When The Heart Lies

WHEN THE HEART LIES

CHAPTER 1: The HeMNote

It was a typical 'End of Summer' Day at Diagon Alley. Witches and wizards of all shapes and sizes flocked the streets carrying baggages of newly-bought books, cauldrons, potions ingredients, parchments, quills and other Wizarding materials, required or otherwise for the coming school-year. It was a busy day indeed that some folk tended to lose some things: handkerchiefs, pens, even some Knuts -for the careless enough- and oddly, a rather old piece of notebook for a very curious person.

"Oi miss! You forgot your notebook!" cried out a chubby man wearing a grease-stained apron to girl who just left the restaurant.

He struggled to project his voice over the swarm of people in the restaurant but to no success. "Ai, didn' hear me."

He turned to a thin, freckled man a few feet away from him who was wearing similar green robes as he.

"Donald, go after that bushy-haired girl and give this to her. She left it on table sixteen."

"Yes sir," replied Donald as he fetched the notebook from his boss.

"And come back quickly!" added the exhausted boss. "There are many customers waiting!"

But before even reaching his tenth step away from the store, Donald lost sight of the girl. Sighing to himself, he then examined the condition of the notebook. It was a little worn off. The front cover of the notebook had an embossed golden lining of a coat of arms divided into four parts by two intersecting line with a big 'H' in the middle. He realized it was a Hogwarts notebook.

"Hmm, belongs to a Hogwarts student, I reckon," he loudly said to himself.

"Hey, you!" shouted Donald over to a portly lad on the nearest table eating what seemed to him was the lad's third serving of a large chocolate-coated vanilla sundae. "You go to Hogwarts?"

"Yeosh," replied the young lad after putting a mouthful of sundae in his mouth.

"Here," Donald said as he handed the lad the notebook. "Can you give this to the girl who just left? I reckon she's from Hogwarts. There migh' be a name there. Well, can't stay, customers waiting. Thanks laddie!" said Donald hastily as he then made his way back to the restaurant's kitchen.

"But, sir... Hey!" shouted the bulky lad as he stood up, and accidentally tipped over his lemon shake.

A slender boy had just entered the restaurant. He looked over the portly lad in utter disgust.

"What a mess! Been stuffing yourself up again, huh Goyle?" he called out in a commanding voice. "See you haven't changed over the summer! Where's Crabbe?"

Goyle was ruggedly wiping off the dripping lemon shake on his light blue shirt with his handkerchief. The slender boy watched him pitifully until it occurred to him that Goyle was holding a notebook. The sight made the slender boy to snigger.

"And what have you got there? You're not studying, are you?"

"I HAVEN'T BEEN STUDYING!" yelled Goyle indignantly. "That freckly waiter gave me this stupid notebook, told ME to return it to some careless git from our school. Guess I should juz' throw it then, you think? Oh, Crabbe's at the, er..."

"Ugh, never mind, he must be late again," said the slender boy as he eyed three large bowls stained with mud-like resins of chocolate and two empty glasses of lemon shake, one of which had been toppled down. A yellowish liquid was still spilt all over the circular wooden table down to Goyle's unpolished black shoes. "For crying out loud, clean yourself up! Filthy little house elves look even better than you!"

"Huh? Oh..." said Goyle as he wiped his chocolate-stained chin with his lemon-dripping handkerchief.

"Well? Go to the bathroom! And do something with yourself! I don't want to be associated with a peasant-looking company!" bellowed the slender boy as he swung his black silk cloak over his shoulder.

As Goyle headed for the bathroom, the slender boy snatched the used notebook from his hands. "And leave this notebook. There might be some assignments in here I could copy. I haven't done my Transfiguration essay yet for that wrinkle-faced McGonagall."

Goyle stopped dead on his tracks and turned back to his friend. "We have an assignment? Uh, Malfoy, can I copy too?" he asked cluelessly.

"What?" sneered Malfoy. "And you'll have the same answer as me!" He sighed and after a moment uncurled his lips. "Alright. Just insert some errors in yours, not like you know what's right anyway. Go now will you? You're starting to stink!"

A wide smile emerged on the round face of Goyle, and with that, he left and made his way hurriedly towards the back of the ice cream parlor.

* * *

"Glenda the Forester lived in Ireland in the late 1600's. One of her famous accomplishments was the transfiguration of a wild lioness to a raft, which enabled her to sail across the Rivers of the Hidden Forests of Dublin."

"I think I got that right now," said a bushy-haired girl to herself as she closed a rather thick book and sipped through a tall glass of strawberry milk shake.

It was a bright and crowded morning at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. The bushy-haired girl of about fifteen was sitting alone at one of the inner tables of the restaurant that overlooked the streets of Diagon Alley. On her table were books of different sizes, pieces of parchments filled with essays, a small slightly worn-out notebook, milk shake and a plate of blueberry pancakes topped with butter and honey.

She looked at her Muggle watch and sighed. "It's 9:20 already, they should be here any minute."

She cut the pancakes and put a small piece in her mouth. She looked out at the streets and saw some familiar faces. Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas, two of her classmates at Hogwarts, were staring at some Quidditch stuffs at the Quality Quidditch Supplies. Hannah Abbott stepped inside Flourish & Blotts -probably buying her books, she said to herself.

And then she saw Cho Chang, a pretty girl from Ravenclaw who just came out of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, carrying two large paper bags. She must have bought new dress robes for the mid-year ball. Harry would have something to drool over again. Her thoughts made her sigh as she finished the remainder of her pancakes.

"Hello Hermione!" greeted a round boy in a yellow-striped shirt. "Wow, you really have been studying over the summer!"

"Nah, it's just a bit of light reading, Neville," said Hermione as her cheeks turned slightly pink. "How's your Grandma?"

"She just recovered from a slight fever, but she'll be alright. She's in Eeylops right now, having a check on our owl. Why are you, well, where's Harry and Ron?"

Hermione shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, they're on their way, I think. I've been staying at the Leaky Cauldron since yesterday. My parents are on a conference in Austria."

Hermione pointed towards a brown-haired waiter calling out her friend's name. "Well, I think your order's ready now."

"Oh, yeah, thanks!" exclaimed Neville as he looked at the direction of the brown-haired waiter. "Well, see you at King's Cross then!"

Hermione watched as Neville made his way to the counter. Just then, she saw a familiar portly boy who was taking an order at the next counter. He was tall and had a nasty look about his face. It was Gregory Goyle. There were three bowls of sundae on his tray and two glasses of lemon shake. Her hands started to get cold.

"If Goyle is here," she told herself, "then that must mean..." Hermione's heart began to thump hard on her chest. Her eyes roamed around the restaurant searching for something, for someone.

"Oh, what am I doing!" she scolded herself.

She reached out for her notebook and began to squiggle some things. She didn't know what she was writing at the moment but it definitely relieved her of her tension.

Writing out on this notebook relieved her of her tensions for the two years that passed. It also made her think more clearly and see things in different perspectives. It wasn't a magical diary like that of Tom Riddle, where memories could be preserved and 'experienced' by others. Hers was just a Hear-Me Notebook (HeMNote) where the writings vanished and kept unseen. And instead of being read, with a mention of a secret code encrypted by the owner, the writings were magically amplified to sound with the same emotion as when the writer wrote the passages. With all that had happened and probably will happen to them, Hermione thought it wise to keep an HeMNote. That way, she, Harry and Ron could keep track of You-Know-Who's possible plans, people whom they could trust, and events they had to keep watch on. She also found it quite useful for academics.

Hermione had gotten too occupied with her writing that she barely noticed a little tawny owl tapping wildly on the glass window beside her table.

"Pig!" exclaimed Hermione. She looked at the note on the owl's feet where an untidy scribble of 'Flourish and Blotts' was written.

"Stay there and I'll be right over," she said to the owl as she hurriedly placed her books and parchment in her backpack, and swiftly made her way outside without noticing that her HeMNote had accidentally fallen from the pockets of her jam-packed bag down to the wooden chair she had sat just sat on.