Chapter 6 Renovations & Revelations
Sunday morning promptly at 10:00, Hermione knocked on Harry's door. He opened it with a huge grin on his face and said, "Finally! I'm so bored I'm talking to the walls! Thank the gods they aren't answering yet!"
Hermione stood in the doorway and looked at Harry in amazement. "The Shrieking Shack? You bought and are renovating the Shrieking Shack?"
"Ain't it cool?" Harry asked grinning from ear to ear and ushering her inside.
"I was sure that you were playing a joke on me when Hedwig delivered your address," Hermione said, looking around curiously.
"No joke. Dumbledore suggested it and I thought 'why not'? It's the textbook definition of a fixer-upper."
Hermione continued to look around the room incredulously, prompting Harry to say, "Don't be too critical; it is a work in progress."
"You can say that again."
"Give me a break, I've only been here two weeks. And I'm doing it all myself, up until now."
Hermione looked at him skeptically, wondering how much help he thought she had volunteered for. On the walk through Hogsmeade, she had questioned herself as to why she agreed to help him at all. She still wasn't entirely comfortable in his presence, and the idea of spending hours alone with him was slightly disconcerting. She had lain awake last night analyzing her thoughts and feelings about the entire situation. On one hand, his presence revitalized her; it reminded her of the Hermione Granger she used to be. On the other hand, she still could not let go of her resentment and confusion of the last five years. These two conflicting emotions coalesced when she was around him, leaving her hopelessly confused and bewildered. The questions that kept repeating themselves in her mind were: What am I expecting? What does Harry need to do to earn my complete forgiveness?
As soon as the question was formed in her mind she chastised herself for putting entirely too much importance on herself, as if her forgiveness was his ultimate goal. That, in turn, led to the even more perplexing question: Why did he come back?
Is it not enough that he is back? Do you have to over-analyze everything?
Yes, as a matter of fact I do.
As she stood just inside the door of the most improbable home renovation project she could think of, among open boxes, paint cans and tools, she looked at the cause of her consternation and saw a boyish enthusiasm reflected in his expression that she had never seen before. It dawned on her that she was seeing a Harry without worry, a Harry that she would have known years ago if it hadn't been for Voldemort. She saw Harry as a man, not as the boy she remembered; a man who was trying to rectify the mistakes of the boy he had been. The question remained: would she be mature enough to let him?
"I see you are still wearing Dudley's clothes," she commented wryly.
He was wearing a pair of long baggy shorts that were hanging dangerously low on his hips. Considering Harry's slender frame, it was a miracle they hadn't slipped right down to his ankles. His t-shirt was well worn, almost dingy in its appearance, with multiple paint smudges in various colors scattered across it. It appeared that the sleeves had been inexpertly cut off, leaving a jagged edge of material loosely encircling his arms. His hair, although still short, was starting to grow and was beginning to resemble the untidy mop that she had envisioned when thinking of Harry these past years.
He glanced at his attire and grinned. "It helps me feel close to my loving family."
"How are the Dursleys?"
"I have no idea. I haven't spoken to them in years."
"Do you plan to?"
He tapped his forefinger on his chin, and pursed his lips as if in deep thought. "No."
She looked around the room and said, "So tell me your master plan for this dump."
"Ouch!" he said, pretending to be shot in the heart. "I thought I had made some progress, too."
Hermione rolled her eyes and followed Harry as he gave her a tour. The front room was a large square living area; the left wall anchored a large stone fireplace. The walls were bare with evidence of recent patch jobs in an attempt to fix the holes from the previous tenant. To the left of the fireplace was a door that led into the kitchen, a long narrow galley-like room that ran the length of the house. Harry had the kitchen refurbished by a professional magical contractor the previous week. "I can fix drywall, but I know my limitations. Electricity and plumbing aren't on my list of things to experiment with."
"Smart move."
"I thought so."
The kitchen was well appointed with the latest appliances including a stainless steel commercial grade stove. The white cabinets were adorned with simple brushed nickel knobs and pulls. The counter top was a gleaming, pristine butcher block, complete with a twenty-piece knife set. Hermione half expected a professional chef to walk through the door at any minute to begin cooking lunch. It definitely didn't seem like the kitchen of a single man.
To the right was the eating area, which currently consisted of a stool and a stepladder. That's the kitchen of a single man, she thought. Hermione raised her eyebrows in silent question. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I eat my meals at Hogwarts. But I have a table on order at a shop in the village. They are supposed to deliver it some time next week."
"If you never eat here, why the fancy kitchen?"
"Resale value," he replied simply.
"Already thinking about leaving again?"
Why did you say that?!
He leveled a look at her. "No, I'm not. But I don't think a two bedroom, one bathroom house will work long term if I plan on having a family some time in the future."
Feeling a small twinge of guilt for being so catty, she followed Harry back through the main room through a doorway on the wall opposite the fireplace to an L-shaped hallway that led back around toward the kitchen. Off of this hallway was the single bathroom, which had been renovated by the contractor to exactly replicate the fourth floor prefect's bathroom at Hogwarts, and two bedrooms.
She paused in the threshold of the door to the room in which ten years earlier she, Ron and Harry met Sirius for the first time. Much to Hermione's surprise, the room did not bring back any bad memories or feelings, mostly due to the fact that it was completely different than she remembered. Actually, she didn't remember much about the room at all. What she remembered were the events. The surroundings were a blur in her mind. Even if forced to do so, she could not have described the room she saw now.
It was a large rectangular room that ran the width of the house. Two large windows looked out over the back garden, which was overgrown with weeds and natural grasses. The windows were spaced far enough apart along the wall to allow for a large bed to rest between them. On one wall a door stood open, revealing a small cupboard for clothes, its minute size completely out of proportion to the large room. The floor was hardwood, as it was in the rest of the house, but much more scratched and gouged than what had been evidenced in the other rooms. Hermione assumed that this had been the room Remus used during his time here as a werewolf.
"I was surprised the first time I came into this room," Harry said, interrupting Hermione's thoughts. "I didn't remember the windows. Dumbledore told me they had been boarded up for years, inside and out."
Hermione shook her head, disconcerted that Harry had been able to read her thoughts so easily.
This was obviously the room that Harry had chosen to paint first as half of the walls were painted a very calming blue. Blue painter's tape outlined the molding around the windows and doors. A canvas drop cloth covered a large portion of the floor and an opened paint can was sitting, along with a stir stick, paint trays and brushes, on the previous day's copy of The Daily Prophet.
"So is this where we are working?" Hermione asked, pulling a band out of her pocket and putting her hair back in a ponytail.
"Yep, grab a brush."
"Why did you choose blue?" she asked, bending down and looking at the paint.
"It is supposed to ease your dreams. You know my track record with dreams."
Hermione looked up at him sharply. "You still have nightmares?"
"Only one."
"Is it about Voldemort?"
"No."
"Your parents? Ron?"
"No and no."
She looked at him exasperatedly. "Are you going to make me keep guessing?"
"Maybe," he said with a lopsided grin.
She crossed her arms and tapped her foot in frustration.
"You really want to know?"
"Yes."
"It's about you."
Her foot stopped, mid-tap and her mouth fell open in shock. "You're having nightmares about me? Why?"
"Apparently it is," he cleared his throat and said in a deep voice, "a deep-seeded fear brought on by years of guilt that you will not forgive me and, as a result of my selfishness, I will lose the only person that I consider to be my family." He stopped and shrugged. "At least that's what the book I read said."
Hermione stood there with a dumfounded expression on her face, staring at Harry, trying to decide what surprised her most: the fact that he was dreaming about her, the fact that he read a book about it, or the results of his amateur psychoanalysis of his dream.
He bent down and picked up a roller brush. "And I just really like this shade of blue," he said, handing the roller brush to her. He turned and began pouring paint into a tray that Hermione assumed was for her. Upon closer inspection, the color looked vaguely familiar.
"This color reminds me of my dress robes from the Yule Ball we had during fourth year."
"Really?" Harry said thoughtfully, looking around at the partially painted walls. "Hmm."
"Isn't there a spell we can do to make it go faster?" Hermione asked, looking at her roller brush skeptically.
"Yes there is, but this is more fun."
"You said you were bored when I got here."
"That's because I had no one to talk to."
"I don't know how much fun I'll be."
"I'll take my chances. Do you want to roll or cut in?"
"Cut in? That sounds painful."
"It's painting around the edges with a brush. I tell you what, I'll cut in and you roll."
Harry gave Hermione some painting pointers and they turned their attention to the walls. After less than two minutes Hermione stopped. "Where's that book again?"
"I'm not telling. Stop being lazy." They painted a few more minutes in silence.
"You're right, this is boring."
"Then tell me a story," Harry said.
Hermione sighed, looking at the big, blank unpainted wall in front of her. What did I get myself into, she thought. "Once upon a time…"
"Not a fairy tale. Tell me something that happened during the last five years."
"No, it's your turn. Tell me about your trip across America."
Harry stood back to survey the work he had done so far, dipped his brush in the paint tray and said, "Let's see, where to start. The day I left, Dumbledore arranged a portkey for me to get across the Atlantic."
Hermione stopped painting and looked at Harry. "It must have been a big portkey."
"It was. It was Dudley's car," he said sheepishly.
"What?"
"Dumbledore 'borrowed' Dudley's car to use as my portkey."
"You're kidding?" After the initial shock of Dumbledore's foray into grand larceny passed, Hermione appreciated the gesture's poetic justice. "How did it work?"
"Dumbledore told me to sit in the driver's seat and press the accelerator when I was ready to go. The next thing I knew, I was zooming through space. Since I was sitting down it wasn't as uncomfortable as normal portkeys, but it was a strange feeling nonetheless."
"Did you drive that car across the continent?"
"I did. It even had a full tank of petrol. I have a feeling that Dumbledore knew before I did that I would leave." Hermione, who was determinedly painting her wall, chided herself inwardly. I guess I should have been more observant.
He added, "So I got a map and I drove."
Harry continued to paint around the doorway to the room and didn't offer any more information. After a few minutes Hermione said, "That's it? That's your story?"
"What do you want to know?"
"More details than 'I drove.' Good God, Harry. You were gone for five years. Surely you did more than drive."
"Okay," Harry said slowly. "First I had to learn how to drive. I never had seeing as Dudley only ever 'allowed' me to wash his car, not drive it. That was interesting. Since I didn't have a license, I needed to be very aware of speed limits and such so as to not get stopped by the American police. I considered going to New York City first but didn't want to chance driving there, so I drove back roads through the east out to Chicago." Here Harry paused, studying his wall, lost in thought. "To be honest, Hermione, I don't remember much about the first year or so."
Hermione stopped mid-roll and looked at him. "What do you mean?"
"Maybe I was still in shock, I don't know," he said and started painting again. "I would drive for hours and not remember where I had been or anything about how I got where I was. I would stop for the night, get a room and sometimes not leave the room for days, weeks even. I just laid on the bed thinking … thinking about everything that happened in my life. I thought about the people in my life: my parents, the Dursleys, you, Ron, Voldemort, Sirius. Over and over again I relived the horrible things that happened to me and the horrible things that I did. I couldn't get any of it out of my mind. There were times I woke up absolutely sure that it had all been a dream, that I was back in the cupboard under the stairs at Privet Drive, 11 years old again." Harry had stopped painting and was staring at the wall, lost in thought. "And I was so happy," he laughed with mirth. "Imagine that, waking up and being happy at the thought of living with the Dursleys." He shook his head as he dipped his brush in fresh paint.
"Then I would roll over and see the picture of the three of us on my bedside table. And that horrible sinking feeling would return … the painful memory of everyone that had died and the guilt that I hadn't." Harry looked at Hermione and gave her a half smile. "Let that be a lesson for you: you can run but you can't hide from what is in your mind."
Hermione didn't know what to say. She hadn't expected an outpouring of Harry's soul when she asked about America. Truth be told, since his return she had come to view his time in America as an extended holiday. She had imagined it as one long party. In the blinding haze of her residual indignation about him leaving, she had conveniently forgotten that he had been dealing with difficult emotional scars while in America, just as she had been doing at home in England.
And it made her angry.
She dropped her roller brush in the paint tray and rounded on Harry, who had his back turned still painting. "You are infuriating, Harry."
Harry turned around with a shocked look on his face. "Wh-what?"
"I feel helpless, Harry. Here I am, listening to you tell me about what you were going through, alone, and all I want to do is apologize for not being there for you. When, I couldn't be there because you didn't give me the choice to be there. And that makes me angry with you all over again." Hermione, who had been pacing back and forth during her tirade stopped in front of Harry. "To top it off, I'm angry with myself for being angry with you and for thinking that when you left, you left your problems here for me to deal with."
Hermione crossed her legs and sat down on the floor. Trying valiantly to hold back the tears once again, she abruptly dropped her head in her hands. Harry carefully knelt down in front of her and she lifted her head with a pleading look in her eyes.
"Why did you come back, Harry?" she said softly. "I was at a point in my life where everything was in place. I have a career, friends…I thought I had dealt with losing my parents, Ron and you. It was almost as if you had died, too. I accepted the fact that none of you were coming back. Now that you've come back, I am right back where I was five years ago. Part of me is expecting Ron and my parents to walk back into my life, too. How delusional is that?" she asked, sniffing loudly.
Harry wiped the tear from her cheek with his thumb and pushed a stray piece of hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ear.
"Hermione, I came back for you … because I missed you. The picture I had of the three of us was always with me. I looked at it every day. As time went on it was easier to see Ron's face. I guess I finally accepted that he was gone, but that he would always be here," he said pointing to his heart. "But it never got easier looking at your face. The guilt I felt for leaving you didn't go away. It got worse as I settled into life in America. The hole that was left in absence of your friendship could never be filled with any other person. And believe me I tried. I knew that I had left things unfinished with you. I wanted my best friend to be part of my life again."
Hermione saw in his eyes that he was being sincere, and a weight lifted from her heart. But he still hadn't answered the one question that had plagued her more than any other.
"Harry, why didn't you write to me?"
He looked down to avoid her gaze. She could tell that he was struggling to find the right words. She scoffed, knowing that he wasn't going to tell her. She started to rise when he grabbed her hand.
"It was horrible of me not to write. I know. What I told you that first night was true. I tried to write you so many times. I just couldn't get down in words what I was feeling, what I was going through. Nothing came out right. So I tried writing to Molly and Dumbledore, which was easier. I hoped you would send a note along with their next owl and I could reply. I thought you would be the instigator of my inspiration. You never replied and I continued to try to write you. Then in one owl from Molly, she told me as kindly as possible that she wasn't delivering any of my clandestine messages because you wouldn't speak of me. She said you didn't want to know anything about me. That''s when I knew I had lost you and the only way to repair our friendship was to return."
"When was that?" Hermione asked quietly.
"About six months ago. I was already planning on returning after the Quidditch season ended. When Dumbledore owled me with the news of Madam Hooch's retirement I knew it was kismet." He took both of her hands in his. "Look, Hermione, I know that forgiving me is hard. I know that part of you doesn't ever want to forgive me. But I also know that part of you wants what I want: our friendship back. What I said before about the dream is true. I am terrified of losing you forever. You're it. You're my family. Please, please give me another chance."
Hermione looked down at her hands to avoid Harry's piercing gaze. She knew that she had to make a choice right now whether to completely forgive Harry or not. Would she be able to listen to Harry talk about his time away without resenting him? Did she want to rebuild the friendship that they had before and that had meant so much to her? Or would she rather avoid emotional attachments, as she had for the last five years, to protect herself from being hurt again? When the final question popped into her head, in an instant the answer became clear.
Hermione bounded into Harry's arms and sobbed, "I've missed you so much."
Harry let out a deep breath. "Well, you will never have to miss me again. I'm not going anywhere." He hugged her tightly. She buried her head in his shoulder and cried in his arms for the second time. This time she was crying from relief, fully releasing the last vestiges of anger she harbored against Harry.
Harry released her and said, "You alright?"
She wiped her eyes and sniffed, nodding her head.
"What is it with me that makes girls want to cry?" Harry asked playfully, attempting to lighten the mood. Hermione laughed thinking back to Harry's description of his first kiss with Cho Chang, something he had unfortunately described only as "wet."
Harry grabbed Hermione's hand and gave it a quick kiss. "Let's get back to work. This room isn't going to paint itself."
He stood and helped her up off the floor. "It would if you would tell me where that book is," she said.
He looked around at the progress they had made, which he had to admit wasn't much, and decided that he would rather have a completed room than the satisfaction of painting it the Muggle way.
"It's in the loo."
Hermione raised her eyebrows and started out the door.
"What?" he said defensively. "Everyone needs a little reading material now and then."