Love is Hope: Life after fifth year

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Hermione was packing again. This time she would go to the Grimmauld Place. It hadn’t been that easy to make the decision.

A week after his birthday Harry had finally gotten permission to move to the Order’s Headquarters. Though the Weasleys wanted nothing more than to be with him, the custody-case still hadn’t been ruled. This left Hermione to choose between the Weasleys and the Burrow, or Harry and the Grimmauld Place.

She didn’t want to seem eager to leave the Burrow, especially since Ron was being a git about it, but she couldn’t help but feel she was needed there more than at the Weasleys. Thankfully Mrs. Weasley had told her maybe it would be safer for her at the Headquarters, giving her the perfect excuse to leave, without offending the Weasleys. Besides the twins were starting to get on her nerves...

Ginny came in the room: “Need any help?”

“I’m ok, it’s starting to become a real habit; always packing. Is Ron still being a git?”

Ginny sighed and sat down her own bed: “Hermione, he’s just going to be lonely, you know. You and Harry will be there together, and he’ll be here, stuck with his little sister”

Hermione frowned: “What about Harry? He’s been stuck with the Dursleys all this time, alone, while we’ve all been together! Besides, he has nothing to worry about. Ron’s like a brother to Harry. Harry isn’t going to be better friends with me all of the sudden, just because I’m spending a bit more time with him. By the time the whole thing with Percy’s cleared up they will be as inseparable as always”

Ginny was biting her lip and watching Hermione uncertainly, like she wanted to say something, but didn’t want to go there. “Just talk to him before you leave”

Hermione was a bit surprised: “Of course”

Leaving her trunk on the staircase she knocked on Ron’s door. After a muffled ‘enter’, she pushed it open. Ron was at his desk scribbling on a piece of paper. “Ron, I just came to say goodbye...” Ron looked up and looked at her with a gaze she couldn’t quite read.

Walking into the *orange* room, she sighed: “Look Ron, I know he needs both of us right now. And believe me, I know Harry needs you just as much, if not more than he needs me. But I can’t let him be alone in that house after everything he’s been through”

She looked at him pleadingly. If he wasn’t going to see reason soon, her annoyance was going to take over from reason, and she desperately wanted to avoid a fight. Ron seemed to want to test her though: “He isn’t going to be there all alone, you know”

“Ron...”

Ron smiled a bit at her: “I know, I know... Look, will you just give him this?” Ron handed her the letter he had been writing when she interrupted him.

“Of course, Ron,” Hermione promised.

“It’s just some things, explaining about Percy and why I can’t be there, and stuff,” Hermione didn’t press him about why he didn’t just send it with Pig, but nodded and took the letter.

Ron looked at her almost like a lost puppy, so Hermione tried to cheer him up: “It will all be fine, I’m sure the mess at the Ministry is going to sort itself out any day now, and you’ll have Percy off your backs. Then you’ll be able to come to the Grimmauld Place, too!”

Hermione waved for him to follow her downstairs. Picking up her trunk, Ron took it from her hands to drag it from the stairs for her. Looking at him funnily, but dismissing it as she thought Mrs. Weasley would make a sharp remark if she saw her son letting a girl carry her own trunk from the stairs.

“Blimey, Hermione, how many books do you carry in that thing?” Though she glared at him, Hermione was relieved he seemed his old self again. Saying goodbye to the Weasleys and thanking them for their hospitality, she checked the hour and turned to the fire place.

Dumbledore had gotten enough influence in the Ministry to ensure the Floo-Network was going to be secure for a certain time for Hermione to travel to the Grimmauld Place. Sending her trunk through first she clutched Crookshanks to her and threw one last look at Ron before throwing the powder into the fire, yelling her destination.

Falling out of the fireplace of the deserted kitchen of the Order’s Headquarters, she contemplated how much she hated that form of travelling. Surprised to find the kitchen deserted, she moved to the door. Hearing a strange noise she turned to see the fire turn a fierce green again and then disappear. The Floo-connection was again closed.

Going into the hallway she stopped herself from calling out, remembering she would wake the portrait of Sirius’ mother. Her eyes searched the hall for the drapes covering the portrait, but found it enveloped in a strange looking blue bulb.

“It’s a magical soundproof trapping device”

Hermione squealed when she heard the voice behind her. “Harry! You *want* me to have a heart attack?” She slapped his arm, feeling her heart rate becoming normal again. Harry just grinned slightly.

“Where is everybody? Don’t tell me they let you stay here all alone?” No sooner had the words left her mouth or a crash sounded from the first floor. Cursing in a familiar voice could be heard coming from the top of the stairs.

A soothing voice was heard: “Nymphadora, do you want me to help you with that?”

A few seconds later Tonks replied, sounding agitated: “I bloody well can take care of this myself!” Suddenly an even louder crash was heard, followed by a squeak. Hermione had moved to the stairs to see what was going on.

What she saw almost made her laugh. A *very* annoyed Tonks was hanging headfirst in the air, slowly being moved downstairs, with Remus Lupin holding his wand pointed at the aforementioned witch. They were too busy, respectively scowling back at her rescuer and concentrating on the levitation spell, to even notice Hermione was there.

Remus replied calmly: “I know you could do it yourself, but we have to be in the kitchen. Any moment now Hermione...” his eyes following Tonks, who had almost arrived at destination, brought Hermione in his line of vision, “is going to arrive... hello, Hermione”

The young witch could not suppress a smile when she said: “Good afternoon, Professor Lupin, hello Tonks” She almost added, very uncharacteristically, ‘how’s it hanging’, but thought the better of it. “What’s going on?”

Tonks groaned: “Dumbledore’s *not* gonna be happy when he hears we weren’t at the fireplace in time” Tonks’ speech sounded a little slower than normal, almost slurred. Was she drunk?

Remus, ignoring Tonks lamenting: “Did you keep an eye on the fireplace, Harry? Nobody entered besides Hermione?” Harry nodded and lifted his Invisibility Cloak, in a silent explanation to Hermione how come she hadn’t seen him.

Slightly peeved at Harry for spying on her, she took a moment to glare at him; a gaze he only returned with a shrug. Harry spoke: “Tonks, here, is on leave. She had a little accident...” Tonks was finally on her feet again, while she continued to glare at Remus who walked calmly from the stairs.

“Soddin’ bastardsss,” Tonks definitely slurred, while she barely managed to keep her balance. Remus grabbed her arm to steady her; Tonks looked like she wanted nothing more than to refuse his help, except falling over, so she didn’t make any move to push him away. Remus clarified:

“With the news of Voldemort really being back, all lowlifes with something against Muggles seem to take their chance. But you probably already know that, since Arthur has had his hands full ever since,” Hermione nodded. It really was ridicules. Some wizards had the idea that with Voldemort back and the Ministry in chaos they could go use Muggles as practise dummies for their curses. Mr. Weasley barely had the time to do Order-related work with all those cases.

“Did he mention, that for once they ‘lend’ him an Auror to assist him?” Upon seeing Hermione shake her head, he specified: “You know they see Arthur’s job as inferior at the Ministry, but after the Dementor attack they had no choice but to assign an Auror to help in the Muggle department, even if it was mostly for show. Nymphadora being the youngest in the Department, had the honour to get that job”

“But I thought you were patrolling Harry’s neighbourhood?”

This time Harry was the one to answer. “She was one of the patrollers... Anyway Tonks here underestimated the petty little criminals and they cursed her taking her by surprise. Since the curse wasn’t cast properly, she has to wait for the effects to fade away, hence the fact that she’s on leave, and very pissed off”

Both men were clearly enjoying winding the young Auror up, but Hermione asked concerned: “What curse?”

Tonks’ reaction speed was slow, when she answered: “Impedimenta, and Lupin, if you call me Nymphadora one more time, you’ll/” “...be in lots and lots of pain,” Harry and Remus finished in chorus, making Tonks almost growling like a mad dog.

The failed curse seemed to slow Tonks down a little bit, like when one was drunk, and being already clumsy as it is, Hermione could imagine it was very hard for her. “What were you trying to do just now?”

Remus answered for her: “She wanted to get downstairs carrying a mug and a empty bottle of butterbeer. Accio! Reparo!” the shards flew from upstairs, and reformed into the objects that they were before being shattered.

Walking back towards the kitchen they filled her in on how Harry had been escorted by Moody with a Portkey just the evening before. Nothing had really happened here at the Grimmauld Place since then. Remus had to lay low for a little while because of the chaos at the Ministry he could be targeted for being a werewolf by some idiots. This is how Remus had been stuck babysitting Harry, Tonks and Hermione, not that he really seemed to mind.

Tonks had been in a bad mood since she’d been hit with the faulted curse, and with every testimony of her clumsiness her mood seemed to darken. Remus and Harry seemed to find this really funny, but Hermione felt for the woman, and chastised the two for being insensitive male prats. That just seemed to heighten their amusement, until she gave her most lethal death glare. They just smiled apologetically, and offered to bring her things to the room she and Ginny had shared the previous summer.

Crookshanks chose the departing of the men from the kitchen as a cue to come out of his hiding place after being very shaken from the Floo-ride. Curling up in Tonks lap, he began snoozing off. Hermione turned to Tonks; she looked a bit lost, without some daring hairdo, just shoulder-length dark hair, and her facial features betraying the relation she had with the Blacks. The serene beauty that marked that family looked oddly foreign on Tonks, who always used her Metamorphmagus powers to make her look a little more round-faced and punky then her true appearance.

“Are you ok, they didn’t give you too much of a hard time, did they?” Tonks had been more of a good friend to Ginny and her last summer then adapting an ‘adult versus kiddies’ attitude, so she didn’t feel weird in trying to talk to the older witch as she would to someone her own age.

Tonks just sighed in defeat: “No, it’s not them... well not really. I just feel stupid, you know... I’m supposed to be an Auror, and some second-rate wizard, who doesn’t even know his curses gets one up on me”

“Tonks, you’re talking to the witch who thought it would be a good idea to silence her attacker instead of fully incapacitating him/”

“That’s not the same, sister, that was Dolohov!” Hermione tried to avoid an in-depth following of that conversation, and remembered one of her suspicions from last summer: “Tonks? This hasn’t anything to do with Professor Lupin having to ‘baby-sit’ you, does it?”

The older witch blushed slightly, and asked a bit breathlessly: “What do you mean?”

“Well, I know you think very highly of him. And that maybe you’re a bit embarrassed, because you’re afraid he’s going to think less of you because of one little mistake?” Hermione had always been the observant type (an: except of course when it concerned herself), and with the growing friendship between her and Ginny, she couldn’t avoid being informed of all lovey-dovey histories of the ones surrounding them.

Last summer she’d reported to Ginny that she had seen that Tonks was always most clumsy *and* most embarrassed about it when Remus was around. It was subtle, but it was there; promptly Ginny had concluded that Tonks had a thing for the werewolf. Luckily it had been the end of the vacation, so Ginny had never had time to set the matchmaking project in action, and by the time Christmas break was around the redheaded teenager had seemed to have forgotten about it.

Tonks just grunted in response, and tried to look uninterested in the topic of conversation so she changed it: “Where’s Kreacher, anyway?”

Tonks looked up at that, a bit startled: “Uhm, well, he’s kinda... dead”

Hermione was shocked: “What!?”

“Ok, this is a long story, you know. I’m guessing you know about Sirius’ will?” Hermione nodded; in a will crafted some 15 years ago, Sirius had left everything he owned to James and Harry Potter. “Well, though you could see that was enough to put the Grimmauld Place and all the gold that goes with the Black family on Harry’s name, it could’ve easily been contested by say my mother, or her sister, Narcissa Malfoy, since they are blood relations, and would have rights on the house, too”

Hermione had thought about that, too. Tonks continued her story: “Anyway, as strange as it sounds the house kind of chooses his next master. It has to do with old spells holding this building together. So even if we aren’t necessarily bound to have the meetings here, we’re free to hold them at the Ministry or at Hogwarts, it is convenient to have this as a sort of safe house. But it looked for a minute there that the house was going to throw us out...”

Hermione frowned, hadn’t Dumbledore added his own magic to the house? Tonks continued: “Dumbledore’s protection charms were only meant to keep unwanted visitors out, so we really owe it all to good ol’ Phineas Nigellus.” Where had she heard that name before?

“There’s a portrait hanging in Harry’s room of him, as well as one in Dumbledore’s office at Hogwarts,” Oh, yes, the Headmaster with the shortest career in Hogwarts’ history. “When he heard his nephew died because of the House-Elf, he went ballistic. He ordered Kreacher to put the bulb around Sirius’ Mother’s portrait, and then to go behead himself as a reward”

Hermione looked wide-eyed at the witch in front of her. Tonks shook her head: “I’ve never thought it was possible to behead yourself, but that little bugger really did it, and according to the rest of the paintings he had claimed to never have been happier... well, just before he did it anyway...”

“But... but... I thought he adored Sirius’ mother? And you let the Elf kill himself?” Hermione was horrified. “Hey, now, I was in the hospital at the time, remember? And I guess Phineas tricked Kreacher into trapping the old bat in her painting, you’ll just have to ask him, won’t you? Anyway, after that he started telling all the portraits in the house about Harry being a Parslemouth. Apparently that won them all over, and Harry is now the accepted master of the house...”

Hermione tried to process the information, though disgusted by the way the Elf had died, she knew deep down she felt a little bit that justice had been served. It’s not like she ever liked Kreacher, but she’d always been convinced that he just didn’t know any better. She had been so focused on Dobby’s behaviour, to believe that all Elves would want to be free or at least serve good masters. She had thought that the blindness and misplaced loyalty of Winky had just been unique, but she started to realise that it was just the opposite.

It was going to take a lot more than knitting clothes and trying to bring awareness to wizards and witches to achieve some kind of rights for House-Elves...

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