Malfoy saw that Ginny was in distress and immediately strode over to her, dropping his potions
equipment on the floor noisily.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, but not in his usual imperious way.
“Oh, Draco!” she sobbed, throwing her arms around his neck, crying onto his shirt. He didn’t
hesitate for a moment, but gathered her to him, stroking her hair. Harry itched to take the cloak
off so he could tear them apart, but he managed to restrain himself. Malfoy held her for quite a
while, until she cried herself out. As her breathing returned to normal and she let out a great,
tired sigh, he kissed her on the forehead and held her at arms’ length.
“Feeling better?” he said quietly.
She hastily separated herself from him and smoothed down her clothes, clearly embarrassed.
She wiped her eyes and said shakily, “I have a lot of work to do.”
Malfoy looked as Harry had never seen him, genuinely concerned and caring. “What
happened?” he asked her.
“I--I saw--saw Harry. Harry kissing Cho Chang. In the Quidditch stands,” she said brokenly.
Then in a rush: “And even though I know that he doesn’t really care about her, even though I
know he and Hermione are just trying to fix her up with Viktor Krum so Hermione can be rid of
him, that doesn’t mean--that doesn’t mean--” she looked like she might break down again.
“That doesn’t mean he has to look like he’s enjoying it so much!”
Enjoying it? Harry thought. Hardly.
Malfoy nodded. “Ah. This is about Potter.”
“Harry,” she corrected him.
“Okay--Harry.” Even to Harry’s ears, it sounded unnatural for Malfoy to call him this. He could
tell it felt extremely unnatural to Malfoy. “And--did you say he and Granger are trying to fix up
Krum and Cho Chang?”
“Oh!” Ginny was distressed for yet another reason. “I shouldn’t have said anything--don’t tell
anyone I said that, please--”
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” he said, trying to calm her. “I won’t say a word.” Harry thought,
Yeah, right. “So what, Potter and Granger will be free to be together then?”
Ginny looked up at him, stricken. Harry groaned inwardly; sometimes Malfoy was too smart for
his own good. “I--I don’t know. Maybe...”
“Well, good riddens to him, I say,” was Malfoy’s hard reply. Ginny looked like she was about
to argue, but he went on, “Look, he’s just not worth getting so upset about. How could he be?
He ignored you for three years. How could he know how you felt about him all that time and
not care? How could he not--see you?” he ended softly, lifting up her chin and kissing her on
the lips briefly, softly.
Harry was going crazy, dying to spring across the room, throw off the cloak--but again not
daring to. Mostly he didn’t because he hated the fact that Malfoy was right; he deserved for
Ginny to forget about him and move on. He didn’t deserve for her to go on mooning over him,
she didn’t deserve for him to go on taking her for granted. Somehow, he managed to forget that
he had spent much of the day thinking about kissing Hermione.
Ginny ducked her head and said softly, “You’re supposed to be tutoring me in potions.” To
Harry’s relief, she didn’t throw her arms around Malfoy and enthusiastically return the kiss. The
tentative delicacy of that kiss had surprised Harry.
“Right,” Malfoy said reluctantly, turning to retrieve his potions supplies from where he’d
unceremoniously flung them down when he’d entered.
Harry decided to stay and keep an eye on them while they worked; Malfoy gazed at her and
touched her hand quite a lot for Harry’s taste while they were working, but nothing else
untoward happened; they neither kissed nor hugged again.
Then after they’d all three had been in the dungeon for about an hour, Snape entered and
stopped abruptly, obviously surprised to see them there.
“Good afternoon, Miss Weasley, Mr. Malfoy,” he said stiffly once he’d recovered. “I didn’t
expect to find any students down here at this time.” He looked nervous, as though he were up
to something he shouldn’t be. Why would he look like that entering his own classroom? Harry
wondered.
“Draco’s tutoring me, Professor. He’s been very helpful,” Ginny volunteered.
“Tutoring, Miss Weasley? You’re at the top of your class; in fact, I am to understand from your
other teachers that you are at the top of all of your classes.” Harry felt his jaw drop from shock.
He could see some surprise on Malfoy’s face as well.
“Well, I thought it couldn’t hurt to get a start on the O.W.L.s. I’ll be in fifth year before I know it...”
“Highly commendable. And you know, Gryffindor and Slytherin cooperation has been known
to happen before. Carry on,” he said, looking at them kindly. Harry was shocked; he’d never
known Snape to be nice to a Gryffindor student. But if Ginny was at the top of all of the fourthyear
classes, she would command a certain respect even from him. Hermione didn’t, but then
Ginny obviously wasn’t as--obvious as Hermione was when it came to her grades. Harry had
had no idea that Ginny was the best student in her year, and he thought that most other people
were also ignorant of this.
Now Snape was heading toward the door to his office; Harry decided to follow him in if he
could. Snape unlocked the door and walked to his desk, leaving the door open. Harry slipped
in, relieved, but then Snape waved his wand at the door and it closed and locked, panicking
Harry; he was stuck in Snape’s office now until he opened the door again. He hoped Snape
didn’t have some device for detecting the presence of people wearing Invisibility Cloaks.
Snape now pointed his wand at the fireplace, lighting it, and settled heavily in a wing chair by the
hearth. Harry almost cried out and gave himself away when Sirius’ face appeared in the flames
half a minute later.
“Hello, Snape,” was Sirius’ cautious greeting.
“Black,” was Snape’s even briefer reply. Sirius grimaced.
“If we’re going to be doing this, perhaps we should try Severus and Sirius,” Harry’s godfather
suggested.
Snape looked like he’d eaten an Every Flavor Bean that tasted like ear wax. “Sirius,” he said
slowly, carefully.
“That’s better. So, Severus, How soon will the Polyjuice Potion be ready?”
“Four weeks, technically. But I won’t be able to get their hairs for another two weeks after that,
at the Quidditch match the first weekend in December. We can use it any time after that. My
sources tell me that there will be an important meeting just after the winter solstice, on Christmas
night.” Polyjuice Potion? thought Harry. Sirius and Snape were going to use Polyjuice Potion?
Who were they planning to impersonate? he wondered.
“Christmas?” Sirius looked concerned. “I just hope that’s not too late. Death Eater activity has
been spotted around Ottery St. Catchpole in just the last few days.”
Ottery St. Catchpole! Harry thought. That’s the village near the Burrow! Oh, God, he thought,
if anything happened to the Weasleys...
Sirius went on. “I’ve been unable to convince Molly and Arthur Weasley to go away on a
holiday for a while. Fortunately, Bill and Charlie are still on hand to keep an eye on things,
but--”
“What?” Snape was impatient.
“I think we have a weak link. Percy Weasley.”
Snape sat up. “How so?”
“Well, he’s been transferred to his father’s department at the ministry so Arthur can keep an
eye on him. Fudge is concerned that Percy was so blind to his boss’ problems last year; Percy
had no clue that Crouch was in his son’s thrall, and oblivious then to the fact that he was
receiving instructions from a dark wizard. It’s not clear that Percy himself wasn’t under the
Imperious Curse as well.”
“Plenty of people find it difficult or impossible to resist the Imperious Curse,” Snape said
quietly, looking uncomfortable and making Harry wonder.
“Yes, but Percy just--he reminds me uncomfortably of--another former Head Boy who was so
brilliant in his classes and so ambitious...”
“You think Percy Weasley is another Tom Riddle?” Snape asked him.
“I think--he’s easily manipulated and ambitious. I think he could be ripe for recruitment to the
Death Eaters. If someone offered him the kind of power he craves...”
“Now, now, Black,” Snape seemed to have given up on calling Sirius by his first name. “His
brother was also a top student and Head Boy. Do you think he’s about to become a Death
Eater, too?”
“Bill’s not a sycophant,” Sirius told him. Harry remembered what Hermione had said to Ron
outside the Potions Dungeon. “Percy’s been bothering other department heads at the ministry
ever since he was transferred to Arthur’s department, trying to get a job elsewhere. There’s
obviously no opportunity for advancement in his own father’s department, not without displacing
Arthur. I’ve heard people say that Percy Weasley’s goal is to be the youngest ever Minister of
Magic.”
“That doesn’t mean he would betray his family and become Dark.”
“No, it doesn’t. But it does mean he could be targeted for recruitment, and even if he resists,
that means trouble. So now, we have to find out about both him and Harry when we use the
Polyjuice Potion.”
Find out what about me? Harry thought.
“I find it hard to believe that Voldemort would be having such a change of heart concerning
Potter,” Snape said.
“But Percy and Harry are exactly the sort of wizards that Voldemort always targeted for
recruitment.” Harry remembered the Tarot reading he’d been trying to put out of his mind; so
Sirius was also worried about Voldemort recruiting him. “He’s seen now how powerful Harry
is--Harry dueled with Voldemort and walked away. The only other living wizard who’s done
that is Dumbledore. Voldemort always wanted the best and the brightest. Very few Death
Eaters--I’d say Peter Pettigrew is the exception--weren’t outstanding students in school. That’s
one of the reasons he went after Lily and James.”
“Well, that and the prophecy. Once he’d worked out who two of the the three people in the
prophecy were...”
“He tried to recruit their parents to raise their children to be his servants, so his potential
enemies would be under his control...”
“But the Potters didn’t cooperate as the Malfoys did...”
What? Harry thought. I’m in some prophecy? And so is Malfoy?
“Speaking of which,” Sirius said, “we never did work out who was going to be who when we
take the potion. I thought I would be him, and you could be her...”
“Not so fast, Black. I am the one going to all this trouble to make the potion, and getting their
hairs for the final touch. Plus, I need to be him because I have the Dark Mark on my arm still;
she is not a Death Eater. When Voldemort summons the Death Eaters, a Mark that is only
appearance, as yours would be, would not behave the same as the real thing. And you will have
to make sure that he does not go to Voldemort when summoned.”
“True. If two of him showed up, that would ruin everything. All right. I just hope they’re not
planning to recruit Draco already. I mean, he’s only--what? Fifteen? He’s a few weeks older
than Harry. They can’t want someone so young, can they? I mean, Harry is one thing, he’s
Harry Potter...”
“Quiet! Even as we speak, Draco Malfoy is right here in the Potions Dungeon, working with the
Weasley girl...”
“What?” Sirius cried, not heeding Snape’s suggestion that he be quiet. “Is it possible that his
father is already grooming him? Do you think Lucius put him up to it?”
The Malfoys, Harry realized. They’re going to use the Polyjuice Potion to impersonate the
Malfoys.
Snape rose and went to his office door. Harry pressed himself into the bookcase to prevent
Snape coming in contact with him and detecting his presence. Snape lifted the black curtain over
the small window at the top of the office door. He smirked, and walking back to his chair by the
hearth, said to Sirius, “I think his hormones put him up to it...”
Sirius didn’t say anything and Snape sat again, staring into space as if in a daze. “She looks
strangely like Lily...” he said quietly, as though he forgot he were having a conversation with
someone.
“Now, now, Severus, she’s a student...” Sirius chided him with a smirk.
Snape rounded on him, furious. “How dare you! She’s only fourteen! I would never--”
“All right! All right! I know. Can’t you take a joke?” There was an awkward pause, then Sirius
said quietly, “You know, we were all in love with her. Even though I--went with other girls.
Even Peter, although he wouldn’t have admitted it. I could see it when he looked at her. Remus,
too. And James, naturally. We were just livid that she had a boyfriend from Slytherin...”
It took Harry a minute to make sense of all this. Snape had been talking about Ginny looking
like his mother, and Sirius was talking about the entire Marauder Gang being in love with his
mother--Sirius, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew (also known as Wormtail) and his father, James
Potter. But who was this Slytherin boyfriend? he wondered. Then, with a shock he knew. That
was the Gryffindor-Slytherin cooperation Snape had been talking about...
“It wasn’t you,” Sirius went on. “It wasn’t personal. I think we all thought if she was going to go
with anyone, it would be one of us.”
“So that’s why you pushed her away? Made her feel excluded? Why do you think she turned to
me?”
“We were protecting her, you know that. James and Peter and I were learning to become
Animagi so we could accompany Remus when he changed. We didn’t want Lily to get hurt.
Plus--you know how she was. So by the book. She would have tried to talk us out of doing it.
She would have told us it was wrong.”
“It was wrong. Just as it was wrong not to tell her...”
“Why are you complaining? She became your girlfriend because of it.”
“Yes, but it was also because of you that she left me.”
“Because of me? You were the one snooping around trying to find out what was going on every
month during the full moon.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder why I had such a need to know? It was Lily; she came to me in tears,
wanted me to find out what was going on. She felt her friends didn’t trust her, didn’t want to
confide in her. You cut her off and didn’t expect her to react? She wasn’t made of stone, you
know.” Snape sounded more human than Harry had ever heard him; listening, he found himself
taking Snape’s side, unexpectedly. When he was in third year and found out about the
Marauder’s Gang, it had never occurred to Harry to wonder where his mother was during all
this, since he knew that she had been friends with all of them as well. “And then you thought it
would be so funny to get me killed by Lupin...”
Sirius grimaced. “I’ve said I’m sorry about that. But James saved you, so--”
“So I lost Lily.”
“Is that why? How did that work exactly? You almost died, so she didn’t want to be with you
any more?”
“I don’t want to go into it now. Evidently, she had only been with me because Potter had been
unable to say how he felt; he got over that and told her, and she left me for him. End of story.”
But Harry somehow got the impression there was just a little more to the story than that.
“I’m sorry to bring up the past, Severus,” Sirius said quietly, sounding genuinely sorry. “Losing
Lily--it must have devastated you--”
“It’s not the past,” Snape replied briskly, annoyed. “It’s very much the present. It was after Lily
that I--I was recruited. Without her, I didn’t see any reason why not. And then when I learned
about the prophecy, about Lily and Potter being targeted--I became a Ministry spy. But it was
too late; I couldn’t save her.” Harry noticed that he didn’t seem concerned about not saving his
father. “The work I do now I do in honor of her memory. Why else do you think I would put up
with you, Black?” Snape finished with a snarl that nonetheless seemed to have a slight smirk
behind it. Maybe they’re actually becoming friends, Harry thought. That would be strange.
Sirius laughed. “But why, then ,” he asked Snape, “do you give Harry such a hard time?”
“A hard time? Is that what he tells you? Someone around here has to do something other than
coddle him, like McGonagall and Flitwick. It’s to make him strong. To make him angry enough
to want to do well just to show me.” Harry was surprised; and even more so that it had
worked. “Lily wouldn’t have wanted me to be soft on him. You said yourself that he stood up
to Voldemort. I understand he withstood the Imperious Curse and experienced the Cruciatus
Curse twice. I also understand that he used the disarming charm he learned from me in dueling
club several years ago...”
Sirius was smirking again. “You almost sound like you’re taking a fatherly pride in Harry,
Severus.”
Snape sneered this away. “Potter would never give me credit for teaching him anything useful--
or even for saving his life, which I’ve done more than once.” Suddenly, there was a knocking at
the door. Snape hissed at Sirius to leave, and Sirius’ head disappeared from the fire almost
instantaneously. Snape pointed his wand at the door saying, “Alohomora!” It leapt open.
Malfoy stood in the doorway. “Sorry to disturb you professor. I didn’t bring all of my supplies
with me, and we’re running low on ladybugs for this potion. I don’t suppose I could--borrow
some? I’ll replace them immediately. It’s just that we have to add them in the next two
minutes...” Snape waved at the shelves of jars next to the door.
“Take them, take them,” he said distractedly, then moved his eyes to the doorway to look at
Ginny, working in the classroom still.
Harry took this opportunity to slip back out the office door. Ginny was bent over her potions
book, frowning, while the cauldron bubbled. He wondered what he should do about her and
Malfoy. Ron would want to know, and George and Fred. On the other hand, if they killed
Malfoy, they’d all wind up in Azkaban. Well, he thought, maybe we just need to wait to see
what happens to the Malfoys; if they go to Azkaban, and it’s partly because Lucius Malfoy was
going after Ginny’s family, they’re not going to be friends for long.
Finally, after agonizing over what to do and watching Malfoy return with the ladybugs, Harry
decided that they probably wouldn’t be kissing again or anything else with Snape right there in
his office. Harry crept to the door to leave. He would just have to wait and see.
* * * * *
Hermione avoided Harry during the rest of Saturday; she wouldn’t even look at him at dinner,
and went up to her room right afterward, instead of lounging about the common room with
everyone else, or even going to the library. Sunday morning, Harry hoped to talk with her about
what had happened in the Charms classroom, but when he arrived in the common room to meet
her for their morning run, Ginny was there. Harry stopped short, surprised, and a moment later,
Hermione descended the stairs, dressed in her usual running clothes, but carrying a hooded
sweat jacket, since it was getting colder now. Ginny also seemed to be dressed for running, in a
sleeveless form-fitting ribbed top and very tight spandex pants. She also carried a hooded
jacket and her red hair was corralled in a bun.
Harry didn’t speak, waiting for one of them to say something. Harry was feeling just as
awkward about seeing Ginny as he was about seeing Hermione, but she didn’t seem to be the
least bit awkward; then he realized that of course, she didn’t know that he’d been in the Potions
Dungeon and heard everything she’d said to Malfoy.
“Ginny asked to come today,” Hermione offered as a brief explanation. “Well,” Hermione said
to Ginny, “we’d better warm up.” She began showing Ginny the stretching exercises they were
accustomed to doing, and Harry couldn’t refrain from glancing surreptitiously at the two of
them.
They both looked spectacular. He’d grown so accustomed to seeing Hermione, day in and day
out, that he realized he hadn’t really seen her. Having been kissing her the day before, he very
much wanted to look at her now, memorize her. She had definitely acquired a classic hourglass
figure, her running bra just barely being adequate to the job of keeping her chest still during
exercise. And he--and Malfoy--had already noted how aesthetically pleasing the view of her
walking away was.
Ginny, on the other hand, was about four inches taller than Hermione, willowy and lithe, her long
legs emphasized by the stripe down the outside of her tights. Her curves were slighter than
Hermione’s, but undeniable. Her top seemed to be cut rather low--Harry tried not to look like
he was staring while he did his own stretches. Something about her exposed neck was attracting
his attention; he realized he just wasn’t used to seeing it. It seemed very long...
Are they just doing this to torture me? he wondered, as he followed them out the portrait hole.
No, he assumed it was just Hermione trying to avoid being alone with him. But it was torture,
just the same, walking down the stairs behind them. Before they went outdoors they all put on
their jackets, then went down to the Quidditch pitch. Next thing you know, Ginny’ll be asking
Malfoy to run with us, Harry thought. Like I need to see what he would wear to go running.
Ginny kept up with them pretty well, but felt winded about two thirds of the way through their
usually workout. She sat down on the grass and watched them finish, then they walked back up
to the castle to do their warm-down exercises in the entrance hall. They all took off their jackets
to do the stretching and sit-ups. Harry held Ginny’s ankles while she did her sit-ups and
Hermione stretched. Suddenly, Malfoy appeared at the top of the stairs that led up from the
dungeons where Harry knew the Slytherin common room to be. Malfoy stopped abruptly when
he saw Ginny, Harry and Hermione, looking at all three of them with a smirk, but his glance at
Ginny also seemed to reveal some concern.
“Didn’t think you’d go in for a menage a trois, Potter,” he drawled. But despite his mocking
tone, Harry could see where his eyes were straying: the neckline of Ginny’s top, the long stripe down the side of her tights. But then, however, he turned his attention to Hermione. “You
know, Granger, I’m glad you were here this morning. It reminded me that I’d like to have lamb
for dinner.”
Hermione was perplexed. “Lamb?”
“Yeah, you know. Rack of.” He looked pointedly at her running bra. And, grinning broadly, he
turned and went into the Great Hall. Hermione colored and looked down at her rather generous
chest, then put her jacket back on and mumbled that she needed to go shower (even though she
hadn’t finished the warm-down). Ginny, on the other hand, was looking at Hermione in a less
than friendly way. First they were mad at each other because of me, and now it’s because of
Malfoy, thought Harry. There’s a disgusting development.
* * * * *
It seemed that Hermione was doing her best to assure that she was never alone with Harry. All
during the rest of the day, she went to great lengths to assure that she was never alone, and
therefore not open to being preyed upon by him. He felt like he’d been labeled as some kind of
stalker, and wondered if this was how Sirius had felt when he’d first broken out of prison. It had
been Hermione who had insisted on “tutoring” him for his meeting with Cho, he thought, feeling
the injustice of it all.
Then, finally, she had no choice but to be alone with him. Since the Sunday night prefects’
meeting was running late, Alicia suggested to Roger that they continue without the fifth-year
prefects, and instead send them back to their houses to check on the first and second years and
make sure everything was under control. Alicia was very much a control freak, Harry decided;
she seemed to assume that every time there was a prefects’ meeting, the other students were
taking the opportunity to have wild parties or something. And yet, he remembered that she had
been quite the party girl on Hermione’s birthday.
So he and Hermione were walking up to Gryffindor Tower alone, since the other houses were
in very different directions. But when they reached the Charms corridor, he pulled her into the
classroom again, where they’d been the day before, and without preamble, he pulled her to him
and looked down at her. There was moonlight streaming in the windows, silvering her brow and
cheeks. He wished he could see better what expression was in her eyes as he leaned down
slowly and pressed his lips to hers. He had wanted to move slowly so that if she really wanted
to, she would have had plenty of time to escape, to prevent it.
But that didn’t happen; instead, she immediately opened her mouth under his, entwining his
tongue with hers, moaning in the back of her throat. Harry slid his fingers into her curls, holding
her face up to his, feeling a warmth travel through his entire body that made him feel on fire. Her
trembling fingers went from his face to his arms, then to the clasp of his robes, which were now
gone, now to the buttons of his shirt, then to his chest, roaming over his sensitive skin, the
changed torso she’d first noticed the morning after she’d arrived on Privet Drive, and he found
her sitting on his bed. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder how long she’d sat there that
morning, watching him sleep.
But then she broke the kiss and he felt her lips on his neck again, like the day before, then her
tongue making an agonizing, wet trail down to his chest, as her fingers brushed lightly over his
nipples. He felt like he needed to sit down, or fall down, or explode, or something. This was
so--amazing. Why had she been avoiding him? She wasn’t pulling back now, she was taking the
lead, if anything. What was with her?
He held her head as she turned her mouth to his right nipple, making him draw in his breath and say her name.
“Hermione,” he breathed softly. “Hermione, why were you avoiding me all day?” His voice was
still a whisper.
She brought her head up, no longer in contact with him in any way. She was crying, he saw.
Crying? Why? he wondered.
Then, without warning, she broke from him and ran for the door of the classroom, crying harder
now. But Harry was too fast for her, reaching out and grabbing her wrist.
“Hermione,” he said more loudly now, and she shushed him.
“Harry,” she said in a thick voice, through her tears. “We can’t do this now. It’s too dangerous.
Until the whole Viktor and Cho thing is over, we can’t risk it. If anyone caught us together...”
“We--we can be discreet,” he said, pulling her into his arms again. She raised her tear-streaked
face to him in the moonlight.
“No, we can’t. I can’t. I--have no self-control when I’m alone with you. I--I want this too
much--”
“And you always have to be in control, don’t you?”
She pushed him away angrily. “Don’t make fun of me. But, yes. I need to be in control of
myself, and you--you make me feel anything but.”
His chest felt tight upon hearing this. I make her feel out of control, he thought. I do that. He
felt happier than he ever remembered feeling during his entire life.
“I need your help in this, Harry,” she said softly. “If you don’t help me--I’m lost--”
“Of course,” he said quickly. “Of course...”
She separated herself from him again, but did not run; they stood not touching a mere three or
four inches apart, but to Harry, it felt like a gulf a mile wide. “And sometimes,” she said,
“maybe sometimes, we can--be together. But we have to be careful. We can’t be thoughtless
and careless. No one can know about us yet.”
Harry nodded, unable to speak, in case he said other things besides Of course I’ll stay away
from you, of course I’ll refrain from kissing you, touching you...
She raised herself on tiptoe and put her hand on his bare chest; his shirt was still unbuttoned to
the waist. “Don’t think this means I don’t want you,” she said even more softly, and quickly
kissed him, her lips soft and moist and gone too soon. Hermione turned and left the classroom,
no longer running, but purposeful. Harry stood there for a moment, in agony, remembering her
hands, her lips and tongue...
He slowly buttoned his shirt and stooped to pick up his robes, then trod heavily up the stairs to
the common room, having sentenced himself to hell.
* * * * *
In Defense Against the Dark Arts, they’d finished their discussions concerning Lord of the
Flies and were supposed to start reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles. On Friday, it was finally
Ron’s turn to do his Othello presentation. Harry didn’t know what to expect, and neither did
Hermione, since he’d refused to show it to either of them. The two of them had tried to keep
Ron with them as much as possible all week, so they wouldn’t be tempted to go off alone.
He went to the front of the classroom when Moody read his name, and while he started out
reading in a monotone, he could not maintain his initial passive demeanor as he progressed
through the essay:
“Rather than taking Othello’s character in an unnatural and opposite direction, his worst
potential was realized and brought to the surface by Iago. This is not the same as corrupting someone; if Othello had truly been corrupted by Iago, we should have gotten
the impression that without his help, it would have been absolutely impossible for him
ever to behave in such a judgmental and violent manner.
“It is Othello’s facade that Iago topples, rather than just his own at the end. Othello is
not guiltless. Hate and love are very closely allied, and if he did not kill Desdemona out
of hate, it was more out of love than honor (he claims he killed out of honor). More
accurately, he killed Desdemona out of both love and hate. He killed emotionally,
without thought for consequence or determining whether he was doing the right and just
thing.
“He is no better than Desdemona’s father, Brabantio, who first tries to plant a seed of
doubt in Othello by telling him, “She has deceived her father, and may thee.” Brabantio
is like those fathers in fairy tales and myths who have such a deep love for their
daughters that the idea of any other man loving them drives them crazy. They lock up
their daughters in towers or dungeons, which are symbols of both the womb and tomb; it
is a symbolic death. Brabantio boasts that Desdemona has repudiated all of the most
eligible suitors in the city, but it could be that he has done this for her to keep her
manless; since it would be a crime for him to have her, he is determined that no man
will.
“This is why, when Desdemona confirms her allegiance to Othello in her father’s
presence, he declares that she is dead to him (she has cheated, been unfaithful). He is not
a violent man, like Othello, and so he kills her only symbolically.
“Othello is also determined that he should be the only man for Desdemona, and that she
is better off dead if this is not true. He is as selfish as Brabantio in this. But Brabantio at
least wants to hear from Desdemona’s own mouth what the truth is; he has enough faith
in her to continue to believe she has been “faithful” until she herself disproves it. Othello
may have been deceived, but he did not lack the means to determine who was telling the
truth.
“We perhaps most readily believe what we most fear to. This is why Othello immediately
credits Iago’s insinuations. The question of whether Othello acted honorably is most
easily answered if we imagine that Desdemona was guilty of dallying with Cassio.
Assuming that she did this, would we then blame Othello? Yes, we still would. Again,
using the example of her father, he could have killed her symbolically by divorcing her,
something that would have been within his rights if she had been unfaithful.
“But simply because Othello is guilty of acting without thought does not let Iago off the
hook. He acts with full thought and premeditation when avenging his wife’s suspected
infidelity, but cares as little as Othello to find out whether the accusations are grounded
in any truth.
“Furthermore, Iago kills the most honorable man in the play, Roderigo, who is prepared
to kill himself when he has lost Desdemona to Othello. Roderigo is not determined to kill
her, to keep other men from her; he does not even attempt to kill Othello. Roderigo is
guilty of nothing more than being lovesick and gullible; does no one serious harm and
bears no one malicious thoughts. When Othello kills himself, at the end, doing what
Roderigo only considered, he is finally acting honorably.”
The class clapped hands politely; Moody stomped his clawed wooden leg on the floor in lieu of
applause. Ron sat down. Hermione looked at him strangely, and Harry started to reconsider whether Ron would be dangerous to him and Hermione once he found out about them, or only
to himself. Could Ron possibly be suicidal? Harry wondered. Then something else stuck in his
brain: She has deceived her father, and may thee. She was deceiving Viktor Krum, and to a
lesser degree, Ron (since he wasn’t her boyfriend); could she ever deceive him, Harry? He tried
to quickly suppress this thought, but now Moody was speaking.
He took Ron’s parchment from the desk, where he’d left it, and read from it. “We perhaps
most readily believe what we most fear to.”
He looked at the class, his normal eye narrowed and his magical eye seeming to be focused on
the wall to his left. “We humans jump to conclusions. We make assumptions. And sometimes,
we open ourselves to darkness by doing this. We aren’t being infiltrated by it; we bring it out of
ourselves, we let it rise to the surface, we stop stopping it.”
He had been speaking very softly, but somehow, it now seemed like he was shouting, the room
was so quiet. “Do you know what happens if someone is placed under the Imperious Curse,
and then told to do something they wanted to do anyway? Something they were preventing
themselves from doing, but something they wanted very much, nonetheless? That’s when it
becomes damn near impossible to fight the Imperious Curse. When it takes away your
inhibitions. ‘Inhibition’ is a word that’s gotten a bad reputation, when it’s our inhibitions that help
us to maintain a civilized society. What would happen if every time one of us had an impulse of
any kind, we simply obeyed it? CHAOS! Just pure chaos would result!
“When someone under the Imperious Curse is told to do something against their nature, that’s
when it’s easiest to fight it, because they stand a chance of being able to distinguish in their mind
between their will and the will of the person who has cursed them. But if they are told to do
something that is a deeply suppressed longing--TROUBLE.”
With a jolt, Harry remembered Hermione describing her abduction in the marketplace in
Bulgaria: I suddenly felt all lightheaded and floaty....I tried fighting it, but there was
nothing to fight, I wasn’t being told to do anything I didn’t want to do. I decided that I
had an incredible urge to buy vegetables, but that’s what I was already there for. I
remember being very confused, like I was waiting for instructions, but they didn’t come.
Had the instructions come from within herself? Harry wondered. Was it something against her
nature they were urging her to do--or were they removing her inhibitions? Which inhibitions? he
started to wonder, but then he immediately stopped wondering, and remembered her saying I
want this too much. She was normally so in control, but now he made her feel out of control,
she had said. Did he make her feel that way, or was it a curse? Would she have done any of
what she had of her own volition, if she were fully able to govern her own actions, to decide
which impulses to bury and which to give in to?
He was suddenly so full of doubts, it seemed that his head was spinning. He sat through the rest
of the lesson in a fog, at the end hearing vaguely Moody growling to Ron, “Oh, and Weasley:
twenty-five points for Gryffindor. Best damn essay I’ve gotten all term.”
He saw Ron’s ears go red as he tried to hide how pleased he was. Then, without warning, when
they were out in the corridor, Ron stopped Harry and Hermione.
“Hey, you two. Wait a minute.”
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, then Ron. Did Ron already suspect something?
“What’s up with you two?” He turned to Hermione. “Ginny said you’ve been begging her to
come running with you, when she hates getting up early.” Aha, thought Harry. She told me
Ginny asked to come. “And all week, at breakfast and in each class you’ve been trying to put me in between you. Don’t deny it, I can tell. Did you two fight or something? Because I hate
when these things go on and on. Just kiss and make up already.”
Harry winced. It’s just an expression, he reminded himself. Just an expression.
“Well, to tell you the truth,” Hermione was saying shakily, “we did have a disagreement. And--
it’s not going to be solved anytime soon, so you’ll just have to deal.”
“What?” Ron said, not having gotten any real information.
“We’ve agreed to disagree,” Harry said vaguely, before Ron could ask more questions. But this
did not end it.
Ron leaned in closer to Harry and said quietly, “This isn’t about being a Death Eater, is it?”
“No. I’m not going to become a Death Eater. I promise. Can we just go to Transfiguration
now?”
Ron looked at the two of them, dissatisfied with their answers; he looked like he could tell they
were hiding something. He turned without a word and strode away from them, his red hair like a
flame lighting the corridor, his lanky six-foot-two frame moving easily, his slightly frayed robes
billowing out behind him with a dignity Harry had never seen him muster before. He felt his
stomach clench. I’m lying to my best friend. Then he looked at Hermione.
Is she under a spell?
He tried to shrug nonchalantly at her and turned to follow Ron.
We have to stay apart.
We have to stay apart.
* * * * *
