The Secrets Libraries Reveal

The Secrets that Libraries reveal.

Hermione Granger was worried. Actually, she was more confused than worried.

As she peered out from behind the red velvet curtains that surrounded her bed, she looked for any signs of life that could disturb her.

The room was deathly quiet. No one was in the dormitory, but it seemed that the Common Room was basically a busy, and not to mention noisy, mini Great Hall. It was filled with her fellow Gryffindors, talking about the days Hogsmeade visit.

As she closed the curtains, she let out a quiet sigh of relief. It would be safe she acknowledged, to write in her new diary. It was a gift from her parents. Leather bound with a rich black leather cover.

Hermione picked up her new quill, another gift from her parents. It was made up of one single brown and white Owl feather.

As she moved the tip of the quill towards the fresh, clean parchment, she could feel her hand itch with the longing to write the days activities down.

This itch wasn't the type she would get when she would write on the scraps of parchment she kept as a makeshift diary. Those were stored in her trunk, bound into large volumes but transfigured as something boring like a sock, or a schoolbook. The itch to write was stronger because she learnt something only an hour ago that had left her feeling the way she was now.

She dipped the quill into the ink and started to write on the first page.

September 17

Today was our second trip to Hogsmeade today. I had originally made a list of things I would need to do, but as soon as Ron caught sight of it, he grabbed it from me and threw it away.

"You don't need a list Hermione," he argued, "You should just be able to buy what you need as you go through each shop."

He seemed kind of annoyed. It's not my fault he's not organized. I swear that if he went into Zonko's for one Joke Wand, he would walk out with six Dungbombs and not one Joke Wand.

Harry, who normally looked forward to the Hogsmeade visits, didn't look so excited. In fact, he looked kind of nervous. I asked him if he was okay and all he answered was "I'm okay Hermione. I guess it was something I ate this morning at breakfast."

"But you didn't eat anything at breakfast Harry!"

"I didn't?"

"No, you just pushed your food around the plate. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah Hermione, I'll be fine."

This was very out of the ordinary for him. Ron and I just looked at each other and Ron shrugged his shoulders. By the look on Harry's face, it looked like he was hiding something, or maybe I was just imagining things.

The trip up was non eventful for the most part. Ron was rattling off a list of places he wanted to visit and I was trying to convince him to come to the Post Office with me.

"And I have to go to Zonko's Hermione, Fred and George told me about this new bubblegum that makes the persons mouth stick together. PLEEEAASSEEE Hermione?"

"Only if you'll go to the Post Office with me Ron, I have to send this letter today, or I'll never get the time."

Harry was rather quiet. In past trips, he'd be as noisy as Ron, but he hardly made a sound.

All of a sudden, someone pushed me. I turned around to find stupid Malfoy shoving a note into my hand and smirking his stupid face off. (I wish his face would fall off sometimes)

I waited for the usual 'Mudblood' comment, but it never came.

"Pass this to Potty."

I looked at the note, and then back to him.

"Don't think of reading it Granger," he drawled, "Its not for you."

With that he turned and left.

I looked at the neatly folded paper. Something then struck me as odd. Normally Malloy's notes to Harry were scribbled and scrunched up. This note was neatly folded and the writing on it was neat and precise. It looked like he had really taken his time on this one.

"Is that for Harry?" Ron asked, glaring at the note.

"Um......... yeah. I guess I better give it to him."

I slowly went around to Harry and handed him the note. I noticed that as soon as he turned the letter over and saw Malfoy's nausea inducing neat writing, his eyes seemed to look like they were smiling.

Before I could tell him to open it, Harry shoved it into his pocket. "I'll read it later. Its probably just Malfoy being a stuck up pain in the ass."

The rest of the trip was really quiet. Both Ron and Harry had finally calmed down (or in Harry's case, perked up), and were discussing Quidditch tactics. I heard Harry mention that the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw teams were commencing night practices tonight. Ron commented that no matter how much they trained, Gryffindor would always win.

That's one of the things I love about Ron: no matter what happens in terms of Quidditch, he is sure that the Gryffindor and Chudley teams will always come out on top.

Our first place to visit was Honeydukes. The smell of freshly made fudge was too delicious to resist. It is always a different kind of fudge every time.

This time it was Vanilla and Carmel swirl. The fudge there is so nice, it melts in your mouth and......

I'm getting off track.

I didn't buy much in Honeydukes, just a medium piece of Caramel and Chocolate Swirl fudge. Harry and Ron, on the other hand, had pooled some of their money together to buy a rather large Chocolate Frog. Mainly the chocolate frog inside would be enchanted, but this one was un-enchanted. They had to have it halved so they could carry it.

You wouldn't believe how many different types of lollies are there to buy. Wall to wall lollies. Almost half of it is their chocolate (which is their specialty). Every imaginable type of chocolate is there to buy. I mainly buy the fruity varieties.

Malfoy was there too (as was his smirk), looking at some Droobles Best Blowing Gum. Probably seeing if they have the variety that shoots flames when the bubble bursts. Its highly dangerous stuff I hear.

On the way to Zonko's, Harry quickly split from us. I think I had heard him say that he would be back before it was time to go.

I asked Ron if he knew where Harry was going. All he did was shrug and smile. By the look on his face after he lowered his shoulders, he has absolutely no idea.

We noticed that a fight had broken out behind us, right in front of Zonko's. It sounded like Malfoy's dumb friends Crabbe and Goyle arguing over some Exploding Bon Bons. We couldn't get to the front of the large crowd that had gathered around, so we decided to leave it, as we would surely hear about it from someone else later.

As we turned to go, a massive bang came from the centre of the crowd. The next thing we heard was like someone screaming in pain.

We turned and saw Crabbe clutching his arm while screaming, "You've done it this time. We're in for it when Malfoy gets back."

"When Malfoy gets back?" Ron was saying, "Where did he go?"

"I'm not sure," I replied, "But I couldn't see him anywhere in the crowd."

I quietly murmured to myself, "Where have you gone?"

"Harry should be back soon." Ron's voice sounded slightly worried.

It was obvious to me that we were not thinking about the same person.

I casted my mind back to when Malfoy gave me the note and told me to pass it on. The meticulously written and folded note. The absence of the 'Mudblood' comment. The look in Harry's eyes as he looked at the note and his eagerness to read it by himself.

"No...It cant be" I whispered to myself. It wasn't possible.

"Can't be what Hermione?"

I shook my head, trying to release the thought.

I smiled at Ron, who was looking rather worried, "It...... um...... cant be time to go yet. I still have to send this post and we have to wait for........."

"Hi guys, miss me?" Harry had returned, "Did I miss anything?"

"Yeah you did," piped up Ron "Crabbe and Goyle got into a fight but I'll tell you about it later."

"Pop, goes the Weasley,"

Ron looked behind him. As I looked around, I saw Malfoy, Crabbe (whose arm was covered by his robes but were slightly bulkier, possibly a bandage) and Goyle walking behind us.

Malfoy gave us his usual smirk, but when he reached Harry, the smirk faded, and in its place was a smile. Harry surprisingly, was smiling back at Malfoy. Ron hadn't noticed this and told Malfoy that if he didn't stop smirking, he would "hit him so hard that he would be smirking from where the sun don't shine."

Malfoy just stayed silent and walked away.

'Come on Hermione," Harry tugged on my robes, " you have mail to send don't you?"

I had completely forgotten about the postl.

All three of us quickly ran to the Post Office. We sprinted up the stairs and through the door. Normally it was crowded at 3:30 in the afternoon, but as Harry explained it, "It's only 3:00."

I selected an express owl, paid the seven galleons and handed him (I assume it was a him) the letter.

The owl flew off, and in what seemed like a few seconds, the officer call out to me and handed me a large package from my parents.

The parcel contained the usual extra paper, ink and letter, but this time, they had included two other things, a diary and an owl feather quill.

The last stop for the trip was the Three Broom Sticks. When we walked in, the waitress moved us over to a small corner booth. By the surrounding plants and shrubs that were positioned around the booth, it was meant to be well hidden.

I hadn't known about this particular booth. We mostly sat in a booth in plain view of everyone. Harry, on the other hand, said that he saw a couple of people in there during the last trip, and that's how he found out about it.

I was sure he almost said today, but quickly corrected it. I banished the thought with the arrival of the Butterbeers.

"Erm...Harry."

"Yes Hermione."

"Where did you go off to before?"

We were walking back to Hogwarts by that time.

On hearing my question, Harry's face slightly reddened.

"Nowhere in particular," he murmured, "I just had extra things to do."

"Like?" I pressed.

"You know how it is Hermione, this is just one of those things. I can't talk about it yet."

"One of those things?"

"Yeah,"

Harry had seemed to have a lot of 'one of those things' in the past couple of months. Disappearing after class, during lunch and way before Quidditch practices.

As I said before, Harry's current behavior just hasn't been adding up. All those disappearing acts for hours on end, doing extra well in classes but hardly paying attention, going off into his own la la land. I honestly thought that due to

You-Know-Who's reappearance, the Ministry would want him a fair bit. I checked with Ron's dad, but he knew nothing about it.

Since Professor Snape had given us extra homework last lesson, I went up to the library. Professor Snape tends to give extra homework to us the day before Hogsmeade visits.

As I looked in a rather large book, I decided to watch a bit of the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw Quidditch practice. It was then I realized some thing, Ron was right, no matter how hard they tried, we would always win.

The Ravenclaw beater slugged the bludgers really hard. It veered off to the left toward a couple of boys.

One of the boys had platinum blond hair and the other.........oh my......... it was Harry and Malfoy and they were...... it looked like they were......kissing.

Is this Harry's reason for always going off on his own?

Is he...... going out with Malfoy?

With that, Hermione closed her diary. She peeped outside the curtain for any signs of life. Since there was no one in the room still, she placed her diary under her bed. She shrunk it to make it fit better.

A couple of seconds later, someone loudly slammed the door.

"Hermione, you here?"

It was Ron.

She called out, "I'm in here, get in quick!"

In a flash, Ron Weasley was on her bed. His hair was messy and he looked like he had just been given the biggest shock of his life.

He stared at Hermione and didn't blink.

"What's up Ron? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Hermione, you won't believe what I saw about an hour ago."