Chapter 9: Unmatched rivalry
On Saturday morning as they had gone down for breakfast, the friends were smearing the raspberry jam on their bread slices and were contemplating the plans for the day.
"Well, what are we going to do – do you have any other idea how to examine the Trophy Room?" Harry asked. His friends shook their heads in denial. "Then we should try to go to the Trophy Room again, and if there nothing comes to our minds, then let's go to the kitchen?"
"It's just that I'll soon have to attend the meeting with McGonagall," Hermione said, "and I have no idea how long it could take."
"And I need to catch Alicia to reserve the Quidditch Pitch for the next week," Ginny told about her task of today.
"Are we going to bring Neville with us to the searching works?" Ron asked, for a brief moment, gazing at the guy who ate breakfast with their other roommates this morning.
"Humpf, lest Neville rest; it's Saturday after all," Harry just said.
After the breakfast, Ron and Harry went up the stairs as they left their girlfriends. Arrived at the Trophy Room on the fourth floor, they gazed around, but, also standing in the middle of the room, they couldn't see what more they should check out here. Spending some more time digging around here and there, the guys started to become grumpy as they didn't get any success. This occupation seemed like a complete waste of time; in any case there wasn't any chance of finding something more than common awards or lists of prefects.
Eventually, they finished with the searching and went out into the hallway. Then a moment later, two anxious first-years came towards them.
"Thank Merlin, you are Prefect Weasley. We are lost; we're wandering around here for about an hour," said a short Gryffindor boy with dark hair and square glasses nervously. Of course, in addition to their current anxiousness, they studied Harry and Ron with their big eyes full with adornment.
"Tell me what happened; where do you exactly want to get?" Ron asked the little boy.
"We were on our way to the library. We wanted to start doing our homework by Professor Slughorn on potion mixing. On Monday we'll have to brew our first potion. We don't want to fail," the other boy explained.
"Don't worry; I'll take you to the library. It's on the first floor, but you're now on the fourth floor. Let's go then," Ron glanced at Harry and began to take the two young Gryffindors towards the library. Meanwhile, Harry nodded as a signal for Ron that he should go and do his prefect duties; he'll go to the kitchen alone.
Harry slowly stepped down the stairs, greeting the upcoming students from time to time. The breakfast was over quite a time ago, and now Hogwarts students were going to a lot of different places where they had their business – some took their way to the library, others went outside in the yards to enjoy the warm weather, some strolled to their extracurricular classes or activities. Ron, as a prefect, had made a special effort not to become a leader of the Chess Club or the Gobstones Club, or any other acceptable club of leisure activities; he had previously had enough occupied with Quidditch and its practices. And Harry could easily understand him – with all the classes and Quidditch training, and D.A., they always had too many things to do, so he didn't want at all to worry also about some kind of chess games or meetings at the Wizard Card Collectors' Club.
As he grasped the rough surface of the railing at the Entrance Hall, Harry noticed it was indeed made of wood to replace its stone counterpart, and it was skillfully rendered to fit perfectly into the broken space. Apparently, it was McGonagall's flawless work. He had never succeeded in transfiguring anything with a lasting effect – transfigurations required extra careful concentration, so the easy ones were, of course, the Switching Spells. But such as this – long lasting transfiguration – you had to be a really skillful wizard to be able to persistently bind your magic power to the transfigured object. Respect to McGonagall.
As he climbed down the large, wide stairs, suddenly there popped a thought into Harry's mind. Such a powerful witch like McGonagall could transfigure, for example, a log into a part of the railing for a long time; but what if Voldemort had thought about something similar – to transfigure the Diadem in a completely different look? He could have put it in front of everyone, and no one would be able even guess what it really was. The Diadem could be not only hidden in the castle or its surroundings, but it could even have taken any kind of shape! Searching the castle and its territory for every inch may take years or even decades.
Harry's gloomy thoughts were suddenly distracted by sounds and thuds coming from the Dungeons.
Harry wanted to check out what was going on there – he carefully went through the doorway into the Dungeons and slowly moved forward. Descending a few turns of the stairs carved in a dark stone, he already heard noises becoming louder as well as some vague shouts. Stepping out into the wide hallway which led to the Potions classroom and Slytherin Common Room, Harry saw the cause of the disorder and yelling. There was a bunch of Slytherins in the hallway, few of them holding wands in their stretched out hands as they protected themselves with the magic shield of Protego. Meanwhile, they were faced by at least thirty very young students standing with their backs to Harry. Now he could hear what they were exclaiming to each other.
"Just come out and fight, you cowards," a young boy close to Harry yelled as he fired a red bolt. Harry guessed it could be Stupefy, but it was so fragile and shaky it barely flew to the opponent's shield, where it poured to the ground in a form of a few red stars.
"Will you leave us alone for once? We haven't done anything to you. Let us just go," one of the Slytherins replied.
"You haven't done anything? Damn Slytherins, servants of You-Know-Who, you should be expelled right away. My sister fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, but what did you do back then, eh?" yelled another one of the crowd next to Harry. When Harry came closer to the back of the pack, he noticed that it consisted mostly of the Gryffindors, and maybe there were a few students of Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.
"Why are you talking all the time about your relatives who fought in the Battle of Hogwarts? Neither did we say them to do it, nor did we hurt anyone in that Battle! Just wait until we tell this to Slughorn," replied one of the Slytherins as the shield was touched by more of shaky colorful spells – it looked like they were cast by inept first-years. This blockade obviously had lasted quite a time, so Harry decided to intervene in order to put an end to this nonsense. He raised his wand and whispered, "Sonorous!"
A loud bang echoed in the hallway, and suddenly both warring parties turned to face the source of the sound.
"What's going on here?" Harry demanded in a harsh tone. He felt as an actual grown up, standing among the little children.
When they saw Harry, the Gryffindor first-years seemed to look ashamed.
"We… we came here to deal with the Slytherins," a boy with blond hair replied.
"They're keeping us here for no reason and they aren't letting us go!" immediately there came an answer from the Slytherins as a complaint, accompanied by an affirmative murmur.
"For no reason? Yesterday, when there hadn't passed even the first week, you already started planning again your Slytherin villainies! Our brothers and sisters didn't fight in May in order to such Slytherins could ruin our lives like that," now replied a black-haired girl harshly.
"Well, so, everyone must calm down now!" Harry said firmly, trying to speak as loudly as possible. "If I understand it correctly, you're now holding the Slytherins here as captives. I would like to know why?"
"We had the Potions class yesterday together with them, and then already at least one of them put something in our cauldrons, so that all the water we had to heat spilled all over our cauldrons," she replied.
"And why didn't you tell anything to Professor Slughorn? Anyway, what's your name?" Harry still didn't comprehend, where the problem was.
"I'm Primula and he's Henry. Professor Slughorn said we had overheated our cauldrons! But Henry saw them pouring something into our cauldrons," she claimed as she gazed for a brief moment at the blond boy. Although, he appeared to look ashamed and his cheeks turned pink. Harry thought he could hear him saying something like, "I suppose I saw them doing it; though I'm not really sure; maybe I mistook something…"
"But I don't understand why you didn't go to Professor Sinistra and didn't tell about the whole incident to her?" Harry asked, puzzled. Meanwhile, the Slytherins were grumbling about Gryffindor illegality and that they are being detained for no reason. Then the little Gryffindors blinked at Harry with their big doe eyes. Apparently, this idea hadn't come to their minds. Remembering his own trouble in his early years and the reprimands of Professor McGonagall, he just barely suppressed a laugh.
"We didn't think about that, Harry," the blond-haired boy Henry replied.
"Henry, he's a grown up and due to respect you have to call him 'sir'. Hasn't your mom taught you any manners?" Primula chided her friend quietly, prickling in his side with her elbow.
Henry blushed shamefully. "Um, sir, and you recently told us about the Battle of Hogwarts; and my brother Michael was killed in that Battle; and then we all together decided that we must come here to tell those Slytherins…" the boy's voice faded until it became barely audible as he felt more ashamed about his excusing which was starting to sound even sillier and worse. Harry couldn't help himself so he just stood there and blinked his eyes – of course, Hermione was right: these little ones really had ideas. And the fact, that he had to be addressed as sir, was something Harry was wondering about – should he start laughing or not.
"Now, listen to me all of you – these Slytherins have done nothing to you, at least not in the Battle of Hogwarts," he added quickly as he saw the frustrated expressions on the faces of the children. "And, if there's any disruption during a class, you must tell it the professor of the class or you must go to Professor Sinistra. Her office is located on the seventh floor, near the Astronomy Tower. The conflicts aren't resolved like this in Hogwarts," Harry added, reproachfully. The Slytherins had lowered their magic shields and now asked him for permission to leave.
The Gryffindor first-years seemed ashamed as they split up to let through the Slytherins. Although, Harry noticed that a handsome, brown-haired boy with sea-green eyes was smirking cunningly as he strode past him. It was probable that there was a reason for this confrontation, but anyway Harry was a little bit surprised that the fights between Gryffindor and Slytherin had occurred so soon and to such extent.
When the Slytherins had gone away, Harry gave another reprimand to his younger housemates, "Also, this kind of action – surrounding a few opponents in a flock – it is not at all worthy of a Gryffindor. You should fight for justice and defend the weak instead of attacking a couple of pranksters in a large pack."
"We just wanted to discipline them… teach them a lesson… punish them…" here and there sounded some murmurs from the crowd.
"The punishing in Hogwarts is done by prefects, the Head Boy and the Head Girl or the professors. Besides, you are extremely lucky that I'm not one of them, so I can't take away any House points, but if anything like this will happen again, I promise I'll inform the Headmistress that our first-year Gryffindors aren't behaving properly and are shaming our House. Therefore, I don't want to hear that such a confrontation has happened ever again. Everyone deserves to study at Hogwarts, regardless of the purity of their blood or the doing of their siblings," Harry harshly instructed the young children. He couldn't say that Harry himself would have never wanted to take part in such an ambush, but now such a hostile encounter was far from desirable, and majority of the captured Slytherins was completely guiltless. "And now all of you hurry away from here."
They didn't have to be told twice as the group of younger students turned and headed for the stairs. When the most of them had disappeared behind the corner of the dark stone walls, a girl with a Hufflepuff badge on her chest and blonde braided hair, looking a little bit similar like Hannah, spoke up to him, "Harry Potter, we thought before that you are on the Gryffindor side. After all, the Death Eaters killed my mom and my aunt, and we had heard that you had fought against them very bravely." Then the girl turned and ran after her classmates with tears in her eyes.
Harry felt too shocked by this incident so he didn't answer anything to her. And what he should say? Of course, in the Battle against Voldemort there died many people and apparently all of them had grieving relatives, who had again felt their pain and anger once they had seen the Slytherins. Just as Dawlish had said yesterday – after the victory of the war, the joy soon passes and only the loss and the pain remain.
Once again sinking into grim reflection, Harry climbed back up to the Entrance Hall and pulled out his Marauder's Map, hoping to find Ginny as soon as possible. She was in the Gryffindor Common Room and Harry had hurried upstairs to the Gryffindor Tower following the indication of the Marauder's Map. He needed to meet his girlfriend, or at least Ron or Hermione; he felt as all his insides were boiling, as he could blow something up at any moment. He had fought exactly for the peace and happiness for the wizarding society, but look – it was just the fourth day at Hogwarts, and there were already occurring major encounters between Gryffindor and Slytherin students and he was accused of betrayal and injustice.
"Oh, there you are," Harry exclaimed relieved as he saw his girlfriend sitting on the couch at the far end away from the rest of the students. "You won't believe what just happened to me…" he began, but then stopped as he came closer to Ginny and looked at her face. It was swollen and her eyes were full with tears and both sleeves of her robes were stained with wet spots. "Gin, what happened?" Harry asked frantically.
"It's nothing serious. Don't worry, Harry," she claimed as she tried to force out a tearful smile, and for the last time she determinedly wiped her eyes with an edge of her sleeve.
"Ginny, dear, I see something is bothering you. What happened? Please tell me – did anyone insult you? Did Slytherins do something to you?" Harry tried to guess why his girlfriend was so upset. "It can't be that Alicia didn't allow you to recruit players for the Quidditch team?" suddenly there came an entirely different horrible thought in Harry's mind.
"No, no, everything's alright with the Quidditch team," Ginny said laughingly as the tears in her eyes were beginning to dry away and she waved in the air a piece of paper which, though, was stained all over and illegible.
"What happened then?" Harry still didn't understand the cause of her sorrow.
"Harry, I caught Alicia after the breakfast, and we went to her office, you know, which is located near the North Tower on the other side of the Middle Courtyard. I reserved the Quidditch Pitch for us in the morning of next Saturday. Then we talked about some more things and then I started to head back here in order to placard the announcement, but then…" she paused, starting to fight the streams of tears again.
Harry sat next to her and hugged her, but he still had no idea why she was so sad. She leaned her head against Harry's chest and a moment later when she was calm enough, she continued, "But then I left the Alicia's office and started to head back here and on the way I met… Colin." Harry could just barely hear the last word.
"Colin?" he asked to be sure. "Who's Colin?"
"Creevey," Ginny answered.
"Colin Creevey?" Harry was rather surprised. "But Colin Creevey is dead. Ginny, how could you -" suddenly he fall silent, he finally understood. Colin Creevey was dead, and there was only one possibility how Ginny could have met him here at Hogwarts – Colin had returned as a ghost. Now, he felt tears welling up in his eyes too as he imagined the fragile young Gryffindor boy with the heart of a lion. He had fought in the Battle for a better world, for Harry Potter, but now he is going to be wandering through the corridors of Hogwarts alone as a ghost. His only comrades will be other Hogwarts ghosts for the rest of the eternity.
"He said he came back here because he wanted to fight with the enemy at all costs, because he wasn't ready to succumb even to death. And now he's wandering around the castle as a ghost, and he says he's very hap-happy since Vol-Voldemort has been defeated," she sobbed, unable to speak clearly anymore.
For a moment, the young couple sat in their seats embracing each other as they pondered the fate of the poor little, but brave boy. Eventually, they calmed down and wondered what they should do next. When the tears had stopped on Ginny's cheeks, she took a new piece of paper and re-wrote the notice for the potential Quidditch players to come to the Quidditch Pitch at 9 AM on the morning of next Saturday. When she went to put the piece of paper to the notice board, the portrait hole opened and Ron entered the Common room, eating an éclair.
Saying hello to his sister and his best friend, he sat down on the couch and just started to ask them why they both look like as if they had eaten a whole bag of Pepper Imps, but then the portrait hole opened again and Hermione stepped through it. Ron raised his hand to welcome her and shoved the rest of the éclair in his mouth with his other hand. He offered éclairs also to his friends as soon as Hermione had come closer to the three of them.
"At last the meeting with McGonagall and Malfoy is over," she fell down on the couch with a sigh, but waved off the éclair. "I see you've been in the kitchen for a while," she said, with a slight dislike looking at her boyfriend's fingers smeared with chocolate.
"Of course, I went to the kitchen – these éclairs are just perfect," Ron said with pleasure. "But where did you get lost, Harry? You went to the kitchen ahead of me," Ron wanted to know.
Harry quickly told his friends about the incident near the Slytherin Common room. The girls looked shocked, but Ron seemed to be more like ashamed, sitting in his place with his eyes on the floor.
"I suppose this was my fault," he admitted. Getting the inquiring looks from his friends, Ron explained in more detail, "Remember that night when I and Neville stayed here and talked to the first-years – we were discussing what each of us had done at the Battle and when we were leaving we told each other that those Slytherins had done nothing good. And I said to Neville with a laugh that they should get what they've deserved. I suppose those little ones would have heard it and had taken it seriously. But when I said it, I didn't mean it literally."
"This means, Ron, that in the presence of the first-years, you have to be more careful about what exactly you are saying. Because they regard you as an authority," Hermione explained knowingly.
"As an authority?" Ron echoed Hermione's words, incredulously as he couldn't believe his own ears, but he also couldn't help himself as the corners of his lips curved up into a smile.
"Of course, the young first-years see you as an authority; they take us all as the role models and listen to every word we say, so we have to think what we are saying," Hermione instructed, gazing at Ron.
"An authority – but I didn't do anything much, both you and Harry did all the hard work," Ron began murmuring softly.
"Ron, you would be a very amiable person if you could learn to appreciate what you've done for once. It was you and no one else who saved Harry getting him out of that lake, it was you who stabbed the Slytherin's Locket -" Hermione listed her boyfriend's feats, but meantime he just interrupted her with, "And I left both of you like a cowardly ass." Hermione didn't pay much attention to him and simply kept telling his feats, "It was you who had the idea to get those fangs from the Chamber of Secrets, and it was you who could open it again so we could destroy the Horcrux in the Hufflepuff's Cup, not even mentioning that you fought bravely in the Battle of Hogwarts and together with Neville defeated Greyback. For this alone every witch and wizard should feel grateful to you forever," Hermione finished her song of glory for Ron and looked at him partly with pride, partly with pity, as he was sitting there with pink blush on his ears.
"Say," Hermione added with a grin, "one try to praise him – he starts to feel shy and murmurs all kinds of nonsense; one try to chide him – he fills up with the annoyance like a strawberry mousse."
Ginny chuckled at Hermione's remark. "Oh, 'a strawberry mousse' could really be the most accurate description – he huffs and puffs until his face gets big and red." Now also Harry and Hermione laughed.
"Maybe you could stop laughing about me? You better tell what happened to both of you here, why you had blushed so red?" Ron asked as the corner of his lip curled up mockingly. But then the thought came into his mind that perhaps he actually didn't want to know that. "Um, of course, if it wasn't something very intimate."
Harry hugged Ginny tighter for a brief moment and she felt brave enough to tell her friends about Colin. Upon hearing it, the amusement instantly disappeared from the faces of both Ron and Hermione.
After a moment of reflection about Colin, they realized there'll be noon soon, so they had to go downstairs. On the way to lunch, Hermione told them how the meeting with McGonagall had gone, where she and Malfoy were mostly instructed about their standard responsibilities of the Head Boy and the Head Girl. McGonagall also had said that the Room of Requirement has been confined this year and that they must report immediately if anything suspicious starts going on at the proximity of it, and that the cleaning of it has been planned during the winter holiday. She and Malfoy were also assigned to check the lower floors of the castle once a week to get rid of the last Boggarts, and the next meeting is going to be after a month, when she and Malfoy are going to be appointed to the night patrolling duty once a month on Saturday nights.
When he had sat down on the bench and had started to eat fried potatoes with chicken, Harry remembered that Ron had gone to the kitchen alone. "Look, you had gone downstairs to the kitchen – did you find out something there?"
"Nothing important there. Kreacher has really taken the lead in cooking. I asked them about the Diadem, but they said that they only know about the one which is on the head of the statue in the Ravenclaw Tower," Ron told him about his research.
"That one I've seen for myself – it's made of stone and is carved on the head of the statue. And how does the Diadem look, we already know it more or less," Harry said as he drank a sip of juice from his glass.
"Then they told me something interesting – McGonagall had asked them to report everything to her that seems unusual to them," Ron said in a whisper.
"Do you think she suspects something about what we're searching for?" Harry asked, feeling slightly frightened.
"I don't know," Ron said, eating mashed potatoes with bacon sauce.
"I rather think," Hermione said, "that McGonagall is just smarter than most people."
"I suppose she knows that all the things hadn't calmed down yet, so there might start some kind of disorder still," Ginny added.
"Good appetite," said a voice as someone had come close to them. It turned out to be Lavender – she sat down next to Ginny, opposite to Ron. One side of the girl's face looked oddly smooth, and further down her neck, there could be seen scars she hadn't been able to cover properly with her make-up. "It's a pity there's no bloody steak at lunch for today again," she said sadly. "When the full moon is approaching, I have a special desire for it. The day after tomorrow is going to be absolutely crazy."
"How are you feeling when it's full moon? My brother also was bitten by Grayback, and then he couldn't sleep at full moon nights," Ron added.
"The fact that you can't sleep – that would be an understatement. The feeling is like all your body is itching close to hurting, and as if your legs and arms are slowly tugging out of your body," Lavender told them with a flinch as she bent her fingers awkwardly, then clenching them into a fist.
"And isn't there any medicine for it?" Ginny asked, really feeling sorry for her classmate. She remembered how Bill had suffered at the beginning after being bitten, so she could imagine how Lavender's symptoms made her feel.
"Technically, I could use the same Wolfsbane Potion, but it's practically unavailable at Diagon Alley's pharmacy stores, or at least it is beyond my means," Lavender stated, sighing sadly. "I heard the Malfoys are now going to focus on the apothecary business, maybe then I could hope of getting the Potion at their store by a reasonable price."
"Really, are the Malfoys going to open their own apothecary?" Ron asked with a smile.
"They'll have to do something since they're banned from any position at the Ministry or any other boards," Hermione explained. "I suppose with their connections, it wouldn't be too difficult for them to import some rare ingredients for some even rarer potions so they could sell them for a pretty penny here."
"Listen, but what's up with those little ones today? They keep whispering and staring at us," Lavender noticed. Harry quickly explained to her what had happened this morning in the Dungeons near the Slytherin Common Room.
"Oh, I see. Well, they aren't letting their eyes off especially of you, but also the rest of us, the members of the D.A., they are bothering with questions about the Battle and the Room of Requirement and they are ready to follow me on every step I take," Lavender complained. "So there's no wonder they might have thought to portray some kind of heroes," she concluded grimly as she drank a sip of pumpkin juice.
"I guess, the time will pass and eventually they'll calm down," Ginny simply stated.
"By the way, have you met Peeves now?" Lavender asked with a smirk. The friends shook their heads. "I happened to meet him on the second floor. Can you believe it he had become almost obedient; he helped Filch change the candles in the chandelier there."
"What?" Ron asked with a laugh.
"Yes, I heard McGonagall had approved of Filch's request to banish Peeves if he's going to keep ruining Hogwarts inventory," Lavender explained. "So now he's trying to behave very well. At least as far it considers the school property."
"But he could tantalize those first-years a bit more," Ron added, grinning. Hermione exclaimed, indignantly, "Ron!" Ginny and Harry just smiled.
They were still sitting in the library, now, doing their homework. After lunch, Harry and Ginny had been strolling around Hogwarts, chattering about nothing serious, and then they had headed out and walked around the territory. Partly, he had wanted to wander around the castle, hoping that he could notice something truly unusual that could help in his search for the Diadem, but mostly he had just wanted to spend some time with Ginny. After all of them had finished dinner, they had started to do their homework.
Harry was now working on how to accomplish Slughorn's task to find a Fire Element which he needed to extracted into a Fire Essence. No potions book actually told how to get one – only how to use it. And Hermione just said with an enigmatic smile that this time he had to figure it out by himself as she was calculating large charts.
"Yuck, a three," she said, wincing.
"Sounds bad. What does it exactly mean, Hermione?" Ron asked.
"Now I'm calculating the numbers for the course of our and the school's life until Christmas, and I got number three. In numerology, it has a meaning of instability," Hermione explained.
"Instability really does sound bad," Ginny agreed with Ron gloomily, reading A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration.
"Actually, I ascertained it for today; though, I suppose this collision between Gryffindor and Slytherin students of today won't be the last one," Harry added, foreseeing that the first part of this school year actually won't be so calm and carefree.
By contrast, Sunday had passed quite peacefully, only Hermione and Ron had to separate an arguing pair of third-years, who had started to brawl in the Common room, but Neville had to constantly stay with Harry and Ginny all day long, otherwise Romilda was following him everywhere, then asking to borrow his quill – she had lost her own – then she wanted to get help with her Herbology homework, then she begged him to defend her against some Hufflepuff guy, who had been bothering her all the time.
"Ironically," Ginny smirked, "and she thinks she isn't bothering you at all. So then who are you going to ask for help now?"
"That's why I came to you," Neville chuckled. "Now she says she can't distinguish the Snargaluff pods from the Bubotubers."
"That's one crazy girl, eh?" Harry stated.
"It's a complete madness with someone like her! Please tell me what to do with her?" Neville asked desperately, sitting on his chair opposite the couch Harry and Ginny had seated on.
"As I said to you during the Start-of-Term Feast, she might be leaving you alone if you start seriously dating another girl," Ginny advised as she tilted her head slightly to the side. Neville turned away his gaze.
"Isn't there a girl you like?" Harry asked.
"There is, but…" Neville began to stutter, slightly blushing.
"But what's the matter then?" Ginny asked. "Does she have a boyfriend or there's some other reason why you can't be with her?"
"I guess no, but… But I've never asked out any girl. That is, if I don't count the Yule Ball on my fourth-year when I asked you," Neville admitted, feeling very shy as he gave Harry a worried look for a brief moment.
"You just have to be brave like Gryffindor, Neville. It's not that bad with those girls," Harry stated as he looked at Ginny, smiling.
"What if she doesn't want to go on the date with me? I'll go to her and ask her out, and what if she says no? Then I could only wish the ground would swallow me up," Neville expressed his fear.
"And what if she says yes? Perhaps she's just waiting for you to act bravely and ask her out?" Ginny suggested.
"After all, you're a hero now. And look, some of the girls are chasing after you day and night. I don't know if there's a single girl who wouldn't like to go out with you – all you need is to get enough courage up. And if you're thinking of asking out Luna, then I think she'll definitely agree," Harry encouraged Neville, nodding.
"I guess you both are right; but fighting with the Sword definitely was easier than asking girls on a date," Neville murmured shyly and fell silent.
Meanwhile, Ron had returned to the three of them, falling into his chair next to Neville. "Hermione took them to Sinistra. They said they had quarreled over whether you, Harry, had used all your Deathly Hallows in the Battle, or whether you had defeated You-Know-Who with your bare hands. They were actually ready to start dueling. Coming to you and ask it, it was too much for them, eh?" Ron chuckled as he rolled his eyes. Harry also laughed as he heard that.
"Actually, one of them earlier did come to me and asked if I had all the Hallows when I fought Voldemort, and I said to him – yeah, right, like I defeated him with my bare hands. I suppose he had really taken it seriously." Harry shrugged.
"People really don't understand jokes anymore," Ron concluded. "Hermione will not like it – she already remarked me that these little ones take it overly seriously everything we say."
"Oh, yes – now one bad joke is enough to start a war," Harry concluded gloomily.
"It's a pleasure to see all of you again in such an abundance!" Professor Sprout said cheerfully with a smile, her face beaming like a sun. "Oh, indeed! And you all are ready to learn Herbology. I'm even more pleased about that. This year, I've prepared for you the plants included in the N.E.W.T. tests and we are going to start our list with the Venomous Tentacula," said the professor, a short witch with a leaf green hat as she turned to a purple-red plant with long vines. It definitely didn't look very friendly.
"You'll need to split into groups of three. Your task will be to feed the Tentaculas with these little mice. These are just youngsters, I grew a new bunch of Tentaculas again over the summer because, unfortunately, the Death Eater diet hadn't ended well with my dear friends in May," Sprout explained. "When you're feeding them, just don't forget to put on your gloves – keep in mind they're actually the Venomous Tentaculas!"
"Oh, but before we get started with the feeding, I'll give you ten House points if you tell me what is this," Professor lifted a small pot with something like a twig with needle-like leaves up in the air a moment later. It seemed to Harry that this twig was slowly twisting, or maybe it was standing still – it was hard to tell from a distance. To Harry's surprise, Hermione hadn't raised her hand, but instead she was deep in thoughts, gazing at the ceiling. Meantime, Neville's eyes widened and he quickly shot up his arm in the air.
"Yes, dear?" Sprout invited Neville to give his answer.
"Professor, it's a Strangling Fir!" Neville exclaimed excitedly.
"Correct! You've earned ten points to Gryffindor. The exact name of this plant is the Estonian Strangling Fir. Now it doesn't look very dangerous, but just you try to get closer to it," Sprout put a wooden stick close to the twig, "and it will instantly start to grab you – look, look, the longest branches have already grasped around the stick. Therefore, the Strangling Firs usually are planted around the perimeter of a property. They can catch any thief with their twigs. Not even mentioning the fact that such hug of needle-like leaves must be very painful."
"Professor, wasn't there recently written somewhere that these Firs were also planted around the new open-air concert site where the Weird Sisters performed in the summer?" Neville asked curiously.
"That's right, Neville. Actually, you were only tending the Tentaculas here all the last year, maybe now you would like to grow the Strangling Fir? Just take into account that the care of this plant will be quite tricky," Sprout offered. Neville, of course, couldn't refuse such an offer.
"And now, my dear students, let's get our attention back to Tentaculas. They are waiting all morning to finally have their breakfast," the professor said to all students and began to show them the hungry plants.
As Hermione and Ron had chosen a Tentacula next to Harry's and Ginny's plant, she muttered to herself, "I can't compete with Neville in Herbology anymore; he's definitely surpassed me in this subject."