Eleven
Then I remember you're mine and I have a world that's fine. --They Might Be Giants
*
"Harry?"
He blinked out of sleep, wondering muzzily what time it was. It was impossible to tell; the curtains were drawn and the room was grey and full of shadows. It could have been the start of a gloomy day, or nearly dinnertime.
"Harry?"
He recognised the voice, of course. Harry took a moment to wish he'd slept hidden from the world underneath his invisibility cloak. He might have avoided this, being found by one of the last people he felt like being alone with. Although it did cheer him to know she didn't mind being alone with him. Perhaps she really didn't know what he'd done that night at Remus's place, or maybe she was willing to pretend it had never happened. "Hi, Hermione," Harry croaked, rolling over towards the sound. Her very blurry face peeped around his bedroom door.
"Hello," she replied. Her voice was soft, and worried. Harry struggled to sit, ignoring the way his head swam, and rummaged around on the bedside table for his glasses.
"I'm sorry I woke you up," Hermione said. She crossed the room and plucked his spectacles off the table easily, then pressed them into his hand. Harry slid them on and flinched: she was sitting very close to him. "But I have to go to class soon," Hermione continued, "and it seemed like you were going to sleep forever."
"How long have you been here?"
"Oh - just the morning. Ron will be here soon, we didn't like to leave you alone." She tilted her head, studying his face. "Silly to wake you, I know. I just. . . couldn't leave without knowing how you were."
Harry shrugged. He was painfully aware that she was clean and neatly dressed, while he was sporting day-old rumpled clothes, bad hair, and worse breath. He scooted away from her and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "Back in a moment." He sorted out as many of those problems as he could in the loo, wobbling only slightly on his way there and back. A huge improvement over yesterday, he thought optimistically.
Hermione, however, seemed less impressed. She watched, frowning, as he settled back onto the bed. "You're not going back to work for a while." It was clearly a statement of fact, not a question.
"No," Harry said. "Moody won't let me until I finish that." He pointed to a nearly-full potion bottle on his beside table.
"Good," Hermione said. She was still eyeing him closely, and Harry looked away, uncomfortable. He wasn't sure what she was looking for in his face, but he was unreasonably afraid that she'd find it. He cleared his throat, ready to politely suggest that she be on her way, so she wouldn't be late for school.
But Hermione took him by surprise then, flinging her arms about his shoulders and knocking his glasses askew. "I worry about you," she said. Her breath was warm against his neck, and her voice was doing something funny to his spine. "I know it annoys you and I'm sorry, but I've been doing it since we were eleven and I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon."
"I -" His throat was tight, and his words came out as a whisper. "I don't mind."
"Yes, you do," she said promptly. "I know you, Harry Potter, and you do not take well to being fussed over."
"Well," Harry said, absently wondering when he'd begun running his hands over her back, "well, I can learn."
She lifted her head a little, just enough that he could see her smile, then pressed her lips to his cheek. Harry bent his head. He meant to reciprocate, only reciprocate, but whatever had taken over his hands and was making his heart pound so finally captured his mouth too, and what was supposed to be a peck on the cheek became an unmistakable kiss on the lips.
Hermione froze, then pulled away. "I've - we've -" Her voice was small, bewildered. "We've done that before, haven't we?"
Harry closed his eyes. The answer was written in his face, he could feel it, red-hot. There was nothing left to do but nod.
"I thought it was a dream."
He thought about saying sorry, or it was a mistake, it won't happen again, but before he could say anything at all, she was kissing him once more. It was tentative, soft and sweet - then suddenly it wasn't, and her mouth was open against his and she was pushing him back against the headboard and his hands were tangled in her hair. And the room that had been tilting in a low-key way was now officially spinning, and his glasses had fallen off and were probably being crushed to bits beneath them; but it didn't matter, he didn't care.
Harry could feel nothing but her; she was everything.
*
She left too soon, though whether it was after half an hour or five minutes, Harry couldn't be sure. He liked the thought of her rushing into class late, sliding into a seat on the back row, for once, her hair wilder than usual and her lips swollen and it being all his fault.
She'd let him make her late to class. Harry smiled, savouring the thought. It had definitely meant something, then.
Of course it did, he chided himself. Do you really think Hermione's the type to get. . . friendly with just anyone?
Harry lay back and contemplated the ceiling. The answer to that question was an unhesitating no, but. . . there was nothing stopping her from regretting it any moment now. He let himself ponder that unhappy thought for some time, imagining how she would look, the way she would bite her lip and toe the ground as she said Harry, I'm truly, truly sorry, but we really shouldn't, not again. . . .
Pushing that aside, Harry finally sat up and reached for the potion bottle. He poured the liquid into the little measuring cap carefully, wrinkling up his nose. The potion was green and smelled like something Hagrid would have probably found delicious. It tasted as bad as it smelled, and Harry shuddered as he drank. It made no sense to Harry: thousands of years of magical knowledge at their disposal, a hundred different ways of fooling the senses at their fingertips, and potion-brewers invariably turned out foul draughts that no Muggle pharmaceutical company would even dream of marketing.
"And that's not just my love of Potions talking, either," he said aloud, setting the bottle down.
He stood, gripping the cool wood of the bedside table. Harry made his way to the toilet by holding onto things - the chest of drawers, the walls, the basin. He sank down onto the fluffy mat beside the tub, letting his head fall to his knees. "Bath instead of shower, I think," he muttered.
It was probably a bad idea, Harry reflected a little later, lying in a tub full of water when he could feel unconsciousness trying to sneak up on him. He could see the Daily Prophet now: Boy Who Lived Drowned in Bath. Rumours of Evil Taps Remain Unproven. Besides, even though there were no bubbles in sight, his masculine dignity was taking a direct hit with every moment. He dragged himself out, threw on jeans and a faded t-shirt, and headed for the couch.
In the quiet, dim flat, it took little time for Harry to fall asleep. His dreams were dark things, full of snakes and blood, and the loud banging that woke him was startling, yet also a relief. Someone was knocking on the door, and after stumbling over and checking the peephole, Harry undid the latch and let Dean in.
"Still alive, then," his partner said, looking him over.
"Yep," Harry said, returning to sit on the couch. "And ready to have my wand back, thank you very much."
"Oh, right." Dean sorted through his cloak pockets, and then tossed it over.
Harry caught it easily. He ran his fingers over the familiar wood before tucking it onto the cushion beside him. It felt good to have it there, close by and at the ready. It had been gone less than twenty-four hours, most of which he'd been asleep, but that still was enough to have left him feeling uncomfortably vulnerable.
"We listened to your recording," Dean went on, taking off his cloak. He shoved a stack of Quidditch magazines aside and settled into the armchair. "And did a test on that residue from your hand. Crabbe wanted you to buy dragon's blood?"
Harry blinked. That had been his first guess, upon seeing the bottle, but he'd immediately rejected it on the grounds of not being evil enough. "I suppose so," he replied.
"Nothing illegal about that." Dean scratched his head. "Although I'm sure there are plenty of less-than-friendly ways they can use it."
"I'm sure." Harry rubbed his forehead, thinking. Moody often said that the trouble with most Aurors (and Harry was sure that referred to every last one but the old man himself) was that they didn't have a criminal imagination. He usually followed that up with a profound phrase such as Thinking like slime is the first step to catching slime, or It takes a mouth-breathing piece of filth to know one.
It would be a frightening, frightening day in the wizarding world if Moody ever decided to take up writing inspirational literature.
"Cloning!" Dean yelled.
Harry jumped. "What?"
"Magical cloning! Maybe they're trying to create their own dragons. Could have something to do with all the egg trading that's been going on, too."
"Hmm." Harry mulled that over. "Maybe you're right." He closed his eyes, considering. Everything to do with dragons was so magically powerful, and so incredibly expensive, that he could definitely see the logic behind Dean's theory.
"You still look like hell, you know," Dean said conversationally.
Harry opened one eye. "Do I?"
"Yes." Dean frowned at him in concern. "I should go. You let the old man and I do the worrying for awhile."
"All right."
Dean stood and pulled on his cloak. "Magazines okay on the floor, or do you want them back in the chair?"
"Doesn't mat-" Harry broke off; Ron had popped into the room, and he looked furious.
The redhead rounded on Dean. "He's supposed to be in bed. You know that. You told me that, for Merlin's sake."
Dean held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I know, I know, I was just leaving."
"Too right," Ron agreed.
Normally Harry would have been annoyed at Ron for being in overprotective mode, and would've said something. But today he was content to simply wave goodbye to Dean as the other man popped out of sight. Ron dropped into the chair Dean had vacated, leather workbag in his lap, black work robes pooling around him. Harry tried to remember when his friend had become a complete grownup, and wondered if there was a wizarding term for 'yuppie.'
"Do you feel like eating?" Ron asked. "I bought tins of chicken soup on the way home. My mum used to always make soup, when we were ill."
"I'm not sure," Harry admitted. He eyed Ron's bag thoughtfully, a memory surfacing in his mind. "Ron - can I ask you something?"
"Sure," Ron said. "But do me a favour, lie down first, will you?"
"Fine," Harry said, in a mock-grumble. He stretched out obligingly, pulling a fuzzy orange blanket over him. "Better?" On Ron's nod, he continued, "So, when I was in your office a while back, there was a paper on your desk with import figures for all sorts of things."
"Yeah, probably, there usually is."
"Where do - or I suppose I mean, how do you lot come up with those?"
Ron opened and closed his mouth several times, then said, "I could give you a crash course in goblin-style economics, or you could just tell me what you need to know."
Harry hesitated. He needed to ask, wanted to ask; Ron's expertise could be invaluable. But he was about to break the promise he'd made to himself - that he'd keep his friends uninvolved - not to mention the vow of secrecy he'd sworn for his job. After a long, quiet moment he said, "Okay. I need to know how long the import figures for dragon's blood have been abnormally high. And I need to know the names of the merchants who've done the most trading in it."
"The first is easy enough, it's a matter of public record. People track stuff like that to help them make investment decisions. I just get paid to analyse it." Ron thought for a moment. "The second - I'm sure it's on file somewhere in the department. It's not what you'd call conventional information to keep, but the goblins pride themselves on their detailed records." Ron looked at him intently. "Is this - are you asking me - are you and Dean going to come down and talk to the goblins about this all official-like, or are you asking me to take a snoop through our files?"
Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know," he said. "You tell me. How likely are the goblins to tell me what I want to know?"
"Not very. They don't feel that human laws apply to them, exactly."
"Then, could you? I'll understand if you say no."
"Of course I will," Ron said. "I'm - we're - always glad to help you, Harry. You know that."
"Yeah," Harry said. "I do."
*
The following days passed in a blur of potions and dreams and Hermione. Harry slept for long stretches of time; when he woke the covers were usually in disarray, tied up and twisted, and once both they and he were on the floor. He'd been alone in the flat that time, and glad of it. Usually, though, Hermione was there when he woke, curled up in the sitting room with a thick book or her laptop computer. He liked it best when she was too busy working to spot him leaning in the doorway. It gave him a long moment to study her, to notice how her forehead wrinkled when she was thinking hard, or the way she absentmindedly tucked her hair behind her ears as she read, over and over again. And any spark of irritation he felt at needing a nursemaid melted away the instant she raised her head and smiled at him.
It was easy for Harry to think this was the dream, in moments like this one when she pulled him down into the chair beside her and greeted him with kisses to his forehead, cheeks, and mouth. Everything was a little mixed-up, a little off-balance, and Harry was half-waiting for a sharp pinch to bring him back to reality.
"How are you feeling today?" she asked, drawing back slightly.
Harry made a noncommittal noise.
"What I thought," Hermione said. She leaned over the arm of the chair and, after rummaging about, came up with two little pillboxes. "From the chemist's," she said. "Will you try them?"
"Hey, thanks," he said, taking the boxes. "It can't taste any worse, that's for sure. Need to wait 'til this dose wears off, though."
She nodded. "It really was quite funny, talking to the chemist. He wanted to know all about what you'd been taking, and I kept having to put him off. We got there in the end, though."
Harry smiled and leaned into her, resting his head on her shoulder. There wasn't really enough room in his chair for two, and while that could be easily solved with a wave of a wand, he had no inclination to do so. He was happy, excited, sick, worried, and nervous, very nervous. If today was like yesterday and the day before, they would sit together in silence, or perhaps talk about ordinary things. Hermione's school, what Ron wanted for Christmas, the relative merits of strawberry and grape jam. What they wouldn't talk about was the way their fingers twined about one another's at every possible opportunity, or the way Harry kept leaning his head close to hers and breathing her in.
He was smelling people now. This was new.
Not-talking was perfectly okay, because Harry didn't want to talk about those things. He didn't think he could, actually, although he might just be able to manage looking at the floor and saying 'er' while she spoke. But he couldn't get too comfortable; even if Hermione wasn't talking, she was surely thinking. And even though he and Ron had sat through countless "This is how girls operate" Hermione-lectures over the years, Harry felt wholly incapable of determining what she was thinking about. Ron had been right; she should have written a book, with a chapter dedicated exclusively to explaining herself.
Hermione quietly reached for her wand and flicked on the wireless. The familiar Christmas melodies washed over Harry, warm and comfortable. On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me. . . . It was funny, how with one line he was back in the cupboard at Privet Drive, watching through a keyhole as the Aunt Petunia placed the fanciest decorations she could buy just so. But then the next could remind him of nowhere but Hogwarts. . . a snidget in a squill tree.
"What are you smiling about?"
"Our first Christmases at Hogwarts," he said. "Singing armour and Weasley jumpers and real live fairy lights. . . ."
Hermione laughed, softly. "A different world." She smiled to herself. "I almost thought there would be a Father Christmas. I really almost did. Everything else completely unbelievable was suddenly true. . . Silly, isn't it."
"No. Not at all."
"But you didn't think it. You always were just a little quicker to fit in than I was."
He shook his head. "That's not it."
"No, I don't suppose it is, entirely," she said, and he could tell from her eyes she was being very careful not to speak ill of the dead. "But it is true."
*
Hermione was thinking, as it happened.
She sat close to Harry as he drifted off to sleep, and thought. Her world had shifted in the past few days. The change was certainly a pleasant one, but it had left her with a lot to sort through, to hold up and examine and try to understand. So just as if she were dealing with a question of legal precedent or a tricky bit of Transfiguration, Hermione took refuge in a nice list. Circumstances required her to compose it mentally, but she organised it neatly nonetheless, numbering and annotating each point:
1. Finally. Two and half years of waiting. Nine hundred and some days. Twenty one thousand, six hundred plus hours. And finally.
2. Waiting had been the right thing to do. There'd been times when it had seemed wrong, too passive and non-independent-woman-ish. Mum would have been unimpressed, if she'd known, and probably would have handed over an assortment of feminist texts for light reading. Which was why Hermione hadn't told her.
3. But it hadn't really been passive, anyway. It had been an active choice not to pursue a relationship until the time was right. Yes. Absolutely.
4. The right time was proving to be an odd time, with one-half of the equation germy and ill and generally non-functioning.
5. That was nothing to be fussed about. Normalcy was for other people.
6. Trying to talk about what they were doing or where things were going was just not on. Harry was not about words. Harry was about action, and if she wanted to know what he thought or felt that was where she would have to look. And right now, things were looking pretty good.
7. Six was rather an unwieldy number on which to end a list. Seven wasn't much better, but it would have to do.
Hermione nodded in a satisfied way and began humming "I Saw Three Brooms" along with the wireless. She still worried about Harry, no question; but above and beyond and around that, she was utterly content.
*
Ron had to admit it wasn't so bad, having Hermione practically living in the flat. She hadn't tidied up - they were grown men, she said, and perfectly free to live in squalor if they so chose (although the sniff she gave when she said it made Ron doubt the sincerity of her words.) At any rate, he was glad she'd left things alone. He knew his piles of clothes and papers and books inside out, and he didn't need her mucking about with them. She had made a few small touches in the flat, but he didn't mind them so much. Thanks to her there were dark green leafy things strung above the sitting room window, and a little mistletoe ball hanging in the doorway. But best of all, what he really didn't mind was that whenever Hermione cooked a little something for herself, she prepared enough for him and Harry too. And when Harry turned the offer of food down, as he had all week, Ron ended up with seconds. He smiled around the table. This was something he could get used to.
"Pass the salt, please," Hermione said.
Ron did, handing it first to Harry, who was sitting between them. He was pleased to note that tonight, Harry's usual tea and crackers were supplemented by a small bowl of soup. He hesitated, then said, "Harry, mate, I've found out some of what you wanted." Actually, he'd already had the information for two days, but hadn't been willing to say until Harry seemed better.
"You're being all mysterious, Ron," Hermione said. "Is it a secret? A Christmas secret?"
"Nah," Ron replied. He looked at Hermione as he spoke, thus missing the expression on his other best friend's face. "Just information. I'm unofficially assisting the Aurors with their inquiries."
"Oh?"
Harry sighed as if succumbing to the inevitable, then briefly outlined the situation.
"I don't have any names for you yet," Ron went on, "but there's a definite upward sales trend visible in the October mid-term report. Which means the phenomenon most likely began sometime in September."
"September," Harry muttered. "Of course."
Ron scooped up a forkful of pasta, rather pleased at being useful. Granted, he hadn't done much yet, but it was a nice feeling, being the expert at something, the one with the answers. Thus occupied, he didn't notice the stormclouds in Hermione's face until she exploded.
"Harry Potter! You can't imprison people because your friend who happens to have access to all their private financial information gives you their names! You need, you need a warrant or something! You know that."
Harry set down his teacup. "I'm not going to imprison them, Hermione. I'm interested in who's been buying from these shopkeepers, not the merchants themselves. All I want to do is question them."
"And anyway, aren't warrants Muggle things?" Ron pointed out. It was quite fun, watching Hermione get hold of the wrong end of the stick.
"Yes, they are," Hermione said evenly. "Even more reason that Harry should know how important they are, in principle if nothing else."
"Hermione?" Harry said softly, laying a hand on her arm. "I do know. Really."
She smiled at Harry then, and there was something very familiar, yet so very not, in that look. Ron studied the curve of her lips, the soft light in her eyes, trying to pick it out, pin it down. But before he could, the moment was gone; Harry was reaching for his tea, and Hermione was returning complacently to her vegetables.
"That reminds me," Hermione said. "Ron, your brother's coming over to talk to me in a bit. I hope you two don't mind that I asked him to meet me here?"
Harry shrugged, apparently unperturbed. Ron stared at Hermione with deep suspicion. "Which brother?"
"Percy."
"Oh, fucking hell, Hermione! Why? What did I do to you?"
"Nothing," she said. "He and I have a few things to discuss, that's all. Things you've made quite clear are of absolutely no interest to you."
Ron sighed. He wasn't altogether sure what she was on about, and quite frankly, didn't feel like finding out. And now that he thought about it, a little unscheduled visit to Sarah's flat tonight could keep that from happening. Of course, teasing Hermione was still required, as a matter of principle. "Time to hide the booze and the naked women, Harry."
Harry grinned. "Okay. My room, you think? There's plenty of room in my bed. . . ."
"Oh, like you have naked women in the flat, Ron," Hermione said.
Ron was enjoying himself thoroughly. "They're hypothetical naked women, Hermione. They are all around us, existing in a land of sweet possibility. The point is, they could have easily chosen tonight to make themselves visible, and you didn't know that before you invited the stuffiest stuffed shirt in wizardom along!"
Harry was laughing helplessly, head down on the table. Hermione had opened her mouth to retort, but instead broke into a smile, huge and happy. Ron knew what she was thinking, because when he looked at Harry's cheeks, tinged with colour, and the nearly-empty soup bowl, he thought it too: Thank Merlin. It's about time.
*
A/N: The squill is really a lily, not a tree, but we're going to pretend that wizarding versions grow differently, okay? :) I've credited the Giants for the lyrics at the start because their version of We've Got a World That Swings spins in my car, but I don't know who sang the original. Also, as sort of a progress report - I'd promised myself I wouldn't post this chapter here 'til I was half-done with the next one. I managed to hold out to about the three-fourths mark. :)
And as always, lots and lots of thanks to Cynthia Black, Paracelsus, and Stacy for beta, and to everyone who's taken the time to review!