Uploading a day early since I will be travelling tomorrow. Love and appreciation to all!
"Present for you, Snapey." Malfoy dropped into the seat next to Harry on the first Friday of term and smirked at him.
"Ooh, goody! Did you bring the antidote, too?" asked Ron.
"I am exercising my rights as a shoo-in for the position to invite you to come down to the Quidditch pitch this evening at six and watch a real Seeker try out," said Draco, ignoring Ron.
"You what now?" Harry looked up from One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi and blinked.
"Quidditch pitch. Six o'clock. I am going to be made Seeker and I thought you might appreciate picking up some pointers."
"Oh, rapture," said Harry.
"Imagine that," said Hermione, putting down Travels with Trolls and reaching for Voyages with Vampires. "Harry, who is only the youngest Seeker on the Gryffindor Quidditch team in a century, who has only caught the Snitch three times out of three, and who only won the Quidditch Cup for his team for the first time in seven years, has the opportunity of seeing you play Quidditch."
"Nobody asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood," said Draco.
"Oi!" Ron whipped out his wand; Draco's came out at the same time and they both rose to their feet.
"Oh, Ron, Ron, stop, it's not worth it," Hermione said, springing up and taking his arm.
"You can't call her that!" shouted Ron. A few people nearby went quiet.
"I'll call her whatever I want," said Draco in a low voice. "It's none of your business." A few more people stopped talking to listen.
"She's worth a hundred of you, you filthy inbred sneaking scheming dirty rotten no-good…"
"Why don't you let her fight her own battles then? She's probably worth at least five of you, you choose every day of your life to betray your race and your kind, you taint your own blood, you are worse than she is!"
"For goodness sakes, I'll come to the tryouts!" cried Harry. By now all of Gryffindor were giving them their full attention. "Ron, don't try any jinxes with that wand, you'll just end up with more smoke. Malfoy, don't ever, ever say that word again…"
But Ron had wrested his arm from Hermione's grasp and pointed his wand at Malfoy. "Slugulus Eructo!" he shouted.
"No!" cried Hermione, as a jet of light shot out of the wrong end of Ron's wand and hit him in the stomach…
"Tom! Tom!"
What, what?
"The most incredible thing has happened, it was so funny. Well, it was pretty horrible really, but it was ALSO funny. Mostly because it's Ron. So I told you how Ron and Harry and Draco Malfoy (this really foul Slytherin second year but he helped Ron and Harry last year so he can't be ALL bad and he's quite good-looking, really, he's in the picture Colin gave me…did I show you the picture yet?"
No, not yet. If you put it face down on the page I should get a general impression, though.
Ah, I see. Harry didn't want that picture taken, I suppose?
"No, he's so modest."
And brave and clever and handsome, right?
"The bravest, the cleverest, the handsomest. I've told you that a million times…What's the V1 of a metal pin?"
0.044. Are you doing homework?
"Well, supposedly, but I just HAD to talk to you."
That's very gratifying, Ginny. But go on with your story!
"Oh, right. Anyway so I told you how Malfoy and Harry and Ron crashed into the Whomping Willow—was the Whomping Willow here when you were here?"
No. I'm not even sure what a Whomping Willow is. Tell me.
"Well it's this tree that attacks you if you get too close to it, it's really frightening, I always give it a WIDE berth…What's the V2 of a pin?"
3.6. Go on, Ginny, this is fascinating.
"So the tree smashed up the Ford Anglia pretty bad, according to Ron, but THEN it smashed Ron's WAND. He's been holding it together with Spellotape but frankly it's rubbish, he can't do anything with it and he used to be quite good at certain things like, I don't know, charms maybe, SO, at breakfast, Malfoy"
Whom you say is good-looking?
"Well, in a really foul, pureblood sort of way. Nothing like as handsome as Harry. Well, I don't know. Maybe more handsome, but I like Harry better. He's nicer. Even if he doesn't notice me. I took your advice, Tom, I said hi to him, and either he didn't hear me or he just didn't want to talk to me because he walked right by talking to Colin Creevey."
And how did that make you feel?
"Awful, Tom, I never felt so humiliated in all my LIFE!"
Never? Not even when your brothers tease you?
"Well, maybe. When Ron told the story about my skirt flying up and everyone seeing my knickers, right when Harry w..."
...He opened his eyes.
Or her eyes. Whatever.
He didn't have much time. Not enough time, certainly. He'd only gleaned a bit from her, this stupid redheaded chit of a blood-traitor…
Yes, redheaded. He glanced in the mirror and made sure she was presentable. Friday…a half day for her. So she had all kinds of time.
But he, not as much. Perhaps…one hour. Enough time to…what? Write a message? Leave some kind of clue?
Or clear a path?
He struck off swiftly through the corridors, eyes sharp alert for any sign of detection.
"Hiya, Ginny."
He whirled. Dark hair, dark skin. Not the beloved Harry, probably…
"Oh! You scared me…er…"
"Dean. You remember. Going somewhere?"
"Just down to the library to do some homework." I don't have time for this.
"Need any help?"
"No, thank you for offering, Dean," he said prettily, but firmly. And he raced off before the boy could have an opportunity to insist. It was amazing how fast these short little legs could go…
Got to get her back to the dormitories before she notices she's gone…she's slipping already…
"Now, now, where are you headed, pretty one?" snarled a very unpleasant voice as he rounded a corner at top speed. A man who could only be the terrifying caretaker the chit had described caught him and looked at him over a very unpleasant nose. A cat coiled itself insinuatingly around the man's ankles.
"Just outside," he said, squirming away.
"Just outside? To do what, then?"
"I've got a note from Professor Dumbledore for Mr Hagrid." He sniffed slightly. This man was no wizard; there was only residual magic around him, probably from spending so much time at Hogwarts. But they wouldn't let a Muggle in, not even they. A Squib, then. A filthy sneaking mutation had his hands on him…He couldn't keep himself from wrinkling her nose, and he thought fast.
"It's about Peeves, you see," he said, doing his best impression of an innocent little girl. It was surprisingly easy, really. "He's in one of the girls' toilets again, doing something really, well…"
The man's eyes lit up. "Which one? Which toilet?!"
"The one on the seventh floor," he said. The man let him go and he tore off again. I'll deal with that Squib later, the way I'll deal with all of them, he thought viciously…
He made his way through the grounds at a dead run, pausing to speak to no one, keeping in the shadows, hiding from all prying eyes. Everything looked…strange, and at the same time, intensely familiar. She had described it all to him in just this way, and he felt like he had seen it all before, even though here was a tree he didn't know, there a little additional building he had no idea the function of.
The cabin loomed up in the early afternoon light. Risking a peep in the window as he tore past he saw the great oaf—sixty-five years old, now, probably, and just as stupid and bothersome as he was when he was a stupid bothersome thirteen-year-old—snoring at his table, his handkerchief over his eyes. That red spotted handkerchief his dad had given him, big enough to cradle a human child…
Around the back. Tool shed, hothouse, armoury…chicken coop.
"The chickens and things Mr Hagrid keeps…"
He slipped inside and looked around. It was good to breathe again, even if he was breathing the scent of live chicken, and even if he was breathing it through such a freckly, blood-betraying nose.
There. Strutting through the others. Just so there had been one forty-eight years ago, when he'd left school, when he'd seen fifteen-year-old Rubeus Hagrid living in this little shack on his own, making daisy chains and chasing butterflies and raising that convenient little monster…
He produced Ginny's tiny wand—it was the smallest wand he had ever seen, let alone held, and for a moment he missed his yew wand with a burning intensity. Ah, well…
"Silencio," he whispered. He didn't dare cast the Killing Curse; someone would see the light and anyway he might hit anything and anyway ever since Ginny had told him about Harry he was a bit suspicious about that particular Unforgiveable Curse. So he reached out with his—her—bony fingers, grasped the fluttering rooster by the head, and twisted so that the neck snapped. The tiny bones broke through the skin and a spurt of blood came out; the animal fluttered madly in his—her—hands. He dropped it and reached for the second rooster…
There was a movement in the distance, a sound like a giant chair being pushed back from a giant table by a giant person. He was all the way outside and just about to head up to the castle when he heard the familiar voice, though crusted and deepened with age and weariness.
"It's Ginny Weasley, isn' it? All righ', Ginny?"
He smiled, tried to make her look embarrassed. "All right, Mister Hagrid?"
"None o' that Mister stuff now, young lady. Yeh can call me Hagrid, same as everyone else does. What're yeh doin' round here, then?"
"Oh, just looking around the grounds, you know," he said noncommittally. "I…I like your pumpkins."
"Thanks. Been growin' up for a while now."
"Looks like a very long while," he said, eyeing the monstrous yellow vegetables. "You've done a good job on them." Then a stroke of brilliance hit him and he continued, "You haven't seen Harr…err…anyone, around, lately, have you? I know sometimes second years and…and other people, come round and have tea with you…" He couldn't quite work the blush, but the stammer was easy. Hagrid broke into a broad grin.
"Well, now, sometimes that's so," he said expansively. "I'll wager if yeh were t' come down tomorrow, fer example, in the mornin' sometime, yeh might see that I get me some company now and again of a very interestin' sort! Late mornin', mind, I've never known him t' wake early."
"Oh, thank you, Mister Hagrid!" he said, and raced back toward the castle. As he passed the toolshed, he glanced behind him and saw that the oaf's back was turned; he ducked inside, looked around wildly, and grabbed a can of red paint. He hid this under the girl's robes, which thankfully were far too big for her, and hurried on.
Already his control was going patchy…he felt the arm twitch and one leg collapsed, not under any guidance, but he propelled the rest of it by sheer momentum almost back to the very door of her dormitory…
Ginny blinked and looked at the page. She had stopped in the middle of a sentence. She must have been daydreaming.
"Tom? You still there?"
In faint blue ink, Yes.
"What was I saying?"
Hi. To Harry.
"Right, but…sorry, I must have been daydreaming or something. OH MY GOSH, I REMEMBER. So Ron broke his wand, right? And so this morning at breakfast Malfoy called Harry's friend Hermione a really foul name, just because she's a Muggle-born, and Ron tried to curse him, but it came out the wrong end of the wand and he was puking up slugs for hours. It was REALLY gross and REALLY funny."
He, Ron, was?
"YES. Great big fat ugly ones, all slimy and disgusting, I think one or two of them got away. It's really lucky they weren't spiders, Ron would have run mad!"
Wasn't he already?
"Ha-ha, very funny. Hey, what's the ratio of…Whoa!"
?
"Weird."
?
"There are feathers EVERYWHERE."
Tear your pillow?
"No, like dark feathers, like rooster feathers. They're all over my robe."
Odd…