Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent

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.