Chapter 14 - Just Another Day...
We were at the Gryffindor common room ,where a celebration was held for Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team as our house was now on the top of the rest but Harry being the usual him had to Vanish to only God knows where , I only managed to catch a glance of Him before he disappeared into thin air, I thought about going to see Cedric but then decided against it ,it was already late enough I will just see him tomorrow
"What are you doing standing there all alone?" I heard a voice from behind me, so I turned around to come face to face with none other than Oliver Wood
"Well I was enjoying the party before you interrupted me" I replied
"Is that anyway to treat the guest of honor?" he retreated with a smirk as as he leaned on the same wall I was leaning on
"I don't really know who you're talking about?" I said as I looked around me, he faked a pout at that, causing me to chuckle
"Anyway congratulations on the Match" I said and a smile formed on his lips almost immediately
"Yeah, but it was a really a close call, for a second there I thought we wouldn't make it" he said shaking his head
"But you made it and that's the important thing" I told him with a smile which he returned "anyway I better call it a night, till tomorrow"
"Till tomorrow" he said and I walked to the staircase which was behind him, but not before patting him on the back and saying "and beside I knew you could do it all along"
With that I headed to my dorm
***************
About a week had passed and the stone was still safe as the trio have told me, there was more clues indicating that Snape was the one after the stone but I didn't really want to hear any of it so I just shrugged it off
However during the same week Quirrell did seem to be getting paler and thinner which made me suspicious about him but the Trio were saying it was because he was threatened by Snape but Quirrell wasn't cracking to him which by the way was odd I mean the part where he wasn't cracking ,seriously haven't they met the guy
But Wait till you hear it all Whenever Harry passed Quirrell these days he would give him an encouraging sort of smile, also Ron had started telling people off for laughing at Quirrell’s stutter
Hermione, however, had more on her mind than the Philosopher’s Stone. She had started drawing up revision timetables and color-coding all her notes. Harry, Ron and I wouldn’t have minded, but she kept nagging us to do the same which was really annoying
I on the other hand was just the normal sarcastic pranking me only now I was bored to hell
"Hermione, the exams are ages away"
"Ten weeks" Hermione snapped "That’s not ages, that’s like a Second to Nicolas Flamel"
"But we’re not six hundred years old" Ron reminded her
"Anyway, what are you revising for, you already know it all" "
"What am I revising for? Are you mad? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They’re very important I should have started studying a month ago, I don’t know what’s got into me…" she muttered the last part to herself
Unfortunately, the teachers seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Hermione. They piled so much homework on us that the Easter holidays weren’t nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones. It was hard to relax with Hermione next to you reciting the twelve uses of dragon’s blood or practicing wand movements. Moaning and yawning, Harry, me and Ron spent most of our free time in the library with her, trying to get through all our extra work
"I’ll never remember this" Ron burst out one afternoon, throwing down his quill and looking longingly out of the library window dramatically
"Don't be such a drama queen Ron" I muttered to him while rolling my eyes
"I'm not a drama queen, I'm not even a girl so I can't be a queen" he spoke
"It's a metaphor" I murmured shaking my head at him and went back to my charms book
But was snapped out from it when I heard Ron say "Hagrid what are you doing in the library?"
Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back ,He looked very out of place in his moleskin overcoat
"Just looking’" he said, in a shifty voice that got my interest at Once
"And what’re you lot up to?" He looked suddenly suspicious " You're not still looking’ for Nicolas Flamel, are you?"
"Oh, we found out who he is ages ago" said Ron impressively "And we know what that dog’s guarding, it’s a Philosopher’s St…"
"Shhhh!" I clapped my hand on Ron's mouth as Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening
"Don't go shouting about it, what’s the matter with you" "
"Do you want the whole school to know about it?" I asked as I pulled my hands from his mouths and he mumbled a quick sorry
"There are a few things we wanted to ask you, as a matter of fact" said Harry "about what’s guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy…"
"SHHHH!" Said Hagrid again "Listen – come and see me later,I’m not promising I’ll tell yeh anything, mind, but don’t go rabbitin’ about it in here, students' aren't’ supposed to know. They’ll think I’ve told you"
"See you later, then" Harry said,
Hagrid shuffled off
"What was he hiding behind his back?" I asked
"Do you think it had anything to do with the Stone?" Hermione asked looking at me
"I’m going to see what section he was in"’ said Ron, who’d had enough of working. He came back a minute later with a pile of books in his arms and slammed them down on the table
"Dragons!"’ he whispered "Hagrid was looking up stuff about dragons! Look at these: Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland; From Egg to Inferno, A Dragon Keeper’s Guide"
"Hagrid always wanted a dragon, he told me so the first time I Ever met him" said Harry
"But it’s against our laws" said Ron
"Dragon-breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks Convention of 1709, everyone knows that. It’s hard to stop Muggles noticing us if we’re keeping dragonsin the back garden – anyway, you can’t tame dragons, it’s dangerous You should see the burns Charlie’s got off wild ones in Romania" Ron explained
"But there aren’t wild dragons in Britain?" said Harry and I at the same time which was kind of weird, so we turned to each other but the shrugged it off
"Of course there are" said Ron "Common Welsh Green and Hebridean Blacks. The Ministry of Magic has a job hushing them Up, I can tell you. Our lots have to keep putting spells on Muggles who’ve spotted them, to make them forget"
"So what on earth’s Hagrid up to?" asked Hermione looking between the three of us
"Well guys as much as I want to know, I have to go I promised Cedric that we would hang out so I'll probably meet up with you tonight at Hagrid's" I said as I stood up collecting my books
"but what about your studies…" Hermione asked but I cut her off before she could finish
"I think I did enough for today and beside I probably won't be able to get anymore done with Ron over there whining every five seconds about not being able to understand something"
"Hey!!" he exclaimed and I just stock my tongue out at him
"See you later" I said then turned around and made my way out of the library
************
"come on Cedric ,you can't still be moping about the game , it been a while" I sighed as I was sitting with Cedric in the great hall
"I'm not but I'm just saying that maybe if I had trained harder or just concentrated a little more then we might have won the game " he exclaimed in defense ,causing me to shake my head at him
"Well, what's done is done stop blaming yourself for it" I said and he just sighed in return
"Anyway, are you ready for the final exams yet?" he asked
"oh come on , not you too" I whined "Hermione keeps reminding me of them every five seconds and I was just starting to relax , but you had to remind me, might as well kill me "
He chuckled in return
"sorry, but it can't be that bad"
"Not that bad, haven't you met Hermione?" I asked raising an eyebrow at him , which only caused him to chuckle
"Okay let's put that topic under the non-discussable ones"
"Agreed" I said smiling
"Have you noticed how pale Quirrell is lately?"
"yeah and it's actually making me suspicious about him , he doesn't seem like his usual self" I exclaimed
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know he is just weird, I mean more than the usual" I shrugged it off
we stayed like that talking about different things and changing topics for a while that I lost track of time and when I finally remembered about our meeting at Hagrid it was already too late , they probably are back already
"Bloody hell"
"What's wrong?" Ced asked seeming worried
"I lost track of time and I was supposed to meet up with the trio, Hermione is so going to kill me" I exclaimed as I gathered my things quickly
"I'll see you later" I told him then hurried back to the Gryffindor common rooms
The weird thing was that when I got to the common rooms they were nowhere in sight I even searched for Hermione in our dorm but she wasn't there and I was too tired to look for them around the school
So I just decided to ask them about their visit in the morning and went to bed…