Disclaimer: The fine tapestry of plot and characters belongs to J.K. Rowling. I am merely pulling threads at will and weaving my own design in counterpoint to hers.
Chapter 19
Just Like Family
It seemed that the entire school was slow in waking the following morning. The discarded school robes were piled at the end of each House table awaiting their owners’ retrieval in the Great Hall. Harry was groggily shifting through the pile when Ginny came up right behind him and startled him.
“How do you manage to do that “ even without the chameleon suit?” he asked, smiling in spite of himself.
“Just one of the survival skills I had to hone in a house full of brothers,” she remarked with a small shrug. “Got any big plans for the day?”
Her forthrightness always caught him off guard, but Harry managed to not sound like a total idiot when he admitted that his schedule was wide open.
To his delight, she offered, “I think it’s time for that dueling match I promised you.”
They discussed the details as they companionably consumed their breakfast, Harry detailing the problems that he and Ron had experienced with projectiles.
“Oh, I found a charm for that,” Ginny volunteered gamely. “We’ll just have to limit ourselves to a more confrontational style until we get a chance to practice outside.”
They passed Neville on the stairs outside of the stone sconce and he informed them in a sleepy voice that Ron and Hermione had just left to join Professor Hooch. Once inside the common room, Ginny quickly cast the repelling charm that would contain their spells within a certain circumference. Having cleared some space in the middle of the floor, they paced off.
On the count of ten, Harry spun around to hit Ginny with a disarming spell only to find that she wasn’t standing where he had expected. From a crouching position, she immediately knocked him off his feet with a well-placed stupefying charm. The next round, she allowed him to think his impediment jinx was successful and when he approached, she hit him with a leg locker curse that dropped him like a stone.
Determined to maintain his concentration in the following round, Harry barely had time to block her from summoning the wand right out of his hand only to find that her real objective was to hex his knees into buckling beneath him. He pretended that the spell had hit squarely, instead of just marginally, as he rolled over onto this stomach. Casting a tickling charm back at her, he watched with satisfaction as she collapsed on the nearest cushion.
Ginny was still laughing weakly when Harry’s numbness finally eased and he limped over to see if she was all right. She was still breathing heavily from the exertion of all that laughter. As he drew near, the tiniest flash in her eyes alerted him that she was laying a trap. He hesitated long enough for her to become overconfident and then spun out of the way just in time, dodging immediately behind a stray armchair to hit her with a full body bind.
The shock was apparent on her face as she stood glued to the spot. Panting heavily, Harry laid his wand on the table next to Ginny to indicate a ceasefire. He unhurriedly pulled two bottles of cold butterbeer from Ron’s stash and sat down on the sofa. Deciding to turn the tables on her, he leisurely retrieved his wand and cast finite wordlessly to unfreeze her body followed immediately by a swift accio to pull the wand from her fingers. He miscalculated on the last one and her wand spun harmlessly across the room instead.
Freed from her standing position, she gratefully collapsed on the nearest cushion as Harry handed her a cold butterbeer.
“That went better than I thought,” Ginny commented after she had gulped half of the contents of the bottle. “Still, I think we need to practice somewhere that will allow us to really let loose. A real life opponent is not likely to observe polite rules, if you know what I mean.”
Harry made his way to the nearest window to check on the weather conditions outside only to find that yesterday’s rain had changed to ice.
“It won’t be today.” He sighed wearily as he surveyed the sodden grounds. If it hadn’t been so breezy, the ice crystals might have formed shimmering icicles on the tree branches. But as it was, they were more likely to feel like stinging knives on any uncovered parts of the body.
He returned to where Ginny was seated and plopped down on a nearby cushion. “Say, Ginny, what was the name of the dance that Professor Hooch did last night?”
“The one that McGonagall remembered from her glory days? I think it was the tarantella. Why all the sudden interest?” she asked skeptically.
“I think I remember someone using a hex with a very similar name on Neville; it kept his legs moving continuously like he was tap dancing wildly.”
“Was he any good?” Ginny inquired as she raised her eyebrows in an appraising look.
“Are you kidding? He looked like someone had tied his shoelaces together!”
“Maybe that’s the secret,” Ginny quipped, barely able to get the words out between her laughter. “First you tie his shoelaces, then hit him with this dancing hex, and he’ll tie himself into a knot right at your feet!”
When they finally came up for air, Harry decided it was time to change the subject. “Speaking of dancing, did you see all those girls that couldn’t wait to ask Mr. Stevens for a dance?”
Ginny nodded solemnly. “I think Susan Bones was one of them; but couldn’t tell for sure from across the room. I don’t know why that should surprise you, though, they did much the same thing at the Yule Ball.”
“I don’t remember Stevens from the Yule Ball,” Harry joked.
“Not him, silly. At the Yule Ball, it was Severus Snape.”
Harry was rendered totally speechless “ the absolute last person he could image as a dance partner was Snape! Ginny must have seen the shocked look on his face as she started to giggle.
“I guess you really don’t remember. It may have been after you left.”
Harry scoured his brain for the memory that must be there but to no avail. He remembered Dumbledore and McGonagall joining the champions and their dates during the opening dance. Later when he was attempting to keep a sulky Ron company, he vaguely recalled seeing Snape ask McGonagall for a dance -- but that was just part of the expected protocol.
“Are you sure it wasn’t some sort of a dare?” Harry postulated.
“It may very well have started that way; but mark my words, he left the first girl breathless. After her girlfriends saw how masterfully he’d swirled her in and out of the other couples on the dance floor, they all wanted to have a dance themselves.”
“I just can’t imagine anyone wanting to socialize with Snape…”
“Who said anything about socializing? He maintained the same disdainful expression as always “ but he made everyone else on that dance floor look like a clumsy amateur by comparison.”
“How can you recall all those details so many years later?” Harry’s curiosity was piqued.
“Because to this day, I regret not screwing up my courage and asking him for a dance myself. He was that exceptional!”
Harry was truly at a loss for words. Sensing this, Ginny implored, “Please don’t repeat that, Harry “ not even to Hermione. She was probably too wrapped up in Viktor to notice what anyone else was up to that night. It’s like trying to explain Remus being mobbed last night to someone who wasn’t there.”
“So now you’re telling me you thought Lupin looked manly in his centurion garb?” Harry observed with a low laugh. “And since when do you call him by his first name, anyway?”
“I’ve always called him by his first name, he’s an old family friend. I just don’t do it in front of outsiders.” At Harry’s surprised expression, she elaborated, “How many times have you spent Christmas with the family, Harry? And in all those years, wasn’t Remus there as well?”
“I just assumed it was after he had been our teacher…” Harry stammered.
“Actually, I think you have it backwards. You started spending Christmas with us after Remus’ first stint at Hogwarts, but Remus was spending Christmas with us long before that.”
Harry felt suddenly like his whole world was tilting. In an effort to put things in perspective, he entreated, “Do you mean to tell me that when Ron chose to sit in the same compartment with Lupin on the Hogwarts Express, they were not the strangers that they pretended to be?”
“Yes. And if he’d acted any differently, it would have undermined Remus’ authority as a teacher. You know how Remus is about social protocols. Ron and I were both very conscious of how much that job meant to him. We would never have expected him to treat us with any favoritism, either.” Ginny took a quick look around before lowering her voice to a mere whisper, “As a matter of fact “ and you have to promise you will never tell a soul, not even Ron knows this “ my parents almost named Remus as my godfather when I was born!”
“Are you serious? He’s never said anything--”
“”that’s because Mum and Dad never got around to actually asking him. It was so soon after the death of your parents “ they were his best friends, you know “ that it seemed like too much of a burden to place on Remus’ shoulders. He lost everything in that moment just like you did, Harry.”
“What about Lupin’s parents?” Harry couldn’t help but ask.
Ginny shrugged. “I’ve always had the impression that he was a late baby, so his parents were not so young anymore. I think they passed away not long after he finished his schooling.”
“They weren’t killed by--”
“No, no, I’m almost certain it was natural causes.”
Harry glanced around and was surprised to see Hermione climbing noiselessly through the stone sconce. Suspecting that Ginny’s shield also rebounded sound waves, he hastily located his wand and cast a finite spell in the general direction of the ceiling. Ginny caught on immediately, and between the two of them, they were able to neutralize the protective barrier.
“Sorry about that, Hermione, we were just trying to practice dueling without having every stray spell threaten to bring down the tower,” Harry explained.
“Looks like that spell would come in handy if you wanted a bit of privacy, too,” Hermione commented with a knowing glance as she continued to shake the ice crystals from her hat and scarf.
“Not really,” Ginny replied with a slight note of defiance, “the first time anyone gets near the barrier, it will burst just like a soap bubble. Not to mention that the shield imparts a rather unpleasant zap to the person that shatters it.”
“So where did you go off to this morning, Hermione?” Harry inquired in an attempt to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“Oh, I went with Professor Hooch to visit her sister in Teabury Crossing, a little village not far from here. She goes there periodically to have her hair done at her sister’s beauty shop. It was an ideal opportunity for me as there’s a cyber-café right next door. I couldn’t wait to e-mail my cousin all about last night.”
“I can’t believe you went out in weather like this,” Ginny remarked.
“Didn’t know when else I would get the opportunity otherwise,” Hermione offered. “Besides, the worst part was just getting down to the gates, after that we could just Apparate to Professor Hooch’s cottage “ it’s just on the other side of Hogsmeade “ and then it’s just a short drive. Has Ron come back yet?”
“I thought he was with you,” Harry said with a shrug.
“He was a bit put off by the sleet, so he opted to help the Creevey brothers develop their photos today. Professor Slughorn had turned one of the potion laboratories into a makeshift dark room and they were having a great time sloshing developing fluids everywhere when I left them. If you can imagine it, Slughorn was perched on top of the tables in the main classroom, stringing clothesline from one end of the room to the other. He made them promise to remove the dripping photographs as soon as they dried so the room was put back to normal before class tomorrow.”
Ron arrived close to suppertime bearing telltale splashes of variously colored solutions all over his clothing. “Man, was that fun!” he rhapsodized. “Did you realize that Muggles have this magical paper that absorbs the image directly from the camera? Then when you wash it in a special potion, the image is coaxed to the top of the paper so it can be seen.”
“Is that not the same way in which magical moving photos are developed?” posed Harry.
“Apparently not,” Hermione answered. “Slughorn insisted from the start that Dennis and Colin use only manual photo equipment and traditional black and white film so that they could do all the work themselves. The headmistress agreed that none of those devices would be affected by the magical currents within the castle, so it was just one more way to stay true to the spirit of the event. I’m just sorry none of the photos were ready in time for me to upload them to my cousin.”
“How did the photos turn out, Ron?” Harry inquired.
“Absolutely brilliant!” Ron gushed. “They even got the most incredible pose out of Filch! They’ll have the bulk of them up by tomorrow; McGonagall said they could use the entire wall where Umbridge posted her infamous educational decrees.”
Harry Potter and the Hero's Lament by L A Moody
Chapter Notes: The long awaited practice duel between Harry and Ginny leads to unexpected revelations.