She looked as though she might have a seizure; Hermione, who had hastily packed her things, grabbed Harry by the arm and frogmarched him away.
“She’ll ban you from the library if you’re not careful. Why did you have to bring that stupid book?”
“It’s not my fault she’s barking mad, Hermione. Or d’you think she overheard you being rude about Filch? I’ve always thought there might be something between them…”
“Oh, ha ha…”
Enjoying the fact that they could speak normally again, they made their way along the deserted lamp-lit corridors back to the common room, arguing whether or not Filch and Madam Pince were secretly in love with each other.
“Baubles,” said Harry to the Fat Lady, this being the new, festive password.
“Same to you,” said the fat lady with a roguish grin, and she swung forward to admit them.
“Hi, Harry!” said Romilda Vane, the moment he had climbed through the portrait hole. “Fancy a gillywater?”
Hermione gave him a “What-did-I-tell-you?” look over her shoulder.
“No thanks,” said Harry quickly. “I don’t like it much.”
“Well, take these anyway,” said Romilda, thrusting a box into his hands. “Chocolate Cauldrons, they’ve got firewhiskey in them. My gran sent them to me, but I don’t like them.”
“Oh—right—thanks a lot.” said Harry, who could not think what else to say. “Er—I’m just going over here with…”
He hurried off behind Hermione, his voice tailing away feebly.
“Told you,” said Hermione succinctly, “Sooner you ask someone, sooner they’ll all leave you alone and you can—”
But her face suddnly turned blank; she had just spotted Ron and Lavender, who were intertwined in the same armchair.
“Well, good night, Harry,” said Hermione, though it was only seven o’clock in the evening, and she left for the girls’ dormitory without another word.
Harry went to bed comforting himself that there was only one more day of lessons to struggle through, plus Slughorn’s party, after which he and Ron would depart together for the Burrow. It now seemed impossible that Ron and Hermione would make up with each other before the holidays began, but perhaps, somehow, the break would give them time to calm down, think better of their behavior…
But his hopes were not high, and they sank still lower after enduring a Transfiguration lesson with them both next day. They had just embarked upon the immensely difficult topic of human transfiguration; working in front of mirrors, they were supposed to be changing the color of their own eyebrows. Hermione laughed unkindly at Ron’s disastrous first attempt, during which he somehow managed to give himself a spectacular handlebar mustache; Ron retaliated by doing a cruel but accurate impression of Hermione jumping up and down in her seat every time Professor McGonagall asked a question, which Lavender and Parvati found deeply amusing and which reduced Hermione to the verge of tears again. She raced out of the classroom on the bell, leaving half her things behind; Harry, deciding that her need was greater than Ron’s just now, scooped up her remaining possessions and followed her.
He finally tracked her down as she emerged from a girl’s bathroom on the floor below. She was accompanied by Luna Lovegood, who was patting her vaguely on the back.
“Oh, hello, Harry,” said Luna. “Did you know one of your eyebrows is bright yellow?”
“Hi, Luna. Hermione, you left your stuff…”
He held out her books.
“Oh, yes,” said Hermione in a choked voice, taking her things and turning away quickly to hide the fact she was wiping her eyes with her pencil case. “Thank you, Harry. Well, I’d better get going…”
And she hurried off, without ever giving Harry any time to offer words of comfort, though admittedly he could not think of any.
“She’s a bit upset, “ said Luna. “I thought at first it was Moaning Myrtle in there, but it turned out to be Hermione. She said something about Ron Weasley…”
“Yeah, they’ve had a row,” said Harry.
“He says funny things sometimes, doesn’t he?” said Luna as they set off down the corridor together. “But he can be a bit unkind. I noticed that last year.”
“I s’pose,” said Harry. Luna was demonstrating her usual knack of speaking uncomfortable truths; he had never met anyone quite like her. “So have you had a good term?”
“Oh, it’s been all right,” said Luna. “A bit lonely without the D.A. Ginny’s been nice, though. She stopped two boys in our Transfiguration class calling me ‘Loony’ the other day—”
“How would you like to come to Slughorn’s party with me tonight?”
The words were out of Harry’s mouth before he could stop them; he heard himself say them as though it were a stranger speaking.
Luna turned her protuberant eyes to him in surprise.
“Slughorn’s party? With you?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, “We’re supposed to bring guests, so I thought you might like… I mean…” He was keen to make his intentions perfectly clear. “I mean, just as friends, you know. But if you don’t want to…”
He was already half hoping that she didn’t want to.
“Oh no, I’d love to go with you as friends!” said Luna, beaming as he had never seen her beam before. “Nobody’s ever asked me to a party before, as a friend! Is that why you dyed your eyebrow, for the party? Should I dye mine too?”
“No,” said Harry firmly, “That was a mistake. I’ll get Hermione to put it right for me. So I’ll meet you in the entrance hall at eight o’clock then.”
“AHA!” screamed a voice from overhead and both of them jumped; unnoticed by either of them, they had just passed underneath Peeves, who was hanging upside down from a chandelier and grinning maliciously at them.
“Potty asked Loony to go to the party! Potty lurves Loony! Potty luuuuuurves Looooony!”
And he zoomed away cackling and shrieking, “Potty loves Loony!”
“Nice to keep these things private,” said Harry. And sure enough, in no time at all the whole school seemed to know that Harry Potter was taking Luna Lovegood to Slughorn’s party.
“You could’ve taken anyone!” said Ron in disbelief over dinner. “Anyone! And you chose Loony Lovegood?”
“Don’t call her that, Ron!” snapped Ginny, pausing behind Harry on her way to join friends. “I’m really glad you’re taking her, Harry, she’s so excited.”
And she moved on down the table to sit with Dean. Harry tried to feel pleased that Ginny was glad he was taking Luna to the party but could not quite manage it. A long way along the table Hermione was sitting alone, playing with her stew. Harry noticed Ron looking at her furtively.
“You could say sorry,” suggested Harry bluntly.
“What, and get attacked by another flock of canaries?” muttered Ron.
“What did you have to imitate her for?”
“She laughed at my mustache!”
“So did I, it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”
But Ron did not seem to have heard; Lavender had just arrived with Parvati. Squeezing herself in between Harry and Ron, Lavender flung her arms around Ron’s neck.
“Hi, Harry,” said Parvati who, like Harry, looked faintly embarrassed and bored by the behavior of their two friends.
“Hi,” said Harry, “How’re you? You’re staying at Hogwarts, then? I heard your parents wanted you to leave.”
“I managed to talk them out of it for the time being,” said Parvati. “That Katie thing really freaked them out, but as there hasn’t been anything since… Oh, hi, Hermione!”
Parvati positively beamed. Harry could tell that she was feeling guilty for having laughed at Hermione in Transfiguration. He looked around and saw that Hermione was beaming back, if possible even more brightly. Girls were very strange sometimes.
“Hi, Parvati!” said Hermione, ignoring Ron and Lavender completely. “Are you going to Slughorn’s party tonight?”
�
��No invite,” said Parvati gloomily. “I’d love to go, though, it sounds like it’s going to be really good… You’re going, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m meeting Cormac at eight, and we’re—”
There was a noise like a plunger being withdrawn from a blocked sink, and Ron surfaced. Hermione acted as though she had not seen or heard anything.
“—we’re going up to the party together.”
“Cormac?” said Parvati. “Cormac McLaggen, you mean?”
“That’s right,” said Hermione sweetly. “The one who almost,” she put a great deal of emphasis on the word, “became Gryffindor Keeper.”
“Are you going out with him, then?” asked Parvati, wide-eyed.
“Oh—yes—didn’t you know?” said Harmione, with a most un-Hermione-ish giggle.
“No!” said Parvati, looking positively agog at this piece of gossip. “Wow, you like your Quidditch players, don’t you? First Krum, then McLaggen.”
“I like really good Quidditch players,” Hermione corrected her, still smiling. “Well, see you… Got to go and get ready for the party…”
She left. At once Lavender and Parvati put their heads together to discuss this new development, with everything they had ever heard about McLaggen, and all they had ever guessed about Hermione. Ron looked strangely blank and said nothing. Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.
When he arrived in the entrance hall at eight o’clock that night, he found an unusually large number of girls lurking there, all of whom seemed to be staring at him resentfully as he approached Luna. She was wearing a set of spangled silver robes that were attracting a certain amount of giggles from the onlookers, but otherwise she looked quite nice. Harry was glad, in any case, that she had left off her radish earrings, her butterbeer cork necklace, and her Spectrespecs.
“Hi,” he said. “Shall we get going then?”
“Oh yes,” she said happily. “Where is the party?”
“Slughorn’s office,” said Harry, leading her up the marble staircase away from all the staring and muttering. “Did you hear, there’s supposed to be a vampire coming?”
“Rufus Scrimgeour?” asked Luna.
“I—what?” said Harry, disconcerted. “You mean the Minister of Magic?”
“Yes, he’s a vampire,” said Luna matter-of-factly. “Father wrote a very long article about it when Scrimgeour first took over from Cornelius Fudge, but he was forced not to publish by somebody from the Ministry. Obviously, they didn’t want the truth to get out!”
Harry, who thought it most unlikely that Rufus Scrimgeour was a vampire, but who was used to Luna repeating her father’s bizarre views as though they were fact, did not reply; they were already approaching Slughorn’s office and the sounds of laughter, music, and loud conversation were growing louder with every step they took.
Whether it had been built that way, or because he had used magical trickery to make it so, Slughorn’s office was much larger than the usual teacher’s study. The ceiling and walls had been draped with emerald, crimson, and gold hangings, so that it looked as though they were all inside a vast tent. The room was crowded and stuffy and bathed in the red light cast by an ornate golden lamp dangling from the center of the ceiling in which real fairies were fluttering, each a brilliant speck of light. Loud singing accompanied by what sounded like mandolins issued from a distant corner; a haze of pipe smoke hung over several elderly warlocks deep in conversation, and a number of house-elves were negotiating their way squeakily through the forest of knees, obscured by the heavy silver platters of food they were bearing, so that they looked like little roving tables.
“Harry, m’boy!” boomed Slughorn, almost as soon as Harry and Luna had squeezed in through the door. “Come in, come in, so many people I’d like you to meet!”
Slughorn was wearing a tasseled velvet hat to match his smoking jacket. Gripping Harry’s arm so tightly he might have been hoping to Disapparate with him, Slughorn led him purposefully into the party; Harry seized Luna’s hand and dragged her along with him.
“Harry, I’d like you to meet Eldred Worple, an old student of mine, author of Blood Brothers: My Life Amongst the Vampires—and, of course, his friend Sanguini.”
Worple, who was a small, stout, bespectacled man, grabbed Harry’s hand and shook it enthusiastically; the vampire Sanguini, who was tall and emaciated with dark shadows under his eyes, merely nodded. He looked rather bored. A gaggle of girls was standing close to him, looking curious and excited.
“Harry Potter, I am simply delighted!” said Worple, peering shortsightedly up into Harry’s face. “I was saying to Professor Slughorn only the other day, Where is the biography of Harry Potter for which we have all been waiting?”
“Er,” said Harry, “were you?”
“Just as modest as Horace described!” said Worple. “But seriously”—his manner changed; it became suddenly businesslike—“I would be delighted to write it myself—people are craving to know more about you, dear boy, craving! If you were prepared to grant me a few interviews, say in four- or five-hour sessions, why, we could have the book finished within months. And all with very little effort on your part, I assure you—ask Sanguini here if it isn’t quite—Sanguini, stay here!” added Worple, suddenly stern, for the vampire had been edging toward the nearby group of girls, a rather hungry look in his eye. “Here, have a pasty,” said Worple, seizing one from a passing elf and stuffing it into Sanguini’s hand before turning his attention back to Harry. “My dear boy, the gold you could make, you have no idea—”
“I’m definitely not interested,” said Harry firmly, “and I’ve just seen a friend of mine, sorry.” He pulled Luna after him into the crowd; he had indeed just seen a long mane of brown hair disappear between what looked like two members of the Weird Sisters.
“Hermione! Hermione!”
“Harry! There you are, thank goodness! Hi, Luna!”
“What’s happened to you?” asked Harry, for Hermione looked distinctly disheveled, rather as though she had just fought her way out of a thicket of Devil’s Snare.
“Oh, I’ve just escaped—I mean, I’ve just left Cormac,” she said. “Under the mistletoe,” she added in explanation, as Harry continued to look questioningly at her.
“Serves you right for coming with him,” he told her severely.
“I thought he’d annoy Ron most,” said Hermione dispassionately. “I debated for a while about Zacharias Smith, but I thought, on the whole—”
“You considered Smith?” said Harry, revoked.
“Yes, I did, and I’m starting to wish I’d chosen him, McLaggen makes Grawp look a gentleman. Let’s go this way, we’ll be able to see him coming, he’s so tall…” The three of them made their way over to the other side of the room, scooping up goblets of mead on the way, realizing too late that Professor Trelawney was standing there alone.
“Hello,” said Luna politely to Professor Trelawney.
“Good evening, my dear,” said Professor Trelawney, focusing upon Luna with some difficulty. Harry could smell cooking sherry again. “I haven’t seen you in my classes lately…”
“No, I’ve got Firenze this year,” said Luna.
“Oh, of course,” said Professor Trelawney with an angry, drunken titter. “Or Dobbin, as I prefer to think of him. You would have thought, would you not, that now I am returned to the school Professor Dumbledore might have got rid of the horse? But no… we share classes… It’s an insult, frankly, an insult. Do you know…”
Professor Trelawney seemed too tipsy to have recognized Harry. Under cover of her furious criticisms of Firenze, Harry drew closer to Hermione and said, “Let’s get something straight. Are you planning to tell Ron that you interfered at Keeper tryouts?”
Hermione raised her eyebrows.
“Do you really think I’d stoop that low?”
Harry looked at her shrewdly.
“Hermione, if you can ask McLaggen—”
&nb
sp; “There’s a difference,” said Hermione with dignity. “I’ve got no plans to tell Ron anything about what might, or might not, have happened at Keeper tryouts.”
“Good,” said Harry fervently. “Because he’ll just fall apart again, and we’ll lose the next match—”
“Quidditch!” said Hermione angrily. “Is that all boys care about? Cormac hasn’t asked me one single question about myself, no, I’ve just been treated to ‘A Hundred Great Saves Made by Cormac McLaggen’ nonstop ever since—oh no, here he comes!”
She moved so fast it was as though she had Disapparated; one moment she was there, the next, she had squeezed between two guffawing witches and vanished.
“Seen Hermione?” asked McLaggen, forcing his way through the throng a minute later.
“No, sorry,” said Harry, and he turned quickly to join in Luna’s conversation, forgetting for a split second to whom she was talking.
“Harry Potter!” said Professor Trelawney in deep, vibrant tones, noticing him for the first time.
“Oh, hello,” said Harry unenthusiastically.
“My dear boy!” she said in a very carrying whisper. “The rumors! The stories! ‘The Chosen One’! Of course, I have known for a very long time… The omens were never good, Harry… But why have you not returned to Divination? For you, of all people, the subject is of the utmost importance!”
“Ah, Sybill, we all think our subject’s most important!” said a loud voice, and Slughorn appeared at Professor Trelawney’s other side, his face very red, his velvet hat a little askew, a glass of mead in one hand and an enormous mince pie in the other. “But I don’t think I’ve ever known such a natural at Potions!” said Slughorn, regarding Harry with a fond, if bloodshot, eye. “Instinctive, you know—like his mother! I’ve only ever taught a few with this kind of ability, I can tell you that, Sybill—why even Severus—”
And to Harry’s horror, Slughorn threw out an arm and seemed to scoop Snape out of thin air toward them.
“Stop skulking and come and join us, Severus!” hiccuped Slughorn happily. “I was just talking about Harry’s exceptional potion-making! Some credit must go to you, of course, you taught him for five years!”
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