Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is J.K. Rowling's except for Jamie, Luka, and Ariana.

Chapter 10- For the Love of Merlin

So everything is eerily familiar in a way. Harry knows that Hermione had meant well, but that doesn't stop him from being angry with her. He had been the owner of the best broom in the world for a few short hours, and now, because of her interference, he doesn't know whether he will ever see it again. He is positive that there is nothing wrong with the Firebolt now, but what sort of state would it be in once it has been subjected to all sorts of anti-jinx tests?

I know all his arguments by heart for I have heard them nonstop since the broom has been confiscated. Ron is furious with Hermione too. As far as he is concerned, the stripping-down of a brand-new Firebolt is nothing less than criminal damage. I happen to agree on that point.

Hermione, who remains convinced that she has acted for the best, starts avoiding the common room. I do feel bad about that. Harry and Ron suppose she has taken refuge in the library and don't try to persuade her to come back. All in all, I am glad when the rest of the school returns shortly after New Year, and Gryffindor Tower becomes crowded and noisy again.

Wood seeks Harry out on the night before term starts. I happen to be sitting next to him at the small table by the window that we usually occupy. I'm putting the finishing touches on my paper Buckbeak and it's going to be awesome.

"Have a good Christmas?" he says, and then, without waiting for an answer, he sits down, lowers his voice, and says, "I've been doing some thinking over Christmas, Harry. After the last match, you know. If the dementors come to the next one . . . I mean . . . we can't afford you to — well —"

Wood breaks off, looking awkward. "I'm working on it," says Harry quickly. "Professor Lupin said he'd train me to ward off the dementors. We should be starting this week. He said he'd have time after Christmas."

"Ah," says Wood, his expression clearing. "Well, in that case — I really didn't want to lose you as Seeker, Harry. And have you ordered a new broom yet?"

"No," says Harry.

"What! You'd better get a move on, you know — you can't ride that Shooting Star against Ravenclaw!"

"He got a Firebolt for Christmas," I say.

"A Firebolt? No! Seriously? A — a real Firebolt?"

"Don't get excited, Oliver," says Harry gloomily. "I haven't got it anymore. It was confiscated." And he explains all about how the Firebolt is now being checked for jinxes.

"Jinxed? How could it be jinxed?" Oliver demands.

"Sirius Black," Harry says wearily. "He's supposed to be after me. So McGonagall reckons he might have sent it."

Waving aside the information that a famous murderer is after his Seeker, Wood says, "But Black couldn't have bought a Firebolt! He's on the run! The whole country's on the lookout for him! How could he just walk into Quality Quidditch Supplies and buy a broomstick?"

"I know," says Harry, "but McGonagall still wants to strip it down —" Wood goes pale.

"I'll go and talk to her, Harry," he promises. "I'll make her see reason. . . . A Firebolt . . . a real Firebolt, on our team . . . She wants Gryffindor to win as much as we do. . . . I'll make her see sense. A Firebolt . . ."

"Well I think that went rather well." Ron says with a satisfied grin on his face. I look down at the now fluttering and flying hippogriff on the table in front of me. Did it go well?

Classes start again the next day. The last thing anyone feels like doing is spending two hours on the grounds on a raw January morning, but Hagrid has provided a bonfire full of salamanders for our enjoyment, and we spend an unusually good lesson collecting dry wood and leaves to keep the fire blazing while the flame-loving lizards scamper up and down the crumbling, white-hot logs. The first Divination lesson of the new term is much less fun; Professor Trelawney is now teaching us palmistry, and she loses no time in informing Harry that he has the shortest life line she has ever seen.

To which I looked down into Hermione's palm and predicted that she will live her life by the book chuckling at the pun that I had made. Hermione had scowled at me, but Professor Trelawney had gasped and awed and said that I truly seemed to have the gift, much to my amusement.

It is Defense Against the Dark Arts that Harry is keen to get to; after his conversation with Wood, he wants to get started on his anti-dementor lessons as soon as possible.

"Ah yes," says Lupin, when Harry reminds him of his promise at the end of class. "Let me see . . . how about eight o'clock on Thursday evening? The History of Magic classroom should be large enough. . . . I'll have to think carefully about how we're going to do this. . . . We can't bring a real dementor into the castle to practice on. . . ."

"Still looks ill, doesn't he?" says Ron as we walk down the corridor, heading to dinner. "What d'you reckon's the matter with him?"

There is a loud and impatient "tuh" from behind us. It is Hermione, who had been sitting at the feet of a suit of armor, repacking her bag, which is so full of books it won't close.

"Merlin Mione I thought that there was a whole room dedicated to the housing of books. Not your rucksack." I say.

"And what are you tutting at us for?" says Ron irritably.

"Nothing," says Hermione in a lofty voice, heaving her bag back over her shoulder.

"Yes, you were," says Ron. "I said I wonder what's wrong with Lupin, and you —"

"Well, isn't it obvious?" asks Hermione, with a look of maddening superiority. No quite possibly it's not obvious for I don't know what is wrong with Lupin. If he wanted us to know then we would know.

"If you don't want to tell us, don't," snaps Ron.

"Fine," says Hermione haughtily, and she marches off. Great she's going to be lovely dealing with in the dormitory tonight.

"She doesn't know," says Ron, staring resentfully after Hermione. "She's just trying to get us to talk to her again."

With that remark I heave a sigh, and start on my way to dinner. When we get there, I plop down on the bench next to Fred Weasley. The twins raise an eyebrow at me in question, and their friend Lee looks at me with interest.

"Okay boys I'm tired of playing good. I think its high time that Hogwarts remembers that there are still notorious pranksters about." I say lowly so no one can overhear me. The grins on the four of our faces are one of pure mischievous delight.

Ravenclaw played Slytherin a week after the start of term. Slytherin won, though narrowly. According to Wood, this is good news for Gryffindor, who will take second place if we beat Ravenclaw too. He therefore increases the number of team practices to five a week. This means that with Lupin's anti-dementor classes, which in themselves are more draining than six Quidditch practices, Harry has just one night a week to do all his homework. Even so, he isn't showing the strain nearly as much as Hermione, whose immense workload finally seems to be getting to her.

Every night, without fail, Hermione is to be seen in a corner of the common room, several tables spread with books, Arithmancy charts, rune dictionaries, diagrams of Muggles lifting heavy objects, and file upon file of extensive notes; she barely speaks to anybody and snaps when she is interrupted.

I'm worried for both my friends, and slightly guilty that I don't have nearly that much problem with all my homework.

"How's she doing it?" Ron mutters to Harry one evening as Harry sies finishing a nasty essay on Undetectable Poisons for Snape. Harry looks up, and I cock my eyebrow. Hermione is barely visible behind a tottering pile of books.

"Doing what?"

"Getting to all her classes!" Ron says. "I heard her talking to Professor Vector, that Arithmancy witch, this morning. They were going on about yesterday's lesson, but Hermione can't've been there, because she was with us in Care of Magical Creatures! And Ernie Macmillan told me she's never missed a Muggle Studies class, but half of them are at the same time as Divination, and she's never missed one of them either!"

"Well good gentlemen you've come to the right place!" I say lowering my voice with a proud smile. I pull out the journal from my rucksack, and flop on my old fashioned Sherlock Holmes cap that Hermione had gotten me as a gag once, and stick the pipe into my mouth, grinning as I blow bubbles from it.

Harry and Ron look at me amusedly. "I've been living and studying this creature for the past two and a half years. I know nearly all of her habits and this year there has been a vast and odd deviation." I tell them. I open up my journal to the first page, which is lovingly titled 'Hermione Sightings'.

I flip through the next few. "I have meticulously recorded all her comings and goings for the past few months, and all of her sudden disappearances and then just as equally sudden reappearances." I tell them stroking my chin pretending that there's a fake beard there for me to actually stroke.

"So what have you found?" Harry asks me. Ron leans forward and examines my charts and notes.

"My dear sirs I have found that our Hermione has a case of the disappearing act. I have no clue what so ever how she's getting to all of her classes yet, but the running theories are that she can either apparate which is just ridiculous for so many reasons, or that Hermione can run at the speed of light." I tell them frowning down at my studies.

Harry and Ron snicker at me. "I never did say that I was finished with my studies now did I?" I cry offended at their laughing.

"Come on Jamie its just that I'm sure there's some logical reason that Hermione is getting to class." Harry says turning back to the homework that he still has.

"Come back to us with this theory when Hermione sprouts wings Jame." Ron snorts at me. I narrow my eyes at the two boys, and close my book, taking off my hat and blowing bubbles from my pipe into their faces startling them. Hah, revenge is sweet.

Before we can get back to work though Wood interrupts us. "Bad news, Harry. I've just been to see Professor McGonagall about the Firebolt. She — er — got a bit shirty with me. Told me I'd got my priorities wrong. Seemed to think I cared more about winning the Cup than I do about you staying alive. Just because I told her I didn't care if it threw you off, as long as you caught the Snitch first." Wood shakes his head in disbelief.

"Honestly, the way she was yelling at me . . . you'd think I'd said something terrible. . . . Then I asked her how much longer she was going to keep it. . . ." He screws up his face and imitates Professor McGonagall's severe voice. "'As long as necessary, Wood' . . . I reckon it's time you ordered a new broom, Harry. There's an order form at the back of Which Broomstick . . . you could get a Nimbus Two Thousand and One, like Malfoy's got."

I catch the face that Harry makes. "I'm not buying anything Malfoy thinks is good," says Harry flatly.

"Don't blame you there mate." Ron and I say together, and grin at each other.

January fades imperceptibly into February, with no change in the bitterly cold weather. The match against Ravenclaw is drawing nearer and nearer, but Harry still hasn't ordered a new broom. He is now asking Professor McGonagall for news of the Firebolt after every Transfiguration lesson, Ron and I standing hopefully at his shoulder, Hermione rushing past with her face averted.

Hermione and I are on good ground still but with the amount of homework that she has to do she's so stressed all the time that she ends up snapping at me, so I've learned to keep my distance, until she breaks down crying on my bed at night from all the class stress and the stress with Harry and Ron.

"No, Potter, you can't have it back yet," Professor McGonagall tells him the twelfth time this happens, before he's even opened his mouth. "We've checked for most of the usual curses, but Professor Flitwick believes the broom might be carrying a Hurling Hex. I shall tell you once we've finished checking it. Now, please stop badgering me."

All was going well in the planning department for our prank as well. I am keeping lookout outside the portrait that has the pear on it that leads you into the kitchens of Hogwarts. Fred, and George are adding the necessary changes to tonight's dinner while inside. I came up with the idea, but even I can't produce the magic quite needed to pull off this prank hence the guard duty.

"Jamie? What are you doing here?" Ariana Dumbledore's curious voice questions me. I spin around and turn my gaze to her. She's standing there along with her friends Susan Bones, and Hannah Abbot.

"Hey Ariana!" I cry plastering a smile to my face. She can't know why I'm down here. "What brings you around here?" I ask her in hopes of stalling. Ariana narrows her eyes at me.

"I live here." She says flatly gesturing to a stack of barrels a few feet away from me. I blush at the bumbling mistake that I've made.

"So what are you really doing here Jamie? You're up to something I can tell. What is it?" Ariana asks me coming closer and crowding me near the stone wall.

"Coming to the kitchen for a bite to eat! I'm a growing girl you know! Wood's been working us lie crazy in preparation for the upcoming Quidditch match. I'm starving all the time. It's really quite inconvenient once you think about it." I tell her putting on my most charming smile.

Ariana looks at me for a long time, before finally backing off with a sigh. "I'll find out what you're up to Pendragon because remember we're friends now, and I know your tells." She threatens in the nicest way possible. With that she spins around and goes back to her friends.

I close my eyes and sink back against the wall with a heavy sigh. That was too close for comfort. Since when does Ariana know me so well? I open my eyes again, and blink in shock. The three girls have disappeared. Okay today is so not my day.

The doorway appears from behind the tapestry, and Fred and George sneak out of the kitchen munching on some rolls. Fred tosses me one, and I catch it with one hand. "Did you get it done?" I ask them. Fred and George grin at me, and nod their heads.

I bite into my own role, and the three of us start out of the corridor whispering excitedly about how awesome dinner is going to be tonight.

Dinner rolls around and the Weasley twins and I wander into the Great Hall. We had to hide away for someone would have suspected that something was up if we had gone back to the common room since we couldn't stop the snickers from coming. We split up, and I go and take my seat next to Hermione across from Harry and Ron.

When all the staff has entered the Great Hall along with the rest of the students dinner starts. The goblets fill with pumpkin juice and the food fills the serving plates. I start filling up my plate along with everyone else. I'm giddy as I eat my food still listening to all the conversations going on around me. I glance at Fred and George and see them looking down at their watches.

They look up at me, and give me a slight half nod. Okay show time. Suddenly the volume in the great hall changes, the pitches of the voices in the Great Hall go up considerably. "EEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! MY VOICE! I SOUND LIKE A SPRITE!" A girl squeals in a high-pitched squeaky voice from the Ravenclaw table.

"ALBUS WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!" Professor McGonagall cries shrilly.

"Hey Hermione cat got your tongue?" I question in a squeaky voice. Hermione's eyes widen and she emits one of the shrillest and highest squeals that I've ever heard.

"JAMIE! How am I going to be taken seriously if I sound like this?" Hermione cries panicked.

"HA HA! HERMIONE YOU SOUND LIKE A RODENT!" Ron shouts from across the table. He clasps his hands over his mouth hearing the high pitch of his voice.

"HAHAHA! Don't worry Ronniekins your voice sounds exactly the same!" George sputters highly.

"Hippogriffs, toadstools, Fluffy, Cornelius Fudge… this is kind of cool all my words sound funny." Harry determines listing off stuff.

"HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CAST SPELLS LIKE THIS?" I turn and see Luka standing up from the Ravenclaw table with a shocked look on his face. I grin at the sight of his panic. Of course that would be what he and Hermione both are worrying about. Everyone in the Great Hall's voice has turned into that of a squeaky toy.

"Ah Minerva its all in good fun." Dumbledore tweets from the staff table.

"THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! I DEMAND THAT WHOEVER DID THIS TRAVESTY BE EXPELLED FROM THIS SCHOOL!" Snape shouts angrily in the cutest squeaky voice of all. By this time Fred, George, and I have practically had a laughing fit that sounds like some deranged squirrels.

I look at the Hufflepuff table and see Ariana laughing at the top of her lungs in this high tinkle, at something that one of her friends has squealed. Her eyes catch mine on her, and her brown eyes light up in recognition.

Dumbledore stands up from his seat at the Staff table and calls for silence. Eventually the noise dies down, and he clears his throat. "Well I must say that this is quite unexpected, but I do believe that this is will entertaining for a while. Have a good night ladies and gentlemen, and don't let the sound of your own voices keep you up!" He calls in his high register.

I grin up at Dumbledore. This is why he's been my favorite adult! Students start filing out of the great hall chattering away in their newly changed voices. None of them realize that this won't wear off tomorrow but the next day after that. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I get up and start our way back to Gryffindor tower. I don't get far though, for someone grabs me by the arm and steers me away to a nook in the corridor.

Ariana Dumbledore is grinning from ear to ear in front of me. "You guys did this! I'm sure of it. That's why you were in our corridor this afternoon. You weren't hungry you were enchanting something in the kitchens." She exclaims quietly.

"Well… I did end up having a roll…" I say lamely in my own high pitched voice.

"I knew it Pendragon. Well this is great. No one will be able to concentrate in classes tomorrow. It is sure to be interesting!" She says. And with that Ariana is off again to her dorm.

I hurry to catch up with my friends. I don't see Ron or Hermione but I do run into Harry in the halls. He's reverently holding his Firebolt to him.

"McGonagall gave that back to you?" I squeak.

"Uh huh! All cleared, because there wasn't anything there in the first place! See I was right!" Harry cheers highly. I giggle at the sound of his cheerful voice and he blushes.

"This is your fault you know." Harry grumbles crossly. We come up to the portrait where there's a distraught Neville in front of the portrait of Sir Cadogan.

"I wrote them down!" Neville is saying tearfully. "But I must've dropped them somewhere!"

"A likely tale!" roars Sir Cadogan. Then, spotting Harry and me: "Good even, my fine young yeomen! Come clap this loon in irons. He is trying to force entry to the chambers within!"

"Oh, shut up," I tell him as we draw level with Neville.

"I've lost the passwords!" Neville told us miserably. "I made him tell me what passwords he was going to use this week, because he keeps changing them, and now I don't know what I've done with them!"

"Oddsbodikins," says Harry to Sir Cadogan, who looks extremely disappointed and reluctantly swings forward to let them into the common room muttering something about crazy sounding students with high voices. There is a sudden, excited murmur as every head turns and the next moment, Harry is surrounded by people exclaiming over his Firebolt.

It sounds like a whole bunch of birds chirping in here. "Where'd you get it, Harry?"

"Will you let me have a go?"

"Have you ridden it yet, Harry?"

"Ravenclaw'll have no chance, they're all on Cleansweep Sevens!"

"Can I just hold it, Harry?"

After ten minutes or so, during which the Firebolt is passed around and admired from every angle, the crowd disperses and Harry and I have a clear view of Hermione, the only person who hadn't rushed over to us, bent over her work and carefully avoiding our eyes. Harry and Ron who joined us approach her table and at last, she looks up.

"I got it back," says Harry, grinning at her and holding up the Firebolt.

"See, Hermione? There wasn't anything wrong with it!" says Ron.

"Well — there might have been!" says Hermione. "I mean, at least you know now that it's safe!"

"Yeah, I suppose so," says Harry. "I'd better put it upstairs —"

"I'll take it!" chirps Ron eagerly. "I've got to give Scabbers his rat tonic." He takes the Firebolt and, holding it as if it is made of glass, carries it away up the boys' staircase.

"Can I sit down, then?" Harry asks Hermione after I've already plopped down.

"I suppose so," sighs Hermione highly, moving a great stack of parchment off a chair.

Harry and I look around at the cluttered table, at the long Arithmancy essay on which the ink is still glistening, at the even longer Muggle Studies essay ("Explain Why Muggles Need Electricity"), and at the rune translation Hermione is now poring over.

"How are you getting through all this stuff?" Harry asks her.

"Oh, well — you know — working hard," says Hermione. Close-up, I see that she looks almost as tired as Lupin.

"Why don't you just drop a couple of subjects?" I ask, watching her lifting books as she searched for her rune dictionary.

"I couldn't do that!" says Hermione, looking scandalized.

"Arithmancy looks terrible," squeaks Harry, picking up a very complicated-looking number chart.

"Oh no, it's wonderful!" squeals Hermione earnestly. "It's my favorite subject! It's —"

But exactly what is wonderful about Arithmancy, Harry and I never find out. At that precise moment, a strangled high pitched yell echoes down the boys' staircase. The whole common room falls silent, staring, petrified, at the entrance. Then comes hurried footsteps, growing louder and louder — and then Ron comes leaping into view, dragging with him a bedsheet.

"LOOK!" he bellows a squeak, striding over to Hermione's table. "LOOK!" he yells, shaking the sheets in her face.

"Ron, what — ?"

"SCABBERS! LOOK! SCABBERS!"

Hermione is leaning away from Ron, looking utterly bewildered. Harry and I look down at the sheet Ron is holding. There is something red on it. Something that looks horribly like —

"BLOOD!" Ron squeals into the stunned silence. "HE'S GONE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT WAS ON THE FLOOR?"

"N-no," says Hermione in a trembling voice.

Ron throws something down onto Hermione's rune translation. Hermione, Harry, and I lean forward. Lying on top of the weird, spiky shapes are several long, ginger cat hairs.

"Oh Merlin." I squeak throwing my head in my hands.