Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his friends are the property of J.K. Rowling, and they are used here for entertainment purposes only. No profit shall be accrued hereby, now or ever.
Author's Note: I didn't plan on allowing so much time to pass between posts, but I have a very
good reason for the delay. Two, actually.
First, I've been busy writing a very special story as a birthday present for one of my favorite people. (Note From Fae Princess: Happy Birthday to ME! **huggles my story**) Everything else took a back seat until that happy project was completed.
The other reason is that the story commencing below is my oldest inventory work. I wasn't as happy with it as when I first wrote it two years ago. I've been working to bring it up a notch, lest it be found wanting in such splendid company as this site boasts. As it was written a year before OotP, it paints a more tranquil picture of Harry's fifth year than the novel presented. Since the focus of the story is post-grad, school is downplayed here. The past matters only insofar as it helped to shape Harry's present. As to that, the readers, as ever, will be the final judge.
This is, as mentioned, a post-graduate story, abetted by flashbacks. The latter will be easy to spot. Anything that takes place in a Hogwarts setting or time-frame will be happening in Harry's memory. All else is present-time.
I wrote this story in part to see if I could play by J.K.'s rules. I normally prefer the vaster dimensions of pure third-person narrative. Here, however, everything will be seen through Harry's eyes, per JKR.
In addition, I appropriated another of J.K.'s standard ploys. I'm sure everyone has noticed that she will introduce something magical, something never seen before, early in the story -- and lo and behold, that magical whatsis becomes crucial to Harry's predicament. In Goblet of fire, we are introduced to the concept of the portkey, only to have it turn out to be the crux of Voldemort's plan to spirit Harry away to Little Hangleton. In addition, the Summoning Charm used by Molly Weasley to appropriate all of Fred's and George's ton-tongue-toffees serves Harry twice, Summoning his Firebolt during the first task, and later retrieving the transformed Triwizard Cup so he can escape from Voldemort. Be ye forewarned, therefore. What's good enough for Her Majesty, Queen Joanne, is fair game for the rest of us.
Enough blather, then. On to Chapter 1.
Wakefulness came to Harry with a sensation of burning heat. He raised his arm sluggishly in an attempt to block out the sun scorching his face.
The heat persisted. As his torpid mind began to clear, Harry realized that the back of his arm was growing hot where it touched his forehead. The conclusion was irrefutable. The heat wasn't coming from the sun, but from himself. He had a fever.
Harry shifted his weight, to be rewarded by jolts of excruciating pain of undetermined origin. He relaxed, grimacing as tears flooded his eyes and moistened his cheeks. He allowed his limp arm to fall from his face and come to rest beside him. He lay motionless until the pain subsided. With a ragged sigh of gratitude, he opened his eyes.
A tangle of branches met his blurred gaze. He lay in shadow, the sun just visible through the foliage as it hung above a forest rimming the Western horizon. A forest, he supposed, not unlike the one surrounding him.
But what forest? Where was he? Why could he not remember?
In lieu of reason, instinct asserted itself. Harry reached for the pocket where his wand should be. He hadn't the presence of mind to worry that it might not be there. His fingers closed on the smooth wood. He raised his arm heavily until the tip of his wand was hovering over his face. His eyes crossed painfully as he sought to bring the tip into focus.
His mouth was dry, his throat tight. He swallowed with some discomfort, licked his lips ineffectively with the tip of his tongue.
"Aquas," he whispered.
A tiny stream of water fell from his wand and splashed down on his face. He blinked gratefully as his eyes felt the cool, delicious wetness. He slowly maneuvered his wand so that his cheeks and forehead were covered with the downfall. Rivulets ran into his mouth, and his constricted throat softened as he choked, coughed, and finally managed to swallow a few halting gulps.
Without warning a terrible cry reverberated from the dense canopy. A chill surged through Harry that was unrelated to his fevered state.
As if a door had been kicked open, Harry remembered everything! He froze, halting the falling water with a flick of his wrist. His eyes now fresh and agile, he focused on that portion of the sky he could see without turning his head. He listened carefully. Over the rustling of the leaves and the beating of his heart, he searched for a sound he hoped never to hear again. A sound like canvas sails rippling on an ocean breeze, yet coming from a place where frigate nor schooner never sailed.
Dragon wings!
Harry fought down panic. He lay still, controlling his breathing with a yoga-like exercise he had learned but recently. Clearing his mind, he felt his heartrate diminish, his muscles relax.
Reason and clarity returned to his mind, and that reason told him he could not -- dared not -- remain where he was. But could he travel? Could he even move?
Returning his wand to its pocket, he extended his hand and placed it atop his right thigh.
It was as if he had touched the surface of a boiling cauldron. The flesh of his thigh was taut, swollen, and burning hot!
Harry took out his wand again. He lay it across his chest, held loosely in fingers strangely relaxed, as he searched his mind for the appropriate healing spell.
As he closed his eyes to concentrate, Harry saw moving images of the drama enacted on this spot only hours ago.
Having lost his way in a dense woodland, Harry had emerged into a clearing to encounter one of the most fearsome sights to which mortal sanity -- wizard or Muggle -- could be subject: Two bull dragons locked in a death-struggle over a nesting female.
He'd had no warning. Chinese Fireballs (he was, after all, in China) always fought in silence, wasting no energy on posturing nor vocal challenges. Their cries resounded only afterwards, whether bellows of triumph or cries of pain and defiance ere death stilled their cloven tongues forever.
Only Harry's training saved his life. Had he been a second slower, he would have been decapitated by the sweep of those flashing, leathery wings in the first moments. But even as he dodged that deadly swipe, he was hurled through the air by an angry flick of a crimson tail. He had a vague impression of a burst of heat in his leg that told him his right femur had been fractured by that fierce blow. But any further thoughts on the matter were abruptly swallowed up -- along with consciousness itself -- as he crashed into a stand of wild bamboo and fell heavily, senseless before he hit the ground.
That capricious blow, Harry thought now, had undoubtedly saved his life, bearing him out of harm's way while the dragons fought on oblivious to everything but their mating frenzy. He reminded himself of this as he touched his wand to his thigh and murmured the incantation that would cause the ends of his broken bone to knit together and merge into a single unit again.
He'd been quite lucky, actually. The break was a clean one, the skin unbroken. Harry felt a series of sharp stings as his bone mended, the sensation reminiscent of the occasion when he'd had to have the bones of his right arm regrown after their accidental removal by Professor Lockhart. In the case of a simple fracture such as this, a professional Healer could have performed the procedure painlessly, in half the time. Someone like Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts Nurse. Or even --
Harry snatched his thoughts away from that avenue and thrust them in an another direction. His broken bone would be mended directly, but he still needed to bring down the fever and the swelling. For that he needed a potion.
Daring to move only when he was certain the bone was whole once more, Harry propped himself up on his left elbow as he dug his heel into the sward for purchase. The effort taxed his reserves of strength and sent his head to throbbing. Casting about with teary vision, he spied that which he valued more in this moment than all the gold in his Gringotts vault: His pouch. Slightly dizzy now, he pointed his wand and said faintly, "Accio!"
The pouch did not move. Harry tried again, with the same negative result.
"Merlin's bum!" Harry muttered as his head dropped onto his chest. He hadn't the strength of will to initiate a simple Summoning Charm!
Pocketing his wand, Harry heaved a vindictive sigh and proceeded to drag himself across the forest floor, kicking with his left heel to augment his grasping hands. By the time he reached his pouch, he was bleeding from a score of places due to the abundance of splintered bamboo littering the ground. Pulling a jagged shard from his left palm with his teeth and spitting it out peevishly, Harry flung open the pouch and emptied it impatiently before him.
An assortment of tiny pokes spilled out, each bound with a drawstring and secured with a Sealing Charm. Finding the ones he sought, he dropped them into his pocket and tossed the others unceremoniously back into the pouch.
Next he opened a flap on the backside of the bag and drew forth a circular sheet of pewter about the size of a dinner plate. This he touched with his wand. The flat metal curved upwards on all sides until it had become a bowl. A handy piece of equipment this was, requiring far less magical concentration than would be required to Transfigure a bowl outright. In his present state, he doubted he could have Transfigured an acorn into a sewing thimble. He filled the bowl with water from his wand, pulled out his pocketful of pokes and began to sort through them.
"No," he caught himself, shaking his head sluggishly. "Heat water...first..."
With a wave of his wand, a tiny ball of blue flames appeared, hovering just above the ground. Harry smiled in spite of his discomfiture, remembering the one who had taught him how to conjure those flames more than seven years ago. He set the bowl of water over the flames on a Hover Charm.
"Couldn't do a bleedin' Summoning Charm when I needed it," Harry said scornfully to his wand as he waited for the water to boil. "Had to lose two square feet of skin crawling over a carpet of flippin' bamboo." He licked at the wound in his left palm as if for emphasis. "Ruddy Phoenix's arse is what you are!"
Once the water was boiling, Harry selected a poke, effaced the magical seal with a wave of his wand and opened the drawstring. He dipped in with thumb and forefinger, extracted a pinch of coarse, dun-colored powder which he held up to his eyes and appraised. Satisfied with the portion, he sprinkled the ingredients onto the surface of the bubbling water. He stirred the mixture with a bamboo splinter, not wanting to risk warping his wand. He repeated this action with the three remaining pokes, each time judging the measure purely by eye. He'd earned top marks in Advanced Potions in his final year at Hogwarts, earning him as well the grudging praise of Snape, who doled out such acknowledgement in teaspoon-sized doses. The words had seemed to taste of dung on the Potions Master's tongue, and Harry smiled now in spite of his miseries as Snape's sour face swam before his mind's eye. In a very short time the potion had thickened to where it clung to the splinter and dripped off in slow, unsavory-looking drops. Satisfied, Harry extinguished the flames and let the potion cool, stirring it regularly.
When the pewter bowl was cool to the touch, Harry raised it with his right hand while pinching his nose with his left. He drank it down, making a face that would have rivaled a mountain troll's for unpleasantness.
Within minutes his leg was markedly less hot and the swelling noticibly diminished. As the fever and pain melted away, they were quickly replaced by another sensation that had previously been subordinate: Hunger.
Harry's spirits fell a notch. Though his Survival Pouch held dozens of valuable, even indispensable, items, not a one of them was food.
Wizards typically relied upon their wands to provide food during times of privation. Wand-produced food was palatable at best, lacking the savor of natural sustinence. But, to the surprise of many an apprentice sorcerer, producing truly edible food was very advanced magic, requiring deep concentration and much practice.
Harry had a dearth of the latter, and, owing to his present state of affairs, precious little of the former.
Harry stared at his wand in dismay. Without proper purpose of will, it could easily produce something that looked for all intents and purposes like food, yet which could just as easily make him physically ill, if not actually poison him.
No. Under present conditions, his wand were better used to acquire food than to produce it.
As he sat pondering his dilemma, Harry's head suddenly snapped up as if jerked by a leash.
His Firebolt! With his broomstick, he could fly high enough to get his bearings, find a village, perhaps obtain a modest meal from a kind Muggle family. In his wanderings across China, Harry had found the people both friendly and generous. Surely they would --
Abruptly, Reality stamped its heavy boot onto Harry's enthusiasm. Where in Merlin's name was his Firebolt? Initially, it had been fastened to his pouch by a loop. Its rhythmic bounce against his back had been reassuring on his yearlong trek across the vast expanses of Asia. Where was it, then? He'd found the pouch quickly enough. But that might have been a fluke. Harry had no idea how far he'd been flung by the Dragon's tail. It might take him days to find his broomstick. Days he did not have. Weakened as he was, how long could he survive without proper food? How long before his strength gave out and he fell into a sleep from which he might never awaken?
Harry cuffed himself mentally. Defeatism would solve nothing. He would address his missing broom later. Hunger was the problem now.
Slowly a smile grew on Harry's face. He caught up his pouch and opened a small pocket on its side. From this seemingly impossibly small space he withdrew his Invisibility Cloak. Charmed with a Tesseract Spell, the hand-sized pocket was large enough inside to accomodate a hundred times its outer dimensions. Asking Arthur Weasley to teach him that spell during the holidays preceding Seventh Year might have been one of the smartest things Harry ever did. It had gone far toward earning him an O on his N.E.W.T.'s.
Shouldering his pouch, Harry flung the Cloak over himself. He spied a large tree and sat with his back against the rough bark. Wand in hand, peering out though a fold of the hood, Harry placed himself into a meditative state. He knew that these forests teemed with small game. With patience, and a little luck, his meal would come to him.
Sitting thus, Harry found time, at last, to think.
His first thought was to ponder the circumstances which had led him to such a state as this. It was a journey comprising many steps, taken over many years. Sorting them into a semblance of order was a task for which his weakened state left him ill-prepared. But the first step -- ah, the first step!
It was a day Harry would never forget. September 1, 1995. The Hogwarts express. Ron had gone off in search of the food cart, leaving Harry and Hermione alone in the last compartment. They sat together, so close that Harry could have reached out and taken Hermione's hand in his -- something, to his surprise, he found he very much wanted to do. It had been two months since they had parted at King's Cross Station. Two months since he had felt Hermone's soft lips pressing against his cheek. He'd thought about that moment all Summer. He'd thought of the day when the two of them would meet again, of what he would do when they were alone together for the first time. He'd come to no decision then. And he was no closer to a course of action now. He felt he should do something, say something. Anything.
But in the silence following Ron's departure, it was Hermione who spoke first. And nothing would be the same again.
"I came to a decision over the Summer, Harry," Hermione said with a suddenness that startled Harry. "After witnessing so much death last year, I've decided to devote myself to Life. You do know that we have to decide this year what sort of career we want after we graduate, so we can take the proper courses to prepare. When Professor McGonagall calls us in to ask us what we want to do, I know what I'm going to tell her." She paused just long enough to turn and fix Harry's eyes with hers. "I'm going to become a Healer."
Harry stared at Hermione with his mouth slightly open. With a calm that might might be expected from one ordering tea and cakes at Madam Puddifoot's, Hermione had announced a decision that would affect the rest of her life. And it was not merely her voice that evidenced such indefinable serenity. Her whole aspect had altered in only two short months. Every last trace of the young girl Harry had met on this very train exactly four years ago was gone. Here was a woman sitting before him, still weeks shy of her fifteenth birthday, yet radiating an aura of maturity rare in one with twice her years.
"That's...great," Harry stammered.
He had no idea what to say, how to react. Harry had spent the Summer making decisions of his own, mostly revolving around Voldemort and the newly-reformed Order of the Phoenix. After much soul-searching, he had resolved to do whatever was necessary to destroy the Dark Lord. Yet, despite all that decision portended, the war against Voldemort had a foreseeable end. Harry's decision, however significant, was not immutable. Hermione's, however, implied a virtual lifetime of dedication, sacrifice, selfless devotion.
It was ironic that, while Harry knew he might well die in his effort to square accounts with Voldemort, he was decidedly less than fanatical about devoting his entire life to such causes. He'd spent many a sleepless night on Privet Drive, and later at the Burrow, pondering the conflict to come. But when, as he hoped, the good fight was won, he saw for himself a future as far removed from death and sacrifice as was possible. He would sit at his window late at night and envision himself as a world-famous Quidditch player, enjoying the adoration of the masses (and of sexy young witches like Cho Chang) as he traveled the world free as the wind that carried his Firebolt.
Freedom. Harry ached for freedom! After living for years in a broom cupboard, he'd gone off to Hogwarts full of great hopes and expectations, only to discover that he was not so free as he supposed. Schedules. Rules. Regimentation. "You must do this -- now! No, no, you must never, ever do that!"
Harry lived for the day when he would be free as Hedwig, to spread his wings and soar on the winds of caprice.
And here on the Hogwarts express taking them to begin Fifth Year, Hermione had just announced a decision that would effectively circumscribe her freedom for the rest of her life -- which, in the wizarding world, could last upwards of two centuries! The very thought was anathema to Harry.
Why, then, did he suddenly feel a subtle tugging at his heart as he looked on her tranquil, smiling face framed in its omnipresent nimbus of bushy brown?
Could Hermione have read his mind in that moment, she would have seen the truth immediately. A truth Harry did not yet recognize himself. It would be a very long time -- years, in fact -- before Harry would look back on this time and place and realize that it was in this moment that he began to fall in love with Hermione Granger.
Author's Note: FYI, Harry's presence in China has nothing to do with Cho, who is acknowledged only peripherally here. I simply needed Harry to be as far away from England as he could get. Why? All will become clear in due course.
Thanks to everyone who stuck around after The Price. I promise, this story will be far easier on the constitution. Harry's angst will be of the more pedestrian variety -- though he won't get off easy for that. This story is composed of eight chapters, none of them long (as is my norm). I hope everyone will set aside a few minutes each week to see this to its conclusion.
As always, thanks for reading.