Hermione was trying not to grin too broadly. “Do you mean,” she said a little too gleefully,
“we’re going to be showing ten elves around Hogsmeade?” Cho was looking rather upset.
“Well, actually, it’s seven. Only six others besides Dobby finally asked for clothes. Don’t be
upset--please?”
But Cho was the one who was upset. “Harry! This is our Valentine’s date! And you’re--you’re
bringing house elves?” she sputtered in disbelief.
Hermione did in fact look disappointed about the number of elves, but she began to look merry
again once she saw Cho’s reaction. This is perfect, thought Harry happily. I didn’t even think
about how hacked off Cho would be when I invited Dobby and the other elves. Plus,
Hermione’s thrilled! He felt very fortunate indeed as he went down the stairs to the kitchens;
before the door closed behind him he saw Cho glaring at Hermione.
When he returned with the elves, Hermione and Cho seemed to have reached a kind of detente.
He took Cho’s arm and they followed Hermione and the elves out the door.
While they walked to Hogsmeade, the house elves bounced around Hermione, talking to her
about Boxing Day and playing in the snow. They didn’t know; none of them had ever played
before in their lives. Hermione was appalled.
“Not even when you were very young?”
“No,” Quiff told her squeakily. “House elves is working almost immediately, Miss.”
“Well,” Zenana broke in, “There is mostly eating and sleeping for a week first. Then we learns
how to pop! And we is ready to be useful.”
“Wow,” Hermione breathed, clearly having no previous idea just how much the house elves
lived lives of all work and no play.
When they reached Hogsmeade, they met Viktor Krum at Honeydukes. Viktor was less than
pleased to see the elves.
“Herm-own-ninny? Vat are these--creatures that are coming vith you?”
“Don’t you have house elves in Bulgaria?” Harry asked him.
“Ve haff human servants. Squibs. But ve giff them magical items to help them do their vork. It is
better than haffing to live like Muggles...”
Harry saw Hermione bristle. “I lived like a Muggle for eleven years, and my parents are
Muggles, I might remind you.” The challenge in her voice was unmistakable. Viktor clearly
heard it too.
“Herm-own-ninny,” he said, placatingly now.
Harry tried not to grin again; this had all the signs of a last date. Cho was upset, Viktor was
walking on eggshells with Hermione. It was perfect. Harry’s cheeks were starting to hurt with
the effort of not smiling constantly like a complete fool.
“They will not be welcome,” Sandy said suddenly, under his clothes. Viktor Krum, whipped his
head around.
“Vat vas that?” he said, looking about nervously. Harry cursed to himself. Be quiet, Sandy.
Stop hissing. He didn’t think about her prediction, he just wanted her to be quiet.
After walking through the village, showing the elves all of the points of interest, they went to the
Three Broomsticks for lunch. But the moment they entered the pub, the room went silent. It was
about two-thirds full with Hogwarts students, and otherwise populated by residents of or
visitors to Hogsmeade, adult witches and wizards. Harry hadn’t heard so much silence and so
many eyes on him since his name had come out of the Goblet of Fire.
Finally, the publican, Madam Rosmerta, came out from behind the bar and walked over to
them. She glanced over her shoulder at her scandalized patrons.
“I’m afraid we don’t serve their kind in here,” she told them quietly, almost as though she were
embarrassed, but not as though she were interested in having them change her mind. Hermione
goggled at her.
“Don’t serve their kind?” she said, with that dangerous edge to her voice. Harry glanced
around the room; the looks that the other patrons were giving them were less than friendly.
Unfortunately, because Harry was looking around the room and Hermione was glaring at
Madam Rosmerta, that meant no one was watching the elves.
With a pop! Quiff had appeared at the table of a handful of sixth- and seventh-year Slytherins,
sampling some chips and sips of butterbeer without invitation. Zenana had decided to pop!
behind the bar and help herself to some butterbeer directly from the tap. Dobby had a feeling
that this wasn’t quite accepted behavior and was trying to get Biddy and Tiggy to stop swinging
on the chandeliers, giggling hysterically while they did so. In the meantime, Blat had decided to
amuse some of the bar patrons by putting hover charms on them and their drinks and food,
which started to be flung about in a rather messy manner.
Rosmerta was livid. “You see! You see why they can’t come in here? Get them out! Now!”
But Hermione was still up for a fight. Harry used a summoning charm to whisk the elves across
the room to him while she yelled at Madam Rosmerta, “They’ve never had a day off before!
They don’t know! We’ll talk to them--they’ll behave--”
But it was as though she hadn’t said a word. Rosmerta was purple.
“Out! Out!” she screamed at Hermione. Harry swallowed and nodded at her; he was clutching
the six newly-freed elves to him, like a bunch of balloons that had threatened to float away.
Dobby was hopping nervously nearby. She turned and stomped out the door, Harry following
her, but then she turned and thrust her face in the doorway again.
“You have officially lost all of our future business!”
“Good!” responded Madam Rosmerta with a satisfied flip of her head.
But as Harry was preparing to leave, clutching the wayward elves to him, he saw that Cho was
looking at him in shock.
“Harry!” she exclaimed. “What about our date? Don’t tell me you’re leaving with those--
those--”
Harry saw his opportunity and took it. “Yes. You can stay if you like. Hermione and the elves
and I won’t stay where we’re not wanted.”
Now she started turning as purple as Madam Rosmerta. “If you leave now, Harry, we’re
through.” She didn’t speak loudly, but loud enough. Everyone in the pub was watching. Harry
Potter was being dumped. He wondered if it would be in the Daily Prophet tomorrow.
“Goodbye, Cho.”
Viktor was standing with his hand on her shoulder. Harry nodded at him, then turned and left.
When the door closed behind him, he turned to Hermione, putting down the elves, a huge grin
on his face.
She was in tears. “Can you believe that? The way she treated them? What she said, even
before they started--you know--”
“Hermione,” he said to her softly, as the elves started playing in the snow again, as though
oblivious to what had just happened. “One battle at a time. Viktor stayed inside--with Cho.
And she told me we’re through.” He smiled broadly. “Our plan worked!”
She looked at the closed door of the pub, then started laughing. “And all we had to do was
bring some house elves along on a date...” she began, but couldn’t go on for her laughter. Harry
laughed now too, and they walked back to the castle with the elves, skipping through the snow
and playing with them, happier than they remembered being for a long time. He knew that at
some point, she would want to redress the way the elves had been treated at the Three
Broomsticks, but it wasn’t time for that yet. But he knew he wanted to be beside her for that
battle too.
He shouted as Quiff popped! into the space right behind him and put a large, wet, cold snowball
down the back of his shirt. He ran after him, hysterical, and he and Hermione and the elves
played in the snow for the rest of the afternoon.
* * * * *
That evening after dinner, he went to Animagus training as usual. Ginny had already left the
Great Hall, so he gave Sandy to Hermione to take back upstairs for him. He didn’t have very
far to go before his training would be complete. Of course, then he would have to think of a
more permanent solution for Sandy...
McGonagall was very pleased that the pain didn’t bother him very much any more. Or maybe it
was just that he had become accustomed to it. Maybe if you weren’t used to it, something as
basic as the feeling of your blood flowing through your veins would be painful, he thought. It
was all a matter of getting used to things, like the elves getting used to having days off, and
people in the wizarding world getting used to elves in clothes.
He still needed to learn to fly. He hadn’t really used his wings yet. But there was still time for
that. He went upstairs after training feeling rather pleased with himself, humming the lullaby his
mother used to sing in an upbeat, jazzy way. When he entered the common room, Ron and
Hermione immediately waved him over to the chairs by the fire. Ginny wasn’t there; probably in
the Potions dungeon, he thought. With Malfoy.
“What is it, Harry?” Hermione asked anxiously.
“Yeah,” Ron chimed in. “What can’t you talk to us about right here?”
Harry made a face at them. “What are you on about?”
“The notes,” Hermione said, showing him a small piece of parchment which said, “Meet me in
the Charms classroom at midnight. Can’t discuss it now. Harry.” The handwriting and signature
looked for all the world like he had written it. Ron had one like it; but it had a couple of
variations. It didn’t look identical, so it wasn’t magically reproduced, like the invitations to the
Christmas party. It also looked handwritten by Harry. He looked up at them both after
examining the parchments.
“I didn’t write these,” he said softly.
Hermione and Ron looked at each other and then him. “Then who did?” Ron asked.
It was starting. They were coming after Ron and Hermione directly, now. Harry didn’t want to
say it, didn’t want to alarm them. He sat down, staring at the notes. “That’s not the most
important thing. We can work that out later. The question is why?” Hermione and Ron sat
down in nearby armchairs. “Whoever did it--do they want to get you into the Charms
classroom, or do they want to get you out of Gryffindor Tower?”
Ron stared at him, frowning. Hermione also frowned, her eyes moving back and forth; Harry
could tell she was thinking furiously.
“The trouble is,” Harry went on, “we have no way of knowing. I also have to wonder why the
person that sent you the notes thought they could fool you into thinking I’m the one who sent
them. I send all my mail by Hedwig.”
“It was Hedwig who brought them,” Ron told him. “After dinner, when you usually--
disappear.”
“Oh. Hmmm...Well, if I had wanted you two to meet me, though, I simply would have told you.
And why didn’t the person who sent them think you’d just ask me what it was all about?
Unless--”
“What?” said Hermione.
“Unless they wanted to make it look artless. Wanted you to know it wasn’t from me. The
question is, what would they expect you to do, knowing that the notes weren’t really from me?”
“Stay in the tower?” Ron suggested, grasping at straws.
“Possibly. But I think we have to cover all possibilities. I think you--” he pointed at Ron,”
should stay here, keeping an eye on the portrait hole in case someone has gotten a hold of the
password and decides to try coming in here. Hermione and I can go early to the Charms
classroom and hide under the Invisibility Cloak, wait to see if anyone shows up.”
Ron and Hermione looked at each other, nodded. Then Ron looked like he had a thought.
“Maybe George could wait with me by the portrait hole...”
Harry looked over at George, sitting with Fred and Lee Jordan and playing Exploding Snap. “I
don’t know,” Harry said. “No offense to George, but Ginny did a lot better at the duels than he
did.” Then he could have bitten his tongue. Ginny had done better than Ron, too.
Ron thought of this. “Did better than me too. But I don’t want her involved in this.” Then Harry
thought of Draco Malfoy, and agreed. But not for the same reason as Ron; he unfortunately had
started to think of Ginny as a security risk. If Malfoy managed to get information out of her,
even against her will, everything would be compromised. Somehow, he was convinced that
Malfoy had sent the notes. And she’d already freely given Malfoy information before they were
even a couple; he remembered her spilling the “Viktor Krum Plan” to him in the Potions
Dungeon. Ginny should definitely not be involved.
“Well,” Harry said. “It’s ten-thirty now. Hermione and I should probably be in the classroom
by eleven-fifteen to play it safe. We’ll need your help getting out the portrait hole, and then you
need to bring down some homework, make it look like you’re hanging out late to work, so
people don’t think it’s weird that you’re down here.” Harry stopped; he closed his mouth,
looking at the two of them, worried. This was the next step; target his two best friends directly.
Lure them out of the tower...or just make them all paranoid and lose sleep while they sat around
the common room and the Charms classroom waiting for an attacker who was never going to
show. There were just too many possibilities, it was impossible to plan for them all. This is what
he had been expecting, for months and months. It had finally happened.
It was a good thing no one knew about him and Hermione. But then, he realized, Malfoy knew
about that, too, to a certain extent. Damn! Malfoy knew way too much...
At eleven, Ron opened the portrait hole and went into the corridor. Harry and Hermione
climbed out, hiding under the Invisibility Cloak. She was shaking. Ron closed the portrait; he
said good luck to the two of them, then said the password again and reentered the common
room.
Harry and Hermione walked cautiously to the Charms classroom. Why the Charms classroom?
Harry wondered. Could whoever sent the notes know there was some kind of significance that
room had for them? He was fairly certain that Malfoy didn’t know about those times. It was
probably just a coincidence.
When they reached the classroom, the door was standing open, and they walked through the
doorway together, huddled closely under the cloak so they would both fit. As they passed
through the opening, they heard a crackling noise that sounded to Harry like static electricity,
and Harry felt a strange thrumming in his body, as though his veins were now conducting live
current, not blood. Static electricity? But that sort of thing was impossible here, wasn’t it? he
thought. Standing near Flitwick’s desk, he turned to Hermione under the cloak.
“Did you feel that?” he asked softly. She nodded, her lips pressed closed. She looked
confused. “What do you think--”
“We can’t afford to talk,” she reminded him quietly. “It will have to wait.”
They went to the far wall and sat in the corner, under the window, so they had a good view of
the door. The minutes passed with agonizing slowness, and the longer Harry sat with her under
the cloak, the more aware he became of her leg pressed up against his, her arm brushing
his...They hadn’t been this close for this long since Christmas break. He put his arm around her
shoulder and she pillowed her head on his chest. They had to be very, very quiet...
But then he made the mistake of looking down at her and finding her looking up at him; he had
to protect her, he had to! Voldemort and the Death Eaters would never touch her, not if he had
anything to say about it. He continued to look down at her, traced her jaw with his finger, and
was both surprised and not surprised when she pulled his face down to hers, opening her mouth
under his.
Yes, thought Harry. This is how it’s supposed to be. He wrapped both arms around her,
holding her tightly enough to make her part of him, feeling her arms snaking around him, her
body’s warmth against his. But they would have to stop in a minute, he thought. Before they
couldn’t control the noises emanating from deep in their throats, animal noises that had nothing
to do with human speech or thought. They needed to stop before they wanted to do more, here
in the worst place to do anything, with the possible exception of the Great Hall, with the entire
school looking on...
He broke the kiss reluctantly, feeling her lips traveling along his jaw and up to his ear, then down
his neck and along his collarbone as she pulled his robes aside. He shuddered; he would lose
control in a second, if she kept that up. He still felt the strange thrumming throughout his body,
as though he were leaning on Aunt Petunia’s washing machine on Privet Drive. It didn’t make
sense, and it wasn’t a response to what she was doing...He kissed her forehead, and with a
greater show of self-control than he felt he really had, gently pulled her head onto his chest
again, putting his finger over his lips and then showing her his watch. In ten minutes it would be
midnight.
She sighed, sounding sad. He stroked her hair, having to be content with that, and they
continued to wait. Five more minutes passed, and they heard footsteps in the corridor outside
the classroom. The footsteps came closer and closer. Yes, thought Harry; it was definitely
someone who was coming to the Charms classroom. But who?
When she passed through the doorway, Harry heard the same crackling he’d heard when he
and Hermione had entered. What was that? he wanted to know. She whirled around, staring at
the doorway, perplexed. Then she turned to look into the classroom again. She pulled out her
wand and lit it, holding it up to see around the room.
“Harry? Are you here?” she said nervously.
It was Cho. Was that why she’d been talking to Lucius Malfoy at that Quidditch match? Did he
have her under the Imperius Curse, told her to come after Ron and Hermione? But wait; he
realized that she had said his name. She was looking for him, not Ron or Hermione. Perhaps
someone had sent her a note from him also. Perhaps she too was being targeted. Malfoy! Why
would he target her? He knew that Harry and Hermione were just trying to fix her up with
Viktor Krum.
Harry looked at Hermione under the cloak. She raised her eyebrows and shrugged; she had no
idea what to do any more than he did. If Harry emerged from under the cloak, it would be very
difficult to avoid Cho seeing Hermione. Perhaps they should wait and see whether the person
who sent the notes showed up, find out who it was, and if he tried to hurt Cho, then Harry could
come out of hiding...
Cho pulled herself up onto Flitwick’s desk, sighing, swinging her legs. Harry waited, his heart in
his throat, wishing he had simply said thanks but no thanks when she’d asked him out in Diagon
Alley in August. He should never have involved her. He remembered seeing her at the Quidditch
match in his third year when he’d first really noticed her, noticed how pretty she was, and he
was almost tempted to let her get the Snitch first, as a gesture of goodwill... Almost, but not
quite. Oliver Wood would have killed him.
They all waited, Cho thinking she was alone, not knowing any better. Harry wanted very much
to kiss Hermione again, but to say this was not a good time would be a colossal understatement.
The minutes crawled by. Harry checked his watch: it was twelve-twenty-five. Cho looked
pretty grumpy by now. She jumped down from the desk and walked back to the door; maybe
someone was just trying to get his girlfriend and best friends hacked off at him by making
appointments that weren’t going to be kept?
She turned and looked at the room again, giving Harry the eerie feeling that she could see him.
“Well,” she said, “if he’s trying to make up with me, he’s doing a lousy job.” She turned back
to the doorway and walked through.
But as Cho was going through the doorway, she froze; the static sound was back. She seemed
to be receiving some kind of shock throughout her body, as though she had tried to walk
through an electric fence. Harry’s heart was in his throat; he stood, making Hermione stand with
him. He looked at her face; she wasn’t exactly Cho’s biggest fan, but now she too looked
concerned. He mouthed at her, What should we do?
She shook her head; she had no idea. Finally, Cho collapsed onto the floor in the corridor right
outside the doorway. They walked toward the door, careful not to put any part of their bodies
in the space between the jambs. There was some kind of field there that had been generated, a
field that could be walked through safely when entering the room, but upon leaving...
They looked at Cho, lying motionless on the floor a few feet away. Harry stared at her back for
a what seemed a long time, finally seeing some very slight movement. She was still alive; she
was still breathing. However, he felt quite sure that if he and Hermione tried to go through the
doorway, they would be in the same condition as Cho. They were trapped.
Who had done this? Harry wondered. He was sure it was some kind of Dark Magic. Another
question was, how were they going to get out? They absolutely had to get out. All they need
was for Mad-Eye Moody to investigate; he would spot them right away, with his magical eye. It
would look very incriminating for him and Hermione to be sitting, lurking in the room where Cho
had been right before she was--what? Zapped? Electrocuted? What had happened to her,
precisely? Harry only knew he didn’t want it happening to him. It was a clever trap; didn’t
require the person who had sent the notes to be present in order to ambush them. Walk in, walk
out, put yourself into a coma. Very neat. Very evil.
Trapped, Harry thought again. He went over to the window, Hermione following him. He
looked out; they were at least forty feet from the ground. No possibility of just hopping out the
window. Maybe he could open one of the windows and summon his Firebolt...They could fly
down. But it might attract some attention for his broom to come hurtling out of his dorm...
And then he realized that he didn’t need his broom. He was nervous about it, but this was an
emergency, and they had no other choice. He turned to face Hermione. “I know how to get us
out of here,” he said.
She looked at him expectantly. “Well?” she said after a long silence.
He removed the cloak from the two of them, folding it up and handing it to her. She frowned,
putting it in her pocket, looking over her shoulder at the doorway; no one had come. He went
to the windows; the first one he tried was stuck. So was the second. Then he realized that this
was stupid, and pulled out his wand, saying, “Alohomora!” making the window fly open
suddenly, banging into the stone frame of the one next to it.
“Harry!” said Hermione. “We’re a bit high up to be going out the window, don’t you think?”
He smiled at her. “Not if you can fly.”
She made a face at him; he could tell she was wondering what he was on about. But suddenly
he was changing, and in a blink, she saw before her not Harry Potter, dark-haired Harry with
his familiar green eyes, his much-mended glasses and his scar, but a beautiful tawny lion, its
golden mane looking soft and wild, its tail swishing like a rope that was alive. Hermione gasped.
Then he spread his wings.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Three
Flight
Harry looked up at Hermione. She was so pale in the moonlight, he thought she might faint. He
changed back to his human form and caught her just before she fell into a student desk, pulled
out a chair and sat her in it. Her mouth was working soundlessly, and she stared at him with her
brown eyes wide and unbelieving. He started to wonder whether he’d have to slap her or
something to bring her back to her senses.
Finally, she regained the power of speech. “Harry! When--how--when--”
“Take a breath, Hermione,” he told her, trying to be calm enough for both of them, which was a
good trick when his heart was racing and all he could think was that any minute someone would
come along and find Cho, and then they would see him and Hermione in the Charms
classroom...
“We need to get onto the ledge and close the window behind us, Hermione. I’ve looked; it’s a
really wide ledge, practically a balcony. Then I’ll change again and you can ride on my back.
I’m going to see if I can get up to the Astronomy tower. We can get back into the castle from
there.”
“You’re going to see if you can get up to the Astronomy tower? Harry, have you ever actually
done this before?” He smiled; Hermione was back.
“Changing into a golden griffin, yes; flying, no.”
She swallowed. “You’ve never flown before.”
“Not without a broom. Or on a winged animal, like the golden griffin Hagrid had us studying.
And there was the time we did hippogriffs.”
Hermione hit her head with her hand. “Oh! That ride on Buckbeak...” Harry remembered how
she’d hated that.
“You can hold onto my mane with your hands. You won’t fall if you do that and put your legs
around me very tightly,” he said, then suddenly felt himself flush, thinking of her doing what he
was talking about. Hermione didn’t seem to notice; she looked at the open window as though it
was the last place she wanted to go. She looked back toward the door to the room, as though
she envied Cho.
But Harry had climbed up on the window sill and put out his hand to her. “We should go before
someone comes.” Hermione nodded and stood shakily, walking toward the window. She put
her foot up on the sill and took his hand, swinging up in a single fluid motion. They closed the
window behind them, shivering on the snowy ledge. He could see that she was trying not to
look down. He could not resist looking down, however. Then, to get his bearings, he looked up
instead; directly over the windows to the Charms classroom was a series of lion gargoyles,
looking very similar to the bookends he’d given her for Christmas. He pointed them out to her.
“A good omen, do you think?”
She looked thoughtful, then turned to him, frowning. “I dropped Divination, remember?” But
then she had to smile, and he returned it.
“Ready?”
She looked apprehensive again, but nodded. He changed once more, then spread his wings; she
swung her leg over his back, sitting behind the strong gossamer appendages. He felt her warm
weight on his back, then her thighs and knees clamping hard on his flanks, her fingers sinking
into his mane. Good, he thought. Hopefully she’ll be safe.
Harry felt the purring motor within his body, felt the animal instinct emanating from his hide, his
tail, his paws on the cold stone. He remembered the golden griffin from class, and thought about
how it had taken flight. Finally, he decided that at the very least, with the wings, they could glide
safely to the ground, even if he couldn’t get more height than they had now. He looked up
toward the Astronomy Tower; several stories up and at the far end of the castle from where
they were it might as well have been miles away. He took a deep breath and leapt off the ledge.
They plummeted.
Hermione screamed; Harry couldn’t seem to do anything with his wings. Finally, after what
seemed a very long time but was probably only a second, he managed to locate the muscles to
move his wings and to control their angle, so he could get lift, so he could get that differential in
the air pressure above and below the wings. He was back at the same level as the Charms
classroom, now a story above that, then a story higher. He was moving forward at the same
time, soaring out over the grounds. He heard Hermione gasp above him, leaning forward,
molding her body to his and lacing her fingers more firmly into his mane, her knees starting to
hurt him from digging into his shoulders.
Now he was really flying, banking over the lake, heading back to the castle, the Astronomy
Tower below them. Harry wanted to go on flying; he’d never felt so free! It wasn’t like using a
broomstick at all. But that would have to be for another time. He’d gotten enough height, that
was the important thing. He descended in tight, spiraling circles, coming closer and closer to the
observation deck, until finally all four paws struck the flat surface which had been swept clear of
snow for the third-year Hufflepuff and Slytherin class earlier that evening.
Once he had landed, Harry changed again immediately; he was almost as exhausted as when he
had been blocking the Hara Kiri curse. Immediately, his back protested against having
Hermione sitting on his spine, her legs clamped tightly around his ribcage. Her hands were in his
hair; she removed them hastily, then climbed off him, kneeling by his side. He was still trying to
get his breath.
He rolled over onto his back, smiling up at her. “We did it,” he said weakly.
She was frowning at him, though. Her expression reminded him of when his mum had slapped
Snape in the Potions Dungeon. “Tell me why I shouldn’t hex you and put boils all over your
face right now, Harry Potter? When were you planning to tell me about this?”
He swallowed. “Hermione, I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. You didn’t tell anyone about your
Time Turner, remember? I’m almost finished my training, except for learning flying--and I guess
I just got a crash course in that. Without the crashing, fortunately.”
She started to smile a little. “Fortunately,” she agreed.
He pushed himself up into a sitting position; the pain of the transfiguration was hitting him now,
and he wished he could just sink into a hot bath with some of Madam Pomfrey’s fig-leaf pain
reliever...
But they couldn’t afford to think just of themselves right now. Cho was on the floor of the
Charms corridor and they had to get help. “Hermione,” he said, “we have to go back to
Gryffindor Tower. We should get the map so we can see if anyone’s moving around the castle
before we try to go get help. Come on.” He tried to stand then, and fell back to the ground.
Hermione stifled a laugh.
“And you’re telling me to come on? Here--” and she put out her hand. He didn’t take it; instead
he grasped her forearm, and she grasped his, like acrobats in the circus, and she hauled him to
his feet. He put his arm across her shoulders, leaning on her heavily.
“It’s a good thing you’re vertically challenged; just the right height to be a good crutch for me...”
“Hey!” she objected to the reference to her height.
“I said it was a good thing, didn’t I?” She grimaced, helping him down the stairs. “And
anyway,” he went on, “you’re not that much shorter than me. I’m only five-foot nine.”
She didn’t comment. When they reached the bottom, they put on the Invisibility Cloak again
and proceeded to Gryffindor Tower. While they were still under the cloak, he pulled her to him
and kissed her gently. She didn’t let him go afterward, but clutched at him, her head on his
chest. He kissed the top of her head, leaned his cheek on her hair.
“What’s going to happen?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. She lift up the edge of the cloak and said, “Demiguise!” to the
fat lady, who yawned sleepily, and, eyes still shut, opened the portrait hole. Harry saw Ron leap
toward the entrance, then relax when he saw it was her.
“Where’s Harry?” he wanted to know.
“Here,” he said, taking off the cloak. They both climbed in, closing the portrait. Ron looked at
them expectantly.
“Well?” he said finally, looking like he was going to jump out of his skin. Harry and Hermione
looked at each other, frowning.
“You and Hermione weren’t the only ones to get notes,” Harry said. “Cho got one too, and
thought I was trying to make up with her. She waited a while, and then when she decided to go,
she--I’m not sure what happened. She sort of looked shocked. Then she collapsed on the
corridor floor outside the classroom. She was breathing, but unconscious. When Hermione and
I went into the room, it felt like we passed through something, some kind of field in the
doorway, and we could tell that Cho felt it too, when she entered. But it didn’t have a bad effect
on her until she went through it again...The only thing I ever encountered that was like it was
when I was in the maze during the third task. There was this thing I passed through, and it was
like having the Inverso charm put on me. That was why I knew it would be a good one for
dueling; I remembered the feeling of hanging upside-down in the air in the maze. I probably
wasn’t, I was probably on the ground the whole time, but it sure felt--”
“Harry,” Hermione interrupted him. “We need to get help for Cho.”
“Right,” Harry agreed.
“Wait!” Ron stopped him. “If Cho could enter safely, like you, but not leave safely--how did
you two get out? Why didn’t it affect you?”
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, Harry looking guilty.
“Tell him, Harry. Or show him.”
Harry nodded. “Ron, I’ve been getting some--private tutoring from McGonagall. After dinner
every night.”
Ron made a face. “What’s that go to do with--” he started to say, but suddenly, he wasn’t
speaking to Harry; he saw before him a lion, a real lion, fur and claw and tooth and mane and
bright green eyes and wings...
And wings?
“H-Harry!” he stuttered, not even sure whether he should be calling this creature by Harry’s
name. Harry reappeared abruptly, and Ron wasn’t sure whether he’d been awake too long and
had hallucinated. He turned uncertainly to Hermione.
“Did--did you just see that too? Am I crazy?”
“No, Ron,” she said, her face serious. “Harry is an Animagus.”
“An Animagus!”
“A golden griffin Animagus, to be precise,” Harry said now. “A good thing, too. Originally, I
was just going to be a lion. But we never could have gotten out of the Charms classroom if I’d
done that.”
Ron was just staring at him, openmouthed. “Then--then how--”
“Flew,” Hermione said simply. “We landed on the observation deck of the Astronomy tower,
then came back down here.”
“Can--can I see it again?”
Harry put his right hand behind his neck and rubbed it. “Could I not? I’m pretty achy. I’d never
flown before...”
“You never flew before?” Ron yelled now. Harry and Hermione hushed him.
“Yes!” Harry yelled in a whisper. “I’d never flown before, and Hermione was riding on my
back...”
Ron looked miffed now, perhaps thinking, as Harry had, about her legs wrapped around him...
“Well,” he said, looking at her levelly. “I’ve picked her up. She’s like a feather.” Hermione
colored, looked away. Harry frowned.
“She wasn’t on your back.”
Ron couldn’t argue with this, and clearly didn’t want to think about Hermione being on Harry’s
back, so he shut up. Harry went to the stairs leading to their dorm; before he went up, he saw
that Ron and Hermione were standing awkwardly near the portrait hole; Hermione was gazing
at the fire, while Ron was gazing at her.
Harry shook himself. Focus, he thought. He retrieved the map from his trunk and hurried back
downstairs, laying the parchment on a table and waving his wand over it while Ron and
Hermione came over to watch.
“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”
When the map appeared, they easily found the Charms classroom with the tiny dot right outside
the doorway labeled “Cho Chang.” Then they saw three minuscule dots moving down the
Charms corridor. Two were labeled, “Roger Davis” and “Niamh Quirke” and the third one
was Professor Flitwick.
Harry heaved a sigh of relief. “Look, they’ve come looking for her. That makes sense. Niamh
and Roger are the seventh-year Ravenclaw prefects. He’s Head Boy, sure, but he’s still a
prefect too. And they brought Flitwick, since he’s their head-of-house.”
They nodded. Hermione got a sudden revelatory look on her face. “Oh, Harry! What if the
thing in the doorway isn’t Dark Magic? What if it’s just some kind of--security spell that
Flitwick puts on his classroom?”
“I’ve been in there before at odd hours,” Harry said, not mentioning that it was to snog with
her. “It’s never been there before.”
“Maybe he just recently started doing it.”
“I hope so, because that would mean he knows what happened to Cho, and should be able to
reverse it. But even if Flitwick is the one who charmed the doorway, someone tried to lure you
two and Cho there, probably knowing what would happen to anyone who entered the room,
then tried to leave it. The source of the field may possibly be Flitwick, but I doubt that he sent
the notes.”
Then they noticed that the small Flitwick dot was moving into the classroom. “Maybe he’s
disabling the field,” Hermione speculated, hoping. The Flitwick dot emerged from the classroom
again, then all four dots moved through the corridors, up and down staircases. They watched,
fascinated.
“Do you suppose they revived her? You think she’s all right?” said Ron.
Harry shrugged. Hermione frowned. “No,” she said. “They’re taking her to the hospital wing.”
They watched the four dots enter the hospital wing after traveling together for a few minutes.
They saw the Madam Pomfrey dot flitting back and forth, tending to Cho, whose dot moved to
the vicinity of the beds. Madam Pomfrey moved back and forth between Flitwick and Cho, and
then Flitwick also moved to the bed area. Harry assumed he was checking on Cho before
leaving. But his dot stayed there; only Roger’s and Niamh’s dots left the hospital wing.
“What’s going on?” Harry asked no one in particular. “Flitwick is still there!”
Hermione bit her lip. “Maybe he didn’t put that field in the doorway to his classroom. Maybe it
got him too...”
All three of them looked at each other in alarm. A teacher was hurt now. Funny little Professor
Flitwick, young Will’s great uncle. Flitwick who didn’t even scold Neville for repeatedly flying
him across the classroom...Probably the nicest professor they had. Sprout was nice too, of
course, and Hagrid was their friend. But Flitwick didn’t make them mess around with
bubotubers or Blast-Ended Skrewts. He’d positively gushed about Harry’s summoning charm
during the first task of the Triwizard Tournament. He’d also congratulated Harry on being
captain of the Dueling Club, and he’d been a champion dueler in his youth. Harry didn’t think it
was possible to feel worse than when he had first heard from Sirius about how bad the tube
station explosion had been, but now he found that he was wrong. This was different; he knew
Professor Flitwick.
Had Voldemort expected Harry to somehow find him and throw himself on his mercy after the
Underground blew up? Is that why he was coming after his friends now? But he doubted that
Voldemort himself had entered Hogwarts. Someone here was doing his bidding. Perhaps
someone who had recently received the Dark Mark...
“There’s nothing we can do right now,” he said firmly. “Cho and Flitwick are with Madam
Pomfrey. She’ll take care of them. We’ll talk to Dumbledore tomorrow, tell him what we saw in
the Charms classroom. I doubt anyone else will be going in there tonight. In the morning, we can
stop by before going running and close and lock the door, put a sign on it about Professor
Flitwick being sick, so no one will try to go in. We’re probably the first ones up everyday,
except for the house elves, so that should do the trick.” He looked at Ron and Hermione now,
at how tired they were, how scared. “We should all get some rest. This whole thing came as a
surprise. We tried to deal with it--but obviously we didn’t know what we were up against.” He
didn’t say it aloud, but he wished he had gone to Snape when Ron and Hermione had told him
about the notes. He would have known the right thing to do, Harry felt sure. Or what not to do,
at any rate. Surely they hadn’t.
He waved his wand over the map, saying dispiritedly, “Mischief managed.” Someone had
managed some mischief, thought Harry. And he felt sure that more was coming.
* * * * *
Professor McGonagall was waiting for him in the hall outside the common room when he and
Hermione came down to run the next morning.
“Potter!” she said simply, looking very stern. “Come with me.” He looked over his shoulder at
Hermione, who was frowning. She went down the staircase they usually took to get to the Great
Hall; he followed McGonagall to her office, her stiff, straight shoulders looking uncompromising
and forbidding.
When he was sitting before her desk, she fixed him with a cold eye, and he shivered. “Harry,”
she said, using his first name for the first time in a very long time (he could probably count the
times on one hand), “I’m very disappointed in you. You’re a prefect, you’re doing so well in the
Dueling Club and in your Animagus Training. Then your girlfriend breaks up with you, and you
do something like this...”
Harry frowned. “What? Something like what? What are you talking about?” Had Cho Chang
died? Had Flitwick? No, he decided; she wouldn’t be sitting in her office with him, calling him
Harry if she were accusing him of murder. But she was certainly accusing him of something.
“How did you know about her breaking up with me?” he asked quietly. She gave him that look
Sirius had given him when he tried to make him think he and Hermione had been sleeping in
separate beds.
“Practically everyone in the school who was in Hogsmeade yesterday knows about it, and the
rest know about it from those who were there. Word travels fast around here.”
Especially word about Harry Potter, he thought bitterly. Some people probably couldn’t wait to
gloat about him being dumped, not having any idea he’d been trying to get dumped for months.
“I still don’t understand--”
“Cho Chang was found last night in the corridor outside the Charms classroom. Her roommates
told Davies that she’d received a note from you, asking her to meet you in the Charms
classroom at midnight. They saw your snowy owl deliver it. When she hadn’t returned and it
was after one in the morning, Niamh Quirke convinced Davies and Professor Flitwick that they
should go looking for her. They found her unconscious; no rejuvenation spell they tried worked
at reviving her. Professor Flitwick went into the classroom to see whether anyone was there,
then left the room, and when he passed through the door again, he was stricken in the same way
as Chang, and has also been unconscious ever since. Davies and Quirke took them to the
infirmary, and it is my understanding that Madam Pomfrey has still been unable to reverse the
effect of--of whatever it was you did to them.”
“Whatever I did?” Harry tried not to yell, but it was difficult in the face of such an accusation.
“Davies and Quirke determined that whatever happened to them, it had something to do with
passing into the classroom and then out of it again. They closed and sealed the door, to protect
others. Charms classes are of course canceled until further notice. What do you have to say for
yourself, Potter?”
He was back to being Potter. He didn’t know whether that was good or bad. “Can I ask you
something, Professor McGonagall?”
“What?”
“Have I ever before made you think I would do such a thing?”
Her face softened toward him momentarily. “No,” she had to admit.
“Well, I didn’t do this. Can we--can we meet with Professor Dumbledore and Professor
Snape? Then I can explain everything to you.”
“Why Professor Snape?”
“Well--we’re getting along better these days. Sort of. I just think it would be a good idea.”
She lit the fire in the grate and threw in some powder from a bowl on the mantel, saying,
“Severus Snape.” It took about a minute before Snape’s face finally appeared in the fire, his
eyes not quite opened, squinting up at McGonagall.
“What? Why are you pestering me at this hour on a Sunday?” he said testily.
She ignored his tone. “Severus, please come to the headmaster’s office immediately. I am
bringing Harry Potter.”
Snape’s eyes were open wider now; he noticed Harry sitting in the chair before her desk.
“Potter? What’s he done now?”
“You will find out,” was all she would tell him. The call was abruptly terminated. Snape’s face
disappeared. She extinguished the fire and marched Harry into the corridor. As they walked to
Dumbledore’s office, Harry decided to casually strike up conversation.
“How’s Rita? I guess it’s a good thing Dumbledore asked her to work for him, since she was
able to get the samples from the Krums...”
“Yes, it was. She’s actually more useful than I would have--” Then she stopped and stared at
him. “How did you know--”
“You can trust me, Professor McGonagall. Really. And you know about--my godfather, don’t
you?” She looked back at him appraisingly, nodding. “And you know who really betrayed my
parents?” She nodded again. He breathed a sigh of relief. They resumed walking. He could feel
her eyes on him as they approached the gargoyle that guarded Dumbledore’s office.
“Chocolate-coated pumpkin pasty,” she said to the gargoyle. The wall opened and they went
up the moving spiral stairs to Dumbledore’s office. He was waiting for them; a few minutes after
they had entered, Snape arrived.
“Well,” Dumbledore began cheerfully. “I don’t think we’ve all been in the same room at the
same time this year except to eat meals! And yet--we probably should have had a meeting
before this. Pity it has to be now. Harry? Can you tell us anything about last night?”
Harry swallowed. Dumbledore didn’t think he had anything to do with what happened to Cho
and Flitwick, did he? “After my--my training, I--”
“Training?” Snape spat. “What training?”
Dumbledore looked at McGonagall. “He’s almost done, isn’t he Minerva? Surely another
teacher can know now, particularly Severus.”
She nodded, then turned to Snape. “Harry has been receiving Animagus training from me. It’s
been--what, Harry? About five months?--and he’s almost done. Albus and I have talked to the
Ministry of Magic about delaying his registration until he graduates, for his own safety. You
understand why we didn’t mention this before?”
Snape nodded reluctantly, looking at Harry. “I’m sorry I’m interrupted. Go on,” he said to
Harry grumpily; he looked even more upset than Hermione that he hadn’t known. So much for
building trust, Harry thought.
“Well, when I got back upstairs, I found out that someone had used Hedwig to deliver notes to
Ron and Hermione asking them to meet me in the Charms classroom at midnight.” He
described to them the different theories they came up with, and the plan for Ron to guard the
portrait hole while he and Hermione waited in the classroom in the Invisibility Cloak.
“Harry,” said Dumbledore gently. “You could have come to me or Professor McGonagall or
Professor Snape for help. You didn’t have to do this yourself.”
Harry grimaced. “I thought of that later. I’m sorry. I need to remember to--to rely on others
more.” Most headmasters, he thought, would have told him that he should have come to them,
not he could have. He felt worse than ever.
He described how surprised they were when Cho showed up, that he hadn’t known she’d
received a note, the way she’d passed out through the doorway again and then fallen over,
unconscious.
“How did you get out of the room, then?” Snape genuinely sounded like he wanted to know,
through his surliness. He hemmed and hawed, then gave in.
“Don’t be mad, Professor McGonagall, Professor Dumbledore. I didn’t want whatever
happened to Cho to happen to me or Hermione. I--I had to show her my--my Animagus form.
So we could use the window to get out.” He looked at Professor McGonagall with a smile
now. “I flew us out of there and up to the Astronomy Tower. It was--amazing to fly like that...”
McGonagall was actually smiling now. “You did it? You flew? On the first try?”
“Well--” Harry said reluctantly. “Actually, I fell, at first. But I recovered in time.”
“Flew?” Snape spat. “And you were able to carry a fifteen-year-old girl? What are you, a sea
eagle?”
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled at Harry. “Show him, Harry.”
Well, it was an order from the headmaster. So Harry stood and pushed his chair out of the way.
He was getting very fast at the change. In a matter of seconds, he felt his paws land on the floor,
felt his tail swishing, the mane around his face, the motor inside him pulsing insistently, a dull
ache through all his bones.
“A lion?” Snape said, confused. “But you said you flew...”
So Harry spread his wings, turning his head to see them; the early morning light coming in
Dumbledore’s windows made iridescent colors appear in the window-pane-like segments. He
looked up at Snape, satisfied to see him speechless.
He changed back into his human form, looking at them all. He sat in his chair again, stiffly, his
joints aching. He didn’t go on; he didn’t feel like revealing the existence of the map to Professor
McGonagall. Snape knew about the map already, but he wasn’t sure about Dumbledore. He
didn’t want to risk losing his map. He was lucky he’d gotten it back from Lupin, in third year,
and from Crouch, when he was masquerading as Moody. It was too useful to lose. These were
allies, but still--
“So, you returned to Gryffindor Tower and went to bed, leaving that poor girl in the corridor?”
McGonagall said accusingly.
“No; I took Hermione back and went to the Charms corridor in the cloak,” he lied. “I saw
Roger and Niamh and Flitwick were coming, so I left; I figured they would take her to the
hospital wing. I had no idea Professor Flitwick would wind up in the infirmary too...I’m sorry I
had to show someone that I’m an Animagus.”
McGonagall looked at him shrewdly. “You didn’t show anyone else, did you?”
“No,” he lied, thinking of Ron and Neville. Neville was accidental, but Ron wasn’t. He was just
tired of having secrets from him, and Hermione knew now. It was getting too tiring keeping
track of who knew what.
“Well,” she said, as though relieved. “I’m glad you did that instead of something stupid like
trying to levitate yourselves down. You probably would have wound up a mile over the
castle...”
“I know it’s hard to control that spell. It’s not exactly my favorite. Although, it is one of
Hermione’s. I’m surprised she didn’t suggest it.”
“Hmmph! Miss Granger knows as well as you do that it is unpredictable when applied to
humans. The usual result is the person shooting straight up into the air with no control
whatsoever...”
“Now, now, Minerva,” Dumbledore broke in. “We’ve established that Harry did the right thing.
The questions we are faced with now are, who cursed the doorway of the Charms classroom?
Who used Harry’s owl to send his friends notes that seemed to be from him? And why?”
They all looked around at each other, at a loss. Harry was about to say something, only about
twenty times, but lost his nerve each time. The silence stretched, until finally, Dumbledore said,
“Well. We’ll all think about that. I won’t assume as yet that anyone has managed to get into the
castle from the outside. Of course, that would mean a student or teacher has done this. Also not
a pleasant thought.”
McGonagall nodded, as did Snape. Harry grimaced. Dumbledore stood. “Sorry to cut short
your morning run, Harry. Go down now, while you still have a little time before breakfast. I have
something else to discuss with Professors Snape and McGonagall.” Harry nodded and left,
wondering what that could be about. Maybe it was just school business.
He went down to the Great Hall and found Hermione sitting at the Gryffindor table, looking
down at her hands. He sat next to her, put his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t look at him.
“Hermione? Have you done any running yet?”
She shook her head, still not looking at him. Finally, she spoke. “It’s all my fault. Cho. I should
have nixed the whole idea from the start. We never should have involved her. I’m not--not
especially fond of her, but she doesn’t deserve this...” She swallowed; he could see how eaten
up she was. Hermione was too principled not to feel responsible about something like this.
“No,” he said. “It was my stupid idea. Don’t blame yourself. I’m--I’m not feeling particularly
like running today. What I really want to do is--”
“What?”
He drew his lips into a line. “Find Draco Malfoy and bash in his skull. No magic involved. Just
lots of hitting and blood and real pain. No illusions.” His voice was hard; she looked at him, her
eyes a little scared. He knew he didn’t usually talk like this; he felt changed somehow, after the
last several weeks, after the Westminster tube station and now the trap in the Charms
classroom. He didn’t feel like the same person anymore.
They sat in silence, staring in opposite directions, not touching. After they’d been sitting like that
for a very long time, Harry heard a step near the entrance to the hall. He turned his head
quickly; the thin, pale figure stood in the doorway, elegant black school robes with a silver
prefect badge over a crisp white shirt and black trousers, as though he were ready for
inspection, his fine pale hair still slightly damp from being washed, his eyes empty and scared.
Scared? Harry thought. He’d better be scared. Of me.
Draco Malfoy strode over to them, starting to speak when he was about ten feet away. “Potter.
We have to talk.”
Hermione looked like she felt at a disadvantage, wearing her running clothes, even though at this
time of year it wasn’t revealing; she had a sweatshirt and sweatpants on with a terry cloth
sweatband holding her hair off her face. Harry somehow felt it was to his advantage that he was
wearing his sweats and a sleeveless T-shirt; Malfoy looked at his bare arms as if wondering
what Harry could do if he were hacked off enough, perhaps remembering the incident on the
train.
“So. Talk.” Harry was terse, cold.
“Not here...”
“All right,” Harry said, standing. He walked over to the anteroom where he had Animagus
training, Hermione and Malfoy following. When they reached the door, Harry opened it and
waved the other two through. Malfoy made a face at Hermione.
“Get out, Granger. This is between me and Potter.”
“Hermione knows everything, Malfoy. She stays. Ron knows too, by the way.”
Malfoy did the impossible and turned even paler than usual. “Everything?”
“Well--not everything. He knows about Christmas night.” They were all in the room now, and
Harry closed the door.
Malfoy gave a sigh of relief, but still eyed Hermione suspiciously. “Why’d you tell them?”
“I’m the one asking the questions this time, Malfoy. Why did you use my owl to send those
notes to Ron and Hermione and Cho? What did you do to the doorway of the Charms
classroom?”
Malfoy swallowed. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?”
“I didn’t know about any bloody notes, but I know now that something was done to the
Charms classroom doorway and I don’t bloody know who did that either!” he shouted at
Harry, sounding very frightened. Not knowing suddenly seemed much more frightening to
Malfoy than any physical pain his father might be able to inflict upon him.
He went on. “Snape called all of the Slytherins into our common room a few minutes ago. He
said all of the heads-of-house were doing the same thing--except for Flitwick. Dumbledore was
handling Ravenclaw. Snape said that Cho Chang and Professor Flitwick were in the hospital
wing, unconscious, because someone had put a curse on the doorway to the Charms
classroom. He said that whoever did it would most likely be expelled; it had all the appearances
of Dark Magic.”
He paused, having been speaking very fast, very nervously. He looked at Harry now. “You said
something about notes; Snape didn’t mention anything about notes.”
“Last night, someone went up to the Owlery and used Hedwig to send notes to Cho, Ron and
Hermione asking them to come to the Charms classroom at midnight to talk to me. The notes
looked completely genuine, as though I’d written them myself. Ron and Hermione asked me
why the Charms classroom, why midnight, and I told them I hadn’t sent the notes. We didn’t
realize Cho had received one. Evidently, there is some kind of field that someone has put on the
doorway of the classroom so that you can pass into the room, but when you leave, it knocks
you out. At least, I think it just knocks you out. Cho and Flitwick are in comas, and Pomfrey
hasn’t been able to bring them around. They’re still alive, but no one can wake them up.”
Malfoy paced, running his hand through his hair. “I cannot believe this...”
“What can’t you believe?”
He looked at Harry and Hermione as though deciding how much to tell them. “I wrote to my
dad, told him about Moody seeing the Mark. I did something stupid; I asked him how he could
let me get the Mark when that ex-Auror with that damn eye is working here.”
Harry remembered when he’d been out in the middle of the night the year before, taking his
Triwizard clue, the large golden egg, to the prefects’ bathroom. He’d wound up with his leg
stuck in a trick step, under his Invisibility Cloak, while Filch and Snape and Crouch (looking like
Moody) stood around arguing about the egg he’d dropped. Crouch had looked at Snape’s left
forearm, covered by his nightshirt, and said, “There are some spots that don’t come off.” At the
time, Snape had looked afraid of someone he thought was an ex-Auror who seemed to doubt
whether he had really changed sides. After Snape and Filch had gone, and Crouch had helped
Harry remove his leg from the step, he had said, “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a Death Eater
who walked free.” Harry later realized that he’d meant a Death Eater who didn’t go to jail, as
he had, showing complete loyalty to Voldemort, but who had turned around and given evidence
against other Death Eaters. People like Snape and Karkaroff, who had made deals. Perhaps
especially Snape, the one who had recruited Crouch when he was still in school...
Harry looked at Malfoy. “What did he say?”
“He said that if I was too incompetent to keep Moody from seeing my Mark, he would find
someone else to do the work he had expected me to do, and that the Dark Lord would be very
disappointed in me. Then I started getting these owls from someone here at Hogwarts; they
were school owls, different one each time. The notes that were sent asked me to get some
samples of your writing. So I did; I took some old homework out of your bag when you
weren’t paying attention in Hagrid’s class. Potions requires too much vigilance to avoid the
cauldron going wrong. You really ought to watch your stuff more carefully, Potter.”
“Obviously.”
Hermione spoke for the first time. “Who sent you the owls?” she wanted to know, sounding
impatient.
“How the hell should I know?” he shouted at her, still pacing. Harry felt like knocking him down
and kneeling on his stomach, starting to rain down blows upon him...
“Whoever it is, I don’t think they’re in Slytherin. The other Slytherins were looking pretty
surprised when I got mail from a school owl at breakfast, every time it happened. None of them
are smart enough or good enough at acting to pull that off convincingly. Hufflepuffs are unlikely,
I suppose, but I wonder sometimes whether that’s a red herring--haven’t any Dark Wizards
evercome from Hufflepuff? There has to be someone; even Ravenclaw and Gryffindor have
produced them.”
“Not as many as Slytherin house,” Harry said tensely, still restraining himself.
“Yeah, yeah. House fight for some other time, Potter. This is important. I’m in as much danger
as you now, you know.”
“My heart bleeds. I’m still not convinced that you’re not making all of this up. Maybe if you
could give me some idea of who it might be...”
“The only lead I have is--I think it’s a prefect.”
Hermione looked very alert now. “Why?”
Malfoy drew his lips into a line. “I always sit in the same place for the prefects’ meetings. Last
time, a piece of parchment belonging to you that I had sent back with one of the school owls
was on my desk after the meeting. I didn’t even see how it got there. Someone at the meeting
managed to do it. In a bit of space where there wasn’t already writing, they’d written,
‘THANKS.’”
“What did the handwriting look like?” Hermione wanted to know. Malfoy reached into the
pocket of his robes.
“Take a look.”
Harry and Hermione examined it; it wasn’t very helpful. Just large block letters. Not really
handwriting at all. Harry recognized a corner of his Hamlet essay.
“It’s possible that whichever prefect it was did it because someone else asked them to. It
doesn’t mean our other junior Death Eater is a prefect,” Hermione pointed out. Harry was a
little annoyed with her.
“Just because someone is a prefect doesn’t make them beyond reproach, Hermione.”
“And that includes Head Boys and Head Girls,” agreed Malfoy, surprising Harry. “Potter--that
Head Girl, Spinnet, from your house. Do you think she’s okay?”
“You mean do I think she could be a Death Eater? I dunno, Malfoy--do you think Voldemort’s
recruiting Muggle-born witches now?”
“Oh. She’s Muggle-born? And she duels like that? The three of us and Ginny are the only ones
who were able to beat her.”
Hermione drew herself up to her full five-foot-three inches and glared at Malfoy. “I’m Muggleborn,
Malfoy. Remember dueling with me?” she said softly, dangerously. He backed up a step.
“I just mean--are you sure she’s Muggle-born? Couldn’t she just say that to throw people off?”
“Well, let’s see,” said Hermione, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Her parents raise
thoroughbred race horses in Devon and she was going to train to be an Olympic equestrienne
until she got her Hogwarts letter, so yes, Malfoy, I’m fairly certain her parents are Muggles.
Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson have visited her on holiday. She’s legitimate Muggle-born.”
Malfoy looked thoughtful, smiling. “Spinnet, riding a horse...there’s an image...”
Harry glared at him. “I’ll tell you-know-who...”
“You’ll tell the Dark Lord I said that about Spinnet?”
“I call him Voldemort. You know who I’m talking about.”
He made a face. “Well, if I weren’t trying to be so damn good when I’m with her, my mind
wouldn’t be wandering like this...”
Harry shook his head. “First Parvati, now Alicia...”
Hermione was baffled. “What about Parvati? Who are you talking about?”
Harry looked at her. “I thought you said you’d guessed who Ginny was going to meet.”
Hermione sighed. “Oh, is that all you’re talking about. You’d better be good when you’re with
her, Malfoy. She won’t be fifteen until April.”
“And you’ll keep on behaving yourself even after her birthday, if you know what’s good for
you,” Harry warned. Hermione looked at him strangely when he said this.
“All right, all right. Enough about my private, er, thoughts. What about Head Boy? Is Davies all
right?” Harry’s and Hermione’s faces fell. They looked at each other nervously. Malfoy looked
back and forth between them. “What? What? Oh, come on.”
“It’s just that--” Hermione began.
“He’s so--” Harry ventured.
“I don’t know how to put it--”
“All right, all right!” Malfoy interrupted. “So. You don’t trust him. You don’t know why, but
you don’t trust him. Does that about sum it up?” They both nodded.
Then Harry thought of something. “When he and Niamh and Flitwick went looking for Cho,
Roger didn’t go into the classroom...”
“Yes, but Niamh didn’t go in either. I trust her,” Hermione said.
Malfoy narrowed his eyes. “Why do you trust her?”
Hermione made a face. “I just do. I don’t know...”
“And how do you know what Davies and Quirke did?” Harry glanced at Hermione, who
looked like she was biting her tongue. Harry saw an expression of understanding dawning on
Malfoy’s face. “Oh--were you using that parchment thing again? To track their movements.
Wish to hell I had one of those things...”
“Keep wishing, Malfoy. It’s not going to happen. And even without that, we could have figured
it out; I mean, Roger and Niamh aren’t in the hospital wing like Cho and Flitwick, are they?”
Malfoy nodded. “Well, you want to
