Obliviate My Heart {Book 2}

32. Calm Before The Storm

"Dumbledore reckons You-Know-Who's getting stronger again as well?" Ron whispered.

Turns out Harry didn't go to the hospital wing. He went to Dumbledore, and told him about his dream. He'd gone into a pensive, which showed memories. I decided I would get one if Voldemort didn't kill me.

I should have gone to Dumbledore as well, but I refused. I didn't want him to know that it was one of the Oswins who wanted to kill me. I wanted to face them off bravely, get the truth out instead of cowering.

"And he trusts Snape?" Gennie said. "He really trusts Snape, even though he knows he was a Death Eater?"

"Yes," said Harry.

Hermione had not spoken for ten minutes. She was sitting with her forehead in her hands, staring at her knees. Cole was rather subdued as well, sat at Gennie's feet.

"Rita Skeeter," she muttered finally.

"How can you be worrying about her now?" I asked.

"I'm not worrying about her," Hermione said to her knees. "I'm just thinking. . .remember what she said to me in the Three Broomsticks? 'I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl. ' This is what she meant, isn't it? She reported his trial, she knew he'd passed information to the Death Eaters. And Winky too, remember . ..'Ludo Bagman's a bad wizard.' Mr. Crouch would have been furious he got off, he would have talked about it at home."

"Yeah, but Bagman didn't pass information on purpose, did he?" Cole shrugged in a bored tone.

"And Fudge reckons Madame Maxime attacked Crouch?" Ron said, turning back to Harry.

"Yeah," said Harry, "but he's only saying that because Crouch disappeared near the Beauxbatons carriage."

"We never thought of her, did we?" said Ron slowly. "Mind you, she's definitely got giant blood, and she doesn't want to admit it-"

"Of course she doesn't," said Gennie sharply, looking up. "Look what happened to Hagrid when Rita found out about his mother. Look at Fudge, jumping to conclusions about her, just because she's part giant. Who needs that sort of prejudice? I get enough because of who my Father is."

We all silent for a while. Then Hermione looked at her watch. "We haven't done any practicing!" she said, looking shocked. "We were going to do the Impediment Curse! We'll have to really get down to it tomorrow! Come on. Harry, you need to get some sleep."

We all headed off to bed, and I went off quite quickly, despite the fact my stomach was beginning to churn with nerves.

Cole and Gennie were supposed to be studying for their exams, which would finish on the day of the third task, but they were putting most of their efforts into helping me prepare.

"Don't worry about it," Cole said shortly when I pointed this out to them, "at least we'll get top marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts. We'd never have found out about all these hexes in class."

The mood in the castle as they entered June became excited and tense again. Everyone was looking forward to the third task, which would take place a week before the end of term.

I was practicing hexes at any given moment. I'd even used some on Minnie, just to get practice. Only thing now was that my cat was ignoring me now, and going off to Alia instead.

Tired of walking in on us all over the school (especially during breaks when Gennie and Cole would snog) Professor McGonagall had given us permission to use the empty Transfiguration classroom at lunchtimes.

I had soon mastered the Impediment Curse, a spell to slow down and obstruct attackers; the Reductor Curse, which would enable me to blast solid objects out of his way; and the Four-Point Spell, a useful discovery that would make my wand point due north.