Something Strange
The first thing Hermione saw when she awoke was Harry.
But it wasn't just Harry. It was a very naked Harry lying beside her, an arm draped over her stomach and his breathing was light in her hair.
She was sleeping next to Harry. In the nude. She was skyclad, lying next to Harry who was also naked. Her body tingled. It was strange because the way she felt wasn't like she always did when she woke up. She felt vibrant. She felt oddly alive lying next to him, watching him breathing but at the same time, the lower half of her body ached like something had been nibbling on her during the night.
She clutched at her stomach and sat up, kicking her legs out of the side of the bed. It couldn't have happened, it just couldn't have. They'd talked about taking everything fast, how they were going to take everything slowly instead and drag it all out. This wasn't supposed to come for a while yet. She had a master plan going on and this wasn't on it until at least seven and eight.
Yet they'd done it.
There was no mistake. Her bed was…glowing almost with an aura the colour of freshly cut grass. The magic surrounding her bed was intense and it was making her feel odd and alive.
Harry stirred in his sleep when Hermione retrieved her clothes from the floor. She could remember last night. Every single detail was burned into her memory and something had made her continue even as her brain shouted no. It wasn't Harry's fault, he didn't plead for anything…hell he didn't even ask, she gave willingly.
And that was what scared her.
How could she be so careless with herself? That was her virginity she just lost. Admittedly it was to the man she loved, the man she hoped to marry someday but she wanted to give it in her own time when everything would be perfect. She was waiting for the perfect moment where it would just seem right to do it there and then.
A part of her was telling her that she wanted it. Now it was all over and done with, she could get on with her life with Harry knowing that all the awkwardness was over and done with.
But it wasn't awkward and that's what she couldn't figure out.
Her mother had told her that the first time is painful and awkward because boys are prodding and don't know what they're doing or what pleases.
But Harry knew. Harry knew every inch of her body that tingled, he knew every single part that elicited some pleasure from her, he knew where to touch and how to touch. She knew that he'd been with other girls, that he'd lost his virginity along the line and was ashamed that he couldn't get it back to give it to her. She just couldn't bring herself to blame him for having Cho. It didn't even matter know because she'd lost it to him and that was what mattered.
She didn't want to lose it like this though. She felt dirty, she felt awful and she felt ashamed for doing it in the first place. She wasn't like this and the woman that came out last night definitely wasn't Hermione Granger.
Then why had Harry carried on if he could see it wasn't like her?
Her mind wanted to scream the blind answer, that he'd done it to satisfy himself and no one else. If he'd done that, he wouldn't have held her afterward cuddling her to his chest. He wouldn't have been Harry if he hadn't loved her like that.
Maybe that's why he did it. Maybe he needed to prove that he loved her. Maybe he needed to prove how much he loved her.
Her body shuddered when she took her dressing gown from the back of her door and slung it around her, tying the belt around her middle. She took a look at the naked Harry lying on her bed, sheets around his midriff sleeping peacefully. He grasped at the empty space in front of him while he slept, his brow furrowing even in his sleep. She smiled absently and walked over to the bed, sitting down on the edge.
She contemplated waking him up and telling him that she needed some alone time to think. She needed to ask him why he carried on last night, why he didn't make her stop. He wasn't like anyone she'd met before, he wasn't like any of the older boys she'd met who'd rip a skirt of a girl soon as look at her. He was different so why didn't she feel different?
Her bed looked magical but she didn't feel that way.
She lay down next to him and let him wrap his arm around her. It was soothing to have him there, her best friend always there to take her emergency call. She threaded her fingers through his hair and looked at his peaceful expression. He didn't know what she was thinking, how could he know? He picked up on everything she did, like handing her the toast in the morning without a second thought but was she ready to go into that type of relationship where they depended on each other? Where they were intimate? Did she really think she was ready for something like that?
She reached out and took her wand from her bedside table, casting a Morning-After charm upon herself. Thinking about what she was doing instead of the way Harry smiled when his arm reached around her, cuddling her up to him again, she managed to cast the charm successfully and felt something stirring inside her lower body. When the feeling finished, she was content just to lie there in his arms stroking his hair while he slept.
A small tear slipped down her cheek but she closed her eyes and kissed his forehead. Something's just have to change.
~*~
Hermione had been lying in his arms for what seemed like hours. She wanted to stay there; safe from the world but her own worries were mounting. She felt weak thinking about them and even worse when she looked at his face.
Suddenly, Harry bolted upwards, a scream resounding from his throat and an almighty gasp rasping from his voice. His eyes were wide open, much wider than she'd ever seen them. His back was rigid and his face was looking up at the ceiling. She tried to touch him but Harry just screamed again then fell backwards, onto the pillows with a thud.
He lay there motionless for a moment just breathing in the air he couldn't get during his cream. His lungs seemed starved for air as he gulped the air down into his chest. His body was racked with sweat that come on suddenly, his temperature had shot through the roof and he looked terrified. He was white with horror at something that his eyes had seen.
Carefully, Hermione stroked his hair and kissed his forehead. He own tears were threatening the slip out of her eyes and her body trembled. She was frightened. She'd never seen Harry like that. He'd screamed in his sleep before and she'd shared his bed when he'd had very bad nightmares but this was something she'd never seen before.
Harry was terrified.
He looked up and saw Hermione looking down at him. He looked several times at her, scanning her face before he melted into tears and wrapped his arms around her.
"I'm sorry," he repeated over and over. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"Calm down," Hermione urged, stroking his temples slowly. "Everything's all right. You're
fine."
"I'm sorry," he repeated, clutching her too him while he wept into her dressing gown.
With a look of boyish fright, he looked up into Hermione's eyes, his own filled with tears and said, "I'm scared."
That's all it took for Hermione to burst into tears and hold him closer, kissing his hair and whispering things to him. She didn't know what he'd dreamt but something had frightened him badly. If she asked him now, he wouldn't be able to reply. He looked terrified of his dreams and didn't want to sleep anymore. He just wanted Hermione to hold him through the rest of the night, softly rocking him gently.
~*~
"You look a wreck an' half," Ron said when Hermione came down for breakfast the next morning.
She grabbed a piece of toast and began to butter it before grabbing a mug of coffee and downing it in one gulp.
Ron watched amazed then asked, "Rough night?"
Hermione nodded. "Something like that."
"So the hormonally imbalanced bunnies are taking driving lessons?" Ron joked, folding his newspaper.
"Where's the stud?"
"In bed," Hermione replied, biting her toast and trying her best to wake herself up. "He's not
coming down today. He had a bad night last night."
"Really that bad?" Ron joked tucking the newspaper under his arm.
Hermione shook her head. "I'm not going to start with you at this time. He's in his room if you want to
go talk to him. If you do, go. If you don't, leave me alone anyway."
Ron laughed. "If that's the way you feel…"
"It is," Hermione replied sternly. "I need some time to think."
Ron's expression turned from laughter to concern and he sat down next to her, placing his newspaper on the
table. "Are you alright?"
Hermione tried to say yes for a moment before she shook her head. She looked down at her lap and replied "No."
"Why?" Ron asked, placing his hand comfortingly on her back. "Did something happen last
night?"
"It's not something I'd like to talk about Ron," Hermione said, tears threatening to fall. "You'd better go and see Harry. Just…tell him to tell me if something's wrong."
With that, she got up and fled the Great Hall, walking very quickly out of the arches.
Ron picked up his paper and headed for Harry's room.
~*~
"Knock, knock!" Ron joked, opening the door to Harry's bedroom and walking inside.
The room was empty. Harry wasn't in it. The trunk at the end of the bed was open with it's contents spewed everywhere and his bed was turned over and ripped to shreds, the stuffing falling out all over the bedroom. Ron climbed over pieces of broken pot and large wads of mattress stuffing to have a better view of the room.
There was a crash and Ron whirled around drawing his wand and pointing it at the foe. Harry was sitting in a foetal position next to wall, curled up and looking helpless. His glasses were lying on the floor near to Ron's feet. Carefully, Ron stooped and picked them up while moving towards Harry's quivering form. He held them out for the young man to take and Harry snatched them form Ron, putting them back on his face and blinked a few times as if everything was coming into focus.
"Harry?" Ron asked, moving closer again. "Are you okay, mate?"
Harry twitched and shuddered a little and looked around the room as if trying to piece together where he was.
"Harry?" Ron asked again, stopping himself from moving further. "Harry? It's Ron, can you hear me?"
"Casss Threeesh Manesss," was the reply from Harry. His tongue slithered like a serpent's when he pronounced the words; each word sounded like it was dripping in venom.
It was Parsel Tongue. Harry was speaking in Parsel Tongue. Hermione had a regime for when something like this happened but because Ron was on his own this time, he had no clue what to do. He couldn't leave the room in case Harry decided to bolt for it out of the seventh floor window.
He thought about signalling from the window or shouting for help using his wand. It would be easy just to shout but the likely hood of someone standing around in the common room at this time on a Hogsmeade weekend was slim at best. He looked around the room to find something that was useful but the only thing standing in the corner was a rubber plant.
Ron dismissed the idea of writing a note on the rubber plant and tossing it down the stairs. It would be pointless and cruelty to…an unbreakable plant, which would probably just bounce back up again into an upright position.
"Tell me what to do, Harry," Ron said, trying to find something, anything to get someone's attention outside.
A small train of thought was rushing through his mind. If he managed to get Harry down the stairs without serious injury, he could probably signal Dumbledore or one of the teachers from there using the fireplace. Of course, getting Harry downstairs was going to be the immediate problem.
Ron moved closer to his friend, holding out his hand hesitantly, as Harry would leap forward and bite the thing off in one serpent-sized chomp.
"Harry?" Ron tried, moving a little bit closer. "I need you to trust me now. I need you to take my
hand and we'll go downstairs."
Harry shuddered and didn't seem likely to co-operate anytime soon. Nevertheless, Harry stretched out his hand to meet Ron's in the middle and took it furtively. Ron grasped Harry's hand and went to pull his up but Harry pulled back, Ron nearly landed face first on the floor. He didn't think Harry was that strong of a man yet.
"I can't help unless we go downstairs," Ron pointed down to the floor and spoke to Harry like he was a small child. It was the only thing he could think of. Trying the old fireman's lift and running downstairs with Harry slung over his shoulder wouldn't exactly work for him.
Harry let Ron pull him to his feet and stayed upright in a curled position, his hand covering his left ear while his right hand was being tugged by Ron. Ron noticed when Harry stood up, that the shirt Harry was wearing had been torn to pieces with massive shred holes in the shirt. They weren't just tears though; they looked like scratches.
Ron led Harry by the hand to the door and walked with him down the staircase. It took a few minutes for Harry to walk safely down the staircase, including several trips with Ron having to catch him when he fell. Eventually, they made it down the two flights of stairs and into the common room, where Harry sat down on the couch in front of the fire and curled up into a small ball, clutching his knees to his chest, protecting himself.
With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore's face appeared in the fireplace; half-moon spectacles still well placed on his nose. He looked over Ron's shoulder at Harry lying on the couch and his eyes grew dark.
"Am I to guess that something has gone quite wrong, Mr Weasley?" He asked Ron, looking over the top of his spectacles.
Ron nodded and looked back at Harry. "I don't know what's happened, sir, but he's a quivering pile of goo."
Dumbledore smiled a little. "Interesting analogy, Mr Weasley."
Ron gave his usual corner grin as Dumbledore carried on.
"Is he able to walk at all?" Dumbledore asked.
"Not very far," Ron replied. "I had trouble getting him down the stairs. Getting him to the Hospital
Wing will be a nightmare."
"And where is Ms. Granger?" Dumbledore asked over his spectacles. Ron assumed that Dumbledore expected Hermione to be there, right along side them helping Harry, trying to come up with a charm to make him half-coherent but she was no where in sight.
"I don't know, sir," Ron said, finding himself feeling strangely responsible for Harry's condition. "I found him in his room, it's a mess and he's speaking Parsel Tongue. That's all he'll say."
Dumbledore made one of those 'hmm' sounds. The sound that drives you mad when you're young because it's the noise your parents make when they know something has gone wrong. Whether it be an exploding firecracker in your bother's bedroom or finding Play Wizard magazines hidden in your sock drawer. If Ron wasn't worried about his best friend, he probably would have thought all of this and then made himself laugh at the expensive of Professor Dumbledore's verbal filler. Whatever the reason, Dumbledore was deeply in thought for a moment.
"He only speaks Parsel Tongue?" Dumbledore asked out of character. That fact seemed to surprise him the most.
Ron nodded. "He repeats it. A lot of serpent language like he's speaking to someone in the
room."
"Was they're anyone in the room with you?" Dumbledore questioned urgently. "Anyone at all? Did you feel odd walking into the room? Did you feel any eyes on you at all?"
"None, sir," Ron replied.
Dumbledore looked at Ron for a moment then over Ron's shoulder at Harry, who was trying to sit himself upright and was muttering something in Parsel Tongue. You could tell when Harry was whispering it to himself because his tongue flicked out, rigid and pointy on the 's'.
"I'll have Poppy come down immediately," Dumbledore stated. "Could you take him back up to bed, Mr Weasley?"
Ron shook his head. "His bedroom is trashed, Professor."
"Then keep him on the couch until we get there," Dumbledore replied.
With that, Dumbledore's face disappeared from the fireplace and was replaced with the flickering of the Gryffindor flames that burned around the clock no matter the weather outside.
Ron stood up and walked back to Harry's curled form on the sofa.
"What happened to you, mate?" Ron asked as he grabbed the tartan cover from the big chair and lay it over Harry's shaking body.
"Erruhessss dophierssss," Harry replied, shivering.
Ron noticed that Harry's lips were turning a dark shade of blue and his skin was pale. Whatever had happened had happened fast, between Hermione leaving Harry and Ron walking into Harry's bedroom. Judging by the journey Ron took, it would only be ten minutes. That, he was sure, was something Dumbledore would take into consideration providing they wish to find out who did this to his friend. But, when Harry Potter is a resident at Hogwarts, anyone could be his enemy. Anyone from any house could have come in providing they knew the password and none of the other students did.
So what could have happened?
Unless it was Hermione.
Ron banished the thought from his mind as soon as he thought of it. It was stupid to think that one of his best friends would turn on the other suddenly, even when they were so wrapped up in each other the world seemed like an overflowing blanket. Hermione would never in a million years sell Harry or himself out to the dark side, even under threat of death. She just wasn't like that.
But it was possible. Hermione knew almost every curse in the wizarding world by their fifth year.
Ron shook his head. It just wasn't possible to assume something like that. Hell, it wasn't even probably possible to assume something like that. Ron just hoped that Remus and Sirius got to Hogwarts soon and help clear the mess up before it got out of hand.
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