Harry Potter and the Second Prophecy

Chapter 14 - Disappointments

The next day, Dean was missing from his classes. Harry, Ron and Hermione assumed that he was spending so extra time in the hospital wing, perhaps with Madam Pomfrey healing some broken bones. It was Hermione who finally asked Harry the question she and Ron had been mulling over in their minds since the night before.

"Where were you last night, Harry?" she inquired, looking at the potion she was brewing rather than at Harry.

"Spying on Malfoy," came his reply.

"Shouldn't you have let that go? I mean, just for last night?" she countered.

"What do you mean?" he asked, his stomach tightening.

"It was Valentine's Day, Harry!" Ron chimed in. "For hell's sake, Ginny spent the rest of the evening alone! You abandoned my little sister...on Valentine's Day!" Finally Harry understood why Ron had been so detached this morning.

"I'm...I'm sorry," sighed Harry, shaking his head. "It's just...I had to see what - "

Ron interrupted. "You always have to see what Malfoy's up to, or what the Slytherins are up to, or what Camilia's up to," he said, adding extra emphasis on Camilia's name.

"What are you implying?" Harry invited, looking Ron in the eye.

"I'm not implying anything!" lied Ron. "You just spend a whole lot of time with Malfoy's girlfriend is all, especially when you should be spending that time with your own!"

Harry blanched. He knew Ron was right, and he knew also that he was going to have to redouble his efforts to attain Ginny's forgiveness for the previous night. He concluded that directly after Potions, during their between-class break, he'd see if he could catch her in the common area and apologize for his having run off.

There were only fifteen minutes left of class when Snape announced that he had been summoned away, and that Malfoy, of all people, would be responsible for the balance of the class. Each student was to place two measures of their completed potion in a glass bottle from the back of the room and leave it, clearly marked with their name and house, on his desk. He was halfway out the door as he explained this to the students, and by the time anyone thought to ask questions, he was gone.

Harry, Ron and Hermione all managed to finish their potions on time, and, thanks to Hermione's tutelage, Ron's had achieved the proper beige hue and correct consistency. Harry, having spent the balance of the class dreading his conversation with Ginny and wondering where Snape had disappeared to in such a hurry, found that his potion was woefully thick and a putrid snot color.

As the three left the classroom, Ron and Hermione went their own way, realizing that Harry would need to confront his abandonment of Ginny on his own. Harry started toward the stairs, passing an open classroom door on his way, when he heard what was unmistakably Camilia's voice wafting from the room. He stopped on the other side of the open door and listened with all his might to the conversation she was having...with none other than Professor Snape. So this is where we was mysteriously summoned to, he thought, and tuned in to hear what they were saying. He thought briefly of retrieving his invisibility cloak from his knapsack that he'd hurriedly stuffed in it early this morning, but realized he wanted instead to catch as much of their conversation as he could.

"Did it hurt?" she was asking Snape.

"Like nothing I've ever felt before," he replied.

"Why did you do it?" she questioned him.

Harry strained to hear his response, but he was speaking so low now that Harry couldn't understand a word he said.

Camilia was speaking again. "They'd kill you for that, you know."

Harry was amazed by Snape's retort. "The Headmaster may allow you to speak so casually to him, but you'll find that I respond differently to teenagers, Miss Pritchard."

"Sorry, sir," came her reply.

Harry wanted desperately to stay and listen some more, but new that it was likely they'd be leaving the room soon and he couldn't chance being caught; more importantly, he reminded himself, he still needed to find Ginny so he could apologize, and he set off toward Gryffindor Tower.

Thinking perhaps he'd need to sneak his way into the girls' dormitories to find Ginny, he opted now to don his cloak, then slipped through the portrait hole when a small second year entered only a couple minutes later.

He was not at all prepared for what he found.

Ginny was on the couch in front of the fireplace with none other than Dean Thomas. She had both legs slung across his lap, and her arm around his shoulder. He, in turn, was leaning against her and letting her play absently with his dreadlocks. "Poor, poor Dean," she was saying, smiling coyly as she did. "That Draco Malfoy is such a beast. I can't believe you even let him make you angry. And then to have Camilia humiliate you like that. It's an injustice."

"An injustice my people have suffered for hundreds of years," Dean agreed. "I didn't guess that Malfoy would be any different, of course, but you'd think a Gryffindor would stand up for her own."

"Exactly," Ginny granted him. "It was inhuman, what they did to you."

"No, Gin, what's inhuman is what Harry did to you last night. He has the most gorgeous girl in the school all to himself on the most romantic day of the year, and he abandons you." Harry felt his heart sink.

Ginny, however, didn't seem too upset. "Well, you know Harry, always off on some stupid escapade."

He felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach. Stupid escapade? he thought angrily.

"Still," argued Dean, "You'd think he could give up following that vicious Malfoy-slut around like a puppy dog for just five minutes on Valentine's Day, wouldn't you? 'Poor Camilia, whatever will happen to her? What if she gets expelled for' nearly breaking my body in half?" roared Dean.

"Shhhh, Dean," said Ginny, trying both to calm and comfort him, and continuing to stroke his hair. "Forget about her, and forget about Harry. He missed his chance with me, all right?" Listening to all this, Harry had the sudden, miserable feeling that he might throw up.

"Good. The prat doesn't deserve you," said Dean.

"And at least I got a pair of diamond earrings out of the deal, eh?" responded Ginny, touching her ear where the earrings still rested.

Harry felt like he couldn't breathe.

"They're beautiful, I have to admit," sighed Dean, "almost as beautiful as you, Ginny." Harry watched in horror as Dean lifted Ginny's chin toward him and began to kiss her. Their kisses became more passionate, and yet he stood and watched them melt into one another. He only snapped out of it when a group of first years stepped through the portrait hole behind him, at which point he turned and fled.

* * * * * * * *

Harry spoke to no one the rest of the day; he skived off his classes and spent the majority of the morning, afternoon, and evening holed up in the Room of Requirement staring at the Marauder's Map, watching people move about along the corridors and in the rooms of Hogwarts.

First he blamed Camilia for Ginny and Dean, for being what Ginny obviously perceived to be beautiful, talented competition for his love. He was angry with her for dating Malfoy, for blowing up at Dean, even for talking to Snape, and he spent an unhealthy amount of time pondering the meaning of what he'd overheard transpire between she and Snape.

But Camilia was a friend...he could dismiss her behaviors due to her circumstances and situation. So he turned to blaming Malfoy, because Malfoy was always the easy target. He had ensnared Camilia, taunted Dean, and was just generally the biggest wanker at Hogwarts. But he'd also seen Malfoy turn Pansy Parkinson away, and he had given Camilia the book she'd requested. He still didn't trust Malfoy, but even as the racist, elitist that he was, he wasn't at fault for Ginny and Dean.

So it had to be Dean at fault. But could he really blame Dean, who had, hours before, been called the most repulsive name one could find for a black man and then flung thirty feet into the air for it? Sure, Dean had said some horrible things about Harry, but he could almost dismiss those as having been Dean's pathetic attempt at "getting the girl."

It must, therefore, be Ginny's fault. She was a good-for-nothing-tramp who thought of no one but herself and had trapped Harry into falling for her. That was it. But Harry knew deep down that that wasn't it. He knew that it was likely she was covering her wounds by pretending that diamonds were an apt reward for having had to deal with Harry. He knew that she was using Dean as a substitute for Harry, and that, in comforting Dean, the logical progression there was to go from comfort to affection to intimacy. It was seeing the comfort, affection, and intimacy that was most difficult, but still, it made sense.

But that didn't make it forgivable. Harry's insides were churning, and he was angrier and more displaced-feeling than he'd ever been. He sat staring at the map all day, his temper flaring as he watched Ginny's name depart the common room, Dean's name end up in about the place his bed would be in their dormitory, Hermione and Ron's names travel around the school together and land back in the common room together, Camilia and Malfoy's name next to one another in the library. He found himself shaking, whether from anger, hurt, or overload, he wasn't sure.

Finally, Harry decided to blame himself. He was interested in Camilia and had been from the moment he'd seen her. He hated Malfoy for a million reasons, not the least of which was his usurping the odd American girl. He had a great affection for Ginny, but he wasn't it love with her, he realized. Instead, he was in love with love. Everyone had someone: Ron had Hermione, Camilia had Malfoy, Ginny now had Dean, and it was even rumored that Neville and Luna Lovegood had taken an interest in one another and could occasionally be found romancing each other in the greenhouses after classes. He, Harry, was the only one left out in the cold, and now even Ginny had left him to himself. Or, rather, he'd kicked himself out into the cold, being so wrapped up in untangling and deciphering the schemes and plots of Voldemort and his Death Eaters that he had abandoned the affection he had been offered.

Broken-hearted, Harry sat back against the wall in the Room of Requirement which this time resembled a small, tight Catholic confessional. It might have been a few minutes, or maybe a few hours, when he noticed Camilia's name travel from the Great Hall to Professor Dumbledore's office. It remained in his office alongside his name for quite some time, when finally it came streaking from the room. He leapt from his hideaway and raced to intercept her, and when he did, she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Want to know what happened in 'class' just now, do you?" she challenged. "Is that why you're here?"

"I...I'm sorry, I just thought..." stammered Harry.

"Fine, then! Here!" She threw the book Malfoy had given her directly at Harry, hitting him square in the chest. He only just managed to hang on to it without dropping it, the wind knocked out of him. As he gasped for breath, she continued her rant. "There's NOTHING THERE, all right? Not a damn thing! All that time, all that effort, all that work, and Albus was WRONG! There's no suicide spell, nothing that mentions the family curse, and no reason I had to see it! This book is worthless! It's a relic, a list of twisted dark magic and even practical uses for the dark arts, but for the Pritchard family? It's MEANINGLESS!"

Harry, who had just regained the ability to breathe properly, had no idea what to say. Instead, he leafed through the book, wondering if what she was saying could possibly be true. "But...didn't Dumbledore - "

"ALBUS DUMBLEDORE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT ANYTHING, HARRY! NOTHING! There is NOTHING in that BOOK! IT IS ENTIRELY WORTHLESS!" Camilia began to walk past Harry on the way back to Gryffindor Tower, but Harry grabbed her arm.

"Camilia - " he started, but was cut off once again.

"Don't - you - touch - me," she hissed in his face. "You're his protégé, you know. Let him teach you to conjure flowers and butterflies and curtains of bubbles and bullshit like that. I've had enough of it. I've had enough of Albus, and I've had enough of you. Leave - me - alone."

He let her go. Now was not the time to ask her about the exchange he'd overheard earlier with Snape, nor to tell her about Ginny and Dean. When he'd seen her emerge from Dumbledore's office, he was actually looking forward to discussing his womanly woes with a friend, but Camilia had proved a bit too self-involved for the moment to complain to.

Dejected, Harry ambled up and down the corridors of the school, wandering aimlessly and gloomily until he found himself in front of the library. He looked down at the Pritchard's book in his hands and resolved that Camilia had been wrong; there had to be something in the book that would prove meaningful, or at least useful in ascertaining Charity Pritchard's purpose in committing suicide so spectacularly.

He drifted into the library and took a cushy seat near the door, scanning the periodicals out of habit. There was, of course, Witch Weekly, but they also had The Ministry Today, Broom and Rider, Department of Mysteries Magazine, and various other female and teen-oriented wizarding magazines. What Harry was really interested in, though, was the book he was holding.

He took a good look at the book and found that the pages were old and worn, and the writing was hard to interpret. It all appeared to be dark magic: there were spells for Muggle bewitchment, for being more "convincing" to friend and foe, for building fortunes, for summoning people and spirits, and even for altering time, but there was nothing about curse-breaking or protecting one's family, nothing about self-sacrifice...at least, not anything positive about self-sacrifice.

As he flipped through the pages, taking his time, going from cover to cover, he knew there was something he was missing. There was something in this book that was important enough for Camilia's ancestor to seek after it, dark magic and all, and it wasn't until Madam Pince began extinguishing the lights in the library that Harry gave up trying to figure out what it was.

When he returned to the Gryffindor Common Room, he found Hermione and Ron in front of the fireplace in the group's usual spot on the couch. He reviewed with them the days' events, and though Hermione was sympathetic to his frustrations, Ron merely shrugged at the news that things would not work out between his sister and his best mate. "Your loss, Harry," he said callously.

Harry, who had been planning on telling them about his conversation with Camilia and her conversation with Snape, decided that he no longer had the desire to be in their company and dismissed himself from their presence, no less frustrated than he'd felt all day.

As he started to walk away, Hermione called after him, "Hey, Harry, isn't that...the book?" She had noticed the volume he had under his arm, and her curiosity had been peaked.

"It is," replied Harry, "but if you'll excuse me...I'm ready for bed." Harry sauntered from the room, secretly pleased that Hermione would finally be unable to get her hands on that which most intrigued her: a book that could feasibly be the answer to the mystery of Charity Pritchard's death. It had been a miserably disappointing day indeed. It's only redeeming quality came at just the right time for Harry Potter: he had withheld information from his two best friends in exchange for them withholding their friendships. Harry was asleep moments after his head hit the pillow.

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