After Dinner
As Tony, Palmer, Deeks and Mac left, Harry spied AJ back in the Great Hall as she sat by herself to enjoy more ice cream and the rest of dessert.
“Let’s go, Hermione,” Ron caught sight of the Hufflepuff, too, and gave Harry a meaningful look.
“Uh, go on,” Harry inched back toward the Hall. “I think I still have some room for a bit more treats. I’ll be right there.” He didn’t give them a chance to respond as he darted into the Hall to snag a seat across from AJ.
“This is a switch,” she noted, continuing to eat her sweets without missing a beat.
“Could I ask a favor?” Harry scooped up some cake and put it on a plate. “It’s not dangerous, but I’m doing a project with Ron that Hermione doesn’t like and I’m afraid she’ll talk us out of it.”
“You need a distraction?” she lit up. “Sure. This weekend? I told her I would be at the study group, so that’s not going to be a problem.”
“Thanks,” he felt the weight fall from his shoulders and he knew she would have probably agreed, but actually asking didn’t feel like he was using her and it was a way out that she could take if she didn’t want to.
They continued eating dessert until some of the older Badgers prodded her along.
“Don’t go out again, okay?” Harry told her.
“I won’t and you shouldn’t, either, because we still don’t know what that was about,” she referenced the other night.
“I’m staying in until I get the Map back,” he ruffled his hair, also having been unnerved enough to start jumping at shadows.
They went in their own directions and Harry took a moment to sigh deeply before he went up to the Tower.
Vince was his friend and Harry and the others didn’t like the idea that someone was lurking on his mother’s property. Tony taking up the task that had him out there was a load off everyone’s minds and Harry simply wished him a silent good luck before opening the portrait door.
“Ron’s taking a shower,” Hermione told him as she and G Benson poured over the Second Year’s homework. “We’ll leave a little later tonight.”
Harry nodded and went up to his dorm. He went to lay on his bed and decided to dig out Adrienne Lewis’ diary since he hadn’t read it in half an age with things going on as they had been doing.
‘I wonder what it must be like to take that last step into the unknown,’ she wrote in response to some neighborhood news of a violent home invasion gone wrong. ‘They say that Death is the next great adventure and I wonder if it’s true. Daniel says that I shouldn’t be thinking of such morbid things and that I have a life to live first. He’s right, of course, but I sometimes wonder what will happen one day. Will I be scared or resigned? Under the stars or under my roof?
‘I think I would rather like to go while I’m looking at the stars, laying on grass as I think of my life. I don’t know if I’ll be scared like that, but I think I am more scared that someone will forget me. I don’t want to be forgotten. I guess that’s why I’m writing a diary. So that, when someone finds it, I’ll be remembered by someone. If someone is reading this, please don’t forget me. We might be complete strangers and have never met before, but please don’t forget me.’
A chill ran down the back of his neck as he let his gaze linger on the last four words.
Please don’t forget me.
How terrible would it be if someone forgot her?
Or him, for that matter?
Except, he was the celebrity between the pair of them. He couldn’t be forgotten.
And never mind the fact that he didn’t even know if she was still alive, if she started her Great Adventure with the stars above her the very last thing she saw and surrounded by loved ones as she closed her eyes for the final time.
But Adrienne might still be alive and he felt a welling of determination to enlist Tony’s help in tracking her down the next time he saw the Agent. While the Trio might have wanted to solve it themselves, surely it wasn’t cheating if Tony made enquires and kept the answers to himself until they asked?
He would have continued either reading or thinking about it, but a shout drew his attention over to Ron, who had come in while Harry was lost in thought.
“It’s gone!” the redhead yelped, his blue eyes wide as he started tearing his bed apart.
“What is?” Harry frowned, sitting up to watch him.
“My soldier! I put it right here,” Ron tapped the extra pillow that Harry had seen him put the tin soldier on, but it was completely empty of anything toy or otherwise.
“But no one else came in,” Harry frowned, knowing that much. Ron only put the soldier on his pillow when he didn’t have it on him – which was very rarely. “Maybe it fell.”
When Ron couldn’t find it, Harry started to help him and they ruled out the small toy being in Ron’s part of the room. Harry started looking through his own stuff, but didn’t know what it would be doing there in the first place, anyway.
Vince poked his head in to see what was going on and they told him what happened since it wasn’t exactly a secret that Ron had the toy with him a lot.
It had even become a talisman of sorts, Ron constantly fiddling with it in thought and always making sure he knew where it was at all times. Word had spread throughout the House and everyone knew that if they ever came across a toy soldier owned by ‘Ronnie’, then they were to return it to Ron immediately.
“I can look in my room,” Vince offered before ducking out again. Neville, Dean and Seamus came in and started looking for it around their own beds, but they couldn’t find it, either.
“It’s just so weird,” Neville shook his head. “I know Ron always puts that toy on his pillow and the rest of us know that we don’t touch it.”
“Maybe it was one of the younger Years,” Harry suggested. “They could have done it on a bet or something. You know, sneak into the Seventh Year dorm to take something.”
“We’ll ask,” he assured, hurrying after Dean and Seamus before they did anything rash in their search for the missing soldier.
Harry watched them leave before glancing over to see his best friend morosely getting ready to go back out for his shift.
“I probably would have done it,” Ron lifted a shoulder. “The bet.”
“If I were anyone else,” Harry smiled slightly, “I would have, too.”
They went down to the Common Room as everyone started their own searches and Hermione got to them in no time.
“Someone took the soldier?” she frowned.
“Someone did something with it,” Harry ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not in our room.”
“We all looked,” Ron fidgeted as his eyes ran over their immediate area, hoping to find it or some sign of where it was. “I’d like it back, please.”
“Well, it couldn’t have gone far,” Hermione sighed, knowing that they wouldn’t be going anywhere until it was found. She adjusted her hair brooch and shrugged.
Harry watched as others slowly trickled back to give negative reports and Ron grew more and more panicked.
“Where the bloody hell could it have gone, then?” he threw his hands up. “It was on my bed when I went to the loo and it wasn’t there when I came back. Harry, you were reading A- I mean, your book, right?” They didn’t want anyone knowing about Adrienne’s diary after the debacle that was Riddle’s. “You didn’t see anything?”
“No,” he shook his head. “I didn’t see or hear anything.” They just stood around in frustrated silence before Harry heaved a sigh. “I’ve been thinking that maybe … d’you think … Sherlock?”
“You think so, too?” Ron looked at him with surprise. “I mean, I didn’t want to say anything. Sometimes, it feels kind of like there’s … someone else in the room, doesn’t it?”
Harry was surprised that it wasn’t just him.
“You didn’t tell someone?” Hermione frowned at them. “That’s dangerous.”
“It’s not like they’re doing anything wrong,” Ron scowled. “They just stand in the corner sometimes. Well, I don’t actually know since I never see anything, but I can just feel them there.”
“I get the feeling that it’s a man, though,” Harry pointed out. “And it would be Sherlock. I only really started feeling him around.” It was kind of a comfort to know that Sherlock may be hanging around to keep an eye on them. “He doesn’t really stay for long and I don’t feel like he’s a threat or anything.”
“Me, either,” Ron mused. “The bloke’s just there. I started noticing him lately, myself.”
Hermione studied them for a long moment before backing down. “If it is Sherlock, I don’t think stealing a toy is something he would do. But if it’s not Sherlock, I want you to go to Tony the moment you don’t feel comfortable. And the reason I’m not asking Tony to investigate is that – for all I know – it could be Sherlock and I would rather have Tony be concentrating on one thing at a time. But … if it is Sherlock, then why haven’t I noticed him?” She looked hurt, but Harry didn’t know what to tell her.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be in a room full of girls,” Ron shrugged. “I wouldn’t.”
That sparked something in Hermione’s head, because she went silent with a look on her face that said ‘thinking, do not disturb’ and G Benson came to stand next to them with a shrug.
“I haven’t heard about a bet going on for people to steal your things,” she told them. “Are you sure you looked around your bed?”
Harry shrugged as Ron responded and he looked around the Commons to see Neville moving around a nearby cluster of armchairs – only to glance off to the side and do a double-take.
“There it is!” Neville’s shout had everyone looking at him as he pointed toward one of the fires.
Harry moved to look and, sure enough, there it was.
The toy soldier was set away from the fire, but it was there.
“Lucky Neville found it before someone kicked it,” G Benson watched Ron hurry over to inspect it and a cheer went up when he dragged Neville into a tight hug. Neville was even allowed to pet it with a fingertip before Ron tucked it away into his pocket.
Hermione was thanking a lot of their Housemates for helping when he and Ron rejoined her.
“Glad that’s over,” Ron breathed in relief. “But how did it end up down here? I put it on my pillow like always.”
“You weren’t even over there,” Hermione agreed. “Maybe it is Sherlock.”
“Or the school’s magic,” Harry shrugged. Things like that happened at Hogwarts.
“Maybe.”
Now that the crisis had ended, activity resumed and that was a sign for the oldest Prefects to leave for their rounds.
‘Such excitement,’ Harry smiled slightly as people came up to congratulate Neville, who flustered at the attention. A pensive look crossed his face as he looked toward his dorm. ‘But how did Ron’s soldier end up down here? No one saw Ron down here for long and he only let it out of his sight once.’
It would have to be a mystery for another day, but Harry couldn’t help looking around when he arrived at the door.
“Sherlock?” he ventured, waiting for some kind of response.
A response that never came.
It was just him up there.
Just in case the Detective was listening, though, he said, “Hermione wants you to visit her sometime, you know. And … maybe you should wait to visit Tony until we’re absolutely certain it’s you. It might not be and we’d like to know before we tell Tony. We can’t assume, you know,” he added. “That’s not how Agents – Muggle or Magic – are supposed to work.”
* **