A Trio of Serpents

47: Tastes Like Chicken

Summary: Occlumency lessons are going badly; mountain chickens; Harry and Sid are wheels

This chapter is nearly 3800 words of weirdness. Enjoy.

They said that the eyes were windows to the soul. Harry thought it was quite fitting with eye contact being necessary to slip into another person's mind. His first lesson could've gone better; Snape did not tell him how to do anything, just that he must. Harry felt his old dislike of him returning with every lesson and fought down the urge to tell him to fuck off.

At least the D.A. meetings were going well. Nine Death Eaters had escaped, and Harry did not doubt that Bellatrix Lestrange had had a hand in it. Sirius was unusually grim whenever they spoke at night, and Remus told Harry that he had taken a rather Kreacher-like approach in his reaction, muttering to himself while wandering about Grimmauld Place.

One week before Valentine's Day, Harry had Dumbledore's Army start on the Multi-Shot Jinx, which Ron had remarked the day before could be useful when fighting big groups.

The students were directed into groups of four or five and told to practice on each other one by one. Because there wasn't quite enough space, Harry had Hermione take half of them to the Room of Requirement so they wouldn't have to wait their turn.

It was less noisy, so Harry could hear Logan and Jayson talking perfectly well even though they were in a separate group.

"So I was wondering..." Logan began, sounding somewhat apprehensive.

By the slight smirk on Sid's face, he seemed to know what was coming.

Jayson did not. "Hm?"

"Hogsmeade trip is on the fourteenth."

Jayson paused, and for a few seconds, it looked as though he were catching on. But then he shrugged. "Yeah, it is." He turned back to the task at hand.

Harry shot a questioning glance at Ron, who shook his head in exasperation.

"Valentine's Day," Logan pointed out slowly.

Oh. Now Harry was watching Jayson in exasperation.

"I know when Valentine's Day is," Jayson said. But he remained as oblivious as ever.

Logan gazed at him in complete exasperation before bursting, "Are you free to go on a date with me?"

"What?" Jayson whirled around mid-incantation. Unfortunately, his intention was enough to send several jets of pinkish-red lights at everyone in the Chamber. Harry erected a shield but still staggered back from the force. Most of the others were less lucky and ended up crashing into the cushions.

"Sorry!" Jayson called. "Except for you, Kyra."

His sister got to her feet, scowling.

Jayson turned back to Logan. "Sounds good," he said as if he hadn't just lost his cool.

"Great." Logan let out a huff of breath and, when Jayson turned away, sent Sid, Harry, and Ron a look that clearly said, Why?

Nobody had an answer to that.

The remaining ten minutes went by smoothly. Indeed, Jayson didn't look too worried about his date. But when it was time to go back to the dorms, he dropped his facade.

"I am going to mess this up so badly," he moaned, covering his face. "Maybe I should just — I don't know — sleep under the basilisk tonight. Or forever."

"You'll do fine, Jay," said Harry. "You spent time with him over the summer, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but that was before he asked me on a freaking date. Any advice?"