Chapter 031

"Excuse me? Professor Babbling?" Hermione asked hesitantly. She poked her head around the corner of the office door. "May I come in?"

Shiva frowned looking at one of Harry's friends. The girl hadn't ever come to talk to her before…"Of course, Miss Granger. Please take a seat. How can I help you?"

"Well…it's about Harry…" Hermione wrung her hands clearly uncomfortable with bringing this up.

"Okay." Shiva sighed. Of course it was about Harry. Judging from the nervousness of Hermione though it wasn't something small or typical. "Why don't you tell me what's wrong, Miss Granger."

"I…I'm not…" Hermione took a deep breath, smoothed her robes and stared at Shiva with a firm expression. "I'm worried about him. I know he speaks with you but I'm not sure if he's been in the past few days. Has he mentioned at all about hearing a voice in the walls?"

"It came up yeah," Shiva said nodding.

"Neither Neville nor I heard it. However we don't believe Harry is making it up either. I've been searching for things that might have caused that but I can't find anything. He's scared and I want to help but I don't know what to do at this point. Nothing in the library has anything that might indicate why Harry could hear voices that we couldn't and I need some method to help him."

"I admit, Miss Granger," Shiva said with a small smile, "I'm a little surprised you've come to talk to me about this. I would've bet you'd go to Professor McGonagall."

"Normally I would have but…well I already feel like I'm going behind his back as it is just coming to you and I know he has a close relationship of sorts with you."

"Not as close as he does with you and Neville."

"I think you underestimate the amount of influence you have over him, Professor, but I am not here to talk about that. Harry trusts you. I know he wouldn't want me to speak of this with anyone really but I also need to help him and I feel like if I spoke with you he'd understand."

Shiva regarded the younger girl before nodding. "I think you underestimate yourself as well, Hermione. I assume you've checked most of the sensory reference books as well as the divination sections?" Hermione nodded. "If it helps I've done a bit of reading myself over the past few days and come up blank as well. I don't think there is much either of us can really do at this point except be there if he needs us."

"He is not going crazy." Hermione said with a harsh glare.

Shiva just held up her hands in response. "I don't believe that is the case anymore than you do. Just like neither of us believe that stupid rumor about him being the Heir of Slytherin."

"Yes, that certainly doesn't help matters. Professor…" Hermione trailed off again looking even more uncomfortable than before. "…Harry has…at times…I am worried that his relatives are – unhealthy – for him."

Shiva snorted. "Well that's certainly a far tamer word than I would use." Hermione's eyes widened as she looked up to the Professor. "Has he said anything specific about them to you? I've been careful not to push too hard but it would make things easier if I had more details."

Hermione shook her head somewhere between bewilderment and hope. "Nothing specific, no. Mostly just vague comments every now and then and my own suspicions. He…does not like being touched. He doesn't seem to shy away from me anymore which I've taken as a good sign but still…Fred and George have also informed me that he was locked in his room with bars on the window when they rescued him. I confronted Harry about that but he simply said 'I'll have a better plan next time'. I don't want him to go back to those…people."

"You and me both, kid," Shiva sighed. "I was hoping you had more details. Look I'm working on a way to get him out from under them but it's slow going. I don't have too much experience in the Muggle world and I can't use magic for this because it has to be completely above board. I don't want to tell Harry and get his hopes up for nothing, but I should know for sure in another few weeks if it'll work. After I tell him, I'll have him tell you okay? If I have anything to say about it that kid is going nowhere near those relatives of his again."

Hermione sighed in relief. "Thank you, Professor."

"We both want what's best for Harry. If you, Neville or Harry find out anything else – about anything we talked about – then please don't hesitate to come talk to me, okay?" Hermione nodded in reply and walked out, her shoulders considerably less tense.

Harry had actually been looking forward to this duel. Even finding out that the Club was being run by Snape and Flophart instead of Flitwick hadn't really dampened his enthusiasm too much. At the very least he could've used the opportunity to show off the disarming spell that Flitwick had taught him last year and make Malfoy look like a fool. Maybe he could've gotten even luckier and carefully tossed one of his Slugvomit runestones at his 'rival', the idiot or the greasy git! He really had to remember to thank Ron for that idea. His backfiring spell from a few weeks ago had certainly given Harry a fun idea for a prankstone. Fred and George were loving it too. Especially since Harry had managed to figure out how to make his special prankstones disintegrate after use. It was a bit annoying having to etch new ones each time but it left no evidence behind. And it held promise for using other materials for the shorter duration prankstones.

Unfortunately, before his duel with Malfoy had even started Snape had apparently given the blond ponce a fancy conjuration spell. The large snake that Draco formed was somewhat impressive, Harry gave him that. However it was also completely useless. Why bother fighting with something that had a brain of its own? When Harry glared at it, the snake slithered into the crowd. It looked like it was going to end up attacking one of the Hufflepuffs though, so Harry was forced to yell out to it.

{Hey! Leave him alone.}

{Ssspeaker?} the snake turned to Harry and bobbed it head.

{If you want to attack anyone, then attack the blond idiot up here. He was the one who summoned you.} Harry said gesturing to Malfoy. Harry didn't notice that the entire Hall had gone so quiet you could probably hear a quill drop. {However as much as he is an idiot I'd recommend just heading out into the forest. There's lot of food out there.}

{Very well, Ssspeaker.} The snake started to slither down the line of people towards the main doors when Snape finally roused himself and strode forward, vanishing the serpent.

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