7. Awkwardness Multiples
As expected, Mr. Crouch and Mr. Bagman made an appearance at lunch.
Scoring was out of ten points from each judge, Hermione explained.
The judges gave their scores for the other Champions, first. Cedric had thirty-eight, Fleur had thirty-five, and Viktor had forty.
When they reached Harry's performance, Madame Maxime went first. She raised her wand and a long silver ribbon shot out of it, twisting itself into a large figure seven.
"Only a seven!?" said Ron, appalled, as the students applauded nicely. "I guess talking to a dragon and escaping death with unknown magic isn't very impressive," he said snarkily. He wasn't the only one objecting to that score, even some of the visiting students were outraged at his obvious bias.
Mr. Crouch was next, giving Harry an eight.
Both Ron and Hermione were pleased at that.
Then it was Dumbledore's turn — a nine.
Ludo Bagman gave him a ten.
"At last, someone who appreciates what you did!" Ron said excitedly.
Karkaroff was last. He paused for a moment, and then displayed a four.
"What?" Ron yelled. "Four? You lousy, biased scumbag, you gave Krum ten!"
Viktor was in the lead, Harry was tied with Cedric, and Fleur was last.
Harry didn't care. As long as he didn't die, the scores didn't matter.
After lunch, Harry realized why The Professor had had them do that Potions lesson, and why s/he had gone into so much detail. When they got to the Potions classroom that Friday afternoon Snape simply pointed at the board and barked, "Get started!"
Although he hid it well, Harry could tell that Professor Snape was very surprised when Harry handed in a perfectly brewed version of that day's anti-dote. Having a good teacher had made a big impact on Harry's skills, especially considering that lesson he had had in the Room, had been for this specific potion!
Snape was even more surprised when he "accidentally" dropped the vial and instead of breaking, it bounced. When the cork didn't pop out, his scowl went all that much deeper.
Snape's scowl at being thwarted in ruining Harry's grade brought a warm feeling to Harry's heart. He could see that it infuriated the man to no end to have to give Harry a reasonable score for the day's class, lower than Hermione's, of course, but still a reasonable score. Naturally, both of their scores were lower than Nott's, who had turned in a vial that was slightly off colour.
Harry had every confidence that every Potions class after that, they would always at the top of the Gryffindors. Despite his prejudices against the non-Slytherins, even Snape would have to admit that only Malfoy, Nott, Blaise, and Greengrass could give them any sort of competition. It was only blatant favouritism that would put those four ahead of the two Gryffindors in the coming year.
Just as that favouritism had prevented Hermione from always being at the top of the class in the past years.
Favouritism that the Headmaster would just ignore, as he always did.
After classes, he met Charlie at the Castle's Front Entry — apparently waiting for Harry to trek to Hagrid's hut would waste too much time, in the Dragon-handler's opinion. The two of them flew their brooms to the Dragon enclosure.
"Thanks, Harry, you don't know how much this will help us!" he said as they flew there. "We spent most of the day coming up with questions, and then whittling them down so that we don't end up staying here for a week!"
They went to the Hungarian Horntail first.
§But I flamed you!§ she exclaimed in surprise, drawing her head back from over her eggs.
§Apparently,§ he explained dryly, §I am prophesized to do a certain thing and I am not allowed to die before then. While I can do many other things — whatever I desire — until the prophecy comes to be, dying is not one of them.§
Her head had hovered lower over her eggs, staring at him through narrowed eyes.
§Why are you here?§ she hissed.
He sighed. §These others, the ones who watch after you and brought you here, never knew that Dragons had a language. They wish to ask a few questions because I can speak it.§
§What questions,§ she growled suspiciously.
§Your name?§
She lifted her head and stared at him, then proudly proclaimed, §The others call me Fiery Temper.§ She blasted a flame up into the sky.
He nodded, and passed that on to Charlie.
The rest of the questions were surprisingly mundane: Which animals to do you like to eat? Which ones do you not like? Are there any you would like more of? Do you have any aches or pains we should try to fix? Is there anything special we can give you in your cave for your eggs?
This went on for about half an hour. By the time they had finished, they had a crude series of symbols to allow them to communicate aches, pains, foods, and other simple concepts that would make it easier for the dragon handlers to understand their charges' needs.
The Common Welsh, Far Glider, was next. The questioning went faster with her because Fiery Temper had told her what the stick-waving two-leg nuisances were trying to do. Then came the Swedish Short-Snout, Laughing Hunter.
"We'll skip the Chinese Fireball," Charlie told him. "We've kept her sedated since the Task," he said darkly. "She was pretty near uncontrollable after the task, and I don't think she would listen to you if we woke her." He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "We'll try to get some replacement eggs for her."
They started back to the castle. "Look, would you consider coming to the Romanian Sanctuary this summer? We'll pay all the expenses. With your help, we should be able to arrange a better communication grid where the dragons can tell us of problems and we can ask them questions."
Harry shrugged. "Sure, if you can convince Dumbledore to let me."
"I don't think that will be a problem," he said cheerfully.
Harry had his doubts, but he didn't voice them.
Hermione, according to Ron, had disappeared that afternoon.
She didn't even show up for dinner!
Harry was starting to get worried and thinking of going to look for her. Fortunately, they ran into her as they were going to the Common Room after dinner. She dragged them down to the kitchens . . . to meet Dobby and Winky!
Harry had to shake his head, amused at himself. He had just assumed Dobby was doing something somewhere else, he had never thought that the house-elf would be working at Hogwarts! Or had Dobby made that decision after Harry had called him — and then gone to meet the Headmaster?
It didn't matter. Dobby was helping him and had a job that kept him happy, which was more than good enough for Harry.
S.P.E.W. fell to the wayside. Seeing how excited Dobby, a free elf, was to earn a Galleon a week and one day off a month was a shock to Hermione. It was far too little for the amount of work he did, she clearly thought
"Professor Dumbledore offered Dobby ten Galleons a week, and weekends off," Dobby explained with a shudder, "but Dobby beat him down, miss . . .. Dobby likes freedom, miss, but he isn't wanting too much, miss, he likes work better."
The reactions of all the other house-elves to this declaration of getting paid, and their subsequent movement away from Dobby, took her by surprise.
"Hermione?" Harry suggested quietly, "Maybe you should ask The Professor about house-elves? Just because you think they are being unfairly treated does not mean that that's true. Forcing them to do what you think is right without knowing what they want to do is the same thing you are accusing the Wizards of doing —forcing them to do what you want, not what they want."
She huffed a bit, but finally agreed.
.o\O/o.
Albus sat in his office with his head in his hands. Crouch and Bagman had just left his office, furious at what the Prophet had printed that morning. It was a public relations nightmare for the Ministry. The article made the Ministry and Dumbledore look incompetent. Not to mention releasing the "secret" details of the next two tasks.
The only ones who knew all the details were the three of them, and they knew they hadn't leaked the details, so it had to be him.
Opening the egg was not needed, now.
Plus, his plans to improve his image with the changes he would "suggest" to the Ministry had gone up in smoke. He expected, tomorrow, that he would receive a deluge of owls with messages condemning him.
Even though he knew that the day after tomorrow would be the story of the boy's miraculous escape, the damage would be done that if not for that miraculous escape, the boy would be dead.
He could excuse his "mistake" with the age-line using his, "I am but a man" excuse, but the repeated mistakes listed in the Prophet made that a hollow excuse. Many would reply, "That many mistakes makes you an incompetent man!"
At least the boy still looked up to him. While Albus' image might suffer, at the moment, later, when he killed his puppet, the evil Dark Lord Voldemort, he would regain it all and climb even higher. He would just have to persevere through the current crisis.
.o\O/o.
Ron decided, to Harry's not-surprise, that he really wasn't that interested in revising the previous years' classes, even if it did mean missing out on getting to regularly visit a sunny, warm beach. As a result, he passed on the opportunity to work with Harry. "But any spells you want to practice, I'd be happy to help," he concluded as they went to bed.
At the appointed time, eleven o'clock, Dobby gleefully popped Harry to the Room of Requirement. Harry had barely started walking back and forth under his cloak when a small pop announced Dobby had brought Hermione, both disillusioned.
"Let me do it," Hermione said. "I want to see if I can do it."
Harry shrugged, not that she could see him. It didn't matter as long as they got Professor Hogwarts. "Sure," he said, then walked to the end of the hall so he wouldn't accidentally interfere.
He was surprised to feel how warm it was when they entered the room, but didn't give it much thought. Going to bed was more important, although not having to bundle up in blankets, nor stoke a woodstove, was nice.
The next morning, it was still nice and warm. It wasn't as hot as their weekend beach-days, but more of a comfortable summer-day — without the humidity.
Laid out for him when he finished his toiletries was a t-shirt and shorts. For shoes, it was a set of simple sandals. He shrugged. It made sense, they really didn't need to bundle up in jumpers with the room as warm as it was.
"The Room can simulate any climate we want," Hermione explained over breakfast, when he asked her about why she made it so warm — not that he was complaining, mind you. "There's no reason we should suffer through the icy-cold winter that the Castle is going through. Nor have to deal with how changeable the weather normally is during the day, even when it starts out nice." She stood, held out her arms, and did a small twirl. "Besides don't you prefer this to the heavy robes we normally wear?"
She was wearing a sleeveless knee-length summer dress that showed off not only her cleavage but the sides of her chest. The fact that he could vaguely make out that she was bra-less under it made it very difficult for Harry to disagree. He especially liked the way the skirt-part flared out as she twirled to show off her lower thighs. Not to mention the way her chest swayed and bounced. He felt his face get hot.
On the other hand, he missed how the edges of her lips quirked up when he looked back up from her cleavage to her face.
She quickly sat back down, causing certain things to bounce and shift rather delightfully, Harry thought,
They spent those first two "days" of revising, catching up to the Fourth-year classes. Being fairly new material, The Professor was being more thorough making sure they understood what they were learning.
The next ten "study days" they revised their First-year potions. Plus, they learned all the little details Professor Snape had left out. Things such as how cutting plants and tissue straight, slanted, or lengthwise could make a difference in how rapidly something worked into a potion. Or why crushing them could potentially work even faster when you were in a hurry — and the dangers of trying to speed up a potion when some elements of it needed time to adjust to each other. Then there was the fact that the turbulence caused in the potion by changing directions while stirring could drastically change how evenly some ingredients in the potion interacted, which could affect how the potion worked . . . or didn't work.
Saturday's Daily Prophet was as funny as the previous day's.
BOY-WHO-DIED . . . STILL ALIVE!
The picture taking up the top-half of the parchment was him walking into the Great Hall Friday morning with Hermione at his side. The article accurately reported what he had said, but then took off into fantasy as to how he had managed to escape death.
His score was reported, with much criticism for Karkaroff for his ridiculous score of only four, and the declaration that Harry should be leading the Champions, not Victor.
The rest of the day he spent fooling around with Ron, flying his Nimbus, and otherwise ignoring classwork. "From all the time I'm spending studying each night, I need time to relax during the day," he explained, "or I'll really go barmy."
"Better you then me, mate," Ron replied, shuddering at the thought of all that studying.
That night, when Dobby popped Harry to the hall outside the Room, he found Hermione was already there and walking back and forth. They spent the entire night, all twelve study-days, revising Second Year Potions and starting on Third Year.
Sunday, Harry and Hermione went into the Room from one o'clock in the afternoon until five to get him up to speed on Arithmancy and Runes — Hermione used it as an excuse to revise. The learning curve on both was steeper and longer than the other subjects, and required significantly more memorization.
Those two subjects, though, eventually would lead him into spell-creation and enchanting objects. They weren't sure if knowing these would help Harry in the Tasks, but they wouldn't hurt.
Spending that afternoon in the Room meant he would be caught up with Hermione, and they could study together.
Having the equivalent of nearly two months of nightly lessons on occlumency from an expert had vastly improved his memory. Which made the memorization needed for both subjects much easier for Harry. Not having any preconceptions on how difficult occlumency was supposed to be made it easier for his magic to help him. Magic, after all, was mostly about intent and expectations, wasn't it?
Expect your broom not to answer your call? It won't. Expect to be bad at broom-flying? You were.
As it was with life in general, in truth. If you expected to be bad at something, then you usually were. Expecting to be good at something didn't always work out that way, but expecting to be bad at it? That was almost always a success!
Professor Hogwarts told him it was simply a matter of getting his magic accustomed to the way he wanted it to store things in his memory, and his magic did the rest. Eventually, The Professor told him, it would happen automatically and he would only need a few minutes at night to double-check the organization of things and notice anything out of the ordinary.
Each morning in the castle he should take a few minutes to remember everything of the day before he went into the room that previous evening, The Professor said.
Harry and Hermione decided to treat each day of normal classes in Hogwarts as a day of revising what The Professor had taught them in the Room of Requirement the night before and the rest of the time relaxing and playing around. Harry had quickly realized he needed a diary of what he was doing every day in the castle. Spending two weeks of his time in the Room working ahead meant he would never remember conversations or assignments he had had the day "before" with his mates! It had to be very detailed, too.
The diary — journal, he preferred to call it — The Professor had given him made that chore much easier.
The Professor was able to provide some tips that made it easier and more accurate as time went on.
He managed to play off his memory lapses as him being frazzled by the Tournament. He was concentrating on that so much that other matters sometimes slipped past him.
His critics used such lapses to harass him, calling his budding friendship with Luna as the cause — her looniness was catching, they claimed. Most of the others accepted his somewhat scatter-brained actions in the days following the First Task as his new normal. All of the Gryffindors were relieved that he wasn't as disagreeable as he had been.
Harry had no hope of catching up to Hermione in remembering things, though. She was improving her memorization skills, too, and had started from a far superior position than him.
They told everyone at dinner that they had spent the afternoon trying to determine if there were any secrets hidden in the fake egg from the First Task that The Daily Prophet hadn't mentioned, or might have gotten wrong.
Sunday night, they caught up Potions to last-week's classes. That meant they were current with all their Fourth-year classes — now they would start working ahead!
Also, after their first beach "day" that night, she started giving him a goodnight kiss on the cheek each "night" after lessons in the Room. It had been two "months" since they had decided to let things develop, she said, and she thought it was time she kissed her potential boyfriend. He wasn't sure why she wanted to do it, but it seemed to make her happy. It made him a bit happy, too, but he wasn't sure why.
He really didn't know how to feel about it. Shows of affection at the Dursley's were almost non-existent, except for his aunt hugging Dudley on rare occasions. The more explicit porn magazines focused on the physical act of sex, and its variations, than the emotions of the people involved.
Monday morning, Harry realized, looking at his Divination book, that he owed Professor Trelawney an apology. She had been predicting Harry's death with more certainty than usual, this year. It seemed that she had been right about predicting he would die soon in almost every class, last year. According to his Death Agent he had died rather regularly every year at Hogwarts. He wondered what she would say now?
McGonagall seemed to think Trelawney was a fraud, but she had been right about Harry dying and the Grim coming to Harry.
And about Peter escaping to search for Riddle.
Harry shook his head to clear it. That wasn't important, now. He would ask The Professor about Divination, later.
Divination was after lunch.
They were still doing star charts and predictions in Divination. Unlike the last few weeks, though, with Ron once more being his mate, the whole thing seemed as if it could be very funny again, he thought as they headed for the room in her tower.
Except . . . was it all such a load of rubbish as he had thought? She had given a prophecy of Pettigrew escaping last year. She had predicted a student would leave the class in April, and Hermione did. Then there was the whole thing with the tea leaves. She had been spot-on saying he would meet a Grimm. Unfortunately, she had been more focused on the death part of the Grimm's reputation and not the Grimm, itself. Not to mention Neville breaking his teacups that day in class.
His blood suddenly ran cold. She had tried to say he had been born in mid-winter, and he had objected that he had been born in July. But his Death Agent had said he had had a soul-shard from Tom Riddle in him — had she picked up on that?
When had Tom Riddle been born?
He had a sinking feeling in his stomach that it had been in mid-winter.
He decided that he wouldn't fake his work, anymore. It might be an easy class, but faking his abilities was unfair to the other students. If he saw nothing, then he would say so.
Professor Trelawney gave Harry a very strange look when she walked into the "classroom," bedecked as usual in innumerable chains, beads, bangles, and rings, with her bottle-bottom glasses greatly exaggerating her eyes, and a gauzy spangled shawl on her shoulders.
Partway through the lesson, Ron mugging at one of her comments drew her attention.
This time she didn't immediately predict Harry's death. Instead, she said, "Oh, my," and blinked several times.
Still staring at Harry, she dramatically swept her gaze across the classroom and said, "Last night, I found the urge to consult the orb suddenly claim me." She paused dramatically and again swept the room with her gaze. "I moved to my table and gazed into its crystalline depths . . . and what do you think I saw gazing back at me?"
Those in the class who believed in Trelawney were listening attentively, those who were more . . . sceptical . . . rolled their eyes.
"Death, my dears. Death."
Parvati and Lavender both put their hands over their mouths, looking horrified.
"Yes," said Professor Trelawney, nodding impressively, "it comes, ever closer, it circles overhead like a vulture, ever lower . . . ever lower over the castle. . . .."
She stared pointedly at Harry.
He stared back, face as blank as he could make it. Was his Death Agent mucking around with her?
Everyone except Ron promptly scooted a few inches further away.
He sighed. "Professor Trelawney, I must confess that you have been more right than wrong in your predictions."
The entire class was staring at him, astonished.
"Given the Triwizard's record of disasters," he continued, "I have no doubt that Death hovers over Hogwarts. The dragons in the First Task could have killed scores. That I am here in this class today is miraculous, if I do say so myself. I certainly didn't expect to survive.
"But I did.
"The Second and Third Tasks will likely be just as dangerous. That doesn't even count the mysterious wizard who entered me into it. Professor Moody has claimed that whoever it was, their goal is for me to die in this Tournament."
He looked down at the table, then back at her.
"But I promise you, I won't die until it is my time to die, far, far in the future."
She owlishly blinked at him, and slowly nodded. "I see that you believe that, but only the fates know for sure, my dear."
He nodded. "I understand that. But after what happened last week, I think the time of my death, fated or not, will not be anytime soon."
After giving him a long stare, she nodded as if satisfied at what she saw, and the lesson continued.
"What was that all about?" Ron asked Harry as they headed for Transfiguration.
"Hmm?"
"About Trelawney being right?"
"Think about it, Ron. She's a drama-queen and loves to predict death — remember what McGonagall said about her saying a student would die every year? But she did give that prophecy about Peter. She predicted a student would leave the class in April, and Hermione did. She predicted something bad would happen that Lavender feared, and her rabbit died. Then there was the whole thing with the tea leaves. She was spot-on with her predictions, then, that I would meet a Grimm. Not to mention Neville breaking his teacups.
"Sure, you can say one or two are coincidences, but all of them?" Harry shivered. "That's a few too many for me to ignore them."
Ron gave him a long look. "It's still an easy class!"
Harry nodded. "But I think she's more than anyone suspects."
Ron just rolled his eyes.
Starting that night, their new regimen would be DADA, Charms, Transfiguration, Arithmancy, and Herbology one "day", with Potions, Care of Magical Creatures, and Runes the next. All things he thought he would need to know for both the Second and Third Tasks.
The one-on-one tutoring made a huge difference. What would normally take two classes, or more, sometimes, for the whole class to learn a spell and the theory behind it, would take the two of them half as long, if that. The fact that they were using two "days" to do all their classes instead of one did not radically change Hermione's original estimate of how long each year would take them — they were, after all, getting twice as much done in a day as she had thought they would.
The Room supplied magical constructs for them to see for both Magical Creatures and Herbology. Naturally, there was far less of the hands-on fiddling both required, especially not wasting time with wondering what Blast-Ended Skrewts ate, besides each other.
The extra time on the second day was spent on Potions, of course.
You couldn't hurry a potion along.
Still, they discovered that first night studying potions that she had been optimistic on how long it would take them to finish their Fourth Year.
They planned to spend the daytime on weekends in the castle just relaxing. Which meant, for Harry, playing chess or other games with Ron, flying his broom, and otherwise skiving-off on studying of any sort.
Ron would be delighted at the no-studying part.
.o\O/o.
Albus was puzzled. As soon as Harry had returned to the castle after the Task, he had surreptitiously replaced his tracking charm on the boy. To his surprise, the next morning his tracker was gone!
He had replaced it, of course. He had checked several times during the day, and the paired-instrument had reliably reported the boy in the castle, and where, perfectly. The next day . . . it was gone. He had tried again, with a bit more power. That, too, had failed by the next morning. He tried a third time, with a lot more power. It would take an accomplished curse-breaker to remove it.
That one failed.
Maybe there was a problem with that charm, now?
He decided to use a more complex charm. It took a bit more time to cast, but not much more power than the previous charm.
That one stayed.
He snuck into the Gryffindor Dorm while everyone was in classes and renewed the other tracking charms he had had on the boy's possessions.
He didn't notice that Dobby now was moving them each night to the bed, and back to Harry's handkerchief, as appropriate to what they had been on, in the morning instead of simply dismissing them. He had, of course, informed Harry and Hermione of what he was doing.
.o\O/o.
Ron still pestered Hermione about letting him copy her assignments or Harry's. With the extra time in the Room, though, instead of letting him copy things, she developed the habit of just preparing a set of bulleted notes on the assignments and giving that to Ron. He had to come up with his own explanations. He wasn't happy with that solution, but he learned to live with it.
His grades didn't improve, but neither did they worsen.
One side-effect of Harry's better memory with occlumency was that he began to see patterns in what Ron was doing in chess and he started counteracting them. He still lost every game, but the games were more challenging for Ron and lasted longer. They were also more fun for Harry.
Luna seemed to be settling in nicely in Gryffindor. Ginny made sure the other girls did not pick on her, and Harry ensured Ron was civil to her. No more calling her Looney Luna, or ridiculing her unusual "imaginary" animals.
The Professor gave Hermione a small booklet entitled Fairy Nargles and Their Habits, which went a long way in changing her mind about just how imaginary some of the other creatures Luna kept mentioning might be. He also pointed out that some of her imaginary creatures were actually descriptions of personality traits of her classmates, both former and current, such as weetimorousbeasties being her stand-in for average wizards' and witches' "sheep-like tendencies" to follow the crowd, and panicking at the slightest provocation.
Meanwhile, in the Room, Harry's swimming skills had progressed to the point of him daring to swim in water that was over his head. A diving board had been added to the pool, and could be adjusted to any height wanted, as Hermione had demonstrated. He hadn't yet tried it.
Since their first "relaxation day" at the pseudo-beach and pool, Harry was positive Hermione's bikini was getting smaller each additional "day" at the beach. Plus, he had recently noticed that her pink swimming costume almost seemed transparent when wet, but that must be just his imagination, right?
Not that he was complaining!
He was spending more and more time on those days studying Hermione's fine figure, especially her developing chest — baps as Dean liked to call them. Jubblies appeared to be Dudders favourite term, Harry remembered. For some bizarre reason, Seamus preferred thrupney bits.
It did mean that he was "adjusting" himself a bit more frequently.
She was also starting to touch him, something she had rarely done in the castle proper — except the occasional hug or shove with a shoulder. The first time she touched his back while he was engrossed in reading, he had yelled, "Ahhh!" and almost fell out of his study-desk's chair.
"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time.
It said something about how comfortable Harry was around Hermione that she could inadvertently sneak up on him like that without him noticing her.
"You startled me," Harry said as she said, "I didn't mean to startle you, it was an accident."
She looked very contrite.
He settled back on his chair and gave her a half-smile. "It's okay, you just surprised me, that's all."
Today, she was wearing a different sundress, with a V-neck like the nightgown she had worn the night after the First Task. It made no secret of the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra.
It was good that they normally sat side-by-side during the lessons or he would have spent most of the day just staring at her chest. It was a very nice chest, he had decided.
"I'll make more noise, next time," she said. After a brief pause, in which he did not stare at her cleavage, she said, "I wanted to ask if you needed some help?"
Over the next few "days" he slowly got used to her touching his arm or back when she looked over at his parchments or read over his shoulder.
Then she started holding his hand when they moved from one section of their classroom to another or snuggling up close when they were on the couch reading a book, researching their assignments. Speaking of which, whenever they had reading to do, she insisted they do it on the couch where she could sit close to him.
Harry was of two minds on this. It felt nice and gave him a warm feeling inside, but at the same time it made it harder for him to concentrate on the subject at hand — the assignment subject, that is. He frequently found himself staring down her cleavage, trying to see more.
Their Wizard games in the evenings were quickly getting boring. Hermione was grousing to Harry one evening, "I wish I could rewatch some of the movies I've seen," when The Professor walked over to the lounge area they had. He was carrying a stone bowl on a small table. "This is a pensieve," he said. "A very rare and powerful magical item used to review and store memories."
To their amazement, after a bit of coaching to Hermione to remember a movie and instructions on how to remove a duplicate of a memory, they were watching Star Wars projected on the wall.
That took care of that problem. Hermione, it seemed, had seen a lot of telly shows and her parents had a rather extensive library of movies. For a whileAS a result, almost every night they watched a movie, play, or telly show that Hermione had seen — sometimes two.
On Monday, December fifth, eleven days of real time after the First Task, but over five months of Room time, Rita Skeeter made an unpleasant surprise appearance in Hagrid's class. Harry knew the Headmaster had forbidden her to come to Hogwarts, but she didn't seem concerned. Harry couldn't help worrying about what she might print after hearing her arrange an in-depth interview with the half-giant in the Three Broomsticks on Friday.
That night, things began to change between Harry and Hermione. While it was barely four days to the rest of the inhabitants of the castle, for them it was two months since she had started kissing his cheek.
The first evening in the Room, Hermione kissed him on the mouth. He froze, not knowing what to do next. His eyes were wide-open in surprise, was this really happening? Was it a product of his imagination? He wasn't sure if his mind tricked him, but the faint smell of old parchment and strawberries seemed to fill his nose. The warm feeling of her breath, although distracting, was inviting.
She leaned back a little and rested her forehead against his. "If we want to see what it would be like as boyfriend and girlfriend," she said softly. "I think it's time to move it up a notch." She leaned forward and time stopped in a collision of senses when her lips met his as she kissed him again. The rest of the room faded away and all that mattered were her lips.
After a moment, her lips parted and he felt the tip of her tongue touch his lips. That seemed to trigger a response from deep inside him. He pulled her closer, hungry in a way he had never felt, and sucked her tongue into his mouth.
He wasn't sure how long they stood outside her door, propped against doorframe, almost glued to one another.
Harry had noticed Cho Chang last year. She was Seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and he had quickly seen that she was very pretty and made his stomach "feel funny". Cho Chang was a year older than he was and was also very popular. He had thought at the beginning of the term that maybe she wouldn't be put-off by the attention his name brought — and then his name came out of the Goblet.
Now, however, it was Hermione who made his stomach "feel funny" — especially during this kiss!
Finally, she stepped back, panting slightly, and looking as flushed as he felt. "I think that's enough for tonight." She gave him a shy smile. "How about I reward you with a kiss each time you get the same score or higher than I do on an assignment or test?"
She smirked at his expression and slipped into her room, gently closing the door.
He wasn't sure how much longer he stood there, still leaning against the doorframe, before he realized that he had had a rather pointed physical reaction to their snogging. He hoped she hadn't noticed, but he expected she hadn't missed it. Did that mean she didn't . . . mind it? His face was hot as he finally went into his own room to . . . take care of a problem before sleeping.
Her snogging incentive, though, was quite a good one, it turned out, as his scores did go up by a significant margin.
He no longer noticed Cho Chang in the castle, except as another classmate. Susan Bones didn't attract his attention as much as she used to, either. He was enjoying his rewards with Hermione too much.
Transfiguration on that Thursday was cross-species switches, which Harry and Hermione had already practiced to perfection a bit over three months ago, their time. They each acquired five points for their quick and smooth accomplishments. They both had then spent the rest of the class helping others.
Just as class ended, McGonagall explained that there was to be a Yule Ball this year. She held back Harry and told him that the Champions would start the Ball with an opening dance. As a result, she said, he was expected to have a date.
The date part was easy.
He asked Hermione as soon as he met up with her and Ron outside the classroom. As he had hoped, she quickly agreed.
"What am I gonna do?" he continued, "I don't know how to dance!"
Ron was too busy stressing over getting a date to even think of the dancing. As a result, Harry wasn't even sure he had heard Harry ask Hermione.
She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure The Professor will be more than happy to show us what we need to know. We can easily practice a bit each evening. By the time the Ball arrives," she looked around to see if anyone was close enough to hear, "in eight months, we'll be more than good enough," she said, and smiled.
He sighed. Eight months of dance lessons. He was not looking forward to this, no, he wasn't. Not one bit.
Getting more points in Charms and DADA only raised his spirits a little.
.o\O/o.
Author's Note: Did you hear that the French inventor of the rubber sandal recently passed away? Monsieur Phillippe Phillappe was 91.