Harry cried out, then clamped his hand over his mouth. He bit into the back of his hand to stifle
his cry, drawing blood. His scar had never hurt so badly. He tried doing the pain management,
the floating...but it was no good. This was real, physical pain. When it was just a spell, just the
illusion of pain, he could remind himself that it wasn’t real, that no one was actually, physically
hurting him. But this kind of agony was no illusion. There was no blocking it, no way to escape
it. He thought his head would explode...
He had skipped dinner, because he had felt so exhausted, climbing up the stairs after the
Dueling Club. He had started up the stairs all right. He had thrown off a lot of pain during the
duels, especially when he was up against Malfoy, but it caught up with him while he was
climbing the stairs to Gryffindor Tower. Suddenly, not remembering how, he collapsed. Alicia
and Hermione were bending over him, shaking him. Had he blacked out?
Then Ron had taken Alicia’s place, catching up with them, and, leaning on Ron and Hermione,
he had managed to get back up to the tower. They took him up to the fifth-year dorm. Harry
remembered very little. They put him in bed, closing the curtains around him. He vaguely
remembered that Neville had been in the room, reading on his bed.
He took his hand out of his mouth; the shape of his teeth showed in a bloody imprint on the soft
flesh between his thumb and index finger on his right hand. And now he realized that that hurt
like hell, too. But the scar was still worse. He closed his eyes, panting, growling low in his
throat. Maybe he could transform into the golden griffin until the pain went away, he thought. He
didn’t have to worry about Sandy; he wasn’t wearing her. He’d left her by the fire in the
common room during the dueling, not wanting to risk her getting hurt (and not wanting Ron and
Hermione to accuse him of cheating). As a griffin, I don’t have a scar, he thought. And the pain
of the transfiguration was nothing compared to this.
He pulled back the covers, crouching on the mattress, willing his bones, his skin, his hair and
eyes to metamorphosize into the golden griffin. He felt the change come over him, felt the pads
of his paws on the blanket, a mane tickling his back and face, his tail swishing back and forth.
He felt the usual pain too, but he welcomed it, it receded in importance, became a kind of
background noise. The scar torment became a thing of memory. He hunkered down on the bed,
his front paws kneading the blankets instinctively. He put his chin on his paws, closing his eyes.
Maybe he could actually sleep like this, find some respite from the pain.
He was starting to drift off, enjoying the feeling of his own purring motor resonating throughout
his body, lulling his brain to sleep. Then he was aware of a step on the stone floor, and suddenly
he heard his bedcurtains pulled aside. He opened his eyes to see Neville standing at his bedside,
framed by the red hangings.
He had forgotten about Neville, whose mouth was open in shock. Then Neville’s brain
connected to his mouth. “Aaaaaah!” Neville screamed. Harry immediately returned to his
human form and clamped his hand over Neville’s mouth, making him produce a strangled
sound. Neville’s eyes were very large; Harry slowly removed his hand from his mouth and
Neville swallowed and tried to speak. “You--you’re--you’re--”
“Ssssshh!” Harry hissed at him. He whispered, “Don’t say anything! McGonagall’s been
training me in private. No one’s supposed to know yet.”
Neville nodded, his eyes as wide as ever, his mouth still open. Suddenly, the curtains on Harry’s
right were swept open. Ron stood there, looking concerned. Harry turned to him, then looked
back at Neville, pleading silently for him to keep his secret. Neville gave a very small nod, but
Harry never really seriously thought that Neville wouldn’t keep his word; somehow he knew he
could trust him completely.
“What’s wrong, Harry?” Ron wanted to know, his breathing irregular. “Is it your scar again?”
Harry nodded, his hand on his head, even though the pain was duller, less piercing. He checked
his watch; it was only six-thirty in the evening. Ron must have skipped dinner, stayed in the
dorm to be near him. Harry ached inside, thinking of what a good friend Ron was, how little he
deserved him. Even now, he was still keeping the Animagus training from him, and Neville
knew. In fact, he realized, Neville was the first person apart from McGonagall and Dumbledore
who had seen his transfigured form. Even Ginny, who had guessed what he was up to, hadn’t
actually seen him change, and still thought he was planning to be a lion. Of course, Neville
probably thought he was a lion too, he realized.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, fumbling on the bedside table for his glasses. Ron
sat next to him, still looking very concerned. Then Harry heard a small squeak, and Ron said,
“Okay, sweetheart, you want to come out?” and took Argent from the inside of his shirt, where
she had been nestled. She was still quite small, although weaned from Bainbridge now, and Ron
had been in the habit of letting the kitten ride around inside his shirt when he could; sometimes
Harry had heard her mewing in class, while Ron sat, wide-eyed with innocence, and the
professors paced around the room, looking for the source of the noise.
He held the small kitten in his hands now. She rubbed the side of her face against his palm,
purring loudly, and Harry smiled, watching her. It was impossible not to smile at a kitten,
especially this kitten. Harry watched Ron’s face as he watched her too; his expression softened
whenever he looked at her, clearly showing how he had fallen for this little ball of fluff.
Harry had been surprised by Ron’s relationship with Argent. Thus far, Harry’s experience of
Ron and pets had been Scabbers, Errol and Pig. Scabbers, of course, wasn’t really a rat but the
dark wizard Wormtail. Still, Ron had spent quite a lot of time insulting him and complaining
about him (although he’d been livid when he thought Hermione’s cat Crookshanks had eaten
him). Scabbers was also yet another hand-me-down, something which reminded Ron of his
family’s poverty (the rat used to be Percy’s). Errol wasn’t really Ron’s owl, but he had been
allowed to use him; being quite elderly, Errol was winded by even the shortest flight carrying the
smallest piece of mail. Pigwidgeon, on the other hand, had enthusiasm to spare, but Ron was
constantly frustrated by his manic behavior and the fact that his diminutive size prohibited him from carrying large packages as much as Errol’s advanced years did.
Now here he was, almost constantly carrying around this tiny creature who was so attached to
him, cooing to her the corniest endearments and letting her climb all over him. Harry had seen
that Ron had claw marks all over his arms and legs and chest and shoulders when Ron was
changing his clothes. When Argent climbed up his robes and her claws went too deep, he
merely winced, waiting for her to reach his shoulder, and she would rub against the side of his
face and purr in his ear.
After what seemed like a long silence between them, punctuated by Argent’s squeaks and
mews, Ron said, “Hermione should be back from dinner. Do you want to tell us both what
made your scar hurt?”
Harry nodded, swallowing, still watching the kitten. If only my life could be that uncomplicated,
he thought. Eat, sleep, wash, purr and look at someone with big eyes so that they’ll pet me.
He struggled to stand, and when he seemed about to fall backward onto the bed again, Ron
reached out his hand to steady him. Argent sat on his shoulder, claws sunk into his robes, but
Ron didn’t seem to mind. They walked down to the common room, Harry leaning heavily on the
railing. They found Ginny and Hermione sitting in armchairs by the fire, talking excitedly about
the dueling, but they stopped when they saw Ron and Harry. Both girls stood, alarmed at the
sight of him.
“Harry!” Hermione said first. “What are you doing out of bed? You’re pale as a ghost!”
“Go back to bed, Harry,” Ginny said, putting her hand on his arm, then on his cheek. “You
don’t look well.” Then she moved her hand to his forehead, as if checking for a fever, but when
she made contact with the scar, he cried out, closing his eyes and knocking her arm away.
“Ow--” she started to moan, then stifled this when she saw the looks on Ron’s and Hermione’s
faces. Hermione looked very, very grim.
“Harry--it’s your scar, isn’t it?” Hermione said softly.
He opened his eyes, looking at her dully, nodded. Then he turned to Ginny, who was still
holding her arm. “Sorry, Ginny,” he mumbled. She shrugged, letting go of her arm reluctantly, as
though she were only trying to make him think she wasn’t hurt.
He staggered to one of the empty armchairs by the fire, sat down heavily. He started speaking
in a low voice as the others moved to sit in the other chairs.
“Voldemort is going after Muggles now. I saw him. It was a tube station. It--blew up...” he hit
the arm of the chair repeatedly, frowning, his eyes squeezed shut. Suddenly his eyes flew open.
He remembered. He knew. “It was Westminster.”
“Westminster!” Hermione squealed. Ron and Ginny looked at her strangely; they didn’t know
why this was significant. “Westminster,” she said again, softly. “That’s right near Parliament,
and Westminster Abbey. And from Parliament Square, you can walk along Whitehall to
Trafalgar Square...”
But Harry was remembering something else. Something to do with his name...why couldn’t he
remember?
“Oh, Harry, do you think he was targeting Parliament?”
He shook his head, looking at the fire. “I have no idea. I saw--all of these people on the
platform, waiting. Mothers with--with children...old people...” he swallowed; his throat felt very
tight.
“Harry,” Ginny said softly, “Is there any chance that it--that it wasjust a dream? That it didn’t
really happen?”
Harry shook his head again. “I wish. But whenever my scar hurts like that--”
“You have to go to Dumbledore,” Hermione jumped in. He looked up at Ron and Ginny, who
both nodded agreement. He swallowed again, knowing they were right. He rose and went to
the portrait hole, the others following him. He turned and put out his hands to stop them.
“I--I need to go alone. Wait here. Please.” They looked doubtfully at each other. “I’ll be fine.
Really. The pain’s not so bad now. Please,” he said again. They nodded and let him go.
But as soon as he was in the corridor, he realized he didn’t want to go alone after all. He started
to give the password to go back in, but he realized that he wasn’t interested in Ron or Hermione
or Ginny coming along. He wanted to talk to someone else.
Without thinking, he started down the stairs. Down, down, down--until he was in the dungeons
and knocking at Snape’s office door.
“Alohomora!” came the reply, causing the door to swing open suddenly. Harry stepped into the
room cautiously. Snape was sitting at his desk, reading essays. There was a large pile of rolled
pieces of parchment on the desk; he would probably be working quite late. He could have had
all of that done already if he hadn’t accepted responsibility for the Dueling Club, Harry realized.
Perhaps Snape realized that too. He looked up at Harry, irritated, snarling, “What is it, Potter?
Can’t wait until tomorrow for the Club standings? Well, you’re still ranked first, the only one still
undefeated. Happy? Now, I have essays to grade. You may go.”
But Harry stood in the doorway still, holding onto the jamb for support.
“Potter? Are you all right?” Snape tried to sound surly still, but he didn’t completely succeed.
Harry shook his head. “I didn’t--didn’t come for the standings. The dueling exhausted me,
especially throwing off the pain. The Hara Kiri--”
Snape frowned. “Yes. Technically, that’s not illegal in this country, but if it looked as though you
couldn’t handle it, I’d have aborted the duel and suspended Mr. Malfoy from the club.”
“Don’t do that,” Harry said feebly, feeling weaker and weaker. Snape actually looked
concerned, trying to hide it beneath a sneer.
“Come, Potter,” he said briskly, getting up and guiding him to the wing chair by the fire. “That’s
what chairs are for,” he added, still trying to maintain a churlish demeanor, but the edge was
gone from his voice.
Harry sank into the chair gratefully. Snape sat at his desk again. Harry looked around the office.
He’d never really looked around when he’d come in to use the Pensieve or when he’d been
hiding under his Invisibility Cloak. In addition to the shelves and shelves of carefully labeled
potions ingredients, there were dozens of potions texts lining the walls as well; many did not
appear to be in English, or even written with Roman letters. On the spines of a few texts he
recognized Greek letters, Cyrillic, something that could be Chinese or Japanese, and others that
he assumed were ancient runes, simply because he did not recognize them. A broom stood in
the corner behind Snape; it looked old and slow. Then Harry realized that Snape’s robes were
rather frayed at the edges, the tips of his shoes showing beneath his black robes looked scuffed
and muddy.
There were no photos of family members waving at him, no friends or former students who had
sent signed pictures with their best regards and thanks--not even Slytherins. It was the office of
a lonely man. An alone man.
“I don’t know if Sirius told you about my dream. On Christmas night,” Harry said suddenly.
Snape looked at him impassively.
“Yes.” His face betrayed no emotion.
“Well,” Harry went on, “I saw--I saw you. Looking like Lucius Malfoy. I saw you pulling
Karkaroff and Draco Malfoy away from the Death Eaters and Voldemort. Then, when he did
the killing curse, I didn’t know--I didn’t know who had died...”
Harry tried to keep his voice even, but it was difficult. He wanted him to know he was glad it
was Karkaroff, but that didn’t seem right. He wanted to say he was glad it wasn’t Snape, but he
couldn’t get the words out, somehow.
“Karkaroff was stupid. And a coward,” Snape said bitterly. “But he didn’t deserve to die. Not like that.”
Harry nodded. No one deserved to die like that. He thought of Cedric. He thought of Snape,
holding his mother, crying, her green eyes staring into the night sky which had had its
constellations augmented by the Dark Mark...
“I had another dream,” he said abruptly.
“The Dark Lord?” Snape said apprehensively. Harry nodded. “Where?”
“In London. The Westminster tube station. Near Parliament. It was--it was full of people going
home for the evening. It blew up.” Harry’s voice caught. “There were little kids...”
Snape interrupted him. “Enough.” He stood and went to the mantel. He picked some powder
out of a ceramic bowl next to what looked like a pickled toad in a jar, and, throwing the
powder into the fire, he said, “Remus Lupin.”
The flames turned green, then a moment later, Sirius’ head appeared to be nestled in among the
coals in the firebox.
“Hello, Severus. Oh, hello, Harry. Didn’t expect to see you. And if you’d called at this time
tomorrow, you wouldn’t have gotten me. Or Remus, of course. Full moon, next three nights.
Remus is at work right now. Why did you call?”
Snape nodded grimly at Harry. He turned to the flames.
“I had another dream.” Sirius looked very frightened.
“Tell me about it.”
So Harry described it; the people in the station, the train coming in, seeing Voldemort’s face,
the explosion, and waking up with his scar hurting.
“Sirius,” Snape said when Harry was done. “Didn’t I see one of those Muggle contraptions
when I was there, one of those--tellies? Can you get any information from it? Or from the
wireless?”
“I’ll try both the television and the radio. Can I call you back?” Snape nodded. Sirius’ face
disappeared from the flames and they returned to their normal red-orange-yellow glow.
Harry turned to Snape, confused. “They have electricity there?” Snape looked at Harry as if he
were hopelessly naive.
“There’s no work for Remus Lupin in the wizarding world, any more than there is for Sirius
Black. Remus lives in a flat in Manchester, works as a night watchman in a warehouse. On nights with a full moon, if he has to work he locks himself into the warehouse. If Sirius is around,
he goes with him, stays with him in dog form. His employers also gave him a gun, for the guard
job. When the moon is full, Sirius puts bullets into the gun that he made special--bullets made of
silver. Remus has made him promise that if it looks like he could possibly get out or hurt
someone in any way, he will use the gun.”
It took Harry a moment to register the fact that Snape and Sirius and Lupin all seemed to be on
a first-name basis, finally. Then he realized what Lupin had asked Sirius to do. “He wants Sirius
to shoot him?” Harry whispered.
“Silver is the only thing that can kill a werewolf, Potter,” Snape said matter-of-factly. Harry
nodded, looking down at his hands, trying to imagine his best friend asking him to do the same.
If Ron asked him to kill him, could he ever do it? Dueling was one thing, but this--
The time seemed to drag, but Harry checked his watch and saw that it was only five minutes
since Sirius’ head had disappeared from the fireplace. Suddenly, he was back.
“Severus, Harry, I have bad news,” he began. “The tube station--Westminster--it’s very bad.
They’re going to be getting bodies out all night. It’s on every channel, and it’s the only story on
the radio. Even music stations have stopped playing music and are just reporting this. So far
they’ve removed twenty-two bodies and gotten nine people out who survived--but they’re all
very iffy. All critical, being rushed to hospital by helicopter. The P.M. has evacuated the houses
of Parliament; it’s Sunday night, but here are always some government drones slogging away in
an office somewhere. Scotland Yard’s on site--they won’t find anything, of course. I could
probably Apparate right down into the tunnel, see what it looks like, but I don’t dare with all the
Muggle police around. My picture’s still hanging up in police stations around the country.
Luckily, that actually makes me a typical resident here in Remus’ neighborhood...”
“How do we tell the Ministry of Magic that it was Voldemort?” Harry wanted to know.
“We don’t. Fudge doesn’t want to admit he was wrong about his return. We go with the media.
I have a contact who can make sure the Voldemort connection gets into the Daily Prophet
without your name being mentioned, Harry. The last thing we need is for Voldemort to find out
about your dreams.”
Damn! thought Harry. Draco Malfoy knows about the dreams. And I still don’t really know
what side he’s on...
“Oh, and Severus,” Sirius went on. “That operative has the samples. You’ll be receiving them
tomorrow. How long before you can run the test?”
“It will take about thirty-six hours,” Snape replied.
Harry frowned. “What test?”
“Well, Harry, you suggested that we need to find out about Krum,” Sirius said.
“But,” Harry said, confused, “I thought you said you were going to get the samples.”
“I couldn’t possibly, Harry. The Krums all know what I look like as a dog, from last summer.”
That means Viktor Krum knows, Harry realized. More possible trouble. “It needed to be
someone else.” Harry was going to say, But you mentioned being an unregistered Animagus--
when he suddenly thought he knew how the samples had been obtained. If you don’t mind
answering to an obsolete dingbat... Suddenly, he also knew who the contact at the Prophet
was...
“At any rate, I’ll send you all the Muggle papers I can get my hands on concerning the attack.
The gits on Fleet Street are going to be wetting themselves--oh, pardon me, Harry--”
Harry grimaced. “I’m fifteen, Sirius, not five.”
Sirius smiled at him. “Right. I got that point the last time I saw you...Well. I’m off to monitor the
news reports some more. I wish Remus had something better than a nine-inch black and white--
and I’ll go to the corner news agency first thing in the morning. I’ll send the papers using
Remus’ owl. He’s pretty hardy, can take quite a load. Have you told Dumbledore yet?”
Snape stepped in. “I’ll tell the headmaster. Harry needs to get some rest; we had Dueling Club
this afternoon.”
Sirius smiled at Harry. “So! How’d you do?”
Snape answered before he could get his mouth open. “After three weeks and fifteen duels, he’s
got fifteen wins. Only one who’s undefeated.” His voice was flat and emotionless. Harry looked
at him, perplexed. “Harry threw off quite a lot of pain. Draco Malfoy used the Hara Kiri on him.
He’s exhausted.”
Sirius drew in his breath. “Hara Kiri? And you just--threw it off?”
This time Snape let him answer. “Yeah. Only afterward, I felt like--like I could barely walk.”
“Well, you do as Severus says and get some rest. It sounds like he can talk to Dumbledore. I
can give him a call, too, before I go back to monitoring the media. Take care of yourself, Harry.
Are you going up to Dumbledore’s now, Severus?” Snape answered in the affirmative. “All
right. I’ll give you a chance to get up there, then call in a few minutes. Good night, Harry.”
“Good night,” he said to his godfather. And he was gone. Suddenly, Harry realized something
very odd had happened; when Snape had been talking to Sirius, he had referred to him as
“Harry.” Twice. It was almost as strange as hearing Malfoy say his first name.
Then he thought about Sirius’ reaction to his throwing off the Hara Kiri curse, and also Snape’s reaction, and Malfoy’s. Why was he able to do it? Why was he able to almost completely
overcome the Imperius Curse the first time Crouch had put it on him the previous year?
“Why was I able to do that?” he suddenly said aloud, unable to stop his thoughts from coming
out of his mouth. He looked up at Snape. “I mean--can you ask the headmaster for me? I--I
don’t understand. Is it the same as being a Parselmouth? Is it something I got from Voldemort
when he tried to kill me? It was like, once Moody told us we could do it, if our minds were
strong enough--I knew I could do it. Last year, when I was in that graveyard...” but he couldn’t
continue for a moment, remembering some of the more gruesome details of that day. “I mean--
Voldemort put the Cruciatus Curse on me twice, and it was--” He shook his head. “I couldn’t
breath properly afterward, it hurt so much. But just knowing now that I can stop some kinds of
pain, somehow--I did it.”
Snape looked at him blankly. A silence hung between them as Harry looked desperately back
at him. Finally, Snape said softly, “I don’t know, Potter. I can ask the headmaster.”
He was Potter again. He would say Harry’s first name when referring to him in the third person,
but not when addressing him...Harry nodded and followed Snape out into the dungeon, looking
briefly over his shoulder at the pile of parchment rolls still on Snape’s desk; he’d be up until all
hours finishing that now.
They walked together up to the entrance hall, silently. From here, Snape went up another
staircase, away from the marble stairs to Gryffindor Tower, without a backward glance or
another word to Harry. Harry had never gone that way to Dumbledore’s office before. Perhaps
Snape knew a shortcut.
But suddenly, Harry felt faint again. He leaned against the stone wall, watching the small black
dots before his eyes grow larger and larger, blending into each other, one swallowing its
neighbor swallowing its other neighbor, watching them begin to dance in whirling patterns,
watching them expand until they blotted out the wavering torchlight...
* * * * *
“Aaahhhh!” Harry screamed. He was shivering and soaking wet. Near-freezing water ran in
rivulets down his cheeks from his hair, his robes were acting as conduits for streams of water
which were now flowing into his shoes. His glasses were covered with drops of water, blurring
his vision, and he had inhaled some water as well, making him sputter and choke as he lay on
the cold stone floor of the entrance hall.
“Wheeeeee!” Peeves cackled with glee as he flew about the hall, now rightside-up, now
upside-down, now twirling in a spiral and going in a circuit around the hall at the same time.
Harry looked up at him, still coming around, finding himself thinking, oddly, That would be a
good trick on a broom... Then he struggled to his feet; the cold water squelched in his shoes as he walked. He looked
around, then took his glasses off, touched them with his wand, saying, “Impervious.” His glasses
now free of water, he put them on, looking around the entrance hall, feeling strangely alert.
Peeves might have done him a favor; the impromptu cold shower seemed to have been just the
thing to wake him up. Then suddenly, his stomach growled as it hadn’t since the time between
Dudley starting his diet after Harry finished third year and the arrival of his birthday cakes from
his friends and Mrs. Weasley. A feral, animal sound generated from deep within him. A wild
sound...
He smiled up at Peeves, who was still showing off his aerobatic abilities. “Thanks, Peeves. That
was just what I needed, I think.” He turned to go up the marble steps that would eventually lead
him to Gryffindor Tower (squelch!squelch!), then decided that what he really needed to do was
go down to the kitchens for a bite.
But Peeves was appalled by being thanked for his prank. “Thanks! I drop ten water balloons
on you and all you can say is THANKS? Whatever happened to, ‘Sod off, Peeves?’ Whatever
happened to name calling? No ‘git,’ no ‘prat,’ not even a ‘get away from me?’”
But Harry only smiled at him, pushing his damp hair off his forehead, going through the door
leading to the stairs down to the kitchens. Behind him, Peeves was still suffering from his attack
of poltergeist-inadequacy.
“WHAT ABOUT A ‘GO TO HELL, PEEVES?’”
Harry turned to him briefly before closing the door. “Well, if you could, you’d hardly be here,
would you?” he said calmly.
He closed the door behind him, smiling as he heard Peeves lose it further. His scream of
“Aaaaaaaargh!” was probably heard all over the castle, and would undoubtedly result in
someone else--someone he could more effectively needle--being tortured by Peeves in the notso-
distant future.
Harry descended the stairs, then found the still-life of fruit. After tickling the pear to get it to turn
into a door handle, he opened the door to the kitchens, his stomach moving within him with
hunger as soon as the delicious smells wafted into his nose and from there into the part of his
brain responsible for telling him to eat. Food. Never had he felt so hungry, somehow. Never
had he wanted food so badly...
The after-dinner clean-up was in full swing. Elves were putting scouring charms on pots and
pans and reshelving washed dishes and goblets by flying them around the tall room. Harry
spotted Dobby and an elf that looked almost like Winky, but not quite; she also had large
brown eyes and was wearing clothes, but she actually looked happy about this. She wore what
appeared to be a dress meant for a large doll or a small baby. It was pink, with a floppy white
collar and a little yellow duck embroidered over the chest. Smaller yellow ducks marched
around the hem of the garment, which came below her knees, so that it threatened to look like a miniature ball gown. On her head, however, she wore an incongruous ski cap with holes cut for
her ears. It was patterned in green, orange, purple and red. She wore mismatched socks, as
Dobby always did, one a grey, red and black argyle pattern, the other a brown and tan
herringbone.
Dobby’s face almost split in two, his grin was so wide when he saw Harry. “Harry Potter! You
is coming to visit me!” he crowed in his squeaky voice, bouncing around Harry excitedly. Harry
smiled at him. “Harry Potter, you must meet someone! This is Biddy!”
Biddy smiled nervously and gave a little curtsey. “Hello, Biddy,” Harry said. “So, you decided
to ask for clothes on New Year’s Day. That’s great!”
Biddy looked down and away, smiling but looking like she was trying not to. Was she blushing?
Harry wondered. He couldn’t tell. Dobby stood beside her and put his hand on her arm. “Biddy
isn’t being sure about clothes, not at first. But we is--we is going to be getting married and
starting a family...and I is telling Biddy that I only wants to be with another free elf!”
Harry’s mouth dropped open. “Dobby! That’s great! Congratulations. But--you can’t be
marrying all of the elves who asked for clothes. How did you convince the others?”
“Oh, they is thinking about it for a long time. They is like me, but they is not wanting to say. The
other elves...” Well, thought Harry. Dobby didn’t need to tell him what the other elves were
like.
“Dobby, do you think I could get something to eat? I missed dinner and I’m starving.” Before
he knew what was happening, Harry had been seated and about fifteen house elves had brought
him six kinds of meat (three kinds of beef alone), four vegetables, three loaves of bread, and
several goblets of pumpkin juice. Harry laughed, shaking his head. He reached for some bread
and began to cut himself a slice. “Can you sit down with me, Dobby?” Harry asked, wanting to
be polite.
“Wait; there is someone who is wanting to meet you, Harry Potter.”
Dobby disappeared with a pop, and Biddy went back to work, looking slightly embarrassed
when Harry looked at her, so he stopped doing that (although he was fascinated to see the elf
who was going to be Dobby’s wife) and just concentrated on working out what food he was
going to eat next. He had a little of everything, it seemed, eating as though he wouldn’t again for
years...
When he felt he couldn’t hold one crumb more, Dobby reappeared, and five other elves
popped in with him. Dobby introduced them to him as Blat, Tiggy, Pinny, Quiff and Zenana.
They were all wearing an interesting variety of clothes (or at least, things made of fabric that they
were using as clothes, such as Dobby’s tea-cozy hat; Harry thought Tiggy’s skirt looked like it
was made of a lampshade covered with several antimacassars). After the introductions were
done, the elves dispersed to continue cleaning. Harry turned to Dobby and said, “Where are the others? I thought you said there were nine.” Even including Biddy, there were only six elves
besides Dobby wearing clothes.
Dobby looked somewhat embarrassed. “I is sorry, Harry Potter. Three is changing their minds.
But seven free elves at Hogwarts is better than none!” he exclaimed, smiling again. Harry was
glad Hermione wasn’t present.
“I suppose you’re right, Dobby. They’re very lucky to have you, you know. You can show
them the ropes, take them where you go on your day off. Show them around Hogsmeade.”
Dobby looked embarrassed again. “Well, Harry Potter, I isn’t really able to do that, because--I
is never taking a day off. Boxing Day is my first day off ever...”
“Dobby!” Harry said, trying to sound stern, but not doing very well. “Dumbledore gave you a
day off a month. You should take it! What kind of example are you setting for the others?”
Dobby grimaced, looking down and scuffing his foot on the floor. Harry sighed. “All right. The
next Hogsmeade weekend is February tenth. Come into the village with me and my friends.
We’ll show you round. Promise? You’ll make sure Biddy and the others come too?”
Dobby smiled gratefully at Harry, as though he were saving him from himself. “I promise, Harry
Potter. I promise! I is going to tell the others we is going to Hogsmeade with Harry Potter!”
And he popped out of the kitchen, making Harry smile and shake his head again.
* * * * *
Harry was feeling rather better after eating, but he still decided to skip the prefects’ meeting. He
didn’t imagine that Roger or the other Ravenclaws would be especially civil to him after what
happened during the Dueling Club. He told Ron about what Sirius had said about the news
reports and sending the papers, asking him to inform Hermione when she returned from the
meeting. He went back to bed, taking Sandy with him, and fell into a deep, deep sleep, and if he
had dreams, he didn’t remember them--which was how he preferred it.
He rose as usual to run the next morning, meeting Hermione in the common room to stretch.
They didn’t talk; Hermione was sneaking concerned looks at him while she stretched, but he
pretended not to notice. When they reached the entrance hall, they saw the new club standings
posted there, posted next to the Quidditch standings. So far, Gryffindor was ahead slightly with
three-hundred and ten points, while Slytherin had defeated Hufflepuff by a score of twohundred
and ninety to forty. Ravenclaw had also beaten Hufflepuff earlier in the fall, by twohundred
ten to fifty. Harry wasn’t even sure he cared about Quidditch anymore. He scanned
down the dueling standings lackadaisically.
Rank: 1 / Wins: 15 : Potter
Rank: 2 / Wins: 14 : (Tie) Granger, V. Weasley
Rank: 3 / Wins: 13 : (Tie) Spinnet, Malfoy
Rank: 4 / Wins: 10 : Davies
Rank: 5 / Wins: 8 (Tie): Johnson, L. Quirke, R. Weasley
Rank: 6 / Wins: 7 (Tie): Crabbe, Goyle, N. Quirke, G. Weasley
Rank: 7 / Wins: 5 (Tie): Finch-Fletchley, Bulstrode
Rank: 8 / Wins: 3 (Tie): Abbott, MacMillan
Rank: 9 / Wins: 2 : Chang
Rank: 10 / Wins: 1 : Creevey
Rank: 11 / Wins: 0 : Brocklehurst
Harry gave it a disinterested glance; it didn’t seem to matter any more. Voldemort was going
into London, killing people randomly, not just going after former Death Eaters like Karkaroff.
No one was safe any more. No place was safe, with the possible exception of Hogwarts.
Hermione also looked at the standings, frowning. “Let’s see,” she said softly, in that voice she
got when she was thinking aloud, working out an Arithmancy problem. “The only one I haven’t
beaten is you, and the only one Ginny hasn’t beaten is me, and both you and Ginny beat
Malfoy...”
“Hermione, can you obsess over this later? I’ll just start running without you...” She tore herself
away from the parchment, looking embarrassed. “It’s just--”
“--that you’re used to getting full marks? Not used to being number two?”
She bowed her head, her lips in a line, but the edges of her mouth smiling slightly. “At least the
one I’m number two to is you. If it were Malfoy...”
He smiled. “You get to duel him next time. You can get him back for all those names he’s called
you...”
She looked thoughtful. “You know, it’s not that I mind ‘Mudblood.’ I mean, since I grew up in
the Muggle world, it just doesn’t carry the meaning for me it does for people like Ron and
Ginny. It’s just the wayMalfoy says it, the way he makes it sound like I eat out of a toilet or
something...”
“Hermione!” Harry made a face.
“Oh, you know what I mean. Think of the most disgusting thing you can, and fill in the blank.
That’s what he’s saying when he insults me. It’s his tone, not the word that gets to me...”
Harry looked at her; Malfoy was actually hurting her when he said those things, he realized. She
was able to be strong enough to cover, but it had really cut deep. Usually it was Ron who leapt
into the breach when these things occurred, attacking Malfoy in her defense. Harry had thought
it was because Ron was more sensitive to the slur “Mudblood” than he was. Why hadn’t Harry
ever noticed that before? Ron had never, ever failed to defend Hermione when she was
attacked. Had Hermione noticed? he wondered. Or did she think of those deeds as the actions
of a loyal dog, her companion and defender, nothing more?
After they finished running and stretching again, they went up to shower and change. Malfoy
wasn’t in the bath when Harry went. He must be getting up at the crack of dawn to bathe
without anyone being able to see his arm, Harry thought. I hope he’s losing plenty of sleep.
When he and Ron and Hermione were seated at the Gryffindor table, eating breakfast, Harry
heard a rush of wings overhead, and he looked up at the ceiling of the Great Hall. The sky
today was like flat white muslin, a typical winter sky, now filled with brown and black and grey
and tawny owls, banking and circling, looking for the individuals they were supposed to find,
dropping parcels into laps, perching on students’ shoulders while they untied parchments from
their legs.
A barn owl with russet wing tips dropped a large bundle of newspapers tied with twine into
Harry’s lap; a smaller tawny owl brought Hermione her Daily Prophet subscription. She usually
read the wizarding paper over breakfast in a careless fashion, glancing over the front page,
skimming the inside pages for anything about developments in transfiguration or charms, giving
Ginny the horoscope, letting Ron have the Quidditch page.
But today, she sat staring at the front page in disbelief, two deep lines between her brows from
her frowning so severely. She and Ron were sitting across from Harry. Ron looked at her now.
“What is it?” he wanted to know, yet sounding like he didn’t. He took the paper from her.
“Hermione--there’s nothing here about the Westminster tube station...”
“That’s just it!” she whispered. “There’s nothing there! Fudge must have quashed the story!”
“Well,” Harry said grimly. “He didn’t manage to get it quashed in the Muggle papers.” He held
up the top paper in the stack Sirius had sent. The headline read, 43 DEAD, 19 WOUNDED
IN ATTACK ON PARLIAMENT TUBE STATION. Ginny sat down next to him, taking the
paper from him.
“Oh, Harry,” she breathed, starting to read the story. Harry passed papers to Hermione and
Ron, then picked up another one himself. TERRORIST ATTACK UNDERGROUND, said a
headline. SCOTTISH SEPARATISTS CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY FOR WESTMINSTER BOMBING, said another. PALESTINIAN GROUP TAKES CREDIT FOR 46 KILLED IN
TUBE STATION.
“Forty-six?” Ron said. “Thought it was forty-three.”
“Mine says forty-nine,” Hermione said. “And it’s supposed to be Pakistani religious
extremists...”
“Afghans,” said Ginny, looking at a different paper.
Harry picked up another paper. “This one says both Catholic and Protestant terrorist groups
from Northern Ireland are claiming they did it.”
Ginny pulled another paper from the stack. “Fifty-two dead and Scotland Yard is saying
something about a Colombian drug cartel. What’s a cartel?”
“Like the Death Eaters. Gang of people who work for a drug-kingpin. They have a network for
distributing the drugs.” Harry’s voice sounded like it didn’t belong to him. So many people
dead, he thought. And all these sick fringe groups so anxious to pretend that they did it, the
police pointing the finger at people they knew the public hated anyway, people who had
probably done plenty of horrible things for which they’d never been punished.
Harry remembered witches and wizards talking in hushed voices about Voldemort’s previous
reign of terror. He remembered that when Wormtail had framed Sirius for his own murder and
had killed that street full of Muggles, the Ministry of Magic had come quickly to the spot,
throwing around memory charms, whisking Sirius off to Azkaban without a trial.
But even then, it was only a dozen or so people killed, nothing like the numbers from the tube
station. He thought of Moody saying that Muggles were far more dangerous than wizards, had
killed far more people.
Voldemort had raised the stakes.
Suddenly, Sandy hissed under his robes, “A griffin will meet with a serpent.” Like in the
Pensieve. Did she mean Gryffindor and Slytherin again? And if so, who did she mean?
“Oh, Harry,” Ginny said again. Harry looked at her. She looked even more horrified than she
had before. “Look--” she handed him the paper she’d been reading. He followed her finger
down the column.
“You read it,” Harry said, after he got a brief glimpse of what it said.
“The BBC,” read Ginny softly, “reported that when rescuers were finally able to enter the
station proper, they found the word POTTER scrawled on the wall in an unknown green
substance. Since the BBC has reported this, a number of groups heretofore unknown to the police have claimed responsibility. Among them are Pagans of the True Earth Resurrected,
People Obliged to Treat Everyone Rotten, and Proponents of Traditional Trades Expressing
Rage.”
Ron laughed. “That’s rich! People Obliged to Treat Everyone Rotten...”
“It’s not funny!” Harry snapped at him. Ron’s face immediately fell; he looked like a four-yearold
being scolded.
“Sorry, Harry,” he mumbled, his ears reddening.
On his other side, George finally looked up from his breakfast and saw the four of them with the
newspapers spread out all over the place. “Are those Muggle papers? What do you want with
them, then?”
Harry collected the papers again, trying to pile them into a reasonably neat stack. He didn’t
answer George. He looked up at the head table; the four of them had been seated at the very
end of their house table, closest to the professors. Snape was only a few yards away, drinking.
He looked at Harry over his goblet and gave a very small nod, then rose and went through a
door next to the one that led to the anteroom where Harry had Animagus training. Aha! he
thought. Sandy was talking about him and Snape...
He asked Ron to bring his rucksack to Potions for him. He was staggering under the weight of
the papers; Lupin must have a really strong owl, he thought. He met Hermione’s eye as he left;
she looked very worried. Then he looked at Ginny, feeling rather worried himself; she was
reading Hermione’s copy of the Prophet, chewing her toast. Did Draco Malfoy know anything
about the Westminster attack? he wondered. Did Lucius Malfoy?
He went into the entrance hall and then down the stairs to the dungeons. When he entered the
Potions classroom, he saw that Snape’s office door was already open and he was sitting at his
desk. Did that door in the Great Hall lead to a secret passage to his office? Harry wondered.
There must be a lot more secret passages than Mssrs. Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs
knew about when they made their map, he thought.
After he entered the office, Snape pointed his wand at the door and it slammed shut. Harry
silently dropped the stack of newspapers on his desk. He pulled some off the top that he hadn’t
seen, going to sit in the wing chair by the fire as he had the previous evening. They sat in silence,
paging through article after article, the casualty reports getting worse and worse, the groups
claiming responsibility more and more outlandish.
After reading yet another article about a group claiming that they had put the word POTTER on
the station wall as their signature (Picts of the True Erse Republic--another Scottish group), he
looked up at Snape, who was frowning fiercely at the mess of nonsensical stories. He didn’t
know what Snape thought of Muggle newspapers before (probably not very much), but he
certainly didn’t think this would raise his estimation of them. “The largest death toll I’ve seen yet is from the Times,” Harry said quietly. “Forty-seven adults
dead and twelve children; twenty-seven people still in hospital, about half likely to die in the next
day or two.”
Snape nodded, putting aside the paper he’d been looking at, then drumming his long fingers on
his desk, staring into space. Suddenly, the bell rang for the first class of the day, making Harry
jump.
“Get out,” Snape said suddenly. But he didn’t say it in a rude way; Harry understood. He
shouldn’t be seen in here, hanging out with Snape as though they were friends (were they
friends?), especially by the Slytherins who would be coming down for class. He only had five
minutes before the second bell would ring, officially beginning the class. Snape waved his wand
at the mess of newsprint, and the papers all organized themselves into a neater stack than human
hands could ever make and went flying into a cupboard behind his desk, closing and locking.
Very neat, though Harry. He hurried out of Snape’s office and moved to the back of the class,
sitting down at a table. He put his head on his arms sleepily, waiting for the other students to
arrive.
He must have dozed off briefly, because he was very startled when he heard a familiar voice
bellow, “Potter!”
He tried to open his eyes and raise his head, blinking. The classroom was full of the usual fifthyear
Slytherins and Gryffindors. Ron was next to him; Harry remembered now that he’d been
dreaming of walking down a Hogwarts corridor, and the wall of the corridor itself kept reaching
out and poking him...that must have been Ron, trying to wake me up, he thought...
“If you’d like to join us, Potter, get out your dried bird’s-foot trefoil seed pods. Unless you’d
like to try making your potion without them and poisoning yourself,” Snape sneered at him. The
Slytherins laughed appreciatively. Harry grimaced and picked up his rucksack, taking out his
Potions supplies and sighing. Back to normal. He chanced a look at Ron, who looked
apologetic. When Snape had turned round, Harry shrugged at him. Hermione was sitting with
Neville; he caught her eye and also shrugged. Then he saw Neville looking at him strangely.
Suddenly Harry wondered, Should I have trusted Neville? Should I have put a memory charm
on him instead? But he didn’t know how to work one; memory charms weren’t taught until the
end of seventh year, so that students wouldn’t constantly be trying to make the professors think
they hadn’t assigned things, or making them forget that they were going to be setting an exam on
a particular day.
Harry moved through his classes in a trance again. He was grateful for Sandy, because many a
time she warned him of something they were about to cover in class, and he was able to jolt
himself back to the present in time to avoid looking like a total fool.
This was far worse than anticipating Dueling Club. This felt like walking through water
constantly; pressing against the air as though it had weight and substance, as though he were in the lake again, trying to get past the Grindylows and merpeople. Except that it wasn’t just four
people that were in danger, four people he was despairing of getting back to the surface. There
were hundreds, thousands, millions of people out there in danger, potential targets. He felt like
he was moving through an overwhelming sea of despair and worry, waiting to find out what
Voldemort’s next atrocity would be...
“ ...they found the word POTTER scrawled on the wall... ”
* * * * *
Harry had some trouble blocking pain in Moody’s class that afternoon. At first, he thought he
was just distracted. But then he realized that, after Sunday night, somehow, he felt he deserved
to suffer. He just couldn’t bring himself to stop the pain. Finally, after Seamus had put a simple
Passus Curse on his left ankle, leaving him gasping, he went to Madam Pomfrey for the first time
since they’d started the new term, asking her for pain relief.
Then, on Tuesday morning, as he was about to go out the door to Hagrid’s class, Sandy hissed
to him, “A secret will be revealed.” A moment later, Snape appeared, evidently having planned
to waylay him at this time.
“Potter! A word.”
The rest of the Gryffindors looked at him sympathetically, assuming he was probably in for a
detention. The Slytherins, on the other hand, looked pretty pleased about this. Harry waved
Ron and Hermione on through the door.
“I’ll catch you up,” he told them.
When the students from both houses were gone, Snape went down the stairs to the dungeons,
not saying a word to Harry, who reckoned he should just follow. They passed by the open door
of Snape’s classroom, where Harry saw the first-year Gryffindors and Slytherins; Will Flitwick
was sitting in the back row with Gillian Lockley, and in front of them he clearly saw Crabbe’s
younger sister Wilhelmina.
They didn’t go into the classroom; about twenty feet farther on, Snape pulled back a tapestry
and opened a door concealed there by whispering a password Harry couldn’t hear. Snape held
the door open for him and Harry went through. There were torches on the walls of the passage,
and, immediately to the left, a set of steep, narrow stairs that could lead from the door in the
Great Hall, Harry suspected. It wasn’t a very long passage; in a moment, it seemed, Snape
pushed on what looked like part of the wall, but it pivoted in the middle, leaving about two feet
on either side to go through into Snape’s office. Harry went through the opening on the left,
seeing on that side some of the shelves in Snape’s office that held potions texts. Once in the office, Snape did not close the bookcase. “This won’t take long, Potter,” he told
him tersely. “I’ve completed the tests on the samples.” Harry swallowed, unsure whether he
wanted to know.
“Is he--”
“No.” Snape sat in his desk chair, shuffling through parchments on the desktop. “There is no
doubt whatsoever that Krum is the product of his mother and father. He is not the Dark Lord’s
son.” Ah, Harry thought. That was the secret.
Then he frowned; he’d been so sure! But then, who had Karkaroff been speaking of? Was it
one of the other students who’d come for the tournament? Had Voldemort’s heir been helping
Barty Crouch, Jr., and Crouch hadn’t even known? It seemed to Harry that if he had known, he
would have said something about it when he was under the influence of the Veritaserum.
“You may go, Potter. Go back down the passage and take the stairs.”
Harry nodded at him. He left, hearing Snape’s words in his head again.
He is not the Dark Lord’s son.
Well, that was a good thing, wasn’t it? Harry slogged up the stairs, thinking furiously. The stairs
made several turns, in different directions, and at the top was a large wooden door. Sure
enough, when he opened it, he was back in the empty Great Hall. So, Snape had shown him a
secret passage to his office (two, really, one from the Great Hall and one from the door under
the tapestry, although he didn’t know the password for that one).
After he closed the door to the secret stairs, Harry tried opening it again, expecting that he
wouldn’t be able to. But it worked just fine. On the other hand, even if someone stumbled onto
this passage, they wouldn’t know where to push on the pivoting wall that was also a bookcase
unless they’d been shown. Otherwise, it just looked like a dead-end. (And the bookcase wasn’t
at the very end of the passage either; it was about half-way along. It wasn’t at all obvious.)
Harry thought about Snape showing him this. He must have decided he could trust him
completely. But then, perhaps he had already decided that when he gave him the chance to go
into the Pensieve...
During the rest of the week, Harry wondered about Voldemort’s heir. Perhaps Karkaroff had
been talking about Krum after all; Voldemort had said that he wasn’t sure he was his heir.
Karkaroff could have been mistaken. Maybe the Krums had told him he was Voldemort’s heir
to get Viktor preferential treatment at Durmstrang. It had certainly worked; Harry remembered
the way Karkaroff had doted on him even before his name came out of the Goblet of Fire, how
he was surly and short with the other students from his school. No, Harry was still convinced
that Karkaroff had been speaking of Viktor Krum. It didn’t matter that Karkaroff had been
misled. And Voldemort had said he’d already been useful...that meant he still had to make sure
Hermione got rid of him.
When the fourth meeting of the Dueling Club arrived, Harry was feeling like he was in good
form again. He hadn’t needn’t to see Madam Pomfrey since Monday. Harry tried not to think
about the newspapers he knew were sitting in the cupboard in Snape’s office, about the name
POTTER being scrawled on the wall of the tube station. It would do no good to think about
that now. He had to prepare himself for what was to come. The O.W.L.s were one thing; being
ready for Voldemort was quite another.
They would only be doing four duels each for the last meeting. Each round would have eight
duels, and when all of the dueling was done, Snape would take some time to figure out the
standings and they would all know who wasn’t going to make the cut. Harry had to give Mandy
Brocklehurst credit; she was terrible, she hadn’t won a single duel, but she still went into the
center of the circle every time with her head held high, ready to try again. She hadn’t run out in
tears, or insisted that others were cheating. When people beat her now, they were really very
nice to her. It was pity, pure and simple, but she didn’t seem to mind.
They began with Millicent Bulstrode defeating Hannah Abbott; Hannah probably wouldn’t
make the cut either, Harry thought. He wished Millicent weren’t good enough, but she probably
would be staying, unfortunately. After that, Crabbe and Malfoy bested Niamh and Liam Quirke,
followed by Hermione doing her best to give Ernie MacMillan a chance, but he muffed it
anyway. Then Mandy lost to Cho and Angelina tricked Ron. Snape called the next two names.
“Spinnet! Granger!”
Hermione was going again. Alicia looked at her with narrowed eyes. They were both very
good; Alicia could definitely improve her standing if she could beat Hermione. Harry was the
only one who had done it.
They bowed to each other and held their wands at the ready. Alicia quickly aimed the disarming
charm at Hermione, who dodged it at the last moment, aiming her wand at Alicia’s legs.
“Tarantellegra!” she cried, and Alicia’s feet started to move unbidden, doing a wild tarantella,
carrying her around the circle where she did not seem to want to go. Alicia tried to take careful
aim at Hermione while she was yet dancing wildly. She put the jelly-legs jinx on Hermione, who
collapsed on the floor, unable to stand. Alicia tried to disarm her, but Hermione rolled over
quickly, dodging it yet again. She pointed at the dancing Alicia, saying, “Inverso!”
Alicia screamed, for now she had the sensation of dancing wildly while suspended upside down
in the air. She continued to dance on the actual floor, however much she thought she was
airborne, and narrowing her eyes, she aimed at Hermione again. She actually seemed to be
overcoming the disorientation of the Inverso, and Hermione saw this. She couldn’t stand up to
take Alicia’s wand from her, so she swiftly pointed her wand again, crying, “Expelliarmus!” just
before Alicia started to say the same thing. But Hermione had done it first; Alicia’s wand came
hurtling through the air into her hand, and Snape broke the spells on both girls. Alicia shook her
head, looking around, then reached out her hand to Hermione, helping her stand. They smiled at each other; they seemed to have been really enjoying themselves. They were well matched.
In the second round, Goyle beat Cho. (Harry was beginning to suspect she wouldn’t last,
either--he’d never felt grateful to Goyle for anything before, but he was now.) Then Ginny
defeated George (she seemed to anticipate everything he did). Then Crabbe and Niamh won
over Hannah and Millicent. After that it was Hermione’s turn again, and when Snape called her
opponent’s name, she got a look on her face that Harry could only describe as downright evil.
“Malfoy!”
Hermione and Malfoy stepped into the circle. After they bowed, Hermione began her onslaught.
Malfoy never had a chance. She cried, “Rictusempra! Reverso! Inverso!” in quick succession,
and soon Malfoy was giggling uncontrollably while thinking he was hanging upside-down in the
air and also thinking that what was in front of him was behind him. He was so disoriented that he
dropped his wand, closing his eyes and holding his head with both hands, looking miserable but
laughing hysterically nonetheless. Hermione calmly picked up his wand and broke the spells on
him herself, not bothering to wait for Snape.
Harry heard her say softly as she handed his wand back to him, “Remember what happened
when you dueled with a Mudblood.” She returned to her space between Harry and Ron, her
face still stony, but also satisfied. Harry remembered again the day they had first kissed in the
Charms classroom and she had controlled Peeves. He was glad someone so powerful was on
his side.
The second round ended with Liam defeating Ron (who returned to the circle looking very
grumpy), Ginny gently disarming Ernie, and Colin actually getting a win--but it was over Mandy,
so that wasn’t saying much. When the third round started, Roger handily beat Goyle, looking
pretty smug about it, and Harry and Alicia easily defeated George (he’d been watching Ginny
dueling him) and Ron (who looked grumpier and grumpier). After Niamh disarmed Hannah,
they took a break. Ginny, Hermione and Alicia were chatting happily about their duels; Ron and
George were grousing about dirty tricks (the other person winning seemed to be the “dirty
trick” they disliked the most, from what Harry could tell). Harry was sort of drifting between the
two groups, not saying much of anything.
After the break, Justin got a spectacular win over Millicent, making Liam grin broadly at him.
Niamh even looked like she was warming to the idea of Justin and her brother. Colin managed
to get another win as well, over Cho, pretty much cementing her departure, Harry felt. Then he
beat Ernie, trying to be gentle; he didn’t want to seem unsympathetic, but Ernie was really
horrible, he thought. All the practicing during the Christmas break seemed to have gone right out
of his head. (Although Harry suspected he actually spent a lot more time involved in a different
physical activity during the holiday.) Finally, Goyle defeated Mandy, who now seemed to be
rather bored with the whole process.
The fourth round started with Angelina besting George (Harry was starting to suspect George
had a gender problem with his dueling) and ended with Harry besting Angelina. In between, Crabbe and Alicia beat Justin and Liam, and Roger, Goyle and George defeated Mandy, Colin
and Ernie. But the really tense duel of this round was between Ron and Draco Malfoy.
Harry figured afterward that Ron won for two reasons; first, he was just plain hacked off about
losing a number of previous duels he seemed to think he should have won, and secondly--
Malfoy didn’t seem to be trying to win. He wasn’t interested in losing quickly, however,
drawing it out, but several times Harry saw that he had an opening that he would have exploited
with anyone else, and didn’t take it. Why? he wondered. He also found himself wondering
whether Ginny had been upset about the way he’d let her beat him. He hadn’t had any
compunctions about beating George, so why was he letting Ron off easy?
When Ron returned to the circle, looking much happier than he had before, Harry didn’t dare
hypothesize that Malfoy had thrown the duel. If there was a guaranteed way to upset Ron, that
was it. Not that it took much sometimes, Harry reflected. Either Malfoy really was going to set
his father up and wanted Ron to approve of him and Ginny, Harry thought, or he’s lulling me
into a false sense of security.
The fifth round seemed to go very quickly; after four weeks of dueling, many of the others
looked quite exhausted, to Harry’s eyes. Hannah and Millicent went down again, this time to
Justin (more celebrating with Liam) and Crabbe. Then Malfoy defeated Alicia, using the Passus
Curse on her mercilessly, on her arms and legs and finally her neck, until Harry thought Snape
would put a stop to it. After her wand was returned to her, Alicia staggered out of the circle,
and Hermione and Angelina let her lean against them. It had probably been the dirtiest duel
since he had put the Hara Kiri on Harry. Hermione and Roger had no trouble coming out on top
over Liam and Cho, and then Ginny and Niamh defeated Angelina and Justin. There was only
one duel left, and Harry knew he was one of the people, because he’d only done three that day,
but he couldn’t remember for the life of him who he hadn’t dueled. Snape called his name and
he went into the circle. Then Snape called his opponent’s name.
“V. Weasley!”
Harry swallowed as he watched her enter the circle. He had continued growing during the
school year and his robes were starting to look a couple of inches too short. Ginny had
continued growing, too, and they were now both about the same height. Her hair was pulled
back in a messy knot at the back of her head and her brown eyes looked inscrutable and
beautiful all at once.
NO, he told himself sternly. I will not let myself get distracted. Get it over with...
After they bowed, he heard her start to cry, “Expelli--”
“Impedimenta!” he shouted, quicker. As she slowed down almost to a complete stop, he
plucked her wand away from her, then took the spell off. She looked at him, her face very close
to his, it seemed. She gave him a very slight smile. Harry smiled back at her; she didn’t hold it
against her. For some reason, that was very important to him. They took another break, and then Snape summoned them back into the hall; he was getting
ready to post the standings. “Now!” he said loudly, but without seeming to shout. “Some of you
have the same number of wins as another person, or more than one person, in some cases. If
there is a tie, your standing is based upon how you performed against other people with the
same number of wins.”
They all looked like they were on tenterhooks. Snape swept past them and into the entrance
hall, taking down the parchment with the old standings and magically attaching the new
parchment to the wall.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dueling Club Standings
Rank: 1 / Wins: 19 : Potter [Captain]
Rank: 2 / Wins: 18 : Granger
Rank: 3 / Wins: 17 : V. Weasley
Rank: 4 / Wins: 15 : Malfoy
Rank: 5 / Wins: 15 : Spinnet
Rank: 6 / Wins: 14 : Davies
Rank: 7 / Wins: 11 : Crabbe
Rank: 8 / Wins: 10 : R. Weasley
Rank: 9 / Wins: 10 : N. Quirke
Rank:10 / Wins: 10 : Goyle
Rank:11 / Wins: 10 : Johnson
Rank:12 / Wins: 8 : L. Quirke
Rank:13 / Wins: 8 : G. Weasley
Rank:14 / Wins: 7 : Finch-Fletchley
Rank:15 / Wins: 6 : Bulstrode
Rank:16 / Wins: 3 : Creevey
CUT:
Rank:17 / Wins: 3 : Abbot
Rank:18 / Wins: 3 : Chang
Rank:19 / Wins: 3 : MacMillan
Rank:20 / Wins: 0 : Brocklehurst
Those who were cut didn’t seem terribly surprised. But Colin was positively beaming about still
being in the club; he couldn’t believe he’d made it.
“I’m still in the club, Harry! Did you see! I didn’t get cut!”
Harry smiled at him. “Good going, Colin.”
Ron didn’t look all that happy, but he tried to be philosophical. “Well, at least I won more than
half my duels. Ten out of nineteen isn’t too bad...”
Only Roger Davies seemed really upset about his standing, and he was number six. “Does
anyone else think it’s strange,” he spat angrily, “that four out of the top five are from
Gryffindor?”
Snape fixed him with a glittering black eye. “Am I the house master for Gryffindor, Davies?”
Roger couldn’t meet Snape’s gaze; he faltered.
“No, sir, I just noticed...”
“The Gryffindor students might be practicing together, I’ll grant you that. But after all of the trials
are done, you’ll all be training together during club meetings. There will no longer be any ‘house
secrets,’ if that’s what you’re worried about, Davies.”
Roger swallowed and nodded, unable to speak. Good, thought Harry. There’s something that
can shut him up. Maybe there was some way Snape could come to prefects’ meetings...
* * * * *
When the Dueling Club met for week five, they had four new members: Fred Weasley, Pansy
Parkinson, Evan Davies and Lee Jordan. Harry thought that perhaps the Hufflepuffs had given
up.
Harry only had to duel three times; it was going to be a short me
