Author's Note:
Thanks guys for the reviews! I really appreciate it! Not much happens in this chapter…it's what I like to call a
filler chapter, but I hope you like it. It's one of my funnier chapters, I think. I hope you guys like it!
Chapter Nine
Pretty Baby
"Pretty baby don't you leave me
I have been saving smiles for you
pretty baby why can't you see
you're the one that I belong to
I'll be the embrace that keeps you warm
for you're the sun that breaks the storm
I'll be alright and I'll sleep sound
as long as you keep comin' around, oh pretty baby…"
(Vanessa Carlton "Pretty Baby")
Hermione sat on her bed the night before classes were to start back after holiday break. She was catching up on some reading she'd planned to do over the break, but certain things, or a certain person, had gotten in the way. All day long, students had been returning from their holidays. Lavender and Parvati were squealing a few feet away about their Christmas presents. Apparently, Lavender's parents had surprised her with a new wardrobe which she was happily showing off to Parvati.
She wasn't really concentrating on her book. Her mind was replaying that conversation she and Harry had with Professor Lupin on Christmas night. It had bothered her more than she let on.
They'd arrived a little late to Professor Lupin's, having spent the entire day holed up in the Room of Requirement. Professor Lupin was happy to see them and served cookies and hot butterbeer. They exchanged small talk for awhile, before Professor Lupin finally came out with the real reason for his invitation.
"Harry," he said, "I was looking through some of my old boxes and I came across some photos that I thought you ought to have."
Harry and Hermione watched as Lupin walked over to his desk and pulled a brown envelope from one of his drawers. He walked back over to the couch and sat down. He handed the envelope to Harry. Hermione inched closer to her boyfriend so she could see the photographs.
These were photos of Lupin, Sirius, James and Peter Pettigrew. In the photos, they were adorned in their dress robes. James was in the middle of his friends, grinning broadly.
"These are from your parents' wedding day," Lupin said.
"These are your photos, Professor," Harry said. "I couldn't take them."
"They are your parents," Lupin said. "Besides, I was there, I don't need the photos. You weren't. I think your parents would have wanted you to have them."
"I don't know what to say," Harry said, smiling.
Hermione elbowed him. "Thanks would be a nice start."
They all laughed at this and Harry nodded. "I knew I had her around for a reason. Thanks, Professor."
Harry thumbed through the photos. There was one of Sirius and James alone; they were both flexing their muscles for the camera, trying to outdo each other. They tried to look cool, but failed miserably, as they burst out into a fit of laughter. Another photo was of his mother, who was dressed in a simple white dress instead of dress robes. She carried a bouquet of daisies and her red hair had been pulled back into a chignon. She looked radiant.
"Harry, your mum was so pretty," Hermione whispered.
Harry nodded.
The last photo was of his parents, who were posing for their official wedding photo. James had wrapped his arms around Lily and kept trying to lean in and kiss her. She kept elbowing him, as if trying to tell him to stop being so silly and pose nicely for the camera.
"That was such a beautiful day," Lupin said. "It was going to be an outdoor wedding, and it had rained nonstop for nearly a week. We were all afraid that we'd have to move the wedding ceremony, but that morning…not a cloud in the sky, sun was shining about as bright as I'd ever seen it. And your dad, Harry, was a nervous wreck. He must have thrown up about seven times that morning. He made me swear not to tell Lily. I told him that I wouldn't have to. He was about as green as I'd ever seen anyone. Sirius kept giving him a hard time about it. Told him that we'd just have the wedding in the loo. Said all he'd have to do is hold one hand on the toilet and hold your mum's hand in the other. Nice romantic image, isn't it?" Lupin laughed wistfully.
"But, it all worked out in the end," Lupin said. "It was a great wedding. Your parents were so happy that day."
Hermione looked over at Harry as he listened to Lupin. She put an arm on his shoulder. He looked at her gratefully. She knew it couldn't be easy to hear about his parents. She knew he liked hearing about them, but it also served as a reminder that they weren't there.
"But that's not the only reason I asked you to come down here," Lupin said. "I have something else I need to discuss with you. Dumbledore felt it would be best if I broached the subject."
"What is it?" Harry asked, setting the pictures down on the coffee table.
"Well, there's a proposition we have for you, that we'd understand if you turned down, but given the circumstances, I think this would be an invaluable learning experience for you in light of what we've heard about-" Lupin's voice trailed off and he looked sideways at Hermione.
"It's okay, Professor," Harry said. "I told Hermione about the prophecy."
Lupin nodded.
"Well, that's good then," he said. "Well, what I wanted to ask you was how you'd feel about not spending your entire summer at Number Four Privet Drive?"
"You've got to be kidding me?" Harry asked. "How would I feel about that? How about fan-bloody-tastic?"
Lupin laughed. "I thought so, but hold off on making any decisions until you've heard me out."
"Okay," Harry said, intrigued.
"As you know we've had almost no reports of Voldemort or Voldemort sightings in the past few months. You'd think this would be good news, but it tells us that he's plotting something. We can't sit around waiting for him to make his move. We have to prepare. Which is where you come in, Harry. Dumbledore feels that it would be best if you spent the majority of your summer with Moody, Tonks, and some other Order members. We'd train you in some extensive Dark Arts methods and techniques. You'd be a full-fledged member of the Order."
Harry smiled. "Are you kidding me? I'd love that."
Hermione, in contrast, looked horrified. Harry didn't notice this; he was staring intently at Lupin as he continued to discuss the summer plans. Hermione tuned them out. It was as if she was kicked back into reality as Lupin discussed preparing Harry for battle. She'd meant what she'd told him the night before. She knew the risks of getting involved with him, but she didn't care. She loved him. She knew that meant taking the good with the bad, the better with the worse. She'd stood with him before when he'd faced grave danger. Yet, this prophecy told her that he'd have to stand up to Voldemort ultimately on his own. There was a distinct possibility that he wouldn't make it out alive from this. This scared her. She wasn't scared for herself, but scared for him. She didn't want to lose him. She didn't ever want to lose him.
"That sounds great, doesn't it, Hermione?" Harry was saying, breaking her out of her reverie.
"Yeah," she said, smiling half-heartedly at him. "It does."
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Now, as she sat there on her bed, she couldn't help feeling this sense of foreboding. She wouldn't be with him this summer as he underwent this training. This training that would help him defeat the Dark Lord. It was really a great opportunity for him. She had to give him that, but there was a part of her that didn't want him to do that. She was selfish, she knew, for feeling that way, but so be it. That was how she felt. She hadn't told him that, though. She'd changed the subject whenever he brought it up and if he noticed, he didn't say anything.
"Hermione," Lavender said.
"What?" Hermione said, looking up from her book.
"I saw Harry downstairs with Ron. They want you to go to the Common Room," she said.
"Oh, okay," Hermione said, placing her bookmark in her book and closing it. "Thanks, Lavender."
She found them waiting for her in the common room. They were both talking animatedly about something. Ron spotted her first.
"Hermione Granger," he said, grinning. "Come down here and pay your respect and gratitude to the love doctor."
"The love doctor?" Hermione said, sarcastically. "You help me with one thing and suddenly you are the wizarding world's love doctor."
"I've been holding out on you. I happen to know a great deal about females and their needs, their wants, their desires," Ron said.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "This from the same boy I remember saying had the emotional range of a teaspoon just last year."
"Well, I can't go around spouting off at the mouth about what I know," he said, grinning at her. "I mean, I'd never get any work done. The girls would be hounding me right and left trying to solve their problems with the opposite sex."
"Good Lord," Hermione said, taking a seat beside Harry on the couch. "They are going to need to build on another section to the castle to accommodate the love doctor's ego, here."
Harry laughed. "You know it just doesn't seem like home until the two of you are bantering back and forth like this. I sure did miss that."
"So how was your holiday, Ron?" Hermione asked him.
"Oh, smashing," Ron said. "Charlie's doing great. He's been some girl that works with him. Her name is Lorelai and mum took to her right at once. Charlie was a little bit worried, but we told him that if she could survive mum she'd make it through our family alright."
"And Percy?" Harry asked.
"He's still trying to get back into Mum and Dad's good graces," Ron said. "Mum's pretty much forgiven him, but he and Dad still have some things to work out. It's going to take awhile. Oh, Fred and George barely spoke two words to him the entire holiday. They left right after Christmas dinner to head back to their joke shop. They did really great profits on their Christmas sales. And somebody has got to help me get Ginny and Dean apart."
"I think they're sweet together," Hermione said. "Besides, what do you need our help for, Love Doctor?"
Ron glared at her. "They are not sweet together! This is my baby sister. I'm not used to seeing her as someone's girlfriend, let alone my roommate's girlfriend. He sent her a present via owl and I had the misfortune of reading the card. It almost made me want to throw up."
"Well, what did it say?" Hermione asked.
"Merry Christmas, Gin, love, Dean," Ron said, choking out every word. "Love Dean? I mean, who does this guy think he is? I'm telling you when I see him, I'm going to tell him to stay away from my sister. 'Love, Dean', honestly!"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well, you know what I think?"
"No," Ron said simply. "But I'm sure you're going to tell me."
She glared right back at him. "I think that you need to start worrying about your own love life and stop worrying about your little sister's."
"What about my love life?" Ron asked her.
"Well, I thin you need to find you someone, so you don't have to worry about Ginny all the time," Hermione said.
"I agree," Harry said.
Ron looked chagrined. "Hey, Harry. I thought you were my best mate. Give me some support here!"
"Sorry, man," Harry said. "I think I'm going to side with Hermione on this one. You need to find you someone. I hear Elouise Midgen is doing pretty well since she started taking those anti-acne potions."
"Very funny," Ron said. "I'm going to go unpack my trunk."
"Good night, love doctor," Hermione said, laughing.
"Sod off," Ron said, turning on his heels and angrily stomping off upstairs.
"You don't think he's really mad, do you?" Hermione said, looking at Harry.
"Nah," Harry said. "He'll forget all about it tomorrow."
"Good," she said, leaning back on the couch.
"Did you get your reading done?" he asked her.
"Pretty much," she said.
"Me, too," he said. "You know, I don't know how I'm going to get used to sleeping alone again."
She smiled. "I know."
For the past few nights, they'd shared Harry's four poster bed, as he was the only one left in his room.
"Are you okay?" he asked her, seriously.
"Yeah, fine," she said, resting her head on his shoulder.
"No, you're not," he said, turning to face her. "Tell me."
"I'm scared, Harry," she said.
He looked around and saw the crowd of people in the common room.
"Not exactly the greatest place to have a talk, huh?" he told her. "Come on, let's go for a walk."
"Harry," Hermione protested. "It's snowing like mad outside."
"Who said anything about outside?" he said, getting up from the couch and pulling her up as well.
"We'll walk along the halls," he said. "Find somewhere private to talk."
"Okay," she said, taking his hand and following him out of Gryffindor Tower.
They finally found a quiet corridor where they sat down on one of the benches.
"Okay," he said. "Spill it. What's got you so upset?"
"I'm not upset," she said, her chin trembling. "I'm just worried."
"About what?" he asked her.
"You and what could happen to you. It's not about me being afraid for myself, okay? It's about me being afraid of what could happen to you. I don't think I really saw it as real until Lupin was talking to you about getting prepared and getting yourself ready. It just hit me all of a sudden how real this is."
He embraced her then. "I don't want to do this, Hermione. I have to do it."
She nodded.
"I'd rather spend summer with you, you know that, don't you?" he asked her.
She nodded again.
"It'll be okay," he told her soothingly.
"You don't that," she said solemnly. "You can't tell me it'll be okay."
"You're right," he said. "I can't, but I can tell you that I love you and I will do everything in my power to keep myself safe and to keep you safe, okay?"
"I love you," she said.
"I love you," he said. "Don't forget that. Besides, I remember someone telling me a while ago that I needed to enjoy the present-what we have now."
"Sounds like someone who was quite smart," Hermione said, finally able to smile.
"She is," Harry said. "Smartest witch I know."
"Well, isn't this cozy?" said a sarcastic voice.
"Draco Malfoy," Hermione spat out.
"What are the two of you doing outside of your common room at this hour?"
Malfoy asked gleefully.
"Talking, Malfoy," Harry said.
"Looks to me as if the two of you were reenacting some romance novel," Malfoy said. "It would actually be quite sweet if you weren't wasting your time on mudblood trash like her."
Harry got to his feet quickly and stood right in front of Malfoy. "I don't think I'd have a problem breaking your nose again. In fact, I'd rather enjoy it. You filthy son-of-a-bitch."
Hermione quickly came up behind him. "Harry, just ignore him. What he says doesn't matter to me in the slightest."
"Yeah, Potter," Malfoy said. "Listen to your girlfriend."
"You listen to me, Malfoy," Harry said. "Don't you ever say anything about her again. I warned you against in once before. I don't care if you deduct two thousand points from our house. If you say anything bad about her---"
"Let's just go, Harry," Hermione said, glaring at Malfoy.
Harry reluctantly stepped away from Malfoy.
"You know, my father always said, mudbloods were only good for one thing," Malfoy said coldly. "Tell me, Potter. How is Granger?"
Malfoy turned around to head back to Slytherin Tower. Harry turned around and withdrew his wand, but before he could do anything Hermione had raced past him and tapped Malfoy on the shoulder. Harry watched in astonishment as Malfoy turned around. Hermione smiled sweetly at him before taking her foot and kicking Malfoy hard in the groin.
Malfoy doubled over in pain.
"I'd say I'm pretty damn good, Malfoy," Hermione said, clapping her hands. "Good night, Draco."
Harry watched as she walked back to him and smiled. "Ready to go back?"
"Yeah," he said.
"What?" she asked, turning around to face him.
"Nothing," he said. "Just admiring my girlfriend. You are amazing, you know that?"