Love is Hope: Life after fifth year

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There’s a nice long summary for this story at the start of the Sequel, so you all don’t HAVE to reread the whole 24 chapters (but you’re welcome to, anyway). Here’s a little preview on the fic ‘Love is Hope: Life after sixth year’! Enjoy!

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Frustrated, Hermione fled the party downstairs. She was all for keeping in contact with relatives, especially since she saw them so seldom, and since the times were so dire in her ‘own’ world; it might be the last time she saw them, after all. But she couldn’t take the mild hypocrisy long... They weren’t bad people, really, but over the years she had become a bit accustomed to the boisterous Weasleys, and the forward manners of most decent wizards, that she couldn’t appreciate the polite friendliness when she was unsure of how they really thought. Like when they tried to find out what she was doing at her boarding school; it was as if they wanted to find out what dirty little secret surrounded it, so that they could lament and show their support, etc... Why did they have to be so nosy!

Anyway, the party was at its end, so she could walk away to her room without seeming rude. Besides, Amélie, who was staying the night, was already asleep in the guest room... Amélie wasn’t really her cousin, but there was some distant family tie... she lived in France, and had come to stay with the Grangers in Great-Britain, sleeping over at various family houses. Hermione’s mother’s sister had had her the last three days since she was picked up from the airport, and now it was their turn, which meant Hermione was going to have to wait at least another week to get to leave for Headquarters.

Since they were as safe as they could be under the Fidelius Charm, and the Order had been notified that Amélie would stay over, Hermione didn’t foresee any problems about the ‘secret’ part of her life, other then keep it from her. That had always been the hardest thing to do. Though Hermione didn’t see Amélie much, if there was one person she recognised as a true friend before going to Hogwarts it would be her.

Amélie was a very shy, but very pretty sixteen year old girl, born just a day later then Hermione. Despite shunning people, she had a great knack for languages, and spoke French, Spanish and English fluently, once you got her to speak freely to you. She had the blackest hair, it shined blue, and the clearest blue eyes. She always hid her face behind the curtain of long sleek hair, and her eyes were downcast most of the times, which had as result very few people knew she had the most beautiful eyes.

Her mother had sent her to England with family to make her come out of her shell, but so far it didn’t work. Again tonight, she’d only really talked with Hermione, and left for bed rather early. Hermione felt like she had to help her, and sometimes itched to tell Amélie the truth. She could use someone to talk to, really talk...

Crookshanks was leading the way to her room. It wasn’t like he looked very magical to Muggles, so he didn’t need to be concealed for her family. But Hermione knew very well how looks could be deceiving. She had been very close to death this past year, closer then ever before, closer then she cared to think about for very long. It had been Crookshanks that had saved her from certain death, sacrificing one of his nine lives to do just that. She’d searched high and low in the Hogwarts library for more information about cats charmed with nine lives, but had found nothing. Hermione supposed she should just count herself lucky to have such a protector, which had translated to even more spoiling of the ginger furball.

Right now, climbing the stairs, she was just anxious to get back to her studying. At least that was one of the constant highlights in her life right now. Unlike last year, they did have assignments during the holidays, and she was having a great time with them. Especially the Transfiguration project: she’d always wanted to train to be an Animagus, but she’d had to postpone it time and again.

The first time she’d had the courage to ask had been almost a year ago. Professor McGonagall had then promised to give it more serious thought when they would cover the basics in class. Of course by the time that opportunity came, so much was happening, that there wasn’t room to include that into her curriculum. With the tight schedule she already had, the attendances to the DA duelling club, the Occlumency lessons, and the learning of the Fidelius charm... really, that would’ve been quite impossible to do.

But to her delight Professor McGonagall, who was charged with taking care of her protection while she stayed at her parents’ house anyway, had thought it useful to spend that time meaningful. Her transfiguration assignment had been to learn everything she could on Animagus, and McGonagall occasionally subjected her to altering spells to make her body adjust to shape-changing, so that they could start the real training right away, the moment she arrived back at Hogwarts.

Of course Harry and Ron had *somehow* found out about it -Ginny had talked, and it somehow made its way to Harry- and had been mad at her for not telling and not including them, because of course they wanted to participate, too! McGonagall hadn’t said anything to her, and neither did the rare owls she received from Dante reveal if they’d been included in the little project...

Since Hermione’s location was her parents’ ‘hide-out’, she could only use Dante for mail, not any other owl, and even then not too often. It was frustrating, and she was regretting not having joined the Weasleys at Grimmauld Place, or convinced her parents’ to make a trip to the Park like last year. But it was virtually impossible to let her parents come to the Order’s headquarters again, without jeopardising the Fidelius charm they were under. And it had become too dangerous to go away from the place where the Fidelius charm was the strongest, at her Muggle home...

Indeed, Voldemort didn’t held anything back anymore and with Galfadus as Minister things weren’t going in the right direction. He didn’t accept the work of the Order of the Phoenix, claiming they were getting in the way of the Aurors doing their jobs properly. So the Order worked more in secret, again, like in the beginning. He had used Sirius Black’s post-mortem clearing to his advantage, proclaiming that everyone would have a fair trial from now on, which meant Dolohov, Crabbe and Goyle were being kept with minor security, still awaiting their trial. Hermione supposed the only reason Voldemort hadn’t freed them yet, was to humiliate the captured Death Eaters for being caught.

Malfoy and Nott Junior were a whole other story... Both being still underaged, Malfoy’s crime had been explained as self-defence and Nott was discharged on the argument that he had been afraid for what his family would be put through if he’d refused to cooperate... So their only punishment had been that they had to do supervised, unpaid jobs during their vacation and that they wouldn’t be considered of age until they graduated from Hogwarts.

Now for most people this was seen as a harsh punishment, since they couldn’t perform magic outside of school even if they were now both 17. Combined with the job-deal, this was a supreme blast to their ‘Slytherin prestige’. But to Hermione this also meant, that whatever crimes they would commit at Hogwarts next year wouldn’t be handled as if they’d be of age, thus fully responsible for their actions, but as underaged wizards. So to her this wasn’t so much of a punishment, as an invitation to do whatever...

Meanwhile, the wizarding world was once again divided. While few protested openly on Galfadus’ reign, a lot of others were encouraging the low measure of protective precautions for Muggleborns, and Muggles in general. Besides, Voldemort was playing his cards right. He hadn’t killed anyone in a long time now, well, that the public knew off. He was ‘just’ torturing Muggles a lot, and a few Muggleborns, and when Aurors finally came at the place of the crime, Death Eaters didn’t put up a fight, they just disapparated...

Though the Aurors still didn’t really listen to all of what Fudge, their head of department, said, they couldn’t ignore Galfadus all the time, so their work started to suffer from it. Hermione could only hope Tonks was alright; last thing she heard it had leaked to her colleagues that she had a romantic involvement with a werewolf, and though Hermione didn’t have those narrow-minded views, she knew Tonks wouldn’t be promoted any time soon because of that. She only hoped it wouldn’t get worse then that.

Hermione felt, again, useless, a feeling she hated but had started to become familiar. The only thing she could do, really, was arm herself with as much knowledge as possible. Feeling slightly silly for doing so, she’d started to train a bit with the limited fitness equipment her parents had in the house. It had just been cathartic for all her frustrations this summer.

Not that it was all that bad... Studying was good. It was just that... last year she yearned to get to Harry to find out if he was ok, after what had happened with Sirius. She had wanted to be there for him, regardless if he wanted her there, and she’d found a way. This year, she was yearning to see him even more due to some interesting changes in their relationship, but couldn’t leave her home, any more then he could his. Tomorrow would be his birthday: he was going to be a wizard of age, which meant he was free to use magic whenever he wished to.

He was going to be able to get his Apparating license like Ron, and she would have to wait until Hogwarts allowed a trip to the Ministry, or even Christmas break. He was probably going to Grimmauld Place. He only had to stay a couple of weeks at his aunt’s; the previous summers he had stayed longer than the necessary weeks on order of Dumbledore to get his mother’s protective magic for him as strong as possible, but Hermione doubted very much if Harry was going to stay in Little Whining for very long after he turned seventeen...

Harry... She shouldn’t think about him right now, not if she wanted to get some quick studying done before she went to sleep. There had been some interesting developments in his magical abilities this past year; she’d read a lot about raw magic that was set off when a wizard or witch was experiencing a strong emotion, but nowhere had she found a reference on somehow controlling that pure power. Yet somehow she guessed that was what Harry had been doing on occasion. Even if this troubled her, next to the fact that she knew he was hiding important information from Ron and her, to her annoyance, this wasn’t the main topic of concern in her mind about Harry. Or maybe she should say, her heart didn’t put that first.

That was one of the main topics she wanted to talk to Amélie about. Hermione felt like she was the only one she could talk to about Harry. It was one of those strange gut-feelings. She couldn’t find a reason to not talk to her mother about her relationship with Harry, other then that it made her uncomfortable even thinking about it; and really, they’d kissed a grand total of three times in more then five months time, and had spent more time arguing or ignoring each other then ever before...

The happy cloud she’d been on after she’d seen Harry at the station, was now a vague memory. Reading what was going on in the wizarding world in the Daily Prophet wasn’t enough of a link for her, and she started to doubt everything. Harry’s rare letters to her hadn’t really changed in tone from the friendship letters she’d received from him the previous summers, then again, neither had hers; you never knew who’d manage to intercept the message... And it seemed now the unofficial ‘decision’ for keeping their changed relationship secret, had become final. But it was very disappointing to be cut off completely by that wonderful aching feeling she’d felt so strongly at the start of the summer, at the station...

It seemed like a distant dream, evaporating slowly in the reality of horror, the time of darkness... It was a strange feeling, as if she was existing in a Muggle bubble and the only tie she had to her other family were memories and her books, occasionally a visit from McGonagall, who brought copies of the Daily Prophet, and the letters with Dante. The certainty of her feelings being answered, in regard to Harry, was ebbing, and the intensity was wavering. Sometimes the feelings would hit her like it was only moments ago they’d last seen each other, last touched. Other times she was desperately trying to recall the way it made her feel when he used his intense gaze on her, how wonderful he made her feel, and she just felt more miserable when she realised she missed him like she’d never missed anyone before.

Realising she wasn’t absorbing much of the Arithmency text before her, she closed the book and placed it on her nightstand. Sighing she flicked her light out and resigned herself on not too much sleep during the hot night...

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So? Did you enjoy this? Check out the sequel: more adventure and drama in store! Another Minister means another… come on, guys! You must know what I’m getting at!

xxx, nienie