The next morning we were all but legends amongst our house. We made our way down into the common room to go for breakfast in the Great Hall and we stopped temporarily by a crowd of 20 or more people applauding and cheering as we walked by.
“Come on, Luna!” I shouted over the heads and felt a thump in my back as Luna bounded over to us wearing an animated grin and a gigantic pair of omnioculars around her neck.
“If I lift them up to my eyes,” She demonstrated and lifted them to her excited eyes, “And I press Slow Motion, (she pressed Slow Motion) I can watch all the people come and knock me over as they cheer for what we did.” With the omnioculars pressed firmly against her eyes, she began to laugh as she saw herself slowly falling to the ground as Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein saw her make her way down the stairs.
“Alright, then.” Bless her. I turned my back as on Luna as I shouted to the crowd, “We’ve got to go now, guys, sorry!” A chorus of ‘WHY?’, ‘PARTY POOPERS!’ and ‘What a brave girl’ sounded at us as we made our way swiftly toward the exit, Christina tugging on Luna’s arm who was still watching herself getting trampled on.
“We’ll be back in a minute. It’s just that we need to eat.” I said the last part slowly to emphasise that fact that we were starving after our midnight exertions. The crowd backed off, Terry ushering them back and nodding his head in understanding, and I looked over all the heads to find Jess.
“Jess, leave that first year alone and come and eat!”
“Wait one second,” Her smiling head popped up above the retreating crowd, “I’m just giving this first year my autograph.” She turned back towards the weedy little boy and bent low to his height, a quill in her hand and a photograph of us five in the other, “Now, you want me to address this to you? Michael, wasn’t it?” The boy looked outraged but shook his head slowly.
“Paul? Edmund? Walter?” Jess listed all the possibilities whilst the boy kept shaking his head. After a few minutes of Jess even guessing that Bernard the painting was right and he could be called Lisa, she finally gave up and the boy leant forward to whisper to her his name.
“Right, then,” She stuck her tongue between her teeth and said the words as she scribbled them onto the page, “ ‘Dear Hercules,’ it is Hercules, right? Anyway, ‘Dear Hercules, good luck for the rest of your Hogwarts days. Steal as many Slytherin possessions as possible without getting caught and send them on to me. Best wishes, Jessica Lockhart xx.’ There you go.”
Hercules ran off and back into the crowds, holding the photograph for dear life in the clutches of his arms as Jess walked over to us with a patronising look all over her face. “Wasn’t he sweet?!”
“Um, Jess, since when did you have a mail-order system for Slytherin heirlooms?” I asked, grabbing her by the arm and steering her away from another set of ‘adoring fans’, “And when did you send out pictures of us for them all to sign?!”
“Oh, that!” She said, smiling and waving the problem away with her hand, “Well I figured we had plenty of old pictures lying around and so I did a bit of gluing here and there, with the help of some Spellotape in a few tricky areas, and there we go!”
“Jess, have you gone mad?!” Christina asked, swinging her head forward to look over Jess’s forehead for any sign of a bump or bruise. Alas, receiving none, she lent back, muttering to herself.
“When you say ‘old pictures’…” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think many people will know it’s you, really. You’ve changed a lot since the picture I used…” Jess stuck her hand into her bag, rummaging around for a bit before finding what she had been looking for and pulled out one of the last pictures she had. “Hot off the press.”
I was mortified. “Where on earth did you find this picture?!” I yelled, waving the photograph in front of her face and stopping her in her tracks just before we entered the Great Hall.
“Ah,” She sighed, “You didn’t really have many pictures of yourself that people would be able to recognise, so I grabbed the one that looked most like you…”
“You think that people will be able to recognise this?!” I yelled and looked back down at the photograph my mum had taken when I was little older than 5 months old. Crawling on the old flowery carpet, bare-bottomed and with a cheeky smile on my face as I turned my head around to look at the camera, I wondered why I had even put that photo into my suitcase…
“Oh, Hannah, aren’t you cute?” Christina cooed over my shoulder, pinching my cheek and stroking the photo of me.
“Not really,” Luna also appeared over my shoulder, “The Flantulian Imp is much cuter.”
“Thanks a lot, Luna, you’re a real charmer.” I said sarcastically and grabbed the picture back from between the long fingers of Luna before smoothing it down and surreptitiously sliding it into my satchel. “I really wanted to know that a goblin is better looking than me.” I muttered.
“Let’s eat.” Luna said dreamily and opened the doors in which hundreds of students were already gathered, awaiting our arrival to be able to finally applaud the people that had actually stood up to Slytherin after thousands of years. We made our way down through the tables, receiving death glares from Slytherin and claps on the backs from everyone else.
The Weasley twins came down and sat next to Christina and I as we made our way along the Ravenclaw table to get away from the flocks of adoring fans that had somehow pinned Luna against a wall to question her, and Jess was happily sitting amidst a circle of sixth and seventh years Quidditch players from all the houses (apart from Slytherin).
“Tell me-“ Fred started.
“Tell us.” George interjected.
“-how on earth you managed to get that chair out of the Slytherins’ common room-“
“The Slytherins!”
“-without getting caught.” The both stared at Christina and me with wide eyes as we slowly ate our breakfast whilst trying to pick out the right words in our heads. Finally, after clearing what I had prepared, I opened my mouth to speak.
“It wasn’t all that hard, actually. We just made a small plan and went along with our instincts. Of course, the teachers knew nothing about it and we-“
“We were caught.” Christina put in and I stopped talking immediately to send a well-earned glare at her as the twins laughed. “Just right at the very end and after Hannah had pushed the chair into the lake.” She looked back at me and smiled mockingly.
“How did you find out about it anyway? We didn’t think anyone would find out after Snape caught us.” I asked Fred, and George answered…well, at least I think it was George.
“Luna was never must of a distraction-artist. After trying to get us to look out of the windows to see the Blumbering Humdinger that was meant to be tearing up the roots of the Whomping Willow, we knew instantly that there was no such thing and she gave up, eventually spilling the beans on your plan.-“
“So, like all good students, we went out of our way to find you to stop you.” Fred said, smirking slightly with a little glint in his eye, “We searched the Slytherin corridor first since we didn’t know the password-“
“More like we didn’t want all the other nosy sods knowing what the password is.” George grumbled.
“-and then went to the grounds to see if we could find you with the chair. But, being clever gits-“ he reached over and ruffled up our hair, “-you had gone the back way to the lake so that by the time we reached the outskirts of it, the chair had completely disappeared under the weeds. All we found were your footsteps leading straight back up to the castle.”
“And a lot of angry Merpeople.” I laughed at George’s pained expression as he winced and felt around his hairline, “I don’t think my hair will ever grow on that part of my head again.”
“BACK OFF!” I heard Jess shout and I turned my back on Fred and George to see her perched precariously on top of Gryffindor’s table with a fork in one hand and a spoon in the other.
“I have a fork and…spoon and I’m not afraid to use it?!” She shouted and jabbed the cutlery forward at the small crowd of Gryffindor Quidditch players as they moved closer and closer towards her, greedy looks on their faces and hands open out in front of them ready to grab her.
I turned back around to see the twins roaring with laughter at Jess and hurriedly jumped out of my seat with Christina, calling over my shoulder, “Sorry, guys, maybe another time, eh?” We ran forward at lightening speed, not honestly caring who we barged into or who fell over in our wake to rescue Jess.
“Matt? MATT?!” She called again, “COME UP HERE AND DEFEND MY HONOUR!” Jess jabbed an oncoming seventh year with the fork as he reached for her leg. “MATT! HURRY UP, I WON’T BE ABLE TO LAST MUCH LONGER!”
“I’m coming, babe, just one minute!” He called back, and I looked to where the voice came from to see Matt currently in the middle of signing autographs for swooning fourth years as Colin Creevey circled around him, taking photographs from every angle.
“Leave him, Christina, he can handle himself. It’s Jess we need to rescue…and maybe Luna!” I shouted to her even though she was right next to me. The noise everyone was making was immense that I was very surprised that Dumbledore hadn’t said anything. Although, when I looked at the teachers’ table, not one single professor was there.
“Probably discussing what had happened last night.”
“Or having a lie-in. I heard the teachers can throw one heck of a party…”
“Alright, we’ll split up. You handle Jess and her admirers,” I said with a cough, “And I’ll go and rescue Luna. Sound like a deal?”
“Fine, but hurry! I don’t think Luna will be able to hold off Quidditch players for long!” Christina called as we went our separate ways to somehow get the girls out of the Hall…alive.
I pushed my way past crowding Hufflepuffs as they stood discussing whether or not they should go and get the teachers to stop this. I ignored them and swallowed down an insult as I made my way deeper and deeper into the bulk of tightly packed witches and wizards to find the source of most of this commotion. As I delved deeper, I heard a scream erupting not far from where I was and pushed the next person over in my haste to get to the potential killing.
“I’M COMING LUNA!” I shouted, pushing more people over, “HOLD ON!” At long last, after having to stop to give my autograph to a first-year, I made it into the middle of the labyrinth of pupils where I expected to see Luna lying on the ground, surrounded by a puddle of blood. How wrong I was.
Luna was in the centre of the pupils, but she wasn’t on the floor and she certainly wasn’t dead. Instead she appeared to be having fun, throwing her head back and shrieking with laughter again. It was then that I realised that the screaming I had heard was actually Luna laughing.
“Oh Hannah,” She gasped, grabbing her sides as she shook with laughter, “These people are so funny! I- can’t- breathe!”
“That’s great Luna,” I replied rather unenthusiastically and started to back out of the circle that had gathered around her, all of them with a look of deep love and affection on their faces as they gazed at Luna and the boy who was making her laugh so hard, “I’ll leave you to…”
My sentence trailed off into thin air though no-one noticed. Over the top of Luna’s head, beyond the Great Hall doors and into the corridor beyond, an orange glow was being produced from the far room.
I stepped over the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff fourth and fifth-years, my eyes securely focused on the glow emitting from the room, and slowly made my way out of the Hall, not even noticing Christina and Jess shouting for me to stop.
I walked down the deserted corridor quietly, not daring to make a sound in case I scared off whoever was at the end and in that room. But no sound came out of it except for a faint rustling. As I passed the last door on my left before coming to a stop in front of the ‘orange’ room, I smelt a smell that reminded me of my childhood before I realised I was a witch and used to attend Bonfire Night every November with my family: it was the smell of smoke.
Hurrying now, I ran the last few steps to the room and gasped at the sight in front of me. In the centre of the room was a raging fire- the orange glow I could see from the Hall- which was crackling as something was being thrown onto the flames by the only person in the room; Draco.
As I made my way warily into the room, making sure to stay at the very edges, he looked up and stared at me, the orange glow reflected in his eyes. I tip-toed more into the room and he tore his gaze away from my frightened frame as he resumed throwing pieces of paper into the bonfire.
“I was hoping you would come.” He spoke at last, his voice deep and quiet, “I’ve been meaning to speak to you.”
“What about?” I asked politely, and then I remembered what he had done to me and added quickly and venomously on the end, “I said everything I wanted to last week.”
Draco glanced up at me again and smirked, “I mean about last night.” This made me smile and I jumped the last of the few steps remaining so that I was no in the corner of the heated room.
“It was a lot of fun, Malfoy, I knew you would approve.” I snuck a quick glance at him under my eyelashes as he snorted, “Thanks, by the way, for the password. We never would have made it into the room without your stupidity.”
I waited for the torrent of insults that he could, and would, throw at me, yet none came. I was shocked, but surpassed it with a jibe, “What? No fight?”
“No. No fight.” Malfoy said quietly and chucked one of the remaining pieces of paper into the fire. “I was just wondering why you didn’t just use the ‘Alohamora’ spell to make it float instead of carrying it.”
This stumped me and I inwardly cursed. “Well…umm…because…we wanted…the added satisfaction of knowing we’d done it ourselves.” I nodded as if this would make my stupid reason feasible. How had I forgotten that we could use magic inside the school?!
I looked down at my hands as I cringed at myself and saw that Draco wasn’t coaxing the flame with paper or parchment, but photographs. “Who’s on the pictures?”
“You.” He said simply and through another one into the fire after sneaking a peek at me. “What? No fight?”
“No, I’d rather forget that period of my life. A block fringe and chipmunk teeth, I looked nearly as bad as Flint.” I shook with repulsion and saw Malfoy do a double-take.
“You’re- you’re not angry?”
“No, like I said, I’d rather forget when I looked like that.” I motioned down to the current non-moving photo he had in his hand of me when I was in year 5 with thick, mousey-brown hair and bucked teeth as I smiled for the school yearbook. “But how did you get them? I didn’t bring any with me here.”
Draco cleared his throat and spoke quickly, “I have my sources.”
“You mean you paid Flint to break into my parents’ house and steal photos?” I cocked an eyebrow and laughed at his plan, “That’s even more ridiculous than our plan to steal your throne.”
We stood for a while, each in our own thoughts and then it hit me like a cold, hard fish. This was the first time Malfoy and I had talked in over a week without either one of us shouting or throwing spells at each other. “Why’d you do it?” I choked out.
“Do what?” He asked.
“Break my heart?” I whispered and looked up at him.
He sighed, “I wished that we wouldn’t hit this little snag.”
“Snag?”
“Yes, this snag!” Malfoy looked over at me, dropping the last of the photos into the fire, “I had to do it.”
“No you didn’t.” I whispered again.
“Yes I bloody well did!” He shouted exasperatedly and folded his hands behind his head.
After a moment I asked, “Why?”
“Because…because I needed to get away from you!” Malfoy half-shouted half-sighed and it all dawned on me.
“Well, thanks a lot.” I moved around the fire so that I was getting closer and closer to the door, “You did me a real favour.”
“And what might that be?” He asked, cocking an eyebrow and frowning.
“You saved me from you! Yeah, you’re a real bloody champion; saving your own skin just about saved mine!” I had reached the door now and, sending one last tear-stained glance his way, I ran out of it.
“Wait!” He called after me, but I had already gone. But in that one glance that pierced me, I saw a mountain of sorrow and hurt. No matter what, his plan had not worked out the way he wanted it to and I don’t think I will ever know if the tears in his eyes were caused by the smoke in that room or something that ran deep inside of him.
I made a promise to myself as I ran back to the common room. Under no circumstances would I ever allow myself to be alone with Malfoy again.
