Just Another Day
Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley and Seamus Finnigan peered around the corner. They had been... tailing Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang for a good couple of hours.
It was for a good cause, okay?
"Are you sure he's under a love potion?" Ron asked for the fith time, "He seems like a regular bloke who's head over heels to me."
"I wouldn't be going to all this trouble if I wasn't at least 80 percent certain," Draco said, rolling his eyes, "Honestly Weasley, use your brain if you have one!"
"You can't blame me for doubting what your saying!" Ron replied, "We've been tailing these two for ages and there's been nothing suspicious. Mabye they actually do like each other."
"Wether that's true or not," Seamus said grumpily, "If I have to watch them make out one more time, I'm going to throw up."
„Not on my shoes." Draco said, pointedly.
„I have a bag?" Ron offered.
Meanwhile Harriet, Pansy and Hermione were going over a large stack of notes Hermione had taken while questioning the student body. Bein Gryffindor prefect certainly had its perks.
"Who's the most suspicious?" Harriet asked staring at the amount of names on the piece of parchment labelled ‚SUS'.
"We're not entirely sure." Pansy said thoughtfully, "They'd all have interesting motives and so would their parents. I still think we should focus on the immediate threats like Cho and Flint."
“And ignore all the incalculables?" Harriet raised an eyebrow. „I don't think so."
"Whoever's continuing Dumbledore's quest for wizarding suprememacy is definitely good at hiding." Hermione stated.
"Or we're just idiots." Pansy suggested.
Harriet hummed and started skimming through the notes the other girls had made. It would really take a while to figure out who was the culprit and who the accomplices were. Luckily, no one was dead yet.
The next few days went by quickly. Umbridge had installed about 18 new rules at Hogwarts and gained the hatred of the majority of the student body. Those she seemed to like were automatically added to the ever growing list of subjects the circlet now had. They were certain she had worked for Dumbledore personally as well. Draco was definitely doing his part in the spying. Crabbe and Goyle were there to aid him. They looked stupid, which gained trust easily.
No one actually expected them to have any cunning. Their mistake.
Ron and Draco had set their minds to figuring out the love potion situation. Two prefects aroused little to no suspicion and Ron could talk his way out of nearly any form of trouble. He was a good diplomat as well. It came from growing up with a lot of older siblings.
It was almost comical to see him persuading Diggory away from Cho Chang. Very impressive, since people under the influence of a love potion could only focus on getting to that person.
They had moved their main base from the Slytherin common room to the room of requirement. It had provided them with an investigations board which Harriet made use of. Most of the time she was busy studying for her O.W.L. exams in December. In January, if everything went well, she would be sitting in the same classrom as the sixth year students preparing for N.E.W.T's. Her main goal was to finish Hogwarts at the end of her sixth year. When asked why, she avoided the question better than any polititian could. It was obviously not something she wanted to share. Just like how she had figured out that Dumbledore was the bad guy in her first year. The Circlet agreed, there was a lot of things they didn't know about their friend.
Things between Harriet and Seamus had been going better lately. Now, they had a common goal. Take down the rest of Dumbledore's minions. Better meant they hadn't been fighting about their relationship.
They had agreed to stay together for appearances sake. A break up would throw them into the Ex-Press - the school newspaper's - spotlight. It was unneeded attention.
It also meant less suspicion about various tactical movements.
The whole situation was currently far from Seamus Finnigan's mind however. He was currently playing wizard chess with Dean Thomas, in the corner of the Gryffindor boys dormitory. His eyes were on the board trying to figure out what move he Dean was going to make next.
Glancing up, he noticed they were barely 15 centimetres apart. Dean was gazing at the board, dark lashes casting shadows over his cheeks. The sun leaking through the window gave him a crown of light and cast honey coloured patterns across his clothes. Seamus had to remind himself to breathe.
„Everthing okay?" Dean asked, eyes like molten liquor looking at him.
„Yeah," Seamus breathed. Then, shaking himself, „You really know your strategy, huh?"
„Not the only thing I know." Dean grinned, winking.
Seamus almost wanted to take a leap out of the nearest window. Dean Thomas had just flirted with him, even if it was only joking. He wanted to give a good response, craft something poetic with his unskilled tongue, maybe just kiss him. Why was fate so cruel as to dangle something in front of his nose like that, when he couldn't have it.
„I'm sure." Semus breathed, turning his quickly heating face back to the board and ignoring the way his heart was fluttering.
He moved a random piece.