Blood Magic

Further Complications

Hermione made a point of sitting next to Harry in Transfiguration, but she wasn't able to speak to him. She had come from Ancient Runes, which was up in one of the towers, and made it to her seat just as class was about to start. She expected Harry to wait for her at the end of class, but he vanished while she was asking Professor McGonagall a question. Hermione returned quickly to Gryffindor tower. She hoped she would overtake him on the way, but she did not. Harry was not in the common room. When Hermione saw Dean and Seamus talking to Parvati Patil, she walked over to them.

"Dean, Seamus?" She tried to keep her voice businesslike, but she was afraid it sounded a bit strained. "Have you seen Harry?"

Both boys shook their heads.

"He has a meeting with Professor Snape," Parvati volunteered. She frowned. "Snape was so awful to him! And Harry was answering questions I'd have no clue about -- it was really scary."

Hermione thought that sounded normal -- except for the part about Harry answering questions. She excused herself and went upstairs, leaving the others exchanging horror stories about the day's classes. She was starting to feel annoyed at Harry again. "How dare he not be around for me to make up with," she muttered sarcastically to herself, but recognizing the absurdity of her irritation did not defuse it.

She had hardly been in her room five minutes before she heard a soft knock at the door. She hoped it wasn't someone who needed a prefect -- she didn't feel capable of solving her own problems, right now, much less someone else's. For a moment, she was tempted to pretend to be asleep. The knock repeated.

"Who is it?"

"Me," Ginny's voice called back. "May I come in?"

"Of course."

Ginny opened the door, stepped in, and shut it behind her. Hermione wanted to groan. This was the behavior of someone who needed a prefect. Instead, she schooled her face into a neutral smile. "Hello, Ginny. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing," Ginny said, shrugging. She crossed the room and sat down on Hermione's bed. "You looked upset, downstairs, and Dean said you'd asked about Harry. The two of you haven't fought already, have you?"

"Does it matter?" Hermione challenged.

"Yes," Ginny answered promptly. "You were absolutely darling with him two days ago, and you looked happy, except when my brother was being a git. I like you being happy."

Hermione bit her lip. "Harry stayed out till past midnight, last night."

"Oh!" Ginny's eyes widened. "And came back uninjured, I assume?"

"Unless Professor Snape had taken a chunk out of him with the house points."

"You think he's got another girl?"

Hermione threw her hands up. She'd actually managed not to think of that explanation.

"Who knows? It's Harry! He's more likely to be out tracking down something dangerous, except he'd usually tell me about that."

"He wouldn't tell you where he was?"

"No -- just that there was something he 'had to do.'" Feeling obligated to be honest, Hermione added: "I only asked him once. He may have told me if I'd pushed, but we started fighting about other things."

"Like what?"

"Like how he couldn't go two days without costing Gryffindor points!" Hermione snapped.

"Your boyfriend was out till midnight, and you're worried about house points?"

"Harry is not my boyfriend!"

Ginny blinked. She raised her eyebrows significantly. "Well, he certainly looked like he was, on Monday. I've never seen you walk along holding hands, before. And Ron says you kissed at Diagon Alley. In public and everything!"

Hermione snorted. "Yes, and that's another thing. This kissing business. He did it again, last night!"

"Hermione, he is your boyfriend," Ginny protested. "Or at least, he wants to be. Considering what boys are like, he probably just assumes he is, if you've kissed him twice."

"Well, last night, I didn't really kiss him back -- I didn't have time, honestly." Hermione scowled. "One minute he's arguing with me, the next his lips are brushing mine very lightly and deliberately, just ... oh! ...and before I can move, he's two steps away saying we better get to sleep."

Ginny grinned. "Is he good?"

"Ginny! He's ... Well, yes, he's good." Hermione scowled. "Unfortunately, he seems to know it."

"So?"

"He only kisses me when I'm saying something he doesn't want to hear. Last night, he was smirking, afterwards, as if he thought he had got away with something. I felt like I had to keep fighting with him, just to show him that I wasn't going to forget the argument just because he ... he...."

"Just because he's hot, and wonderful, and terribly important to you?" Ginny suggested, a bit sharply.

"Yes," Hermione said defiantly. "He's not manipulating me that way." She bit her lip. "If I let him get away with that, he'll be unbearable. Besides, I don't even know if he wants me, or if he even cares." She snorted contemptuously. "This is just his new technique for Hermione-management."

Ginny shook her head. "Harry's not like that."

"Oh really? Weren't you the one talking about he'd taken over the Quidditch team without a blink?"

"But he was the only one qualified."

"Still, wouldn't you and Ron have had to talk him into it, last year? He just acts like he's in charge, now. I was watching him at dinner, yesterday, when the rest of you got to discussing the Ravenclaw team. He was looking around with this calculating ... sneer, almost, like he was evaluating the worth of each of you, and all the other players...."

"That's what the captain is supposed to do, Hermione!"

"But that look!" Hermione clenched her hands into fists, welcoming the distracting pain of uneven nails biting into her palms. "I don't want him to look at me like that ... 'Hm... could help me with my homework, and she kisses okay. Not too pretty, but she dresses up well. Ron approves, so that's all right...'" She laughed.

"Hermione!" Ginny chided. "I'm sure it's not like that! Look, I'll see Harry a lot, if I stay on the Quidditch team. Want me to sound him out about you? When I get a chance to talk to him without everyone else around?"

"Don't let him know it bothers me."

"Of course not! I'll just ask him about the Diagon Alley kiss, or whether or not you're his girl." Ginny grinned. "I know how to talk to boys."

When Harry got back to Gryffindor, he was still feeling rather subdued. He settled down in the common room to do homework. Perhaps Hermione will come by and see I'm behaving, he thought. He didn't know if that would fix anything, but he expected it would help.

He decided to begin with the Wolfsbane Potion. If Severus was right about him knowing far more than the other students, he should be able to write an exemplary essay on it. He was almost certainly the only member of class who had ever seen it brewed.

Instead of just starting straight in on the text, as usual, Harry found himself writing out notes on how he wanted to structure the essay -- a discussion of uses, then history, then the ingredients and their preparation, then the brewing process. He frowned at that, and added a note to end with a short analysis of the current debate on the sufficiency of Wolfsbane potion as a control for werewolves. He looked at the parchment for a moment, feeling rather proud of having thought of the word "sufficiency" and hoping Hermione would stop by to talk to him just then.

Instead, Colin did.

"Harry!" he exclaimed. He sat down, and some of his enthusiasm changed to edgy anxiety. "Can I ask you a favor? Something important? I don't think it will be any trouble, but I --"

"What?" Harry asked, breaking the flow.

"Well, could I photograph the Gryffindor tryouts? I'd like to get some practice in sports photography. Lavender was asking me what good it was to be good at taking pictures, and I was trying to explain what photographers do, and I thought that if I worked on sports photography, I might be able to sell match photos to Quidditch Weekly, or to --"

"Colin," Harry interrupted, pushing gently down at the air between them in a quelling gesture, "you may photograph the tryouts, for practice. You may not sell pictures from the tryouts, and your photography should not be distracting to the players. Okay?"

"But sometimes a good shot --"

"You'd have the same restrictions in professional photography," Harry said sharply. "Did you hear, last year, about how some photographer got permanently banned from the World Cup for interference and endangering the players?"

"Yeah. That was really --"

"So you need to learn to do it properly, right?"

"Oh." Colin actually stopped talking for a second, while he considered the merits of this. "Right!"

"So if I feel you are interfering, or endangering the players, I will ban you from the tryouts and the next month of practices. Behave, and you can practice on us all you like."

"Really?! Thanks, Harry! You're the best!"

"Photos of practices are also not for sale," Harry warned.

This damped Colin's ecstasy to mere delight.

"That's still great! Thanks, Harry!" Colin rushed off. Harry barely had time to pick up his quill before people settled on either side of him -- Ron to his left, on the couch arm, and Andrew to his right, on the couch. Harry glanced around for Jack and saw him hovering uneasily a bit to the side.

"Did I just hear you tell that prat he can photograph all our practices?!" Ron hissed.

"Absolutely," Harry replied, dipping his quill in ink.

"You want some bloody mayfly buzzing around setting off flashing lights while we're trying to play Quidditch?!"

"Not really, no." Harry looked up at Ron and smiled conspiratorially. "But when he starts doing it at games, Gryffindor will be used to it."

Ron stared at Harry in astonishment. Jack chuckled. "Good enough for me, Captain," Jack said cheerily. He tugged at Andrew's arm. "Let's go, then."

Andrew resisted. "What if he doesn't get permission to photograph games?" he asked.

"I expect he will," Harry answered. "Deputy Headmistress McGonagall and Madam Hooch won't object, because they support any promotion of Hogwarts Quidditch. I won't object, because it gives us an advantage now, and Malfoy won't, because he's vain. At least one other team is bound to have someone who hopes to go professional, and has some sad idea this will help. I think Dumbledore will find that sufficient." He looked at Andrew, a bit coldly. "May I work on my Potions essay, now? I won't have any time for this on Saturday, recall."

"Er ... of course," Ron said quickly. He hesitated. "See you at dinner, Harry?"

"Sounds good," Harry answered absently. Powdered moonstone -- oh, I forgot about soaking it and retaining the water! Wait, isn't that like part of the antidote for Vampire's Death poison? The one that makes sunlight set you on fire? There's a name for the effect....

"Harry? Are you even listening?"

Harry growled. "Dinner, tonight. Yes!" he snapped. "Now unless you remember the name of the effect given by a lunar charge on the solution holding a gemstone component, go away until dinnertime!"

"Er... right, mate," Ron muttered. He sounded a bit put out, but Harry didn't have the concentration free to worry about it. He continued to try puzzle over what he remembered. While he was thinking, someone leaned over his head, dangling straight, seal-brown hair between his eyes and the text.

"It's the Crystal Radiosis Effect," a voice confided. "Don't ask me how to spell it."

Harry looked up. A dark-haired girl with hazel eyes was smiling cheerily upside-down at him. He thought she was in Ginny's class, but did not know her name.

"Thanks," he said, twisting around to look at her right-side up. "And you are ...?"

"Zoë."

"Pleased to meet you Zoë. Do you like Potions?"

Zoë wrinkled her nose in a way that Harry thought rather cute. "Except for the professor," she said. "Weren't you busy?"

"Yes, but you've just saved me a trip to the library and twenty minutes of research. That should give me a few minutes to chat."

Zoë sat down on the couch where Andrew had been and talked cheerfully about potions that made use of the Crystal Radiosis Effect. She was impressed that Harry knew so much about the Wolfsbane Potion. Harry was impressed that she could reel off a list of potions that used the liquid in which a gemstone had been moon-charged or sun-charged. He might have forgotten to go back to his essay, had he not seen Hermione walking towards the portrait hole.

"Oh -- I better get back to work on this essay," he said, perhaps a little too loudly. "Thanks for your help, Zoë."

Harry had dinner with Ron, who had, to Harry's relief, actually showed up without his fifth-year shadows. Hermione seemed to be avoiding him. Harry decided to let her -- she'd either get over it, or she'd work herself into a frenzy and come tell him what he had done wrong. If she hadn't talked to him by the end of tryouts, he decided, he would go hunt her down.

He spent a pleasant evening with Ron, during which they managed some progress on their Charms homework. The next morning, Hermione was back to eating breakfast with them, though she seemed a bit standoffish. Harry continued not to push her. She ate lunch with them, but not dinner, and she was not in the common room that night. Harry wondered if she was still angry about the points, or if she was upset about him trying to kiss her.

In Friday Potions, Harry worked on not taking Snape's insults personally. It helped to have some insight into how Snape used attacks on him. Surreptitious observation of his classmates showed that, indeed, as many quailed at the things he got right as at the ones he got wrong. Malfoy made no further move to talk to him, or to interact with him in any way, good or bad, in either Potions or Defense Against the Dark Arts.

The last class of the day was their first Care of Magical Creatures class of the year. Hermione, though she had not been at lunch, walked down with Harry and Ron. Harry thought she was being a little more friendly, now.

Hagrid told them that due to the "more challengin'" nature of the creatures covered in advanced classes (Harry thought some people went a bit pale, at this), he planned to have a lecture class and a short essay assignment before the introduction of each creature, to check that everyone knew what they had to do to 'not lose any fingers or toes or bigger bits' to the introduced creature. Next week, for example, they would be meeting wyverns, and Hagrid wanted everybody to write fifteen inches on the wyvern's natural defenses, which he then listed in detail.

"The wyvern is a lesser cousin of the dragon, so it has strong jaws and sharp teeth. He can' snap his tail around quite as well, as he needs it more for balance, havin' only two feet, but he can still use it. His wings can wallop a small man flat, and he has talons like an eagle's, but longer. Griffin's talons, if you will. But those are just physical defenses. Anybody know what else the wyvern can do?"

Hermione raised her hand, and Hagrid beamed at her. "Go ahead, Hermione!"

"The wyvern can create a sense of fear to repel potential attackers. If the wyvern panics, this can overflow into augmenting fears or insecurities of people nearby, sometimes fostering violent conflict."

"Good girl, Hermione! Ten points to Gryffindor. So, what do we need to do?"

Harry raised his hand.

"Yes, Harry?"

"We should all come to class as calm as possible."

"Right, again! Five more points for Griffindor! For that, I'll be starting class fifteen minutes late, so anyone who wants to listen to some music, or take a walk by the lake, has a little extra time to do that. I'll have a few vials of Calming Draught on hand, in case anyone needs it, and brushin' up on Cheering Charms wouldn' be amiss."

The lecture continued, guaranteeing that anyone who was listening could write the essay without ever glancing at a book. Hermione sent Harry a few smiles that he found encouraging. At the end of class, he was gearing himself up to ask her what he had done to upset her, but Hagrid interposed.

"Harry? Professor Dumbledore sent word that he wants to see yeh as soon as class gets out. Yeh should head up there, now."

"Thanks, Hagrid."

Hermione and Ron walked beside him up the long green.

"Are you in trouble? Hermione demanded.

Harry shrugged. "Don't think so."

"Maybe it's something for the order!" Ron exclaimed at a whisper. Harry glared at him.

"Don't say that," he returned, in an equally urgent whisper. "You don't call 'the old crowd,'that, here." He gestured at the space around them, and the students a few yards in front of them. "Not secure."

"Better yet, don't mention it at all," Hermione opined. Harry nodded, and Ron looked a bit put out.

"It's probably something boring, like my project," Harry said, more loudly, laughing. "I'll see you two later, okay?"

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Chapter 31: My Life as a Quaffle