Pariah

Pariah, Chapter Nine

Patterns, or Zen and the Art of Detective Work

But this time the Buddha had no words. He reached into the muck and pulled up a lotus flower. And he held it silently before them, its roots dripping mud and water.

From "The Flower Sermon"

In the dust, an ant crawled across Harry's open, upturned palm. He twitched, slightly, and turned to look at it. Six legs, thorax, abdomen, pointy mandibles and antennae. Yes, that was right. Harry looked up at the sky. It was the same hue as the dust: a tawny, almost-brown, only darker where the light of the sun didn't quite reach. He wondered vaguely if he was dead. And then the sun moved closer, and it became blue, and Harry could see that it looked like how he always thought about electricity, with little whips like flagella licking out in spots and zapping the particles in the air around it. And then Harry realized there was no air, here. No ant, either. No dust, or sky, and no him. There was just this: a darkness and a light, and Harry was quite sure that he was dying. He thought it would have been more spectacular, somehow. The darkness shifted, became the light, or the light became the darkness, Harry wasn't sure exactly which. Then he remembered that dead people didn't think, and certainly didn't feel. Furthermore, he reminded himself, dead people didn't carry on long extended discussions with themselves, seeing how they no longer existed. Slowly, he raised what should have been his arm, and yes, there were his fingers, right in front of him. That solved that, then.

* * *

Hermione did not trust Pansy Parkinson, and she thought it fairly obvious why.

She had noticed the way Pansy looked at Ron and the way Pansy tended to stand just close enough so that she wasn't exactly touching him, but certainly not not touching him, either.

Hermione had noticed the way she watched Ron during the DA meetings, and she had noticed the way Ron's eyes flicked to the Slytherin table several times each meal. It was hard to miss the way Pansy kept looking at him, and the way he kept looking at her, like there was something connecting them, like they were somehow united, like they shared some secret. A person would have to be blind and a fool on top of it not to notice that, whatever the Slytherin's charm was, it had a pull on him.

Pansy Parkinson was manipulating Ron, pulling him tight around her finger like an errant string. It was the only explanation.

It annoyed Hermione to no end that, even as she sat, book open on her lap, in the hospital wing next to Harry's bed, her mind was on Pansy Parkinson instead of the task at hand, which was researching head injuries and "magical comas". The difference, the book said, between Muggle comas and magical comas was that the natural defensive magic that wizards and witches had went into remission during magical comas. This meant, in a nutshell, that the healing process for a magical coma could be as time-consuming as a Muggle one. Madam Pomfrey was giving Harry hourly infusions of Maidenhair Tonic in order to counter-act long-term damage while his magic, more or less, went on vacation.

Hermione wondered idly what it was like, being comatose. She imagined that shutting down one's brain perhaps wouldn't always be such a bad thing, especially if it could be done selectively.

For example, it wouldn't be too bad at all if Hermione could shut any and all thoughts of Pansy Parkinson out her mind, especially those thoughts which coupled Pansy and Ron. Her and him against the world. Indeed.

And so when Ron came storming into the hospital wing, clearly having abandoned his prefect duties and looking as churlish as if he had just had a confrontation with Draco or his mum, and Pansy, his presumably abandoned prefect partner, was nowhere to be seen, it caught her attention.

"Ron?" Hermione asked, looking up from Harry's prone body, still motionless, while Madam Pomfrey fussed with Goyle as a contingent of sycophant Slytherins looked on. Hermione had been content to ignore them and had, until Ron burst in, forgotten about them entirely.

Ron stomped up the aisle between the rows of beds, coming to a petulant halt at the foot of Harry's bed. For a moment, his surliness seemed to ebb as his expression relaxed. "Any news, then?" he asked, glancing around to glare at the Slytherins, who had just let out a triumphant whoop as Goyle swung his feet off the side of the bed and stood up, despite Madam Pomfrey's protests.

"No," Hermione said bluntly.

"Sodding shit bugger fuck," Ron swore under his breath. He raked a hand through his hair roughly, causing it to stand on end. He looked especially red and ill mannered for someone who had just spent the last couple hours with a girl who seemed to be on the fast track to his heart, or something.

"Language, Ron," Hermione said, but her voice wasn't heard above Teeny's, as the younger Slytherin addressed Goyle as Millicent wrapped her arms around him in what was surely the biggest hug Hermione had ever seen.

"Oh! I just know this means Draco will be awake soon! It's so inspirational! Narcissa was quite adamant that they should have filed a grievance with the governors. Letting riff-raff like those Creeveys onto the team. A right danger."

Ron stiffened and turned.

"Ron," Hermione intoned warningly, standing.

"To let that sort participate in the most noble of Wizarding sports is like letting a Weasley on as Minister for Magic!" Teeny's eyes danced over Ron and Hermione as she put her hand over her mouth to unconvincingly stifle her giggle.

The Slytherins laughed (except Millicent, who was whispering feverishly into Goyle's ear, and Goyle, who was nodding as feverishly, his eyes tightly closed and his face buried in her limp hair), and Ron went even redder. He was on the very edge already, no doubt by this whole thing with Harry. If you stuck one, they both bled. Of course this wasn't easy for him. Hermione put her hand on his arm to still him, but he shook it off violently. "Ginny ought to have busted your skull open while she had the chance," he spat.

"Mr. Weasley, that will be ten points from Gryffindor for such vulgar imagery and blatant belligerence." All attention turned to Professor Snape striding into the hospital wing, eyes pinpricks of fire. Melodrama, melodrama, melodrama. "Madam Pomfrey, I thought I asked specifically to be told at once when young Mr. Goyle awakened--before it became public knowledge."

Madam Pomfrey stiffened, quirking her eyebrows imperiously. "Very well, Professor. The patient is all yours." She stuck her nose into the air and sniffed, stalking off to her office with an armful of vials and tiny clinking bottles.

"Everyone out!" Professor Snape snapped.

"But Professor--" Millicent began.

Snape raised a hand to halt her. "You will have time for tearful reunions later, Miss Bulstrode. Right now, I need to address some issues of importance with Gregory."

Hermione turned to pick up her bag. "Let's go," she said, but Ron was already out the door, maximizing his long legs to achieve an unsurpassable stride. Hermione ran after him, finally catching him halfway down the fourth floor corridor. "Ron, wait!"

Ron stopped and turned to look at her over his shoulder. "What?" he asked exasperatingly.

"Where are you going?" Hermione panted, out of breath. She had wanted to show him the medical magic book she had found in the library, thinking it might soothe him to know that Madam Pomfrey really was doing the best she could.

"Back to rounds," Ron said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and Hermione was ridiculous for asking.

"Good," Hermione said, straightening and putting her hand over the stitch in her side. She didn't like his tone. He had no reason to be nasty to her. "Where's Parkinson then?"

Ron shrugged. "I told her I would catch her up." He started heading back down the corridor.

"I would have thought she'd have wanted to come," Hermione said, adding off-handedly, "For Malfoy, at least."

Ron bristled at this, turning around once more. "I can't imagine she'd care, seeing as how they've broken up and all."

"That doesn't mean anything, Ron," Hermione said firmly. Ron frustrated her, sometimes, the way he only ever approached a situation in the most straightforward manner. He certainly was no match for someone like Pansy Parkinson, someone with deceit written up one side of her and down the other. And there Hermione balked at the mental images which sprung to mind. Lord only knew what those Slytherins got up to down in the dungeons.

Ron looked at her for a long moment, his eyes dark and sharp, like when he was planning ahead four turns to take the King. Finally, he spoke. "I'll see you in the common room at nine, Hermione."

Hermione stood in the corridor, her hand limply curled around the spine of the thick tome on medical magic, and watched him go. Even after he disappeared in the shadows at the end of the hall, she stood there still. Finally, the sound of rustling cloaks caught her attention and she turned to find three fifth years staring at her, their eyes wide. Hermione cocked her head and pulled from the endless Hogwarts rote their houses and names. Laura Madley, Nora Branstone, and Emma Dobbs from Hufflepuff. Laura helped Madam Pomfrey sometimes on the weekends and Emma was a Chaser. Nora, she seemed to remember, was in Charms Club.

"Yes?" Hermione asked. "Can I help you?"

The three girls exchanged glances, and then the one in the middle with dark hair and eyes to match, the one Hermione knew to be Laura, cleared her throat. "We have a bit of a proposition for you."

Hermione quirked her eyebrow and surmised the three girls in front of her. From any other house, she would have expected trickery. But there was something earnest and sincere about the way they stood there, hands clasped with their cloaks open, cheeks rosy, noses red, that intrigued her. And so, perhaps against her better judgment, Hermione replied, "What kind of proposition?"

* * *

Laura followed, at a safe distance, stepping lightly in her trainers. They weren't speaking, which was a bit unusual. They hadn't been so silent since he had told her she was just like Hermione.

But, unlike last time, tonight they were taking it in turns to look at each other. Pansy had started it, casting glances at Ron that were in no way haughty, indignant, or resentful. The moment Ron would look, she'd turn, and he'd miss the look on her face. And so she, having turned, would miss the exact same look on his.

It was almost longing, but unsure. Not wistful, maudlin, nor contemplative were the looks, either. Laura couldn't quite put her finger on it. If it had been anyone else, she would have said that the look was a high-level of awkwardness bordering on embarrassment.

But when Ron was embarrassed he flushed to his ears, and when Pansy was embarrassed she hid it in sarcasm. Laura paused in a shadow when Ron and Pansy, having come to the end of their rounds, stopped at the top of the stairs leading into the Entrance Hall. She checked her watch: they had run over by twenty minutes, at least. The place was completely deserted.

"So, erm, I'll see you around, then?" Ron said.

"Sure," Pansy said.

Neither moved nor spoke for fifteen astonishingly awkward seconds, and then at the same time, they both started in.

"Listen, about tonight--"

"It's not like it's the end of the world--"

"--I didn't mean, that is to say--"

"--people snog Slytherins all the time, you know--"

"--hope you didn't get the wrong impression--"

"--it's not like I run around all day with my skirt over my head--"

"--and it's not like it would ever work., anyway."

"--and it's not like, yeah."

Laura was scribbling madly, though silently. Ah, the joys of Muggle ballpoint pens.

Ron looked at his shoes, and Pansy looked down the staircase.

"Glad that's cleared up, then," Ron said, turning quite maroon.

"Good talk, Weasley," Pansy said, the side of her mouth lifting in a smirk. "Showing your intuitive grasp of the English lang--oomph!"

Ron pulled her to him, roughly, locking their lips together in a singularly impulsive kiss. After reminding herself to breathe, Laura cursed that she had lent Emma her camera. And then they parted, slowly, as he gently released her bottom lip from between his teeth. Pansy's eyes fluttered open after a moment. Her fists were clenched in Ron's jumper, and one of Ron's hands was tangled in her short hair. In sync, they each took a step backward.

They merely looked at each other for a moment, and then Pansy turned down the steps and Ron strode down the corridor.

For several frantic moments, Laura wrote down everything--twice--knowing that she had just witnessed something either catastrophic or miraculous, though which one, it perhaps was too early to tell.

What she did know for sure was that she had definitely--most grievously and without a doubt--missed something very, very important.

* * *

She certainly wasn't waiting for him.

Bouncing her knee and twirling her quill, any thought of reviewing her Charms notes out the window, Hermione stared, through Seamus, Neville, and Dean, moodily across the common room into the fire.

"It's utterly impossible, mate, that you have never noticed that Muggle football is the most boring sport on the planet," Seamus told Dean as he and Neville, having forgotten their Charms work as well, looked over Dean's shoulders at some football magazine or another.

"The pictures don't even move. How can you stand it, man?" Neville inquired.

"Oh, honestly!" Hermione snapped. "The pictures have never moved once in the history of time. Is it really so peculiar?"

Neville and Seamus slowly sat back down in their own seats. Dean looked at her oddly over the top of the page. Seamus' eyes bulged slightly as he coughed into his hand.

It was not lost on Hermione that his cough sounded much like a muffled obscenity. In fact, it was not lost on Hermione that what Seamus had indeed called her started with the letter B, rhymed with witch, and could, if he didn't watch it, land him in detention.

"Excuse me?" Hermione asked.

"What?" Seamus feigned innocence. "Who, me? I didn't say anything. Dog in my throat."

"I think you mean you have a frog in your throat," Neville corrected.

"Right!" Seamus said. "Frog! Of course a frog. Wouldn't have a dog in my throat. That's just insane. Who would ever say such a thing? Only someone barking mad, that's who. I'll tell you one thing--"

"Something the matter, Hermione?" Dean asked suddenly, cutting Seamus off before he dug himself any deeper.

"No," Hermione said petulantly, turning the page in her Charms book so vehemently it nearly ripped. "Whatever would give you that impression?"

"You just seem--" Dean began, but was cut off by Seamus, who jumped out of his seat the moment Ron came through the portrait hole.

"Ron! Good old boy! Old buddy, old chap, old pal, old buddy, old chap!" Seamus called out in one long stream before taking a breath. "Listen, mate, I've got something to tell you."

"What's that?" Ron said. He was grinning slightly, and he seemed even to be bouncing, just a little, on the balls of his feet. He plucked a half-eaten chocolate frog out of his sister's hands, and bit the head off with a snap.

Ginny's protests went unheard as Seamus continued. "Well, see, we've got a situation here that calls for some finesse. Some discussion. A little of what I like to call grace." Seamus paused for effect. "I'm snogging Hannah Abbott and there's nothing to be done about it. We're in love. She's conceded to have my Finnegan babies and live in the country and support me as long as we both shall live. What do you say?"

The whole of Gryffindor tower went very, very quiet. Ron chewed thoughtfully, keeping his eyes on the quickly disappearing chocolate frog torso he held between his middle finger and thumb. Finally, he shrugged. "You don't intend on shoving your brats off with me during the summer holidays, do you?"

Seamus blinked. "No. Why?"

"Well, I suppose it's all right then," Ron said, finally looking up at Seamus and smiling broadly. "Because I reckon your kids will be right pains in the arse."

Scattered onlookers laughed along as Seamus clapped Ron on the back. Everyone else returned to their books, the entertainment over by consensus as Ron sat down at the end of their study table.

"That was a close one," Neville said, letting out a low whistle. "Could've been ugly, that."

Hermione eyed him.

"What?" Neville asked.

"Knew you'd understand," Seamus said. "Thought you'd have your hands full enough with wotsface, Parkinson."

Hermione looked from Neville to Seamus to Ron. Ron's ears were turning red.

"More cushion for the pushin', as they say," Seamus said, thrusting his hips and laughing. "Off to spread the good news. Good match today, by the way. Your sister sure showed that Nott girl a thing or two about picking fights with someone who was brought up with you Weasley lot for brothers. Whew!" And with that, he skipped off to the far side of the common room to tell the story, exaggerating it, no doubt, to the half of the house who may have missed some dialogue.

Ron met Hermione's eyes, licking the chocolate off his fingers as he did so. "You wanted to talk?"

"Aren't you going to deny it?" Hermione asked, incensed.

"Deny what?" Ron asked innocently. Neville snickered.

"Well, the--" Hermione paused, trying to find the least crude words possible, "need for any 'cushion' for the things you definitely are not 'pushing'."

"Is she taking the piss?" Ron asked Dean before turning to Neville. "Do you think she's taking the piss?"

"Hermione would never take the piss," Neville said, leering slightly. Bob hissed beside him in agreement.

"Not on purpose, anyway," Dean added.

Hermione felt her face growing hot. "Fine," she said, slamming shut her Charms book. "Forget I said anything." She picked up her things quickly, and was halfway up the stairs before Ron bothered to call her back.

"Hermione! Hey, Hermione!" Ron hollered, but she didn't stop.

She threw herself down on her bed, pulling her curtains closed to block out Lavender and Parvati's curious stares.

She didn't know how she was doing it, but somehow Pansy Parkinson had gotten inside Ron's very skin. When Hermione looked at Ron and talked to Ron, all she got back were Pansy-hued images and Pansy-tainted words.

The snake had infiltrated the lion's den at last, it would seem.

* * *

Everyone in the Hufflepuff common room was whispering.

Which wasn't a new thing, not really. Laura Madley had always assumed that they were the most sociable house anyway, which made her work for Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs all the easier. No one had secrets in Hufflepuff, and if they did, no one bothered to know them anyway. And because they were Hufflepuffs, as Laura and her two best friends had discovered early on in their Hogwarts years, no one bothered to notice when they were around, which definitely worked to their advantage. Being a Hufflepuff meant a lot of things, among them the ability to hide in plain sight.

Laura was sitting in the far corner of the common room, in the quietest corner, her ears perked up and taking note of the conversations going on around her.

"...and if we could only get the Beaters confused..." Zacharias Smith was going on about Quidditch. Nothing new there. Now that the Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw match was less than a week away, he had grown more manic, talking a touch faster, his voice a bit higher. He was strung so tightly nowadays, people had begun taking bets as to when he would snap. Laura had a sickle down on 12:43 PM on the day before the match.

"... and those frayed jumpers... those baggy trousers..." Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones were giggling about Harry Potter, which again, wasn't anything new. The fact that the Boy Who Was Currently Unconscious had never actually dated anyone since Cho Chang (and then not even officially) had, surprisingly, done nothing to deter gossip surrounding his apparently non-existent love life. Quite the opposite was true, in fact. Everyone wanted to be in love with him, but no one, it seemed, was actually brave enough to have a go at it. Susan had come closest, securing a date through Hannah, but fate seemed to have other plans. Hannah was like that, though: a bit meddling, a bit socially dim, but well meaning and thoroughly sweet. It was because of Hannah, after all, that she was even working on this case to begin with.

"...and sometimes I do ten hours..." Ernie, going off about studying... again.

"...and she said she would have taken points if she didn't feel so utterly sorry for me... she's evil, I swear it..." No one seemed to be getting on well with Professor Tonks.

And so this was her typical Sunday afternoon.

Laura frowned and checked her watch. She had an appointment in the library in an hour. She wasn't getting anything here; she might as well stroll the library for a while and see what she could see. People always let their guards down when they thought no one was watching. What they didn't realize was that nine times out of ten, someone was watching. And seven times out of those nine, it was Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs. They were good. Oh, yes. They were damn good.

But Laura was stumped on the Ron Weasley case. Oh, the first part had been easy. Most of the cases they handled were of the "boy and girl" variety: people curious about crushes, wanting to know if he liked her, if she liked him. Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs were quite practiced in the trade of innocent information. Every innocent little thing anyone could want to know about Pansy Parkinson, or anyone else for that matter, was usually just a matter of public record or common knowledge. For instance, that she had gone to Muggle nursery school, or that her father was a top solicitor in the county of Devon, or that her mother was on the Healer Examination Board in Exeter--all of these things were public record. That she liked cherry and chocolate, Laura had gleaned from a simple query of a House Elf. That Pansy's favorite Quidditch team was the Cannons was really quite obvious. Nora had been in Charms Club with Pansy last year, so she knew quite a lot about some of her habits. Emma's specialty was "Loo and Locker Talk", as she put it, and it was really quite amazing what people said when they thought everyone else was minding his or her own business. Taking the time to actually observe another person was really the simplest way to learn all sorts of things, like class schedules, eating habits, cliques, etc.

So the first part of the Ron Weasley case--learning about Pansy Parkinson, and learning that she did not, as fact, seem to have any reason, except the obvious, not to crush on Ron Weasley--had been just a matter of compiling information that he had been too lazy or not had the resources to collect himself. But the second part was something else entirely.

Laura had never dealt with anything quite so serious and complex as a purported death threat before. It had taken several days for them to come up with an organized plan to attack this issue, and had finally decided that the best place to start was with what was already known about the situation. Ron had delivered a list of possible suspects by owl post that first week, and so far, Laura, Emma, and Nora had been working steadily through the list of names, gathering information about them--all Slytherins, as it were-- as well as organizing background information about Harry Potter. But they had yet to make a breakthrough, and as things sat, no one on the list was any less guilty or innocent than another, except for maybe Draco Malfoy. But that didn't seem right to Laura, for whatever reason, and Emma and Nora had agreed. They had learned that Draco, though he talked tough, was all talk when it came down to it. The events of the past several weeks had only served to further that notion, as Draco now lay in the same state as his rival. Yet, the Quidditch "accident" had highlighted the fact that the threat may well be more serious than previously thought. Which is why Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs had regrouped, reviewed their files, and then chosen a new course, starting with a series of important meetings that afternoon.

In the library, Laura settled into her favorite chair in the corner where the Transfiguration section met the Charms section. There was a bustle of activity around her as people perused the books, whispering about assignments and who was snogging who, when, where and why. Really, if one wanted a secret kept, one really shouldn't talk about it. If they chose to talk about it, well, then it was public knowledge, of a sort. That was Laura's perspective, anyway, and it had served her conscience well.

So she sat, scrutinizing the library patrons over the top of her ever-present clipboard, quill ready to write down anything interesting, such as that Sinistra had caught Gregory Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode in the Astronomy Tower, just last night, hours after his miraculous recovery (she made a note to look into this), supposedly trying to shag. Laura couldn't really see how it was possible. Just the physics involved boggled her mind. She made a little note about force and weight, and then looked up from her clipboard at the sound of a throat clearing.

"Hullo, Laura!"

She checked her watch again. Of course he was early.

"Hello, Dennis," she said cheerfully. "Let's go down to the lake."

"Okay," he shrugged. He was always so bouncy and hyper that it was nearly contagious.

"Thanks for meeting me, by the way." She smiled as he held the library door for her.

"Sure thing, Laura. I owe you one for helping me with that Potions paper, anyway." Dennis bounced ahead of her several steps, then danced back up them, and back down several, and back up. He really had too much energy for a normal person. Laura made a mental note to look into that. "So, what's this about then?"

"I'll tell you in a minute," Laura said cryptically. She didn't want to say anything inside the castle for many reasons, the main one being the Hogwarts walls really did have ears.

Outside by the lake, trainers crunching the frozen ground, Laura told Dennis of her concern for Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. "So, what I was hoping you could do," she said in closing, "is just keep an eye out. I know it seems silly, but, well, you know Susan. She'd never come out and ask herself, but she's really worried. I thought maybe if I knew what was going on, I could offer some encouraging words, you know."

Dennis nodded thoughtfully, sending another rock skipping out across the water. "Gotcha. I mean, I understand. Anything to help a friend out. I'd do the same."

"Exactly!" Laura beamed. "So, you'll help me out, then?"

Dennis grinned at her as he bent to select another stone to skip across the near-freezing water of the lake. "On one condition."

Laura tried not to let her face fall so much. She really wasn't expecting conditions. "What's that?"

"I'll tell you whatever you want to know if you agree to go out with me."

And suddenly Laura remembered why she hated boys. She smiled, sweetly, contemplatively. "Where are we going?"

"No, I mean, like, go steady with me. Be my girlfriend. Hold my hand in the hallway." Dennis was rolling the flat black stone in his gloved fingers, looking utterly unembarrassed.

Laura momentarily considered pushing him into the lake. On the other hand, she really needed an "in". And Dennis wasn't so bad. He had his brilliant moments. Granted, they were never in Potions class, but yet, he was awfully sweet. He was even almost cute, in an overly excited small dog sort of way. She could do this. It wasn't like he was proposing marriage. Laura grinned back at him. "All right."

"All right?" Dennis said, incredulously. "Brilliant!" He started laughing. He sent the stone skidding out, and Laura watched as it bounced across the water a clean twelve times before the squid reached up and thwapped it to the far shore.

They stood there on the shore for several moments, grinning stupidly at each other, before Laura felt it was all right to return to the pressing issues. "So, you don't really think there's anything to worry about Harry, then? I know how close you are, and everything."

Dennis grinned at her. "I really don't think there's much to worry about," he said lightly. "Even if someone is trying to kill Harry, besides You-Know-Who, they aren't being very pro-active about it, are they? That whole Quidditch accident was just that: an accident. I mean, really, it was totally out of anyone's control. And besides, he's got the DA and Dumbledore, and he's always managed to survive before. He's Harry Potter," he finished, as if that solved everything. "And, besides, it's not like anyone in Gryffindor is going to off him in his sleep or anything. Ha ha."

Laura sighed. It was perhaps exactly that sort of over-confidence that had worried Ron enough to approach them in the first place. "I hope you're right."

Dennis shrugged. "Just calling it as I see it," he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and cocking his head to look at her. "I think you're really pretty, Laura."

Laura blushed, despite herself. "Erm, thanks," she said awkwardly.

"Are you going to the Quidditch match this Saturday?"

It was a stupid question, really. Of course she'd be going. "Yes. It's Hufflepuff's first match."

"Maybe we could sit together, then, if that'd be all right."

"Is this a date, then?" Laura asked, grinning.

"That depends. Do you want it to be?" Dennis asked. She supposed maybe it was the Gryffindor in him that made him so unabashed.

Laura shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

"Excellent!" Dennis said. He checked his watch. "Hey, listen. I've got to meet Colin to go over some, erm, Beater moves, you know, so I'll see you later, yeah?"

"Sure," Laura said.

"I'd walk you back, only I'm really late," he said hurriedly. "I'll have to run and everything."

Laura laughed. "Go, then!" she chuckled, pushing him slightly in the direction of the castle.

He grinned at her. "Okay. See you later." He stood looking at her for a long moment, and then he leaned in, brushing his lips against her cheek. Laura blushed furiously as he pulled away, beaming at her crookedly. "I've got to go." He took two steps back, then turned and sprinted to the castle.

Laura watched him go, and then leaned against the beech tree. She took the quill out of her hair, turned the pages in her clipboard, and began her record of the interview.

Gryffindor Quidditch Source does not sense immediate danger, but has agreed to contribute to investigation. Source called in as evidence against threat: aid of Defense Association, presence of Headmaster Dumbledore, and the incredible luck of HP (henceforth referred to as "Target"). Issues for consideration: how trustworthy and efficient is the DA? What are Dumbledore's intentions to resolve possible threats against Target? Surely the headmaster is equipped to handle said threats, but this investigator wonders if, knowing the Target to be in danger, would he willingly leave Target in danger rather than cause alarm? One must question the objectives of all involved. And as for the DA, it is surely crumbling, as evidenced in addition of PP to its ranks, although this is not public knowledge and is a well-kept secret of the DA, perhaps for protection of both Target and PP? All suspects as yet remain unresolved. Note to self: Can't make boyfriends of every potential suspect. Must think of new guise.

Laura sucked on her quill and looked over what she had just written, and then thought some more about what Dennis had said, about his attitude. Then she added to the bottom of her entry:

Gryffindor Quidditch Source also referred to inaction of suspect in regards to Target. Appears to be opinion of Source that inactivity is a sign of lulled threat. Quidditch incident = unlucky dealings of Fate. This investigator wonders if perhaps a false sense of security is dangerous? Need additional inside information. Maybe it is like someone is meaning to kill Target during sleep. Would certainly utilize the element of surprise.

Laura chewed on her quill some more. "Something is definitely happening," she said aloud, the thought coming to her from a long way off, but weighted heavily with what felt like a good amount of truth. She felt her stomach tighten with that out-of-breath feeling which meant she was in over her head. "Now I've just got to figure out what."

* * *

She still didn't quite know why they had to meet in Greenhouse Seven, the Arboretum, but she complied. There was a hard ice coating the snow on the grounds, and Hermione practically skid across it as she dodged snowballs and wove between strollers. She was sure that there was a pattern to Pansy Parkinson's strange behavior this year, and she was hoping that it could be discovered simply by drawing the lines to connect the observations that Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs had made while on assignment.

Apparently, the three Hufflepuffs had been on Pansy's trail practically all year, after an "anonymous tip" had caused them to turn their attention on that particular Slytherin. Hermione was pretty sure she knew what was going on: someone from the DA, more than likely, had been concerned about Pansy's sudden interest in that portion of the student population which she had hitherto seemed content to either disdain out loud or outright discount. And Hermione really couldn't blame them. In fact, she wanted to help them. She wanted to know, and she wanted to protect what the three of them--her, Ron, and Harry--had worked so hard for over the past years.

Having arrived at the door to Greenhouse Seven, she closed her eyes momentarily, taking a deep breath and shifting the heavy books she carried in her arms. No, she did not like Pansy Parkinson. Not even a little, not even a bit, not even at all. Then she pushed open the door, and there they stood, the three Hufflepuff detectives, pouring over a clipboard not unlike the one Hermione always kept handy. Their eyes met hers as the door clicked softly shut behind her.

"Hello," Nora said.

Hermione set down the tower of books on the nearest table, pushing aside several stacks of parchment on which were scrawled columns of data. The NEWT level Herbology classes were delineating the cell structure of the Maidenhair Tree. "I brought some books I thought might be helpful."

Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs exchanged looks. Laura, apparently the leader, flipped a sheet on her clipboard. "What do you know about Dennis Creevey?"

"Dennis?" Hermione asked, confused. "Dennis is harmless."

"And his brother, Colin?"

"What do the Creevey brothers have to do with Pansy Parkinson?" Hermione looked at each of them in turn as they looked at each other. "I mean, come on, that's why we're here, isn't it?"

Suddenly, from the far corner of the room beneath the shadows of a Maidenhair's boughs, came the sound of a throat clearing. Hermione jumped.

"The effective detective approaches a mystery from every angle," the voice said. Slowly, a figure stepped out, becoming visible in increments: the toe of a boot, the fold of a robe, a wrist, shaggy black-brown fringe hanging in dark eyes, and, finally, a face.

Hermione let her mouth hang open for a moment as she processed this unexpected turn of events. "What are you doing here?"

Blaise Zabini crossed his arms over his chest and sniggered at her. "I'm here for the same reason I presume you are, Granger."

"I don't believe this," Hermione said, more to herself than anyone in particular.

"We're trying to 'approach' this from every 'angle'," Emma colluded with a shrug. "Blaise is 'close' to Pansy. You are 'close' to Harry." As she spoke, she gesticulated quotation marks with her fingers to punctuate her phrasing, as if Hermione needed her to illustrate the skepticism in her voice.

"Of course, we don't actually think the Creevey brothers are involved with any of this," Laura said quickly. "Well, at least not wittingly."

"Basically," Nora tried to clarify, "there's something going on in both of your houses."

"We need you to be the 'eyes' and 'ears' of our Slytherin and Gryffindor operations," Emma said finally.

Blaise and Hermione exchanged glares.

"You want us--you want me to spy on my own house?" Hermione asked, incredulous. She couldn't believe it. No one in her house would ever betray Harry, surely. They were Gryffindors. They just didn't operate like that. Besides, it was thoroughly uncouth, immoral, and, well, surely an infraction of some rule.

"Excellent. When do we start?" Blaise said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them in earnest. "Of course, I expect full amnesty, whatever the outcome may be."

One side of Laura's mouth quirked as she made another note on her parchment. "And you?" she asked, glancing up at Hermione.

"I thought," Hermione said carefully in order not to be misunderstood, "that I was coming here in order to figure out what was happening to Harry."

Laura nodded. "Yes."

"And so," Hermione continued, glancing at Blaise momentarily, "I don't really understand how spying on my house is going to help further that cause. No one in Gryffindor is plotting to get Harry killed."

"Can you be so sure?" Emma asked. Frankly, Hermione was tiring of her attitude, but at least she hadn't managed to use quotation fingers in that sentence.

"Can anyone ever be so sure?" Nora insisted.

"I know them," Hermione said with conviction.

"And James Potter thought he knew Peter Pettigrew, too, didn't he?" Laura said calmly.

Hermione stiffened. "How do you know about that?" she hissed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Blaise's expression perk.

"The point is, simply, that you can never be sure." Laura's voice was urgent, sincere. In the back of Hermione's brain ran the reel of Harry's voice telling her, in essence, that she was a terrible person. Accompanying it was Ron's voice, telling her that she had been a terrible friend, that she had been absent. It was true, also, that they didn't know her at all. What made her think that she knew any of them any better? Wasn't it true that she had been so concerned this year with her duties as Head Girl, her classes, and her relationship with Terry, that she had hardly noticed what was happening to Harry, or what Ron was going through? Perhaps Madley, Branstone, and Dobbs had a point.

"They're not asking you to be a snitch, Granger. Just to be critical," Blaise said in a very irritated fashion. "And when you say you know them, do you mean that in a biblical sense?"

Hermione looked him in the eye. His eyes were a strange blue, darker than Ron's, deeper, somehow. She looked at Laura, making up her mind in an instant. "Fine," she said, "but on my terms."

* * *

It wavered, almost imperceptibly, just at the edge of things. It was a crystalline sort of pulse, not even visible, but present nonetheless. Harry cautiously inhaled, and, in so doing, pulled the pulse closer. It felt like the threat of lightening, like the charge of static, like the game he would play as a boy, scuffing the soles of his trainers across the carpet and reaching out to shock Dudley on the forearm. It worked best, he remembered, if he was wearing a particularly fuzzy sweater.

* * *

For an entire week, Blaise Zabini actually listened to people. It was damn near painful, is what it was. The worst part was that while this was, for all intents and purposes, merely a sociological experiment of sorts, he was actually becoming interested in what was being said.

He comforted himself with the logic that by listening to the conversations going on around and with him, he was actually only growing familiar with certain topics of discourse and the patterns of speech of his classmates. And while it has been said that familiarity breeds contempt, Blaise was begging to understand that before it developed into contempt, it really was something else altogether. And that something else was ease.

"The funniest part," Morag said, laughing over dinner in the Great Hall, "was when Marcus turned to you and he said--do you remember?--he said, 'Oy, Parkinson! Nice rack!' And, oh my god, I nearly pissed myself!"

Everyone at the Slytherin table laughed, including Pansy, who, with some quiet urging from Blaise, had been invited back into the fold. The general understanding amongst the fold was that Pansy was welcome, as long as Draco was out cold in the hospital wing and Teeny spent her meal periods at his side. There was, after all, plenty of room in the center of the table now. Pansy had been reluctant, but apparently her pride had succumbed to her loneliness, or some other such intrapersonal dynamic that Blaise, in all honestly, just couldn't be arsed to figure out, and she had finally acquiesced to grace them with her presence. Feel free to gag at will, he thought to the world at large.

Blaise had his arm casually draped around Daphne's shoulder as she laughed. He watched the interaction of the four seventh year girls curiously. Things were not quite right between them yet, but at least they were on speaking terms again. If he was the sort of person to bother with doing good deeds, he might have commended himself on this one.

"How long did it take to set you right?" Theodore, seated elbow to elbow with Morag, asked.

"Oh, I don't know. A week maybe?" Pansy said, wiping tears of laughter from her cheeks.

"It was eight days," Millicent supplied. She was grinning easily, now with Greg out of the hospital wing. "We tied a ribbon on for every day. Nearly had all the branches covered when plop!"

Pansy, Morag, Daphne, and Millicent all laughed knowingly.

"Plop what?" Blaise inquired.

Pansy threw her head back and laughed loudly.

"They just fell off," Daphne said. "Landed in her pudding at dinner one night."

"Of course, Pansy, covered in pink pudding, screamed," Morag said.

"So, Pomfrey came running," Millicent said.

"It was all quite shocking," Pansy said, catching her breath long enough to speak.

"And she said," Millicent said, barely suppressing her laughter, "she said, 'Oh, so you've shed them then. Happens to the best of us, I suppose.' And then she asked if she'd like to keep them!"

The Slytherin table broke out in another peal of laughter. Blaise even found himself smirking.

"Did you?" Theodore asked.

They all shook their heads, and Morag said, "No, she didn't. But I owled them to her before the start of sixth year, as a welcome back pressie!"

"The card read, 'Winner: best rack of the year!'" Pansy recalled.

Again, the Slytherin table exploded with laughter.

"We had them mounted in our dorm most of the term, didn't we? Hung our dressing gowns on them." Morag said, adding thoughtfully, "What happened to them, I wonder?"

"Oh, Draco took them down," Daphne said.

The table quieted down considerably at that. Bitterly, Pansy said, "I don't think he saw the humor in it."

"I don't think he ever did, love," Millicent said somewhat cautiously.

If Blaise had been the sort to take more than a scientific interest in such things, he may very well have seen some wounds heal that night at dinner. As things were, though, his mind was wrapped around a single question. What was Pansy Parkinson up to?

* * *

The saying goes: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Since Terry Boot didn't have any enemies, and since it was arguable about how much closer his friends could actually get, he had created his own tactic. He kept his mouth closed, his books handy, and his goals within sight.

He knew that, on the surface, he was a boring sod. It didn't bother him.

He was lost in drawing the letter phi over and over again on his parchment--thinking of Fibonacci always put him in a state--when Hermione rushed over to his table in the library. She looked flustered, and gorgeous, tilting on the axis of chaos, if Terry had believed in such a thing.

Discreetly, he kissed her hot neck when she bent to set her bag on the floor. She moaned as he inhaled the scent of her hair and her rose perfume, brushing his fingers against the tiny clasp of the sapphire pendant.

"Terry, now isn't a good--" she began, straightening, but was interrupted by the rude intrusion of Blaise Zabini.

"Granger," he hissed. His eyes were burning, and he looked positively feral. "You're being difficult on purpose."

Terry looked curiously between them.

"Zabini, the library is a place of decorum," she said coolly. Terry rested his hand on Hermione's thigh.

The Slytherin leaned over the table, and Terry found himself quite curious about the scene playing out in front of him, so he leaned forward a bit, too, sliding his hand higher as he did so.

"Gryffindors lie to protect each other, Granger. Slytherins only lie to protect themselves," he whispered hotly.

"What are you on about?" Hermione asked. Her voice was calm, but Terry felt her tense.

"Oh, so that's how you are," Blaise said, smirking suddenly, predatory. "A big tease."

"That's enough, Blaise," Terry said firmly. He squeezed Hermione's thigh.

Blaise smirked again, but took several steps backward and mockingly raised his hands as if in surrender. "See you around, Granger," he said before turning and casually strolling out of the library.

Once he was gone, Terry leaned back in his chair, sliding his hand off Hermione's thigh as he turned to her. "Don't suppose I should worry about that at all?"

Hermione laughed. "What? Zabini? Zabini couldn't think his way out of his socks, Terry."

"You don't deny he's handsome?"

Hermione looked at him quizzically. "Maybe I should be the one worrying about you." Her face was straight for a moment before she laughed again and leaned over to kiss him softly on the cheek. "You have nothing to worry about."

Terry relaxed slightly, and then asked, "I'm cuter though, right?"

"Yes, of course," she said absently. She opened her Arithmancy book to the chapter on the Golden Mean, and then turned to Terry. "Honestly, Terry, let's not start this, please."

"Agreed," Terry said.

They both began working over the theory of the Golden Rectangle, but before too long, his hand found his way to her thigh again, and she scooted her chair a little bit closer.

* * *

That night in the common room, after everyone else had gone to bed, Hermione sat on the floor in front of the fire thinking about Arithmancy.

Terry had told her, the week after her birthday while she was struggling with a particularly nasty Chaldean proof, that the world of experience was just as abstract as numbers, but hidden in the abstractions and absurdities were recognizable patterns. Nothing was simply as it was: everything had layers of meaning and everything was interconnected by patterns of association. Coincidences only existed insofar as one did not recognize the patterns of cause and effect that had led to the event. It was in these patterns, he said, that understanding lay dormant, only waiting to be discovered.

On a piece of parchment, she began making lists. One list was a list of names: SS, MC, BZ, PP, RW, HA, HP, GG, DM, DC & CC, and, as an afterthought, AT. Another list was a list of places: Owlery, Potions classroom, Slyth C.R., Gryff C.R., 4^th corridor, G.H. 7, R. of R, library, H. W. Yet another list was a list of items: I.C., D.M., knickers, pajamas, post, clipboard, Bludger.

She fingered the heavy sapphire pendant that hung around her neck on the thin gold chain. In the firelight, it looked liquid. The weight of it was reassuring in her palm, and only holding it thus did she realize how much it pulled on her neck. She ran her hands along the back of her neck under her hair to unclasp the necklace.

There had to be a logical explanation for all of this, and Hermione knew that if she just thought hard enough about it, she could figure it out.

She was tired and her eyes hurt. Staring into the fire, she tried to wipe her mind in order to start the entire thinking process over. There was something crucial missing. She sighed in frustration, the gold chain wrapped around her hand as she rubbed the gemstone between her thumb and forefinger.

Her thoughts turned to Terry, as they always did when she considered the pendant. It had started simply enough, at the end of sixth year. They were in a study group together, and he had sent her notes. She was still dating Ron at the time, it was true, and so she had done nothing to encourage Terry. His missives continued into the summer, finding her at her parent's house and at the Burrow. Things were not going well with Ron. Ron wanted too much from her, she felt. Ron wanted to be her everything, but she was enough on her own. She didn't want someone else's everything. She just wanted support, company, inspiration. She knew that Ron deserved better, and so did she. When she broke up with Ron, it was like having borrowed books returned.

And so she had written back. By the time they met at King's Cross, she was totally smitten in a way she had never been with Ron. Ron was comfortable and steady. There was something just under Terry's surface that was unknown, undeterminable. Where Ron was secure and safe, Terry was a challenge, a mystery. She had kept all of his letters, tucked away in the bottom corner of her trunk. They were special to her. It made her feel rebellious, dangerous. Her secret affair, starting when she had still been dating Ron. No one but Terry knew, and he thought she had burned them all, because she had told him so.

She was afraid, on many levels. That's the only reason anyone kept secrets, anyway, wasn't it? Fear.

It was really quite odd, she supposed, when one actually thought about how much girls gave themselves to boys. She had seen it with Lavender and Parvati: had seen every new crush become a new goal, every new boyfriend become a new best friend. They gave themselves totally, every time, and it made Hermione hurt for them.

On the other hand, she was keeping pieces of her for herself. She wasn't sure she loved Terry, really, but she felt it was good for her. Ron had been too close, and he still had parts of her she could never get back. She missed him acutely, sometimes, a sharp ache when he looked past her. She had thought she had wanted him to get over her. It was best for him, and he was her dear friend, above all else. But now that he apparently had gotten over her, and with Pansy Parkinson, no less, she couldn't help feeling that he deserved so much more.

Her mother, after one of her many female dentists' retreats, had once told her that often women allowed themselves to be treated on par with what they felt they were worth. Her mother had told Hermione that maybe the girls who dated undeserving boys didn't feel that they were deserving of more. Hermione wondered if maybe this was true of Ron and Pansy: that Pansy, so arrogant, thought she deserved Ron, and Ron, so self-deprecating, thought he deserved Pansy.

Hermione, on the other hand, didn't think that she deserved a good boy. She felt, instead, that a good boy deserved her.

And how Terry had endeavored.

The very thought of it--memories making her flush, that first time when she had cried--brought her back to earth. She looked back down at her lists. None of it made any sense. There were no patterns here that she could discern. And it was pointless, anyway. Only one person was trying to kill Harry, and that was Voldemort, who had been absent, off the radar screen, since the night Sirius died in the Ministry a year and a half ago. She had to give him one thing: he was good at hiding. She supposed maybe that went along with being a bloody psychopath. He wasn't doing anything apparent, which made everyone who was paying attention appropriately nervous.

Hermione growled in frustration, slicing the parchment with the sharp tip of her quill as she slashed searing black lines through her lists. It was stupid. She wasn't stupid. She couldn't figure it out because there was nothing to figure out. With a snarl, she tossed the bits of parchment into the fire.

And then there was Blaise Zabini, who somehow felt entitled to everything she knew about Ron and Pansy. He was perverse, Hermione had decided.

She gathered her books swiftly, anxious to be in bed. She fingered the pendant as she climbed the stairs, her mind tiredly counting the steps out of habit.

Once in her dormitory, Hermione set the pendant on her night table and slowly undressed in the dark. She was thinking of it backwards, now. Greenhouse to fourth floor corridor. Fourth floor corridor to hospital wing. Hospital wing to Quidditch pitch. Quidditch pitch to common room. Common room to dormitory. Dormitory to bed. Bed to dreams. Dreams to subconscious. Subconscious full of dreams. Ron had mentioned dreams, Harry's dreams. Professor Tonks and Draco, her nephew. Draco, Draco, Draco. Head Boy, unconscious, son of a Death Eater. Son of a bitch, is what he was. Foul. Horrid. But too stupid to do this himself. The whole lot of them. Slytherins. Heir of Slytherin. Voldemort. Harry. Scar. It was circular. There were no patterns in circles, just arcs. Arcs. Floods. Water. Lake. Krum. She hadn't heard from him in ages. Letters.

She lay her head back softly on the pillow.

Letters. Letters. Letters.

Harry. Letters. Draco. Letters. Tonks. Letters. Grimmauld Place. Letters. Quidditch. Letters. Owls. Owls.

Owls. OWLs.

She sat up straight in bed, suddenly wide-awake.

OWLs. Harry had fallen asleep and had dreams during OWLs. Had thought he had seen Sirius being tortured. Voldemort had put those dreams in his head to lure him to the Department of Ministries for the prophecy.

The prophecy, which had smashed, hadn't it?

And now, and now. What if it were the same thing? But why Tonks and Malfoy? Patterns.

If someone in Hogwarts was truly trying to kill Harry, how would they do it? And why wouldn't they leave it to Voldemort? If someone inside Hogwarts was trying to kill Harry themselves, then they couldn't be working with Voldemort. A true servant of Voldemort would bring Harry to Voldemort to be killed. So, either someone was trying to kill Harry inside of Hogwarts independent of Voldemort, which was ridiculous, or someone was working inside Hogwarts to bring Harry to Voldemort to be killed. It had worked fifth year through dreams and Sirius, the most important person to Harry at the time.

So, if they were going to try the same thing, they'd have to use someone equally as close to Harry. And there was only one person Hermione could think of who satisfied that description: Ron.

Ron and Pansy had been together when Snape suffered from the flaring of the Dark Mark. They had been together when Snape had caught Michael Corner out wandering the halls with no idea what was going on, apparently, sleepwalking, as Terry had told her. Ron and Pansy had been together when Goyle woke up in the hospital wing. Ron and Pansy had been together a lot this year, because of prefect rounds. Draco had suggested it, if memory served. No, but Dumbledore had told them to split up the houses. But still, they wouldn't try the same thing twice. That would be ridiculous.

"Ah, toss it," Hermione muttered to herself, laying back down. She lay with her eyes open, staring up at the darkness as the darkness grew familiar.

She just couldn't figure it out. But why Pansy and why Ron? Pansy was so stupid and Ron was so... gullible. He'd fall for anything, wouldn't he? He could be manipulated easily, the way he always wore his heart on his sleeve. If anyone wanted to get close to Harry, they could do it by getting close to Ron. And the only person getting close to Ron was Pansy.

Hermione, personally, did not think Pansy was quite smart enough to pull something like that off, at least not by herself. And, besides, Dumbledore had trusted her enough to stick her in the DA, so that had to count for something.

She closed her eyes. For a moment, she had felt as though she had almost had it. Turning over onto her side and tucking further down into her covers, she made a short list of the things she ought to look up in the library the next day: dream interpretation, further studies in Occlumency, and a more comprehensive examination of magical comas, for starters.

* * *

When he closed his mind, he could still feel the pulse there. It was reassuring, constant, focused, honest, alive. When he closed his mind, he let the pulse reverberate through him, let his heart beat in time with it, let his muscles absorb the jarring massage of it. When he closed his mind, he could pretend that he was floating off somewhere, several inches off the bed that he knew, consciously, was there. It had become clear to him, sometime over the course of it all--it could have been an instant, a moment, a lifetime, a year--that here there was his mind, here was his consciousness, here was everything else. Thinking about it, he realized how ridiculous that was. His brain was an organ, and his mind existed somewhere outside of it. He was aware of both, tangentially. His brain was all gray matter and firing neurons and loads of parts he would never understand. His mind, though... well, it wasn't quite truth to say that it had parts, now was it? It was sort of like the sky, wasn't it, when viewed from a long way off? It was everywhere, and it went on for eternity.

* * *

In the dungeons, Blaise lay awake in bed, one hand holding his wand tucked under his head, the other hand holding open a book he had long since quit reading.

Blaise never could understand girls. He wondered if it was even important. Daphne was easy because Daphne was stupid. Morag was better suited to Teddy, because he had patience for complicated problems where Blaise only had apathy bordering on amusement. As a first-year, Teddy had been the one unknotting everything without magic. Draco, on the other hand, wanted whatever was pliant. And pliancy, Blaise had learned, was different than stupidity.

Take Pansy, for example. Pansy had followed Draco around since even before Hogwarts. Blaise had a vague understanding that they had known each other before starting school, although not well. Pansy had followed him, and Draco had grown in order to accommodate her presence in his shadow. They had been a good team, actually, up until last term, when she had declared herself rather capable of independent thought.

Of course, he and Pansy had never been what one would call "close". He made it a rule more than a habit to preclude himself from the companionship of his peers in Slytherin house, although, he supposed Teddy was all right, as far as those things went.

His sister, on the other hand... now there was a nightmare. She was almost as bad as Granger, as far as the amount of sheer contempt for the opposite sex that Blaise had. Not that Blaise liked boys, especially not in that sense, but there was just something about girls that put Blaise on edge. They were, in his experience, unstable, irrational, and thoroughly annoying.

Blaise was a simple person with simple needs and he was simply dating Daphne because he didn't want to leave Hogwarts still a virgin. He did not believe this was disdainful. It was simply a course of action he was taking to satisfy a desire that he had. No one was getting hurt. Well, Daphne might get hurt in the end, but that would be thoroughly her own doing, as he had been careful not to lead her on. He did not love her, and so he had never told her so. She had never asked if he even cared for her, but he supposed he did, on a basic level, as much as anyone cared for a person whose company, though not entirely pleasant, one had grown accustomed to.

Yes, Daphne was stupid, nay, ridiculous. She was such a girl.

Pansy, though. Pansy was less a girl this year than she had ever been before. Pansy had grown mysterious. She had slipped out the back door somehow when he wasn't looking, and now she was running mad about the castle with Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and god only knew whom else.

Good Slytherins stayed in the dungeons, excelled in Potions, sat with their housemates at Quidditch games, laughed when other people got hurt, and never, ever turned on one another unless there was a considerable profit to be made.

This last point was what kept Blaise awake at nights.

It was the thought that somehow Pansy knew something that he didn't--and Blaise prided himself on knowing what needed to be known--that she had distanced herself from the Slytherins because something was going on, and she stood to profit from it immensely.

Really, it was the only explanation.

Her pranks on Teeny, childish and stupid as they were, only served to further Teeny's popularity, had martyred her, and Blaise would be damned if Teeny did not pimp it for every sickle it was worth. The younger Nott loved the limelight, and Pansy's pranks had only thrust her further into it. It reminded Blaise of Draco in third year: how he had milked the injury he received from that bloody Hippogriff for everything he could. Pansy had been there, as well, egging him on. She had always been there for him: on his arm at the Yule Ball, at his side in the Quidditch stands, in his bed the previous year when Draco needed all the reassurance she could give him. And Pansy had grown to be the queen of Slytherin house on the arm of Draco, the king.

If he could only bring her back somehow, he thought, maybe she would let him in on whatever little secret she was keeping. Or, alternatively, he could bring her close enough to discover said secret, and thus exploit it.

Good Slytherins, it was true, were opportunists.

And while he respected Pansy, in his own way, he did not trust her. Not one little bit. Not even at all. It worried Blaise that Pansy, who was perhaps one of the better Slytherins of all of them, who certainly knew the rules of the house and had, up until this year, played nicely by them, had somehow stumbled onto the most golden opportunity of all.

* * *

In the wan light of his mind, Harry saw nothing and everything. He saw the pulse, which was body, dust, ant, and sky. He saw his body, which was dust, ant, and sky. He saw dust, which was ant and sky. He saw the ant, which was sky. And he saw the sky.

* * *

Minerva sipped her tea and tried very hard not to look pursed. She was displeased.

"Minerva, I do believe you are taking this much too seriously," Albus said, engagingly offering her a sweet.

"Albus, the boy is out cold! Poppy doesn't even know what to make of it, and you've said it yourself that she's a miracle-worker." She set the cup and saucer down on the credenza and sighed heavily. "Even Severus can't make heads or tails of it, and the students are scheduled to leave for end of term next week. If he's not on that train, I hate to think of the trouble--"

"Have a sherbet lemon," Albus insisted, shoving the small bowl of yellowish sweets at her.

"No, thank you. I do not care for sweets."

He held the bowl steady. "Have a sherbet lemon, Minerva."

Minerva sighed again, this time in defeat instead of frustration, and plucked one of the sweets off the top of the mound. With the headmaster's eyes on her, she popped it into her mouth. When all of her teeth rotted out of her head, she'd be sure to send Albus the bill.

"Now then," the headmaster continued happily, "about our patients."

"Yesh?" Minerva prodded around the confection. It was actually sticking to the inside of her cheek, its razor-like edges surely slicing her flesh to ribbons.

The headmaster opened his mouth, as if to speak, when Severus came through the door, black greasy hair flapping as much as it could in the breeze from his billowing black robes. Minerva took the opportunity of this distraction to spit the sherbet lemon into her hand and shove it down into the folds of the cushy armchair in which she sat. Discreetly, she wiped her hand off on the side of her thigh.

She and Severus exchanged curt nods by way of greeting.

"Severus?" the headmaster said, rising. "You look flushed."

"They've spotted Malfoy," he said quickly.

Minerva gasped and was on her feet in an instant. "Who? Where?"

"Wiltshire. Lupin had a report."

"He's gone to the Manor, then?" Minerva asked, turning to Albus.

He confirmed with a silent nod.

Minerva and Severus exchanged looks. They knew what they had to do. He held the door open as she leapt out, paws landing on the worn-smooth steps of the staircase. It was dark, but that never proved difficult for her feline self.

Just before the door to the headmaster's office clicked shut, she heard Albus (lemon, myrrh, anise) begin his nightly meeting with the Potions master (aconite, wax, sometimes peppermint). "Sherbet lemon?"

* * *

He saw the sky.