It's The Great Pumpkin, Harry Potter!

It's the Great Pumpkin, Harry Potter (03)

Chapter Three: The Great Pumpkin

The Gryffindor Common Room
Midnight (Halloween)

Groaning with contentment and feeling happy with the day, the Gryffindors gathered in their Common Room after the feast. It had extended way beyond its normal course, helped along by impromptu presentations by the Hogwarts' ghosts as well as the musical entertainment provided by the Weird Sisters, whom Headmaster Dumbledore had invited to, in his words, "spice up" their traditional Halloween feasts.

It would have ended earlier were it not for an impromptu karaoke contest masterminded by the Weasley Twins, with each house putting up its own contestants (to everyone's surprise, Neville possessed a smooth and enchanting baritone that provided a perfect counterpart to Lavender's enthralling soprano).

As the students dragged their sated bodies up the stairs to their dormitories, Hermione noticed the Terrible Two walking to one of the windows, to look out, she remembered, at Hagrid's hut and the now-emptied pumpkin patch.

She'd felt a momentary stab of worry for the gentle half-giant, who was still out of the country on some mission for Dumbledore. The thought of Hagrid brought a sudden smile to her face as she remembered the events of the evening.

The Halloween feast had been as delicious as usual, the laughter and banter around the tables as animated as ever, with occasional snickers and loud laughter as they remembered Draco Malfoy's humiliating entrance that night - and constant speculation as to who had cast the charm or the hex that made Draco's entrance into the Great Hall so memorable (and, to ensure that no one will easily forget, Colin Creevey's ever-trusty wizard camera had caught the whole thing for posterity!)

The Gryffindor Prefects suspected that the Terrible Two had something to do with it ... but their only basis for that suspicion was that the Gryffindor first years entered the Hall immediately behind the smirking Draco Malfoy. Ginny and Ron, who were escorting the first years in, however, hotly denied that they - or any other Gryffindor for that matter - did the deed. Harry and Hermione suspected, however, that the two were not entirely truthful ... there was a suspicious blush on the cheeks of the Terrible Two (although, to be fair, Cindy always had rosy cheeks) ...

They had both decided to forget about the question of whodunit ... what they both didn't know wouldn't hurt them ...

Harry and Hermione sat beside each other as always, while Ron and Ginny were opposite them. Ca and Cindy were seated beside Ginny, and they were all happily chatting away when Fang, Hagrid's hugely frightening but extremely amiable boar-hound, bounded into the Great Hall, dragging a couple of house-elves who were trying to restrain him. Hagrid had left Fang in the keeping of the house-elves; Fang, on the other hand, had other ideas and almost always made a beeline for Harry every time he had a chance.

This time was no exception; he had placed both paws on Harry's shoulders and was slobbering all over him, to the great amusement of the others at the Gryffindor table. Harry was trying to fend off Fang, saying, "Geroff me, you big git! Sheesh, when was the last time you brushed your teeth?"

Hermione, finally taking pity on him, stood behind Fang and started scratching him behind the ears - a move that made Fang sit down and look apologetic to the people around him. Hermione grabbed a whole chicken from the table and gave it to Fang, who clamped the morsel between his jaws, stretched out on the floor beside Harry, and proceeded to eat. The house-elves looked at Professor Dumbledore, who shrugged at them with a twinkle in his eye; taking that as their cue, they bowed to Harry and Hermione and left Fang to his meal.

Hermione looked at Harry with a wide smile and commented, "Told you that you were Charlie Brown, Harry. Now all we need is Pigwidgeon flying around like Woodstock to complete the set."

"Well, Fang is certainly no Snoopy, Hermione - but I suppose you can be Lucy? You gonna charge me ten Knuts an hour for 'psychological counseling'?" Harry responded with a grin.

"For you, Harry, ten Sickles an hour is just right. Besides, if I charged you for every hour we talk, I'll probably own your Gringott's vault by the time we graduate from Hogwarts." At the other end of the table, Lee Jordan suddenly burst out laughing, catching almost everyone else by surprise. Chortling, he called out, "That's telling him, Hermione! Don't let him get away with being 'famous' Harry Potter for nothing!"

The people at their side of the table looked at him in surprise and confusion, as Hermione smiled and gave him a thumbs up. Finally, Ron swallowed his food and asked, "What's all this about Charlie Brown and Lucy? Who is Charlie Brown and Lucy? And what does Pig have to do with it?"

Hermione laughed at that, and proceeded to tell them about the famous Muggle comic strip that had been a fixture in Muggle newspapers even during the time of her grandparents. Seamus Finnegan, whose father was a Muggle, suddenly joined the conversation, "Wasn't there something about a ... a Great Pumpkin or something?"

Hermione smiled, "Yeah ... one of the kids, Linus, always spent Halloween in the pumpkin patch."

"Why?" Ginny asked, interested.

"Well," Hermione explained, "he believed that every Halloween, the Great Pumpkin will rise out from the pumpkin patch and bring gifts to little boys and girls around the world. So, every Halloween without fail, the comic strip will show Linus in the pumpkin patch, sometimes with Charlie Brown, sometimes by himself, or Charlie Brown's dog Snoopy, waiting to see the Great Pumpkin rise from the pumpkin patch."

"That's nice," said Ron.

"Well, one thing you gotta say for the guy," said Hermione, "he had faith. No matter that he never actually saw the Great Pumpkin, he still kept going back to the pumpkin patch every year to wait."

"That's cute," Ginny said. Looking up at the pumpkins hovering over their heads, she continued, "I wonder what the Great Pumpkin will be bringing us this year."

Hermione felt a sudden chill in the air at that statement - and remembered her inadvertent entrance into the bathroom she'd been avoiding for years. She was surprised to see Ginny and Ron staring down at their plates for a moment (she didn't know of their encounters with their Halloween memories) before looking up and catching her eye. Almost at the same time, the three cast a look at Harry, whose eyes were suddenly closed as even he recalled the events that started with the Halloween feast last year.

"I'm sorry," Ginny said softly. "That was most ... tactless."

Harry opened his eyes and smiled at her, although the laughter was not evident in his green eyes. "It's all right, Ginny. So far, nothing's happened ... except for Malfoy's pumpkin pie drawers!"

The laughter that followed had dissipated the tension somewhat, and the announcement by Headmaster Dumbledore of the evening's entertainment soon diverted their attention from the question that had chilled the air.

Hermione quietly approached Ca, who was looking out the window with her friend Cindy beside her. "Waiting for the Great Pumpkin to come, girls?"

Both girls turned to her with (Hermione thought) rather guilty expressions. She wondered for a moment what they had had planned when Ca spoke up, "My mother gave me a Charlie Brown book when I was little ... she'd had it since she was small. Every year, at Halloween, she'd tell me about the Great Pumpkin - and remind me never to lose faith that there was magic in this world."

"And then you learned that there really was magic in the world," Hermione said, remembering the day that the letter from Hogwarts arrived at her house. She was surprised, however, when Ca did not respond to this; it was as if she had, for some reason or another, known about the existence of magic.

The two girls made their excuses, and proceeded up the stairs to their dormitories. Hermione stared after them for a while, wondering at the conversation and the feeling she had that Ca was hiding something.

She was about to pursue the thought further when a movement out the window caught her eye. She looked out and her mouth dropped open. Forcing a breath in, she gasped, "Harry? Harry!"

Harry, hearing the tension in her frightened voice, was beside her in seconds, followed closely by Ginny and Ron, who had decided to sit up for a while with them. What they saw outside the windows caused sharp breaths to be drawn all around ...

Rising majestically from the pumpkin patch were one ... two ... three ... four ... pumpkins with carved faces and an ethereal light shining from within ... soon followed by another, smaller pumpkin that trailed in the wake of the magnificent four.

They watched, transfixed, as the five pumpkins floated high in the air and approached the castle, flying in a line astern formation - which soon broke up as the pumpkins started moving in different directions around the castle.

And one of them - a pumpkin with a lightning bolt-shaped scar - was heading directly for them.

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