The gang is back for another summer at number twelve, Grimmauld Place. For Harry, it's a season of looking back -- and looking ahead -- as change is prevalent from the onset of Harry's sixteenth birthday. (Note: This story is paused indefinitely due to a death in my family. I'm truly sorry to everyone who has been patiently waiting for me to update.)
From the Unofficial Portkey Archive: https://portkey-archive.org/story/2639/
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author’s Notes: Originally I had planned on doing a one-shot story about Harry’s sixteenth birthday, but something else happened entirely (as things so often do) when I actually sat down to write it. So here is the first chapter of a brand new story from me, one that has not been posted anywhere else before now. Imagine that! LOL… Enjoy!
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Chapter 1
Harry Potter gazed into the gilt-framed mirror before him wondering if sixteen looked any different than fifteen.
The thirty-first of July it may be, a day of recognized celebration for the first time he could remember, but it didn’t take long for Harry to concede that certain things had not improved by a mere matter of age.
It was the same bright green eyes that stared back at him through the filmy surface of the mirror, the same untidy hair that rested atop a small-framed body, and the same scar – still the only remarkable and sometimes, for Harry, loathsome thing about his appearance – that peeked through that messy black mop which was as stubborn as ever about being combed straight. He hadn’t grown any more that he had noticed; his clothing was still the same size. And he didn’t suddenly appear any older. He certainly didn’t look any wiser.
Harry wagered sixteen sounded better than fifteen did (though not better than seventeen did – when the bells of freedom would toll and he would be able to escape the Dursleys at last).
But no, Harry reckoned he was the same old Harry, as far as outward appearances were concerned.
Yet underneath that false teenage – almost adult – front, if one looked hard enough into those deep green eyes, the remnants of the last five years could be seen residing heavily in that sixteen year old body.
Ever since owls had pelted his aunt and uncle’s house in Little Whinging, since the day Hagrid had arrived on his eleventh birthday bearing his acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, since Harry had learned he was a wizard; his life had never been the same.
Of course, there were obvious pluses to being a wizard. (The fact that his detestable cousin, Dudley, was scared stiff at the sight of him being one of Harry’s favorite reasons. And poor Dudley hadn’t changed, not even after Harry had saved his life the previous summer.) Being able to transform animals into water goblets, fly on a broomstick, and levitate large objects with the flick of a wrist was not your average kids’ stuff. Of course, there was also that added bonus of Wizarding school keeping Harry far, far away from the Dursleys for most of the year.
Luckily though, this summer had been the shortest one yet with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, much to Harry’s grateful relief. If he’d had to hear Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia state how proud they were that their "Ickle Diddykins" was Junior Heavyweight Inter-School Boxing Champion of the Southeast for the second year running one more time…
True to her promise that she would see him "really soon," Hermione had arrived on his relatives’ doorstep along with Ron, Lupin, Moody (who Harry never wanted to ride in a car with again, even though Mad-Eye had been driving a normal Muggle vehicle), and Tonks only three weeks into the summer holidays. The Dursleys, of course, had been just as happy to see him go as Harry had been to leave them.
"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione’s voice broke into his thoughts.
Harry could see her behind him in the mirror, just across the room near the open doorway, her reflection kneeling next to an old cushioned chair covered in a dust cloth.
They were in Buckbeak the hippogriff’s room – a bedroom at number twelve, Grimmauld Place that had once belonged to Mrs. Black, Sirius’s mother – searching for a letter that Lupin had assured them Sirius had left there before he died. So far they’d come up with nothing more substantial than some old receipts from Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions and business cards from Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley. There had also been several yellowing newspaper clippings, some old Wizarding magazine subscriptions, and lots and lots of Droobles Best Blowing Gum wrappers.
There was very little furniture left in the room, so there had not been much for Harry and Hermione to search. The bed had been removed, the marks on the floor still prevalent where it had once stood, and all that remained was a few small tables and chairs, a dusty old wardrobe with some (Harry assumed) moth eaten clothes in it, and a large roll-top writing desk similar to the one in the downstairs drawing room. And of course, there was the claw-footed mirror Harry was standing in front of which, like everything else in the room, was half-draped in sheets that had once been white. There were also two closets: a walk-in one that had been completely emptied of whatever contents it had once held, and another that, for the life of them, Harry and Hermione could not open.
Lupin, of course, had not told them what was in this letter they were searching for or why it was so important they look for it. They only knew that, whatever it was, the document was supposedly sealed in a purple envelope with the Black Family Crest stamped upon it.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been doing what they could to help out as far as the Order was concerned, but they’d been assigned to measly, unimportant tasks (such as this) ever since they’d arrived. Harry wanted to be involved, wanted to know what was going on with Voldemort and the Death Eaters, but – just as last year – they were keeping him pretty much in the dark about everything. Mrs. Weasley said he wasn’t old enough. Lupin said he wasn’t ready. Moody said it wasn’t his job. But Harry hated being excluded, especially after the things Dumbledore had told him little more than a month ago.
Not wanting to let his thoughts linger on Dumbledore’s words too often these days, Harry was trying to concentrate on the positive fact that he had been rescued from the Dursleys earlier this year. The summer had been fairly quiet thus far and this evening his friends were throwing him a birthday party, the first he would have in his entire life. He was trying very hard not to complain too much.
"Harry, are you listening to me?" asked Hermione for a second time.
"No."
While Harry conceded that being sixteen had done very little for him, Hermione on the other hand looked like she was growing into the idea rather nicely (and she still had nearly two months to go before her sixteenth birthday). It wasn’t that she had changed all that much in the short time they’d been apart, only the fact that Harry was noting subtle differences that he hadn’t quite perceived before in her. There was something decidedly more feminine about her, Harry had discerned upon her arrival at the Dursleys’ – and he was noticing it now too as he gazed at her reflection in the mirror. She was a bit taller perhaps, though if she was taller than Harry it was only by a mere millimeter; or maybe it was the way her jeans hugged her hips a little more than they had before; or the fact that her hair seemed a little less bushy, her mouth a little fuller, her cheekbones a tad more pronounced…
Whoa boy! Harry had to stop his thoughts before they wandered any farther or he’d be heading into dangerous territory.
Hermione, obviously aware of him staring at her through the mirror, came to stand beside him. She was looking at him with quite an amused expression on her face.
"You know, if you stand there long enough, your head just might deflate a little bit," she joked, holding her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart for his inspection.
Harry rolled his eyes in her direction.
"I wasn’t admiring myself in the mirror," he said quite unnecessarily, aware that Hermione knew him better than that.
"Then what were you admiring?"
Harry’s gaze turned immediately from the Hermione in the mirror to the one standing rather closely next to him.
Hermione’s eyes dropped instantly away and her cheeks turned pink.
"We should probably go back downstairs. Fred and George should be arriving with your cake soon," she mumbled, starting to move away from him – but Harry grabbed her hand, halting her retreat, though he didn’t quite know why.
"We’re supposed to be looking for that letter," said Harry, making something up – though it was the truth – to cover for his sudden boldness. He had to admit he rather liked the feel of her warm fingers in his as he found his thumb stroking her hand.
Hermione inhaled sharply, looking down at their hands before returning her eyes to his.
"I don’t think Sirius left it up here," she said quietly, and Harry thought her voice sounded a little too breathy.
"You’re right," agreed Harry, but neither of them moved toward the door.
Instead, they stood together in front of that old mirror for an indeterminate amount of time, hands intertwined and eyes locked with each other’s, until Harry finally turned away from her, moving over to say good-bye to Buckbeak.
Hermione stayed in front of the mirror, twisting her hands – now empty of Harry’s – with an odd expression on her face.
The truth was – moments like these had been happening between them ever since they’d arrived at Grimmauld Place for the summer. It was strange the way they would brush against each other, almost intentionally though certainly not, when they were reaching for something, like a spoon at dinner or a quill when they were studying in the drawing room. Harry found Hermione’s eyes on him more than usual these days (which could have been because his eyes were turned toward her more often as well), but instead of the worried look he’d seen there so many times before, and so frequently in the past year, he caught her staring at him pensively and often serenely, as though looking at him had a calming affect on her.
And yet, there was another look in her eyes altogether at times – one that was anything but calm, and often unnerved him, when Harry caught it at unsuspecting moments. Just the other night, for example, at dinner, when he had found her giving him such a look – one that had reminded him so much of a fire waiting to be stoked – he’d been so startled that he’d dumped his entire bowl of scorching hot soup in his lap. (He had been rather lucky that he had not gotten burned!)
There were other things he’d noticed, too, when he found her eyes watching him. Sometimes she was biting her lower lip slightly; other times the brown of her eyes looked like warm chocolate melting in the sun; and still other moments, she would smile at him in such a way that made his insides feel like mush, and he would squirm and look away from her, not liking the discomfort he felt while somehow wanting to feel that way again.
Harry didn’t really understand what was going on between them. He wondered at it often, but tried not to reflect on it too much. He found, with a mixture of disappointment and relief, they shared many perfectly normal moments together, far more often than these odd little bursts of… whatever it was… And Harry was sure that nothing had really changed between them while still thinking that, somehow, something was different. It was rather like slipping on a favorite sweater all the time – a habitual, comfortable routine – and then realizing one day that the sweater was blue. And it was not as though the color had never been noticed before; it just had never been named.
"Harry?" Hermione’s voice broke into his wandering thoughts once more.
"What?" he asked, not looking at her. He was concentrating hard on Buckbeak’s feathers at the moment, which the hippogriff was fluffing up with his beak. Harry wondered if he had an itch and was about to touch him when one yellow eye swung around, glaring at him.
"Harry, do you think you could come over here for a minute?" said Hermione.
And Harry thought her tone sounded a bit odd, tentative almost. This time he did look at her.
"What is it?" he asked, backing slowly away from Buckbeak, still eyeing Harry with his beady gaze.
"Wait," said Hermione, holding out her hand when Harry was an arm’s length away from her. "Stop right there."
"What?" he asked as he watched Hermione stare into the mirror and then back at him, a very curious look in her eyes. There were tiny lines between her eyebrows, and he thought for a minute she was going to point at something.
But when Harry looked into the mirror, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Only dusty versions of them stared back; the dim room around them appeared even less inviting through the grimy, ages worth of filth covering the mirror’s surface.
Harry looked at Hermione questioningly, but before she could open her mouth to speak, he heard a familiar voice behind them.
"Hey, you two!"
Harry turned his head and saw Ron standing in the doorway.
"Any luck finding that letter?" he asked them.
Poor Ron appeared as if he’d seen better days. There were cobwebs in the tall, redhead’s hair, and the inch-thick dust littering his head and clothes made him look like an old man, far past his prime. There were still many rooms in the house they hadn’t scoured clean the previous summer, and Ron looked as though he’d just been through every single one of them.
"No," replied Harry. "No luck at all. You?"
"Zilch!" said Ron. "I thought I’d struck gold when I found a small crawlspace on the second floor behind some portrait of a mangy old dog, but the only things in there were a bunch of spiders and some old raincoats."
Ron shuddered when he said the word spiders and Harry smirked in Hermione’s direction. Ron’s fears hadn’t changed much over the years, though one would think after Aragog that tiny spiders in a dusty closet were preferable to giant-sized ones that liked to set their almost-as-large children loose on unsuspecting visitors.
"We’d better change and get downstairs," continued Ron, trying to wipe off his soiled shirt, his hands brushing his sleeves in disgust. "Dad just got here and Fred and George are expected any minute now. Ginny already went down to help Mum set the table."
Harry was exiting through the doorway after Ron when he noticed Hermione had not moved from where she stood in front of the mirror.
"You coming?" he asked, wondering at the distant look in her eyes.
"Yes… yes, of course," she said vaguely, but Harry was halfway down the stairs when he realized Hermione had not followed behind him.
Chapter 2
Harry smiled at the familiar faces surrounding him. They were gathered in the kitchen, the long table in the center of the room draped in red and gold streamers, while balloons of the same colors floated – untied and apparently of their own free will – in mid-air over their heads. Hermione had explained this phenomenon was accomplished by some sort of a Stagnation Charm, which was something Harry had obviously missed Professor Flitwick talking about in Charms class. He had been mentally making a note to pay more attention during his lessons when Hermione mentioned that she’d read about them in Achievements in Charming, after which Harry did not feel quite so bad.
They had just finished a marvelous supper and were now chatting in small groups amongst themselves. Mr. Weasley and Tonks were still seated at the table; Harry could hear them talking quietly about various goings-on at the Ministry. Lupin was standing near the fireplace next to Hermione, who was telling him about their fruitless search for Sirius’s letter earlier that day. Ron, Fred, George, and Ginny were standing in a group – laughing at some joke of Fred’s – and while Harry was a part of this crowd near the kitchen counter, he wasn’t truly following their discussion.
His eyes were – as they had been all night – focused on the girl talking animatedly in the corner. Harry thought she looked really nice tonight, and if he’d had any guts, he would have told her so at dinner. She had been sitting next to him the entire time and they’d talked as they always did, but he hadn’t found what he felt was a right break in the conversation to pay her a proper compliment. He thought it would have sounded extremely odd – not to mention he would have been totally embarrassed – if he’d suddenly told Hermione he liked her jumper just before (or after) he said, "Can you pass the peas?"
But now, as Harry watched her across the room – the firelight reflecting in her eyes and dancing off her curls – he wished he’d told her something. When she turned her head just then, her gaze meeting his for an instant, Harry wondered if Hermione knew just what sorts of traitorous thoughts were floating around – as stagnant as his birthday balloons – inside his head.
"I don’t think he’s listening. It’s just about time for your cake, Harry, dear," he heard Mrs. Weasley say as she walked by him, her arms full of empty dishes while the ones she couldn’t carry were floating along at her side.
"Oi! The cake!" said Fred suddenly. "I almost forgot."
He and George disappeared for nearly ten minutes, by which time the others had joined Harry, Ron, and Ginny at the kitchen counter. Hermione stood just a little behind Harry to his right. If he’d reached out his hand, he could have touched her. But he didn’t. He did, however, deliberate on the fact that if he chose to do so, he could – for she was right there, only inches away – which Harry found was a very comforting thought.
Mrs. Weasley had wanted to bake the cake, but had settled on making dinner for everyone instead, since Fred and George had insisted they could buy one on their way from their joke shop in Diagon Alley. They’d been buying lots of things for the family lately: dinner here, a few fancy gifts there. Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes was doing well, better than anyone had expected in fact, and the twins were doing what Ron called "showing off" their profits. Mrs. Weasley called it squandering their money, but had relented in this case – allowing for the fact that Harry’s birthday was a special occasion, and there were exceptions to be made from time to time.
"It’s not going to make me sprout feathers, is it?" asked Harry – thinking of Canary Creams – upon seeing the concoction Fred and George set on the kitchen countertop a few minutes later. It looked innocent enough – like a normal, Muggle cake, with white icing and red letters that said, "Happy 16th Birthday, ‘The Boy Who Lived’" – but one never knew when it came to Fred and George.
"No. Don’t worry. We picked it up at Florean Fortescue’s on our way here. He makes the best ice cream cakes around, " said Fred.
Harry was about to say it didn’t look like any ice cream cake he’d ever seen (and he’d seen quite a few with piggy Dudley as a relative) when George told him, "There’s vanilla and chocolate ice cream in the center."
Harry didn’t even want to know how baking a cake with ice cream in the center was accomplished, but he was sure if he asked Hermione later, she would tell him.
"Oh, I’ve always wanted to try one of those," said Ron, who was practically drooling on the countertop. "It must’ve cost a gaggle of Galleons!"
"Mere change, little bro. Mere change," said George, putting his arm around Ron’s shoulders. Ron frowned and pushed George away from him.
"Why isn’t Harry’s name on it?" asked Mrs. Weasley suddenly. Harry thought she looked like she was trying very hard not to appear as though she could have baked him a much better cake, name and all.
"Well, when we told Mr. Fortescue who it was for –"
"He’s a big fan of yours, of course, Harry," George interrupted his twin. "So we really didn’t want to offend him. Especially after you see what –"
"We don’t want to ruin the surprise, now do we, George?" warned Fred with a grin.
The others eyed each other curiously, but Harry was remembering the kindly old man who had brought him free sundaes when he’d sat outside the ice cream shop studying during the couple weeks he’d stayed in Diagon Alley a few summers ago. Whatever the surprise was, it couldn’t possibly be bad – though Harry had to admit he was just a tad uneasy upon hearing Fred’s next words.
"Anyway, Mr. Fortescue said Harry Potter couldn’t have just any old cake. He needed to have something extra special. What was that little incantation again, George?"
George pulled out his wand and pointed it at the cake, muttering something completely incoherent to Harry.
"Secret recipe," whispered Fred in Harry’s ear.
"Oh," nodded Harry.
"And Ron’s right. This did cost a pretty Galleon."
Harry raised his eyebrows at Fred, wondering what was going to happen next.
There was a long, drawn out pause and then the cake, amazingly, started rising tier upon tier from the center – red and gold icing crisscrossing itself along the sides as it went – until it stood twelve rows high, far above everyone’s heads as they all stood gaping at it.
"Pretty cool, huh?" said Fred.
"Yeah," murmured Ron, his eyes popping out of his head.
Hermione stepped a bit closer to Harry’s side.
"It looks like a wedding cake," she said quietly, not looking in his direction. But Harry turned his head and looked at her.
Actually, he had been thinking the same thing. He remembered seeing photos of his parents – in the treasured album Hagrid had given him more than four years ago – standing by a similar-looking cake, smiling and laughing as they stuffed small pieces of it into each others’ happy mouths.
This image shattered abruptly though when sixteen candles shaped like miniature Firebolts suddenly rose from – Harry didn’t even know where – to zoom around the edges of the cake in circles. The yellow frosting on the sides rearranged into little iced balls and all thoughts of weddings flew quickly from Harry’s mind.
He grinned broadly.
Just for him – for his birthday – Harry had the ultimate Quidditch cake!
"That was our idea," said Fred, while George nodded at his side.
"The tiers were great – an added bonus – but unfortunately Mr. Fortescue didn’t like our idea of bursting Snitch icing balls. So we added those a few minutes ago, along with the candles."
At the word "bursting," everyone turned and looked at the cake wide-eyed.
"Fred! George!" bellowed Mrs. Weasley as the frosting balls detached themselves from the cake and started flying speedily around the room.
"Great for a food fight," said Fred, laughing. "But apparently not good enough for –"
"’The hero who conquered the Dark Lord,’" the twins chorused together – dodging the iced balls aiming at their heads – reminding Harry quite embarrassingly of that stupid singing Valentine he had received in his second year. Occasionally they sang lines of it to him for "old time’s sake." (As they liked to tell him, "What are your best friend’s older brothers for?")
Chaos ensued for nearly five minutes as everyone ducked the dozens of Snitches circling their heads and whizzing past their ears.
Harry reached for a chair with one hand and Hermione with the other. Blocking them between it and the counter wall for protection, Harry turned just in time to see a rogue Snitch invading them from the side. In fact, it was aiming right for Hermione’s head! Harry snatched it from the air just inches from her cheek. It crushed like messy glue between his fingers.
"Not such a good idea, I guess," he muttered, trying to uncurl his fist full of frosting. He heard Hermione chuckle softly next to him.
He gazed at her a moment later to find she had not come out totally unscathed either. A small streak of yellow icing had grazed her cheek just slightly. He wanted to brush it gently away.
"Hermione, you have –" he started to say, but was distracted when Lupin, who was standing next to Tonks nearby, pulled out his wand and aimed it high into the air.
His clever charm stopped the frosting balls mid-flight. (Harry remembered Hermione doing something similar with a bunch of electric-blue pixies in one disorderly Defense Against the Dark Arts class.) Finally, the last iced Snitch fell to the floor with a loud splat.
"Nice one!" Harry told Lupin as he pushed the chair away and stood up, pulling Hermione with him.
Mrs. Weasley was so furious with her sons, she had Fred and George scour the room clean, but everyone else laughed. The mood in the room was quite light-hearted as the twins – who didn’t look disheartened in the least bit, but on the contrary appeared rather pleased with themselves – made their way around the kitchen until every trace of frosting (that was not still attached to the cake, of course) was gone.
"Did we ever find out who sent you that Valentine anyway?" Ron asked Harry suddenly, wiping clumps of icing from his hair as he spoke.
Harry glanced over at Ron in mild annoyance. He had forgotten all about Fred and George chanting that stupid song until Ron had decided to bring the subject back up again. In fact, he was certain he would have forgotten about the dumb thing years ago if everyone didn’t keep reminding him of it.
"Well, I didn’t send it," said Ginny loudly, climbing out from underneath the table where she’d been hiding. "I know you all thought I did."
She turned and looked at Hermione, whose cheeks were suddenly rather red, but that could be due to the fact that Hermione had been rubbing frosting vigorously from them.
Harry raised his eyebrows at her.
"Don’t look at me!" she said, averting her eyes from Harry’s gaze.
"Are you kidding?" said Ron incredulously. "The only person Hermione sent a Valentine to that year was L—"
"Lavender Brown got a very mushy card from an anonymous admirer that year, if I recall correctly, Ronald," spat Hermione back at him. "I wonder who on earth that could have been from."
Ron’s ears turned red, but before he could make a retort, George said, "That git Malfoy probably sent Harry that song. You remember how all the Slytherins were laughing at him."
"That’s because they generally think it’s funny to make a fool out of me," said Harry, wiping his hands clean on a dishcloth. His eyes were still on Hermione, who was at the moment refusing to look his way.
"At least you got a Valentine, Harry. Seven years of school and not one boy ever had the nerve to send me one," said Tonks, suddenly joining in the conversation. She had quite a bit of frosting on her T-shirt, but that didn’t stop her from running her forefinger along the edge of Harry’s cake – that is, until Mrs. Weasley suddenly swiped at her hand as if she were one of her own children misbehaving.
"You never got a Valentine?" asked Ginny with surprise.
"Nope," said Tonks, licking her finger, her eyes rolling pensively toward the ceiling in thought. "Not one."
"Well, why ever not?"
Harry knew Ginny admired Tonks, and even he conceded that Tonks was not unattractive – when her hair wasn’t violently pink or purple, that is. But even then, though Harry generally preferred brunettes, he had to admit she had a certain style and flare, one that most teenage boys would find quite appealing.
"Because they knew I would curse them if they ever did," replied Tonks with a smile. "Only my friend, Alden, was ever bold enough to suggest sending me one."
"Alden?" asked Ron, sniggering loudly.
"Well, it’s better than Nymphadora, ain’t it?" barked Tonks back at him. Ron immediately stopped laughing.
"Anyway, Alden asked me what I would do if he ever sent me one and when I told him it would be worse than the Bat-Bogey Hex, he laughed and said he would like to see me try it. Alden was funny that way, you know. But he never did send it, the louse! He said his owl got lost on his way back from India. That’s where his Mum and Dad lived. And he told me he was too embarrassed to give it to me in person. Not that I believed him, mind you. Alden was always a terrible liar."
"It sounds as though you liked him a lot," said Ginny.
Harry, too, had heard the fondness in Tonks’s voice as she’d talked about her old friend.
"Alden?" asked Tonks, her cheeks suddenly as red as her hair, the current shade of the moment. "Well, he was my best friend in school, but there was never anything romantic between us."
"Oh, come on," said Ginny. "It doesn’t sound that way to me."
The red in Tonks’s face extended a bit farther into her hairline.
And for some reason, at that moment, Harry looked at Hermione. Though it appeared as though she was only half-listening to the conversation, he could tell otherwise. Her eyes had turned to his the second he had looked at her, and something in them made Harry want to grab her hand and pull her closer to his side.
"It would have only gotten in the way of our friendship," Tonks was saying as Harry tried to focus back in on her words, "if we had let anything happen between us. Though I can’t say I haven’t had my regrets."
And she looked very sad all of the sudden.
"Why? What happened?" asked Ginny curiously.
Lupin, who had been hovering near the edge of the group, said quietly, "Alden was set to join the Order when he was killed by Voldemort’s supporters shortly after he and Tonks graduated. And a fine Auror he would have been."
He placed his hands on Tonks’s shoulders comfortingly and she smiled slightly.
Harry turned and looked at Hermione again only to find her frowning at him, her eyes shining just the tiniest bit.
"No more talk about You-Know-Who," ordered Mrs. Weasley, shuddering. "This is supposed to be a celebration, and I won’t have this party ruined by –"
"Yes, Molly dear, we hear you," interrupted Mr. Weasley. "Harry, why don’t you sit down over there and we’ll bring your cake over to you."
After setting the cake on the table, Mr. Weasley lit the candles with one quick flick of his wrist. Then they all gathered around Harry as the twins started a serenade – only this time it was a song Harry appreciated quite a bit more than his old singing Valentine. Soon everyone had joined in raising his and her voices to Harry. And for the first time in his life, Harry knew what it felt like to be in a room full of people who truly cared about the fact that it was his birthday.
And yet, as his friends chorused their happy words around him, Harry felt a sudden pang of loss at whom was missing in this room, at whom was not there to share this day with him as they should have been, as he would have wanted them to…
His parents… Sirius…
Sirius would have been singing the loudest, Harry thought sadly, just before the broom-shaped candles stopped zooming in circles and he heard Hermione whisper, "Make a wish."
Harry looked up at her through the reflecting light, in the dim haze swirling from the tiny candle flames, and saw a deep fire raging behind those beautiful brown eyes. His dark thoughts dissolved instantly away, fading with the smoke from the flickering candles. And Harry found, in that moment, he didn’t need to wish for anything, for he was quite sure – though he would not be as certain later, in the bright light of day, and would claim he had only imagined it – that everything he wanted was right there in front of him.
All he had to do was reach out for it.
Chapter 3
"Why did you tell Harry to ‘make a wish?’" Ron asked Hermione as they, Harry, and Ginny were climbing the stairs later that evening, heading for bed.
"It’s a Muggle tradition. Even I know that," said Ginny, rolling her eyes at her brother before bidding the others good night at the door to her room.
She was not sharing a bedroom with Hermione this summer, nor was Harry with Ron for that matter. Since Fred and George were now living in a loft above their joke shop, and more than one hidden room had been discovered on the third floor behind a faded old tapestry of what Harry thought was a very sad looking couple wearing silvery blue robes and no smiles, it was determined that everyone could have separate bedrooms this year.
"So what did you wish for, mate?" inquired Ron after they said their good-byes to Ginny.
Harry opened his mouth to reply, but Hermione cut him off.
"Harry’s not allowed to say," she said rather pointedly. "Or his wish will never come true."
"Well, that’s pretty stupid, if you ask me," replied Ron. "How is Harry ever gonna get his wish if he doesn’t tell anybody what it is?"
Harry thought Ron had a fair point until he heard Hermione whisper under her breath, "Because it will be up to Harry to make his own wish come true."
Harry glanced at Hermione questioningly, wondering if she had intended him to hear her statement, but her eyes were not turned in his direction. In fact, her expression was quite impassive as she stared at some ubiquitous spot on the wall beside her.
Not having heard Hermione’s words, Ron changed the subject and said, "Fred and George certainly made your birthday memorable, didn’t they, Harry?"
From the look on Ron’s face, Harry had the distinct impression that Ron wasn’t solely talking about his bursting Snitch ice cream cake. Fred and George had also surprised him with a dragon skin jacket similar to the ones they now sported on a regular basis, only Harry’s was jet black – made from a Hungarian Horntail, they’d proudly informed him – instead of lurid green. Having felt that they had done too much for him already, and clearly spent too much money (as Ron had been quick to point out), Harry had tried to refuse the gift, but the twins would hear none of his protests. ("Nothing but the best for our number one investor!") In fact, everyone – including Ron – had agreed that Harry, above anyone else, had certainly earned the right to wear it.
Still, Harry was afraid Ron was feeling a bit jealous at the moment, even though Ron had made fun of the twins’ jackets at every given opportunity. Having lived in a poor family his entire life, Ron had always been rather touchy about money. And though he had never acted as bitter toward Harry as that time in their fourth year when they’d had a falling out over Harry’s entrance in the Triwizard Tournament, Harry couldn’t help but feel that Ron resented him at times. And while nearly all of the attention Harry received was largely unwanted – which Ron did realize – Harry couldn’t really blame his friend for feeling as he did on occasion; though he did wonder quite often how Ron would react if he knew about the prophecy. Something told Harry that his best friend would not be quite so envious of him if he was aware of the truth.
Hoping to appease him, Harry turned to say something conciliatory to Ron, but Hermione, once more, beat him to it.
"I think your gift was much more practical than that jacket, Ron," she said. "I mean, honestly, where is Harry going to wear it? He can’t use it at school. Personally, I can’t imagine what Fred and George were thinking when they bought it."
Hermione eyed Harry with a small smile as some of the frown left Ron’s face.
"Hermione’s right," added Harry. "I’d much rather have my own Gobstones set than that old jacket any day."
"Well," said Ron, his shoulders puffing up a bit. "I thought my idea was a good one. Now we can play without bothering the bloody Gobstones Club for a spare set. I thought I was getting pretty good at it last year. Though we all know wizard chess is a much better game… "
Harry grinned at Hermione as Ron rambled on about one of his favorite subjects (other than food and the Chudley Cannons, of course).
The truth was, Harry had loved all of his birthday gifts: from Mrs. Weasley’s hand-knit quilt to Mr. Weasley’s Wizarding tool-set (which the older man had informed him was not nearly as interesting as a Muggle tool-set. Harry had thought otherwise when he’d opened the lid of the small box and the hammer had flown out, nailing tacks into the kitchen table without warning.) It was not that long ago, after all, when his supposed family had not even acknowledged his birthday. Now, Harry had friends who were family to him far more than the Dursleys would ever be.
Hermione, to his surprise, had given him something that looked largely like a crystal ball until he’d given it further inspection. Knowing her general dislike of Divination, he found that the round-shaped glass was instead a working model of the galaxies. Harry recalled seeing something similar to it once in Diagon Alley and the temptation he’d felt in wanting to buy it at the time. He also couldn’t help remembering it had been expensive, but Hermione – like Fred and George – had not let him protest. She said with their luck, they’d both need it after failing their Astronomy O.W.L.s.
Not that Harry believed for one second that Hermione had failed that or any other exam, despite being rather distracted – though with good reason – during that particular test. He, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure he’d come out of it as well; he’d only completed about two-thirds of his Astronomy exam. Hogwarts students were supposed to receive their O.W.L. results in July, but seeing as it was the end of the month and no letters had come, it appeared as though they would not be getting theirs on time. Harry and Ron, of course, were not nearly as worried about this delay, or the reasons for it, as Hermione, who was going more ballistic each successive day their O.W.L. scores did not arrive.
Harry’s other birthday gifts had been really great as well. Ginny, along with Luna Lovegood, had paid for a year’s subscription to The Quibbler at a very reasonable rate from the kindness of Luna’s father.
"Kindness!" Hermione had snapped, holding up the postcard Luna had sent from Sweden informing them that she and her father had seen no trace of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks yet. "Harry is the reason The Quibbler is outselling every other magazine two-to-one these days!"
Lupin had added another two books to his set of Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts. Tonks had given him a working model of a Nimbus 2000 – after hearing the fate of his former real-life broomstick – to go along with the miniature Firebolt she’d bought him the previous Christmas. Hagrid had sent something in a large cardboard box, which Harry had yet to open, since it snapped at him every time he attempted it, along with a tin of treacle fudge. Even Neville Longbottom had sent him a birthday card along with a box of Honeydukes chocolates.
Harry and Hermione said their farewells to Ron – who was still mumbling on about wizard chess – on the second floor, and slowly climbed the next flight of stairs. Ron was staying in that old bedroom with the portrait of Phineas Nigellus again this year, and while Harry had never minded sharing a room with Ron, he was rather glad he didn’t have to put up with the portrait’s incessant snickers this time around. The last time he had seen the wizard with the pointed black beard, sharp eyes, and even sharper tongue was when the man had strolled out of his portrait in Dumbledore’s office to find out if it was true that his great-great-grandson was really dead. Harry seriously did not want to deal with Phineas’s snide remarks and piercing glares right now and had no doubts the old wizard would blame him for the fact that the last in the line of noble Blacks was gone.
When they reached the doorway to Harry’s bedroom – the one Fred and George had occupied the previous summer – Hermione stopped, to Harry’s somewhat surprise, instead of moving on to her own room, which was down a long corridor from his on the third floor. She stared at him with an uncertain smile and Harry found himself looking at his feet.
He cleared his throat uncomfortably.
The night had been good, his birthday pleasantly memorable for once. Yet, here he was again, standing side by side with one of his best friends, feeling as if he didn’t know which way was up and which was down.
Harry wanted to say something to Hermione, had wanted to say something to her all night – beyond the light banter and typical conversation that had flooded the evening – but found he had no voice with which to speak; it seemed to have left him on the landing below. So Harry simply stood there, staring at the floor, when he was struck by a startling thought.
Why did he suddenly feel – standing like this, with Hermione so close at his side – as if he was coming home from a date?
Not that Harry had much experience in the matter. He grimaced at the thought of his truly dismal track record with females; there was certainly nothing to brag about in his past.
Fourth year, he had escorted Parvati Patil to the Yule Ball, but she had left him – not that he’d particularly minded – by the end of the night. And his one official "date" with Cho Chang had not exactly ended on a good note either. He had never quite made it to the point of walking her back to her door, so-to-speak, for she had stormed out on him before they had even neared such a scenario.
But now, as Harry stood outside his own bedroom doorway with Hermione, he wondered if the feeling would have been similar to this; for he rather felt like he was holding a spinning compass in his hand, not knowing in which direction the arrow was going to fall. It was an uncertain feeling, and yet – at the same time – Harry was curious to know exactly where he was supposed to go from here.
For he didn’t know… not truly…
And all the reminiscing in the world, even on mistakes he’d made in the past, was certainly not going to help him now…
Not when the one person standing before him meant more to him than…
Harry halted that thought and instead pondered if he had any choice in the matter, or if it was all dependent on the girl standing in front in him, when he noticed Hermione watching him with half-open eyes. She didn’t appear tired, but on the contrary looked incredibly vibrant considering how late it was in the day. And she was still smiling at him, but with much more certainty than she had a moment ago.
It was this more than anything else that gave Harry the courage he needed. He cleared his throat again.
"Uh, Hermio –" he attempted to say, but was surprised when she suddenly leaned forward and kissed him softly on the cheek.
Not having anticipated that at all, Harry turned his head and found Hermione’s face incredibly close to his own. Her eyes were bright and radiated warmth. Her lips looked shimmery and inviting. Her entire image was a deep contrast to the shadowy confines that made up the drafty, dimly lit hallway, and Harry found himself being drawn into her.
Closing his eyes just as he moved slightly closer to her, he found her lips meeting his in a kiss that was so entirely unexpected and yet completely welcome, Harry was sure he had been waiting for it a very long time.
He had never really thought about kissing Hermione like this… not truly… not seriously…
But this was as real, as true, and as serious as could be, as his lips moved over hers, as he tasted the fullness of her against him in such a sweet, soft, beautiful moment that nothing else in the world could have possibly mattered but kissing Hermione like that.
When he felt her start to pull away, Harry raised his arms to stop her, but Hermione put her hands on his chest and broke gently from their kiss. And when he gazed at her a second later, he saw his own wonder reflecting in her shining eyes, which were glowing in such a brilliant way that he was certain she must have felt the same things he had…
It was a long moment they stood in a half embrace – his hands on the tips of her shoulders, her palms flat against his chest – staring at each other, their bodies swept up in a warm, sweet engulfing halo, before Hermione leaned in and placed one more light, brief kiss on his lips.
"Happy Birthday, Harry," she whispered a little breathlessly, and Harry felt himself smiling back at her.
Again he wanted to tell her something, but the words wouldn’t come. And before he realized what was happening, Hermione was gone, out of his arms, the imprint of her hands still burning on his chest. His hands fell limply to his sides, empty of the treasure they had held such a brief moment before.
It was a long time after that Harry stood outside his bedroom doorway – thinking, wondering, and reliving each emotion as the scene replayed over and over in his mind – light-headed from the girl who had kissed him good night.
Chapter 4
Harry couldn’t sleep that night.
He pulled his watch from the bedside table and stared at it for what seemed like the millionth time since he had climbed into bed. Dim light from two candles he’d left burning nearby told him it was one-twelve a.m.
That can’t possibly be right, Harry thought, holding the timepiece to his ear to see if it was still ticking. It hummed musically back at him, reminding him that he’d picked it up during a visit to Hogsmeade last year. Considering the watch was magical then, Harry had no idea if it was working properly or not. With a disgruntled sigh, he set it back on the table.
Only two hours had passed. Two…
And he had spent most of that time in a restless state, turning over in bed so many times that his sheets were now tangled uncomfortably around his legs and his quilt had fallen on the floor.
Harry sighed again. Nothing was working. No matter how many times he rolled over on his sides or tossed onto his back or gazed blankly at the walls, nothing had helped. And that was all he could do to keep the image of Hermione and their kiss out of his mind…
Despite the fact that it had been a pleasant experience, thinking about that kiss confused Harry. After reliving it over a dozen times, he’d come to the conclusion that there was only so much reflecting he could do on the subject before his mind wandered into territories he wasn’t really prepared to go. Unfortunately, the good feelings he had about kissing his best friend were mixed with too many questions. And they were all questions he wasn’t ready to examine at present. For he wasn’t completely sure he wanted to know the answers…
So Harry had done everything he could think of to push those thoughts away. He’d counted cracks on the ceiling, stared at holes in the bed-hangings, and studied the furniture – sparse though it was in his gloomy bedroom – until every crevice and nook-hole was as familiar to him as the hairs on his head.
His bedroom at number twelve, Grimmauld Place was an odd mix of once-used opulence and derelict decay. The chair on the opposite wall near the center window had one wobbly leg; its small frame sat uneven with the wooden floorboards. Yet, Harry wagered the satin-like upholstery would have appeared stately when new. Now the material was stained and ripping at the seams; small bits of yellow padding could be seen poking out at the corners.
The bedside table was oblong and rested on a square pillar thicker than the Troll-leg umbrella stand downstairs. It was covered by a piece of lacy old cloth with browning edges that matched the curtains covering the windowpanes.
There was also a twin bed parallel to Harry’s with the same black bed-curtains draped around it, carrying the weight of years of disuse in its hole-filled fabric.
The wardrobe on the far wall, certainly the most interesting piece of furniture in the room, had deep gouges running vertically along the front of it, as if someone had carved the jagged gaps with a long, sharp knife. It was smaller than the one Harry remembered in his room from the previous year, but it looked as if it was part of the same set of furniture. The wardrobe’s surface, which he imagined had once been kept polished and shiny, was the same dull mahogany color; and it also sported the same large, clawed feet that matched the silver serpent-shaped handles of the double doors.
There was an oval carpet in the center of the room, but it was practically colorless. Harry speculated that it had once been a deep forest green color, but too many years of dust and neglect had left it neither gray nor brown nor even beige. It looked more like a large, dirty rag than anything else, with numerous threads splitting at the sides and several well-worn patches in the middle that were so sparse, it was a wonder the thing had survived this long.
There were no portraits on the bare walls where the wallpaper was peeling in many places and totally missing in others. Instead, many thick silver candelabra – also shaped like serpents – were spaced between the windows on one wall and sparsely between the furniture on the others.
On the whole, this room was very much like the bedroom he’d shared with Ron the previous summer. It was a bit smaller perhaps; the ceiling wasn’t nearly as high, but it had the same gloomy atmospheric presence that plagued the entire house like a disease. Truly, the only good thing about the room was that it was clean. But like most of the rooms in the house – even the kitchen and the drawing room, the two rooms in which Harry had spent the most time – this bedroom had not wholly escaped the shadowy feel of unpleasantness that clouded over it like a thick fog. And no matter how hard the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione tried to brighten the old place, it seemed a larger, darker force was at work, determined to keep its stronghold over the domain that had once held one of the most prominent pure blood Wizarding families within its ever stifling walls.
No wonder Sirius had wanted to leave, Harry thought as he rolled over once more in his bed.
But thoughts of Sirius were painful these days, still fresh in his mind and close to his heart. Harry wouldn’t linger on them; he couldn’t do it. At least not without wanting to throw things across the room in anger or – conversely – break down into tears.
It was still too soon.
And trying physically to block his memories of Sirius from seeping to the surface where he’d have no choice but to examine them, Harry turned his head into his pillow and shut his eyes tightly.
Despite the reasons for his sleeplessness this night having nothing to do with his godfather (and everything to do with Hermione), nights like these were all too common for Harry of late. In fact, he hated nighttime these days, hated the hours that dragged from midnight till sunrise when there was nothing but his own musings to keep him company.
The lone improvement on last year was that Harry was no longer plagued by dreams of nameless corridors and darkened doorways. Moreover, he could not recall having had a single dream he even remotely remembered in the last month, but Harry wagered this could be due to the fact that he’d barely slept a couple hours each night during that entire time.
Truthfully, he hadn’t been able to sleep properly all summer. And when sleep came, it was intermittent; small doses of it came and went like a bad cold. But most nights Harry was kept awake by an incessant insomnia, brought on by what he could only term as a stubborn refusal by some unknown part of him to surrender himself to the overwhelming thoughts that were brimming barely under control inside his head. Harry speculated this same part of him had settled on the idea that if he stayed awake, he could somehow rein in the pieces of his mind that wanted to drift to Sirius – or even worse – to thoughts of Dumbledore’s haunting words to him a month ago regarding the stupid prophecy.
His prophecy… His and Voldemort’s…
That was another subject Harry was refusing to dwell on. Some part of him was convinced that the prophecy would simply go away if he did not think about it; while another part of him was just as sure he was making a huge mistake by not thinking about it.
Still, Hagrid had once told him, "What would come, would come…"
What good then would it really do him to dwell on something he could do absolutely nothing about? At least at the present time…
Yet, unwillingly – and sometimes very unwanted – came echoes of things Dumbledore had said to him.
"There is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept locked at all times… It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities… the power to vanquish the Dark Lord…"1
He’s wrong, Harry thought, rolling over again as he flattened his pillow against his face. I don’t have that power… whatever it is…
And not allowing those thoughts to further intrude, he threw his pillow across the room, hoping Dumbledore’s confusing words followed with it.
Unable to curb his restlessness any longer, Harry cast his sheets aside (with a little struggle since they were practically glued to his legs) and rose from the bed. Sliding his feet into his waiting slippers and snatching his sweatshirt from the end of the bed where he’d left it (just in case); he strode across the room and opened the door.
But once in the hallway, Harry paused.
He could visit the kitchen and see if there were any leftovers from his birthday dinner, but he wasn’t particularly hungry, and he’d never really been the type to go for late-night snacks (unless he’d been starving at the Dursleys’, that is, and had no choice).
He could go to the drawing room and light a fire. He’d left some of his textbooks there that morning, and he still had that essay of Snape’s to finish. This specific essay wasn’t mandatory, but Hermione had suggested he write it if he wanted to take Snape’s N.E.W.T. Potions class in the fall (assuming he had somehow miraculously achieved an O on his Potions O.W.L., and Snape let him enter the class. Unfortunately for Harry, Professor McGonagall had recommended he take Potions if he wanted to become an Auror, or he would have gladly told Snape where he could stick his stupid essay.) He only had two scrolls completed so far, but Harry wasn’t really in the mood for homework either. And more importantly, he needed Hermione’s help with that bit about moonstones.
So Harry did what he’d been doing a lot lately and retreated farther into the house. As he had done last Christmas when he’d felt so isolated from the Weasleys, and even from Sirius, and as Sirius himself had done so many times in the past, Harry went to Buckbeak’s room.
He didn’t know what it was about this room that drew him the way it did – though obviously Sirius had been drawn to it, too, but perhaps not for the same reasons. Maybe it was because Harry had more privacy there; the room was quiet since it was so far away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the house. Or maybe it was because Buckbeak was there, so the room smelled like straw and animal, a comforting combination that never failed to soothe Harry’s nerves when he was on edge. Or maybe it made him feel closer to Sirius because Sirius himself had spent so much time there before he died.
Harry didn’t really know the real reason why he went there so many nights, and occasionally during days when he wasn’t busy with menial tasks or homework and could break away unnoticed (which was rarely very often); he only knew that he felt better when he went there. And finding a place to be happy – if only a little happy, without impending thoughts about his uncertain future or memories of his burdened past – was all Harry cared about these days. It wasn’t much, a small oasis, a brief release from his unsettled life, but it was all he had – and Harry wasn’t, at the moment, willing to give it up.
Nor was he willing to share it with anybody else.
He had not told anyone he was having trouble sleeping, had not told them how many nights he had spent curled up on Buckbeak’s straw-strewn floor. He knew Ron and Hermione would only worry about him. Mrs. Weasley would molly-coddle him till he couldn’t stand it. And Lupin… Well, Harry had the feeling his ex-professor would want to sit him down and have a long talk, a talk he was quite sure he was not prepared to face.
Harry had always liked Lupin, had always appreciated his support and stable presence in the past. He was grateful for this link he still had to his parents, was aware that that link had not totally died with his godfather, but Harry was not inclined, at least at present, to open up to Lupin about what he was thinking or feeling – regarding the prophecy or Sirius’s death or anything else.
It wasn’t the right time… He wasn’t ready…
But always came the nagging questions at the back of Harry’s brain.
What if that time never came? What if he was never ready?
Eager to push aside his encroaching thoughts once more, Harry swept open the door to Buckbeak’s room and stepped quietly inside.
Someone had obviously been there since he and Hermione had searched the room earlier that day for Sirius’s letter. Dark as it was, Harry could see the sheets that had been half-draped over the few pieces of furniture, including the large, ornate-framed mirror, were resting neatly in their proper places once more. The roll-top on the desk was pulled tightly shut; the drawers were all pushed back inside the square frame. The floor was also littered with fresh straw. Buckbeak had obviously been fed and watered quite recently.
Harry often wondered at whom was taking care of Buckbeak now that Sirius was gone. He had not seen Kreacher the house-elf since he’d returned to Grimmauld Place. The traitorous elf had disappeared from the house entirely, and Harry had never asked what had happened to him. Obviously someone was making sure the hippogriff was being cared for properly (not that Kreacher had been the best of help in that department anyway), but Harry found it odd that he had never seen anyone else in the room, or even near it, during the many nights he had been there.
Following his customary routine, Harry walked soundlessly over to Buckbeak, and the hippogriff bobbed his head in greeting. After stroking the animal’s beak and feathers for a few moments, Harry moved away from him to take his usual place against the far wall when he changed his mind mid-stride.
An idea had struck him.
Perhaps he could spend some time alone, uninterrupted in search of Sirius’s letter, since he and Hermione had had no luck finding it that afternoon. Lupin had sounded rather certain that the letter was somewhere in this room, though he had sent Ron and Ginny to other parts of the house in search of it as well.
The trick was where to find it?
Glad to have something to keep his mind occupied and away from his many unwanted thoughts, Harry moved over to the desk and lit the gas lamp above it.
To his complete surprise, curled in the armchair near the door – bathed in the low light from the lamp – clearly asleep, was Hermione.
________________________
1 – From pages 841 and 843 of OotP (U.S. Hardcover Edition).
Chapter 5
Harry was slightly shocked to see Hermione in Buckbeak’s room and nearly knocked over the small desk chair he’d been leaning across to turn on the lamp. His heart hammering, he braced his hands against the curved wooden chair-back more to steady himself than to make sure the chair was properly stabilized. He closed his eyes, wondering if he was only imagining the girl curled up in the cushioned armchair a few feet away from him. When he opened them again, Harry realized he was not.
How had he not noticed Hermione sitting by the door when he’d entered the room? Granted, it had been a little dark when he’d first come in, but there was enough of a moon shining through the windows for him to see Buckbeak. And he had gotten used to the shapes and shadows in the room by now that he was a bit alarmed he’d missed seeing her there.
Your defenses will have to be greater than this if you’re going to defeat the most evil wizard alive, a voice chastised in his head. Another part of him argued back that he was safe at Grimmauld Place – and safe above all in this room. Voldemort could not touch him here.
Oh, really? Couldn’t he? The voice answered back, and Harry visibly shuddered.
Now was not the time to be thinking about Voldemort. It only made his head hurt more than it already did from being caught so completely unawares by his best friend.
Taking a deep breath, Harry blinked and focused all of his attention on Hermione. At once, the pounding in his head and chest reduced to a dull, aching throb. Not sure whether this feeling was much better, he crept quietly over to the sleeping Hermione and knelt down in front of her.
She was garbed in a loose-fitting dressing gown; the tie pulled freely about her waist to cover her simple paisley-patterned pajamas. Her head was tucked into the nook of the chair where the armrest met the cushioned backing, while her bare feet were curled into the opposite corner, resting near the edge of the seat. She had pulled part of the sheet that had been draped over the chair to rest over her mid-section; one hand was clutching it closely to her chin. Her other arm was hugging a book against her chest, and Harry couldn’t help smiling at the title: New Theory of Numerology. It was the book he’d given to her last Christmas; the one he was certain had barely left her sight all summer long. In fact, her finger was still holding the page she’d been reading before she had fallen asleep.
For a moment, Harry had the urge to pull the book gently away from her. (What was it about this book that fascinated her so?) It can’t have been comfortable holding it the way she was, but then he seriously doubted she would give it up – even in her sleep. And despite the fact that he thought sleeping in that chair looked highly uncomfortable, he had to admit that Hermione looked rather peaceful slumbering there. There was no hint of unrest or unease in the lines of her body, no sign of tenseness about her hands or her face. Her eyes were resting gently closed, her eyelashes lightly grazing her cheeks. There was just the barest hint of a smile on her lips – the lips that he had so recently kissed; though he was trying very hard not to think about that. And her hair was falling loosely over her shoulders; some stray tendrils had fallen across her neck and along the edge of her jaw-line, the strands caressing the smooth surface of her skin in such a way that Harry found himself almost jealous of them.
If he’d thought about it, Harry would have been startled by the idea that he wanted to touch Hermione in, well – such an intimate way. But Harry wasn’t really thinking at the present time. He was too caught up in the way he was feeling…
Pressing his fingers softly to Hermione’s cheek, he very carefully swept her loose hairs back along her shoulder. She gave a murmured sigh, but didn’t awaken straight away. Harry let his hand linger against her longer than he should have, as he then trailed his way lightly down her arm. He could feel the warmth of her even through layers of fabric. And he suddenly noted the very steady rhythm of her breathing at the same time he noticed his own heartbeat quickening again.
Harry wondered later if it was the hammering of his heart that finally woke Hermione up, for it was at that precise moment when she slowly opened her eyes. Though she gazed directly at him, it took some time for her vision to clear before Harry was quite sure Hermione realized he was kneeling there before her.
"Harry?" came his mumbled name from her lips, even as recognition was now apparent in her eyes.
"Mmm," was all he said in reply, smiling slightly at her.
She gazed at him still – her brown eyes a shade darker than usual, even in the glow from the low lamp behind them. She seemed slow at identifying where she was at first and Harry was certain he could see the remnants of a dream in her eyes.
A moment later, she confirmed it.
"I was dreaming about you," she muttered groggily.
Under normal circumstances, Harry would have been flustered at Hermione admitting she had dreamt about him, and even more surprised that she could say so without appearing at all self-conscious about it. If they had been anywhere else… But here, in Buckbeak’s room – for some reason – Harry did not find her admission odd; nor apparently did Hermione seem very shy about conceding it.
"For a second, I thought I was still asleep," she continued. She reached out one hand, the one that had been holding the book, as though she wanted to touch him and verify he was really there, but she never quite made it that far. As though she had thought better of her action, her arm fell back against the chair and the book slid down into her lap. Her fingers found the leather cover again almost instantly.
"You looked just as you do now," she said after some consideration. "I think that’s why..."
Her voice trailed off. She shook her head and some loose tendrils fell against her face once more. This time Harry could not brush them away, even though he was wholly tempted to. Instead, he nodded, curling his fingers into fists so they did not betray him.
Curious about something she’d said, he asked, "How do I look?"
The corners of Hermione’s mouth quirked up in a smile, but rather than answer him, she started to sit up in the chair. Harry backed away from her. Settling himself on the floor a few feet away, Harry pulled his knees to his chest and rested his elbows on them, gazing at Hermione in all seriousness now.
After some silence, he said, "Hermione, what are you doing here?"
She looked at him steadily as she pulled herself into a full sitting position.
"I would ask you the same thing, if I didn’t already know the answer," she replied in a quiet voice, brushing her hair away from her face just as he’d wanted to do for a second time.
"You know I’ve been coming here."
It wasn’t a question, but Hermione nodded anyway.
Harry knew this should have surprised him, but in truth it did not. There was little about him Hermione didn’t know, except for a few things he had yet to tell her. He supposed his sleeplessness was hardly a secret. The dark circles under his eyes morning after morning coupled with his general lethargy throughout the day were not exactly little details to someone who noticed things the way Hermione regularly did. Just how she had known he’d practically taken up residence in Buckbeak’s room though, Harry didn’t know. Maybe she had simply guessed. Or maybe he hadn’t been sneaking around the house as quietly as he’d thought; he did pass Hermione’s bedroom on the way here every night, after all.
"You’ve been coming here a lot of nights, haven’t you?" said Hermione smoothly, not breaking eye contact with him even as she still tucked stray hairs behind her ears.
That wasn’t really a question either, but Harry decided to give her the same courtesy she’d given to him.
"Yes."
She nodded again, obviously expecting his answer.
"Why were you sleeping here tonight?" he ventured to ask her in return. "I’ve never seen you here before."
She blinked once, glanced across the room, then replied, "I came to feed Buckbeak. I’ve been helping Lupin with him ever since I arrived here. Buckbeak, as you well know, will scarcely let anyone near him. Only you, and me – and Lupin, apparently."
Harry gazed over at the hippogriff, knowing what she said about the animal was true. Buckbeak was as wary of others as Harry was himself these days. Trust was a precious gift both of them granted to very few, and even to less of late.
You can trust Hermione with the prophecy, you know? came an intruding voice in his head. She would understand. That may be true, he argued back. But would she accept it? Would she accept that the prophecy was his fate, when he wasn’t even sure he’d acceded to it himself?
And still he was certain he was not ready – not ready to see the look of horror on Hermione’s face, or on Ron’s or anyone else’s for that matter, when he told them he was destined to be either victim or murderer; there was no other way…
She has a right to know, said the voice again.
"No!"
"No, what? Harry?"
Startled, Harry realized he’d spoken aloud and that he had interrupted Hermione speaking.
"I—" he gasped, feeling embarrassed. "Nothing. I’m sorry. What were you saying?"
Hermione eyed him suspiciously for a second.
"I was saying that I sat down earlier to read for a while, but I guess I was more tired than I’d thought. I never intended to fall asleep."
There was another moment of silence before Hermione looked at him rather worriedly.
"Harry," she said tentatively. "I hope you’re not angry with me for being here tonight. Do you, I mean, are you—"
"No," he cut her off before she could finish her question.
Truthfully, her being there very well could have bothered Harry. This room had become his sanctuary, his refuge. And while a part of him felt like he should have cared that she was invading his space, he found he felt just the opposite about it. He was really rather glad she was there, and would not have wished her away for anything in the world.
Hermione smiled at him, and Harry knew he did not have to say anything more on the matter. He knew she understood, as she so often did, without him saying so; that was one of the greatest things about having Hermione as a friend. It was nice having someone so close to him who knew him so well.
Hermione was tossing the sheet on the chair aside as Harry was pondering the dynamics of their friendship. She stretched a little, then eyed him again, drawing his focus back on her.
"What?" he asked.
Her expression was a bit enigmatic this time.
Hermione opened her mouth and then closed it again, shaking her head.
"What?" Harry asked again.
She seemed to be weighing something in her mind. She shook her head again.
It wasn’t like Hermione not to say what she was thinking. But then Harry thought, if only he understood Hermione as well as she did him…
Hermione suddenly stood up, the debate in her mind obviously having been won at last.
"What do you say we look for Sirius’s letter?" she said. "I presume that’s what you were going to do when you turned that wretched light on."
Harry stood up, too. So, she found the light "wretched," did she?
"Would you rather I turn it back off?" he teased, and got a thrill of delight when Hermione’s cheeks flushed pink.
"That’s not what I meant," she mumbled under her breath, and Harry tried to stifle his laughter. If Hermione could have seen her own reflection…
Deciding to let her off the hook, Harry said, "Yes. In fact, I was going to continue our search. So I’m game if you are. Have any bright ideas on where to start?"
Actually, she did. Thus, the many minutes following were consumed by them up-turning sheets, opening drawers, and checking all the furniture once more for clues they might have missed the first time around. They investigated the empty closet, dug deeper in the musty old wardrobe, and again tried the locked door.
"It still won’t budge," said Harry unnecessarily as he tugged on it. There was no keyhole in the door and no sign of a lock. There had to be some magic way of opening it then, but if that were the case, they would need to ask an adult for help – something they couldn’t exactly do at past two in the morning.
"Lupin was obviously wrong about the letter being in this room," Harry said as he watched Hermione try the door after him. "We’ll just have to search somewhere else tomorrow."
Hermione looked toward the ceiling pensively and then back at Harry.
"The mirror," she muttered. "There’s something about it…"
"What?"
"The mirror!" she repeated more firmly now.
And Harry suddenly remembered earlier that day, how it seemed Hermione had been on to something before Ron had come and told them it was time for Harry’s party. Had she seen something in the aged mirror’s surface that he hadn’t?
Surprising him, Hermione grabbed his hand and led him over to the large, ornate-framed mirror on the far side of the room. Pushing up the dust cloth that had been concealing it, they draped the old sheet over the flouncing corners of the structure until the glassy surface was partially uncovered once more. Standing before it with Hermione at his side, Harry had the oddest sense of déjà vu. The mirror, which was taller than both of them, was still streaked with dust and grime; their reflections in it were the same as that afternoon.
Or were they the same?
Harry edged closer to the mirror, wondering what Hermione had seen in it to cause such curiosity. He thought he looked just as he had before, if not a bit wide-eyed and exhausted from the hour of the morning. But now that he examined it more closely…
Was it his imagination, or was Hermione’s reflection slightly glowing?
Or… No! Maybe, it was the background behind her. There was definitely something about it…
Harry blinked and looked again. Hermione was staring at him through the mirror, watching his gaze flit from his own image back to hers numerous times.
"Do you see?" she said. "There’s something about this mirror that’s not quite—"
She broke off and again her voice sounded as tentative as it had that afternoon.
But Harry understood and nodded, quite sure now that she was right. What was it about this old mirror? The room behind them appeared no different. The mirror stood opposite the main door, which he had closed when he’d entered the room. He could see the chair Hermione had been slumbering in earlier, the roll-top writing desk and the lamp shining dimly above it, and – along the very edge of the mirror – the corner of the open doorway to the empty closet. It was here where Harry finally focused his attention.
Squinting, Harry pressed his nose to the glass and gaped in astonishment.
Through the reflecting image, the closet was in fact not empty at all! On the contrary, there were boxes upon boxes heaped one on the other, their contents spilling abundantly over their large, square sides: old pieces of parchment, leather-covered albums, books in all shapes and sizes, along with stacks of yellowing letters tied with multi-colored ribbons – and there!
Harry pointed to the image of the top-most box, his finger making an imprint on the dusty surface of the mirror.
Stuffed into the corner of that teetering cardboard box was a purple envelope!
Chapter 6
"Sirius’s letter!" gasped Harry aloud. "It’s Sirius’s letter!"
He couldn’t believe it!
Blinking twice to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him, Harry stared through the surface of the dusty, old mirror once more, wondering if the image he’d seen a moment before had merely been a figment of his overactive imagination and nothing else. But sure enough, the purple envelope was still there, peeking out of the box on top of the largest, towering pile of cartons in the supposedly empty closet.
What luck! Harry thought. What sheer fantastic—
"What did you say?" said Hermione, following his gaze immediately, a touch of incredulity littering her steady voice. "But how—?"
Harry, however, was so elated at their discovery; her words didn’t quite register in his foggy brain. Instead, he grasped both of her hands in his and exclaimed, "Hermione, you’re brilliant!"
"Well, uh, I—"
And not noticing her puzzled look behind her half-smile at his declaration, he spun her around in a circle before she could respond any further, their reflections in the mirror a laughing blur of color amidst a gloomy, gray backdrop. When they stopped spinning, Harry had a broad grin on his face, but Hermione was eyeing him very skeptically. Despite the fact that her cheeks were glowing from their little show of exuberance, her lips were frowning slightly and there a small crease between her brows.
"What’s up?" asked Harry, finally taking note of the fact that Hermione did not seem nearly as happy as he felt at that moment. Why was there such apprehension in her eyes?
And all at once, Harry wondered if they were seeing the same thing in the mirror, or if – by some strange chance – he was only seeing what he wanted to see. Haunting words from years past suddenly came rushing back to him like a whirlwind, as clear to him now as they were on that day:
"… this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible."1
Those had been Dumbledore’s words, cautioning him, counseling him, on a night long ago…
And for the first time since Harry had seen this mirror, he was reminded of the Mirror of Erised. It had been during his first year at Hogwarts when he had happened upon it; that enchanted mirror that showed a person’s deepest desires. Its reflecting image was completely unique to whomever was standing before it. And while the mirror he stood before now was similar in shape and size, the gilt-frame comparable to that ancient one in many ways, there were no ancestors of Harry’s staring back at him from the other side. The loving images of his parents were nowhere in sight.
Still, that did not mean that this mirror was not magical. Indeed, it seemed it was and had to be – for was there not a closet full of things visible in front of Harry, when not minutes before he and Hermione had been searching an empty space? And were there not other sorts of magical mirrors? He distinctly remembered one in the room he’d stayed at the Leaky Cauldron that had talked nonsensically at him and called him "dear," similar to the one that could be found at the Burrow; that one had liked to tell him when his hair was untidy, his clothes were scruffy, and his shirt was untucked.
Yet, Harry could not help being unnerved at the idea that perhaps Hermione was not seeing the same things he was when he gazed into the old mirror, magical or not. One way or another, he had to be sure.
His left hand still clasped in hers, Harry pulled her a little closer to him and asked, "Don’t you see it? A purple envelope, just there."
He pointed with his index finger to the smudge he’d made earlier on the mirror’s dirty surface. Underneath the fingerprint, one corner of the letter was quite visible amongst the other items in the box: notably several yellowing pieces of parchment – rolled, sealed, and tied together in a bundle – stuffed next to a handsome, leather-covered book that looked very similar to the one that was locked in Harry’s trunk. He wondered if the album had old photos or mementos of the Black family, like his so distinctively had of the Potters.
Harry waited for a long moment, the silence in the room almost deafening to him, as Hermione's eyes squinted at the spot where he was pointing.
Please Merlin – let her see what I’m seeing! Harry thought, his brain darting around the implications if she was not.
A second later though, Hermione gasped in astonishment as well, to which Harry gave a grateful sigh of relief.
She did see the same things he did! That meant this mirror was not like the Mirror of Erised!
But then a thought struck Harry harder than a hammer on his head. If Hermione was only now seeing the closet full of boxes, why had she led him over to the mirror in the first place? Had she seen something else in it? Something about which she was not telling him?
Just as Harry was going to question her on this, Hermione pulled her hand away from his and gestured animatedly at the mirror before them. Mourning the loss of her warm fingers in his, Harry tried to ignore the itching feeling he had to grab her hand back and pull her closer to him. She was speaking now; he had to force himself to focus on her words.
"Oh, I’ve read about mirrors like this! You do know what this means, don’t you, Harry? For a moment I thought—But it doesn’t matter… Oh, Harry! This is remarkable!" she exclaimed excitedly.
Fascinated, though not really understanding a word she was saying, other than the "remarkable" bit (and that was something he’d worked out for himself), Harry watched Hermione’s gleeful face as she tried to piece out the puzzle before them.
"I wish I had access to those books right now, Harry! I mean, there’s a whole section in the library at Hogwarts on mirrors alone, and that’s not including the ones in the Restricted Section. And there’s no telling exactly what this mirror does without—but oh, I forgot! Mr. Black’s study! There’s bound to be books in there on the subject. Lupin told me he was an avid reader, though I can only imagine what kind of books he liked, but—"
"Hermione!" interrupted Harry, his head swimming from Hermione’s words. There was, however, one fact he had caught amidst her drawn-out babbling.
"Mr. Black had a study? Here in this house?"
"Well, of course, here in this house. He did live here, you know," she said, in that tone of voice she often used with Ron, and occasionally – like this moment – with Harry; the one that sounded like she was trying to explain something extremely complicated to a two-year old.
"Lupin told me Sirius’s father spent a lot of time in his study pouring over books, though no doubt they were all full of dark magic. I suspect that’s the reason we haven’t been allowed in there."
At these words, there was a hint of apprehension in her eyes. Harry wondered if it was occurring to Hermione, as it had him, that the mirror could very well be under some dark spell. Perhaps it was another dangerous magical item like those they had found in the house the previous year. Harry remembered vividly a set of old purple robes that had tried to strangle Ron when he’d attempted to get rid of them and a cranky grandfather clock that liked to shoot heavy metal bolts at anyone who walked by it. There could, no doubt, be a similar sinister spell on the mirror as well. Sirius’s parents, after all, had not exactly been the nicest of wizards.
"Maybe if I ask Lupin tomorrow, he’ll let us have a look around the study," continued Hermione, the note of trepidation in her voice just barely audible. "Until then—"
"Until then," Harry broke in again. "We’re on our own?"
Hermione nodded. For a second, she gazed at him uncertainly.
"It is rather late, Harry. Maybe we should—"
"I’m not tired," he stated evenly.
How could she think of sleeping now? Surely, she wasn’t that worried about the mirror being unsafe. If that were the case, Sirius would have insisted it be removed with all the other items they’d gotten rid of last year. Yet, even as he thought this, Harry was quite positive the anxious look Hermione was giving him had nothing to do with the mirror.
"You can go if you want," he added when she didn’t say anything more. "I’ll stay for a while and see if I can work this thing out."
"No," Hermione protested almost instantly. "I want to stay, too. It’s just that—"
She paused and took a step closer to him, the concern evident in her dark eyes.
"You should really get some sleep, you know?" she told him in a soft voice. "Maybe if you tried—"
"I’m not tired," he repeated again quite steadily, though now he understood her uneasiness was for him alone.
Harry knew and appreciated how much Hermione cared about him. He knew that she was only worried about his recent lack of sleep and his restless wanderings, but there was an impatience welling up inside of him that left no room for fatigue.
They were one step closer to finding Sirius’s letter. The question was – how were they going to retrieve it from a seemingly empty room? Harry didn’t think he could sleep – or even make an attempt at sleeping – unless they tried to figure something out tonight.
"How do you suppose the mirror works?" he asked Hermione, hoping against hope she would stay and help him work out the mystery. "I mean, there’s clearly nothing in that closet."
He moved away from Hermione and the mirror and strode over to the empty room.
"I suppose there could be some sort of Invisibility Charm on the closet," said Hermione, sighing. She followed quickly in his footsteps, for which Harry was very glad and gave an inward sigh of relief.
Hermione paused in the doorway; he could feel her eyes watching him walk around the room, waving his arms through the empty air.
"I don’t think that’s what it is though," Hermione continued, her voice sounding eager again to work out the challenge. "We would be able to touch all the things that the mirror revealed. You would be knocking into boxes and turning stuff over."
"Making a mess, in other words," added Harry dryly.
She nodded.
"You certainly wouldn’t be walking through everything."
Harry spun in a circle, examining the little room. The walk-in closet was not overly large, but spacious enough to hold more than a few bulky cardboard boxes. The walls were white and bare, and there was a small, hexagonal-shaped window in the middle of the wall opposite the doorway; dim light was shining through the foggy windowpane from the moon outside, casting thin rays upon the dull and unpolished hardwood floor.
Harry took a step to his right, where the towering pile of boxes should have been – but there was nothing there. The air, however, was rather chilly in this spot, and he concluded that the draft had to be coming from the window nearby.
He walked the few steps over to the other side of the room, which was considerably warmer from the opposite end. Pressing his hand to the wall, he wagered the room behind the locked door was just on the other side of his splayed-out fingers.
"What are you thinking, Harry?" questioned Hermione, who was still watching him from the open doorway. Turning to see her form silhouetted there, Harry had a sudden thought.
The mirror had shown only a quarter of the closet doorway from its angle on the other side of Buckbeak’s room. What if there were other things, perhaps along the wall where Harry was standing, that the mirror revealed? Something that they were missing?
At once, Harry had an idea.
"Hermione, do you think we could move the mirror to face the entire doorway? Maybe to point in this direction?"
He gestured toward the blank wall.
Nodding her head as though she had caught his line of thinking, Hermione marched over to the mirror – though Harry noted her eyes still looked a little apprehensive about what they were doing. He followed after her until they stood in front of the large, gilded frame once more. Bracing either end of it, their eyes locked together as Harry counted off to three.
The mirror was enormously heavy, more so than even Harry had anticipated. He’d been certain that together they’d be able to swing it just enough to show them the entire doorway of the closet, but he hadn’t predicted the great frame would be totally immovable. Wishing the mirror had wheels, Harry tried to lift his side off the ground to no avail. Frowning, he paused, watching as Hermione attempted to do the same thing. But if he couldn’t even move one end of it, there was no way that Hermione was going to be able to move her side all by herself.
"Maybe if we tried pushing it."
Harry watched as Hermione grasped the mirror’s gilt-frame again, placing her heel on the claw-footed bottom; she was putting all of her strength and weight against the mirror instead.
Thinking she had the right idea, Harry was moving around to help her with her side when it happened in the space of an instant: Hermione’s foot slipped against the bottom of the mirror and she lost her grip on the frame!
Falling backward, Harry caught her just in time, but the force of Hermione’s body slamming against his chest sent him reeling back as well. His arms fully around her, they both fell to the floor in a heap of moans and tangled limbs. Hermione was the luckier of the two, for she landed on top of Harry, who had broken her fall completely with his body. Harry, on the other hand, smacked his head against the floor, and it started pounding immediately from the pain.
"Oh, Harry. Are you all right?"
His eyes tightly closed, he could hear the anxiety in Hermione’s voice as he felt her squirming around to face him. His brain was coherent enough though to wish she wouldn’t move quite the way she was against him. Though his head was aching, the lower regions of his body were tingling with an altogether different sensation.
"Harry?"
He opened his eyes to see her leaning over him. Her hair was curtaining her concerned face, the long tendrils resting on his shoulders and tickling his neck just above the line of his sweatshirt. One of her hands was on his chest, the other brushing his hair from his forehead; her fingers were warm and soft against his skin. She was resting heavily along one whole side of his body, from his ribcage all the way down past his knees. He couldn’t have moved had he wanted to, but at the moment the last thing on Harry’s mind was pushing Hermione away from him.
Focusing on the dark eyes staring at him in distress, he managed to mutter, "I’m fine."
He felt the relieved sigh Hermione gave as she exhaled warm breath lightly against his cheek. With her face so close to his, thoughts about earlier that night – the ones he’d been so desperate to keep out of his mind – came rushing back to him all at once.
It wasn’t that he had forgotten about their kiss outside his bedroom; how could he, after all? It wasn’t exactly something that was easy to forget. Nor did Harry want to forget it. But ever since it had happened, he’d been trying to block it from his mind for reasons he wasn’t even sure he understood.
But now…
Now with Hermione poised above him, the feelings he’d had when they had kissed earlier that night flooded back to him in an intensified wave. And he found himself wanting to kiss her again.
He could see the recognition in Hermione’s eyes as her look of concern turned to something else. Electrified, Harry could feel the energy between them changing, as a subtle shifting of emotions was taking place between them, awakening his senses in an entirely new way.
Thought no longer mattered as the pull of Hermione’s dark eyes drew him in, and suddenly aware that his arms were still around her, he slid one hand through her bushy hair until it rested at the nape of her neck. Drawing her ever closer to him, he pressed his lips to hers.
A willing participant, Hermione had dipped her head lower, pushing against him with further intensity. This was no kiss like outside his bedroom! That had been much lighter, sweeter… but this! This kiss was filled with a neediness and yearning so impassioned, Harry didn’t know from where it could have possibly sprung.
The throbbing in his head totally forgotten – for by now his body was throbbing from something else entirely – Harry let free one hand from Hermione’s back and pushed them upward ever so slightly. Rolling them over in one swift motion until Hermione lay beneath him, Harry cushioned her head under the hand that had started running fingers through her silky hair.
Merlin, he didn’t know what was happening!
Multiple sensations were overwhelming Harry. Hermione’s tongue was locked with his in a sultry tango, their bodies moving to a rhythm all their own. Her fingers were dancing along the muscles of his back, sliding down to his hips and back up again to grasp tightly at his shoulders; the motion caused little shivers to race up and down his spine. Harry’s hand moved unthinkingly to the tie of Hermione’s dressing gown, letting it loose with a gentle tug. Free of the outer garment’s constraint, he slid one hand underneath her pajama top and rested it against her warm, bare skin. Likewise, Hermione’s hands had swept underneath his sweatshirt; he could feel cool air contrasting the heat of her hands as they grazed up his back in a positively sinuous motion.
Perhaps it was this more than anything else that set Harry’s mind back in motion, the blast of air freezing his brain back in place. Or maybe it was the slight scratching of Buckbeak’s claws against the floor as the slumbering animal (which Harry had completely forgotten was even there) shifted in sleep that caused him to raise his head from Hermione’s, breaking their lips swiftly apart at last. Whatever it was that caused Harry to look up, nothing could have stopped him from catching their reflections in the mirror.
Startled by the images of their bodies intertwined on the dusty floor, Harry jumped back as though he’d seen someone else entirely in the mirror: a ghost, a phantom, but surely not his own image staring so wild-eyed back at him!
Hermione’s arms fell limply to her sides from beneath his sweatshirt. She instantly rose up on her elbows, appearing confused, as he scrambled a few feet away from her.
Feeling dazed, Harry ran one hand through his messy hair, staring in disbelief at the disheveled-looking Hermione before him. Her shirt was pulled up, revealing her smooth, bare stomach; her robe was flapping open and pooling expansively around her. Her hair was a wild mass framing her face, which was red-cheeked and just as wide-eyed, staring back at him.
For a minute, she looked like she wanted to come closer to him as she sat up fully, but there must have been such a wariness in his eyes that instead she backed away from him as well. She appeared as though she wanted to say something to him, but instead she put a hand on her forehead as though she was suddenly feeling faint.
Guilt suddenly rose up in Harry from an unknown place and he turned his eyes away from hers.
What had they done?
And why?
Why…
Hanging his head in his hands, Harry was trying to sort out something to say to her. An apology… anything…
But it was Hermione’s voice that rang out clearly in the room. He hadn’t even noticed that she had shakily stood up.
"I’m sorry, Harry."
He looked up at her in surprise.
Again, she appeared as though she wanted to say something else, but instead she simply shook her head. After a moment of silence between them, a moment that stretched across them like a deep, unfathomable chasm, Hermione spoke up again. Her voice was quiet this time, her tone almost pleading.
"Please, Harry… I—please, forgive me."
She turned to go – and though he wanted to stop her, some part of Harry was holding himself back from calling out her name.
In truth, her words had wounded him – and he could not move from the pain. The guilt that had risen so swiftly inside was turning quickly to regret and that feeling was tearing through him like sharp claws upon vulnerable skin, knifing their way through his heart.
The last thing he wished was for her to leave him this way, but Harry found he could not think of anything to say at that moment that would have drawn her back to him.
Watching helplessly as Hermione crossed the room, Harry’s eyes stayed locked on the door long after she had closed it quietly behind her. And in the gaping silence that followed, it never even occurred to Harry that they’d forgotten all about Sirius’s letter.
________________________
1 – From HP & the SS (U.S. Edition), page 213.