Harry Potter and the Second Prophecy

Chapter 11 - Present and Future

Harry spent the next two weeks wondering how he could get Ginny to notice him again like she had years before; how he could peak her interest to the same level it had been her first year at Hogwarts. He debated using spells and love potions, considered having Hermione give her a note for him, even pondered whether or not to write her a poem for Valentine's Day, which was almost upon them. In the end, he thought it best to check with Ron and see just how adverse his friend would be to Harry being interested in his little sister.

Ron, amazingly, was not at all adverse. Hermione later revealed that she had already discussed the topic in detail with him, figuring the day would eventually come when Harry would admit his feelings. But when Harry brought the issue to Ron, he'd had no idea what to expect.

"The way I see it," said Ron, "who better to date my sister than my best mate? That way you'll be too afraid to touch her because you know I'd kill you, and you wouldn't ever dare be anything less than a gentleman because my brothers would help me kill you, and, if ever you got married," at which point Harry began to protest, "if ever you got married," continued Ron, "I'd have my best mate as family. So, you want her? She's yours."

Harry laughed. "You know, she has to want to date me too, Ron."

"I doubt you'll have any problems with that, Harry," smirked Ron.

Harry's heart did a somersault, but he was too afraid to ask Ron if he was serious, or why he would think that about Ginny, or what Ginny had said about him, because he feared that Ron would admit that he was just teasing him, and Harry would in turn feel hopeless. Instead, he took Ron at his word and left to find Ginny and ask her to accompany him to Hogsmeade on Valentine's Day.

On his way out the portrait hole, he ran into Camilia. "In a hurry are you, Potter?" she asked, feigning innocence.

"No, no hurry...just get out of my way, Pritchard!" he yelled as she kept dancing back and forth to block his progress.

"Sorry, Harry...had to do it!" she called after him as he climbed out of the portrait hole.

Harry made his way to the library, where he remembered Ginny saying earlier she'd be the balance of the afternoon; she had a Potions exam that week and, in a very Hermione-like fashion, she had complained that she felt behind in her studies. When he arrived at the library, however, she was nowhere to be found. Instead, he found Neville leafing through a Herbology periodical. "Hey, Neville, have you seen Ginny?"

"Sorry, Harry...been wrapped up in this article on spelunking for Grimble Moss." Neville shrugged at Harry's inquiring look and went back to reading.

Harry searched the library once more and his eyes landed on Seamus. He strode quickly to him and asked, "Seamus, do you know where Ginny is? She said earlier she'd be in the library - "

"Oy, Harry, you just missed her. She went down to the Potions Dungeon - said she needed some real practice. Going to see her later, though. Something you need me to tell her?"

Harry felt a twinge of jealousy at the suggestion that Seamus might have some sort of date with Ginny. "No, nothing, never mind." Harry turned on his heel and headed out of the library toward the Potions Dungeon without so much as a "see you later." He went quickly, believing that if he didn't stop to think about it, it would be easier to ask her on a date. He made it to the dungeons in record time, partly because of his excitement, and partly because he was never normally eager to reach the dungeons because that meant class with Snape.

When he reached the door to the Potions classroom, he pushed it open... and then hesitated. The only light in the room was coming from the fireplace in Snape's office. He took two halting steps into the room and called out softly, "Ginny?"

"SHHHHH!" came a loud whisper from somewhere in front of him, and a few moments later he felt a hand grasp his own and pull him down to the floor. It was Ginny. She put her mouth as close to his ear as she could and whispered "Come this way." She made her way on all fours across the floor toward Snape's office as quietly as an Acromantula on stone, and he followed clumsily, trying his best not to bump anything around him or make any noise. When he reached her side, she spoke once more into his ear. "Listen," she said.

Harry could just make out two voices; one was definitely Malfoy, and the other sounded like...his father? Yes, it was unmistakably Lucius Malfoy, and he did not sound happy. It seemed they were discussing a book; Lucius Malfoy was commenting that just because his son's girlfriend had asked didn't mean he was required to provide. At first Harry thought perhaps they were talking about Tom Riddle's diary because Harry was only able to relate Lucius Malfoy to one particular book, but then he began to speak of the expense, the investment...and he knew that the one book Camilia would ever ask Draco Malfoy to see would be the book her ancestor had read from - the book Charity had used as an instruction manual to end her own life.

The Headmaster had asked her to find a way to get that book from the Malfoys, believing it would give Camilia a wealth of insight into her family. It seemed that Camilia had taken him up on the challenge and asked Malfoy to provide it for her, whether as a gift, or as a chance to commune with her ancestors, Harry wasn't certain. He was certain, though, that Lucius Malfoy did not want to give up his possession of the book.

Draco Malfoy's voice jarred him from his thoughts. "Remember my task, father! What better way to win her over? Would you deny the Dark Lord his trophy for a few thousand Galleons?"

Ginny grasped Harry's arm. The two sat motionless, breathless, waiting for Lucius Malfoy's response. He was too quiet in his reply for them to know exactly what he'd said, but they could tell from Draco's response that he had succumbed to his son's demands. "She won't disappoint Him, father. I promise you that."

"You haven't even discussed it with her!" snapped Lucius, loud enough for both of them to hear.

"I don't have to...she's a bloody Pritchard!" said Draco angrily.

"So was that Danforth woman, and look where that took Charles' line! The last of his kin, raised by filthy Muggles in a Muggle orphanage. Charles is rolling over in his grave!" growled Lucius.

"It's all under control. Trust me, father. I won't fail you, and I won't fail Him." Draco was resolute. "Just have the book here by Valentine's."

Their conversation continued, but it was more difficult to hear, and after a couple minutes worth of straining to listen in, Harry became concerned that they'd be wrapping up their conversation shortly. He squeezed Ginny's knee twice, nodded his head toward the door, and the two made their way silently across the floor to the exit, closing the door carefully behind them. They walked as quickly as they could up to the entrance hall without ever saying a word to each other, but when they reached the hall, they both began talking at once.

"We have to warn her - " started Harry.

"How could he be willing to - " began Ginny.

They both paused, and then launched together into further speech.

"He's going to try to get her to - " said Harry.

"What if he wants to use her for - " rushed Ginny.

"Wait!" barked Harry. "We have to do this one at a time! Okay, you first!" He waited for her to begin, but she looked thunderstruck. "Okay, I'll go."

"No! Wait, I can...it's just...Oh, God, Harry, how could he be such a monster? We don't even know what he wants her for, but it's undeniably something to do with You-Know-Who! And what if the book he's talking about is another diary? Harry, we have to find her! We have to tell her! Why are we still standing here? We have to - "

"Ginny, hold on a minute. First of all, I know what book he's talking about, and it's one that Professor Dumbledore told Camilia to weasel out of Draco, so whatever she's doing, it's working. I agree, we do have to warn her that he's planning something, that they want her to serve Voldemort somehow, but we have to be careful the way we do it. For all we know, she might already know about the conversation! She might have told Draco what to say to - "

"Rubbish!" stated Ginny categorically. "They might have discussed it, she may have told him to ask his dad, but she certainly does not know that they're planning to convert her to You-Know-Who's side! She couldn't possibly know that!"

"Okay, you're right, but we can't leap to conclusions just now. We have to think this through logically. If we go to her and tell her everything we just heard, she may try to challenge him on it, and then she won't get the book! Dumbledore told her it was well nigh imperative that she have it, and we can't let her risk losing it now!" While he considered what their best move would be, he paused and asked Ginny, "What were you doing in there, anyway?"

"I was going to do some potions homework, studying and whatnot, but when I got to the classroom, I found Malfoy in Professor Snape's office and thought I'd put my abilities to the test."

"I was impressed...you were silent!" Harry said by way of congratulations.

"Well, I've learned from the best, haven't I? Fred and George are excellent teachers in the art of spying." She grinned.

Harry gazed at her as she smiled, and when he didn't respond, or even smile in return, Ginny began to think something was wrong. "Harry? Everything all right?"

Harry knew it was now or never. "Ginny, I...I was coming to find you because I...wanted to ask you to accompany me to Hogsmeade on Valentine's Day...that is, if you don't already have someone..."

Ginny was stupefied. "Harry, are you asking me on a date?"

"I...yes. I am. Unless you're busy, or you don't want to, or you're pursuing someone else, of course, in which case - "

Ginny put her finger against Harry's lips and looked up at him with her big, beautiful blue eyes. "I thought you'd never ask."

"Yeah, well, bad timing, isn't it?" joked Harry. "So, you'll go, then?"

"I'd be delighted."

"Right. Well. Right. Let's find Camilia then, shall we?" He had changed the subject so quickly, it made his own head spin.

"What shall we tell her?" she asked.

"I don't have the foggiest idea," he replied.

Shaking his head, he made for the stairs. Just as he was about to mount the first step, he felt a strong urge to grab Ginny's hand...and did so. Neither looked at the other, but both took a moment as they climbed the stairs to bask in their exultant happiness.

It was short-lived. Half way up the stairs, Professor Trelawney wandered to the edge on her way down and teetered, as though she was about to fall. Harry immediately released Ginny's hand and lunged for Trelawney. He caught her right before she went tail-over-teakettle and helped her balance herself on the landing where she'd originally stood. At that moment, she looked up into his eyes and registered briefly his face. In an instant her demeanor changed and she stared into space with a glassy expression in her eyes. She then turned her attention back to Harry.

The voice that emerged from her mouth was not her own; Harry had heard this voice once before, and though it frightened him still, he was all ears. She spoke only one sentence: "See it she shan't; aid it she shall..."

By this time, Ginny had reached Harry's side and she, too, was petrified by Trelawney's prophesying, never having actually seen her make a real prophecy. Trelawney's seership, or her apparent lack of such, was a constant joke amongst the students of Hogwarts, and though Harry had once told Ginny that Trelawney had seen the future in his presence, she herself had never witnessed Trelawney's connecting to the unknown.

A moment later, Professor Trelawney blinked, looked at Harry as though she had not yet seen him, leaned in close to him and, Harry noted, stank of hard liquor, swayed momentarily, and then shook her head as though to clear it. She then hiccupped once and turned to walk off in the direction she'd come, humming a tune that sounded oddly like it had come from a Broadway show.

"What the bloody hell was that all about?" asked Ginny, more alarmed than baffled.

"I'm not sure, but likely about you, Camilia, or Hermione, as you three are the only three with whom I pass my time, and considering the evening's events, I'm guessing it was about you or Camilia."

"Camilia," concluded Ginny. "I'm not involved in anything so serious as to provoke a real prophecy from Trelawney, and only something very serious could get something like that out of her." Harry felt inclined to laugh at Ginny's maligning of the seer, but knew, betwixt this, the prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, and the prediction about Wormtail, that this was too grave a situation to take lightly.

"What exactly did she say again?" asked Harry.

"I...I don't think I was close enough, Harry, I really didn't catch much of it," answered Ginny.

"Times like this I wish I had a...a Pensieve!" Harry pondered how he could get a hold of Dumbledore's Pensieve; he only needed it long enough to hear about what Trelawney had said so he could write it down. Then he had an idea. "Ginny! Go tell Camilia what we overheard, but use your best judgment as to what and how much." Ginny opened her mouth to protest, but Harry cut her off. "I trust you; you'll know what to say. I'm going to Dumbledore's office to use his Pensieve. Have Ron get my invisibility cloak and meet me at the gargoyle outside Dumbledore's office in twenty minutes. Got it?"

"Okay, Harry, but - "

"Thank you, Ginny." He was off and running, but came to a sudden, screeching halt. "Ginny! Valentine's Day this year will be wonderful!" With that, he was gone, and Ginny was left to sigh to herself before she headed up to the Gryffindor Common Room.

* * * * * * * *

"Peppermint sticks," said Harry to Dumbledore's gargoyle. It moved over so he could mount the circular staircase to Dumbledore's office, but as he was not expected, the stairs did not lift him; he had to climb. When he reached Dumbledore's door, he knocked four times, and there was no answer. He knocked again, as loudly as he dared, and again there was no answer. He put his hand to the doorknob, and then pulled his hand back in pain when it shocked him. "Alohamora," he said, pointing his wand at the door. When nothing happened, he felt himself becoming frustrated, and desperately searched his mind for something, anything, to help him into the office.

A painting on the wall he'd never noticed before spoke up just then and asked him if he had the password; when he said repeated the gargoyle's password once more, the painting tsk'd at him. "No, no, no, not the password for that beast downstairs...the password for the Headmaster's office when he is not in! Foolish boy!" added the man in the frame, adding insult to injury.

Harry thought for a moment, and began listing aloud every confection he could think of: chocolate frogs, sugar quills, pumpkin pasties, sour spiders, but still the door did not open. Finally it dawned on him; Dumbledore had once told him that his favorite candies were Muggle sweets, and so he said aloud "Lemon Drops!" The door swung open.

Harry strode quickly into the room, directly across to the cupboard where he knew the Headmaster kept his Pensieve. It was exactly where he'd expected it to be. He carefully brought it down from its shelf and rested it on a nearby table, then brought his wand to his temple and pulled a shimmery silver string of memory from his mind. It slipped from his wand into the Pensieve, and Harry did as he'd seen Dumbledore do before; he stirred it rapidly counter-clockwise. Trelawney's figure rose from the surface of the Pensieve, a silvery, ghost-like form, and Harry scrambled for a quill and parchment he found on Dumbledore's desk. He had just unrolled the parchment when Trelawney began: "See it she shan't, aid it she shall." And then her form disappeared back beneath the surface of a million swirling thoughts. Harry placed the quill back on the desk and was rolling up the parchment when he saw one of Dumbledore's obviously recent memories swirling in the Pensieve. The subject of this memory was Camilia, and before Harry even had time to think about what he was doing, his nose was sinking beneath the swirling fluid and he was being pulled in to the memory.

He was in the very same office, but everything in it was up against various walls. In the center of the room stood Camilia, and Dumbledore was sitting on the edge of his desk, watching her intently. Camilia stood over one of Dumbledore's overstuffed chairs, her hands together almost in prayer, covering her nose and mouth, contemplating the spell she was about to perform. Swiftly she stretched her arms into the air, as though ready to receive something from heaven, and a great rush of eerie green flame sped down from somewhere beyond the ceiling. Her arms directed it downward and it consumed the chair in front of her, but the chair itself appeared to be unharmed. She watched it, focused, but it seemed then that her mind slipped for a moment - she lost her focus and her mind traveled to something other than the task at hand - and the flame vanished. In fact, it seemed to implode; there was a strange pressure in the room, a feeling of everything in it being sucked into the center of the room, but as quickly as the feeling had come, it had ceased. Camilia collapsed into the chair, and Dumbledore, ever the patient professor, had leaned forward just slightly and allowed his spectacles to slip to the edge of his nose so that he could look at Camilia over them. He smiled faintly and said one word: "Perhaps a simpler spell. We could work on - "

Camilia was shaking her head. "No butterflies, Albus."

"I had not intended - " began Dumbledore.

Camilia cut him off once more. "You know what I mean. Don't make me conjure rainbows when I can do this." With that, she heaved an enormous sigh and stood, ready to call down more green flame from heaven, and the memory ended.

Harry was being hurtled from the Pensieve and landed, standing, on the floor, his parchment still in hand. So she and her ancestor have a lot in common, he thought, and made his way quickly to the door and down the stairs, where the gargoyle stepped aside for him. When he reached the stone floor, his cloak swept over him, apparently of its own accord, and he joined Ron underneath, the both of them now invisible.

"Where are we going?" asked Ron.

"Back to the Common Room," answered Harry.

"Not sure you want to do that just now," mentioned Ron, as casually as he could.

"What's going on?" Harry wanted to know.

"Camilia's having a bit of a tantrum...Ginny was telling her something about Malfoy, and whatever it was, it didn't go over well with Camilia. You can guess the rest."

"Where's Hermione?" asked Harry.

"Library," answered Ron.

Harry knew that Camilia would need to calm down, and Ginny would need to forgive Harry for sending her to talk to Camilia, so instead he opted to discuss what he'd seen in the Pensieve with his two best friends. "To the library, then," he concluded, and off they went.