Great Hall, Friday, Lunch
By the time the bell ran and Potions class was thankfully over, Professor Snape had managed to find fault with something minor of Neville's and deducted 15 points. It didn't matter that Vincent's and Gregory's worktable had been even messier than Ron and Neville's, it was the spirit of the fault that mattered: no points given to Gryffindor could be left un-deducted if Slytherin were to win the house cup.
Harry shook his head and had finished helping the other students bottle their potions, marking the bottles with names, dates, potion name, and class level. Harry then walked back to his table and with Hermione they made their way to the Great Hall and lunch.
While looking for something that didn't show any signs of hair or dirt, Harry overheard frantic whispers throughout the Hall. Not surprisingly, they were whispering about him and how he had essentially told off Professor Snape, gotten points by doing it, and had also instituted a potion/cooking competition in two weeks time.
All Harry could think of is that if these people considered this big news, they really needed to get a working TV in the common rooms.
Looking around, Harry caught McGonagall looking at him and then she gave him a small rare smile. Harry smiled back cheerfully and bit into a turkey sandwich.
Student whispering eventually died down and newspapers were pulled out alongside texts as some students preferred to spend the time reading vs. gossiping. Hermione was reading a paper when she let out a very low gasp.
"What is it, Hermione?"
She said nothing but gave him the Daily Prophet.
The lead story had been about the break in at Gringotts. Harry had remembered the break in, but had thought it had happened later in the school year. Like the second or third week of school. Not sure why he thought that since Quirrell would have known to start working on school defenses at the outset of the year to protect the stone, but he wasn't shocked in any event. This was old/new news, or new/old news.
"How about that? Someone tried to break in at Gringotts. Wonder what they were looking for?"
"Harry, the article says they only went after one vault and it was empty. Whatever was in it was probably taken."
"Not if it were removed first," Harry gave a knowing grin, turning the page to his horoscope.
He didn't see Hermione's gaze on him intensify. Harry knew something, she was sure. She just needed to find out what. And to find out what he knew about Occulmency. She hadn't found the how-to books on it yet and she wanted to be proficient using it by Christmas. After all, he was the same age as her - and it just shouldn't be that hard to learn if he could do it.
A few minutes later, the sandwich gone, Harry looked up at the head table. There was Snape talking with Headmaster Dumbledore and Harry could lip read enough to see he was trying to find out what Snickerdoodles were. His gaze went past them to his target: Quirrell. The man was eating very little from his plate, constantly looking around. His eyes constantly looked towards the Gryffindor table and Harry knew he was tracking Longbottom's movements.
Harry caught the DADA professor's eyes and waved. The man timidly waved back, thinking that this was a suck-up move from a student with too much time on their hands.
Harry's thoughts were more sinister and if the man could have broken his mind shield, he would have read: Hiya, ya bastard. I'm gonna kill ya if it's the last thing I do. Or that Neville does, I reckon.
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