I can’t believe I keep losing this book. I’m not careless at all; I know where I put things, and this was definitely not where I left it. Just as long as no one has been reading through this, I’ll be fine.
I’m sitting on the sofa in front of the fire, watching the flames dance and flicker. The clock is slowly ticking away minutes of my life and a seventh year boy is skillfully playing the piano in the corner. His fingers dance across the ivory keys quickly, slowly, and everything in between. The melody and harmony have fused together to produce a piece of music so entrancing that I’ve decided to write after such a long time away from this. There’s something about music that makes me want to get up and do something with myself. I suppose that right now it is writing in this journal.
I do have some breaking news. It’s about Harry and me. Well that’s exactly it. Harry and me. That’s all there is really to say. Oh, and of course, Ginny and Malfoy. Ginny and Malfoy, can you believe it? Now, Malfoy still isn’t one of my favorite people, but I know how much he means to Ginny, and I’m up for cooperating with him since Ginny insists on it. Of course, Harry and Ron (especially Ron) are still having trouble accepting Malfoy into our lives as a normal human being and not a stuck-up spoiled prat as he was seen by us prior. He is a bit much to deal with, I must admit, with his overly-inflated ego (his fan club does not help at all to fix that) and his knack for believing that his opinion is always the right one. This is quite difficult to deal with at the DA meetings, though my authority always overrules his. I don’t know exactly how this works, but Ginny isn’t fazed by his bad traits at all. In fact, I don’t even think she notices them. In her eyes, Malfoy is the perfect guy, quite the angel. Heaven sent, even. She talks about him like this all the time. Of course, it does help that he showers her with every ounce of love and affection that he’s got. This is the reason I restrain Ron from attacking Malfoy every time he sees Malfoy and Ginny together; he makes her happy. A lot more than happy, if you ask me.
But if you’re curious, dear journal, about how my life with Harry has been, then I will not disappoint you. My days of being with him are the most memorable and touching days of my life. One particularly stands out to me, aside from the evening of the masquerade, of course. New Year’s Eve.
Now, the day of New Year’s Eve started out particularly drab, especially with Ginny’s worries coating everything that was going on. No one seemed to be accepting the relationship between her and Malfoy, even though they all had agreed on working for interschool cooperation and relations. She was a mess, she was. Moping around the halls, crimson hair a mess, half deprived of food for fear of walking through the Great Hall; she was a disaster. The only thing that brightened those few days of misery was Malfoy. I’m glad he was able to be there for her when she wasn’t in the mood to talk to me. Oh, and the nasty, wicked things people were saying about her behind her back. Some called her a blood traitor, some spread outrageous rumors of her secretly pledging allegiance to the Dark Lord. When she came to pour out some of her heart to me about this on the morning of New Year’s Eve, I knew I had to dispel all of this gossip that was going on about her. I mean, she is one of my best friends. That was when I came up with my idea. A New Year’s Eve party.
Okay, so part of the idea came from my lack of sleep and tiny remnants of my giddiness from the masquerade ball only a few days before this, but it was still an excellent idea, if I do say so myself. The plan was to invite everyone I possibly could to come up to the Room of Requirement for a big get together, but they would only get invited if they heard me out about Ginny’s situation. When I did go up to the numerous students, they all listened to me, and surprisingly, most of them even felt guilty about their feelings toward the Ginny and Malfoy situation.
“I hadn’t really thought of Malfoy as a person before,” Hannah Abbott told me when I invited her, “So when I heard that poor Ginny had gotten mixed up with him, I was convinced that he was playing some sort of cruel joke on her. Either that, or Ginny was taking a turn to the dark side.”
“Neither of them are any different from when they started dating each other,” I told her. “All Ginny wants is for all of us students to accept her and Malfoy. You should look at yourselves, saying these nasty things about her, pretending that she doesn’t exist. You’ve destroyed her. Have you seen her recently? She’s a catastrophe, and she doesn’t deserve this anymore than any of us do.”
“I feel terrible,” Hannah replied, with tears welling up in her eyes. “I’ve never thought about it like that before. I feel so horrible.”
That’s how all of my conversations pretty much went, but of course, very few of them involved tears of guilt. After I was finished inviting people, I still had a lot to set up in preparation for the party. I started out with owling Fred and George at their joke shop, sending a request in for the best firework show that they’ve got in stock. Surprisingly, I got back an instant response from them, with a gigantic multicolored box carried by seven owls. Their note to me read something like this:
Dearest Hermione,
We appreciate your letter for an urgent supply of our fireworks (after all, they are the best out there). We’ve given you the best show we’ve thought up yet! It hasn’t even been put out on the market yet. And get this, it is being given to you at no cost whatsoever! Okay, so maybe there are a few kinks in the show (the chameleon changes from green, to blue, to a duck, and the cartwheel fireworks tend to get a bit violent; nasty, actually), but it’s the thought that counts, isn’t that what you’ve always told us? So we made this batch especially for our favorite sixth year Gryffindor muggleborn girl…oh wait, you’re the only one who fits that description. Ha ha ha, just joking with you, Hermione. But anyways, we sincerely hope that you enjoy these, because we always promote the careless use of our products under the roof of Hogwarts. Tell us how it goes, we can’t wait to hear about it!
With Love,
Fred & George
I laughed to myself at their note. The typical things they write. It was sad not having them here this year. Not that I would tell them this and inflate their egos, but they are the two funniest people I have ever met, and though they caused a lot of trouble, even I must admit that they were really fun to be around. Now enough ego-boosting, I still had a lot to do, even after I received Fred and George’s ‘generous gift’ of malfunctioning fireworks (hey, I was on a tight budget…make that no budget).
Shortly thereafter, I ran into Ginny who looked absolutely dreadful. I waited until she finished giving me that day’s morbid report of how she was feeling and then told her about my plan. She was a little doubtful at first, but finally, I was able to bring her into the light. All I asked of her was to get Malfoy to bring all of the Slytherins to the New Year’s Eve party. So started my plan for school unification. Malfoy has the most influence over his house out of any of the other Slytherins, and luckily, he just happens to be Ginny’s boyfriend. Using his influence, hopefully I’ll be able to show the Slytherins that it’s necessary that we all work together, especially since Lord Voldemort is all ready fully recovered, and growing in support. Fortunately, Ginny agreed to this and went on to spread the word. I’m a little surprised at myself, but I’m glad Malfoy is around to take care of her. Although she has plenty of fire inside of her…sometimes that fire is reduced to hot coals.
Thoughts of the New Year’s Eve party, Ginny, and school unification tumbled around inside my head until I practically tumbled into someone myself.
“Oompf!” a male voice breathed as I knocked the wind out of him by unknowingly walking straight into his figure. As I ruefully brushed off his robes muttering apologies, his two arms encircled me, and I slowly looked up to see two glittering green eyes gazing into mine.
“Harry,” I smiled, leaning into his body.
“Hermione,” he responded, kissing my forehead.
“I have something to talk to you about,” I said stepping back, proceeding to tell him all about my party plans.
“That’s an excellent idea,” Harry replied enthusiastically after I finished.
“I was wondering if you wanted to come upstairs with me to help decorate and get everything together,” I offered. “Oh, and do try to get Ron too. I’ll be needing a lot of help.”
“Sure,” Harry responded. “Tick tock, time is all ready against us. I’ll meet you up there soon,” he called, all ready halfway up the staircase.
I smiled to myself. Harry, Harry, what a catch. When I reached the Room of Requirement, I paced back and forth wishing desperately for a big room fit for a party. I opened the large gold handle of the mahogany door to find that I would have a lot of work to do. Well, not so much with the help of a little magic. A shiny hardwood floor stretched across the room, their infinity interrupted by four gorgeous cream colored walls that unfortunately were depressingly bare. A beautiful vaulted ceiling resided over the room, making sure that whatever went on in this room was sure to be kept quiet. Frowning, I pointed my wand at the empty walls and paintbrushes appeared, furiously painting contemporary masterpieces, much like I had seen in a book I recently read about modern art in the twentieth century. I then placed multicolored flashing lights all around the room near the ceiling, and wished for several tables with tablecloths (for the food of course).
I looked around to admire the work I had done thus far. The great mahogany door burst open, making me jump. I turned around abruptly to find Harry and Ron standing in the doorway.
“Well done, Hermione,” Ron said looking around and nodding in approval. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes, actually,” I replied. “I kind of need food. A lot of it.”
“Now, there’s no sense in eating your feelings,” Ron said. “We have a party to set up, remember?”
I sent Ron a death glare that sent him out the door, but not without sending me a silly grin. I looked over at Harry who was running his hand over the white tablecloth next to me. He grabbed my hand and walked his fingers up my arm.
“Now that we’re alone,” he whispered heavily into my ear, voice laced with seduction as his hand brushed the side of my face. I felt nervous for a second, until I looked at him and noticed the laughter in his eyes. “Only joking, Hermione,” he chuckled as he gave me an innocent kiss. Then he cocked an eyebrow and gave me a mysterious smile, “…unless you don’t want me to.”
“Oh, you’re a real Casanova,” I scoffed at his joke, playfully pushing him. We both know that he has about as much knowledge in the female department as Professor Binns at a Weird Sisters concert.
We spent the rest of the day running around the room, making sure everything was to be perfect and also making sure people knew about it. After all of our hard work, Harry, Ron, and I collapsed on a huge plush sofa that we set up for the party.
“I’m exhausted all ready,” Ron sighed. “All partied out, and the party hasn’t even begun.”
“Well that’s a shame,” a different voice came from the doorway. We looked up to see Ernie Macmillan standing there, with what looked like (and probably was) the entire Hufflepuff house behind him. “Do you want us to be leaving then?” he smiled.
I jumped up, and looked at one of the timepiece I placed on the walls. Tick tock, tick tock. It was all ready eight o’clock! “Come on in,” I said, switching into hostess mode.
A load of people quickly followed. Who knew teenagers could be so punctual? Well, except for the Slytherins…they were “fashionably” an hour late. The rest of the night was wonderful and everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun. What seems to have been a miracle was happening before my very eyes. Slytherins casually chatted with some of the other houses. They all seemed a little unwilling at first, but later they seemed to almost enjoy each other’s presence. As the giant countdown clock began to near zero, I took a stand with Harry on one of the tables.
“May I have your attention please?” I called out timidly at first. “I would just like to thank you all for coming here. You have no idea how much this means to me. I’m sure the New Year will bring us plenty of good prospects to look forward to, like defeating Lord Voldemort. I would like to say that I am glad our school has finally been able to unite, and that everyone here has accepted that we need to be friendly with everyone…and that’s including the Slytherins,” I shot a couple of glances at Ginny. “I know that this will pay off in a very big way, and none of you will forget it. The D.A. will continue meeting every week, so I expect all of you to come,” I said as I noticed that the clock was quickly approaching zero. “Oh, and one more thing,” I added, grabbing Harry’s hand. “Happy New Year!”
Right on cue, Fred and George’s supply of fireworks exploded overhead, without any problems at all. I suppose they just were just joking in the letter they sent with them. Multicolored confetti and streamers poured down from overhead for the next five minutes. Harry suddenly pulled me close to him, still on top of the table, and gave me a long kiss. I blushed furiously since we were in front of the entire student body, and nonetheless, on top of a table.
“Happy New Year, Hermione,” he crooned in my ear.
My happiness, however, was tainted by a faint uneasiness in my stomach. What could possibly be wrong? I looked past Harry to the countdown clock that was flashing 00:00:00:00. I scanned the roomed with my eyes to see everyone celebrating together, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. As my eyes settled back on the countdown clock flashing zero, a faint noise reminded me of a problem I had almost too easily forgotten. Tick tock, tick tock, a clock in my head chimed. Even though a new year brings new opportunities, it also brings new problems. Who knows when Lord Voldemort will strike? Something told me that we were running out of time. Or is it only me?
- H. Granger