The Potter Twins and the Order of the Phoenix {5}

33. Career Advice

"Time to pack your bags, no more looking back, so quit your crying. I know you know you're guilty, guess you must have had me in a trance, and now you've lost your chance" ~ Hypnotised, Set if Off

"But why haven't you got Occlumency lessons anymore?" says Hermione, frowning.

"We've told you," Harry mutters. "Snape reckons we can carry on by ourselves now we've got the basics."

"So you've stopped having funny dreams?" says Hermione sceptically.

"Essentially, yes," I say, not looking at her. 

"Well, I don't think Snape should stop until you're both absolutely sure you can control them!" says Hermione indignantly. "Haylee, Harry, I think you should go back to him and ask-- "

"No," says Harry forcefully. "Just drop it, Hermione, okay?"

It is the first day of the Easter holidays and Hermione, as is her custom, has spent a large part of the day drawing up revision timetables for the four of them. Harry, Ron, and I let her do it; it is easier than arguing with her and, in any case, they might come in useful.

Ron had been startled, however, to discover there are only six weeks left until our exams.

"How can that come as a shock?" Hermione demands as she taps each little square on Ron's timetable with her wand so that it flashes a different colour according to its subject.  

"I dunno," says Ron, "there's been a lot going on."

"Well, there you are," she says, handing him his timetable, "if you follow that you should do fine."

Ron looks down it gloomily, but then brightens. 

"You've given me an evening off every week!"

"That's for Quidditch practice," says Hermione.

The smile fades from Ron's face.

"What's the point?" he says dully. "We've got about as much chance of winning the Quidditch Cup this year as Dad's got of becoming Minister for Magic."

"We've come back from worse," I say absentmindedly, but I don't quite believe my own words. With a Keeper who lacks confidence, a Beater whose still too frightened of hurting people, and a very stressed out captain, our chances are dwindling by the minute.

"What's wrong, Harry?" Hermione says suddenly, drawing me out of my inner-whining about Quidditch. He's staring absently at the wall, almost oblivious to the presence of Crookshanks at his side, whose pawing him persistently. 

"What?" he says quickly. "Nothing."

He seizes his copy of Defensive Magical Theory and pretends to be looking something up in the index. Crookshanks gives him up as a bad job and slinks away under Hermione's chair.

"I saw Cho earlier," says Hermione tentatively. "She looked really miserable, too ... have you two had a row again?"

I cringe upon remembering their argument. 

"Wha--oh, yeah, we have," says Harry. But I can tell that this isn't what's really bothering him. 

"What about?"

"That sneak friend of hers, Marietta," says Harry.

"Yeah, well, I don't blame you!" says Ron angrily, setting down his revision timetable. "If it hadn't been for her..."

Ron goes on a rant about Marietta Edgecombe, which I'm sure Harry is grateful for. He occasionally adds a very half-hearted comment to Ron's rant but remains spaced out, thinking about only one possible thing. Snape's memory. 

It's almost as if the memory is eating him from the inside. It was a shock to see, of course, but Harry seems far more distressed about it than I. Perhaps it's down to the fact that people always liken Harry to our father, and me to our mother. Or maybe he idolises Dad so much that he's forgotten that he, too, was once an angsty teenager who made mistakes. I'm sure that the redeeming quality of that memory was the fact that our mother stepped in, but that, of course, poses the question of how on earth our parents ever fell in love when they clearly had very different belief systems. 

I will admit, however, that if I did not now know our father first hand I would have been more disturbed by the memories. For I now know through my own memories and experience that he is ultimately a good person, regardless of his teenage endeavours. I'm not quite sure if Harry has grasped this concept yet.