Phoenix Trilogy: Together Again

Chapter Five- Just Believe

"I get it, okay?" he said, sitting down on a bench and, when she followed suit, putting his arm around her waist. She sighed happily and leaned into his arm.

"I get it too, Harry Potter," she whispered. They looked up at the sky and suddenly a shooting star flew across the sky.

"Make a wish," Harry said to her. She closed her eyes. Harry watched her perfect lips part slightly and had the sudden uncontrollable urge to kiss them. When she opened her eyes, he did so. He felt a shock pass between them, but he found that he liked it. He pulled away and looked at her

"What did you wish for?"

"It just came true," she answered quietly.

Harry leaned back in his chair during Defense Against the Dark Arts class on Monday morning as he remembered the rest of that wonderful night. His page of notes sat in front of him, the wet ink still glistening. Professor Sirs was handing back a few pages of homework from the previous week. He passed Harry´s table and placed his Patronus essay face down on it. Harry picked it up and looked at it.

"What did ya get?" Audry asked, popping the bubble on her gum with a snap.

"Full points," Harry told her.

"Good job! I only got half credit," she pulled out her paper once more and Harry saw a big red mark circling around the bottom half of the paper. "I didn´t have a good reason for having a lioness for my patronus."

"I hope he didn´t look your dad up on the register, Harry," Hermione said, carefully placing her perfect score paper on the tabletop. "He wouldn´t know that your dad was...well, illegal."

Audry looked up in surprise. "Really? Your dad wasn´t a certified Animagus?"

"Thanks, Hermione," Harry said to her. She grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry."

"You gonna follow in his footsteps?" Audry asked, grinning evilly. Harry rolled his eyes.

"Can I get your attention, please?" Sirs said loudly, clapping his hands. The students looked up at him and quieted down almost immediately. After a few lessons, they knew that (usually) he had something interesting to say if he asked them for their attention. "The ten points is awarded to Mr. Harry Potter for the best reason why it´s so difficult to cast this spell. Mr. Potter, would you please read what you wrote down?" Harry, slightly bewildered, got to his feet to a smattering of applause. Hermione looked downright stunned, while Ron was giving Sirs a look that was quite skeptical.

Harry cleared his throat. "Er..." he looked around, slightly nervous.

He heard the faint whispering in his head for the first time in weeks just then. He jumped and listened hard and just made out, "Oh, puh-lease! You fought a Horntail dragon last year and you´re nervous?" Harry smiled inwardly and began to talk.

"Well, it´s so difficult not because you´re not pronouncing it right, because most of us are, but because of the power that we put behind it. When I cast the spell, I try to remember what I was feeling at the moment of happiness that I choose--for me, it´s the exhilaration of winning a quidditch match, of flying, and, most importantly, knowing that I can do it. Being able to do magic isn´t just about being born in a wizarding family--look at Hermione and other Muggle-born students in the school!--and it´s definitely not about being brought up with wizards around you, or even knowing that you are one. Just look at me," Harry said, waving his hands at himself for emphasis. "I was brought up by Muggles, not knowing who I was, or that I could do magic. You know," he said suddenly, slapping his paper down on the table and causing everyone to jump, "Muggles have their own brand of magic, too. They also know that the only thing that you need to know when doing something new and different is to believe that you can do it."

"In New York," Audry started, standing up beside Harry, "they have homeless shelters for the homeless, where they feed them and give them a place to live when they have nothing. If one of them gets sick, a doctor will be called in, who believes he can cure them because he was taught by teachers, who believed that they could teach, who learned the same life lesson that we´re learning right now--that belief is one way to be able to do something. Harry, you´re off a bit. You need three things--the know how, belief, and perseverance. Without that, nothing is possible. The teachers wouldn´t have learned those lessons, therefore not teaching the doctors, who wouldn´t be able to help the sick, who would die without help. And if all the homeless shelters were empty because they all died from being out in the cold, then the people who cared enough to help them would have no one to care fore, therefore making New York a very cold place, making the United States a place where no one wants to live, a place of no opportunity."

"Fifty points to Gryffindor for your understanding something that takes most wizards decades to figure out, Mr. Potter and Audry," Sirs said, slightly surprised. A good portion of the students wore expressions that said, What the heck? on their faces. Ron had one eyebrow raised, while Hermione seemed to be taking notes on what they had just said. Harry sat down very slowly, aware that Audry seemed to be doing the same.

"That," Ron told them, "was bloody brilliant!"

~*~

Harry collapsed into a chair in the common room of Gryffindor later that day, exhausted. Fred crept up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Harry, emergency quidditch meeting in five minutes," he hissed into his ear. Harry turned but Fred was already gone, heading off towards Alicia and Katie. Harry leaned into his hands.

Five minutes later they all met up on the quidditch field.

"What´s the problem, Fred?" Katie asked.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "I have Transfiguration homework that needs to be finished sometime today."

"You didn´t seem to busy when I called the meeting," Fred pointed out. "Besides, the first match of the season is in three weeks, and we´re missing a keeper and one chaser. We need replacements that have experience, not just those who want to play. You three are going to be responsible for weeding out those who want to play and those who can play. Bring your friends out here and hand them a broom to see if they´re a natural, like your girlfriend, Audry," Fred told Harry.

"She´s not my girlfriend," he told him.

"Right. Well, she has the right build for a keeper."

"And a seeker too," Harry pointed out. "She has enough spunk to beat you two out of your jobs as beater, though." Fred shook his head as George roared with laughter.

"Could she fill in for both of us at once?" he asked, still chortling. Harry shrugged.

"Anyway, keep that in mind," Fred said, glaring at his brother. He turned to Katie and Alicia. "Be sure that you two check things out, too," he told them.

"Can we leave now?" Alicia asked. "I was knee deep in parchment for Snape´s essay and I wasn´t anywhere near being finished." Fred and George looked over the three of them.

"I guess," George said finally.

"Get out of here," Fred told them, waving his hands at them as if to shoo them off. "The next practice is this Friday at three--don´t forget!"

"As long as it´s an afternoon practice, this time," Harry said. "I missed the highlights of Flitwicks speech on cleaning charms that morning."

He turned and left the field, heading back for the common room, intending to get a start on his transfiguration homework that he had mentioned to Fred at the meeting. His thoughts strayed to Hermione once more, about how her hair had fallen so perfectly on his shoulder two nights before, the smell of her shampoo flooding his nose, the way that she walked, how she laughed. He smiled at the thought of her I´m-angry-at-you-but-not-really glare, frowned at the memory of how scared she´d been the previous year when he saw her in the Hospital Wing after the third task, after Cedric had been killed.

All these memories of her, Harry thought. And to think that I was so blind to the fact that she liked me.

"Harry, are you aware of the fact that Hermione´s birthday is tomorrow?" Ron´s urgent voice said suddenly in his ear. He spun around and faced him.

"Tomorrow?" he echoed.

"Are you thinking what I´m thinking, then?" Ron asked, a wicked grin on his face. Harry grinned, realizing what he meant.

"I think it´s time that we went looking for the Marauder´s Map."

~*~

"Ouch, Harry, that´s my foot!" Ron whispered angrily in his ear as they neared Filch´s office under the invisibility cloak.

"If you weren´t right on my heel, I wouldn´t have--"

"Shh! There´s Filch!" The teens stopped and watched Filch walk from his office. He gazed around as if he had heard them, and then continued down the hall and out of sight. Harry sighed in relief

"Okay, after you..." They threw off the cloak once they entered and lit their wands.

"Which drawer d´you think it´s in?" Ron asked Harry as he walked to a row of filing cabinets.

"If it´s in here at all, you mean," Harry answered quietly, examining one of them. He smirked. "It´s not in Fred and George´s drawer, that´s for sure."

"Confiscated and Highly Dangerous...how about that?" Ron read from one near the bottom.

"That´s where it was last time," Harry noted, remembering what the Weasley twins had told him back in his third year, when he´d received the map in the first place. "Open it and see." Ron slid it open and both of them winced at the loud squeak it let out when it rolled against some rust.

Ron groaned. "It´ll take forever to look through all these!"

"I´ve got an idea," Harry said suddenly. "Accio Marauder´s Map!" Harry heard some rattling from the back of the room and he and Ron turned around to face the noise.

"It´s coming from back there," Harry whispered, as if the source of the noise could hear him. They closed the drawer, Ron telling Harry to be quieter as he did so, and crept towards the rattling.

"I think it´s in his desk!" Ron said, pointing to a drawer in the old and slightly decomposing looking desk. Harry approached it and gave it a pull.

"It´s locked," he said dejectedly.

"Then unlock it," Ron said mockingly. Harry glared at him and flicked his wand.

"Alohomora," he said in a hushed voice. The drawer sprang open and a piece of parchment flew out of the drawer and hit him in the face. Harry sighed and peeled it off. He looked at it and his eyes grew wide. "No one ever wiped it!" he said.

"Any more bad news?" Ron asked, looking crestfallen.

"Yeah," Harry said. "Filch is coming back." They scrambled for the invisibility cloak, shut the drawer again, and waited in the back corner, away from everything that Filch might want to access.

"Wretched children," Harry heard him mumble as he reached the door. Harry winced and realized that they´d left it open. "Eh? My sweet, someone´s been in here," he said, presumably to Mrs. Norris. Harry felt like groaning but just managed to contain it. He turned to Ron and saw that he was praying fervently under his breath. Harry elbowed him and watched as Filch entered the room.

We have to get out of here, Ron mouthed. Harry nodded.

When Filch gets to his desk, be ready to go to the door! Harry mouthed back. Filch entered and, to Harry´s absolute horror, closed the door.

We´re in for it, Ron mouthed, looking as though he was playing McGonagall´s giant wizard chess game again.

Filch didn´t stay for more then a few minutes, luckily for Harry and Ron. He also didn´t discover that the map was missing. He left grumbling about incompetent students and idiotic poltergeists.

"I swear someone´s laughing at us right now," Ron said hoarsely.

"No kidding. Let´s get out of here before he comes back. Mischief managed!"

~*~

Harry and Ron sped down the corridors towards the humpbacked witch as fast as they could under the invisibility cloak. At one point, they nearly walked through Peeves as he bounced through the halls, his cackling able to be heard from a long ways off.

"Harry, do you remember the password?" Ron asked breathlessly as they skidded into the correct corridor.

"Yeah," he said, halting just before it and throwing off the cloak. "Dissendium!" The hump of the witch slid back, revealing a slide that led to the dirt floor beyond. Harry grabbed hold of the edges and, feet first, went down the stone slide to the bottom. When he flew through the opening, he scrambled aside as Ron hurtled out behind him. He landed with an, "Oof!" and cart-wheeled off into the darkness.

"Lumos!" Harry heard him breathe. Light flooded the area, showing Harry where Ron had landed.

"You okay?" he asked, coming over.

"Yeah," Ron panted. "Rough ride, though. Still have the money?" Harry pulled out his sack of golden Galleons, silver Sickles, and bronze Knuts. "Good. Let´s go!"

After an hour of hiking, they finally came to the top of some stairs.

"We´re at Honeydukes now," Harry hissed to Ron, stopping him. The two put out their wands and Harry cracked open the trapdoor. Not a sound came from above. "Stay here for a moment, and hand me the cloak." Ron passed Harry the cloak and he slipped into the open. There was no one around, but Harry could hear laughter coming from the store upstairs.

"Can I come up?" Ron whispered. Harry put a hand out from under the cloak and waved to him. Ron crept up and slipped under the cloak.

"We have to be very quiet," Harry said. They popped the door open and Harry peered into the room. He tried to contain a snigger. Fred and George were walking around the store, picking up random candies and popping them into a bag. "Take off the cloak," he told Ron. They did so and strode boldly into the store, taking the twins by surprise.

"Hello, George," Ron said to his brother, grinning broadly. Fred and George jumped, spilling candy, and turned around.

"What are you two doing here?" Fred asked, putting his hands on his hips.

"Could ask you the same," Ron retorted. "D´you know how much trouble you could get in for this?"

"Not nearly as much as Harry," George scolded. "You´re a prefect, Harry. If they catch you...well, let´s just say that you probably won´t be a prefect anymore."

"Then I won´t get caught," Harry said slyly. "And besides, we need to get Hermione a birthday gift." The twins shook their heads and turned towards the door.

"Just don´t get her a Canary Cream and she´ll be happy," George said to their retreating backs.

"Or a guide to cheating!" Harry turned to glare at Fred, but he kept walking.

"What do you think we should get her?" Ron asked as the door shut behind them. Harry gazed around the stores in the area.

"Well, what do girls like?"

"Ginny likes jewelry, but I know she wouldn´t say no to something to do with quidditch," Ron said, also looking around.

"We both know that the only way Hermione likes her quidditch is if she´s watching it. I think she doesn´t like flying."

"No, really," a voice said from behind them. "What gave you the clue?"

"Audry!" Harry and Ron gasped in unison, spinning around. The American grinned at them. "What are you doing here?"

"Buying my friend a gift for her birthday. You?" she walked up and put her arms around the shoulders of the boys. They looked at each other incredulously.

"Er..."

"What you´re trying to say is, `Audry, we´re so sorry! We should´ve invited ya along with us to buy Hermione a gift!´"

"Er..."

"And, `Audry, you´re a girl; help us to get a present for our dearest friend Hermione!´ Or, in Harry´s case--"

Harry clapped a hand over her mouth. "`Or, in Harry´s case´," he mocked. "Jeez. Audry, if you´d wanted to come, why didn´t you ask?"

"You two disappeared before I could talk to you. I saw you go into the back of that weird statue and followed you. Man, sometimes I think men wouldn´t notice if their robes were on fire." She shook her head and pushed them forward. "Now, every girl likes jewelry, so that´s our first stop. If we can´t find anything there that would fit with ´Moine´s personality, we go on to the bookstore down there." Audry pointed down the street to a dirty little place with a worn down sign hanging half off its hinges. "Any questions?" Too astounded to say anything, Harry and Ron shook their heads. Audry grinned. "By the end of this year, you two will be as well trained as my ex was." She looked thoughtfully up at the sky. "I wonder if he´s been able to walk properly yet." Harry looked at Ron, who had a strangely scared expression on his face.

~*~

A bell above the door jingled as Harry entered a small shop on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. Ron and Audry were off looking at some of the stuff in the bookstore, since Ron couldn´t see anything there that he would give to Hermione as just a friend in the jewelry store. Audry discovered a beautiful charm bracelet that had actual charms on the charms.

"Can I help you?" a voice said. Harry looked up and saw a grizzled old man standing behind a counter to the back of the room. He looked so old and wise that Harry supposed that he must be about Dumbledore´s age.

"Er, maybe," Harry said, walking in closer. The man squinted at him.

"School trip?" he asked as Harry approached the counter.

"Well, not exactly. I´m looking for something that I can get for my girlfriend. It´s her birthday tomorrow, and I haven´t gotten her anything yet."

"Have anything particular in mind?" he asked.

"Actually, I have no idea what to get her," Harry said sheepishly. The man smiled.

"Ah. I see you haven´t been together long, then."

"Well, I´ve known her since I was eleven, but girls are hard to shop for, for some reason."

"Yes, quite true, quite true." The man pulled out a few boxes and set them on the counter. "We have all sorts of things here. Here´s a charmed necklace from the fifteenth century that will ward away werewolves, for example."

"Oh, I don´t think she´d like that," Harry said, his hopes lessening slightly. "A friend of my family is a werewolf, you see, and I don´t think he´d appreciate that too much. He took me in after my aunt kicked me out."

The storekeeper raised an eyebrow. "Point well taken. Well, maybe she´s the bookworm type. I have a book on witches through the centuries that she might like."

"She´s probably read it," Harry sighed. He pulled one of the boxes on the counter towards him and began to go through it. He pulled out sneakoscopes, old and beautiful quills, a dead bug (he supposed that wasn´t supposed to be in there, considering that the old man brushed it off the counter), and then finally a small object that looked like a gemstone of some sort, but it was so bizarre and unique that he had no idea of what it was even supposed to be.

"I wondered where that had got to," the storekeeper said eagerly, picking it up. "This is a charm to go on a necklace. It´ll show you any person in the world that you want to see at that moment, and you can hear what they´re saying and you can talk with them."

"There´s a catch," Harry said bluntly.

The storekeeper hesitated. "Yes, there is one catch. You have to believe entirely on the stone, and that´s very difficult for some wizards." Harry picked it up from the man´s hand and held it up to the light.

"Amber...?" Harry asked doubtfully.

The man smiled. "If you believe in something enough, especially a wizard, you can make anything happen."

Since Harry had made a speech on that earlier that day, he didn´t say anything except for, "How much?"

~*~

Hermione seemed to have completely forgotten that Tuesday was her birthday, and maybe it was because no one said anything about it. Audry had wanted to sing Happy Birthday to her as loudly as they could that day at lunch, but Harry had a better idea. After talking with Fred and George for a bit, who seemed to have thrown the thought of being responsible out of the window, and they agreed with the idea.

After a long and strenuous meeting with the prefects, in which they made no important decisions and yet seemed to be doing something important, Harry and Hermione headed down to the common room. When they entered, it was very empty and deserted.

"Where is everyone?" Hermione asked.

"Dinner?" Harry shrugged.

Everyone in the room leapt up at that moment and shouted, "Surprise!" Stunned and wide-eyed, Hermione stood the center of attention for once, surrounded by people who were laughing and clapping her on the back, shouting "Happy Birthday!" and shoving gifts towards her. She glanced warily at Harry, who was holding suppressed laughter.

"Wh-who did this?" she asked breathlessly. Fred and George came over with a large flimsy crown and plunked it down on her head.

"Why, Harry did! Naughty old boy," Fred said robustly. Hermione half glared at Harry and finally she relaxed.

"Thanks," she said. "I´ve never had a surprise party before."

"It came in handy that even you forgot your birthday," Harry pointed out.

"What do you mean, even you?"

"Well, you forgot your own birthday! I mean, it´s not every day that you turn fifteen, is it?"

"Well, no, but--"

"No, but shush." Harry pressed a small box into Hermione´s hands. She looked up at him and opened it, pulling out a long chain with the amber gemstone on the end of it.

"A necklace?" she asked dully.

"Put it on and clasp it, yeah, like that, and then think of a person that you want to see right now." Hermione squeezed her eyes shut.

"It´s not working," she said, popping one open.

"Believe it will work, Hermione," Harry said. "Believe with all your soul."

"But--"

"No buts. Just believe," Harry told her. She sighed and closed her eyes once more and suddenly--

"Mom?" she gasped. A tear escaped from one of her closed eyes and she hastily wiped it away with her other hand, listening intently. She nodded a few times and then opened her eyes once more.

"Thank you so much, Harry," she said tearfully.

"You´re welcome," he answered.

~*~

An old and worn armchair stood before a crackling fire, the occupant of the chair hissing gently and patting the head of a gigantic snake. He seemed to be speaking to the snake, for every now and then it would nod slowly. The only door to the room cracked open suddenly and the man looked up. Or, at least, what once was a man. He had slits for a nose and his eyes glowed red. He glared at the person in the door and then turned back to the fire.

"You have failed me," he said simply. The man in the door trembled.

"Th-there was an intervention, my Lord," he tried to explain. The once-man in the chair rose slowly to his feet and faced him. He began to tremble again as the strange creature circled him.

"You will be punished for your failure later, Wormtail," he said finally. The man called Wormtail let out an audible sigh and sank back into the shadows. "In the meantime, tell me where I can find James Potter."

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Thanks to all the reviewers!! So sorry that it took me so long to update this...homework´s being a pain in the you-know-where. And then there´s the whole I had finals thing...yah...enough about that...