Right Now Could Last Forever

Harry, Ron, Hermione and I went up to the Owlery that evening to find Pigwidgeon, so that Harry could send Sirius a letter, telling him that he had managed to get past his dragon unscratched. On the way, Harry filled Ron in on everything Sirius had told him about Karkaroff. Though shocked at first to hear that Karkaroff had been a Death Eater, by the time we entered the Owlery Ron was saying that we ought to have suspected it all along.

“Fits, doesn’t it?” he said. “Remember what Malfoy said on the train, about his dad being friends with Karkaroff? Now we know where they knew each other. They were probably running around in masks together at the World Cup... I’ll tell you one thing, though, Harry, if it was Karkaroff who put your name in the Goblet, he’s going to be feeling really stupid now, isn’t he? Didn’t work, did it? You only got a scratch! Come here – I’ll do it –“

Pigwidgeon was so over-excited at the idea of a delivery, he was flying round and round Harry’s head, hooting incessantly. Ron snatched Pigwidgeon out of the air and held him still while Harry attached the letter to his leg.

“There’s no way any of the other tasks are going to be that dangerous, how could they be?” Ron went on, as he carried Pigwidgeon to the window. I patted Calandra softly on his feathery head. “You know what? I reckon you could win this Tournament, Harry, I’m serious.”

Hermione leant against the Owlery wall, folded her arms and frowned at Ron.

“Harry’s got a long way to go before he finishes this Tournament,” she said seriously. “If that was the first task, I hate to think what’s next.”

“Right little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” I said.

“You and Professor Trelawney should get together some time,” Ron added.

He threw Pigwidgeon out of the window. Pigwidgeon plummeted twelve feet before managing to pull himself back up again; the letter attached to his leg was much longer and heavier than usual – Harry hadn’t been able to resist giving Sirius a blow-by-blow account of exactly how he had swerved, circled and dodged the Horntail.

We watched Pigwidgeon disappear into the darkness, and then I said, “Well, we’d better get downstairs for your surprise party, Harry – Fred and George should have nicked enough food from the kitchens by now.”

Sure enough, when we entered the Gryffindor common room it exploded with cheers and yells again. There were mountains of cakes and flagons of pumpkin juice and Butterbeer on every surface; Lee Jordan had let off some Dr Filibuster’s Fabulous No-Heat, Wet-Start Fireworks, so that the air was thick with stars and sparks; and Dean Thomas, who was very good at drawing, had put up some impressive new banners, most of which depicted Harry zooming around the Horntail’s head on his Firebolt, though a couple showed Cedric with his head on fire.

I helped myself to food, and sat down with Harry, Ron and Hermione.

“Blimey, this is heavy,” said Lee, picking up the golden egg, which I had placed on a table, and weighing it in his hands. “Open it, Harry, go on! Let’s just see what’s inside it!”

“He’s supposed to work out the clue on his own,” Hermione said swiftly. “It’s in the Tournament rules...”

“I was supposed to work out how to get past the dragon on my own, too,” Harry muttered, so I could only just hear, and Hermione grinned rather guiltily.

“Yeah, go on, Harry, open it!” several people echoed.

Lee passed Harry the egg, and Harry dug his fingernails into the groove that ran all the way around it, and prised it open.

It was hollow and completely empty – but the moment Harry opened it, the most horrible noise, a loud and screechy wailing, filled the room. The nearest thing to it I had ever heard was the ghost orchestra at Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday Party, who had all been playing the musical saw.

“Shut it!” Fred bellowed, his hands over his ears.

“What was that?” said Seamus Finnigan, staring at the egg as Harry slammed it shut again. “Sounded like a banshee... maybe you’ve got to get past one go those next, Harry!”

“It was someone being tortured!” said Neville, who had gone very white, and spilled sausage rolls over the floor. “You’re going to have to fight the Cruciatus curse!”

“Don’t be a prat, Neville, that’s illegal,” said George. “They wouldn’t use the Cruciatus curse on the champions. I thought it sounded a bit like Percy singing... maybe you’ve got to attack him while he’s in the shower, Harry.”

“Want a jam tart, Hermione?” said Fred.

Hermione looked doubtfully at the plate he was offering her. Fred grinned.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I haven’t done anything to them. It’s the custard creams you’ve got to watch –“

Neville, who had just bitten into a custard cream, chocked and spat it out.

Fred laughed. “Just my little joke, Neville...”

Hermione took a jam tart.

Then she said, “Did you get all this from the kitchens, Fred?”

“Yep,” said Fred, grinning at her and sitting on the arm of my chair; his arm resting casually on the back. He put on a high-pitched squeak and imitated a house-elf. “’Anything we can get you, sir, anything at all!’ They’re dead helpful... get me a roast ox if I said I was peckish.”

“How do you get in there?” Hermione said in an innocently casual sort of voice, and I instantly knew why she was asking.

“Easy,” said Fred, “concealed door behind a painting of a bowl of fruit. Just tickle the pear, and it giggles and –“ He stopped and looked suspiciously at her. “Why?”

“Nothing,” said Hermione quickly.

“Going to try and lead the house-elves out on strike now, are you?” said George. “Going to give up all the leaflet stuff and try and stir them up into rebellion?”

Several people chortled. Hermione didn’t answer.

“Don’t you go upsetting them and telling them they’ve got to take clothes and salaries!” said Fred warningly. “You’ll put them off their cooking.”

Just then, Neville caused a slight diversion by turning into a large canary.

“Oh – sorry, Neville!” Fred shouted, over all the laughter, while I punched him lightly on the arm. “I forgot – it was the custard creams we hexed –“

Within a minute, however, Neville had moulted, and once his feathers had fallen off, he reappeared looking entirely normal. He even joined in laughing.

“Canary Creams!” Fred shouted to the excitable crowd. “George, Corey and I invented them – seven Sickles each, bargain!”

-

The start of December brought wind and sleet to Hogwarts/ Draught though the castle always was in winter, I was glad of its fires and thick walls every time I passed the Durmstrang ship on the lake, which was pitching in the high winds, its black sails billowing against the dark skies. I thought the Beauxbatons caravan was likely to be pretty chilly, too. Hagrid, I noticed, was keeping Madame Maxime’s horses well provided with their preferred drink of single-malt whisky; the fumes wafting from the trough in the corner of their paddock were enough to make the entire Care of Magical Creatures class light headed.

“She’ll twist everything he says,” Harry said under his breath, as we watched Rita Skeeter walk away merrily. She had just crashed our lesson, where we had been trying to put the Blast-Ended Skrewts into crates.

“Just as long as he didn’t import those Skrewts illegally or anything, Hermione said desperately. We looked at each other – it was exactly the sort of thing Hagrid might do.

“Hagrid’s been in loads of trouble before, and Dumbledore’s never sacked him,” said Ron consolingly. “Wort that can happen is Hagrid’ll have to get rid of the Skrewts. Sorry... did I say worst? I meant best.”

Harry, Hermione and I laughed, and, feeling slightly more cheerful, went off to lunch.
I thoroughly enjoyed double Divination that afternoon; we were still doing star charts and predictions, but now that Harry and Ron were friends again, it was easier to have fun. Trelawney, who had been so pleased with the three of us when we had been predicting our own horrific deaths – yes, I had decided to join in – quickly became irritated as we sniggered through her explanation of the various ways in which Pluto could disrupt everyday life.

“I would think,” she said, in a mystical whisper that did not conceal her obvious annoyance, “that some of us” – she stared meaningfully at Harry – “might be a little less frivolous had they seen what I have seen, during my crystal-gazing last night. As I sat here, absorbed in my needlework, the urge to consult the orb overpowered me. I arose, I settled myself before it, and I gazed into its crystalline depths... and what do you think I saw gazing back at me?”

“An ugly old bat in outsize specs?” I muttered under my breath.

“Death, my dears.”

Parvati and Lavender both put their hands over their mouths, looking horrified.

“Yes,” said Trelawney, nodding impressively, “it comes, ever closer, it circles overhead like a vulture, ever lower... ever lower over the castle...”

She stared pointedly at Harry, who yawned very widely and obviously.

“It’d be a bit more impressive if she hadn’t done it about eighty times before,” Harry said, as we finally regained the fresh air of the staircase beneath Trelawney’s room. “But if I’d dropped dead every time she’s told me I’m going to, I’d be a medical miracle.”

“You’d be a sort of extra-concentrated ghost,” I said, chortling, as we passed the Bloody Baron going in the opposite direction, his wide eyes staring sinisterly. “At least we didn’t get homework. I hope Hermione got loads off Vector, I love not working when she it...”

But Hermione wasn’t at dinner, and nor was she in the library when we went to look for her afterwards. The only person in there was Viktor. Ron hovered behind the bookshelves for a while, watching Krum, debating in whispers with Harry and I whether he should ask for an autograph – but then Ron realised that six or seven girls were lurking in the next row of books, debating exactly the same thing, and he lost his enthusiasm for the idea.

“Wonder where she’s got to?” Ron asked, as we went back to the Gryffindor Tower.

“Dunno.. Balderdash.”

But the Fat Lady had barely begun to swing forwards, when the sound of racing feet behind us announced Hermione’s arrival.

“Harry!” She panted, skidding to a halt beside him (the Fat Lady stared down at her, eyebrows raised). “Harry, you’ve got to come – you’ve got to come, the most amazing thing’s happened – please –“

She seized Harry’s arm and stared to try and drag him back along the corridor.

“What’s the matter?” Harry said.

“I’ll show you when we get there – oh, come on, quick –“

Harry looked around at Ron; he looked back at Harry intrigued.

“OK,” Harry said, starting off back down the corridor with Hermione, Ron hurrying to keep up.
“I’ll see you guys later,” I called after them. From the look on Hermione’s face, I knew she’d discovered the house-elf in the Kitchens.