The three pre-teens stood and sat in thoughtful silence for a moment while their pregnant ghost seer hovered nearby.
"What about you, Angel?" Harry asked. "Can you offer any insights for the future?"
Angelystor slowly shook her head. "It doesn't work like that. I'm sorry, Harry."
Harry shrugged. "Oh well." He turned to Daphne and grinned. "So, it's all on you now. No pressure."
Daphne scowled. It was all on her.
Daphne sat in defence against the dark arts and stared at Lord Voldemort who was currently demonstrating the correct way to use a tripping jinx to interrupt an enemy incantation.
Hermione sat next to her and she couldn't help notice that her friend was attracting several stares from persons of interest, most notably, Draco Malfoy and John Potter. Both seemed to be trying to bore into Hermione's head with the intensity of their gazes.
Both boys, however, would occasionally switch their gazes to Harry —Malfoy with a look of cold calculation and John Potter with one of scorn and derision.
Harry, sitting in front of her and Hermione as usual, ignored them both and kept his attention on Voldemort, who had just banished away yet another hanging garlic bulb, with a flick of his hand, and a disgusted look on his face.
Daphne couldn't help wondering just how much of quirrell was left, and how much was nothing more than rotting possessed corpse.
She shivered.
After defence, Harry stepped outside the classroom, nodded to Daphne and Draco in turn, and headed off down the corridor. As soon as he was out of eyesight, he whipped out his wand, as he'd made a constant habit of over the past few weeks.
"Homenum revelio."
An invisible consciousness.
presence
faded
into
his Damn. He casually started making his way towards one of the many maze like sections of the castle, determined to quickly lose his annoying pursuer. Really… didn't Dumbledore have more important things to do?
Hermione had barely parted ways from Daphne after defence before she turned a corner into a zigzag corridor and the annoying person stepped out from behind the other corner.
"Hello, Granger." John Potter leaned on a stone pillar by his corner with his legs crossed and his arms folded in the universal, 'I'm a dick' position.
She sighed. "What is it this time?"
"I thought I'd give it another go to have you accept my gift."
Hermione folded her own arms. "I thought I told you I'm not interested."
"Are you sure?" John Potter took out the book from his shoulder bag and wiggled it in front of him. "Nice juicy, juicy book."
Hermione narrowed her eyes.
John Potter opened it. "Listen to this! Handwritten annotations by the original author themselves. Hidden secrets purged from later editions." His voice dipped to a mysterious drawl. "Think of the knowledge, Hermione. Wouldn't you like to read it?"
"Yes," Hermione said through clenched teeth, "I would. It's very nice. But I'm still not accepting it. All you're doing is pissing me off…" Harry ducked into a secret, parseltongue only secret passageway, ascended a steep spiral staircase, walked along a dusty corridor, descended another spiral staircase, came out the other side, and removed his disillusionment, silencing charms, and cloak. Heh. That one had been easy. Dumbles was getting sloppy. He walked up the passageway whistling as he went, until a familiar and most unwelcome voice caught his attention.
"Think of the knowledge, Wouldn't you like to read it?"
Hermione.
Carefully, he crept up the passageway until he reached the corner, leant around it, and saw his brother's back, squaring off against Hermione and waving a book around.
"Potter?" A faint voice called from where he'd just come.
He whirled around. It was Tracey. He put a finger to his lips and motioned her over.
"Yes," Hermione said through clenched teeth, "I would. It's very nice. But I'm still not accepting it. All you're doing is pissing me off…"
Tracey sidled up to him, glanced around the corner, ducked back, and gave him a look of confused suspicion.
"Maybe you just need a little bit more… incentive" John Potter flourished another book so he now held one in each hand. "This is a list of all the books in the Potter Library. You could go through it and choose one for yourself."
Harry narrowed his eyes. He wouldn't mind a look through that himself.
Hermione stuck her nose up in the air. "I'm not accepting any gift from you no matter what it is."
"Oh, come on! John waved the new book around in obvious frustration. What's so bad about me that you, you, Hermione — Jean Granger, would refuse a pick-any-book-you-want from one of the best magical libraries in Britain. It's not as if you're actually agreeing to a contract or anything!"
Hidden behind John, Harry smirked. Beside him, Tracey shot him another suspicious look.
Draco couldn't believe he'd forgotten his book in the defence classroom. It was exactly that kind of sloppy mistake that he didn't need. His standing had taken enough of a beating after what Granger had done to him the other week, thank you very much.
He marched up the corridor and was nearing a zigzag corner when a hated voice stopped him dead.
"It's not as if you're actually agreeing to a contract or anything!"
He pressed himself up against the wall, edged forward and tilted his head around the corner.
Granger was right there. Standing with her back fully exposed to him while John light-shines-out-of-my-arse Potter, ranted and raved while waving around some old looking books.
"My answer is still no." "Not even if I do this?" John Potter dropped one of the books, held his wand up to the other and produced a small flame on it's tip."
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