Right Now Could Last Forever

“Dumbledore reckons You-Know Who’s getting stronger again as well?” Ron whispered.
Harry had told us everything that had happened with the Pensieve. The four of us had sat up late in the common room once again that night. Ron stared into the common-room fire. I thought I saw him shiver slightly, even though the evening wad warm.

“And he trusts Snape?” Ron said. “He really trusts Snape even though he knows he was a Death Eater?”

“Yes,” said Harry.

Hermione hadn’t spoken for ten minutes. She was sitting with her forehead in her hands, staring at her knees. I twirled Fred’s wand between my fingers, thinking.

“Rita Skeeter,” Hermione muttered finally.

“How can you be worrying about her now” said Ron, in disbelief.

“I’m not worrying about her,” Hermione said to her knees. “I’m just thinking... remember what she said to me in the Three Broomsticks? “I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl.” This is what she meant, isn’t it? She reported his trial, she knew he’d passed information to the Death Eaters. And Winky, too, remember... “Mr Bagman is a bad wizard.” Mr Crouch would have been furious he got off, he would have talked about it at home.”

“Yeah, but Bagman didn’t pass information on purpose, did he?” I said.

Hermione shrugged.

“And Fudge reckons Madame Maxime attacked Crouch?” Ron said, turning back to Harry.

“Yeah,” said Harry, “but he’s only saying that because Crouch disappeared near the Beauxbatons carriage.”

“We never thought of her, did we?” said Ron, slowly. “Mind you, she’s definitely got giant blood, and she doesn’t want to admit it –“

“Of course she doesn’t,” Hermione said sharply, looking up. “Look what happened to Hagrid when Rita found out about his mother. Look at Fudge, jumping to conclusions about her, just because she’s part giant. Who needs that sort of prejudice? I’d probably say I had big bones if I knew that’s what I’d get for telling the truth.”

Hermione looked at her watch.

“We haven’t done any practising!” she said, looking shocked. “We were going to do the Impedimetn Jinx! We’ll have to really get down to it tomorrow! Come on, Harry, you need to get some sleep.”

We made our way up to our dormitories.

“Hey, Corey,” Hermione whispered to me while we were putting on our pyjamas.

“Yeah, Hermione?”

“Would it be rude of me to ask what was happening with you and Fred?” Hermione asked in a shy voice.

I chuckled softly. “There’s nothing going on between us.”

But as I lay awake, waiting for sleep to take me that night, and as I stared at Fred’s wand on my bedside table, I couldn’t help but wish there was something more.

-

We were supposed to be revising for our exams, which would finish on the day of the third task, but we were putting most of our efforts into helping Harry prepare.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said shortly, when Harry pointed this out to us, and said he didn’t mind practising on his own for a while. “At least we’ll get top marks in Defence Against the Dark Arts, we’d never have found out about all these hexes in class.”

“Good training for when we’re all Aurors,” said Ron excitedly, attempting the Impediment Jinx on a wasp that had buzzed into the room, and making it stop dead in mid-air.

The mood in the castle as we entered June became excited and tense again. Everyone was looking forward to the third task, which would take place a week before the end of term.

“You’re still doing really well, though,” Hermione said encouragingly to Harry, looking down her list, and crossing off those spells we had already learnt. “Some of these are bound to come in handy.”

“Come and look at this,” I said, standing by the window, looking into the grounds. “What’s Malfoy doing?”

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were standing in the shadow of a tree below. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to be keeping a look out; both were smirking. Malfoy was holding his hand up to his mouth, and speaking into it.

“He looks like he’s using a walkie-talkie,” said Harry curiously.

“He can’t be,” said Hermione. “I’ve told you, those sort of things don’t work around Hogwarts. Come on, Harry,” she added briskly, turning away from the window and moving back into the middle of the room, “let’s try that Shield Charm again.”

-

Breakfast was a very noisy affair at the Gryffindor table on the morning of the third task. The post owls appeared, bringing Harry a good-luck card from Sirius. A screech owl arrived for Hermione, carrying her morning copy of the Daily Prophet as usual. She unfolded the paper, glancing at the front page, and spat out a mouthful of pumpkin juice all over it.

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Hermione quickly, trying to shove the paper out of sight, but I grabbed it.

I stared at the headline, and said, “No way. Not today. That old cow.”

“What?” said Harry. “Rita Skeeter again?"

“No,” said Ron, who was sitting next to me, just like Hermione had.

“It’s about me, isn’t it?” said Harry.

“No,” said Ron again in an entirely unconvincing tone.

Draco Malfoy shouted across the Great Hall from the Slytherin table.

“Hey, Potter! Potter! How’s your head? You feeling all right? Sure you’re not going to go berserk on us?”

Malfoy was holding a copy of the Daily Prophet, too. Slytherins up and down the table were sniggering, twisting in their seats to see Harry’s reaction.

“Let me see it,” Harry said to me. “Give it here."

I handed over the newspaper, and I could see him read article.

“Gone off me a bit, hasn’t she?” said Harry lightly, folding up the paper when he had finished.

Over on the Slytherin table, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were laughing at him, tapping their heads with their fingers, pulling grotesquely mad faces and waggling their tongues like snakes.

“How did she know your scar hurt in Divination?” I asked. “There’s no way she was there, there’s no way she could’ve heard –“

“The window was open,” said Harry. “I opened it to breathe.”

“You were at the top of North Tower!” Hermione said. “You’re voice couldn’t have carried all the way down to the grounds!”

“Well, you’re the one who’s supposed to be researching magical methods of bugging!” said Harry. “You tell me how she did it!”

“I’ve been trying!” said Hermione. “But I ... but...”

An odd, dreamy expression suddenly came over Hermione’s face. She slowly raised a hand, and ran her fingers through her hair.

“Are you all right?” I said, waving my hand in front of her face.

“Yes,” said Hermione breathlessly. She ran her fingers through her hair again, and then held her hand up to her mouth, as though speaking into an invisible walkie-talkie.

“I’ve had an idea,” Hermione said, gazing into space. “I think I know... because then no one would be able to see... even Moody... and she’d have been able to get onto the window-ledge... but she’s not allowed... she’s definitely not allowed... I think we’ve got her! Just give me two seconds in the library just to make sure!”

With that, Hermione seized her schoolbag, and dashed out of the Great Hall.

“Oi!” I called after her. “We’ve got our History of Magic exam in ten minutes! Blimey,” I said turning back to Harry and Ron.

“She must really hate that Skeeter woman to risk missing the start of an exam. What’re you going to do in Binns’s class – read again?” said Ron.

“S’pose so,” Harry said, but just then, McGonagall came walking along the Gryffindor table towards him.

“Potter, the champions are congregating in the chamber off the Hall after breakfast,” she said.
“But the task’s not ‘til tonight!” Harry said.

“I’m aware of that, Potter,” she said. “The champions’ families are invited to watch the final task, you know. This is simply a chance for you to greet them.”

She moved away.

“She doesn’t expect the Dursleys to turn up, does she?” I asked blankly.

“Dunno,” said Ron. “Harry, we’d better hurry, we’re going to be late for Binns. See you later.”

-

“Mum – Bill!” said Ron, looking stunned, as we joined the Gryffindor table for lunch. “What’re you doing here?”

“Come to watch Harry in the last task!” said Mrs Weasley brightly. “I must say, it makes a lovely change, not having to cook. How was your exam?”

“Oh... OK,” said Ron. “Couldn’t remember all the goblin rebels’ names, so I invented a few. It’s all right,” he said, helping himself to a Cornish pasty, while Mrs Weasley looked stern, “they’re all called stuff like Bodrod the Bearded and Urg the Unclean, it wasn’t hard.”

“And you, Corey, dear?”

“I think I did okay,” I said, once I’d given her a hug.

Fred, George and Ginny came to sit next to us, too. Hermione turned up halfway through lunch.

“Are you going to tell us -?”

Hermione shook her head warningly, and glanced at Mrs Weasley.

“Hello, Hermione,” said Mrs Weasley much more stiffly than usual.

Harry looked between them, then said, “Mrs Weasley, you didn’t believe that rubbish Rita Skeeter wrote in Witch Weekly, did you? Because Hermione’s not my girlfriend.”

“Oh!” said Mrs Weasley. “No – of course I didn’t!”

She became considerably warmer towards Hermione after that.

Later that evening, as the enchanted ceiling overhead in the Great Hall faded from blue to a dusky purple, Dumbledore rose to his feet at the staff table, and silence fell.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in five minutes’ time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the Quidditch pitch for the third and last task of the Triwizard Tournament. Will the champions please follow Mr Bagman down to the stadium now.”

Harry got up. The Gryffindors all along the table were applauding him; we all wished him good luck, and I patted him on the back before he was gone.