mirrorball

chapter seventeen

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Now that everyone in Clara's life who she trusted knew about her and Harry, everything seemed to be running fairly smooth. She and Harry could share the occasional glance when they were around their friends without worrying about any growing suspicion. The only thing that still turned Clara's stomach was the fact that Draco might still have some thoughts about the two. Clara hadn't told Harry about her conversation with Draco, and she didn't plan to. Draco was not an easy topic for Clara and Harry to talk about, so Clara had decided it would be easier to just ignore it all together. 

"You won't find anything in there," said Hermione firmly, late on Sunday evening. 

"Don't start, Hermione," said Harry. "If it hadn't been for the Prince, Ron wouldn't be sitting here now." 

"He would if you'd just listened to Snape in our first year," said Hermione dismissively. 

Harry ignored her. He continued to scour the pages of his vandalized Potions textbook. Clara looked over Hermione's shoulder and scribbled out one of her answers. 

"That's wrong." She removed her quill from the Gryffindor's paper before diverting her attention to her boyfriend. "That's a foul book."

"What's up your pants, Clara?" asked Ronald, a half-written Herbology essay in front of him. 

"Excuse you?"

"You only talk in choppy sentences when you're mad. Well, you also talk in really complicated sentences when you're mad. You talk in extremes when you're mad, I'll put it that way. So, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." scoffed Clara, "Everything's fine. It's just, doesn't it feel weird to anyone else that there's been practically no sign of Voldemort this year? Doesn't he usually pop up by now in at least some form of evil?"

At this, Harry's attention was finally removed from his book. "No, you're right. I've been thinking the same thing. Dumbledore and I, we think he's planning something big. I've been searching through his memories but, nothing's there."

There had been a certain amount of excitement earlier when they had come back from dinner to find a new sign on the noticeboard that announced the date for their Apparition Test, but that all seemed to have faded. Those who would be seventeen on or before the first test date, the twenty-first of April, had the option of signing up for additional practice sessions, which would take place (heavily supervised) in Hogsmeade. 

Ron had panicked on reading this notice; he had still not managed to Apparate and feared he would not be ready for the test. Hermione and Clara, who had now achieved Apparition on many occasions, were a little more confident, but Harry, who would not be seventeen for another four months, could not take the test whether ready or not. 

"How d'you spell 'belligerent'?" said Ron, shaking his quill very hard while staring at his parchment. "It can't be B — U— M —" 

"No, it isn't," said Hermione, pulling Ron's essay toward her. "And 'augury' doesn't begin O — R — G either. What kind of quill are you using?" 

"It's one of Fred and George's Spell-Check ones . . . but I think the charm must be wearing off. . . ." 

"Yes, it must," said Hermione, pointing at the title of his essay, "because we were asked how we'd deal with dementors, not 'Dugbogs,' and I don't remember you changing your name to 'Roonil Wazlib' either." "Ah no!" said Ron, staring horror-struck at the parchment. "Don't say I'll have to write the whole thing out again!"

 "It's okay, we can fix it," said Hermione, pulling the essay toward her and taking out her wand. 

"I love you, Hermione," said Ron, sinking back in his chair, rubbing his eyes wearily. Hermione turned faintly pink, but merely said, "Don't let Lavender hear you saying that."