The Traitors [HP6] *EDITING*

Chapter 12

It took the entire next week, and a few days into October to finally rebuild the Great Hall. The house elves were working overtime, and they could not be happier. Every day Harry walked by, he saw at least a hundred of them, bucket in one hand, some sort of magical tool in the other, and a smile on their face. Sharing their enthusiasm was Malfoy. Everywhere, all that people talked about was his mighty victory over Harry. Some knew the two of them were friends now, some didn't. It didn't matter to them, no one stopped praising Malfoy for his magnificent transformation and wishing that they had seen it.

However, once the week got closer to Friday, the school-wide talk turned from the Dueling Club to the Wizard Duel Card Game Club. From what Harry had been hearing, there would be many more people attending this week's meeting than the handful that came to the last one. Despite all the hype, it wasn't really the meeting that Harry was looking forward to, but the meeting afterwards, with Cho.

"Come on Harry!" called Ron, about an hour before the club would meet. "I want to get down there early, so we can have some time to practice."

"Alright, alright," said Harry, rolling off of his bed, and onto the floor. He put his book down, and walked over to Ron, who was busy adding a few final touches to his deck. They walked down to the common room together, where both of them met a very angry looking Hermione.

"Where do you think you're going, Harry?" she demanded, her arms crossed and a single foot stomping.

"Um, to the Wizard Duel Club Meeting," said Harry, as if it were very obvious. "Not this time," she said seriously.

"What do you mean?" asked Ron.

"You're not skipping this Prefect's Meeting!" barked Hermione. "It's the first one

of the year, and it's a very important one." Harry groaned.

"Oh come on Hermione," he sighed. "Not today...."

"Harry," she said, "with privileges come responsibilities. This is one of your responsibilities. You have to attend these meetings, so come on."

"But I'll miss the Wizard Duel meeting!"

"If you hurry up I'm sure you'll have time for both," said Hermione quickly, checking her watch. "But come on, we have to hurry now! Let's go!"

"Fine," sighed Harry, allowing Hermione to drag him out of the room. "See you later Ron! Don't wait up for me...."

"Don't worry, I won't," grinned Ron as they stepped out of the room. "Have fun!"

"So what exactly do we do at these meetings?" asked Harry as they started walking.

"You never did read your manual, did you?" asked Hermione, shaking her head. Seeing Harry do the same, she continued. "Well, I'll never know how you got to be a Prefect. I mean, sure you're grades are okay and all but-"

"Can you just tell me about the meetings?"

"Well, we do lots of stuff really," she explained. "We talk about things to change around the school to make it better, give the opinions of our house classmates on issues, nominate new prefects for next year, and more. It's really quite fun!"

"I'm sure," said Harry, rolling his eyes, just as they were passing the newly made

Great Hall.

"Wow, the house elves really did a great job on it," smiled Hermione with her

arms on her sides. She stopped for a minute to just look around. "And to think, they did all this... with pay!"

"Yeah, that's great Hermione," said Harry, not sharing her enthusiasm for equal elf rights. "But don't we have to go to the meeting?"