Midnight In Hogwarts | Harry Potter FanFiction

Capitulum Tredecim

After a long talk with Sirius and Remus, Harry returned to the Gryffindor Tower extremely late which meant that he had to wait to speak to Ron and Hermione until they left breakfast for Herbology the following morning. The horrid weather of the weekend had vanished only to be replaced by the strange mist that they had seen so much of in the past few months. Ron and Hermione had listened to the entire story in amazement, not saying a word until Harry was finished.

They took their places around one of the gnarled Snargaluff stumps that formed this terms project and pulled on their protective gloves. The rest of the class was taking their positions which meant any sort of conversation would have to be kept to whispers. "It's quite scary, once you think about it," Ron said softly. "But I don't get why Dumbledore's showing you all this. Wouldn't it be better to teach you spells?"

Harry inserted the gum shield. "Sirius is doing that," he said with a shrug then rested his hands against the sides of the stump. "Dumbledore wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't a reason. I'll just have to be patient for now. You two ready?" Ron and Hermione nodded. Closing his eyes, Harry concentrated on sending calming waves of reassurance while Ron and Hermione concentrated on getting the pod out. He felt the stump tense and concentrated harder of assuring the stump that there was no danger. It sounded stupid when you thought about it but theoretically it should work. He could feel the stump relaxing and let out a sigh of relief.

A tap on Harry's shoulder pulled him out of his trance. He opened his eyes to see Hermione clutching an unpleasantly pulsating green object about the size of a grapefruit. He handed over a bowl then grabbed something sharp to puncture it with while Hermione dropped the pod in. He handed that over and moved back to the stump when Hermione's voice stopped him.

"Actually, I think it's fascinating," Hermione said seriously.

That had been the last thing Harry had been expecting to hear. "Fascinating, Hermione?" he asked. "It's anything but fascinating. He was a monster even before he was eleven-years-old. He enjoyed hurting people."

Hermione looked at Harry sympathetically. "That's not what I meant, Harry," she said. "I think it makes sense to know as much as you can about Voldemort. It's an ideal way to find out any weaknesses, don't you think? I agree with you. It is shocking to learn that he was that way when he was so young."

Harry stared at Hermione sympathetically. "Sorry," he said as he once again rested his hands on the stump before closing his eyes and concentrating on sending reassuring waves to the stump. This time, however, it didn't work as well. Harry and Ron were forced to fight away long and prickly vines that few out of the top and whipped through the air. While Ron beat the vines again, Harry quickly plunged his arm into the hole and pulled out another pod as quickly as possible. Once he did, the vines shot back inside the stump, making it look like nothing other than a dead lump of wood.

"So how was Slughorn's party last night," Harry asked as he dropped his pod into another bowl.

Hermione managed to puncture her pod, filling her bowl with tubers wriggling like pale green worms. "Oh, it was actually quite fun," she said as she pulled off her goggles. "Slughorn was disappointed that you had to miss...again and went on and on about you before settling with McLaggen. He did give us some really nice food, though, and introduced us to Gwenog Jones."

"Gwenog Jones?" Ron asked in shock as he pulled off his own goggles. "The Gwenog Jones? The Captain of the Holyhead Harpies?"

Hermione nodded as she squeezed the rest of the tubers out of her pod. "Actually, I thought she was a bit full of herself," she said matter-of-factly. "Going on and on about how much she had done for her team and then started questioning McLaggen and Ginny about you, Harry. I guess their Seeker isn't the greatest so she was wondering if you would consider playing Quidditch professionally."