When Harry woke up on Tuesday morning to find Ron so deep in sleep that he was hanging half out of his bed and didn't appear to notice, he could only laugh and roll him back onto the covers before he hurt himself. But when Ron woke up and quietly recounted the story of his encounter with the strange man last night, making sure the rest of the dorm couldn't hear him, the Boy-Who-Lived was, just as they'd predicted, annoyed that they hadn't woken up to tell him about it immediately.
"This isn't like in the summer when Dumbledore was telling us not to tell you anything, mate," Ron protested under Harry's angry glare. "I told you just now didn't I? But after what we learned, waking you up in the middle of the night wouldn't have made any difference."
Harry was still annoyed, but he'd calmed down a little by the time they joined Hermione in the Common Room and they were all walking down to breakfast together. "Well, I suppose its good to know that Dumbledore's at least taking extra steps to make sure that the school's kept safe, but why didn't he mention these extra security people at the welcoming feast like he normally would?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Hermione asked. "It's most likely that the Ministry doesn't know about these extra security people. After all they refuse to believe that You-Know-Who is back at all so if they learned that Dumbledore was hiring men to protect the castle they might think that was an attempt to secure Dumbledore's grip on the school. Fudge already thinks he might be trying to turn the students into an army. The idea of extra security guards being part of an army isn't a far leap from that."
"Though its a far leap from sanity to come up with an idea like that in the first place," Ron shook his head. "And I thought Fudge used to be pretty decent. Now he's gone barmy."
"And he's got Umbridge toadying to his every whim here now," Harry growled slightly. "I suppose she doesn't know about these guys either."
"Dumbledore definitely couldn't announce that he was taking precautions against You-Know-Who in front of her, certainly," Hermione agreed.
"There's still things that really don't make sense though," Ron voiced. "I was thinking about it and… there's a lot of stuff that just doesn't add up. Like all the stuff that guy said. Demanding where this Wendy girl was, for instance. Why would a security guard charge in and demand to know where a certain girl was?"
"Maybe Wendy's his daughter?" Harry shrugged.
"I dunno man. The way he was talking it sounded like Wendy wasn't a student. And I remembered something last night - he said she had blue hair. Blue hair! When was the last time you saw a girl with blue hair at Hogwarts?"
"…Maybe he was drunk?" Harry asked as they started to cross the Entrance Hall.
"He seemed damn sober to me," Ron shook his head.
"Ron, you also saw his arm turned into a sword thanks to the Makumura plant pollen, remember? It really is entirely possible that all this stuff about a blue haired girl called Wendy was part of the hallucination that the pollen caused," Hermione pointed out.
"You think?"
"Do you have a better explanation?"
"Only that maybe Dumbledore's lying and this guy isn't extra security. But Dumbledore wouldn't do that… would he?"
Harry's face suddenly went a little dark, and now all three of them looked doubtful. They all knew it was true that Dumbledore and the Order were keeping them in the dark about certain things. Not only had he refused to let Harry have any information over the summer but the entire Order were refusing to tell him things about their secret operations, despite his protests and his wishes to become more involved. Was this something else they were trying to keep him from learning about? If the guy was on their side why would they feel the need to lie about him? Was he on their side at all?
"We should talk about this later when there aren't other people around," Hermione whispered. "In fact, we really should discuss that kind of thing in the hallway where anyone can hear us anyway. We need to keep things under wraps a little more."
"Fine," Harry murmured. "What have we got for first period again?"
"Double Charms. And then Double Transfiguration before lunch," Hermione replied instantly.
"Well, that's something at least. Definitely better than Monday," Ron yawned.
Breakfast was a rather sour affair for Harry, poking holes in his bacon as he brooded over his current situation. Why couldn't people just let him be more involved in combatting Voldemort? Surely he of all people had a right to know what was happening. He couldn't help but feel bitter. It was bad enough that most of the Wizarding World thought he was some kind of attention-seeking loony, but having those who didn't think he was a loony treat him like a child irked him to no end. Even if, technically, he was still a child.
And this latest development, learning about extra security people being hired for the school, made him wonder what else he didn't know.
"Something up, Harry?" said a voice, and suddenly Fred was sitting next to him, grinning merrily as he usually did.
"Course something's up, Fred," George settled into the seat opposite his twin and next to Ron. "Something's always up these days - Harry walks around with a face so long that at one point I saw him and thought that our family ghoul had escaped and come to the school."
"Har har har…" Harry rolled his eyes, but felt a slight smile tug at his lips. Fred and George Weasley were, at the very least, always able to lift the mood somewhat even when Harry felt at his most down. He'd been right when he'd given them his Triwizard Winnings last year - the world did need more laughs right now and the twins certainly knew how to provide them. "No, its probably nothing important."
"Detentions with Umbridge getting you down?" Fred asked. "If ever you need a couple of Puking Pastilles to foul it up for Toadface then we'll let you have a couple free of charge."
Harry grinned, but carefully moved his hand to make sure the twins didn't notice the fresh scars on the back of it from last night, though Hermione looked like she was torn between scowling at the idea of the Pastilles or wondering if Harry should actually try using one to avoid the horrendous detentions. But she just sighed and said, "It wouldn't do any good. You know her. She has it out for Harry - she might make him do extra just for being forced to miss one, even if she thought he was genuinely ill."
"You may be right. Speaking of her Royal Pinkness though, I heard that Professor Trelawney had a rough time in her inspection of your class yesterday," George voiced.
"Yeah, I almost felt sorry for the old bat," Ron agreed.
"Looks like she's feeling rather sorry for herself too, look," George nodded up towards the Staff Table. The others looked over too and their curiosity piqued when they saw Trelawney and Umbridge engrossed in a quiet conversation. Though 'conversation' might not be the right word because Trelawney was quite evidently rather distressed and appeared to be stumbling over whatever she was trying to say and flinching whenever Umbridge replied.
"Wow, its rare to see Trelawney anywhere but up in her stuffy tower," Ron murmured. "What do you think she's doing?"
"Probably trying to convince Umbridge that she's not the fraud that she probably made herself look like yesterday… and is," Hermione scoffed, turning back to her Daily Prophet. "Honestly, I don't know which one of those two disgusts me more."
"…Really, Hermione?" Harry gave her a pointed look.
Hermione hesitated before she sighed and murmured, "Alright, alright, Umbridge disgusts me more but Trelawney disgusts me too. Oh, look at this!" She splayed the paper across the table. "There's a report on some kind of… giant bird attack down in Hampshire. They reckon someone's been illegally experimenting on animals to create a new species."
The others craned their heads to get a look at the paper, blissfully unaware of the fact that the newspaper had actually failed to mention the presence of three young people with unusual magic at the scene since the Aurors were trying to hush it up until they had more information. But even as she scanned the article, Fred nudged Harry in the chest and murmured, "Watch out, mate. Here comes the thunderstorm."
Harry blinked, but a split second later he found out what Fred meant when suddenly Angelina descended on him, furiously screaming at him at pretty much the top of her lungs about how he'd managed to land himself in detention with Umbridge and therefore miss Quidditch practice for yet another week! Harry feebly tried to protest against Angelina's verbal bombardment but fortunately she was quickly hushed by McGonagall as the Head of their House hurried over from the staff table, deducting five points from Gryffindor.
But she too grew angry when she heard the reason behind Angelina's shouting. "Did you take in a single word of what I said last week about controlling your temper, Potter? Another five points from…"
"The dance of the Fairies has begun!"
...
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