Walking Fire

Chapter Four : A Request

By Arianrhod

Ginny and I sat side by side fizzing with curiosity and knowledge. Ginny laughed at my excitement at the idea of talking to Harry Potter, but she seemed to think the discovery would mean something to him. I hoped he'd understand it more then we did anyway.

The lesson was not a success. Ginny spilt her beaker of murtlap spleen and had five points taken from Gryffindor for her clumsiness. I was nearly kept behind when my expanding potion went runny and blue but thankfully Laura helped me salvage it.

At last potions was over but there was no-one in the hall as Ginny and I burst out at the head of a crowd of Gryffindors. We were both somewhat taken aback, I guess we had been expecting Harry to be waiting for us. I wondered briefly if we should go find him as he went between lessons but neither of us knew what lesson he had just had or what he had next and besides, Laura and Marianne were walking either side of us gossiping away, so in the end we followed the rest of our class to Transfiguration.

When we emerged from the class, there he was, leaning against the wall, hair a mess, glasses slightly askew and a mischievous grin on his face which I didn't understand until Ginny explained later that Harry would break every school rule in the book if it meant he would annoy Snape.

"Well, what was it?" He asked as soon as the rest of the class had disappeared around the corner and out of sight. Ginny began to open her mouth but evidently decided that she'd let me explain. So I told him. I wanted to get it through quickly in case he thought I was blabbering but I also wanted to speak forever if it meant he'd continue looking me right in the eye like that.

When I finished, he smiled at us both again and beckoned us to follow him.

"We've got to go to the common room, I can't wait until Ron and Hermione hear this."

"So, do you think you know what it means then?" I asked tentatively. Ginny gave me an approving look. She was encouraging me to be less shy in his presence.

"I hope so, or Hermione will. Oh, hang on, wait here a minute."

We had reached the common room and there was the sound of voices raised in a violent quarrel coming from within. Harry sighed and went inside. There was a brief crescendo of noise as the picture hole opened which quietened immediately as Harry entered the room. But the portrait didn't quite clicked shut. A draft caught it and it swung open a fraction.

Ginny and I exchanged a look then both moved at exactly the same time. We pressed our eyes to the crack and strained our ears to catch the conversation within.

We could see Ron and Hermione standing in front of the fire, their faces flushed with anger. They both turned and looked guiltily at Harry as he entered. Harry sounded exasperated as he said into the sudden silence, "What the hell has gotten into you two lately? You're at each other like a cat and dog when you're on your own but as soon as someone else arrives, suddenly you're best friends."

There was a pause then both Ron and Hermione spoke at once.

"One at a time," Harry sighed. "Honestly, it's like having two toddlers. Hermione, your version first."

"I'm trying to persuade Ron to grow up. Everyone else knows what they're doing after this year, I mean you're going to train to be an Auror, I'm going to study Arithmancy in Prague, Neville is going to work in the greenhouses at St Mungo's, Parvati is going to work for WWN. Everyone knows what they want to do except Ron."

Ron was glaring furiously at his feet. Harry looked faintly embarrassed. The subject of Ron's lack of career opportunities was one neither of them had broached. I guess boys don't talk about some things. Harry was glaring at Hermione for bringing it up.

"Well, I'm sure he'll sort something out, Hermione. We've got a lot of time before the end of the year yet. Anyway, it's hardly his fault if no-one has replied yet."

"Actually they have replied," Hermione said triumphantly and brought forth a sheaf of papers. "He has offers here from the Ministry, from the dragon project Charlie works on in Romania, from the Daily Prophet to work as a Quidditch reporter-

"- which is what I'm going to do," interjected Ron.

This took the wind out of Hermione's sails slightly. But she puffed herself up again to say, "Well, why haven't you replied yet?"

"I don't know. I've been busy. I'll do it when I've got time."

Harry was fairly gaping at the two of them.

"What more don't I know about my friends?" he muttered, but Ron and Hermione were now bickering jokingly about Ron's laziness and didn't hear him.

Harry sighed again. He turned away, but then, obviously remembering something he had meant to say, turned back quickly. His robes caught a pile of book, heaped precariously on the table behind him, and the whole lot fell to the floor. Harry swore under his breath and began to pick them up.

Behind his back, Ron and Hermione exchanged a glance. It was relieved but full of pain and worry. I wondered if there was something else they weren't telling Harry. Was Ron's future employment the only future the only reason for their argument? Was it even a reason?

Another draft whistled down the corridor, testimony to the gale blowing outside. It stirred a small scurry of dust from the stone floor. It tickled Ginny's nose (she was crouching lower then me) and I could see her fight the urge to sneeze. I signalled desperately for her to move away from the portrait but too late, the sneeze had escaped and burst into the silence.

Instantly Ron and Harry were opening the portrait, sending the two of us flying. Ron stood over us.

"You were listening," he said flatly.

Ginny stuck her chin out and glared up at him, "And the three of you wouldn't have done?"

Ron continued to try to look stern but this was spoiled slightly by the giggles of the other two from behind him.

"She's right, Ron. We're hardly ones to talk," Harry put in.

Ron gave up and Harry ushered us into the common room. Hermione shut the portrait, checking it had clicked properly closed, this time.

"Now," Harry announced. "We can go back to the original reason I came to find you two." He indicated Ron and Hermione. They were both listening with fixed attention, interested in what Harry had to tell them. He continued, "Ginny and Claire have been telling me about the package Snape received at breakfast. It apparently contained a single white feather."

Hermione looked excited but Ron looked blankly at Harry.

"And ?"

"And I think possibly it is being used as a symbol for something, like wizards used to in the old days. As a kind of code."

Hermione looked surprised, "That's what I was going to suggest. I thought I was the only person who stayed awake in History of Magic."

Harry grinned, "You are. Call that something I registered as I turned over in my sleep. But that's all I could remember, I was hoping you would know the rest."

"I don't, but I do know where I could find out. I remember getting the book out last year as background research after Professor Binns mentioned it. But, I'd have to find out exactly what kind of feather we're taking about."

Here Ron butted in, "Well, that's easy. Harry, you distract Snape. Hermione can take your dad's cloak and go copy the feather and I'll keep watch for her."

But his smile faded as Hermione shook her head. "We have Homework Club to go to remember Ron."

Ron looked appalled. Harry started laughing.

"Homework Club?" Ginny asked, her eyebrows raised.

It was Harry who answered. "Hermione helps out at this Homework Club for the first and second years. She cornered Ron and I a few weeks ago when we were, um, less than sober. I have to hand it to her, she did plan it rather well. I mean, Ron was drunk enough to agree (which I, I'm glad to say, was not) but not so drunk he forgot that he had agreed. So since then he has been dragged along every Monday and Wednesday, complaining bitterly."

Ginny was laughing hard by now, obviously trying to picture her older brother sitting, surrounded by eleven and twelve year olds, being kind and helping them do their homework.

"Anyway," Harry continued. "Since Ron and Hermione are busy this evening, how about you two giving us a hand?"

This question was addressed to Ginny and I. I swallowed and nodded and saw Ginny doing the same. Harry smiled.

"Okay, I'll distract Snape while Ginny, you use my dad's invisibility cloak to get into Snape's office and get a copy of the feather with your wand. Hermione, can you show her the spell in a minute? And Claire, you keep watch."

So there I stood with the golden trio making plans around me that included Ginny and I in a spate of rule breaking neither of us had equalled before. I smiled.

~

I shivered as I stood, a frozen statue in the shadow of a tapestry next to the door to Snape's office. Dinner that night had been a rushed affair, my insides fluttering, before Ron and Hermione had to hurry off to meet the club in the library and Harry whisked Ginny and I away to prepare.

A sound. Was it a footstep? No, I realised. Only a window creaking in a draught. Luckily the wind had died down or I wouldn't have been able to hear a thing. Time slipped past. If I strained, I could hear Ginny moving around quietly in the office behind me. Harry had told her that if she had time she should look around as much as possible.

My muscles had begun to stiffen up before I felt the light tap on my shoulder from no visible source that meant Ginny had finished and had no more need of me. I heard her soft foot falls moving up the corridor towards the staff room where Harry was supposed to be distracting Snape.

I walked back towards the Common room and was nearly there when I heard voices. It was Ginny and Harry walking up behind me. Ginny with the invisibility cloak, folded and tucked under her arm.

I opened my mouth to ask what they'd found out but Harry put his finger to his lips and indicated for us to follow him into the common room before we discussed the topic.

Ron and Hermione were waiting for us, sitting on either side of the fire. In Hermione's lap was a large book entitled "Codes and Traditions of Medieval Wizards". Excitedly Ginny began pouring out her discovery; there was nothing but the feather, she said. It had been sitting on his desk on its own, no note, nothing. Using the copying spell Hermione had taught her she made the image of a white feather appear from her wand tip.

Hermione examined it from all angles before announcing,

"It's a white magpie feather. Now let me look that up."

She flicked through the ancient tomb, going backwards and forwards, leaning close to scrutinise the page until at last she found what she wanted and read it out.

"A white magpie feather represented a favour or gift owed being requested. The receiver owed the sender a specific gift or a favour that had normally been promised in return for the sender having helped the receiver in some way but there is no evidence to suggest that this was always the case."

Ron was looking confused. I didn't blame him, the complicated phrasing of the old volume was difficult to understand. But Hermione didn't seem to find it so. She looked up, her eyes shining, her face alight with triumph.

"That means someone wants either an object or a gift from Snape. The fact that there was nothing there with the feather, no note or anything, means Snape must already know what is wanted from him. But it also means we have no idea what it could be."

Silence fell. No-one was able to believe that after this much work the trail might actually be dead. Surely there must have been something, some small thing that we had overlooked and that would prove the key. There was.

Ginny looked up suddenly. "There was something else," she said quietly. "I don't know why I didn't think of it before." And she held out here hand. There on her palm lay a petal that seemed to glow in the firelight. A single golden rose petal.

Suddenly the room and people around me seemed to swim slightly before coming back into focus as realisation hit me,

"The golden rose," I whispered, feeling faint. "Whoever sent that feather wants the golden rose. And they think Snape will give it to them because he owes them something. I don't believe it, the golden rose"