creates a pocket of space as well. We don't even have to try to do both."
"Is this going to be more useful than the spatium sinus?" Ernie MacMillan asked. Harry thought the spatium sinus had been very handy. He wasn't going to put Walken on the spot by pointing out that that bubble was handy for the impromptu snog, though. Let Ernie figure that out on his own.
"Actually, this is quite useful," Walken said, holding up and advertisement for Saudin's Marvelous Sleeve, a wand sleeve that wealthy wizards sometimes purchased to show how wealthy they really were. "The tempus sinus is how they make these."
"Are you saying we'll be able to make those?" Nott picked up, suddenly more interested.
"No. There are many, many, many other things to consider...for example, how does one put a wand in something when time is stopped, and there is no time for it to move?"
Harry was starting to get the familiar ache in the front of his head that this class was prone to produce.
"How would you pull an object from something when it is in a place where time has stopped, when that would act like a brick of pure space, or even cut your fingers if it happened to come on when you were half way?" Walken continued. "Now the solution is what...can anyone guess?" He looked specifically at Hermione, who shrugged.
"I suppose you'd have to turn it on or off," she answered, hesitantly.
"You suppose correctly. Two points. The solution that Saudin and I came up with was to turn the enchantment off and on when you touch your wand. Technically, that's not possible, so we had to create a pocket within a pocket...clumsy, but it was the best we could do. You'll be creating something far more mundane; a weak version of the Tempus Sinus that doesn't even come close to stopping time. If you do it right, you should slow it down. Not as easy as it sounds, I assure you."
Class had by then ended, but the kind of students that were in here were the kinds who would stay regardless. Harry waited for Ron and Hermione to pack their books and quills, so he could walk with them.
"I'm not sure I've got this bit," Ron announced, when they were safely away for class and into the hallway.
"It is...ambitious," Hermione agreed.
'Ambitious,' thought Harry. That was an understatement.
That night, Harry was to speak with Remus by mirror. Harry had been mildly surprised to get the letter arranging it, as he never received any owl post, unless it was from Mrs. Weasley on Christmas.
"Harry?" Harry had been, in fact, nearly unconscious...the blue flame had nearly lulled him to sleep. He sat up with a start. "I'm sorry Harry. I didn't mean to wake you. It's not like this can't wait."
"That's okay. I shouldn't be sleeping anyway. It's only..." He stared at his watch for a while before it made any sense to him. "Eight," he finished, when it finally came into focus. Lupin stared at him.
"That's quite a bit...a piece of work. Hermione should be proud." Harry nodded. "I wanted to know Harry; what did you think of it?"
"What did I think?" Harry snapped. "I think that murderous little rat got an early start lying to my mum, and I think I owe him..."
"No," Remus cut him off. Harry stared dumbly.
"Harry, I know this will be hard for you to get, but you mustn't think that way. You've got revenge on your mind, and that is never good."
"You watched it! He stood there and lied to my mom...she knew! She knew!"
"And yet she chose to believe him, and do you know why?" Harry glared balefully.
He knew Remus would tell him, whether he wanted to know or not, and he wasn't going to give Lupin the satisfaction of a reply.
"Harry, you're a wizard, but before that you were brought up in a...less-than-accepting household." That was an understatement. The Dursleys punished him whenever they thought he did anything odd, regardless of whether magic was involved or not. "Think back to how many times you've seen something you simply can't believe or explain. Why, your boggart was a dementor...I remember it clearly. Your eyes were lying to you when they said there was a dementor in front of you. And Weasley's...the same being appeared as a spider. With Miss Patil it was a mummy, I believe. Or a great snake...I just can't recall which. You know it was the same creature, yet it appeared in how many different ways?"
"What's Parvati have to do with anything?"
"I hear you're getting quite, ah, comfortable with Patil. I know her of her father...he's a shrewd man. I reckon that fruit didn't fall far from the tree."
"Did he go to Hogwarts?"
"Hmm? No. He came from India...Bangalore or some such. I know of the man though. And stop trying to change the subject. Your eyes have lied to you; that much you have to admit. How often do your friends?"
"That's stupid. My friends can lie whenever."
"They can, and it would be ignorant of me to argue that one should believe their friends over their own eyes, but it would be just as ignorant of me to argue that you can't see something that really isn't as it seems...a lie, as it were."
"So why should she have taken his word for it, when she was there, watching?" Remus leaned forward. He had grown the sides of his mustache out, similar to the way Sirius had worn his.
"Let me tell you a bit about Peter. You only knew Peter as a coward...a traitor and a liar. When your mother knew him, he was none of those. Pete wasn't a liar and a traitor to us, and I guess that's what made him so good for it when he decided to turn. Your mother knew a little something about seeing impossible things...Lily was no one's fool. She believed Peter over her own eyes because there was no reason not to....because she couldn't explain Peter wanting to be a traitor to his best friends, but she could believe he wanted to spy on the dark side. For all I know, maybe he did, at first. Lily did seem to get the drop on death eaters and their like more often than not. Maybe she was just more than lucky."
"I don't believe that!" Harry uttered through clenched teeth.
"I wouldn't expect you to," Remus answered back, drinking deeply from his goblet. "I would merely ask you to consider it." Harry decided to change the subject again...it was either that or break the mirror. He already done that once, and though Dumbledore had repaired it then, Harry didn't know that he could do it a second time.
"Who told you about me and Parvati?"
"Divulge all my secrets? Never, Harry. Let's just say I keep informed. Anyway, the way I hear it, half the school keeps up."
"I...I'll have to break it off then."
"Break it off?" Remus replied, as though the idea was incredulous. "Are you insane?"
"Insane because I don't want to make her a target?"
"You'll do that...but do you have any idea how megalomaniacal that makes you sound? As if she'd become a special target all because of you? Selling her short a bit, aren't you? The least you can do is give her a chance to be a target all by herself," Remus paused. "That sounded odd. Look, your mother wasn't a target because of your father. You-Know-Who hated her just as much as him. Maybe Patil will be a terror for him in her own right."
"We both know that Voldemort will try to get to me any way he can, and she'll end up paying the price," Harry said, growing irate. How many times did he have to explain this?
"So you're saying you'd only make her a victim?" Remus pushed him.
"That's exactly what I'm saying," Harry replied, only half-trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice.
"Has it ever occurred to you that we're all victims already? The only thing that keeps us separate is time...how long it will take to become the victim." Harry had heard that argument before, more or less, from Ron. "Do you think the Dark Lord likes werewolves?" Harry said nothing. "That's a question Harry. I expect an answer."
"No," Harry announced, sullenly.
"The only reason he gets their support now is because they hate all wizards, by and large, and siding with him give them an excuse to kill quite a lot of them. What will happen when he turns his eye on them, though?" He waited a respectable time.
"He'll go for Parvati sooner if she's around me."
"Probably," Remus agreed. "You're trying to change the subject, though. He won't go after werewolves because everyone hates them, and they aren't about to side with wizards. That doesn't mean that he's never going to exterminate them, because eventually, he will. Mark my words. Parvati won't necessarily be safer on her own...she just may be overlooked longer. Besides, you are surrounded by people who keep a very close eye on you...in a funny sort of way that would make her safer."
"That's ridiculous. Voldemort hates me and everyone around me," Harry spat.
"He does. Look at werewolves...You-Know-Who doesn't respect them himself, because he doesn't fear them. He hates you because he fears you, and he has to know that the people around you will do anything for you. You hate what you fear, Harry." When Harry didn't answer, Remus shifted. The jogging of the mirror said he was standing up, and probably streaching. "You should sleep, Harry. I can't tell you what to do, any more than I could tell James what to do, but I played the role of the conscience to your father a good many years. We got in...a lot of trouble, but I daresay it would have been even worse, had I not been around. You can pay me back by at least considering what I've said." Harry nodded slowly, and the mirror faded with him not having broken it. He was gripping it tightly however.
He made it through the week, and on Wednesday, a small Slytherin girl skulked up to him as though he was about to devour her.
"Professor Snape says you are to attend remedial potions tomorrow, sir."
"Remedial potions?"
"That's only what I was told!" the little girl cringed.
Harry couldn't imagine anyone being that frightened of him, yet there she was, eyes the size of galleons. The next night he trudged to the potions master's office in the dungeons, muttering under his breath. There were voices ahead, and he stopped to make them out. They were just beyond the range of intelligibility. He strained his ears, and it was only because of that he heard Draco coming at him from behind.
Harry turned and cast a shield charm in one moment, and it was only through luck that whatever Draco had cast bounced harmlessly into the ceiling, where the sickly yellow-green light diffused in a spreading splotch on the ceiling.
"I'll teach you to transfigure me when I'm not looking!" Draco yelled. Harry ignored his wild accusations.
"I know what you did! I know that was your cup!" he screamed back.
Draco was still blaring curses, some of them quite nasty ones. Harry stopped talking long enough to try and concentrate on neutralizing them.
Suddenly, a strong hand jerked him backwards. Snape strode forward to Draco, stopping the spells with tiny flicks of his wand. Harry hated the man, but he had to respect the ease with which he was deflecting or stopping curses, as if he wasn't even doing work. When he was close enough, Snape reached out and pushed Draco's arm down, silencing the hallway.
"Go to the dormitory. Tell no one your secrets and take some time to cool off." He suddenly glared at Harry. "Detention! And fifteen points from Gryffindor for fighting in my hall!" Harry wanted to complain, but Snape didn't give him a chance. The man literally threw Harry into the hard wooden chair that he sat on during his Occlumency practice.
Harry knew the chair didn't have to be as uncomfortable at it was, and that Snape likely kept in uncomfortable on purpose, so Harry wouldn't be at all able to concentrate. Sometimes, Harry thought he would be better off standing than he would be resting any part of him on the cold, hard, pointy chair. Snape slammed his door shut with a thunderous bang that shook the walls.
"What is the purpose of this lesson?"
"What-?"
"You heard me, Potter! I know as deficient as your brain or judgment might be, there is nothing wrong with your ears. Answer me!" Harry, who was very confused, and who had just about had enough of Snape, Occlumency, and Malfoy, remained wisely silent. "Answer!" Snape barked again.
"To protect my mind!" Harry shot back, balling his fists. Even though he was almost furious enough to start smoking from the ears, he had the presence of mind to know that hitting Snape would be a very, very bad idea.
"Nothing can protect your mind! Your mind is not vulnerable! You are protecting memories, thoughts; which, if you'd bothered to read your text, are vunerable! So tell me why you feel it necessary to allow those thoughts to escape your foolish lips!" Harry was far too angry to answer politely and far too familiar with Snape to answer to his satisfaction. "The Dark Lord has not targeted Weasley, Granger, or the Patil girl..." he paused and grinned evilly. "...Yet." Harry let that sink in. The bastard Snape had a way of saying things that were horrifying in their savagery and truth....he worked with words like a surgeon with scalpels. "That can change. And I assure that that whatever you have done to--probably justly--earn young Mister Malfoy's rage, he will not hesitate in taking his vengeance out on them."
"You're just protecting him! You just want me to keep my mouth shut about stupid Malfoy," Harry yelled, clutching the edge of the chair's seat.
"Conceivably. And perhaps Mister Malfoy is still unaware that you believed he switched goblets, as inane as it sounds. Shouting otherwise in a hallway duel for others to hear will only give him a reason to target your friends," Snape oozed smugly.
"You're still just trying to get him off!" Harry spat.
"Perhaps, but we won't know that until something unfortunate has happened. And Potter..." Harry looked up. "Neither the teachers nor you can stay with them all the time." Harry had now calmed down to the point that he wasn't seeing red. That was a plus. "Now...since you have had a vacation from training, we shall have to work even harder. It's going to be a long night, Potter."
When Harry was done he had a pounding headache, and he just wanted to go to bed. One good thing about being forced to learn Occlumency was that staring at his little vial of fire did the same thing for him as a few aspirin, only it worked much faster. As he slumped into bed, he could already see the light of the world dimming, although he could still hear his heart beating in his chest.
Friday the school was treated to a small bit of minor but very welcome news; the medi-wizards at Saint Mungo's had finally whipped up an inoculation potion for the flu, which had been growing progressively worse at Hogwarts. It was slow moving, Harry had so far developed no more than a minor cough, but it was pervasive.
Dean, Ginny, Ron, Neville, and many others had come up sniffley in the last few days. Ginny and Dean, who were growing more distant by the day, had spent a good part of the year snogging each other senseless. The only mystery there was how she had escaped from it for as long as she had; especially with Dean spraying down the dormitory with germs on a daily basis.
It was only a matter of time until they grew worse. It was nice to see that the ministry had something on its collective mind. All the students were to report to the hospital wing at some time over the next two days, as the ministry had sent stockpiles of an inoculation. Gryffindor boys were scheduled for Friday night. They walked with the sixth and seventh year girls, who were scheduled to be there at the same time. Harry tried to unwind from the last week, which had been taxing, to say the least, and Parvati was helping him tremendously. He was starting to wish their relationship was more intense than it was.
By the time Harry arrived at the hospital wing, Parvati had him smiling, even though he didn't want to. Madame Pomfrey was waiting by the back wall with two rows of tables. She was sorting the students into two lines. When she got to Connor, it was obvious that there was going to be an altercation.
"I'm not taking the potion," he announced. Madam Pomfrey was not used to this kind of insubordination.
"What is your problem, Mister..." she waited for him to supply the name.
"Colier. And I don't drink strange potions."
"It's an influenza inoculation!" She insisted. He shrugged.
"If and when I get the flu, I'll come get some."
"You'll infect the rest of the school!" Madame Pomfrey said indignantly.
"They're all inoculated. Can I spread it to inoculated students?"
"Colier, are you going to drink it, or not?"
"I believe...not," he announced.
"Then get out of the way, so the rest of the students can." Connor slowly exited the room, amidst whispers and laughter.
"He has a point," Hermione said. "You could do almost anything with a potion."
"He's mental," Ron announced. "And only a nutter would refuse to take a potion handed out in the school's hospital wing."
It was actually Flitwick creating the two lines, pulling students haphazardly to the left or right. Some students were in Harry's line, like Draco Malfoy and Ron, Hermione, and Parvati, and some were in the other; Seamus and Dean, Lavender, Nott, and Ernie MacMillan. The lines were both about the same length, and moving quickly. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione reached the front of the line, Hermione eyed the two racks of potions keenly.
"Why are they two separate colors?" She asked.
"They aren't!" Madame Pomfrey insisted, her patience already tested by the American nuisance.
"That one there...that one's a lighter blue!" Hermione insisted. Harry looked at them through squinted eyes. She may have had a point, but it was less of a difference than he'd seen between his potions and hers, and they had allegedly been making the same thing.
"Oh for...If you don't like it, get in the other line!" Hermione didn't have Connor's disregard for authority. For the moment, she let the mismatching potions slide. The potion was airy and minty, and Harry felt better the moment he took it. It would be pleasant to have his dorm free from hacking.
Over in the other line, Dean was just taking his potion now. That night, it was satisfying just to sit in the darkened common room, and not hear snuffles or sneezes. Parvati had never had the flu, and with Harry cured and inoculated, she had no excuses not to get very close to him...Not that she'd ever made any.
After the potion was distributed; their dormitory was eerily silent at night. As Harry sat looking at the tiny flame licking away at the bottle's side, he could hear the faint crackling noise it made, and feel the ticking of the flame on the side of the bottle. It hadn't dimmed since Hermione had given it to him, and he was growing addicted to staring at it at night.
As he was fading in and out of consciousness, he heard a vague mumbling, and could smell smoke. He was still wearing his spectacles, and his wand was on the bed next to him. He had closed the curtains around him, so he could imagine the sneak, whomever it was, reckoned him asleep. It had to be Connor; he had shown that he didn't set off the wards around Harry's area. Harry took a deep breath. He was now fully awake. With a whispered word, he silenced the entire are around him. He reached under the pillow and pulled out the Mauauder's Map. The first thing he did was take an obsessive peek to see where the women were, which always elicited a cheap thrill, even though it was just seeing footprints in an inked in room. It was something he had to do; each time he had to pick out Parvati. It was good that she didn't know he did that, because it seemed fairly creepy, even to him. As soon as he saw Parvati's name, he glanced at the boys' dorm. All the names were where he expected them to be.
Harry leaned forward and peeked through the curtains...nothing. There was a small ribbon of barely visible smoke drifting from his bureau-top. As he watched in wonder, he maneuvered himself around to where he could see the top of the furniture. There was nothing to see on the bureau...even the top, which he knew was being defiled as he watched, was bare. Was it possible that Conner had an invisibility cloak like his; one that even concealed him from the map? Harry looked back to the map. Connor's dot was clear, and in appeared to be where it should be...right in his bed. The bottle of fire was at the edge of his blanket, and he tucked it under his pillow.
Very slowly and carefully, he leaned forward until he was looking out the crack in the curtains near the head of the bed. The cards were on his bureau, but nothing else was. Nothing was even near it. In spite of that, he could hear a slight fizzing noise and see a ghostly tendril of smoke floating lazily in the darkened space next to his bed. Harry mouthed a silent obscenity. What the bloody hell was going on?
After peering around one last time, and convincing himself that everyone was safely oblivious, Harry reached out and with a single quick motion snatched the deck of wizarding cards. He flipped them over to see the witch on the bottom, Alberta Toothill, hastily stuffing a wand in a fold in her robes. Harry was lucky he still had the silencing charm on his bed, because he had a very hard time containing himself. How had he not put this together before?
"You! You're the one whose been scoring my things!" Toothill said nothing, remaining completely still in the gloom.
"Don't try to fool me!" Harry said, almost half shouting. "I saw you! I ought to burn the lot of you!"
"Oh, go ahead," peeped Toothill. "Do you have any idea how boring it is being a card?"
"I said we should have spoken up sooner. It's not the boy's fault he's a bit thick," said another card immediately behind Toothill. A very pretty witch surveyed him; Sacharissa Tugwood. "He has lovely eyes, though," she added.
"Lovely," agreed a bizarre-looking wizard behind her; Uric the Oddball. "They'd be even lovelier if you kept your word and burned the lot of us. It was exciting for the first month or so, and even then after the second we could amuse ourselves with the writing on that table top. I can't say I enjoy looking at a wooden table-top for three months." Toothill and Tugwood nodded in agreement.
"This is...This is not happening."
"How can you say such a thing?" Toothill admonished. "You're looking at us!"
"If the others knew..." Harry paused. What would they say? Dumbledore, Scamander, Goshhawk, and Flamel were already going for five galleons a piece. He was holding a small fortune in his hands. A small fortune that felt very much like real people to him. "How could I burn you? That just...wouldn't feel right."
"We want it, lad," Uric said. "You can only spend so many nights on the same wooden top, listening to the same things." Toothill was nodding in agreement, but Tugwood had a look of slight distaste on her pretty face.
"I...couldn't do that. If you've been carving things into my chest of drawers why cant you simply do it yourself?"
"There is no way we can do that, boy," Toothill said, "we've tried. Even had the really mean ones have a go at it. We can cast spells, it appears, but nothing that spectacular. Maybe if we all worked together, but some people..." she glared at Tugwood. "...Some people won't have a go at it."
"Forgive me if I don't just want to give up. It isn't what I do."
"What can I do?" Harry asked, feeling silly for even having been dragged into this conversation in the first place.
"At least take us out a bit son," Agrippa said behind Uric. "Let us see something new. As far as the lovely Miss Tugwood; I don't disagree, but the longer I'm around, the more I come to appreciate other perspectives."
"The new ones...They stop working after a minute or so," Harry began.
"Oh, that must be wonderful!" Toothill sighed. Harry had never thought of it that way...maybe that was why they only lasted a minute...the twins may have discovered how lonely life was as a card. If anyone could appreciate living a full life it was them. They wouldn't ever condemn a witch or wizard--even if the witch or wizard wasn't real, strictly speaking--to a boring life.
"I honestly don't think it's in me to burn you up." Uric's face fell noticeably. "I can take you out with me, though. I didn't know that leaving you here was so terrible, but at least you'd get to hear new things."
"That's a fine idea," Agrippa said enthusiastically.
Uric nodded with a sour look in his face. "I suppose if you can't do the right thing, that's the next best thing."
"If you promise not to talk too much, I can even leave you out to have a peek around," Harry offered. He felt very foolish. A collection of Famous Wizard Cards was actually bargaining with him, asking to be destroyed. They had been behind the rash of vandalism on his bedside chest of drawers and he couldn't even say anything, because if anyone found out what he was holding on to, there would certainly be questions...Ron might even grow jealous again....as much as he made, it had to pale in comparison to what a permanently talking card was worth.
"Can I set you back down and trust you for the night?" He fanned the cards out in front of him, and all the most famous witches and wizards in history tried their best to look innocent. For some of them it was very difficult.
Harry didn't forget his promise. The next day, after he had dressed, he slipped the cards into a robe pocket and took them to every class. At times, he could have sworn he heard tiny voices floating up from the collection, but never were they loud enough to make any one else suspicious. It was very tempting to dig out the ones that were renowned for a particular skill and pick their brains, but he resisted the urge. Hermione cornered him and Ron after lunch.
"What is going on with Operation Ferret?"
"I wish I knew," Ron answered glumly.
"Haven't you read the letter from Fred and George?"
"No, and I don't want to."
"Why?"
"Why didn't you want to read it when you had it?" he replied, hotly.
"So basically what you're saying is that we don't know if Fred and George are just having a laugh at us right now?"
"They wouldn't do that," Ron grumbled. Harry wished that Ron could have sounded a little surer of himself. He'd been waiting for Operation Ferret to bear fruit somewhat impatiently himself, and now that he'd seen the kind of thing the twins could do with the cards he was more expectant, and more nervous, than ever.
"I'm going to give it another few weeks," Hermione announced imperiously. "If nothing happens. I'm going to assume that they've pulled one over on us." Ron shrugged; he knew better than to try to defend his brothers.