Two weeks had passed from that night Neville and I found the kids on the bench and nothing important had happened.
Everything was still dreadful and dark, we still got tortured in class, Pansy was still following me around like a shadow and Sasha and Jade were still cold and distant.
Mark had stopped coming to the D.A. meetings which were more frequent and very difficult to organize without being found out; Ben confirmed my suspects that Jade had pulled an ultimatum and Mark had decided he'd rather be with her than staying in the army.
I only hoped they wouldn't try something like that on me or, at least, I didn't think Sasha would have ever done it; but she was mad and she could be vendictive.
What would I have done if I had to choose?
I really didn't know. I loved my friends but I had more now, and they understood my anger and what I was going through; and the D.A. had helped me cope with the situation a lot ...I didn't know if I would be ok without it.
For the moment I spent my time with Luna Ginny and Neville mainly, and other friends with whom I didn't really talk about 'important stuff', like some players from the Quidditch team that I met through David the past years or people I had elective classes with.
We were getting to the first Hogsmead visit of the year and I was really looking forward to get out of the castle and see other adults who didn't want to kill me
"Oh! Morning mail" Luna's voice distracted me.
I was eating my eggs and toast and didn't really look around at what was going on.
An owl dropped a copy of the Quibbler in front of her and she immediately opened it to read it; I spied the cover to see the picture of three Death Eaters with evil smiles on their faces looking back at me.
Mr Lovegood wasn't going for subtlety; he was brave even if very odd, like his daughter.
A silvery grey owl carrying a heavy package landed next to me
"Hello Plato!" I was pleasantly surprised
"Your owl's name is Plato?"
"No, it's my uncle's"
"You are a very pretty bird Mr. Plato" Luna caressed the very proud silver owl who then promptly began pecking my toast.
I was distracted, reading the note my uncle had written on the package with his flowery handwriting
"Mh... this is odd"
"What is?"
"My uncle is sending me books about trolls"
"That is weird"
"No" I laughed a little thinking that even Luna Lovegood found my interests odd "I mean I read all the books about trolls we had at home"
"Maybe he found new ones?"
"That must be it"
"I must go to class" she said, getting up and taking her bag.
The first lessons were about to start, I had free time but preferred getting up early to have breakfast with my friend and then study
"Will we see you at dinner tonight?"
"No, it's Friday: I have Herbology"
"Oh, right. Well tomorrow it's the first Hogsmead trip, will you come with me and Ginny?"
"Sure!"
After that she floated towards the big doors and disappeared in the corridors. I grabbed the package and patted Plato on his head before going back to Ravenclaw common room, where I proceded to occupy the low table in front of the fire place with my various herbology books and began researching the best way to favor bark regrowth in a Robin tree.
My day was pretty full but also, again, uneventful. But I couldn't complain, only thank my lucky star I had had a relatively normal week.
In herbology everything was going great: the Robin tree was still in bad shape, but quickly recovering.
Its roots had been infested with a stubborn parasitic bulb that sapped all the nutrients it was getting from the enriched soil formula we created, thanks to Neville's idea of putting some beetle blood in.
We succeded in taking away all the bulbs leaving the roots much more fragile and damaged but we were now using a potion that was proving excellent and, even if the silvery black bark hadn't grown in yet, the rest of the tree was definetely looking better.
Its trunk was more solid and the thin characteristicly long and flexible branches were sprouting some new pale gold almond shaped leaves.
Neville was incredibly talented in Herbology and even if I liked our tree, it was obvious to all that it preferred his touch.
It bothered me at first but then I realized that for how much I liked Herbology, it wasn't really what I wanted to do; so why be upset?
I was exhausted when that night we sat down for dinner
"Finally this week is over"
"Was it bad?" he asked between mouthfuls of food
"It's always bad, Neville"
I served myself a slice of pie. Best thing about late night lessons: the courses were all together on the table so I could just eat cake without having any other food first!
I could do it even at normal time dinner, but I would have had to wait through the main course
"I know but there were no accidents"
"You're right" I sighed "But I'm happy to go to Hogsmead tomorrow"
"Me too!"
He stopped inhaling food and sighed contentedly, then he put a slice of pie in his plate and turned to look at me, smiling and eating at a human being's pace. I held back a laugh.
"What will you and Seamus do?"
"I don't know" he shrugged "What about you?"
"I need new gloves... and socks... and chocolate. But I'm going with Ginny and Luna so we'll see"
"I'm sure chocolate won't be a problem with those two"
"Good!" I finished my second piece of pie "It's the most important one for me too"
Neville raised a brow
"You eat way to much sugar"
I looked at him very serious
"Easy Longbottom, I wouldn't want you to ruin this friendship"
He cracked a smile, so I took the rest of the pie he had on his plate.
"All right!" He let go of the fork and raised his hands in defeat, then he turned again towards me and sat with a leg on each side of the bench "Seamus and I will be at The Three Broomsticks at around five, if you girls want to meet us there"
"All right" I nodded.
I looked at the watch on my wrist and realised that if we didn't want detention we had to go.
"It's late" I kissed him on the cheek before standing up and beginnig to run towards the Common Room "Good night!"
"Night Josie" he shouted from behind me
After I got back in the Common Room I realised some of my books were still around the table, so I went to pick them up; close to the leg of the table I found the package.
I had completely forgotten it, but my curiosity sparked again and I decided to open it.
My troll streak, as my uncle described it, had ended at least six months before but I was still interested in anything my uncle deemed worthy advertising.
Inside I found 5 very familiar books:
The risks of hiking alone in Cornwall, common trolls and how to fight them;
The dangers of troll hunting;
The numerous perils when trying to teach a troll how to dance;
Death Threat: my experience living between the troll communities;
The dumb Menace: how trolls behave in their clans.
A chill crept down my spine.
I had read every single one of those books already.
It may not seem like much, but Oberon Vance never ever forgot a book: he took great pride and satisfaction in always knowing what I was reading and, whatever it was, we would discuss it at lenght.
My uncle didn't have the best memory in the world, he would have misplaced his head if it wasn't glued to his neck; he wasn't good with remembering my teacher's names or when he had an appointment, but when it came to books he never forgot anything!
He could recite one by one every book he had ever read; he could recite every book I ever read from the age of 5 and probably in the right order.
We had spoken of those books at lenght in the summer.
There was no way he sent them by mistake, he knew exactly what he was doing.
Something was wrong.
I picked up the ripped parchment with the note but after reading it again I didn't find any mention of our code.
I picked up the books again.
Ok Jocelyn, think!
Of all the books about trolls, why these?
I opened all of them, shaked them to see if something slipped out, flipped through every single page, but the books didn't reveal anything more.
I sighed.
I was very agitated.
I knew that this wasn't a big deal, but deep inside of me, I could feel that something was wrong.
Why these books? They were very informative in their own particular if sometimes slightly ridiculous field, but I remembered clearly how both my uncle and myself didn't consider them of great interest.
He could have sent me many other more interesting books on the same topic.
I checked them again.
There was nothing wrong or different about them, so something about the books themselves was important.
It took me a while before I concentrated on the titles again and at that point I realised they all had an ominous word in them: danger, menace, peril... Contrary to what you would think, not many books about trolls talked about them as very dangerous because even if a little underestimated, their potential for danger wasn't much high once you had been propeely trained in Defense Against the Dark Arts; everyone over the age of 17 could defeat a troll without sweating too much.
That was it!
My uncle wanted me to know of some kind of danger, but why didn't he write the code?
I could go to the Hog's Head the next day to ask Aberforth, but it would be dangerous: if one of the Carrows or Pansy saw me go inside, i would attract attention to the place.
It could be under surveillance from then on and every hope my uncle and I had about an escape plan would be null.
I looked at the books again.
I had to risk it.
I had to.