CHAPTER THIRTEEN:   THE SECOND TASK

21 February 1995

There was a storm coming in tonight.   Tall towering clouds hanging low on the horizon at sunset.  By the time I headed down to the clearing they had very nearly blocked out the stars.  And yet, they were skittering in such a way that I kept catching glimpses of the moon, the full moon, in all its glory.

Poor Hagrid must have thought I’d gone mad, because every time the moon showed its face I’d turn my face up to it, soaking in its essence if you will.  The essence of its energy.  And though, as usual, I can feel the pull if it in my very veins — thrumming — the full moon combined with the scuttling clouds and the impending power of the storm?  It made me feel vibrant, alive!  I felt as if I were positively crackling with energy, as if I could spread my arms and fly away, off into the clouds and the heart of the storm.

Before you write me off as crazy, you’ve got to realize that it has always been this way for me, even before I became an Elemental Magician.  When I was little I used to sneak out of the house by climbing down the vines outside of my window whenever there was a full moon or a storm coming in.  I’d go up to my garden and dance around in circles, laughing like a banshee and howling at the moon like a dog.  Or sometimes I’d just run.  I’d go out to the fields between the back hedge and the copse where my garden is and I’d run, arms out, hair streaming.  I’d run and run and run until I couldn’t take another step, then I’d lay panting in the tall grass, staring up at the moon until I’d fall asleep.  Sometimes when I’d wake up I’d find that the grass around me was all laying flat, as if I’d been thrashing in my sleep.  Sometimes there would be really intricate patterns all around me, some of them looked like runic script from a distance, others were nothing I’d ever seen before, but they were always perfectly formed, as if a giant stamp had come down on the field in the middle of the night and pressed hard just there.

I’ve read about these kinds of patterns since I’ve become an Elemental Magician myself.  There are several explanations.  The one that makes the most sense says that the patterns are formed in response to the latent power in a juvenile Elemental Magician.  That all that built up energy, all that potential, calls to the elements on a subconscious level and that the elements respond, but being unstructured, having no specific purpose, they create these random patterns in their passage, perhaps in an attempt to catch the attention of the potential Elemental Magician.  To tell you the truth it seems like something they would do, create beautiful, random and absolutely pointless patterns just to give them something to do.

When I was real little, like, before I could walk, Dad says that whenever there was a full moon or a storm coming in I would cry nonstop unless someone came in and opened the window and the curtains so I could feel the outside air and see the moon.  Actually, that would explain a recurring nightmare I used to have when I was real small.  I’d dream that I had got locked in a big dark room; a room with no doors, and I’d wake up screaming.

As if in response to my mood tonight, Mira gave me a lesson in moon magic.  This isn’t the type we learn in school, you know, “pick the fluxweed at the full moon, add to potion, allow to simmer for six hours before adding syrup of hellebore.”  No.  This was Elemental Moon Magic. 

According to Mira, all of the elements are more powerful during a full moon.  I was a bit confused by this, I suppose because I was under the impression that elements were really powerful anyway.  She explained that while yes, they were powerful under normal conditions, that some of them responded with extra power during full moons.

It all has to do with the gravitational pull of the moon.  The Elementals, being a part of the very fabric of the Earth, respond to it, particularly water and air, resulting in high tides and windstorms, many times in conjunction.  She explained how to channel these two particular elements particularly during the full moon to obtain results that are clear cut and precise, something very difficult to achieve normally as a Natural Elemental Practitioner.  I guess it’s particularly effective when used to enhance sex magic.

I suppose I should have been embarrassed when she began explaining about the intensity of orgasms and the pull of tidal currents and tapping the tremendous energy that builds between two people during intercourse to enhance spells and build unbreakable shields.  I wrote it all down, though I haven’t read through it again yet.  There was a part of me that wanted to blush madly and run screaming from the clearing when she began talking about calling the elements (silently I would presume) just before a man achieves orgasm in order to extend the length of the orgasm, allowing you to achieve maximum pleasure.  What, exactly, this had to do with magic I’m not entirely certain, but trust me when I say that it’s something I will definitely make a point of remembering.  I’m certain in will come in handy one day.

I always love talking to Mira, she’s really easy to talk to.  She reminds me of Bill to a point, but I catch glimpses of myself in her too.  She likes a lot of the things I do, and she dances, and obviously she’s a Natural Elemental too or she wouldn’t be able to teach me all of this.  But I keep getting the impression that she’s somehow pressed for time, like she has to make certain that she tells me everything I need to know before she has to leave, like she’ll never get the chance to talk to me about this particular subject again. 

I know that Mira is in contact with my future self, with Harry’s future self — but is it perhaps possible that she could be from the future?  Is she perhaps someone who is only using the magic of the First People to communicate with me?  I hate to ask her outright.  What if it, oh, I don’t know, broke the spell or something?  No.  Whoever she is, wherever or whenever she’s from, Mira is my friend.

23 February 1995

Harry is going frantic.  He knows that he’s going to have to go into the lake and retrieve whatever it is that the mer-people took, but he doesn’t have a clue as to how to go about it.  He, Ron and Hermione have been holed up in the library all day searching for clues.

I’m surprised, really, that Hermione at least hasn’t thought to use the library’s index.  Or perhaps she doesn’t know how.  It is a spell you see, you say the subject, and then say “index” while giving your wand a jab forward.  I just found myself using it one day — I was looking for a book on an obscure wizard, Justinian Lothian, whose name I’d drawn out of a hat when Professor Binns was assigning us essays on obscure wizards and witches.  Each of us got a different name.  

Anyway, I looked forever for Lothian, couldn’t find a thing on him!  So there I was, fuming about the lack of resources when I found myself doing the spell. Problem is, I’d never heard of it before!  Honest, I’d never seen anyone use it, I’d never even heard it hintedat.  But it worked.  An index list popped up in front of my eyes — it just hung there in mid-air with Lothian’s name highlighted and the book title in big, bold letters, it even listed the section in which I could find the book.

Very useful, but sort of scary too, cause I went to Madam Pince afterwards and asked her why the index wasn’t listed somewhere where everyone could make use of it — she kicked me out of the library for telling fibs!  She said that it was impossible to index a magical library.

It’s got to be something only a few people (perhaps only Tom) knew about.  Perhaps it’s even something that he invented— Dumbledore did say that he was probably the cleverest student to ever go through Hogwarts.   Thing is, it’s an INDEX for pity’s sakes!  How can an INDEX be dangerous?

Ginny sat staring at the words she had just written.  Of course, she could see it now.  An index would allow a student to be able to access ALL the information in the library, even the dangerous items that were kept strictly in the restricted section, and a really clever student would be able to figure a way around Madam Pince if they were really determined to remove a book containing Dark Magic, they could summon it even, providing they knew what book it was they were looking for.

Ginny rubbed her eyes.  The words in front of her were blurring . . .reforming . . .take a cup of water, add one newt tail and allow to simmer for three hours . . .

“I didn’t’ write that,” Ginny muttered, but an instant later, when she saw the diagram of the spill-clearing charm take shape on the table beside her, she knew what was happening.

“I must be more tired than I thought,” she told herself, grinning as Harry snorted over a hex that caused the victim’s tongue to lengthen and fork at the end. It was becoming second nature to her now to not let the double vision intrude on whatever it was she was doing at the moment.  Keeping her mind focused was the key.  The only times Harry’s point of view intruded on her own thoughts now was when she was either extra tired, or Harry was feeling particularly strong emotions.

And Harry was definitely feeling strong emotions.  He was absolutely frantic to find something that would help him through the second task. He was flipping through book after book, his eyes burning with tiredness.

Ginny’s insides gave a guilty squirm.  She could help him find the spell he needed.  A bubblehead charm would work, no problem.

Shit.  There was more unsolicited information.  That had been happening a lot the last two years.  Spells she’d never heard of would pop into her head, or she’d get a charm or spell down perfectly the first time she tried it, or find herself writing the answers to a test question when she knew for a fact that she had never actually read the information for herself. 

Thanks Tom.

She should tell Harry about the index . . .he was down in the common room right now. 

It’ll just lead to awkward questions if you volunteer the information, Ginny told herself firmly.  Let him do it on his own.  It’s not like he’ll actually get hurt if he can’t perform the task, anyway.

She wanted Hogwarts to win, of course she did.  But she also wanted Harry alive and safe and in one piece.  Who the hell had put a fourteen-year-old wizard’s name into the Goblet of Fire, anyway? 

“Stupid great prat,” Ginny growled.

Yeah, I know I am, came Harry’s immediate reply.  Emphasis on stupid.  You’d think there’d be a way to access information. . . He was imagining Hagrid’s face when he told him that he, Harry wouldn’t be able to do the task.  Abruptly Harry stood up, dumping Crookshanks unceremoniously onto the floor, and bolted up the boy’s staircase.  He was getting the cloak, he’d go back to the library. . .

Too late to ambush him then . . .Index! Ginny thought frantically, willing Harry to hear her.  Use the index!

“Wish there was an index,” muttered Harry half an hour later as he stacked a great pile of books onto the end of the table he was working at.  “It would make my life a lot simpler.”

Ginny sighed, closed her journal and made her way up the stairs to the girls’ dormitory, wondering vaguely if she could risk using the secret passage George had showed her, the one that led down to the ground floor from behind the big dragon vase at the other end of the seventh floor corridor.  She could really use a cup of hot chocolate and she had a feeling that she was in for a very long night.

24 February 1995

They’ve got Ron.

But gillyweed, Harry?Thought Ginny furiously, willing Harry to hear her.  Stupid Harry, really stupid!  That’s not exactly something you find in the student store cupboards!  Snape’s going to blame it on you, you that don’t you?

But Harry wasn’t listening.  They’ve got Ron.  The thought was reverberating around in Harry’s head, leaving room for precious little else.

Ginny watched, slightly amused as Krum, who looked very pale and anxious, pointed his wand at himself and turned into half a shark.  Bizarre that. There was a ripple of laughter through the stands in response to Krum’s transfiguration, some “Ooh’s” of admiration as Fleur and Cedric performed the bubble-head charm on themselves, and some snickers as Harry wadded out into the shallows and pulled a handful of what looked like slimy gray worms out of his pocket. A moment later Harry had stuffed the gillyweed into his mouth and was trying desperately to swallow the rubbery mass in his mouth.

In her seat at the top of the stands Ginny took a deep breath, bracing herself against the sudden sharp pain in her neck as Harry sprouted gills (much to the amazement of the crowd) and tried to distract herself by concentrating on the back of Michael’s head.  He was sitting just in front of her.  He’d sat there purposefully, giving her a meaningful glance and a broad wink before taking his seat. He’d been doing that a lot lately; “accidentally” meeting up with her in the library, or she’d find to her amazement that he’d be walking beside her in the corridor.  Granted he hadn’t actually approached her, and he was usually with Terry Boot and Anthony Goldstein, but still. . .

And she couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was. Like now, his dark curly hair was glinting in the watery sunlight and she could smell the scent of him, a slightly spicy, musky scent, he was that close. And there was a freckle on his right earlobe. Ginny wondered vaguely if any of the girls Michael had dated knew he had a freckle on his ear.

Good.  Harry was swimming now.  By un-focusing her eyes she could see the dark foggy murk of the lake bottom through his eyes; feel the pressure of absolute silence pressing against his ears. Ginny felt a wave of anxiety wash through her. This was so stupid!  She was sitting here, waiting in the stands when there was nothing to see, when at any minute Harry could be in trouble.  Well, at least the thing he’d miss the most had turned out to be Ron.

“Wonder why Krum looked so anxious,” she muttered to Neville, who was sitting beside her.  But it was Colin, sitting on the other side of Neville who answered.

“Well, they took Hermione, didn’t they?” Neville and Ginny both turned to stare at him.

“What was that, Neville?” said Ginny.

“McGonagall, last night, she came to the library and took Ron and Hermione back to her office.

“Cho too,” said Michael, turning right around in his seat to join in the conversation.  “Professor Flitwick came to our common room last night and asked her to come with him, that Professor Dumbledore needed to see her.  The girls in her dorm say that she never came back.”

“Well, that takes care of three of the champions,” said Neville flatly.  “Harry’s gone to get Ron, his best mate, Cedric’s after Cho, his girlfriend and Krum’s going for Hermione.”

Harry noticed that Neville didn’t call Hermione Krum’s girlfriend.

“But what about Fleur?” Neville added curiously.

“She was crying this morning,” said Lisa from Ginny’s other side.  “I found her in the first floor girl’s bathroom.  She looked dreadful: her eyes all red and puffy.  She said they’d taken her little sister.” 

“But what’s been done with them?” asked Colin curiously.  “I mean, why have they been put in the lake?”

“Merpeople,” murmured Ginny.  Neville, Michael, Terry, Colin and Lisa all turned to look at her.

“There’s merpeople in the lake?” said Michael. He’d gone very pale. 

“I’d love to see a mermaid!” breathed Lisa, her eyes huge.  Ginny knew without being told that she was thinking of mermaids as they’d always been portrayed in Muggle stories.

“No, you wouldn’t,” said Michael flatly.  “They’re not very nice, merpeople.”

“Oh come on!” said Colin with a hint of hysterical laughter in his voice.  “How dangerous can merpeople be? I mean, they’re just a great fish with a human head, right?”

“My Uncle Algie was attacked by one in the Mediterranean once,” said Neville, looking grave.  “He said it was nearly wild, all green hair and yellow teeth.  They use really vicious stone spears.  Some of them are supposed to eat humans.”

“Oh come off it,” said Lisa faintly.  “They wouldn’t eat humans.”

“They might if they get tired of eating fish,” Terry pointed out. 

Ginny shivered and looked at her watch.  Fifteen minutes had already slipped away, and Harry was no closer to finding the mer-people than he had been when he first dove into the lake.

“But Dumbledore wouldn’t let anyone get hurt!” said Neville in a rather high-pitched voice.  “I mean, he’d put some sort of protection on them, wouldn’t he?  So that the merpeople wouldn’t actually be able to eat them or anything?”

Unwelcome and unbidden, the song that the egg had sung under water in the prefect’s bathroom reverberated in Ginny’s already aching head.

An hour long you’ll have to look,

And to recover what we took.

Past an hour -  the prospect’s black,

Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.

Guilt pierced Ginny’s mind like a red-hot skewer.  She should do something, anything!  This wasn’t just Harry making a fool out of himself by not being able to do the second task.  Damn Dobby to hell, but Harry was in the lake now.  That was bad enough.  But now she knew that it wasn’t something stupid, like a broomstick or some other treasured possession that had been taken.  People’s lives were at stake here.

“Dunno,” said Dean Thomas, who was sitting on the other side of Lisa and who, with Seamus Finnegan, had been listening in to their conversation.  “I mean, unless there was a real risk, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge, would it?”

“He wouldn’t risk the lives of four innocent people,” insisted Neville.  “He wouldn’t, not Dumbledore!”

“So maybe they’ll only get hurt, not killed,” said Terry with a shrug.  “I mean, if the champion doesn’t recover them in time.  Madam Pomfrey’s got her kit set up there by the judge’s table,” he pointed out.  “She must be expecting some injuries.”

She couldn’t risk it.  She could call the elements silently; tell them to help Harry, but what about Hermione, and Cho, and Fleur’s little sister?  Was there something else she could do?  If only she knew how to navigate the lake, but after that boat ride across it her first year, she’d never done more than swim in the shallows.  What Harry needed was something like a map, like the one he had for Hogwarts . . .except that he was underwater.  Did the map work underwater?  Someone then.  Someone who had been in the lake and knew his or her way around . . .someone like . . .

“I can’t stand this,” Ginny jumped to her feet and pushed her way past Neville and Colin and Dean and made her way quickly down the stairs and up the lawns towards the castle.

“Ginny!”

She looked around.  Of all people Michael was following her up the slope.

“Ginny, wait up!”

She kept walking, but a moment later he was beside her, panting slightly from his run up the hill.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, I — uh — just have to use the loo,” said Ginny, her insides twisting slightly at this blatant lie.  It wasn’t a lie though, not entirely.  She did have to use the loo, but not in the way Michael would be thinking.  “I won’t be but a minute.” 

Ginny dashed up to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, Michael on her heels, and found herself glad beyond measure that Michael didn’t know the details about her first year at Hogwarts.  She slammed open the door and stood still.  Sure enough, Myrtle was gurgling away in the u-bend of the fourth toilet.

“Myrtle?”

“Go away, leave me alone.”  The ghost girl’s morbid voice burbled up through the chipped enamel.

“No Myrtle, listen to me.  Harry’s in trouble.”

“Harry?” The ghost’s head emerged suddenly, and somewhat disconcertingly from the discolored bowl.

“Why would it matter to me if Harry was in trouble?” she asked morosely.  “He hasn’t been back to visit, not for ages.

“But you helped him out with the egg,” Ginny insisted.

“How did you know about that?” asked Myrtle’s head suspiciously.

“Doesn’t matter, but he’s in the lake Myrtle, he’s looking for the merpeople, and he’s taking entirely too long.  In fact-” Ginny paused, her eyes going unfocused for a moment.  “He’s being attacked by grindylows, Myrtle!”

“If he wants my help he can come up here and ask for it,” said Myrtle, silver tears welling up in her hugely magnified eyes.  “No one ever does you know.”

“I’ve come for him,” said Ginny fiercely.  “And you will help him, Myrtle.” An instant later, Ginny had flushed the toilet and Myrtle, taken by surprise, went whooshing away down the drain.

There, she’d done what she could.  Ginny made a point of washing her hands thoroughly before joining Michael in the hall outside the bathrooms.

“All better?” he said, smiling cheekily at her.

Ginny grinned back

“I feel like a new person,” she answered saucily.

 “So, lets get back, shall we?” said Michael, holding out his hand to her.  “The hour’s half gone and I for one am anxious to see who gets back first!”

“ . . .your time’s half gone, so tarry not, lest what you seek stays here to rot. . . .” chanted Ginny without thinking.

“Hey, that was good, where’d you come up with that one?”

Ginny smiled and shrugged.  It was what the merpeople were singing right now, but she wasn’t about to tell Michael that. Let him think she was being enigmatic.  He seemed like the type of guy who would appreciate something like that, a woman of mystery.  Heaven knows she’d read enough of Laura Marchbanks’ books to be able to act the part.

“I’m sure Neville and the others will be wondering where we got to,” said Ginny brightly as they approached the stands where the rest of the students were waiting for the second task to be completed.

“Are you and Longbottom . . .er . . .an item?” asked Michael in a would-be casual voice.

Ginny glanced sideways at him and was pleased to notice that there was a faint pink tinge creeping up his neck.

“Why, Corner, are you interested?” Ginny asked archly. 

“Well, I mean, I see you together a lot, and, well, you did go to the Yule Ball together.”

“And that means what exactly?” asked Ginny without missing a beat.

“Well, I don’t want to intrude on someone else’s space.”

That brought Ginny up short.

“This space belongs to me, Michael,” said Ginny, letting go of his hand as they approached the stands.  “Nobody owns me.  Not you, not Neville. No one.  I’m my own person. Can you deal with that?”

“I sort of like it actually.”

“Good, then you be interested in knowing that Neville and I are not an item, we’re just good friends.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

They’d reached the row where Neville, Lisa, Colin and Dean were still sitting and talking amongst themselves, waiting for the champions to emerge.

“That’s good to know,” said Michael, taking his seat beside Terry. 

Yes, Ginny thought, turning her attention back to the lake and Harry’s refusal to leave until all the hostages were rescued.  It was definitely good to know.

25 February 1995

Well, thanks to Dobby — and Myrtle — Harry made it through the second task.  Thanks to his own stubborn streak, his insistence on not leaving until all of the hostages were safe was taken as “moral fiber” by the judges, well, almost all of them.  Karkaroff gave Harry a four out of ten.  Talk about being biased!  It surprises me, actually, that the heads of the schools sit as judges.  I mean, it must be a really old tradition, maybe as old as the tournament itself.  But it still doesn’t seem fair.  The heads of the schools are going to want their own champion to win after all, aren’t they?  Karkaroff makes no pretenses about wanting Krum to win.  Kakaroff makes me nervous.  Like Moody, he sets my teeth on edge.  There’s something, oh, I don’t know, wrongabout him.  And that stupid goatee! 

Anyway, Harry and Cedric are tied for first place — you should have seen Harry’s face!  But the look on Harry’s face at seeing his score was nothing, nothing compared to the look on George’s face when Harry and Ron came out of the lake with Fleur’s little sister.

George went chalk white when he saw Fleur holding the smaller girl.  As she was being hugged, her eyes met George’s over her sister’s shoulder and their gazes locked — just like the dream that he and I both had.  George looked for all the world as if he had just found something that he had been looking for, for a very long time.

He looked exactly the way I felt when I looked into Harry’s eyes for the first time there in King’s Cross Station; as if he’d come home.

She’s so young though!  She doesn’t look a day over nine, although I suppose she could be as old as old as ten, people always thought I was younger than I really was (until I hit puberty that is, nowadays their guess is usually a lot closer to the mark).  Even if she’s as old as ten, that makes her at least six years younger than George, possible more.  That’s quite an age difference.  Although, if what they say is true, you know, that men act (on average) four years younger (emotionally) than their chronological age and that women are (on the whole) apt to act four years older than their chronological age, then this girl and George would actually be nearly equal.

But it doesn’t matter.  Not really.  It wouldn’t matter if she were twenty years older than him.  It wouldn’t matter if she were ugly as sin.  He belongs to her. I could see it in his eyes.  It is only a matter of time.  That is what I tell myself every day, so I know it’s true.

1 March 1995

Harry Potter’s secret heartache, eh?  That’s a good one.  Doesn’t know what she’s playing at, does she, that Skeeter woman?  Harry and Hermione?  Are you kidding me?  I laughed so hard when I read that bit that I thought I was going to burst.  Colin thought I was having a fit.  I was reading it at supper you see — Lisa subscribes to Witch Weekly and she had loaned me her copy.  What a laugh! 

The thing is, people who don’t know Harry and Hermione actually believe this garbage!  The Slytherins are having a heyday with the whole Harry, Hermione, Krum love triangle.  Honestly! 

I’ll tell you one thing though, the way Ron reacted to Hermione’s admitting to him and Harry that Krum had asked her to come visit him was a dead giveaway to how he really feels about her.  Too bad the stupid git can’t admit it to himself!  Even Harry picked up on it. 

I’ll tell you though, when Snape read that article out loud to the entire Potions class Harry wasn’t the only one who felt the urge to bash Snape’s face in just as he was mashing his scarabs.  I could have hit him myself, the slimy bastard!  That is such a nasty thing for anyone to have done, and Snape’s a teacherfor pity’s sakes!  And then he goes and accuses Harry of having broken into his private stores.  See?  I knew that when he saw the gillyweed that he’d suspect Harry of being the one to steal it from him.  And then, on top of that, he has the gall to threaten Harry with Veritaserum! 

I’ve got my own problems though.  Every night this week I’ve gone to the library — I don’t trust myself in the common room where Harry and Ron and Hermione are always working.  Its bad enough that I’ve got Harry in my head, but having him in the same room, well, I get totally distracted.  So I’ve been going to the library.  It hasn’t been working very well though.  Monday Colin cornered me about the articles I’d promised him.  I’m behind by a good bit.  I don’t think I’m going to work on the Howler next year.  I just can’t bring myself to devote the time to it that it really needs.  My hearts just not in it anymore.  Never was actually, I was doing it as a favor to Colin. 

So anyway, then on Tuesday Mandy and her crowd parked themselves at the table next to mine.  Mandy and Laura and Jack and Andrew.  Let me tell you, they took full advantage of the fact that the book stacks blocked them from Madam Pince’s view.  For a while I thought Laura and Andrew were going to go at it right there on the library table.

Answer me something, how can anyone feel comfortable making out with their boyfriend in front of another couple?  I mean, it wasn’t as if they were just kissing or anything, he had his hands under her jumper and she had hers down the front of his trousers.  They again, Mandy and Jack were pretty preoccupied themselves.  They probably didn’t notice a thing. 

Needless to say, I didn’t get a whole lot of work done.  Instead I ended up back in Gryffindor tower, trying to ignore Harry and Ron’s conversation over a game of Wizard’s Chess.  Took me forever to get McGonagall’s essay done.

Then Wednesday I went back to the library, and Michael came in and asked if he could study at my table.  Needless to say when Neville came in, things got a little awkward (Neville and I usually study together on Wednesdays, it’s sort of become a habit with us.  I help him with his potions and he helps me with my Herbology).  Anyway, when Michael sat down, Neville seemed rather put out.  He left rather sooner than he usually does and hasn’t spoken to me since.

Then on Thursday, Michael showed up again, only this time with Terry and Anthony.  They are quite the team, those three, and they earned us a severe reprimand from Madam Pince who can’t stand for the disruption of her peaceful library.  She looked pointedly at me, too, when she came over, as if I were to blame for this breach of conduct!

Anyway, I’m so far behind now it’s not even funny!  I’ve got four essays to complete, two of them are overdue and I’m going to have to take a point decrease.  Damned depressing if you ask me.  It doesn’t matter how advanced I am in knowing the different spells and stuff, if I don’t turn in the homework on time I’m still going to get marked off on it!  I’m half tempted to take my homework out to the clearing, at least there I’d know that I wouldn’t be interrupted!