In the Melancholy Moonlight, Part 3: Supernova

Chapter 129: Both

LUCY:

Harry closed the door behind us and caught up to me in two long strides.

"Wait, what is this about your patronus, Lu? Of course you still can."

I tucked my hands in my pockets, staring at my shoes. "Every memory I've ever used to produce a patronus had him in it."

"Oh." He fell silent, but he walked a little closer to me. I could tell there was something on his mind, but seeing as it probably concerned me, I didn't really want to hear it, so I did the best I could to keep the attention off of me as much as possible.

"Did Ginny have a nightmare? Is that why she headed down with you?"

"Yeah, she did. How did you know?"

"She's not terribly hard to read when you know her well."

Neither are you, I almost added.

"Neither are you," he said.

Well, that was... something. What WAS that?

I almost laughed. I almost said something. But I didn't, just shrugged and smiled a bit.

He grinned and glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. "So, the Knight Bus? Really something, isn't it?"

"It is," I agreed. "A bit faster than a train would have been."

"A bit. Not that I'm complaining, of course, I'm glad you're back. I was worried something would happen and you'd be stuck in London."

"Being a delinquent would only be fun if I got to be one with you," I remarked, recalling our conversation the day of his hearing.

Harry laughed. "Yeah, exactly. Well, at this rate, the two of us might still end up in that situation for leading this group of ours, but at least we'd be together."

I couldn't help but grin. "As long as we teach these people something on the way out, it would be worth it."

We fell silent as we entered the castle, agreeing wordlessly that we should head to the common room as soon as possible, as if nothing had ever happened, as if I had never gone anywhere. It was possible, after all, that Umbridge just thought I'd been hiding up in my dormitory or something, after all, so there was no reason to go out of our way to try to make a big deal of anything.

We each headed up to our respective dormitories to fetch our school bags.

Hermione's head snapped up as soon as I opened the door. She gasped and sprinted over to hug me.

"You're back early! What happened? Are you alright? How was it? What did you learn?"

Her steady stream of questions alerted Lav and Parvati to my presence, so they hugged me in rapid succession too.

I started to explain as best I could while I made sure I had everything I needed in my bag. "It was a long two days, and no one knows why my magic is so inconsistent, but they ruled out a couple of the worst possibilities. With Umbridge seizing more control every day, they seemed to think it would be best if I came back early this morning so she couldn't try to stop me or something."

Hermione huffed. "That makes sense, unfortunately, how rapidly she's seizing control of everything she can is horrific. But... no answers? Just eliminations?"

"Yeah." I couldn't meet her eyes. "It's alright, though. I'm not dying or anything." I slung my bag over my shoulder. "I am hungry, though, so I'll meet you down there."

"I'm ready, I'll head down with you," Hermione said quickly. So, soon enough, we made our way down to the Great Hall.

I forced my way in between the twins. "You didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?"