The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|110| Harry's Girl

During Charms lesson, Harry and I told Ron and Hermione about having Slughorn's memory of him telling Voldemort about Horcruxes. And he also added how we'd be taking turns to go with Dumbledore to destroy them.

"Wow," said Ron, when we had finally finished telling them everything; Ron was waving his wand very vaguely in the direction of the ceiling without paying the slightest bit of attention to what he was doing. "Wow. You're actually going to go with Dumbledore... and try and destroy... wow."

"Ron, you're making it snow," I chuckled.

Hermione grabbed Ron's wrist and redirected his wand away from the ceiling where large white flakes had started to fall from. From the table in front of us, Lavender Brown glare at Hermione's action, earning a scowl from me and a flushed face from Hermione.

"Oh yeah," said Ron, looking down at his shoulders in vague surprise. "Sorry, looks like we've all got horrible dandruff now."

He brushed some of the fake snow off Hermione's shoulder. Lavender burst into tears. Ron looked immensely guilty and turned his back on her.

"We split up," he whispered to Harry and me. "Last night. When she saw me coming out of the dormitory with Hermione. Obviously she couldn't see you two, so she thought it had just been the two of us."

"She's so dumb," I rolled my eyes.

"Ah," said Harry. "Well— you don't mind it's over, do you?"

"No," Ron admitted. "It was pretty bad while she was yelling, but at least I didn't have to finish it."

"Coward," said Hermione, though she looked amused. "Well, it was a bad night for romance all around. Ginny and Dean split up too."

Harry's eyes flashed happy, although he kept his face neutral and asked, "How come?"

"Oh, something really silly! She said he was always trying to help her through the portrait hole, like she couldn't climb in herself, but they've been a bit rocky for ages," Hermione dismissed.

I glanced over at Dean on the other side of the classroom who looked completely unhappy.

"Of course, this puts you in a bit of a dilemma, doesn't it?" said Hermione.

"What d'you mean?" Harry straightened up.

"The Quidditch team," said Hermione. "If Ginny and Dean aren't speaking..."

"Oh— oh yeah," said Harry.

"They'll get over it," I sighed.

Climbing through the portrait hole into the sunny common room, there was a lot of commotion. There was a group of seventh years clustered together.

"Katie! You're back! Are you okay?" I ran over to her.

"Katie?" Harry sounded from behind me.

"I'm really well!" she said happily. "They let me out of St. Mungo's on Monday, I had a couple of days at home with Mum and Dad and then came back here this morning. Leanne was just telling me about McLaggen and the last match, Harry."

"Yeah," said Harry, "well, now you're back and Ron's fit, we'll have a decent chance of thrashing Ravenclaw, which means we could still be in the running for the Cup!"

Harry and Katie spoke more about Quidditch and her return to Hogwarts while Hermione, Ron, and I stood around awkwardly. There wasn't much to do and no chairs or tables were available, but soon Katie left.

"I think I'm going to take another swig of Felix," said Harry, "and have a go at the Room of Requirement again."

"Huh?" I asked. "What made you think of that?"