I Learned Your Pulse

"And you've never mentioned this because?"

The clamor of the Great Hall was welcome to Hermione's ears. Ron turned red every time she looked at him, let alone spoke to him, and Ginny was obviously pretending nothing was wrong. Harry was irritable - he kept stabbing his pumpkin pastry with unnecessary force - and Hermione guessed it had something to do with the red-headed girl on her right. But the noise of the Great Hall seemed to make all the adjectives vanish, and it was just her, Ron, Harry and Ginny, sitting safely at a table, surrounded by friends. Everyone else around the table was laughing, smiling, grinning, giggling, flirting, chatting, and other various verbs - but Draco sat as far from everyone as possible, broodily staring at his food, not bothering to touch it.

McGonagall was nowhere in the hall. Her seat had been vacant all morning - nobody had seen her.

Hermione took a drink of her pumpkin juice. It was heavenly. And Ginny aparently thought so too, because she'd taken a drink at exactly the same moment and had set her glass down with an expression on her face matching Hermione's. But Draco had also taken a drink; he'd set his glass down looking revolted.

Hermione was curious about this. So was Ginny. Their eyes locked and they nodded to each other. They both stood and moved to Draco at the exact same moment, Ginny sitting on his left and Hermione across from him. A few curious eyes turned toward them, Harry's and Ron's included, but they ignored them. Draco looked surprised for a fleeting moment, but his impasive stare at his food was resumed quickly.

"Ferret," said Ginny lightly, plucking a chocolate-covered peanut from his plate and plopping it into her mouth.

"Weaslette." It was said monotonously. Hermione raised her eyebrows, but Ginny shook her head, and she lowered them again, thoroughly confused.

Ginny leaned toward him and whispered something in a voice too low for Hermione to hear. She was irritated; secrets were not really necessary anymore, were they? She opened her mouth angrily.

The doors of the Great Hall flew open with a clang, and McGonagall and Kingsley burst through them. Both seemed angry.

"Minerva -"

"I said no, Kingsley!"

McGonagall did not raise her voice lightly, and everyone knew this, so the forceful inturruption of the Minister's seemingly pleading sentence brought great surprise to all. All voice in the hall stopped; and then Ginny looked falsely happy again, Harry looked irritable and Ron wouldn't meet her eyes. She was growing angrier. She didn't understand anything that was going on. She hated not understanding, or not knowing.

McGonagall had been taking long strides toward her place at the front of the hall, but Kingsley's legs overtook her and he reached the spot first, forcing her to look at him.

"I sent the owl -"

"I recieved it this morning!" she said shrilly, clearly very angry.

"There is no reason not to go through with it!" Kinglsey argued, his voice booming.

"What's going on?" asked Professor Sprout, leaving her seat at the staff table and going to join their conversation. Hagrid looked keen on doing so, too. "Minerva? What does Kingsley want?"

McGonagall glance at Sprout and said something through her teeth. Sprout gasped.

"Kingsley! Why, of all the - I don't - it's ridiculous!" the Professor sputtered in reaction to the words nobody else had heard.

"Wha's goin' on?" Hagrid ased, rising to his feet.

Kingsley turned to face the crowd.

"The Triwizard Tournament will once again be taking place," he announced loudly.