A large photograph of the ten of them fronted the Daily Prophet, under the headline, “POTTER’S FIVE… PLUS FIVE: TEN TEENAGERS PROTECT MAGICAL WORLD FROM MUGGLE DISCOVERY.” In order for all of them to fit into the frame, they were scrunched in close together”Jordan sat in the centre, in between Haley, who was sharing (read as ‘usurping’ his chair) and Emma, who was perched on a stool but being pushed off by Tyrone. Standing by Haley were Vladislav and Marina, the latter of whom was standing on the former’s toes. In the back stood Ted, Ivy, and Arden, Ted in the centre; Arden’s head was barely visible, due to her lack of height and the fact that Giorgi was blocking her face.
The article, accompanied by Apple’s mug shot, which looked more like a Hollywood glamour shot, discussed the events that had occurred, as well as the unanimous decision to reinstate Percy Weasley as the Minister of Magic.
But just to the members of the “Five Plus Five” was the editorial on the second-to-last page. It was entitled “Muggle Rights: A Complicated Dance,” and was in a column written by none other than Vladislav Dmitrovich Poliakoff.
The article was brief, but extremely well-written and funny, as well as thought-provoking, and for the first time, people seemed to warm up to Vladislav. All of a sudden, they sought him out in the hallways, asking him for his opinions on various issues. Whether it was the attention from his world-saving exploits or his column that wrought this change was unknown, but while still quietly observant by nature, Vladislav was also speaking his mind rather than simply keeping his opinions to himself. He was often spotted smiling, and there was something remarkably different about his sharp, angular features when he did so.
Vladislav was not the only one who had attracted attention. To Emma’s disgust, Tyrone’s hordes of swooning female admirers were even more rabid than usual now that Tyrone was, according to a particularly forceful blonde fan girl, “Gorgeous, suave, a brilliant athlete, AND a hero!” And while he was not quite as self-absorbed as he’d once been, he still had no objection to, say, autographing a few newspapers upon request.
The one member of the ten who managed to completely avoid being swarmed by curious students was Jordan. He accomplished this by being in the shower, where nobody but Moaning Myrtle could get to him.
He stepped forth from the shower, performed a quick drying spell, got dressed, and popped his contact lenses into his eyes, mentally cursing the Potter hereditary myopia and the fact that there were no spells that could repair vision. The gash by his right eye ached, and he decided to check it in the mirror to make sure that it wasn’t infected. He promised himself that if it looked bad, he would go see Madame Patil, however much he despised being fussed over in the hospital wing.
Jordan wiped the misty fog off of the full-length bathroom mirror, examined his reflection, and then stayed there for a moment. He glanced in the mirror every day, but he hadn’t really taken a good, long look for quite awhile”he didn’t care about how his clothes looked together as he usually wore dark, plain clothing, and he’d given up attempting to tame his hair years before. He didn’t need a mirror to find his eyes when he put in his contacts, and he’d never been particularly interested in watching himself while he brushed his teeth.
So he’d really had no clue up until then as to how much he’d changed.
He had grown”not much, and he knew he would always be short and slight”but enough to make him look his age, not like a little boy. Thanks to a combination of age and grueling Muggle-style team practices, his shoulders had broadened and there was a wiry look about his limbs. His face, previously delicate and more than a little bit girlish, had developed a finely-carved maturity, and he was starting to look like there was a chance of him actually growing up after all.
For years, he’d been a forty-year-old voice coming out of a twelve-year-old body, and he didn’t know exactly when he’d outgrown this, but some of the things Giorgi had said to him now made sense. She’d insisted that he wasn’t shrimpy, which was at least debatably true, and she’d called him ‘cute.’And then, there was the fact that when Jordan had greeted Giorgi, he’d said to her, “You look different,” and she’d replied, “So do you.” At the time, he’d brushed the remark aside and said, “Well, I’m sorry if I’m uglier than you remembered,” but now he could see how it made sense.
The transformation wasn’t dramatic, and he was sure the people who saw him every day didn’t notice anything different, but it was proof that he was changing. The thought was comforting somehow, and it was nice to have Giorgi around to see exactly who he was without clinging to what he’d been. He wasn’t so sure the rest of his family and friends realized that he wasn’t as awkward, unsociable, and irritable as he used to be.
It wasn’t the way he looked that was important”he scarcely thought about the face he saw in the mirror as long as he had one. All of a sudden, he realized, he was more more sure of himself, more relaxed, less of a perfectionist. The truth was, although school and studying were important to him, sports and computers were what truly excited him, and it gave him that strange rush of euphoria that he’d also felt after Apple was caught and after fixing Giorgi’s broken box of china. It wasn’t so unthinkable to relate to people or to just sit back and enjoy himself, concepts that had eluded him for years.
The truth was, as intelligent and multi-talented as he was, Jordan now knew his true strength. He had authority. People listened to him when he spoke, and he commanded respect thanks to his highly logical and analytical mind, and he was finally able to put this talent to use now that he realized that you actually had to communicate with people every now and then.
Truth was, Jordan James Potter was a person who existed independently from Harry James Potter, no longer feeling as though he hid in the shadow of his father’s illustrious name. His father was the action hero type, the bravest of the brave and one who accomplished great things. But if Harry was like the star in an action film, Jordan was the director type, the one who molded the actors into their characters, gave directions, and made the film successful. When he tried to save the day, things tended to go wrong. But people always seemed to do their best when he was near, always seemed to work together better and think more quickly.
He knew that more than likely, he would receive more 93’s on assignments in his life, and there was a chance that occasionally, someone else might know a charm that he didn’t. But perfection was not necessarily his goal anymore..
All things considered, Jordan was happy.
The students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were set to leave that day, and Mr. Potter was there to see them off, in his capacity as Triwizard judge and security advisor, but also as Marina’s uncle. He sat down at the Gryffindor table between his daughters. “Morning,” he said brightly.
“Hi, Daddy!” exclaimed Haley, jumping up to give him a peck on the cheek.
“Morning, Dad,” Ivy said, offering him a bowl of porridge. “I’ve just finished up eating, so I’m going to meet Ted…walk around the grounds…”
“See you later, then,” Harry replied jovially, taking the porridge as his adopted daughter strolled away with a slightly dreamy smile on her face. “Hey, Haley,” he said. “I haven’t gotten a chance to tell you how proud I am of you. What you did the other day was amazing.”
“Thanks! It still feels like a weird dream,” chirped Haley. “It’s so weird to think that someone who seemed as nice as Apple could have, like, a secret evil plan for world domination.”
Harry looked more serious. “Evil’s a strong word,” he said. “I don’t think he actually meant to do any harm. He honestly thought that what he was doing was right, like your Aunt Hermione and her Elf Rights obsession”Apple was misled. Not all wrong ideas are based on prejudice…I mean, Apple wasn’t another Malfoy. He could’ve really messed things up, though, so it’s a good thing that you caught him when you did. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. That Samandar Marigan spell you used”that was incredible. Almost no one in the Auror department had heard of it before. Where did you learn that? It’s really advanced. Seriously, I must have underestimated you, because I had no idea that you could do something like that.”
Haley smiled. “I’ve been studying harder, especially in Charms and Potions, and I guess it’s paid off. I even got an ‘O’ on one of my Potions assignments!”
“Where on earth did you learn something like Samandar Marigan, though?” asked Harry, wiping a pumpkin juice moustache off of his top lip.
His daughter froze. The truth was, she had learned that particular spell, and so many others, from Lee, who knew a lot about charms. But knowing the bad experiences that her parents had had with an enchanted diary, she was wary about letting her father know about Lee. It was true that Haley could be too trusting, but she was usually right about people.
She’d been the first Gryffindor to befriend Ivy in their first year, when nobody else wanted anything to do with Draco Malfoy’s daughter, and she’d told Emma repeatedly that Tyrone Thomas had a good heart beneath his egotistical exterior. She’d known Giorgi was a cool person when she first met her, and she’d asked the seemingly dull and serious Vladislav to the ball and on the rescue mission. She had known intuitively that they were all good people, and her woman’s intuition rubbed her the same way when it came to Lee. But people didn’t always believe her or take her ideas seriously, and she was afraid that her father would act the same way.
Still, her father had an uncanny knack for wrangling the truth out of any situation”if she hadn’t known any better, she’d have thought he was a Legilimens like Jordan. And she knew it would be twice as uncomfortable if she was caught lying… so she took a deep breath and said, “I found this enchanted diary in the Gryffindor Common Room. Its… its name is Lee, and it’s been helping me with some of my classes and just, you know, talking to me.”
Harry looked even more mortified than he did furious. “Haley! I can’t believe you! Did you even listen to your mother and me when we told you not to trust things that can think for themselves if you can’t see where they keep your brains? Don’t you realize how dangerous that is?”
“But Dad!” protested Haley, “Lee’s really cool, smart, funny, just really good with feelings and friends and stuff! There’s no way that Lee’s a Horcrux!”
“Do you have your diary in your book bag?” asked her father, his voice short and abrupt.
“Uh, yeah…” said Haley. She hesitantly hoisted her sparkly pink bag onto the breakfast table and rooted through it, throwing shriveled old bits of parchment, old quills, and miscellaneous and completely random objects like unwrapped candies and doll shoes onto the ground as she dug for her diary. At last, she emerged with a triumphant, “Aha!” bearing the leather-bound Lee and a self-inking quill.
Harry took the diary from her, opened up to the first page, and scribbled, “This is Haley’s father. Are you a Horcrux?”
“Of COURSE not!” was Lee’s indignant reply. “Sheesh, why does everyone ask me that these days?”
Harry paused to think, then wrote, “If you’re not a Horcrux, then how do you work?”
Lee’s response was quick: “I’m pretty similar to the Marauder’s Map, actually. You can enchant objects so that they copy your personality with a charm”you don’t need to actually split your soul. What do you take me for, the next Dark Lord?”
“Are you Lee?”
“Yes, I am. You ask all of the same questions as Haley, you know. It must run in the family.”
“Is Lee your first name?” wrote Harry, continuing his cross-examination of the book.
“No,” replied the diary.
This surprised Haley somewhat. She’d never even considered the fact that Lee was not Lee’s first name. Since the diary had always referred to her as ‘Haley’, she’d always assumed that the diary went by its first name as well.
“Is Lee your last name, then?”
“No,” came the reply. “It’s my initials, L.E.E.”
“What do they stand for?” Harry wrote, scribbling faster than ever.
The diary gave an answer, and when it did, both father and daughter stared at it, then at each other, and then at the diary again. Whatever words they had expected to see appearing on the page, these were certainly not them.
“My name is Lily Elizabeth Evans.”
A silence stretched between Harry and Haley, and they were as motionless as a tableau in a wax museum. Although they were in the middle of the noisy Great Hall and scores of students were eating breakfast, they scarcely noticed. L.E.E. Lily Elizabeth Evans…
After a long pause, Haley managed to say, “This… This is beyond weird.” Her voice came out in a squeak, and her hands shook like they often did when she had overdosed on sugar. “Uh… Dad? Er, can I keep writing my diary now that we know it’s not evil?”
There were tears running down her father’s face. “I think it would be safe,” he replied.
Ivy and Ted strolled across the sunny grounds, hand in hand. They barely spoke, but it was a peaceful, relaxed silence, not at all tense or awkward.
“You know, I haven’t seen Jordan all morning,” remarked Ivy. “Normally, he’d be zipping around on his broom on a nice day like today.”
Ted shrugged. “When I came down, he was in the bathroom. He’s busy avoiding people who want to ask questions about the thing with Apple. Or, I don’t know, experimenting with a new hairdo or constipated or something.”
Ivy studied Ted’s face. It was very pale and drawn, and raccoon-like dark circles ringed his eyes. “You look really ill,” she said. “You should have slept in. It’s not good to be running around just a few hours after a transformation has ended.”
“I’m a little sore, and I guess I’m tired,” admitted Ted, “but there’s no way I could stay in bed on a day like today.” He looked pensively into the distance. “You know, it’s funny… every time I’ve been out on a mission to save the wizarding world, it’s been as a wolf. It’s like Superman with his secret identity” mild-mannered Ted Lupin isn’t cutting it.”
Ivy chuckled softly.
“What?”
“I don’t know… it’s just, you’re like a little kid sometimes,” Ivy replied.
Ted stuck his tongue out at her. “You’re a meanie,” he told her.
Ivy laughed. It was true, though. Despite the fact that he was unusually tall and that his werewolf transformations had made his face hollowed and drawn, physically aging him, there was something so refreshingly exuberant and youthful and truly innocent about him. You could see it in his round and childish blue eyes, in his excitement at the zoo, and genuine bewilderment that girls (especially in the plural form) found him attractive. But then, he could be mature beyond his years when it came to understanding emotions and his quiet self-assurance and his poignant advice to Arden. It was the combination of these traits that Ivy liked so much, and he was altogether such a warm, thoughtful, and… Ted-y person that she felt extremely fortunate to have him beside her.
They walked past a spreading willow tree (not of the whomping variety) and saw a cluster of Beauxbatons girls dangling their legs in the lake. Two more girls, apparently deep in conversation with one another, emerged from the castle and walked toward the group, giggling to one another as they did so. One was tall with a striking figure and glamorously shaggy strawberry-blonde hair; the other was thin and petite with dark shoulder-length curls.
The taller girl greeted the lakeside girls in French, twirling about dramatically and gesturing toward her hair, to which the other girls seemed to register their approval. She then introduced the curly-haired girl to the rest of the group.
“Mon dieu, Arden!” exclaimed one of the girls, this one looking a bit younger than most of her companions. “What happened to your neck?”
Arden, who was the curly-haired girl, fingered her scarred throat. “Oh, that,” she said almost casually, though with evident effort. “That’s from the night I became a werewolf.”
This did not receive a hugely dramatic response. “Yes, that’s right, I read about you in the newspaper,” said another of the Beauxbatons girls. “Is that why you always wore that silly ribbon?”
“The silly ribbon went au revoir,” Marina chipped in with a smile. “It was about time that Arden owned up to being a werewolf.”
Charybdis Nott, who was sitting lakeside as well, whipped around. “Werewolf?” she exclaimed in a tone of total disgust.
Ted Lupin, towering over the girl by nearly a foot, stepped forward, which would have been menacing had a goofy grin not been playing across his face. “There wolf,” he replied, pointing to himself, then gestured toward the castle. “There castle.”
Charybdis looked as though she didn’t know what had hit her.
“Hey Arden, hey Marina,” Ted called breezily, still smiling as though nothing had happened. He took Ivy’s hand again. “Come on, then, nothing to look at.”
There was no denying that Ted was, in many senses of the word, unique.
Emma had risen late”Haley was the early bird of the group, and she’d gone down to breakfast even earlier than usual, leaving her cousin fast asleep in bed, dreaming the day away. By the time Emma was finally heading down to breakfast, nearly everyone else in the school had finished.
One such person, who was heading back up to the Gryffindor Common Room after finishing his meal, met her on her way down.
Emma looked up at the irritatingly handsome boy standing at the end of the hallway and felt trapped. It would be incredibly awkward to engage in conversation, but to ignore him would be impossible”after all, the corridor was deserted. “Hi, Tyrone,” she called, her voice ringing out louder than she would have liked and echoing off of the walls.
Tyrone stopped in mid-swagger. “Oh. Er, hey, Emma,” he said, making his voice exaggeratedly deep.
“What’s wrong with your voice?” Emma asked innocently. She had to laugh at his over-the-top displays of masculinity”Tyrone was the coolest when he wasn’t trying to be cool.
“What do you mean?” the boy responded smoothly. “So, uh, what’s up?”
“The sun,” Emma replied flatly. “So I want to get some breakfast before it goes down again.”
“Ah.” Tyrone nodded. “I won’t keep you, then.” And he started to walk away.
“No, it’s okay!” Emma insisted. “Keep me! That is, I mean, I’m not in a hurry.”
“Cool,” Tyrone said, skidding to a stop and revolving around with a fluid grace that made Emma somewhat jealous. “I just didn’t want you to spaz out at me… never get between an angry woman and her food. I learned that one the hard way.”
Emma didn’t want to think about, let alone hear, this particular tale of ex-girlfriend woe. She slid down the wall into a sitting position, hugging her knees. “Yeah, about that…” she began. “This year was weird. I didn’t mean to be such a spaz.”
“You weren’t a…” Tyrone protested, then considered his point, thought better of it, and mumbled, “Wait, never mind. I take that back”you were.”
“How loyal,” said Emma with a sarcastic smile. “I guess I overreacted when I found out you asked Marina to the ball, and the stress of the Tournament was freaking me out already, so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find a partner in time.”
“That’s all, huh?”
“Yeah,” Emma replied quickly.
Tyrone sat down next to her, folding his long legs lazily. “Y’know, I didn’t actually ask Marina to the dance,” he mentioned in his usual nonchalant manner.
Emma was genuinely surprised. “Really?” she asked, looking up.
“’Course not,” laughed Tyrone. “Not that I have anything against Marina. She’s cool”she’s gorgeous, she’s got a nice pair of…” he noticed Emma’s extremely ominous expression and said, “er, trousers… but I don’t really know her that well. She asked me ‘cos she liked the t-shirt I was wearing. You know, the one that say ‘Silence is golden, duct tape is silver?’ She was desperate to get a date to the dance, and she just wanted to ask the first person who caught her eye… And she didn’t have a date, and, well, she was the first to ask me and all, so it would have been rude to say no, right?
“And you know the second task when you rescued me, even though Marina was supposed to? Madame Maxime refused to let any of the Beauxbatons kids be victims in the second task”my dad says she’s been like that since that Hagrid bloke died right before they were supposed to get married”so it had to be someone from Hogwarts or Durmstrang as Marina’s victim. And McGonagall recommended me. She said I’d take it well.”
Emma stared. She’d had no idea that that was the case. Of course her cousin hadn’t gone with Tyrone to spite Emma”to her, Tyrone was just a boy in a cool shirt, and all of the Beauxbatons boys that Marina knew were probably a bit intimidated by her.
“We’re just too much alike,” Emma laughed. “Care too much about how other people treat us and not enough about how we treat other people sometimes.”
Tyrone grinned. “I think people like us should stick together,” he said.
“Yeah,” added Emma. “As a safety precaution for everyone else. Like, if you stick us all in one place, then people everywhere will know to steer clear and they’ll be safe from our wrath.”
The boy laughed. “I guess you could look at it that way,” he said. His face grew more solemn. “You know, it’s weird. We’re back at square one again.”
“Huh?” asked Emma, blinking in confusion.
“This is just how things were at the end of last year,” explained Tyrone, uncharacteristically introspective. “In fourth year, you hated me, then we were mad at each other, but then we got to be friends again, and then the end of the year was exactly like this. And this year, nothing’s changed.”
“This year was crazy,” agreed Emma. “Oh, yeah, that reminds me. You know my dad’s an Auror, right?”
Tyrone nodded. “Yeah, Ron Weasley,” he said. “Everyone knows him. Good guy.”
“Annoying, though,” Emma told him. “Anyway, guess what he told me?”
“He just saved a whole bunch of galleons on his broom insurance by switching to””
“No, shut up,” Emma cut in. “Like I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by a certain immature loser…” (Here, Tyrone pretended to look around for an immature loser and gave up after not being able to locate any) “You know how Skitesby and Schiffington rigged the Tournament so we’d all tie? Well, they found out why.” She paused dramatically. “Tancred Apple,” she told him in a low voice.
The boy’s dark eyebrows shot up.
“Yeah,” continued Emma. “It was part of his campaign. I’m a half-blood, Vladislav’s parents are both Muggle-born, and Marina’s technically pureblood, but she’s also an eighth veela, plus her dad’s a semi-werewolf, so she’s a part-human. Apple wanted to prove that blood doesn’t matter, and that we were all equally talented or whatever, so he got Skitesby and Schiffington, two of his biggest supporters, to make sure that we all got the same scores. It was all to promote Apple. I wasn’t even in a real competition. It was nothing but a publicity stunt.”
Tyrone whistled through his teeth. “The man’s mental,” he stated.
“I think we’ve established that fact,” agreed Emma. She paused. “Anyway, next year’s going to be totally different, without that weird fake tournament screwing up my mind.”
“Let’s just start over next year,” Tyrone said. “We’ll pretend this year never happened, leave things like they were last June. Cool?”
“Yeah,” responded Emma, smiling. “I’d like that.” A fresh start was exactly what she needed with Tyrone. Too many times they’d made each other mad, done stupid things, held ridiculous grudges. She just wanted things to be normal between them for once.
“Done,” Tyrone said, holding out his Quidditch-callused hand.
The two of them shook hands, then unconsciously continued to hold on for a bit longer than necessary for a simple handshake.
“Er, right,” Emma said loudly with a slight cough as she withdrew her hand. She could feel her cheeks begin to flush, which was most unlike her”porcelain-pale Ivy was usually the only to blush, and Emma had teased her about it on many an occasion. “Well, I’m off to breakfast… although by now, they’ve probably started serving lunch.”
“Yeah,” replied Tyrone, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. But as Emma turned to go, he suddenly called, “Hey, Em!”
She spun back around, raising an eyebrow in confusion and reflexively ducking from a nonexistent Haley attack. “What?”
A truly evil grin crawled across Tyrone’s face. “Do you, you know, uh, wanna rehearse for our play again?”
Emma displayed a similarly wicked smile. “Yeah, I think I could use some practice,” she said, and the two of them hugged each other, just as before. They were unsure of what they were and of what they would be next year, but they ignored this fact and let themselves remain blissfully unaware of their surroundings.
So unaware, in fact, that they did not notice a line figure standing in the hall, a sneer of cynical amusement contorting his lips. “So,” drawled Professor Zabini. “This would be the ‘love’ part of your little love-hate relationship, I gather?”
Emma pulled herself away from Tyrone and held herself in a straight, dignified manner. “And you would be the ‘hate’ part,” she answered calmly.
“What did you say?” hissed Zabini.
“I think you heard me, Mr. Potato Head,” she said. “Oh, I’m sorry, I meant Professor Potato Head.” And with that, she stalked away, hair swaying emphatically in her wake.
Once again, Tyrone whistled through his teeth, though for an entirely different reason this time.
“I’m going to miss you so much!” Haley exclaimed to Marina as the Beauxbatons girls prepared to board their carriage.
“Hopefully, your family can visit me this summer in France,” replied Marina. “Arden’s probably coming over, too.” It was odd how close a bond of friendship the two girls had formed in just a few short days, but then, friendship had never been a rational entity.
“I will miss you,” added Arden, smiling shyly. “Especially you, Theo. Without you, I never would have had the courage to… you know.”
Ted raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’m all for flattery,” he told her, “But I had nothing to do with that. That was all you.”
“I almost forgot,” said Arden. She whipped her sketchbook out of her bag, tore a page out of it, and handed it to Ted. “I want all of you to have this.”
Ivy gasped. “This is beautiful! We can’t take this!”
“You can make copies using magic,” Arden told her. “I can always draw more for myself.”
The picture she had drawn was amazing. It was a pencil rendition of the photograph on the front page of the Daily Prophet, and each member of the group’s face was perfectly replicated down to the smallest detail”everything from the crooked collar on Ted’s shirt to the slight uneven quirk of Jordan’s eyebrows to the small beauty mark on Ivy’s left cheekbone.
But somehow, Arden had also managed to capture each person’s personality. Merely by looking at the drawing, one could observe Jordan’s authority and intelligence, Emma’s recklessly bold determination, Haley’s upbeat and undistilled energy, Ted’s warmth and compassion, Ivy’s shy sensitivity, Marina’s defiant spirit, Tyrone’s casual confidence, Giorgi’s quirky originality, and Vladislav’s satirical wit. But Arden’s own expression was the most intriguing of all”her eyes held a wolfish intensity, but somehow, they were simultaneously soft and full of humanity, and her artistic soul shone through. The picture of Arden was truer to life than the real Arden.
“This is truly amazing,” stated Jordan, as much of a know-it-all as always. “Very few artists, even the classical masters, were able to capture expressions like that. I suspect even Da Vinci would feel threatened by you.”
Arden smiled, rather embarrassed from all of the compliments. “Thank you,” she whispered.
At that moment, before anyone else was able to gush praise for Arden’s work, Vladislav appeared. “The Durmstrang ship will leave soon,” he told the group. “I just wanted to give my goodbyes and thank the academy before I make my dramatic exit.”
“All three of you”Vlad, Marina, Arden”HAVE to keep in touch with us,” ordered Haley. “It’s that or death.”
“Hmmm… death sounds nice,” said Vladislav. Haley looked deeply offended and pouted for theatrical effect. Seeming not to notice, the Durmstrang boy continued, “I should actually be seeing you fairly soon, because this is after all my last year at Durmstrang, and I’ve gotten a job at World Oracle newspaper. It’s like the Daily Prophet, but it’s weekly and it’s international, which means that it’s in different languages. I have my own editorial column, and as the headquarters for the newspaper are in Hogsmeade, I’m going to be rooming at the Hog’s Head.”
“That’s great,” exclaimed Marina.
“I’m sorry that we didn’t get to know you better, Vladster,” Haley said. “I mean, I just had the wrong idea about you”I thought you were all moody and school-obsessed and hermit-y like Jordan.” Her twin would have protested this statement, except for the fact that Vladislav beat him to it.
“Not only do I resent that,” he said, “but Jordan is not moody or school-obsessed or ‘hermit-y,’ whatever that means.”
Haley considered this statement and found it to be largely true. Jordan had changed. They’d all changed.
The bell of the Durmstrang ship rang out, and Vladislav started to go. “Well, goodbye,” he said.
“Wait,” Haley insisted. “We need to do a group hug.”
Jordan hunched up his shoulders defensively. “I do not hug,” he protested in exactly hermit-y fashion that Vladislav had just claimed did not describe him. “I avoid it at all costs, if I can help it.”
“Well, you can’t,” Emma told him, and pulled him into the group.
The circle remained perfect for a few short moments, and then was pulled apart as if it was a cake being served up in slices. Vladislav made his way toward the Durmstrang ship (and Tyrone followed to say goodbye to a boy from Durmstrang who he had befriended), Arden and Marina entered the Beauxbatons carriage, Jordan pulled away from the circle, and what was left of it collapsed.
But The Five”Jordan, Haley, Emma, Ivy, and Ted”remained where they were, waving to their foreign friends as they departed, and they continued waving even when the Beauxbatons carriage was nothing but a barely existent speck in the sky and there was no sign of the Durmstrang ship but a bubble on the lake’s surface.
When at last their waving subsided, they felt curiously empty, as though they’d just finished reading a good book that they hadn’t wanted to end, or that they’d left a party when they still felt like dancing.
It is curious how sometimes you don’t realize how much you appreciate someone until they’re no longer there, and the five of them could definitely relate to that.
Silence drifted over the five friends. “Well,” said Ted, breaking it, “I guess that’s it, then. The year’s pretty much over now.”
“I wouldn’t say so,” Ivy replied, and everyone turned to look at her, bewildered.
“What do you mean?” asked Emma, hands planted on her hips.
“Well,” explained Ivy, “We still have our O.W.L.s tests.”
Jordan was taken aback. He had forgotten all about O.W.L.s. Somehow, amidst all of the excitement and chaos of the last several days, O.W.L.s no longer seemed especially important. “Godric… Oh, Godric…I can’t believe it,” he moaned, looking rather ill.
Haley slung an arm around her twin brother, her eyes sparkling. “Jorjums!” she exclaimed, “Jorjums, Jorjums, Jorjums, you silly youngster. We’re Potter’s Pentagon! We caught Malfoy! We stopped Apple! We’ve got a Triwizard champion, a brainiac, an Animagus, the world’s most adorable werewolf, and a… a Haley! We’re all brave and smart and extremely attractive, and we’re modest, too! The O.W.L.s are going to be a piece of cake.”
And as corny as it sounded, Haley was right. They were Potter’s Pentagon, whatever that meant, and the truth united them. They had no more secrets. They’d laughed and cried, lived and loved, grown and changed, won and lost, weathered their ways through clichés like these. The O.W.L.s couldn’t stand in their way.