Love is Hope: Life after fifth year

***

Hermione was here for a full week already. Not having wasted time, her parents had immediately phoned the Park, and were able to get a cabin. As by miracle a family who had reserved that cabin for the summer, had cancelled due to some family crisis. They were able to drive there the following morning. Keeping their promise to Dumbledore, they told people they were going to France, acting as if it was a trip that hadn’t been organized at the last minute.

The Park itself had evolved in a classier business in comparison to what it had been all those years ago, so Hermione didn’t feel too bad dragging her parents in the middle of nowhere. They had taken to long walks in the forest and her parents had happily mingled with other couples there, enjoying the entertainment the staff of the Park had in store for them. Despite being the only one her age there, Hermione didn’t feel that awkward. She got along rather well with the smaller children, and could carry on a conversation with the adults just as well. And she always had her books... But only after a week of postponing what she really wanted to do, she finally asked permission to rent one of the bicycles.

It took her another week to drag up her courage and ride the whole way up to a ‘nearby’ town. She knew Harry was still at the Dursleys, and Ginny had written her that he sounded less enthusiastic every time Ron could talk to him over the phone, which was less frequent by now. The Weasleys were able to stay at the Burrow again, but they all had personal emergency Portkeyes tied around their necks as pendants, that would bring them to the Ministry (since the Ministry was now ‘co-operating’, they authorised those person-sensitive Portkeyes). Since Ginny and Ron were the only children still there, Molly and Arthur often not home, and Harry and Hermione not able to come over, yet, Luna Lovegood was permitted to stay over as Ginny’s friend, to great aggravation of Ron.

From Ginny, Hermione heard that ‘Looney’ Luna was still not cured from her hobby of staring at Ron dreamily, and that Ron, of course, was still as oblivious to the reason. Though Hermione got easily irritated by the girl, and Ron was her best friend, she worried about the outcome of Ron ‘finding out’. It could all be very funny for the other Weasley siblings, but Ron could be somewhat blunt, ok, understatement. And she knew her boys and when it came to girls. She had been relieved when Ginny got over her crush on Harry, and now she had to worry about Luna and Ron. It isn’t that she for one second (only a half of a second) thought that Harry would’ve been completely tactless with Ginny, like Ron very well might be with Luna now; although you couldn’t know what with Harry acting the way he did this year. But anyway, crushes tended to make you much more vulnerable.

And even if Luna gave of the air of not caring, and seemed unaffected and unembarrassed about the way people treated her, she could still get hurt if Ron acted like a complete dimwit towards her feelings, real or dreamy... Hermione had seen the notes Luna had put up at the end of the year, requesting that culprits would give her her possessions back, and she couldn’t help but admire the girl that she had done so, instead of letting it go and keeping it quiet. But her mind wandered back to Harry, and her plans.

His letters were the same as every summer: distantly pleasant, and she wanted to talk with him. But Hermione had a lot of reasons not to go to the town that was two hours away from the Park on her bicycle: Little Whinging. She could easily get lost, and it wasn’t because she was a witch that it became suddenly overly sensible to travel around unaccompanied as a fifteen-year-old girl; her parents trusted her to stay close by. Even if she got there, she still had no idea what to say to Harry, except ignoring what she wanted to talk about most, and start a conversation about OWLs, what he’d be studying next year, and so on. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d want her there, either. She could very well imagine that he’d feel uncomfortable seeing her *there*, a place where he wasn’t Harry Potter, the wizard, but Harry Potter, the ‘mentally unstable and criminal orphan’. More so if she would be there alone, without Ron; it could, would feel weird.

Deciding that she wouldn’t know unless she tried, and that she wasn’t sorted into Gryffindor for being a coward, she planned to leave early in the morning on the second Monday they were at the Park (the last day of their second week there). Her parents would be on a group hike the entire day, and she had declined on joining, claiming to want to catch up on some reading and riding her bike for a while. She was glad she hadn’t made the travel on her first day she had her bike, because now after a week of shorter rides, she was a little more in shape. She managed to make the trip in two hours and a half, taking her time so she wouldn’t be totally exhausted once she got there.

She had been afraid of getting lost, but surprised herself at being able to find Privet Drive easily with the help of her map. Once she was there, she waited awhile at the other side of the street, watching the house and contemplating how to contact Harry. She didn’t think asking for him at the front door would be the best tactic, as she didn’t know how his relatives would react to her. She doubted they’d recognize her; even if they’d paid any attention to her at King’s Cross, her look was totally different: she was wearing classic shorts and a not too clingy light-coloured T-shirt, since it was so hot. And with the long bike ride she’d just done, she was more then just a little sweaty, making her look quite grubby, in her opinion, anyway.

She wasn’t going to run in a beauty contest anytime soon, but she took pride in her always fresh and proper appearance; now she knew her hair was even more frizzy then usual because of the sweat and the wind, her face was probably not as clean as she wanted it to be, and her cheeks felt blazing red. Her hands were sticky, as the rest of her body for that matter, and she started to regret doing all this in the first place. Just when she contemplated that it would be nice to go back and have a nice shower, an old feminine voice sounded behind her.

“Are you lost, sweet? I haven’t seen you around here before...”

Great, one of the resident gossips; losing the fleeting hope that this could be Mrs. Figg (she didn’t fit the description Harry gave her) she tried her best to smile sincerely. “I’m not really lost, M’am, I was just biking, and I got a bit tired. This seemed like a safe neighbourhood to stop for a little while...” Producing yet again an innocent smile.

The flattery about the neighbourhood apparently got to the woman, as well as the fact that a youth was talking to her with polite respect and kindness. She started gushing, while Hermione tried to remain calm and friendly, in the mean time trying to find a way out of there and to Harry. Suddenly the woman started to talk more hushed. Snapping back to attention Hermione understood why. Dudley Dursley had just come out of number four on his bike. The woman started talking about the boy, spilling all the gossip, as if Hermione would be interested. She knew most of it anyway: that he was the proud of the Dursleys, that he was going to Smeltings, and was now some kind of junior boxing champion.

Then the woman started to talk about how amazing it was he had grown up to be such a fine boy with all the bad influence of his cousin. She started explaining a tale Hermione knew all to well. The old hag fervently believed all the tales the Dursleys had been feeding their neighbours, about Harry being an incurable criminal, and that just last summer he had been causing an explosion of some kind, breaking a window of his poor relatives, and other rubbish. And that this year, he was having visits of some kind of doctor from his school, you know, a *head* doctor. The woman actually blushed when she described the man, who sounded to Hermione as Dumbledore in Muggle disguise.

Hermione’s anger at the old bat was flaring, how could she say those things about Harry? She didn’t even know him! Crookshanks, who had been accompanying her on all her trips, asleep in the basket attached at the handle-bars, woke up and started to glare (as much as a cat can glare) and hiss at the woman as if he could understand what she was saying.

The woman lowered her voice again when they heard a shrill voice from across the street: “Boy, did you finish your work?” Hermione flinched at the coldness of tone.

“Yes, Aunt Petuna!” Harry appeared at the side of the house, he looked filthy, his arms covered in dirt, as well as the knees of his baggy jeans. He clearly just had garden duty and before putting the hose back in the garage, he rinsed the dirt of his arms, drying them off at his T-shirt, making it even dirtier then it already was.

The woman beside her was at it again, and Hermione started seeing red. When she saw Harry heading for the street, no doubt escaping the house now that he was free of ‘duty’, Crookshanks leapt out of the basket and ran towards the boy. Harry hadn’t really looked up yet, keeping his gaze to the ground, and she had long since blocked out the voice from the old woman. When she saw Harry recognizing her familiar and bending to pick him up, she started grinning in earnest, and made to cross the street. Her face almost hurt from trying to keep the smile not to widen too much when she saw Harry’s face go from surprise, shock, to utter bewilderment. When he looked up with the ginger cat purring in his arms, she started to speed up and couldn’t help herself (as many times before then) and threw her arms around him in a massive hug.

Had she cared at that moment, she’d probably have loved the horror-stricken face of the gossiping Muggle. But the hug ended soon (as always, much too soon for Hermione, but she’d accepted her boys didn’t like it as much as she did) with Crookshanks protesting at getting squashed.

“Hermione!” Harry seemed to have come out of his stupor. He looked happy enough to see her, at least he didn’t look annoyed at her presence. When his shock subsided, a ghost of the boyish grin she knew so well and had missed so much lately made it to his face. His features bared the traces of sleepless nights and repressed pain. His once so innocent appearance had been reformed by too many hard life experiences in a short time. He still seemed to have trouble believing that she was really there, and stood there quite speechless.

“Hey, Harry,” she said stepping back a little and picking up the bike she had allowed to fall in order to give him her trademark hug. She saw the questioning gaze, but before she could say anything Harry suggested to find a better spot to talk. She saw him glancing at the woman she’d ‘talked’ to, and noticed some curtains moving at other houses. He led her to a park nearby. They sat down a little apart from the couples with and without children that were lying around or playing in the sun.

Hermione explained why she wasn’t and had never (this summer) been in France, and how she’d gotten there. Harry hadn’t any chance of putting one word in, until she finished with a “So, how are you, Harry?”

Harry seemed to be busy taking it all in (she had been talking rather fast), but had showed clearly relief of not taking the article and Voldemort too lightly. He brushed of her last question, saying he was just fine, which he obviously wasn’t, remembering the brooding look on his face before he’d seen Crookshanks, but she let it slide for now. He voiced that, yes, maybe it’s overreacting to lie and tell people she was in France, but... better be safe then sorry. He didn’t seem upset with her being here, though he would really have no right to lecture *her* on doing rash or risky things, besides, she had Crookshanks with her...

Fearing bringing up Sirius already, she fought the impulse to start rambling about something she’d read somewhere. Her brain fully acknowledged the fact that he had changed, he wasn’t the same Harry he used to be. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, except that the major causes in this change were... bad things; he was perhaps more mature, less naïve, less trusty... In her heart she wasn’t ready to let geeky, innocent Harry go. Though she knew he’d never been *just* a pure-hearted little boy - he’d already been through too much with his Muggle relatives - and it hadn’t really improved with an encounter of Voldemort’s lifeforce/spirit directly into his first year at Hogwarts. It hadn’t been until this year that she’d actually seen him in ‘real’ action, though.

How he faced the Death Eaters when they were in the Ministry, trying to distract them by talking with them, keeping this brave front, even fooling her for a second that he felt no fear at all; it was clear that he had become almost used to it, or was just born to do that. She’d known then what she’d believed for a long time now: behind the scenes she could be useful from time to time, and she had helped Harry in lots of ways, at least she hoped she did, but when it really came down to it, she wasn’t worth a lot. At the Ministry she had stood by Harry’s side and drawn her strength from him.

She might as well be a walking encyclopaedia, Ron would say she already was, but she easily froze in the eye of danger. Or was easily distracted and overconfident. And she had really poor reflexes: if it wasn’t for Harry she would’ve been squashed to pulp by Grawp the first time they’d met the ‘little’ giant. That was the heart of her recent problems: she could be as brilliant as she wanted, could train her theoretic knowledge to perfect practise, could come up with the most impressive plans or strategies, but in the ‘line of fire’ she most likely wouldn’t survive alone.

She must have spaced out with her musings, because Harry was waving his hand in front of her face to catch her attention.

“Hermione, you there?” When she snapped back to reality, he looked mildly amused. Hermione started to worry about herself; though it has always been a habit of her, she seemed to daydream a lot more since the end of fifth year. She suddenly felt very aware of the fact that she wasn’t really used to talk to Harry without Ron. Sure they spoke to each other millions of times just the two of them, but never quite like ‘this’. What the ‘this’ just was, she couldn’t put her finger on, but it was there, and made her feel slightly uncomfortable. Pushing the bothersome feelings aside, she told herself that this was Harry. And she was doing it again!

The first time she was lost in her thoughts she’d looked at the children playing innocently in the park. This time she had been looking at Harry. He had looked from amused to uncomfortable under her steady gaze, to almost concerned for her mental health. All the while she saw the hardening lines of his face, due to growing up and the constant stress he’d been under this year, as well as the loss of his godfather. Snapping back before Harry would think she was ready for St Mungos, she gave a little smile.

“What were you thinking about? You had that look like you were solving some kind of mystery...”

Somehow she didn’t want to confess that she had been thinking of him, and said the next thing that came to her mind, which was of course kind of lame: “OWLs”

Harry cracked a smile: “Should’ve known... So any idea what you’re going to do next year?” Hermione felt the now familiar panic surge through her; they hadn’t that much time left to send in their parchments with the courses to take next year. The owl with that particular information had to have arrived at Hogwarts the 5^th of August latest. She could just sign up for all her courses again, and just wait and see for which she would get accepted. But as she had mostly high marks in all of them, she would most probably be a candidate for all classes. As of such the one organizing the timetables would determine which courses she would take, and she didn’t want to loose the power of choice.

“No, but I’ll get there,” Hermione remembered to answer Harry’s question, “How about you?” Harry proceeded to explain that, with his grades, he had a more limited variety of choices then she had.

* Results of his written OWLs:

A, Astronomy

E, Charms

O, Defence against Dark Arts

A, Herbology

D, History of Magic

O, Potions; E, Transfiguration

* Results of the practical OWLs:

P, Astronomy

E, Charms

O, Defence against Dark Arts

A, Herbology

E, Potions

E, Transfiguration

E, Care of Magical Creatures

P, Divination

Even with his 12 OWLs, he’d only gotten 3 ‘Outstanding’s, not so surprisingly 2 for Defence against the Dark Arts, and very surprising 1 for written Potions. He’d gotten quite a few ‘E’s also, ensuring he’d be able to pursue Transfigurations and Charms. His History of Magic note was an unspeakable one in Hermione’s eyes. Nevertheless she had been very proud of the results of both of her boys especially since she knew that if it wasn’t for the happenings during their practical Astronomy test, and the fact that Ron had blotched up his potion due to nerves (or intentionally, to ensure he wouldn’t have to follow that course any more), they would both have had 13 OWLs for sure.

Harry was telling her he didn’t know what to do about potions. He really wanted to avoid Snape in the future as much as possible, and it wasn’t even sure that an ‘O’ for only half of the potion exams was enough for Snape to accept him. He also hadn’t a clue as what to do with Care of Magical Creatures; he wanted to stay in that class because Hagrid taught it, he’d gotten better at teaching, and Harry really liked that class, but on the other hand: he was almost 100% sure that he wouldn’t pursue anything later in life where he’d need high NEWT results for Care of Magical Creatures.

The only courses he was sure he wanted to apply to were Defence Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration and Charms. He could probably get into Advanced Herbology if he wanted, but he didn’t particularly care about the subject. Astronomy, Divination and History of Magic were all pretty much ruled out, not that Harry seemed grieved about that. And unlike Hermione, Harry didn’t seem eager to get into any more classes than absolutely necessary. Hermione hoped he wouldn’t let his feelings get the better of him and at least try to get Potions. He could always put up Care of Magical Creatures; in comparison, even the advanced class of that course wasn’t that hard.

Most of all she hoped he wouldn’t let the fact that Ron wouldn’t be in Potions any more convince him not to follow it. She knew Harry had chosen his subjects for third year solely based on what Ron had chosen, and was now praying he’d have more initiative than that. Speaking of the devil, Harry had just started explaining what Ron was going to put up as his choices...

Abruptly she closed the topic with the simple request of talking about something else. Harry seemed surprised, and before he could start talking about how his life long ban from Quidditch had finally been lifted some days prior, rain started pelting down. The people around them ran in every which way, looking for shelter. Pretty soon they were the only ones left in the park, and Harry dragged her to one of the children’s playgrounds, to one of the miniature-houses, where Crookshanks had run off to.

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