We always used to be best friends �“ until she went to school. We were going to be going to the local secondary school together. Neither of us cared about the school particularly, but we did admire the uniforms. They weren’t gray like they were at all the other schools. The uniforms were kilts made from the Royal Stewart tartan and hunter green jumpers. They had a good music section, and I was looking forward to playing a lot of ‘cello there and joining the orchestra. Hermione just liked studying, and to be honest, her studying was good for my work too. Ever since we had been best friends my academic test results had been almost as high as my ‘cello exam results
Then during the summer holidays, we both turned eleven, something changed. We both got different letters on the same day. Mine was from the Junior Academy, offering me a place for the coming year. I was over the moon about it at first, but my second thought was sadness on giving up my Saturdays with Hermione. However she did know that I wanted to be a cellist when I grew up, so hopefully she wouldn’t mind too much. She would probably want to come to all my concerts. Once my family had congratulated me on my news, my mother said I could run over and ask Hermione to come over to lunch, and we’d go to The Plough for a celebration. I ran quickly. Hermione and I both loved The Plough, and we had only been there twice before: once for my mother’s birthday, and once for her mother’s birthday.
When I got to her house, Hermione’s mother opened the door. She looked as if she had been crying, but when she saw me looking she smiled quickly. “I have a bit of a cold today, don’t mind how I look.” It wasn’t true; she had been crying. She still had tearstains on her face, but I pretended to believe her.
I could see Mr. Granger through the open living room door. He was sitting in his chair staring at the turned off television. I started to feel a little odd feeling in the pit of my stomach, but then Hermione came bounding downstairs, and I squealed and held out my letter for her to see, expecting her to be almost as pleased as I was. She had come up to London for my audition with me, and had explored the Academy afterwards with as much enthusiasm as my mother and I had.
Now she just read the letter with a strange expression on her face, almost like she was sad, defiant and excited all at the same time. “We’re going to The Plough to celebrate,” I told her, “my mum says do you want to come too?”
Hermione turned to look at her mother. “May I go?”
Hermione’s mother hesitated, and then her father called from the other room “Let her go, Pat. We can discuss it when she gets back.” He came into the hall and smiled at me. “Congratulations! We are very pleased for you.” His mouth was smiling, but his eyes weren’t.
Somehow, it did not seem quite natural, and was a bit frightening. I was glad once Hermione had on her shoes and we were out of the house.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why has your mother been crying?”
Hermione very carefully fitted her shoe along the cracks in the sidewalk, and didn’t look at me when she spoke, so I suspected that what I heard was not going to be the whole truth. Hermione wasn’t a very good liar, especially to me.
“I just got a letter too. I am going to go to boarding school.”
I stopped in horrified shock. Believe me, Hermione’s parents never seemed the type to send her away to school. She is an only child, and her parents were very attached to her, and usually fussed about her a lot. I couldn’t imagine them sending her away to school. Besides, neither of us had liked the idea of boarding school, and had always pitied those poor kids that were sent away to them. “That’s awful! Oh Hermione, why?”
Hermione bent her head so that her voice came out muffled. “It isn’t awful. I want to go. It is a very good school. I got the letter this morning”
Of course I immediately thought it must be a school for people with good brains. Hermione is very, very clever. But I still goggled at the idea of her parents sending her away. The implications hit me. “But we were going to walk to school together every morning and sit together,” I wailed. I couldn’t imagine not sitting next to Hermione. And another thing: Hermione’s mail always gets delivered in the afternoon, so how come she had the letter already? If she had known about this yesterday, she would have told me about it, wouldn’t she? I blinked back tears.
“Where is it? Am I going to be able to visit you? Will you be able to come to any of my Academy concerts? Did you have to apply? Do you come back for the weekends?”
Hermione hesitated again, and again I got the impression that she was not telling me the truth. “It’s kind of far away actually. I think you might be able to write if you send the letters through my mum. I won’t be back until the Christmas holidays, but you’ll have concerts then, won’t you?”
It had taken my entire joy of the day away, and I could tell Hermione, for all she seemed excited inside, felt torn. However we both cheered up at the Plough. How could we not? They have good food, and you can eat outside and watch the barges come through the lock, something neither of us ever tire of. Sometimes, the bargees let us help with opening the locks, because they are quite stiff. Hermione likes being with my family too, because she is an only one. I keep telling her that it is better than being the baby with three older brothers. She was very rude to my mother though. When my mother asked which school she was going to, she bent her head so that her bushy hair nearly touched her plate, and said “You won’t have heard of it,” in a muttered tone. My mother was very taken aback, because Hermione is usually very polite and grown up for her age, but I think she thought Hermione was upset, because she didn’t ask again.
By that afternoon things seemed more normal. We played at Hermione’s house, where we had emptied the garden shed to make a clubhouse. Mrs. Granger said that we could have it until winter and then they would need to use half of it for storage. My mother had given me an old china tea set, and my brother Edward, who does woodwork, made us a table. At least, it was going to be for him, but it rocked a bit, and he found he didn’t have room for it in his bedroom, so he said we could have it, and it was just the right size. Mr. Granger gave us some bookcases and that is where we did our homework, or work on whatever project Hermione was interested in. That summer we were both learning Latin. At least, I was learning Latin; Hermione was mostly helping me over bits I couldn’t get on my own, and learning some advanced calculus or something terrifying like that in her spare time. I didn’t leave until teatime. Usually Mrs. Granger would have invited me to stay, so that is when I was reminded that things weren’t quite normal, and I left feeling bereft.
A couple of weeks later, it got worse. Hermione usually stayed with us during the holidays while her mother worked, but her mother had taken a long leave of absence, and so Hermione was staying at home this year. It was frustrating, because we had a lot planned for the summer, but I usually ended up going over to her house, after cello practice, where we would go down to the shed. Hermione’s mother wouldn’t leave us alone though, so we were always being interrupted. I found it very annoying. I could tell it was annoying for Hermione too, although she was being unusually patient with her mother.
Then, one Saturday I called as usual, and Hermione answered. “What are we going to do today?” I asked. “Bryan is going canoeing, and he says he’ll take us if you want to come so…”
I can’t.” Hermione’s voice sounded strained. “I’m going shopping to get my new school stuff.”
"Oh.” I was a bit taken aback. It was far too nice to go shopping on this glorious day. However, it probably wouldn’t take all day. “Can I come?”
“No, sorry. I have to go on my own with my parents. Why don’t you go canoeing? I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I put the phone down with a sinking feeling in my stomach, and ran up to my room, where I cried and cried. Hermione was being very strange about her school, and I was feeling very left out. She wouldn’t talk about it and wouldn’t tell me where it was, and now had cut me off from her shopping trip. I wouldn’t enjoy canoeing without her, and I didn’t know why she was being so weird all of a sudden. Just because she was going to a boarding school. What was so great about that? I had just finished reading a book about kids sent to a secret government school where they unwittingly did war work for the government, but when I had asked her about that, she had laughed completely naturally and told me that I was being silly. Her school was nothing like that. But what if it really was? Hermione was brilliant, but sometimes she couldn’t see things in front of her nose. It worried me. I was scared of losing her too in a purely selfish way. I was a geek because I was so passionate about my cello, and Hermione was a know-it-all. We didn’t have a wide circle of friends; just each other. I was very worried about coping at a new school without her.
Eventually I dried my eyes and went canoeing with the boys, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I think Bryan and Rob felt truly sorry for me, as they knew what I was feeling although they did get fed up of hearing about the “Hermione Soap” as they called my conversation. They all felt that she was pulling away from us, and Bryan had been very condemning, calling her a ‘stuck up little prig’. I didn’t talk to him for nearly a day after that, which was a very long time for me, but today he didn’t even mention her name. I think my mum had warned him not to.
Anyway, I only saw Hermione on one occasion after that before she left. Her parents took her to France for a while and I got a postcard from Dijon, which was friendly and chatty and raised my hopes.
My mother phoned Mrs. Granger when they got back, to try and make sense of what was going on. Her face was stiff and her lips thin by the end of the conversation, but she never said anything to me. I phoned too, only for Hermione to tell me that she was studying her new books. When I asked to come and see them there was a silence, and then she said quickly, “You won’t understand them…they’re too…”
I didn’t let her finish. “Fine!” I yelled. “I don’t even want to see them. I don’t want to see you either. I get the message.”
I cried for ages then too. My mother tried to help, but it wasn’t just like losing any friend. I felt empty inside, almost as if Hermione had died.
That wasn’t the last contact I had with her though. I wasn’t giving up on my friend.
Over the years I tried. I wrote to her at her new school, leaving the letters for Mrs. Granger to forward on to her, and I got letters back, that Mrs. Granger addressed and sent on to me. Hermione didn’t like her new school at first. The lessons were fun (Hermione always liked lessons) but the other kids didn’t like her much, and she was lonely. She missed me. The thought warmed me. I hadn’t made any good friends either, although there were several people in my year that I got on with.
Then she got together with some boys called Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, and after that she didn’t write so much. What struck me is that she never really wrote anything substantive. I wrote and told her about everything that happened; the geography teacher who stuck his hands through his hair messing it up all the time, my friends whispering in math and getting caught, my conductor at the academy losing his baton when he was extra frenzied and it whizzing into the first desk of violas. I told her everything that happened. Hermione mainly told me about herself. What she felt or thought. She did tell me about one teacher, a Professor Snape. I got the dim impression he might be a science teacher. He sounded really horrible. Another time she wrote about spending a long time in the hospital wing. I would have visited her had I known, and wrote that I would any time she wanted me to, but she ignored that. She was keen on her friend Ron Weasley, and he sounded wonderful. I wrote that I hoped that one day I could meet him, but she ignored that too.
During the Christmas and Summer holidays we met up, and she attended my concerts, but it was a bit like seeing a stranger. She had the same bushy untamed hair that I had always admired, the same brown eyes and the same fascination with books, but she was no longer easy to talk to. She had too many secrets. I was never allowed into her room any more, because of her “school things”, although when she came to my house we immediately went up to sit on my bed. It was silly, but I still missed her. I had a lot of friends now, but no “best friend” as Hermione had been. Once she looked as if she would like to talk. We were talking about Ron Weasley, and she was worried about him. “He doesn’t think he can do things,” she said. “He always comes second to Harry”. I was sorting out my closet, and getting rid of things I hadn’t any use for, or had grown out of, and she was sitting on my bed with one foot tucked up underneath her.
"Everyone has their strengths,” I said comfortingly. “Perhaps he just hasn’t found his yet.” I held up a periwinkle silk caftan with embroidery that I had purchased because it was so lovely and had a big enough skirt to play the cello in, but hadn’t found an opportunity to wear. I loved it still, but I was being ruthless in cleaning out my closet, so I flung it onto the bed. Hermione pounced on it.
“Are you getting rid of this? Can I have it?”
I shrugged, surprised. “Sure, if you want. It isn’t really fashionable though. I got it because I thought I might play cello in it at a party, but in the end we had to go in black and white. It clings a bit too, and the neckline is daring.”
She clasped it to her. “These type of robes are very fashionable at my school and we are having a dance at the end of the year.” She hesitated, looking at me a little anxiously. “So I won’t be back for Christmas again this year.”
I turned back to my closet, feeling a little bitter. I was going to be playing a solo at this year’s concert and I had hoped she might come. “Oh well, saves me buying you a gift then. Have the “robe” as you so called it, and I hope you enjoy your dance. Why did you call it a ‘robe’?” The question was idle, but Hermione blushed to the roots of her bushy hair.
"A slip of the tongue I guess.” I stared at her, bewildered before an explanation occurred to me.
“You aren’t going Star Trekky on me are you?”
Hermione blushed still more. “No… It is just the “in” language at my school.”
Weird. But I had learned by now not to ask questions about her school.
We returned to the interesting conversation about Ron. She obviously liked him, but she didn’t even have a photo of him that she could show me. I logged on to the Internet and showed her my home web page with the photograph of Ben, who had been an unobtainable dream of mine for the last two years, but when I suggested she could open an account and email me from her school and send a photo of Ron, she got cagey and told me they weren’t allowed to use computers for personal use at her school. Whoever heard of that at a boarding school? I opened my mouth again, but shut it. I really resented Hermione’s secret school. I didn’t exactly not believe in Ron and Harry, but sometimes I wondered if she made them up. Ron sounded too perfect to be true, and she always led me to believe that Harry was a bit of a hero. It sounded very unlikely to me.
By now, however, I had worked out that it wasn’t because she didn’t like me that she wouldn’t tell me about her life. She still came over almost as soon as she got back from school, and I still got letters through Mrs. Granger. There seemed to be some strange taboo against telling anyone anything about her school. Mrs. Granger wouldn’t even talk to my mum about it. I knew she had been made a prefect though, and done well in all her exams. I knew she was still hanging out with Ron and Harry and still liked Ron. I heard that Ron was dating a girl called Lavender, and that it was breaking her heart. I boiled with rage, wishing I could go and shake some sense into that Ron. Every line of that letter seemed miserable. She told me that she was under a lot of strain and that she was very worried about the strange things that had started to happen that were in the news. I felt very bad for her, and wished I could do something to help her. There had been a lot of strange accidents recently, but she sounded as though they had disturbed her a lot more than they had me. After all, accidents do happen.
It was the day before Hermione came home for the holidays that year that I finally found why her life was shrouded in secrecy.
I had played in a concert, and was walking back from the train station. It wasn’t far, and only around midnight. Mum would expect me to call or to take a taxi from the station even though our neighborhood was quite nice, as she didn’t like me being out late on my own, but I was still walking on air as my solo had gone so well, and the night seemed friendly and was perfect for walking. Even the weight of the cello didn’t give me any cause for concern. I was used to it, and the walk was only about a mile.
I had to pass the Grangers’ house, and unusually, their light was still on. I knew the Grangers. They were “early to bed, early to rise,” kind of people. If I had been anyone else, I doubt I’d have glanced twice, but the mystery of Hermione’s school made me a little curious, and the light seemed to waver in a strange way. On impulse, I turned up their path. I could say I’d seen the light, and ask about seeing Hermione the next day…
The closer I got to the house though, the weirder it felt. The door was ajar, and that struck me as strange. Mrs. Granger was such a neat person. For as long back as I remembered, she had been shouting “Shut the door, girls!” as Hermione and I ran in and out.
I noticed I was breathing fast, and scolded myself for being an over imaginative coward. I could hear voices now, and one of them was definitely Mrs. Granger’s. She was pleading, and the other voice was a man’s. He had a hard cold voice that sent shivers down my spine. Thieves! My instincts had not lied. Something was very wrong.
I stopped, and as quietly as I could, I put down my precious ‘cello, and picked up the iron boot scraper, which Mr. Granger used for his wellies when he had been gardening. Holding it in both hands, I walked quietly into the house, and hesitated outside the living room door. What I saw was stranger than strange. Mr. Granger was lying on the floor, the side of his head bleeding, and his wife was crouched over him. They were wearing their night gear. Both of them were looking at a tall man with fair hair who held a stick from which pulsed a yellow greenish light. It was obviously some type of weapon, because as Mrs. Granger moved to touch her husband on the head, he muttered something, and Mr. Granger’s body rose into the air. I couldn’t believe it. The man was laughing cruelly, and Mrs. Granger sobbed as she held onto her husband, trying to anchor him onto the floor. I couldn’t see anyone else in the room. The man was making too much noise with his cruel laughter to hear me, and Mr. and Mrs. Granger were too terrified to notice me. I slipped off my shoes and walking swiftly into the room, I brought my homemade weapon up in both hands and bashed the man hard on the back of his head. The light went out, Mr. Granger crashed to the floor, and Mrs. Granger screamed out in shock.
I wasn’t in that great a condition myself. It was all so weird, and I was worried I might have killed the man. I had never bashed anyone over the head before. I had simply gone with instinct and I had hit as hard as I could. I dropped the boot scraper, and knelt down to try to find a pulse, but my hands were so cold and shaking so much I didn’t even know if I had them in the right place.
Mr. Granger called to his wife, “Get his wand! Break it!” but instead she turned on the light. I think she couldn’t see where his wand was. She looked at me, and then ran over to the fair-haired man. He was face down and had a bloody lump on the back of his head. Looking at it made me feel nauseous. Mrs. Granger didn’t seem to notice. She fumbled for the stick the man had been holding, and broke it in half across her knee, throwing both pieces into the fireplace. She wrestled with the matches until the fire was lit, and the wand began to burn.
I tried to keep my voice from trembling. “Mrs. Granger, I think he’s dead.” I shivered, and she seemed to come to herself. She walked into the hall and shut the front door, and then drew the drapes in the living room. She then went over to Mr. Granger, who still lay on the carpet. “Darling, can you move?”
"No. I can talk. Who is that?” Mr. Granger had not moved his head.
“It is Lauren.” Mrs. Granger seemed to see me properly for the first time. “Lauren, what are you doing out on your own this late at night?”
I got to my feet. “I had a cello concert. Mrs. Granger, I think he’s dead. Should I phone the police?”
Mrs. Granger pulled herself together. “No. No police. I need to think. You need to phone your mother. Don’t tell her anything �“ just tell her you are with us, and you can stay until tomorrow.” She noticed me shaking. “On second thoughts, I’ll tell her.” And then we’d better go to a hotel”.
By now I was thoroughly bewildered. “But he might be dead! Shouldn’t we call the police? Or an ambulance?”
Mrs. Granger shook her head emphatically. “No. We have to wait until tomorrow. Hermione will know what to do. Darling, can you move at all?”
“Nope!” Mr. Granger sounded quite cheerful for a man who seemed to have been paralyzed. “We don’t need to go to a hotel. We can take the camper. You and Lauren will have to lift me in there. Remember Hermione put an Unplottable Whatyoumaycallit on it just in case this sort of thing happened? We should be safe in there until she comes. Why don’t you phone Lauren’s mother and pack a few things? And we’ll need to send an owl to Hermione. Best hurry.”
I went over to him as I heard Mrs. Granger pick up the phone in the hall. “Mr. Granger, what is wrong? Why can’t you move? Do you need an ambulance?”
“Devil a bit of it!” came the response. “I’ve been cursed. Some kind of Petrificus Thingamabob or something I think. I can talk, but I can’t move. Very irritating. I have this itch on my right knee �“ thank you, a bit lower �“ but they won’t be able to do anything about it at our kind of hospital. Hermione will know what to do when she gets back.” He gave a chuckle. Hearing him talk in such a normal tone cleared my nerves considerably, although I hadn’t got a clue what he was talking about. I didn’t look over to where the fair man lay on his face on the carpet.
In the hallway I heard Mrs. Granger saying, “And whatever you do, don’t let anyone know she didn’t get back to you tonight. I know Sally, but I am asking you to trust me this once…no I can’t explain…do you want to talk to her?”
She came in with the phone, and I calmed my mother down, telling her that it was a last minute surprise for Hermione, and she mustn’t find out. I still didn’t know what was going on, but even with Hermione and me not being so close any more, I knew the Grangers. They were good people, and there would be a reasonable explanation for all this. As I hung up, Mrs. Granger appeared with an overnight bag, and an owl! She scribbled a few lines, folded the paper and then, I kid you not, she gave it to the owl, opened the door and he flew into the night with it!
Mrs. Granger and I wrestled Mr. Granger out of the house and into the camper. It was like moving a lamppost. He was stiff as a board. I ran back and shut the doors and turned out all the lights and closed the font door. I snatched up my cello, and got into the camper, which Mrs. Granger had backed out of the garage. We left.
Mr. Granger was lying down in the back in one of the beds, and I put my cello in the other bunk and went to sit with Mrs. Granger, who looked just terrible. I felt the worst I had ever felt in my whole life. Even if that man had been hurting Mr. Granger I didn’t want to have killed him, but I could have. We hadn’t even called an ambulance or the police, but were running from justice.
Perhaps they were worried I would be imprisoned.
Well, they say truth is stranger than fiction, but what Mrs. Granger told me that night seemed stranger than both. That was my first introduction to the wizarding world, and very uncomfortable it was.
Apparently I had hit someone called Lucius Malfoy on the head. He was very high in the service of someone called Voldemort. Mrs. Granger didn’t seem to be much better informed about Voldemort than me, and I didn’t know anything, but she seemed to think he was some kind of Wizard gang leader intent on taking over the world. Lucius was going to kill both her and Mr. Granger, because they were Mudbloods. I must admit thinking at times that I must be dreaming, or that Mrs. Granger had gone mad or something because it sounded like Lord of the Rings and James Bond mixed up, but I had seen magic with my own eyes, and the Grangers were petrified. I mean they were just leaving their lovely detached house that Mrs. Granger had been so proud of, with a bundle of clothes and nothing else, leaving a possibly dead man on the floor of their living room. It was bad.
We stopped along the M4 for petrol, and I bought coffee for us both. I tried to give Mr. Granger some too, but managed to slop most of it down his neck. He was very kind though and said it helped his dry throat a bit, but suggested we should wait for Hermione. We spent what was left of the night in a small field beside the canal.
It was there that a white-faced Hermione found us. She was with her friends Harry and Ron. Mrs. Granger and I had got up early, and made tea. We left Mr. Granger to sleep as best he could, since he couldn’t drink tea. The cello was very much in the way in the tiny caravan but we moved around it, and then I slipped it into one of the bunks again. Nobody was around, and we could see almost all the misty field, but then a knocking came at the door. Both Mrs. Granger and I froze, and Mr. Granger’s eyelids popped open. I started to shiver, and then a familiar voice said impatiently, from outside, “Oh! Alohamora!” and the door burst open. She was in the caravan in a moment, her arms around her mother, and then she pointed a wand at her father. “Finite Incatantem!” He sat up, and stretched.
“That feels good!”
Hermione threw herself into her father’s arms and burst into tears.
Over her head and between her sniffles, I stared in interest at Harry and Ron. I was quite taken aback by Ron. He was nice looking, but the way Hermione carried on about him, I had the impression he was something between a Greek god and a film star. He was just ordinary looking. Nic - but ordinary.
Harry was rather gorgeous, but looking like he needed shaking out and ironing. I turned to the small stove, and put the kettle on again. Ron gave a twisted smile, and pointed his wand at the stove. Cups flew out of the cupboard and filled themselves with newly made tea. Very impressive, and not easy to get used to. I nearly spilled it. I handed out the cups, and we all sat down.
Hermione hugged me hard, her nose still pink. “Thank goodness you were coming home and saw the light on. I can’t tell you how grateful I am!”
I patted her back. “I’m glad too. Although I can’t quite believe everything yet.”
Harry toasted me with his teacup. “Here’s to the Muggle who took out Lucius Malfoy!”
I shuddered. “Please don’t make a joke of it! I never wanted to ever hurt anyone and now that it has happened, I am not sure what to think or feel. I never meant to do it.”
"Well, since he was only broken out from Azkaban a week ago, the Muggles still haven’t caught on,” said Harry grimly. “They will. It is almost open war now. And you have managed to defeat one of the most dangerous of Voldemort’s henchmen. It is a big strike for our side. By the way, he was still alive.”
I know he was supposed to be evil, but that was a huge weight off my mind. Thinking you may have killed someone is an awful feeling, even if they were attacking your friend’s parents at the time you hit them.
Harry turned to Mrs. Granger. “Thanks to the owl you sent Hermione, he was picked up by our Aurors, and not allowed to escape. Thank you.”
Hermione slipped an arm around my waist. “I wish I could have told you earlier,” she said softly. “We can’t tell anyone about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Magic folk try to live separately from Muggles.”
"That’s silly!” I said without thinking. “How can you? Your parents are Muggles. I wouldn’t have told anyone, Hermione.” Even as I spoke I remembered her as being one who never flouted a rule. I suppose that was Hermione all over. I sighed. “Anyway, I know now. And I know why you could never write anything about your school. It made me feel very shut out for years.”
Hermione gave me a squeeze. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t even show you photographs because they are magical and move all the time. I felt a bit shut off too. It was hard to come home during the holidays and try to censor everything I told you.”
It was difficult to say it, but I felt I must. “Do you look down on Muggles? I mean you all have something that we don’t. I don’t know, like an extra sense or something.”
All three of them looked horrified. “Of course not!” it was Ron who spoke. “Muggles are terrific. Look at all you manage to do without magic. Wands make life easier on a daily basis for some things, but in the end, we are all people.”
Hermione nodded over at my cello. “And you have a magic all of your own that very few people have, even in the wizarding world. Albus Dumbledore always used to say that music was the true magic.” Her eyes filled with tears, and I knew she was remembering the headmaster that died. Mrs. Granger had told me about that last night. Ron put a hand over Hermione’s and I saw Mr. and Mrs. Granger look at each other, eyebrows raised. I grinned at Harry. Obviously since her last letter, Ron had seen sense. I knew from her letters that Harry had a girlfriend, but if it hadn't been for Ben (I'm a bit obsessive, he has never even noticed I exist, but I am still nuts about Ben) I would have been interested. He was gorgeous when he smiled, the serious look lifting and his green eyes lighting up.
“And now I have my study partner back,” Hermione said, looking over at the boys with a challenge in her eyes, “suppose we fill her in on the Horcruxes?”
There was a moment of surprised silence, and then Harry shrugged. “I guess it will be all right, so long as we keep it a secret.”
I was in.
That is why I pour over musty old manuscripts in my lunch breaks, a sandwich in one hand with my cello leaning on my knee. I am looking for places to hide a Horcrux. It isn’t genealogy, as most people think. Harry Potter needs all the help he can get, even if it is from a Muggle like me. Hermione and I make a very good working team, just as we always used to, and although I cannot do magic, and will never be able to do magic, anyone can read a book and make deductions.