Another Prisoner, Another Professor: Chapter Eleven (original) (raw)

They didn't find anything in the shelves by the eastern windows, nor did they find anything in the shelves in front of Pince's desk, by the southern door, or near the statue of Bellerophon the Bibliophile, which were places Hermione had checked before but insisted they check again, in case she had missed something. By the time the library was about to close Harry's neck had gone all stiff from bending it at an angle to read the titles on the spines, and Ron, who had been given the job of carrying piles of books back and forth from the shelves to Hermione, was rubbing his arms. The first-years, however, went off happily, all with a book or two on the properties of yarrow leaves. Harry wished he had been so lucky.

He had not told Ron or Hermione about his second blackout; he had no idea what to make of it, and he had no desire to cause Hermione to worry more than she already was. He would have thought it was some aftereffect of the potion, if Neville's skills in the class hadn't been so abysmal. Could Neville have made a truly effective potion, even accidentally? Harry couldn't decide which was more possible, or rather, _im_possible: that Neville Longbottom could have produced something so powerful that it led to a loss of consciousness, or that Remus Lupin could be causing him to black out simply by writing his name in blood. Besides, he had the feeling that any wizard who could manage to work blood magic from Azkaban would probably do something more horrible than make him pass out.

"We have to get into the Restricted Section," said Hermione as they walked down the corridor on their way back to the Gryffindor tower. "It's the only place we haven't looked. Professor Black might give us a note, I think, if we came up with a good enough story, but we can't risk any of this getting back to the other teachers. I think we'll have to sneak in."

"I call keeping watch at the door," Ron said at once. "My arms are killing me. It's like someone took out the muscles and put in knotted rope, really old knotted rope that doesn't move easily."

"Sounds like my neck," Harry said. "Except that my neck's more like someone took out the muscles and put in small rocks."

"It can't be that awful," said Hermione, who could read vertically and had spent most of their time in the library sitting at a table and checking indexes. "Besides, I don't think anyone should keep watch at the door, we should all be either under the Invisibility Cloak or able to get under it at a second's notice. And we should do it tonight, before any more time goes by."

Back in the common room, Fred and George had stolen a book of Percy's and were running around with it as he chased them, shouting that he needed it back if he wanted to finish his History of Magic essay. Oliver Wood was sitting at a table near the fireplace; he was working on something that looked like a Quidditch diagram, and had put a very large and furry pair of earmuffs on his head.

"I feel dead," said Ron, flopping down on one of the couches. "Does anyone want to practice dueling curses on me? I'll do it as long as they don't hurt and as long as I can just sit here without having to do anything. You're carrying the books this time, Hermione."

One of the curses on the list was a Severing Charm called Diffindo, which worried Hermione enormously. "Does Black know how dangerous this could be? What if someone slices off someone else's leg?"

"You're taking this too seriously," said Ron, yawning. "No one's going to slice off anyone's leg. We're supposed to be learning Defense Against the Dark Arts, right? It sounds like a good spell to me, I'd rather know how to slice off some dark wizard's leg than send a snake at him."

"But how does he expect us to practice it?"

"Maybe you ought to skip that one," Harry suggested. "We only have to be able to do five out of the fifteen for next class."

Hermione looked very anxious. "I was planning on learning all fifteen."

Ron snorted.

Another spell was called Incarcerous, and was used to make ropes come out of the air and wrap around someone. This one seemed satisfactory to Hermione, and she and Harry took turns sending ropes at Ron, who for his part sat on the couch and didn't complain when Harry accidentally got one of the ropes over his eyes.

"It would be harder in a real duel," said Hermione after several turns. "In a real duel, the other person is probably trying to get away..."

She glanced around the room, and then suddenly whipped out her wand, pointed it at Fred, and shouted, "INCARCEROUS!"

Fred, who had been running past a table with Percy's book, fell down on the floor, ropes enclosing his body. Percy walked over, snatched the book from his hand, and stormed up to his dormitory, muttering angrily about the strains on his concentration.

"Hey, what was that for?" asked Fred, when Hermione had Vanished the ropes. "I was nice to your cat about an hour ago, you know, it was walking around with some piece of paper in its mouth and I took it out so it wouldn't choke."

"Paper?"

"Yeah. It bit me, too, had to pry its bloody jaw open - "

"What did you do with the paper?"

"Threw it in the rubbish bin," said Fred, giving her an odd look. "Why, what was it?"

Hermione grabbed the rubbish bin next to the fireplace and began to take things out, including a banana peel and several used tissues. "I thought so," she said, holding up a piece of paper with several tooth marks near the top. "It's Astrophil's love letter."

"Love letter?" asked George, a devilish smile twitching on his lips. "Some bloke called Astrophil sent you a love letter?"

"No, Crookshanks found it - " Hermione began, but George had already snatched the letter from her and began to read it aloud in a melodramatic voice.

"I know you're going to laugh when you read this - "

"Too right I am," said Fred.

" - as it's not often that I get all sappy on you, but I really am going to miss holding you in my arms while we're apart."

Fred threw his arms around Angelina Johnson, who was walking past. "Angelina! My love! I really am going to miss holding you in my arms while we're apart, my dearest, most precious darling!"

"I have no idea what you're on about," she said, shaking him off, and went to sit on one of the couches with Alicia Spinnet.

"Astrophil says to stop laughing, Fred," George informed him. He scanned the rest of the letter. "Who are Eris, Ares, and Tithonus, your pet bookworms?"

"I don't know," said Hermione, looking very angry, "because it isn't my letter. Crookshanks found it somewhere, and I kept it so I could give it back to whoever it belongs to if I ever figured it out."

"There's nobody called Astrophil in this school," said Fred. "There's Phil Carlowe in Ravenclaw, but his is short for Philip."

The bells rang; it was time for them all to get to bed. George shrugged, handed the letter back to Hermione, and went off upstairs with Fred and Lee Jordan.

"Probably another hour," Hermione said to Harry and Ron. "Hopefully everyone will be asleep by then."