A/N: Unbeta'd. So plenty of grammar and spelling issues.

Fallen & Risen 36. The Cat Is Out of the Bag

SHRAAAAAAP THUUUUUD!

Hermione dropped all the books and parchment she was holding in her arms, disturbing the quietness of the hallway.

". . ." Hermione froze, fixing the parchment in her hand, gaping. "…It… It can't be…" she stuttered. "N-no… It-it can't be…!" she tried to convince herself.

Thinking it was an illusion, she shut her eyes, breathed deeply, and opened them again. She looked again at the parchment in her hand.

". . ." Se bite her lips. What she thought it was an illusion was still there. It wasn't an illusion. Hermione chewed her bottom lip, frowning.

"H-how can it be…? How come? What's…? Why…?"

For the first time of her life, Hermione's brain was frozen, unable to think about anything. Hermione was holding Heley's essay paper in her hand. Heley's scroll must have got mixed with hers and both of them didn't realized it. Hermione could tell the scroll belonged to Heley because it was covered with Heley's scribbles.

But on Heley's scroll, there was also Harry Potter's hand writing.

Back in her room, Hermione sat at her desk like she always do. But unusually, she wasn't studying nor writing her essays or reports. Right now, her desk wasn't covered with mountain of scrolls or books. Her quill was in her inkwell and not in her hand. No book was opened in front of her. Laid on her desk was only Heley's potion essay. Her elbows resting on her desk, supporting her forehead in her hands, Hermione only look at Heley's essay. Crookshanks had jumped and the desk and sat next to Heley's scroll, watching his mistress' distressed features. It was too late.

Heley was making her potions and noted down time by time small notes of her observation. Because she was either chopping ingredients, measuring things or brewing the concoction, she had switched from her left hand to her right hand non stop each time she picked up her quill to note down what she was doing. When Heley picked her quill with her right hand, it was Heley's hand writing. But when Heley picked the quill with her left hand, it was Harry's hand writing. Crookshanks looked sadly at the scroll and at his mistress. The half-Kneazel couldn't do anything anymore for Heley. His mistress had saw the scroll which was scattered with Harry Potter's hand writing between Heley's.

Hermione closed her eyes. Her heart clenched in her chest. Seeing her late best friend's hand writing woke in her heart many painful memories which were stabbing continuously her heart.

"How… How come? Why? Why does Heley's scroll have Harry's hand writing on it? How can it be possible?" Hermione muttered.

Unable to think, she leaned back in her chair, watching the ceiling. She bit her lips and closed her eyes again. Hermione brought her hands to her face, covering them, cutting herself from her surrounding.

"No… I need to calm down… I need to calm down…" she told herself, pinching her nose between her eyes.

Taking many deep breathes, her heart stopped throbbing in her chest. The newly came in oxygen clear off the smug in her head. She straighten up in her chair and flipped Heley's scroll upside down on her desk.

"The beginning… from the beginning… Let's start from the beginning…" she mumbled.

Hermione leaned back in her chair, but looked straight ahead of her. She closed her eyes and pictured Heley's and Harry's images in her head.

"Heley and Harry… They have a lot of commons things together…"

Okay, both of them are Potters and they have black hair and green eyes, but physical resemblances could be normal between relatives. Harry and Heley marked all their possessions with the initials 'HP'. It was normal too considering their first name. They were also excellent Quidditch player and were awesome on a broom, just like James Potter. Typical talent in a family passing down to the younger generation could also be a plausible explanation. All of Harry's old possessions were now Heley's as Heley got them after Harry's dead in heritage was also another plausible explanation.

"But that both Heley and Harry have the exactingly same tics and behaviors in the exactly same kind of situations… It's too many common things between two people to be normal," Hermione stated aloud. Hermione chewed her lips, frowning and brainstorming again.

"So many things about Heley are mysterious… Too many things about Heley are mysterious…" Hermione recalled everything about Heley from the first day they met.

The first day Heley was called to the Headmistress' office, Heley walked out of the Great Hall without hesitation. Hermione remembered that during that moment, she felt that something was wrong about Heley's behavior, but her anger at Ron, who was trying to avoid potions, diverted her attention away from Heley. Now Hermione knew what was wrong in the picture. Heley had confidently walked out of the Great Hall on her way toward the Headmistress's office. As if she already knew where it was while it was her first time at Hogwarts. Or was it really her first time at the school? Hermione now clearly remembered Heley's panicked face, which was immediately followed by relief when Ron offered her his help. Ron had saved Heley from something, like saving her from a wrong move.

Heley also happened to know many secrets and personal stories shared between Harry, Ron and Hermione, stories that Ron and Hermione never shared with anyone else at Hogwarts because they were precious souvenirs of Harry. There was no way Harry would tell anyone these stories because it wasn't in his introvert personality and character. So how come Heley know them all? And Heley's first interactions with Draco before the two of them became fairly friendly, they were just exactly like Harry's. How come Heley also have the same hatred toward Draco like Harry when it was their first time meeting? Hermione knew that coincidence existed but…

"But such a high probability of commons things and coincidences…" It was not normal.

Hermione flipped Heley's scroll up again. She looked at the patches written with Harry's hand writing. After putting all the strange pieces of puzzle together, only one explanation came to Hermione.

"Heley is Harry."

Heley climbed down the book shelves, the books she wanted in her hand. Not far from there, behind a book shelves, Hermione was watching Heley, her wand in her hand. Hermione raised her wand and pointed it to Heley.

Heley stopped flipping through her book when suddenly, she instinctively raised her left hand to her head. Something collided in her palm. It was a snitch, but over the snitch, Heley saw a Dementor, which was making its way toward her. Heley reacted faster then she think. She extirpated her wand and attacked the Dementor.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" she shouted. From the tip of her wand leaped out a magnificent silver stag. The Dementor froze, afraid, and tripped on its robe and changed form.

CRACK!

'Huh? A boggart?' Heley raised her wand again and shouted.

"Riddikulus!"

CLACK!

The boggart-Dementor's black robe turned into a frilly satin dress with bows of every colors of the rainbow ornamenting it. The dress was ridiculous and the Dementor itself looked absolutely awkward. Plus, Heley made the Dementor being fat and short with chubby fingers. On the top of everything, the Dementor had ridiculously large pansies flower ornate its hood. The Dementor in pink back off one step, but trip in the hem of the dress because Heley had cursed it wearing high heels.

"Hahahaha!" Heley busted in laugh, holding her stomach and weeping the tears in the corner of her eyes.

CLACK!

The boggart exploded and dissolved in dust the air. But as the boggart disappeared, Heley was faced with a fantom-like Hermione, which immediately make her stop laughing. Hermione's face had drained off color when she saw Heley's instinct move. Heley just confirmed Hermione's suspicion.

"Hermione? What is it? Why are you so pale?" Heley asked. Hermione just lost more color, making her skin contrast horribly with her hair.

"Habits and behavior of a person can be changed with a lot of practices…" Hermione started with a trembling voice. Heley raised her head to see Hermione walking out from behind a book shelf.

"Hermione?" Heley said. Hermione ignored her.

"…but instincts can never be disguised…" the Head Girl continued, staring at Heley straight in the eyes. "Harry!"

Heley paled, her eyes widely fixing at Hermione.

"H-Hermione, w-what are you talking about? A-And why-why are you calling me Har-..." Heley stuttered.

"Don't lie to me, Harry!" Hermione insisted. "I didn't want to believe it too, but you just give me the proof of my suspicions about you, Harry," Hermione said, pointing at the Golden Snitch in Heley's hand. Heley tensed even more.

"W-what do you mean?" Heley stuttered, diverting her eyes away from Hermione's scrutinizing ones.

"Heley, Harry was an excellent Seeker and his reflexes were amazing. Your talent at Quidditch as a Seeker is his. Your patronus is a silver stag, just a hundred percent exactly like Harry's one. And this…" Hermione slowly brought out Heley's scroll in front of the black hair girl. Heley drained off more colors when she saw her scroll. Her scribblings was mixed with Harry's hand writing.

'Oh dear Merlin… How? When did I did that?'

"Harry," Hermione stressed on the name, "you can learn to write with your right hand to disguise your hand writing. But as you can see, you cannot always control old habits from emerging and revealing the truth. As well as you cannot have control over yours Seeker's reflexes by the mind all the time," Hermione stated, staring at the Golden Snitch in Heley's hand. "You should have change your patronus if you didn't want other people to find out about you. It's not very common for people to have such a large patronus like yours. It wouldn't take us a lot of time to figure out your true identity with that patronus."

". . ." Heley gulped, closing her fingers around the Snitch. She couldn't deny anything anymore. Harry's old habits just betrayed her.

Hermione looked at Heley, examining every features of Heley's face. Heley's way to react was too much like Harry, exactly like Harry. The more the evidences of Heley being Harry showed up, the more Hermione felt despair building inside her. And anger as well. Hermione stepped toward Heley, her fist close. Then, she stepped hurriedly to Heley, her hand raised.

SLAAAAAAAAP!

Hermione's slap could be heard in all the library. Heley didn't move, too shock. She was only aware of the burning pain on her cheek. Heley brought her hand to her cheek to nurse it, looking at Hermione.

"HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO US?" Hermione yelled. She was crying, her tearing eyes laced with grieve and anger.

"H-Hermione, I… I…"

The next second, Hermione threw her arms around Heley's neck and buried her face in Heley's shoulder.

"Why… Why didn't you talk to us? Why? Why did you just leave away like this?" Hermione stuttered between her sobs. "Why didn't you talk to us? Why didn't you tell us everything? Do you know how much pain we went through because we really thought you were dead. Why Harry? Why…?" Hermione incoherently mumbled between her tears.

Heley froze, not knowing what to say. But one thing was sure for her; she couldn't lie to Hermione again. Not anymore. She hugged Hermione.

"I'm… I'm sorry Hermione… I'm really sorry…" Heley shed tears too. All the tears she didn't aloud herself to pour out, she let them free now.

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione cried harder and tight her arms around Heley.

The two girls cried in each other arms, comforting themselves and feeling happy to find themselves as old friends back again. But they weren't alone in the library.

"Well well, isn't that interesting," a voice said behind them.

"Ah!" Hermione and Heley jumped and turned around. From behind the shelves, someone stepped out of the shadow. It was a tall guy. And a Slytherin. Heley paled when she recognized the 7th year half-Italian Slytherin.

"B-B-Blaise…" Heley stuttered. Blaise flashed his super white teeth to the girl.

"Hello Hermione, hello Heley..." Blaise greeted them with his happy smile, too happy to be healthy for the Gryffindor black hair girl. Heley gulped, her face took a unhealthy color shade.

"Y-Y-You heard us...?" Hermione asked for Heley, who was incapable to speak word.

"Hum, I didn't..." Blaise started, making hope raising high for Heley and Hermione "...miss a single word of your conversation!" Blaise finished very happily, bringing the girls' hope crushed badly down to six feet underground, particularly for Heley.

"B-Blaise..." Heley stuttered pleadingly, but the mischievous glint in Blaise's eye kept dancing even more brightly.

"He is not the only here who heard you, Hermione, Heley," another said. Behind Blaise stepped out of the shadow another 7th year boy. "Or should I say Harry Potter?"

A/N: Guess who is the other 7th year boy who hear Heley's and Hermione's conversation!

Update Sunday, March 25, 2012. Unbeta'd.