Love is hope: Life after sixth year

Hermione tossed and turned in bed.

Amélie had made her promise not to tell anyone yet about what they all found out, until they were sure about what had happened to her real mum. Dumbeldore had promised Amélie that they would look into it immediately. And if Hermione could draw conclusions from the expression on Snape’s face the last time she saw him, she bet he wouldn’t rest until he got all of the information out of his sister.

As for her parents’ task… She didn’t know if Amélie knew about her being in danger, but Hermione wasn’t going to be the one informing her…

She was still unsure how she felt about her parents researching Dark Arts. She knew that there weren’t a lot of the ‘good’ wizarding kind that wanted to go any deeper into those topics. That was part of the trouble getting good Defence Against the Dark Arts Professors. That and the so-called curse on the position…

Really, only Aurors remained with an undoubted reputation when studying Dark Magic. And they were monitored closely on those studies. Others were always considered suspicious… Hermione only knew of Remus, Snape, Tonks, Shacklebolt, and Moody… Those were the only ones she knew had studied the Dark Arts, and the only ones she trusted with that knowledge… Well, maybe Snape not so much…

But Tonks and Shacklebolt had already their jobs in the Ministry to look out for, and Moody seemed to always be on some kind of mission of his own… Hermione could understand why they wouldn’t be chosen to research Amélie’s case… As for Remus… Well, he was under a lot of suspicion, too, lately, by the Ministry… Maybe that’s why Dumbledore didn’t ask him?

In any event, Hermione could imagine that there were other Dark Magic researches going on already by the Order, about topics that were of more grave importance then saving the life of one innocent… But why not Snape? If anyone had the most rights, and the most resources, to be sure, it would be him? Wouldn’t it? After all it was his daughter’s life that was at stake here…

Except… Hermione wasn’t sure, but she always wondered why Dumbledore went to great lengths to avoid giving Snape the Defence Against the Dark Arts job… Hell, he even let Umbridge in! Surly Snape was a brilliant Potions Master, but Hermione couldn’t fathom that it would be harder to get a decent replacement for Potions than it would be for Defence Against the Dark Arts…

Now, again, this thought lingered… Aside from the dangerous job Snape already had to pull, playing a spy with Voldemort, Hermione reckoned he could easily make time for researching in his library… But what if it went deeper than that… She had read somewhere that some types of Dark Magic were addictive…

Could that be why Dumbledore sheltered Snape from any form of Dark Arts? From what Hermione could gather, Dark Arts had basically been his upbringing… So it would be hard for Snape not to give in from time to time to the more ‘innocent’ forms of dark magic…

Going to Voldemort’s meetings must really test the boundaries of his restraint… She’d have to browse the Grimmauld library, maybe there were tomes left here that could confirm her theory…

In any event, that could explain why Dumbledore trusted her parents to do the research. Aside from the fact that it was illegal to have Muggles study any form of magic, it would be harmless. They could read and memorise the spells, but they could never perform them. So there was no ‘benefit’ to gain from it…

Hermione supposed that thus it would be unlikely for her parents to become addicted… And even if this turned out to be the case, by some strange occurrence, they would still be harmless to the rest… Could it put her parents in harms way, though? Hermione couldn’t imagine Dumbledore suggesting such a thing, and she would see to it that there was sufficient protection for them.

On a good note, it would help them feel more useful…

Hermione sighed and turned on her other side, trying to get comfortable enough to get some sleep…

Her thoughts just fluttered to another topic… One she had tried to avoid ever since she caught her bearings and went up to take that damn bath…

Harry and her hadn’t talked about what had happened in the drawing room. In fact they practically avoided eye-contact all evening. During dinner, Hermione had concentrated on the new-found enthusiasm of Ron and Ginny. She still didn’t know what happened to get Ron out of his depressed feelings, and frankly the sudden change was starting to worry her a bit…

She had been meaning to ask Amélie about what he felt, but the girl had been more pensive, and Hermione didn’t want to bother her. Her friend had had enough to deal with today already…

And about Harry…

Well, she honestly didn’t really know what to think anymore. Their path had been so unclear already… Sometimes she longed for the days when they were all just best friends, and everything was simple. Now everything was complicated, and with the history they had on the ‘romance’ department, Hermione feared it could only get worse…

She remembered what distant relative used to say all the time, exasperating everyone who’d heard her say it more then ten times already: “A good relationship is based on good communication, without communication you can’t understand each other!”

Hermione used to laugh secretly at simpleton way she used to say those words… But there was a grain of truth in it. Harry and her had always functioned well in the areas where they could understand each other. That was with their friendship. It wasn’t like they didn’t talk to each other anymore… but they never really talked about what they had…

Like the fact that they didn’t tell anyone about the development in their relationship. It had been implied, maybe? But both were assuming this was the way it should be. Hermione didn’t even know if she herself wanted it to stay a secret, let alone that she knew exactly where Harry stood on things.

The same went for the ‘I love you’s. She was sure she loved him… But every new day, she discovered that the day before, she didn’t really love him as much as she loved him that day… how could she have thought, yesterday, that she loved him? Today, now she loved him… It was a never-ending story… It didn’t even make sense to her, really… It was just that: what did she really know about love? What was love, anyway?

She had loved her parents, her books, before she had gone to Hogwarts, and maybe Amélie, too, but she hadn’t seen her friend that much, and though it’s harsh to say, but when you’re a kid, sometimes out of sight is out of the heart… Her friendship with Harry and Ron, however, had been a whole other level of love, to her.

She had loved Harry and Ron differently, but always with the same intensity… The year before, a lot of things had happened. She’d learned that, even though she loved Ron very much, she couldn’t love him in that ‘other’ way. While, after Harry and her had kissed the first time, there was no doubt in her mind that she could love him that way…

But circumstances, and her stubbornness, had made for a queer development in their relationship. It had been strange those last months of sixth year. She felt like she was pretending to be Harry’s friend. She felt closer to Ron, and yet the pain she felt from not being in a real relationship, friendship or otherwise, with Harry had drained her emotionally.

After the train ride, when they had kissed on a third occasion, she finally let that real love for him resurface. She knew she loved him, but then again, it felt like she’d always loved him… And that now she was just getting the perk of kissing too… It felt like she had bypassed the silly-crush phase, and jumped right to the quiet and steady love. And she’d liked that. How naïve of her…

But now, it felt different. And when she analysed the last times they had been together, it was obvious. When they had first seen each other at Grimmauld Place this summer, it was like they were still in the easy-going newness of their ‘being in love’… Circumstances of her comforting him had been ‘normal’ in their friendship part, and it wasn’t too awkward to start smooching from an embrace…

It had been four days now, and circumstances had been quite different. Ron had been the one needing to get worried over, her parents, too, and they were settling down from all the chaos… Harry and Hermione hadn’t really had much opportunity to talk privately, and even when they did, things got awkward. It was like both of them were a bit shy to make the first move and closing the distance between them. A few hours ago had been the first time it actually happened, well, with a bit of a rocky start…

Hermione didn’t want the thing she had with Harry developing to be only based on situations of stress. She wanted to be able to know when a smirk meant he wanted to kiss her, and when it was just a smirk… when a wink was meant to tease her or make her blush, and when it was meant to be just an ‘understanding’ between them… She wanted to get to hug him because she wanted to, and not with the excuse of comforting him… And she wanted him to be ok with that… Most of all she wanted to know what Harry thought about, and not just his thoughts about Quidditch, school, or Voldemort…

She couldn’t just assume anymore she really knew how Harry was standing about the change. Before she could still pretend it was just taking their friendship to a new level. Now that bubble had burst for real. She didn’t feel like she could just built on a new layer to her friendship with Harry… Besides, that wouldn’t do justice to her friendship with Ron, or any other friendships she built along the years. It would mean that her relationship with Harry would become ‘higher’ in ranking, or something, and it was just different…

Or would it really become more important then anything else? Were they going to create a rift between the trio? But the way they had acted while denying their feelings had done that too, much to her chagrin, so whichever way, the dynamic was going to change… Argh! This was complicated, Hermione understood now why people warned about dating their best friend.

Bottom line: this new dynamic between Harry and her deserved a new foundation, an appropriate one… if they wanted to continue this new type of relationship… Urgh, that sounded so clinical! But did that mean they had to start from scratch?

That was absurd, she knew Harry since he was eleven! She wouldn’t go as far as to say that she knew him inside out, but it wasn’t like they needed to date to get to know each other better…

But now, with what happened in the drawing room downstairs… When she thought about it, she couldn’t deny getting a bit scared… It wasn’t Harry’s reaction, actually, in retrospect she was very relieved he’d left when he did. It was her lack of inner warning bells…

She wasn’t ready for that type of physical relationship! She couldn’t be! She hadn’t read up on it at all, and it had only been a couple of months since she even got kissed for the first time! She didn’t even know if there would be legal repercussions. Technically, Harry was of age now, and she wasn’t…

And despite of all this, when Harry had started to touch his lips along her skin, all bets had been off. She liked to think she would’ve stopped it, too, if he really had tried to go further, but she couldn’t be sure anymore… So what scared her was that she didn’t really trust herself with him…

But that had to be codswallop! She always felt safest around him, despite the danger he attracted!

Getting extremely frustrated with herself for being unable to find a rational response to the problem, she shrugged her sheets away and stood from her bed. This was going to end! And there was only one way to put a stop to the annoying lack of conclusion.

She was going to find Harry!

Not caring about the hour, she did however act careful as not to wake up her roommates. Clambering down the stairs, she stood still in front of the boys’ room. Opening the door silently, she entered the room, bypassing the bed where the redhead was trashing around and mumbling.

She was almost at Harry’s side, when suddenly Ron sat upright. He looked around, haunted-like. Hermmione was about to explain what she was doing in their room, when Ron’s eyes didn’t fix on hers at all. He started mumbling again, more loudly now.

The only words she could make out were ‘didn’t mean to’, ‘fight’, ‘don’t’ and ‘in my head’. It was as if he was talking to someone behind her, and when he suddenly yelled “No!”, Hermione almost jumped a foot in the air.

“It’s ok, Ron…”

Hermione heard the soothing voice of Harry, all of the sudden. Turning her head, she saw Harry sitting up in his bed also. Ron’s gaze moved to Harry’s immediate area, too, and he seemed to stutter:

“But... but… I… But…” Ron frowned, as if confused himself.

Harry said: “It’s ok, Ron. Just go back to sleep… Come on, lie down…”

Still frowning Ron did as Harry told him to, and with a last “But I didn’t mean to” he laid his head down.

“I know you didn’t, Ron…” Harry replied, and only then Ron seemed to relax, and he closed his eyes.

Hermione stood gaping at the scene, what had just happened? Not understanding, she turned to Harry. He was just getting out of bed, pulling a robe over his worn sweatpants. Before she could ask what had happened, Harry gripped her elbow and steered her out of the room.

When he’d closed they stood in the hallway, and Harry had closed the door behind them, they turned to each other and whispered urgently at the same time:

“What’s wrong with Ron?” / “What the hell are you doing here?”

Harry sighed, and ran a hand over his tired face.

“Ron talks in his sleep, always has… He was just having a nightmare… Now can you tell me what you’re doing in my room at,” he checked his wristwatch, “3 am?!”

Hermione thought the hallway wouldn’t be the greatest place to discuss anything with Harry.

“I need to talk to you… but not here…”

“Ok…”

While Hermione was still thinking where they’d best conduct this conversation, without the risk of having someone barge in on them, Harry had already taken her arm and dragged her with him…

After descending several flights of stairs, they arrived in the basement. Hermione shivered from the cool air, but kept going until they were in the ‘Marauders’ Cave’. That was how they had dubbed the old duelling space…

Finally they were at a stop.

“Ok, talk…”

Harry said, not unkindly. His voice rang out in the cave leaving echo’s. Suddenly Hermione didn’t really have the courage to just start the conversation she wanted to. Racking her brain, she tried to come up with something that would seem important enough for her to lose sleep over…

“Hermione? Well, don’t tell me you got up at three in the morning just for the hell of it?”

Panicking, Hermione blurted out the first thing that popped up:

“You haven’t answered that question I asked four days ago… About what Amélie said to you…”

Truth be told, she had completely forgotten about the little scene with Amélie whispering in Harry’s ear. Relief and disappointment flooded her both at once. Relief that she had found at least something to say, disappointment that she hadn’t brought up the truth.

All that changed, though, the second she saw Harry’s grave expression. The silence took a very solemn turn, and Hermione forgot about what had brought her here in the first place, and concentrated on the, apparently, box of Pandora she had tried to open.

As the silence went on, Hermione felt the cold more keenly, and started shivering. Once Harry saw this, he took out his wand and created a ‘privacy bubble’ around them, followed by a heating charm, before he accio’d some chairs from a corner. With a simple hand wave he indicated she should sit.

Feeling that this was going to be much more serious then she originally planned, she did as he wanted and kept her silence. They were sitting right across from each other, and Harry seemed to be far away, in his thoughts. Reaching out, she took the hands clasped in his lap gently in her own. Green eyes snapped to hers in an instant.

Hermione felt the trepidation settle heavily in her stomach, Harry opened his mouth but no sound came from it. Carefully Hermione whispered:

“Harry, you don’t have to tell me… I… I understand…”

Though the latter was a lie, she didn’t understand, how could she, she meant the former despite her piqued curiosity. But Harry found his voice, finally:

“No, it isn’t that Amélie saw anything, really… It’s just that she apparently got some vibe that I have been holding major secrets from my best friends this past year, and she told me it was time to come clean…” Harry shook his head, “I don’t know, I should’ve told you earlier… It’s just that, when I first learned about it, I didn’t want anyone to know, and so I didn’t tell you and Ron, and then it got easier not telling you, you know?”

The question seemed rather rhetorical to her, so she met his gaze steadily, trying to convey to him that he should just get on with it.

“Right,” Harry fidgeted, “I should start at the beginning, yes, that’s probably the best way to start it… Well, you remember Trelawney making a true prophecy at the end of third year?”

Hermione nodded hesitantly. Despite not having that much faith in foretelling, she reluctantly admitted that that time was not a fraud-moment, but only because Dumbledore seemed to think it was real. And anyway, that prophecy only showed how impossible it was to really know what would happen that night.

For one thing, first they thought it was Sirius. They could’ve never known Scabbers would turn out to be Pettigrew, who turned out to be the traitor… Nor could they predict he would be able to escape because Remus hadn’t taken his potion that night. Or Snape had been unwilling to see reason…

Even more! In hindsight the prophecy could have been about Crouch Jr. too! After Harry came back at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, it fitted Crouch’s story even more… To this day they couldn’t be sure which of the two the prophecy meant.

But, enough of that, Harry obviously didn’t need a lecture about fortune telling right now.

At her nod Harry continued. He told her about why Dumbledore kept Trelawney at Hogwarts, who had made the prophecy that had cost Sirius’ life, who had witnessed it… what it said…

His voice threatened to break a few times, but he went on bravely. Explaining what it meant, about how Neville could’ve been a contingency plan, but since he was a ghost now… well, there was no backup hero… How much Voldemort already knew about it, and how that was the main reason the Dark Lord had come after his parents that Halloween night…

Hermione sat still, taking it all in…

...The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...

Silence was heavy. Hermione still had Harry’s hands clasped between hers, and she slowly retracted them.

“You’ve known since when?” Hermione was surprised at how business-like her voice sounded. It wasn’t what she was feeling… At least she thought it wasn’t. She felt oddly empty, like she had yet to decide how she was going to respond emotionally…

“The night… the night Sirius fell through the veil…”

Harry’s answer was barely a whisper.

Hermione stood up suddenly, and started pacing…

“Hermione…”

She heard his plea, but she just held her hand up to stop him. She had to think about this first… Barely realising it, she muttered aloud:

“Ok, it’s not that I didn’t see it coming, I mean, Voldemort’s after you, he’s obsessed, so I always knew there was a chance you’d have to face him off eventually, or again… I just kind of hoped Dumbledore would get him before that happened… Guess I’m quite naïve… Aren’t I?”

Hermione shot a nervous glance Harry’s way, still pacing like a woman trying to avoid hysteria. He opened his mouth again, but again she stopped him.

“Even true prophecies aren’t really reliable. No, even if what Trelawney said, by miracle is some kind of real prophecy, there’s no sure way to tell what it will be in reality! You said yourself it could’ve easily been Neville! It could still be someone else! You know… like the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies! How can you be sure it’s July, it could easily be September, that’s the seventh month according to the Roman calendar. It could be another date, altogether! And about the Dark Lord will mark him… Voldemort could have marked many people in lots of different ways! And lots of people defied him in less obvious ways… Born to those who have thrice defied him, it could be someone else! Not you…”

Harry shot up, and grabbed Hermione by the upper arms: “Hermione! It is me! I have no choice! I’ll be a murderer or a corpse! Whether I like it or not, Hermione, it’s me…”

“I don’t want you to be,” Merlin! She had resorted to whining… must get a grip on herself.

Harry looked at her funnily: “I’m supposed to be the Saviour of the world, I’m supposed to defeat the greatest Dark Wizard since a long time, and I haven’t even graduated! I have no idea how I’m supposed to pull that off…”

Hermione looked in his eyes and saw a lost boy, with way too much pressure on his shoulders… Hopelessness…  Now it was her time to grab his shoulders.

“You listen here, Harry, I have complete faith in you! You’ll defeat him, of that I have absolutely no doubt. I’ll admit I would like it more if Dumbledore could vanquish that awfully pale arse of his, but that’s not because I have more faith in his abilities! I just don’t want you in any risky situation. Hell, I don’t even like it that much when you play Quidditch!”

Hermione took a deep breath, making sure Harry could see she was completely sincere, needing him to know: “Besides, there’s still time, you can train! And knowledge is power! The fact that Voldemort doesn’t know the whole thing, is a good point for us! And if it’s really you in that prophecy, then you have a great power Voldemort knows not… and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...”

Hermione took a deep breath: “And you know I’ll always be here for you, Harry! I won’t let you do this alone…”

Finally Hermione felt like there was some life back in her body… Yes, they could train, and find out more… And…

“I need to go to the library…”

Hermione had already turned, but was stopped by Harry clutching her hand. She turned and frowned at him inquisitively.

“It’s 4 am, Hermione…”

Harry’s lips formed a half-hearted smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Hermione was about to open her mouth that they could waste no time: she had to research any book possible on what Harry’s special powers could be, and how to train them, and…

Realising Harry just didn’t need that right now, she calmed down a bit… Besides, he probably worked on all that with Dumbledore…

Harry still held Hermione’s hand, even though they had a considerate amount of space between them…

You know, this was exactly what she meant before she climbed out of bed this night! What were they supposed to do right now? Did he want to kiss her? Or did he just need a hug? Would she be considered needy, if she did either?

Oh, to bloody hell with it!

Deciding she was going to do what she wanted, she had faith he would tell her if he didn’t care for her actions.

And really, what could she do when his glorious green eyes pierced her with intensity, and she knew she was allowed to drown in them?

Moving forward, she stepped as close as possible to him, tasting those lips of his…

***

Ok, I really appreciate reviews, really I thrive on them! And in this insane heat wave, during these important exams which I really need to pass, I need all the positive things I can get from life!

xxx, nienie