Next Time Around

The Room

Authors note:
Thanks for all of the reads for last chapter guys- it means a lot. I hope you guys like the story so far.

Disclaimer: I'm not Rowling, I don't own HP universe. I do own the plot line though, so please don't copy.

Enjoy!

A little research she said... well, it turned out to be a little more than that. As Harry sat on his knees, scrubbing the floor of the ritual room he wished for the thousandth time he could just use magic. But as they wanted to use the ritual in about a week or two it was safer not to use any magic in the room lets it conflicts with the ritual. Unfortunately, that didn't mean there was nothing to be done in there. Harry sat up for a second, feeling his neck pop. He rolled his shoulders once. The little creases and indentures of the runes on the stone floor made it near impossible to clean the damn thing without magic. He had been going at it for more than an hour by now and had not finished more than two square meters. He couldn't wait for tomorrow, when they would finally get back results from the headquarters about what the slots in the wall were for. It ought to be interesting. McGonagall had already hypothesized that the slots had something to do with the gathering of knowledge that was supposed to happen in the room. For the point of the ritual was gathering knowledge, but they had not yet found any indication about what knowledge you would get or how it was gained. Ah well. There was not much point in thinking about that now, he thought as he went back to the mind-numbing task of cleaning the floor.

During the next pause he was talking with Remus- no Tonks... he wasn't sure he would ever get over it when she changed her face to the face of late Remus.

'So Harry,' He -She, she. Not Remus. Tonks. started. 'How are you feeling about everything? Pretty intense huh? You nervous about the rituals?'

'Uhh yeah. I'm pretty nervous about it, I mean we don't even know exactly how we are supposed to work the ritual, and definitely not what will happen. So yes, I'm rather scared for my well-being.'

'Oh Harry your going to be fine. And even if not, live -or die for this matter- on the edge right? Send my kind regards to Remus if things go south in there.'

Harry really wasn't reassured or comforted at all. 'Right... of course Tonks. I will go say hi to Remus if I die...'

Tonks smiled at him. 'Good boy.'

Ron snickered. 'Real smooth Harry.' He said. 'Really. Very nice.'

Harry blushed a bright red and punched Ron, hard, in the shoulder. 'Shut it.' He mumbled. 'You try talking to her then. She's insane I swear!'

'Yeah the Remus thing really is intense huh?'

Harry shuddered. 'I think I'm gonna get nightmares about it.'

Together the two of them walked back towards the house. Harry grabbed two drinks and handed one to Ron, who sat outside in the shade of the porch enjoying the view.

'It's nice here isn't it?' Ron asked. 'Harry?' He clearly meant for it to be pensive and thoughtful, though it really only sounded pushy.

'Uhh yeah. Sure Ron.' Harry said, caught slightly off guard by the nagging tone Ron used. It was almost like he was asking about something else, disguising it as an innocent question.

He shrugged it off though, transitioning to the next topic with ease. 'So, you know where we're supposed to go tomorrow for the meeting? I really don't want to miss this one. I mean, we've been working on that temple for ages by now. I really want to get started with the ritual.' It was true. Harry had been getting progressively more and more anxious for some action. Cleaning the temple was all cool and stuff, but he really was slightly desperate for some actual substantial thing happening. Harry felt like what they were doing here was really not helping the war whatsoever.