Why Do You Love Me?

Harry, Hermione, Ginny and Ron stood in the foyer of Number Twelve, picking at their new school robes nervously. They were seconds away from leaving for the year, but at the last second, Neville’s toad had suspiciously chosen to hop away, resulting in Neville’s frantic last minute search, turning over tables and knocking over chairs. He was red in the face from searching, and tough Hermione and the others had offered to help, Neville had declined. He had been certain that he was going to find the toad rather quickly. He was now regretting that decision direly; it seemed that he might have to go to Hogwarts this year without Trevor.

Neville sighed dismally, and his shoulders slumped in defeat, when a croak from the other side of the room caught his attention and he instantly perked up. Eyes filled with hope, he dodged around his grandmother, who was going to say goodbye to everyone in the foyer, and ducked under a table before successfully throwing himself towards the region of the sound and covering a green slimy lump with his hands before it could leap away. Neville let out a triumphant cry as he stood, holding the green blob above his head in a small personal victory.

With a grin and a little bounce to his step, Neville rejoined the group at the foyer to wait.

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Harry knew that it was only forty-five minutes later, but to him it felt like hours. Sitting in a relatively empty compartment with Neville and Ginny sitting across from him (awfully close, even to the untrained eye), Harry stared out the window at the gloomy scenery flying past. Hermione and Ron had already gone off to their Prefects meeting. Harry didn’t expect them back any time soon.

He knew he should be happy. He should be elated, even, at the fact that they were finally going back to school after a summer that had been too long, with too much occurring. But he wasn’t. Today’s particular train ride reminded him of another, exactly a year ago, when he had spied on Malfoy. How ironic it was that things had changed so swiftly.

Unconsciously, Harry brought a hand up to his nose, remembering bitterly how Draco had broken it and stepped on his face. It seemed like so long ago. So caught up in his thoughts was he that Harry didn’t even notice when Ginny leaned in for her first kiss with Neville, or when Neville fell to the ground with Ginny on top, their lips suctioned together quite tightly.

This was the picture that Hermione and Ron walked in on some minutes later. Harry couldn’t be sure exactly of how long they had been gone. With a grimace, Harry was yanked rudely from his musings by Hermione’s shriek and Ron’s yelp of surprise, followed by vulgarities that even Harry himself had never heard from the purple-faced redhead.

One of the only intelligible words that Harry could understand from Ron was “Off!”, and it seemed to be Ron’s favorite at the minute, as he shrieked it quite violently and quite often as he viciously grabbed Neville by the scruff of his neck and dragged him out from under Ginny.

“This,” Hermione stated as she plopped down beside Harry with a feeble smile. “Is bad,”

Harry smirked sardonically at her. “You think?”

Meanwhile, Ron bodily forced the door to their compartment open and shoved Neville out, tossing Trevor out after him.

“Stay out!” he shouted, his face nearly blue with anger.

Ginny sat staring at Harry sheepishly, wiping her flushed red lips with the back of her arm and averting her eyes towards the scenery rushing past the window.

Ron sat heavily beside her, and there was a pregnant, uncomfortable silence.

Hermione drew out a book from her rucksack, sure that things were fine and would blow over with time, but unfortunately for her, Ron chose just that minute to stand up, glaring at Ginny angrily.

“What, exactly,” Ron breathed, his tone a violent whisper. “Were you thinking, Ginevra Weasley?”

Ginny said nothing, though her cheeks flushed a rather pretty pink color.

“And with…with Neville?!” Ron seemed almost indignant.

Ginny stood, toe to toe with Ron, her face suddenly bright pink and very angry. “What’s wrong with Neville?” she cried out, crossing her arms across her chest in a nearly protective manner. “You didn’t have to shove him out like that, by the way. We were only having a bit of fun.”

“He’s Neville, Ginny!” Ron shouted back. “You couldn’t pick someone…else?” he finished rather weakly, causing Ginny to glare harder.

“Mind your own business, Ronald,” she yelled at him. She bent over to collect the books that had fallen out of her rucksack, slung the bag over her shoulder, and stormed out of the compartment.

“It is my business!” Ron shouted back at her, earning many curious stares from fellow students before he slammed the compartment door shut behind her. He deflated as soon as the door shut, though, tossing himself onto the seat and huffing. “She’s too young for that kind of relationship,” he muttered to himself. “Especially with Neville!”

Hermione chuckled to herself; Harry could feel the seat beneath him moving from the vibration of her laughter, though she did a good job of hiding it behind her book, which she held rather close to her face to mask her humor.

Harry sighed and returned to watching the landscape. It was going to be a long day.

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Everyone was gathered in the Great Hall for the usual evening festivities the first day back to school had to offer. Of course, to Harry, the festivities seemed more like a painful punishment he was forced to endure, because the only thing he wanted to do was climb into the nice warm four-poster bed up in Gryffindor Tower that was just calling his name.

Harry sighed and rested his head in his hands, nearly missing the short line of first years that crowded in after Professor McGonagall. Ron prodded him sharply in the ribs. “Wake up, Harry! The hat’s about to sort the first years!”

Excitedly, Ron rested his elbows on the table, grinning from ear to ear. Hermione and Harry were much more restrained, but that probably had to do with the fact that they weren’t quite as excited about the food to follow the sorting ceremony as Ron was.

McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat on the stool and stared at it expectantly. Moments later, the hat separated from its frayed brim, opening its makeshift mouth to inhale deeply before bursting into song.

“I’ve warned you once before,
But I must do it once more,
Unite inside dear Hogwarts,
Or you’ll be part of the score
Of the many, many people who have died for the cause,
Division of our race,
It will be quite a loss,
So please, don’t make that the case.
Though I sort you separately,
You must remember that you are one,
A class united,
By house divided,
But house matters none.
Gryffindor, the brave of heart,
Ravenclaw, with all their smarts,
Slytherin, full of cunning deftness,
And Hufflepuff, the house of patience
Together you stand, a pillar of strength,
And you take it for granted,
For you don’t care to know.
Yet if one house were not here,
You’d all feel the blow.
Remember, for class unity,
May just be the cure.
And if you are divided,
You may be forever more.”

That hat bowed slightly at the nearly over-exuberant applause. Even Harry joined in, a smile tugging at his lips as he looked around the room at everyone else clapping.

An empty table drew his eyes, and the noise of applause was drown out by an overwhelming silence in Harry’s ears. Not one single Slytherin was in sight, and the Slytherin table was deserted.

Harry’s brow furrowed as he looked at the table. All other tables were full of exuberant people, chattering and laughing, although some Ravenclaws were missing, it was obvious. Yet it seemed that all other students were oblivious of the absent schoolmates.

The noise filtered back into Harry’s consciousness, and Harry turned his head just in time to watch as the first three students were sorted.

It was rather nice that although Professor McGonagall was now the new Headmistress, she still handled all of her previous duties. The Headmaster’s seat was empty, awaiting McGonagall’s return, but somehow, the fact that it was empty was not as horrible as it once would have been.

By the fourth student, silence reined supreme in the Great Hall as all students’ attention was drawn towards the front. When Abby Hall, who had been sorted into Hufflepuff, had been seated, McGonagall’s brow wrinkled as she looked at the long list of names. For such a long list of names, Harry noted, there weren’t that many students.

Professor McGonagall looked worriedly at the Teacher’s Table, making eye contact with Snape, then cleared her throat and looked away. “Henry Gordon?” she called. The first years looked around themselves curiously, but no one stepped forward. “Henry?” McGonagall called once more. She observed the cluster of first years, who were nervously wringing their hands.

“Mister Gordon?” Professor McGonagall announced once more, eyes sweeping over the students. With a dismal nod, she continued on down the list.

This happened nearly twenty times, though Harry wasn’t one to keep count. Hermione suspected that the missing children were supposed to be Slytherin.

“Did you notice how none of the first years got sorted into Slytherin? There aren’t any Slytherins over at their house table, either.” Hermione had commented after the feast had begun. Ron was busily digging into his food, and therefore barely noticed the conversation.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “It is pretty suspicious.”

“Harry,” Hermione said exasperatedly as she spooned some mashed potatoes onto her plate. “It’s more than suspicious. It gives us even more reason to suspect that their parents are Death Eaters. I’ll bet they went to Drumstrang.

“I’m going to owl Victor tonight and ask him if they have any extra students this year. I think their school year started last week, so he should know.”

Ron stiffened at the notion of Hermione having any contact with Krum, but didn’t say anything. Harry knew it was a sore spot, even though Hermione and Ron were going out and Ron didn’t have anything to worry about, so he didn’t say anything else on the subject. Hermione seemed oblivious to the shift in Ron’s mood, as she plotted to find out the reason why there were no Slytherins this year.

Harry sighed and rested his head on the table.

He must have drifted off, because the next thing he knew, Ron was once again elbowing him in the ribs. “You all right, Harry?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Just tired. You know, since we woke up early this morning and all.”

Ron nodded in understanding. “I know the feeling, mate. I’m tired to, as a matter of fact. There should be no problem sleeping tonight, eh?” Ron grinned at Harry. Harry returned the smile half-heartedly.

“Yeah,” he agreed. He looked away, though, thinking of the bad dreams that had plagued him for the past few days. “Yeah,” he said again. “No problems at all.”

“You gonna eat that?” Ron asked after a bit of an uncomfortable silence (mostly on Harry’s part, as Ron was quite comfortable and hadn’t noticed it anyway). Harry looked down at the piece of pie that was piled on his plate, and wondered how it had happened. “No. I’m not very hungry.”

Ron swooped down on the pie immediately, devouring it in seconds. Hermione observed suspiciously. “You haven’t eaten very much, Harry. And not just now, either. You weren’t eating much at Number Twelve, as I recall. Are you okay?”

Harry nodded. “I’ve just got a bit of a headache, is all. It should go away soon,” at Hermione’s suspicious look, Harry sighed. “I’m fine, ‘Mione. Promise.”

Hermione nodded, but she didn’t seem to take Harry’s explanation to heart.

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Later that night, when Harry was sure that Neville, Seamus, Dean and Ron were all asleep, he snuck into the bathroom and disposed of the few contents in his stomach.