Obliviate My Heart {Book 2}

30. Madness all around

We talked to Sirius for a while about random things--even things as trivial as what food the elves were serving at Hogwarts--just to try and distract me from my worries. Somebody who knew me was working for Voldemort.

I had known this for almost a year. But nothing more had come of the fact until now. I assumed they had stopped. Clearly not. But it wasn't even like I made a lot of enemies in my muggle life--let alone any wizards or witches.

But who would have it out for me? Wendy--my old frenemy--or her awful cousin Adeline? My aresehole ex boyfriend? But... what if it wasn't anybody from my old school? What if one of the Oswins were plotting against me?

Sirius heaved an enormous sigh and rubbed his shadowed eyes, distracting me from my worries.

"What's the time?"

"It's half past three," said Hermione.

"You'd better get back to school," Sirius said, getting to his feet. "Now listen . . ."

He looked particularly hard at Harry and I. "I don't want you lot sneaking out of school to see me, all right? Just send notes to me here. I still want to hear about anything odd. But you're not to go leaving Hogwarts without permission; it would be an ideal opportunity for someone to attack you two."

"No one's tried to attack us so far, except dragons and a couple of grindylows," Harry said, I smirked, but Sirius scowled at him.

"I don't care . . . I'll breathe freely again when this tournament's over, and that's not until June. And don't forget, if you're talking about me among yourselves, call me Snuffles, okay?"

"Snuffles?" Cole snorted. He and Gennie had re-entered a while back, looking a bit flustered from some clear snogging. "What sort of alias is that?"

"One nobody would suspect." Sirius said simply. "What would you choose, then? Humour me."

Cole looked thoughtful for a few moments. "Hannibal Lecter. I heard it somewhere."

Gennie, Hermione, Harry and I exchanged startled looks. Ron, Cole and Sirius looked unfazed though. Didn't Cole know exactly who Hannibal was?

"Cole..." Gennie trailed off. "Do you know who Hannibal is?"

"No, why?" Cole said cheerily.

"He's a fictional muggle psychopath, who is also a cannibal." Gennie said slowly. "Sorry love, but muggles would guess that it's an alias."

Cole had a look of realisation. "Of course! His name rhymes with Cannibal!"

"Oh yes," Sirius said absently. "I'll walk to the edge of the village with you all, see if I can scrounge another paper."

He transformed into the great black dog before they left the cave, and they walked back down the mountainside with him, across the boulder-strewn ground, and back to the stile.

Here he allowed each of them to pat him on the head (even though it was rather random), before turning and setting off at a run around the outskirts of the village. We made our way back into Hogsmeade and up toward Hogwarts.

"Wonder if Percy knows all that stuff about Crouch?" Ron said as they walked up the drive to the castle. "But maybe he doesn't care . . . It'd probably just make him admire Crouch even more. Yeah, Percy loves rules. He'd just say Crouch was refusing to break them for his own son."

"Percy would never throw any of his family to the dementors," said Hermione severely.

"I don't know," said Ron. "If he thought we were standing in the way of his career .. .Percy's really ambitious, you know. ..."