Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent

He had run into Cho Chang a couple of times since the date, but each time she looked the other way, and Harry was starting to wonder if he’d blown it. How could they fix up Viktor and Cho if she wouldn’t go out with him?

It was Wednesday, and they had just finished their Defense Against the Dark Arts class. It had been Harry’s turn to read his essay on Hamlet; he had been quite nervous about it, but Moody seemed to think he’d done well. Hermione had smiled encouragingly at him, all the while, but then, she’d already read it three times, not to mention five earlier drafts. Ron had yet to do his Othello essay; it was written, but he had refused to show it to Harry and Hermione. “You’ll hear it when everyone else does,” is all he would say.

When they were back in the common room after class, Harry said to Hermione, “I have to talk to you.” He walked over to the fireplace and Ron started to follow, but Hermione put her hand out to stop him.

“He said he wants to talk to me, Ron.”

Harry looked back and forth between them. “Oh--don’t worry, Hermione. Ron can hear. It’s not--well, anyway, come over here, both of you.” Once they were in the armchairs near the fire, Harry looked down at his hands, unable to look at Hermione. “I’m afraid I’ve botched it all up. With Cho. So we’re going to have to come up with a different plan to deal with Viktor because I’m a stupid prat.” He looked up at her, into her extremely surprised and confused face.

“Harry--what are you on about?”

So he explained that Cho was giving him the cold shoulder, and Hermione asked, “When did it start? How often have you met with her since we went out? Did she seem distant when you kissed her at the end of the date?”

Harry looked stunned by the barrage of questions. “I--I--” he stammered. “I haven’t gotten together with her at all since the date. And--we didn’t kiss after the date. I shook her hand.”

“WHAT?” Hermione cried, making everyone else in the common room look at her. Hermione cleared her throat her and tried to calm down. Ginny came over and sat in the fourth chair.

“What’s going on?”

“Ginny--good, we need another woman’s point of view. If you went on a date with Harry, and instead of kissing you when it was over he shook your hand, and then he didn’t talk to you for more than two weeks afterward, what would you think?”

Ginny looked at Harry, then away. He couldn’t help thinking that he would never behave that way toward her--

“Well,” she said softly, “I suppose I’d think that he thought I had some sort of disease.”

“Thank you!” Hermione was triumphant.

“What I’d think if you went out with Ginny and did that is that maybe you’d decided you wanted to go on living after all,” said Ron in a snarl. Harry scowled.

“We’re getting off track,” Hermione sounded irritated. “Be the overbearing big brother some other time, Ron. Right now we have to repair the damage Harry’s done.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, perplexed. “I can’t understand why I never noticed you two didn’t kiss...”

“Well,” Harry said, clearing his throat, “you and Viktor were somewhat--preoccupied.”

“Are you sure you want to break up with Viktor Krum?” Ginny said with a smile curling around her lips; Harry thought Hermione might be trying to kill her just by glaring at her.

“Yes,” Hermione said emphatically. “I needed to make sure he wouldn’t suspect anything yet. But--next time, Ron if you could be waiting in the entrance hall, and look really frantic when we come back, and say the headmaster wants to see us immediately, then we could both make a clean getaway--and then the two of them would be left alone...”

Ron nodded and saluted. “Aye, aye. Will do.” Harry held in a comment about how eager Ron was to perform this service.

“And you,” she said to Harry, still very much in charge. “Come with me.” She went over to an empty table and took out her parchment, a quill and an ink bottle. Ron and Ginny followed. “Now,” she said once he was seated and holding the quill poised over the parchment. “Write what I say.” And so he wrote:

Dear Cho,

I’m sorry I’ve been such a prat. I really enjoyed our date and I’m looking forward to the next one a great deal. I’ve never dated before and I was extremely nervous. I kept meaning to talk to you since we went out, but the words I want to say always seem to leave me as soon as I see you. Most of all, I’m afraid that my behavior at the end of the date might have given you the impression that I’m no longer interested in you. Quite the opposite.

I know you’ll be pretty busy during the next few days getting ready for the Quidditch match with Hufflepuff, but perhaps after you win the game (as I know you will) we can meet in the stands and pretend we’re at the end of our date again, and do it properly this time. Again, I hope you’ll forgive my stupidity; when I’m around you, my brain doesn’t seem to work quite properly.

Affectionately,

Harry

“Do we have to put that bit in about ‘stupidity’ and me being a prat?”

“Hey, those are your words; just a minute ago you said, ‘I’m a stupid prat.’ And the answer is yes, it’s endearingly self-effacing.” Hermione sounded very official. Harry grimaced.

“And what does this bit here mean about doing it properly this time?”

She looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “What do you think?” She watched his face as he furrowed his brow. Then suddenly his bright green eyes went wide and she laughed. “There it is...”

“NO.”

“Harry! You have to.”

“Hermione! You are having me write a note to her saying, ‘Meet me after the match to do some snogging.’”

She shrugged. “So?”

“SO?”

“Harry--this is the plan. Remember?”

He looked down at the parchment and sighed. He thought of her being abducted in Bulgaria, wondering about the lost time, wondering whether she could trust Viktor at all. “I suppose I should take this up to Hedwig,” he said heavily.

Hermione nodded, having won. “Good. I’m glad you see it my way. Now, I have some Arithmancy work to do,” and she took out her books and sat down at the same table. Harry rolled up the parchment and turned to go. Ron went up to the boys’ dorm, looking over his shoulder at Hermione once before ascending the stairs.

As he was climbing out of the portrait hole with the letter, he heard footsteps behind him. It was Ginny. She didn’t say anything, and neither did Harry. They walked silently up to the Owlery together. Ginny still said nothing as he grimly tied the note to Hedwig’s leg and watched her fly out the window. However, as soon as she was irretrievably gone, Harry was at the window, yelling, “Hedwig! Wait! Come back!” But it was too late.

“Oh, Ginny, what have I done?” he cried, anguished. “I don’t know anything about dating, let alone a girl who’s older than me. I can’t do this, I can’t--”

“Harry! don’t worry--”

“Don’t worry! How can I not worry? She’s already thinking I’m a rude, insensitive git, and writing her a letter is supposed to fix that? Not to mention, I’m going to have to pretend I want to kiss her, when it’s pretty much the last thing in the world I want to do, other than kissing Snape or Malfoy--”

“HARRY!” Ginny yelled, grabbing his wrists. He looked dazed, tried to focus on her. “Harry,” she said, smiling now, looking almost like she was trying not to laugh. “I’ve never heard you babble before.”

“Yeah, well, it’s my new language. Babblish.” Then, in spite of himself, Harry cracked a smile, and then laughed outright. Ginny laughed now too, letting go of him and putting her hands up to her mouth. Harry leaned against the wall and just let loose, laughing so hard that his eyes started watering. Ginny held her stomach, laughing breathlessly, then tried to talk, panting.

“Oh, oh, I’ve got a stitch in my side--” she said, leaning against the wall next to him. Gradually, they both quieted and just stood against the wall beside each other, staring into space. Harry had a sudden vision of grabbing her and spinning her around, as he’d done before, then doing something he hadn’t before, bringing his lips to hers...

“You know,” Ginny said suddenly (at least it seemed sudden to Harry), “you look really nice when you’re laughing like that.”

He turned and looked at her. “You look nice all the time,” he said softly, moving his eyes over her thin face, the sprinkling of freckles over her nose, her deep brown eyes, her beautiful flaming hair framing her face...

Ginny’s eyes went very wide, and she looked almost frightened. After a prolonged silence, she said quietly, “Well, Harry, I don’t think you have to worry about Cho.” She walked toward the door. “I think she knows that almost any girl at Hogwarts would want to be in her shoes...”

Harry didn’t move. “Almost?” he smiled. Ginny blushed.

“You know me. I like to be original. Don’t go along with the crowd.” He got her meaning, but it made him feel as though there were a hand crushing his heart.

“Well. That would explain you calling Draco Malfoy your friend.” He went past her, toward the door. His voice sounded rather harder than he had meant it to.

“Harry--” he heard her say in a conciliatory tone behind him. He stopped and spoke with his back to her still, not wanting to look at her.

“I don’t trust him Ginny. Remember--because of his father, you almost died, and I had to kill a basilisk at the age of twelve.”

“He’s not his father.”

“We’ll see,” was all he trusted himself to say, before he left, walking away from her as quickly as he could. So, he thought. She’s over me. Figures. Just as I notice how beautiful she is, what a great person she is...

He tried to shake his head, put her out of his mind, but it seemed that the more he tried, the more he thought of her, so that even when he closed his eyes, what he was most likely to see was Ginny Weasley’s face.

Harry received no answer to his letter to Cho Thursday morning when the post owls came flying into the Great Hall at breakfast. He glanced over at the Ravenclaw table, but neither Cho nor any of her friends took any notice of him.

Hermione was sitting between Harry and Ron. Speaking in a low voice, between bites of toast, she informed them, “We need to confront Hagrid today about the geese. We’ve put it off too long.” They were scheduled to go to Care of Magical Creatures right after breakfast.

“What if he doesn’t want to tell us?” Ron said. “What if he just refuses?”

Hermione shrugged. “We’ve gotten information from him before without his meaning to give it; remember Nicolas Flamel?”

They finished breakfast and shouldered their bags, leaving the castle and walking down to Hagrid’s hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest with the rest of the fifth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins. When they arrived, Hagrid was very excited.

“One o’ the geese has laid the golden egg!” he informed them all once they’d assembled. “Now, each o’ yeh look and see whose it is!”

One by one, they picked their way through the fenced-in yard, practically carpeted with large flattened, smelly piles of goose dung (which not everyone managed to avoid) and inspected their geese and the straw bed each one habitually used. No one seemed to have a goose that had laid an egg at all, let alone a golden one. Finally, Malfoy, grimacing distastefully the entire time, reached his surly goose, picked her up awkwardly to look under her, and then almost dropped her in shock when he found her sitting on a large, blindingly gold egg.

“I’ve got it!” he yelled triumphantly. “I’ve got the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg!” However, just at that moment, his goose got tired of being held in his untutored grasp and started flapping her wings in his face, causing him to lose his grip, but not before she let fly an impressively-sized collection of goose droppings all over his shoes and the front of his beautiful robes with their silver prefect badge.

The goose droppings were not made of gold.

“Don’t drop ‘er!” bellowed Hagrid, striding over to Malfoy and seizing the goose. “Ye’ll hurt ‘er!”

“I’ll hurt her?” Malfoy replied, incredulous. Harry had to admit, he looked a lot worse off than the goose. Malfoy never seemed to do well in Care of Magical Creatures; Harry strongly suspected that he regarded it with the same distaste with which Harry regarded Potions. His robes and shoes were probably completely ruined.

Irritated, Hermione picked her way through the goose dung. She waved her wand casually at Malfoy’s robes and shoes, and said tiredly, “Purgario. Honestly. Doesn’t anyone around here know a simple cleaning charm?” Malfoy’s clothing was pristine once more, he saw with shock.

“Um, thanks Granger,” he said awkwardly. He’d actually managed to be fairly civil to Hermione since the Hogsmeade date, and Harry had wondered about Ginny’s theory about why Malfoy seemed to usually go out of his way to insult Hermione. Now in her debt, he looked even more ill at ease than when he’d been covered with goose droppings.

“Right!” Hagrid bellowed, coming over to take the gold egg. “And as the winner, ye get a gift certificate fer a free lunch at the Three Broomsticks--not including butterbeer,” Hagrid told him, handing him a piece of parchment with the Three Broomsticks logo prominently displayed at the top.

“What?” Malfoy sputtered. “That egg’s got to be worth more than a bloody lunch!”

“It was just the luck of the draw, Malfoy. Be grateful fer what ye got. Now, you lot, clean up this yard, feed yer geese, and yeh can go early. Next we’ll be starting in on two creatures which each have ter do with yer houses; we’ll do one in honor of Slytherin first, and then Gryffindor.”

“Well,” Ron said in an aside to Harry as they used Hermione’s cleaning charm to remove the goose dung from the yard, “it’s obvious what that’ll be, isn’t it? First a snake, then a lion.”

“I suppose,” Harry said, “but how is the lion going to be magical? I mean, I’ve read a good bit of the book Sirius gave me about snakes and magic, and I can see the point of that--although all of the spells I’ve seen so far seem like borderline dark magic--but, a lion?” Harry was especially curious about this since he’d decided to choose a lion for his Animagus transformation.

While the others were cleaning up the yard using Hermione’s cleaning charm and caring for the geese (who were busily trying to cover the ground with goose droppings again) Harry, Ron and Hermione came over to Hagrid.

“So,” Hermione began in a low voice, “where’d you get the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, Hagrid?”

He looked shifty-eyed. “On me summer travels.”

“Get anything else? A harp? Some magic beans, perhaps...?” Hermione went on fishing. Hagrid smiled.

“Ye’ve figured it all out, have ye Hermione?” She blushed and looked down. “Well, you three stay when the others are done, before yer next lesson. There’s someone I’ve been meaning fer yeh ter meet.” He disappeared around the back of his hut, and they returned to the yard to help with the cleaning.

When the Slytherins and the other Gryffindors moved off to have some free time before Herbology, Harry, Ron and Hermione stayed behind with Hagrid. He took them around behind his hut, then told them to leave their bags there before going into the Forbidden Forest. This wasn’t the first time Harry and Ron had been in the forest; they’d had a harrowing encounter with Aragog, a giant spider who was actually friends with Hagrid (although he was still planning to eat them until they were rescued by Ron’s father’s magic car, which had gone into the forest and become wild). Harry had also been in the forest once with Hermione and Neville Longbottom and Draco Malfoy when they’d all had detention during their first year. Harry never exactly looked forward to going into the forest; he felt it was forbidden for many excellent reasons.

Hagrid walked ahead of them with his boarhound, Fang, while Harry, Ron and Hermione followed, wands out (Hagrid didn’t notice this). They walked far enough into the forest that when Harry looked behind him, he had trouble seeing through the trees to the rest of the school grounds. Looking ahead, he wondered where Hagrid could be taking them. Since they were being taken into the forest by a teacher, they couldn’t technically get into trouble for breaking the rule against going into the forest, but they could get into trouble by running into some of the more unpleasant residents of the forest.

Finally Hagrid stopped. “Here we are. Yeh can finally meet ‘er.”

Harry, Ron and Hermione looked around at the trees that were still everywhere. Her? Her who? Then Hermione, shaking, put her left hand on Harry’s right arm and her right hand, still holding her wand, on Ron’s left arm. “Look up,” she whispered.

Harry and Ron tipped their heads back, as Hermione was doing, and realized that what they had thought were two very sturdy, large trees were actually a person’s legs swathed in a rough brown material that was serving as a kind of hosiery; the legs disappeared into a greenish knee-length dress (the hem was about seven feet off the ground) and the head of the person in front of them had to be a good twenty feet off the ground. Oddly, when he looked up into her face, Harry saw what Hagrid had looked like as a child (he’d seen a picture), without his whiskers, but with longer hair and a slight feminine softening of the features, now rather wrinkled and lined.

“Meet me Mum, Fridwulfa!” he declared gleefully, waving his large hands. Standing about ten feet tall, Harry had always thought that Hagrid was plenty big, but now, meeting his full-giant mother, Harry thought of ‘big’ in a whole new light. “Mum--meet--”

“Oh!” his mother cried, hurting their ears. Hagrid shushed her, so she whispered after that (whispering for her was louder than shouting for most people). “You must be the little girl my Rubeus said figured it all out! Dead smart, ’e says you are...” And with that, she reached out and picked Hermione up around her middle, making her scream shrilly, with a pitch and longevity that Harry had never heard from her before. He was afraid that rather than being just ‘dead smart’ Hermione would simply wind up dead.

“You put her down!” Ron screamed, brandishing his wand at her. “I’ll--I”ll--” but Ron seemed to be at a loss for the right hex to put on someone holding a human being fifteen feet in the air; he didn’t want her to drop Hermione.

“Oh,” she said again, softly (for her). “Sorry.” She set Hermione down again slightly in front of Harry and Ron; she sagged and Ron picked her up quickly, scooping one arm underneath her knees and the other around her back, cradling her; Harry was surprised, he made it look so easy. Ron usually looked rather lacking in muscles. Hermione pillowed her head on his chest, looking shell-shocked and as if she were on the verge of gibbering.

“Don’t do that again!” Ron yelled up angrily at Hagrid’s mother, holding Hermione closely.

She frowned, which worried Harry, as he felt her behavior to be a bit unpredictable. He remembered Ron telling him at the Yule Ball the previous year that giants were just vicious. They just liked to kill. He thought a little diplomacy couldn’t hurt.

“Uh, what he meant was, it’s polite to ask someone first if they want to be picked up.”

“Oh, look at you! I bet I know who you are...” and here came her hand again. Harry braced himself, his eyes closed, but then nothing happened. He opened them again and looked up at her. She was leaning over, her hand poised to pick up Harry. “May I?” she asked extremely politely. Harry was unsure whether she was mocking him. He nodded and steeled himself for being tightly squeezed around the middle. But she was actually quite gentle with him; she had him straddle her index finger somewhat like a broomstick, holding onto her thumb to keep his balance.

“Those eyes, that scar--you must be ‘Arry Potter!”

He tried to feebly smile while simultaneously trying to keep his balance and not spew his breakfast all over her hand. “I must be...” he trailed off feebly.

“Rubeus ‘as told me so much about you!” Harry had gotten slightly gushy responses before from people in the magical world who knew who he was, but never anyone quite so intimidating as Hagrid’s mother.

“She was mighty impressed, mum was, when I told ‘er what good friends we is,” said Hagrid.

“Yes, well,” Harry said articulately. He looked down; the earth seemed a long way down, and he felt his stomach move uncomfortably inside him as she moved her hand casually. He never felt sick when riding a broomstick, but then he was the one in control of his Firebolt. “Actually,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, “if it’s all the same to you, I think I’d like to go back down now.” He swallowed a mouthful of stomach acid.

“All right, dear. ‘Ere ye go.” And she lowered him gently to the ground again. Hermione had convinced Ron that she could stand up again, but she was white as a ghost; all signs of her summer tan were gone. When Harry arrived back down on the ground again, she gave an inarticulate cry and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. He patted her back quickly.

“I’m all right,” he said softly. “It’s okay.” He saw Ron’s face and swiftly took her arms from around him and looked her in the eye. “Get a grip,” he whispered.

She looked at him, actually starting to smile a little. “You should talk. Your face is green.”

He swallowed again. “I was starting to relive my bacon and eggs from breakfast.”

Ron came over then, and Hagrid spoke again. “Mum has convinced about ‘alf o’ the British expatriate giants to come over ter our side. The goose was a goodwill gesture from their leader-in-exile.”

Hermione looked pleased at having guessed correctly on this. But Harry was concerned about something else. “Only half? What about the rest?”

“Oh, well,” Hagrid’s mother hesitated. “The rest of the ex-pats are still a bit upset about their exile. But I don’t think they want ter support You-Know-Who. They just want to stay in the mountains o’ Georgia an’ Ukraine an’ not be bothered with what’s happenin’ in the rest o’ the world. Well, most of ‘em, anyway...” And did they want to support Voldemort? Harry wondered.

“Mum’s goin’ ter stay ‘ere fer a while. Dumbledore figured the forest at Hogwarts’d be a pretty safe place for ‘er. Plus some friends of ‘ers’ll be showin’ up soon.”

“Um,” Ron started, “how many friends?”

“Oh,” she said thoughtfully, “six or seven.”

Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at each other with alarmed expressions. Six or seven giants would be living on the grounds of Hogwarts? That sounded like possibly more trouble than Hagrid trying to raise a dragon in his one-room wooden hut.

“Well,” Harry said, checking his watch, “it was nice to meet you, but we’d better be getting to our next lesson. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again.”

“All right. You run along now and be a good girl and boys. Listen to yer teachers!”

“Yes ma’am,” they mumbled, raising their hands in a farewell (they finally decided to put away their wands). Hagrid led them out of the forest once more; they were all still a little shaky in the legs from the encounter with his mother. Harry had had no idea what it would be like to confront someone that large. And she was friendly. Confronting an unfriendly giant was something he didn’t even want to think about.

At breakfast on Saturday morning, Harry finally got an owl from Cho with a note:

Harry--

Ron sat between Harry and Hermione, reading over Harry’s arm. “Not exactly a mushy gushy love note, is it?” Ron said.

“Why would it be? He’s been beastly to her. That was supposed to be the latter part of the plan, Harry,” Hermione informed him, just a little snidely.

“Yeah, yeah. I screwed up. Are we done with the Harry-bashing now?”

“Just make sure you two have a good snog,” Ron told him. “And then tell me all about it.” Harry and Hermione each punched him on his right and left arms at the same time. “Hey! Ow! Just kidding!”

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” Hermione began, but Ron interrupted her.

“Well, since this is Harry we’re talking about, I thought--hey!” he yelled as they both punched his arms again.

Harry laughed. “C’mon. We need to get our Quidditch practice in this morning, since the match is after lunch.” He rose, picking up his Quidditch robes and broom, as did the other members of the Gryffindor team. Hermione walked with them to the entrance hall and then went up the steps towards the library. Harry started out the door with the others, then thrust his robes and broom at Ron, saying, “I just remembered something. Take my stuff. I’ll be right there.” Ron took Harry’s things and left with the others.

Harry sprinted up the stairs, catching up with Hermione easily. “Hermione! I have to talk to you...”

She turned with a surprised look. “Oh! Well--let’s go in here,” she said, leading him into the Charms classroom. Harry paced back and forth, unsure of how to start. After a few minutes of this, Hermione was getting impatient. “Is there something you actually wanted to talk about, Harry, or was I just supposed to watch you pace all morning?”

He finally stopped and faced her. “I can’t go through with it. Cho. This afternoon. I can’t. I have no idea what I’m doing. It’ll just be worse than before. She’ll think I’m a complete idiot.”

Hermione smiled at him; great, he thought. She thinks this is funny.

“Oh, Harry. You’re just nervous. Here: I’ll show you everything you need to know.”

Hermione walked up to him and stood a mere inch away. Harry could feel the warmth of her body. She was wearing a very form-fitting blue sweater and some jeans. She took his left hand and moved it to the small of her back, making him think this was some kind of dance lesson, then she put his right hand behind her neck. She slid her hands up around his neck and said, “Right. Now you want to tilt your head a little to the right--or if she’s already tilting to the left, do it to the left. You don’t want colliding noses. Now, don’t press too hard at first, you’re not trying to put a wax seal on a letter; it’s a kiss. Now, if it seems like she’s okay with all that, you can carefully and slowly open your mouth,” but now Harry’s mind was reeling, and the rest of what she was saying was just rushing wind and noise. Was she really talking about tongues? he wondered for a moment. His mind was spinning. He was only vaguely aware of the fact that he was still holding her.

Then it was quiet again and she was staring at him. “Harry? Harry! Have you been listening to me?” He nodded dumbly, hoping she wouldn’t start quizzing him on what she’d said. “Okay, then. I’m Cho. Kiss me.”

He goggled at her. “Excuse me?”

“Pretend I’m Cho. Kiss me.”

Harry thought he had stopped breathing. He looked down at her. He remembered how much he had wanted to kiss her in the garden on Privet Drive, before Sirius had arrived. Had that really been two months ago? he wondered. He hadn’t remembered feeling anxious about kissing her then; he had just felt compelled to do it (at least, until it seemed that they might have an audience). Why had that felt so natural, why did this feel so different? Because, he realized, she’s just being a teacher right now, it’s so that I can kiss another girl.

Harry leaned closer and closer to her mouth. Just get it over with, he thought. So he finally did it; he pressed his lips against hers, feeling an equal pressure coming from her as he used his hand behind her neck to hold her face up to his. Then it seemed that she was trying to draw a breath, and she opened her mouth. Harry did the same, and then the world dropped away from beneath his feet, and he was drinking her in, her hands had entwined themselves in his hair, he felt her tongue flick at his teeth and her body mold itself to his. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more in the world but to go on kissing her like this forever...

She moved her hands to his ears, tracing them dreamily while they continued to kiss; the tickling sensation electrified all of Harry’s senses and he clutched her even more tightly. Then she brought one of her hands down and found the hem of his shirt; she wormed her hand underneath it and slid it up between his shirt and his skin, making him gasp against her mouth. Then he lost her mouth, and he felt bereft, but she had clamped it on his neck, producing new amazing sensations there with her lips and tongue, and he bent over to kiss her neck, making her produce a gurgling in her throat that sent a thrill of power through him, as he moved his left hand to the hem of her sweater and up her back, caressing the smooth skin there, feebly realizing after a minute that there was no bra strap. Oh, Hermione, he groaned inwardly, what are you doing to me...

He captured her mouth again with his, trying to get up the courage to move the hand that was under the back of her sweater to the front, when suddenly, a whoosh of cold air entered the room and a familiar voice started crying, “Students snogging in the Charms classroom! Snogging in Charms!”

It was Peeves the Poltergeist. His arrival was like twenty cold showers to Harry. He separated himself totally from Hermione, trying to catch his breath. She was glaring at Peeves as though she would kill him again, if she could.

She pulled out her wand from a long, thin pocket in her jeans, below the knee. She strode over to Peeves and pointed it, saying sternly, “Anima tua; anima mea!” Peeves froze in the air where he’d been hovering over Professor Flitwick’s desk. She said to Peeves, “You didn’t see anything. You were on your way to the Great Hall; you were asking us whether we’d seen Nearly Headless Nick, and we said no. Understand?”

He nodded. “I understand,” he said in a monotone Harry had never heard him produce before. Usually he was incapable of not sounding like he was singing mockingly.

Hermione pointed her wand at him again and cried, “Anima tua!” Peeves seemed to wake up and shook himself.

“Are you sure--” he started to say.

“We haven’t seen Nearly Headless Nick,” Harry said. Peeves went whipping out of the room.
Harry looked at Hermione. “Where did you learn that? That was amazing!” He hoped she realized that he meant the incantation to control Peeves; although he thought what they’d been doing before that had been amazing, too.

“I found it in a book at Viktor’s. Truthfully, it’s some mild dark magic. Anything to control ghosts is. It’s something like an Imperious Curse that works on spirits, but I can’t get in trouble for using it because he’s already dead. It’s like putting him under hypnosis, basically. His will becomes mine for a short time.”

Harry gazed at her, more impressed than ever. She was becoming a very powerful witch, he realized. The desire to kiss her again was almost overwhelming, but she had moved to the door of the classroom. “Well, you’ll--you’ll be fine later, I’m sure,” she said, losing a little of her composure for a moment. “You’d better get down to the Quidditch pitch for practice, since you’re the captain.”

No, thought Harry. I want to hold you again...

When he went out into the corridor, she was gone. He went back down the stairs again to the entrance hall and into the brisk autumn sunshine, but for the rest of the morning, in his mind, he was back in the Charms classroom holding her in his arms.

After Quidditch practice, it would have been time for lunch in the Great Hall, but Hermione had a surprise for the team. She showed up with levitating picnic baskets full of food at the end of practice, and they were all able to eat outdoors together. Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan had helped as well, and they were all merrily anticipating watching the match to be played after lunch.

“Well, you know the house elves,” she said to Fred and George as they chewed their sandwiches. “Can’t wait to give food away.”

“Given up on spew?” Ron asked her.

“I’ve decided to take a different long-term approach. Any enslaved group must want to be liberated. In fact, I’ve already talked to Professor Dumbledore about a plan of mine, and he’s on board with it; he would like the elves to want to be free as much as I do.” Ron looked dubious about any plan to propagandize the house elves, but didn’t say anything, just took a big bite of his sandwich.

Harry couldn’t take his eyes off Hermione during the picnic; he thought it was possible that Ron and Ginny had noticed too, but he was beyond caring. The important thing was that Hermione didn’t notice; she seemed to be studiously ignoring him, chatting up everyone there except him, as though he were less than a ghost.

Harry technically watched the match, but he really was seeing it through a fog. He was sitting between Ron and Fred. George and Angelina were on the other side of Fred; Hermione was sitting in front of him with Ginny and Parvati and Lavender. Colin Creevey was taking pictures of all the Gryffindors again. Harry had a feeling that he would turn out looking pretty surly in these pictures.

He was finally able to focus at the end of the game. Quite suddenly, it seemed (although the match had been going on for an hour and a half), Cho had captured the Snitch and was flying a circuit around the field with it held above her head. Harry noticed for the first time that the new Hufflepuff Seeker was Justin Finch-Fletchley. Cedric Diggory had been captain and Seeker for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team before he died. No, Harry told himself sternly. I will not think of Cedric right now.

He stood and clapped with the rest of the Ravenclaw supporters. The Gryffindors were supporting Ravenclaw on this day on his behalf, he knew, since they now thought of Cho as his girlfriend (the ones who didn’t know about the plan to fix her up with Viktor Krum). He still had his Gryffindor Quidditch robes with him from the morning’s practice, as well as his Firebolt. One by one, the other people in the stands left and Cho managed to separate herself from the ecstatic Ravenclaws and climb the steps to where Harry was sitting, waiting for her.

She sat down next to him, still glowing from the match. The wind stirred her hair and she smiled at him. She really did look pretty, he thought. But she’s not Hermione...

“Hi,” he said. He knew that being a person of few words wasn’t a problem for her; she’d hardly spoken at all during their date.

“Hi,” she said. She edged closer to him. She still wore her blue Quidditch robes, but she put her broomstick on the seats in front of her.

“Good game,” he said, smiling at her. She still smiled back.

“You said something in your note about pretending it’s the end of our date...”

Harry goggled; not only was this the longest sentence he’d ever heard her utter, but she was getting right to the point.

“Well,” he hesitated, “first, I hope you’ve forgiven me...”

She was smiling even more broadly. “Apology accepted.” She leaned in toward him, and he tried to remember everything that Hermione had said, and instead wound up thinking about kissing Hermione again...

But now her lips were pressing against his, so he decided to just surrender, closed his eyes and kissed her back, daring after a moment to open his mouth slightly. She responded enthusiastically, sliding her arms around him and also opening her mouth, and now Harry tried to imagine that she was Hermione, but although it was nice, it just wasn’t the same. In fact, he was getting rather bored. He opened his eyes, looking over her shoulder, still kissing her, and noticed a red Gryffindor Quidditch robe that someone from the team had left in the stands.

Then he moved his eyes up to the sky and saw that Ginny Weasley was flying back to the Quidditch stands; she didn’t have a robe with her. It must be hers on the seats there....Then Harry saw that she’d seen them, and the look on her face made his heart stop. He pushed Cho away from him as Ginny, stricken-looking, turned her broomstick sharply and sped up to the Astronomy Tower. And she’d as much as told him that she was over him. She must have been trying to convince herself.

He looked back at Cho, who was none too pleased. “Sorry,” he said breathlessly. “Gotta run. Just remembered something I--forgot,” he finished lamely. He grabbed his and Ginny’s robes and leapt onto his Firebolt, speeding up to the Astronomy Tower after Ginny. He was sick at heart that she’d seen him kissing Cho, although he knew that Ginny knew about the plan. He didn’t even like Cho, she meant nothing to him.

But when he landed, Ginny was no longer on the top of the tower. Harry ran down the steps, clutching the robes and his Firebolt, wishing he dared ride it inside the castle in order to reach Gryffindor Tower more quickly. When he finally stumbled in the portrait hole, only Dennis Creevey was in the common room; everyone else was probably outside enjoying the beautiful autumn day. Where had Ginny gone?

“Dennis, have you seen Ginny Weasley?” he panted, looking around frantically as though it were possible for her to blend in with the upholstery with that flaming hair of hers.

He looked up from his reading , surprised. “Funny you should ask. She came tearing in here a minute ago, then went tearing out again.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“No, but it looked like she had her cauldron and mortar and pestle with her.”

The Potions Dungeon, thought Harry. That would require some delicacy, in case she wasn’t alone. Without saying anything else to Dennis, he bolted up the staircase to the boys’ dorms, threw his and Ginny’s Quidditch robes and his broom on his bed and grabbed his Invisibility Cloak from his trunk, stuffing it under his shirt to hide it. He went bolting down the staircase again and practically leapt out the portrait hole while Dennis yelled after him, “You’re welcome!”

As soon as he could, he ducked into an empty classroom and put the cloak on, then proceeded to run as fast as he could down to the dungeons. Luckily, he met no one on the stairs on a Saturday afternoon, since anyone who had been around would have wondered how the sound of rapidly running feet was being made. Harry was grateful to Sandy that she had given him the idea to take up running.

He tried to slow down in the passage outside the potions dungeon, to catch his breath, so he wouldn’t be heard. Luckily, the door to the room was open. Harry crept in and went to the front of the room, since Ginny was working in the back, near the door to the corridor. He didn’t want her to hear him breathing slightly hard still from all of the running. But she was actually making quite a racket, her fire under her cauldron crackling away while she crushed beetles with her mortar and pestle, sniffling loudly, her eyes wet with tears. She was alone. He decided to leave, take off the cloak and return to talk to her. But just as he reached the door, he risked running straight into someone and had to back up suddenly so that they wouldn’t know he was creeping around under an Invisibility Cloak.

It was Draco Malfoy.