Ron inspected himself in the window for a moment. 'Blimey, Hermione,' he gaped. 'How did you do this?' Even his voice sounded different, smoother and higher. Hermione swelled up with pride, about to burst into explanation, but Harry shook his head and pointed upstairs. If she really wanted to share everything about the spell then she should do it later.
Ron darted up the stairs, the echo of his footsteps fading until there came a distant cry. 'Stupefy, stupefy,' Harry heard, before Ron came back round the corner.
'I thought you were going to distract them,' Hermione hissed.
'Well it seemed easier to just stun them,' he shrugged. 'They're not hurt, they didn't even see me.'
'Fine,' she cancelled her enchantments with a wave of her wand, and Ron winced as his face rearranged itself. 'That's bloody uncomfortable,' he swore quietly. Hermione shot him a glare for using foul language.
'Let's go,' Neville decided, leading the group on towards the Room of Requirement. He paused before the entrance, concentrating briefly, before the unremarkable door to the Room of Hidden Things appeared.
'Wow,' Harry feigned admiration upon entering. 'You hid it here?'
'Yes,' his friend smiled.
'It seems like a lot of people have found this place,' Cedric noted. 'If Marietta ever followed Cho, or any of us, she could well have stumbled across this place.'
'Perhaps,' Neville's face darkened. Ron and Hermione led the way towards to the bust of the warlock where they'd hidden the list. Harry hung back, making sure it was clear that he was following them.
'We left it here, under the bust,' Hermione informed him, looking around with a frown.
Harry inspected the surroundings, almost everything was as he'd left it, the only differences were the absence of the list and the tarnished diadem he'd used to mark the bust out more clearly. He was almost disappointed to see the circlet was gone, it had been a curious thing.
'It's not very far from the entrance,' Harry pointed out. 'Umbridge has had a month or so to search this place, possibly with help. She might have just come across it.'
'You think she just incredulously.
got
lucky?' Ron
asked 'What other explanation is there?' Harry countered. 'Nobody on the list betrayed us, or whatever jinx Hermione used would have come into effect, and only the three of you knew exactly where the list was in the room.'
'Harry has a point,' Cedric nodded. 'Marietta's a smart girl, she could have easily followed us to the room if she wanted to. Cho says she wouldn't have expected her to betray us, but she's not so sure now with things the way they are.'
'It hardly matters now,' Harry insisted, eager to move on now his version of events was established in their minds. 'It was found, Dumbledore's gone, but you heard what he said, Fudge isn't likely to be Minister for much longer and he'll be back. We do what he said. He's Dumbledore, I'm sure he knows exactly what he's doing.' Harry just managed to bite back the sarcasm he longed to speak that sentence with. 'S'pose you're right,' Ron said at last. 'We'll just have to endure Umbridge.'
'Hopefully not for too long,' Harry agreed, brushing lightly at the edges of Ron's mind when he red-head met his eyes. He found no suspicion there, and Cedric and Neville readily agreed with him. Hermione would not stop trying until she knew the truth, but Harry doubted she would ever find anything that would lead back to him. Even confronting Marietta would only direct her further from him.
'Let's go back,' Cedric suggested. 'It's lessons soon.'
They backtracked from the room, though Hermione seemed slightly reluctant to leave, glancing around her in wistful confusion as if she longed to stay, but wasn't quite sure why. Harry watched her curiously all the way back to the Great Hall. The bruises beneath her eyes had faded, or she'd learnt to heal or cover them. Harry suspected the latter from the way she had disguised Ron, but her usual attempts to be cordial with him had stopped, and her eyes adopted only a cool distance when they fell on him.
'Hermione?' Harry called as they reached the hall, catching her eye and gently forming a connection between their minds as they retook their seats on the Gryffindor table.
'Are you ok?' He inquired bluntly. She seemed taken aback by his question, before blinking and nodding.
There was a brief flutter of fears through her mind, exam results, loneliness, loss, but nothing untoward. Her feelings and thoughts were distinctly hers. Harry severed the connection once he felt her decide Harry thought she might know something they didn't and before she realised anything was amiss. Hermione was certainly bright and intelligent enough to have picked up the basics of occlumency on her own, so even using passive legilimency was a slight risk.
One of the silver-badged Junior Inquisitors hurried across the hall, his robes creased and a large bruise forming on the side of his face. He stopped in front of the staff table to speak to Umbridge, whose face turned a mottle red with rage.
'Tell me we don't have Defence Against the Dark Arts next,' he muttered to Neville.
'I could,' his friend groaned, 'but I'd be lying to you.'
'Wonderful,' Harry commented dryly, watching Umbridge out of the corner of his eye as she glared furiously at him. 'I have a suspicion she will be doing her utmost to place me in detention.' 'Like every lesson,' Neville grinned. 'That's nothing new.'
'I think she might try a little harder than normal,' Harry warned. 'Don't say anything, and try and make sure nobody else does either.'
'Ron won't listen,' Neville sighed, 'not if she makes him angry enough.'
'He might listen to Hermione,' Harry suggested.
'It's worth a try,' his friend agreed, collecting his bag from under the table as lunch came to an end and striding across to speak urgently with Hermione.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ready to lose yourself in an epic tale? Download the full PDF now and start reading from page one!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://fictiontopia.tiendup.com/