Chapter Eighteen
Harry awoke from a lovely dream in which his arms had been wrapped around a girl with long hair. Seconds after he opened his eyes, he touched his lips, remembering Luna’s kiss. It was nice, he was shocked to realize. Her lips were soft . . .
He grinned. He truly felt lighter, mentally. It was as if someone was helping him carry a twenty-ton elephant; ever so little, but ever so enough that he finally got a chance to breath under there. It was just so easy to talk to Luna.
Although it was nice to share the disturbing knowledge, Harry wondered if he would ever be able to tell his friends. He didn’t want them to look at him as if he were gone already. He didn’t want tears. He didn’t want fear or pity- he’d had enough of that last year. Perhaps most importantly, Harry didn’t want his friends to try to save him from his fate. They could live without him, but he couldn’t live without them.
He sighed heavily and sat up. He was the first one awake, and the first one to notice two bodies in Ron’s plush bed. He shook his head in mirth. How silly they were, leaving the bed hangings open, to reveal all. While disgust was his first, gut reaction, the second was a look of amusement. He thought about Luna’s kiss. He thought about the train ride with Ginny, and holding her while she poured out whatever was inside her that night. He realized it would be nice to have someone sleeping in his bed.
A self-conscious blush rose to his face when he noticed Hermione’s eyes open, looking at him. He pulled more blankets onto his lap. “Er, hello Hermione,” he whispered, as if caught doing something naughty.
“Good morning,” she whispered lightly. She was very proper about crawling out of Ron’s bed- her hair looking wild- and sliding her feet into her slippers. Harry could tell she was mortified, and she shot him an if-you-say-one-word look. He snickered as she, in her most dignified way, opened the door and closed it quietly behind her.
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Dawn’s light flickered in the raven strands of Harry’s hair, pulling out the tiny gold flecks shorn from an exotic plant only known to the gods of old. He sat near the window, basking in the glow, feeling more rested than he could remember. It was quite a feat, considering he hadn’t gone back to sleep when he woke up to see Hermione leave. That had to have been about two O’clock.
Ron had only awoken once, when his hand slipped over to the empty space beside him. He merely pouted groggily and went back to sleep. Neville, Dean and Seamus were all snoring to their own orchestras. As for the latter two, Harry preferred they stay asleep for a while longer. Too soon, though, everyone began to open their eyes to the first day of classes. Ron noticed the smirk upon Harry’s face immediately. “Shove off, ‘Arry!” he growled. Clearly, it was much too early to tease him mercilessly.
“I wasn’t going to say anything!” Harry laughed, pulling on his robes. He mumbled, “Have fun?” at Ron. He pretended to charge at him, but the look on his face conveyed all the answer Harry needed. He smirked and said, “I’ve got to head to the Owlry before breakfast. Meet you in a minute.”
Harry whistled downstairs to the common room. It was a haunting Irish tune he didn’t know the words to. He didn’t even remember where he’d got it from. It must have emanated from his dream. But why? He did a mental shrug and just as quickly moved on from the pointless pondering.
On his way, he pulled the note he’d written the Order out of his pants pocket and read over it.
Everyone -
Everything is great. Got here ok. Let everyone know.
-H.P.
It was sweet, simple, and to the point. Not much had happened, but he’d promised he’d write more often. Besides, he knew Mrs. Weasley would want to make sure they’d arrived at Hogwarts safely.
When he arrived at the Owlry, he called down an old barn owl. Hedwig, who was sitting on a lower rafter, seemed to hiss at him. “I’m sorry, girl. I can’t use you. You’re too noticeable.” She’d turned her back on him, but nonetheless, he thought she was slightly mollified. He gave the letter to the unfamiliar owl, and it flew off into the morning light.
Harry stared out the window for a moment, thinking about nothing and everything, when he heard a sweet girlish voice. “We should call this our meeting place.”
Harry turned to see a pretty, raven-haired girl with a shy smile upon her visage. “Oh, hello, Cho. How are you?
“I’m well. And you?”
“Well, thanks.”
He watched, and waited while she called down a spotted owl. She made quite a show of tying it to the bird’s leg, and sending it off. Her hands flopped down to her sides. “So . . .”
“Are you team captain for Ravenclaw Quidditch?” Harry knew very well that it was more likely that she was kicked off the team, but didn’t want to start another row.
“No, erm . . . I decided I’d rather concentrate on my studies this year.”
“Oh.”
This was an awkward situation. She seemed to be waiting for him to say something. When that didn’t happen, she said, “Ok. Um, bye then.” Halfway to the door, she stopped and spun around. “Listen Harry. Things ended really badly before, and then the D.A. last year,” she flushed. “I just wanted to say I’m really sorry for what happened.”
“’S ok.”
“No, no it’s not. But it will be. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the way things happened in the past. And-“ she rushed up and gave him a hug. It was more like a two-second clamp. “I hope we can be friends.”
“I thought we were friends,” he said simply. He knew she just wanted to vent; she likely needed a little relief. Somehow, Harry had begun to get a feel for the things girls wanted to hear.
“Okay,” she grinned. “Bye,” and with a quick wave, she was gone.
Harry rolled his eyes. He was ecstatic that she hadn’t turned into a hose pipe on him. They’d had such bad experiences before, that he felt like he had nothing more to say to her beyond pleasantries. He shrugged, and after an appropriate amount of time, headed down to the Great Hall. He wanted to avoid running into her again at all costs-at least today.
He felt like he was thrown into a new world (again) where girls actually liked him. As far as he could recall, he had trouble finding a date for the Halloween Ball in fourth year. It was as if all the girls had gone bonkers, and had the strong desire to hug and kiss him. He didn’t mind it, somehow, but was thrown off by it.
When he got to the Great Hall, he saw Hermione sitting with Ron and Ginny. The night’s sleep had done nothing to placate Dean and Seamus, who made a point of sitting at the other end of the table. Hermione seemed to be avoiding eye contact. It was terrible timing, because Harry wanted her to pull off her girl’s intuition and ask him what was going on. When he wasn’t successful, he made a mental note to talk to her later. He noticed a rude hand gesture from the wrong end of the table, and began to get a little annoyed. Who did they think they were anyway? He didn’t do a thing to them!
“Don’t worry about it Harry,” said Ginny. “He’ll be calming down now.” Ginny seemed to be avoiding eye contact as well. Was she embarrassed about the night before? He didn’t think she should be. Then again, he had no idea why she was up so late, or why she was upset. He had a nagging feeling that it had something to do with the night before, when he thought she’d seen him under his invisibility cloak.
He looked at her suspiciously, as did her brother. “Tell me you didn’t slip a potion into Dean’s drink,” said Ron.
“All right, if that’s what you want to hear,” she said snottily.
“Which potion?” asked Hermione.
“A calming drought,” she replied in a kinder tone.
Hermione nodded approval. “That should help.”
“You’re okay with that?” Ron asked incredulously.
“Well, no need to take that tone with me, but yes. It’s just what he needs.”
“What he needs is to get another girl. Moving on does wonders-“
“And what would YOU know about that, hm?”
“Nothing,” he seemed to be avoiding Hermione’s fuse. “Just heard it somewhere.”
Harry wasn’t paying attention anymore, though. He was thinking about Luna’s kiss. The way her hair was blowing, and the way her eyes closed before she got too close to his face . . . He was also thinking he may want to do it again. He’d never had a kiss before that wasn’t sopping wet. He came to, and saw Ginny looking through him. Her eyes had a sheen to them. She looked truly concerned about something. She blinked, shook her head, and stared at her empty plate. She pointlessly scraped her fork across it, pushing some imaginary food.
Then, a delightfully pink, lavender-scented note fluttered over to Harry from the Ravenclaw table. Harry flushed. “Why can’t girls keep this stuff to themselves?” he murmured to Ron. Hermione looked happy for the distraction.
“Well? Open it! Who’s it from?”
“I know who it’s from,” he said, not knowing if he liked it yet.
She shot him a questioning look. It was accusatory, as if he was purposely keeping something from her.
“Luna,” Ginny said, barely audible.
“How do you know?” Harry demanded. Now he was sure she’d seen him the night before. But even if she did, how would she know what happened in the courtyard? Maybe she was a Seer!
“It’s just, er-“ she seemed to be searching for an answer. For some reason Harry couldn’t conceive of, his anger was rising. Relief poured over her face when she said, “It’s on the outside of the letter.”
“Oh,” was all he could say. He’d expected more.
Hermione and Ron were watching the exchange with avid interest. Hermione wore an expression of deep concern. Ron spoke. “Whoa, Harry. You want to ease up on Gin? What’s going on?”
“Well, isn’t it obvious? Luna fancies Harry-“
“Correction, she’s SETTLING for Harry. But that doesn’t explain why he’s getting on Ginny.”
Hermione rolled her eyes in answer. “Anyway, why is she sending love notes now? What happened to start all this?” A sharp intake of breath, “Unless . . .” Her eyes widened.
“I know. Yes,” he conceded.
“Yes?” she repeated.
Ginny was looking at her hands clasped in her lap. Ron couldn’t seem to figure out what it all meant. Harry gestured for them to lean in. Only Ron and Hermione did so. “Last night, when I went for a walk? She, uh, found me. We talked for a minute, and . . .she kissed me.”
Ginny fell into a strong coughing fit. “I, uh,” cough, “have to go,” she croaked, and ran from the Great Hall. Stares followed her out, including one of vague concern from her ex-boyfriend at the end of the table.
Ron raised an eyebrow. “Did you two have a row?”
“It’s not me. She was upset last night, too.”
“She’d gone through a breakup, Harry. Of course she was upset.”
“No, no. This was something else.”
“How would you know?” asked Ron.
He shrugged.
“You’re a girl,” said Ron to his not-so-adoring girlfriend.
“Thanks, I knew that,” she snapped.
“Well, go after her! You’re better at this than we are.”
“I WILL! I’m waiting for Professor McGonagall to give us our schedules first,” she huffed.
Prompt as always, their Transfiguration teacher nearly flew by; gibing everyone adequate time to look over their classes. Hermione grabbed hers and Ginny’s, and ran after her friend.
With Hermione gone, the subject turned to the newly arrived schedules. “Let’s see,” said Harry, setting aside his unread pink note. “I’ve got Transfiguration, Potions (he grimaced), and Charms. Tomorrow, I have Care of Magical Creatures and double Defense against the Dark Arts.”
“That’s different.”
“Yeah, that’s all there is. Every other day.”
Ron grinned. “More free time, then!”
He smiled back. “So what’s your schedule?”
“Well, I didn’t get into Potions- what bad luck I have, eh? I don’t have Divination or History of Magic-“
“You’re lucky! Those are the ones we hate the most!”
“Yeah, but I can’t be an Auror.” Harry knew Ron wanted to be an Auror as much as he. He just wasn’t scholastically inclined enough.
“Sorry . . .”
“It’s all right.”
“You think of another career?”
“Well, yeah, actually. You can’t laugh.”
“I won’t,” he replied, but prepared to keep quiet in case it was funny.
“I think Muggle Relations would be ok.”
“That’s brilliant! You’d be good at it.”
“Hermione thinks so too. Anyway,” he smiled, “Transfiguration, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms. Then Muggle Studies and double Defense against the Dark Arts.”
“Three classes together. That isn’t bad.”
“Not bad at all,” smiled Harry. “One question, though. Why do you have to have so much DADA?”
“Well, we don’t normally deal with Muggles too much unless something bad’s going on.”
“What’s Hermione doing?”
His face contorted. “Translation.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“Well, you know that old parchment she’s been working on? She liked it so much, she wants to do it for a living.”
“I thought she wanted to heal?”
“Well, that’s her backup plan. She’s doing Ancient Runes still, Arithmancy, Potions, Charms, DADA, and Herbology.”
He laughed. “That’s it?”
He smirked in return. “No, that’s all I can remember. The translation is something she does on the side. She said that if she needs to, she can go to Muggle university for it.”
“Has she figured out any more of the parchment.”
“No. . . she hasn’t had time to . . . with Diagon Alley and all.”
“Oh, I was just wondering. Hope Ginny’s ok,” he said as an afterthought.
“Maybe she’s jealous,” said Ron offhandedly, just before taking a big gulp of pumpkin juice.
The revelation startled Harry more than words could say.