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He rushed over to the heap that was Hermione, and made to reach down to help her, but stopped mere centimeters from where she lay. Pointing his wand directly at her as she began to sit up, he muttered "Identifio Hermione." A blue aura formed around Hermione for several seconds. Harry immediately dropped his wand onto his bedroom floor and bent down to help her.
"Can't be too careful, right, Harry?" she said, sitting up with his help and rubbing her head.
"Yeah," he sighed. "Death Eaters popping into my bedroom Polyjuiced to look like one of my best friends. It wouldn't surprise me." He looked directly at her, and, as if he hadn't thought it was strange until now, he blurted, "How are you in my bedroom?"
She smiled, and then grimaced slightly as she tried to get to her feet.
"Are you OK?" he asked quickly, his eyes going wide. "I'm sorry, I should have asked earlier--"
"I'm fine," she said. "Just your floor is pretty hard, and I'm... I'm not very accurate with my Apparating yet. I aimed for the bed. Soft landing. I've never actually seen this room, though, so it was pretty difficult. And it's more difficult in the dark."
"I've never actually noticed the texture of my floor-- wait, did you just say you Apparated?" he interrupted his own sarcastic remark to ask, amazed.
"Yes," she said, looking at the floor she'd just crash-landed on. "I have a provisional license for Apparition--"
"You can't do that until you're of age."
She sighed and rolled her eyes at him. "I am of age. According to my birth certificate, I'm not of age, but I spent a year using a Time-Turner, so technically I have lived for just over a year longer than I've been alive." He gave her a confused look. "I'm 17, according to the Ministry. I'm of age. But I just got my license last week, and I've never gone quite this far before. And it's harder after dark."
"Are you sure you're OK?" he asked, helping her to finally get to her feet.
"I'm fine, Harry, but how about you? This bedroom... it's a wreck... have they been feeding you? And your arm is bruised, they haven't beaten you, have they?" Her eyes widened and she got a tone of concern and anger in her voice. "You look so run down---" she reached out and pushed his abnormally long messy black hair off of his forehead "---and why on Earth haven't you written?"
"You sound just like Mrs. Weasley," he said, almost bitterly. "All of them. You look awful, Harry. You haven't written. Are they treating you like they should? They're bloody well treating me the same way as they always have, and it's not them that I'm upset with. Them I can deal with. It's being cut off from our world that I can't deal with. I'm stuck in this room... this house... because here I'm safe." He abruptly stopped, knowing that he'd said too much.
Hermione looked toward him with tears in her eyes. "Harry... I..."
"I'm sorry, Hermione. It's not you, really," he said, in a voice that was somewhat distant.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Hermione finally broke it, by saying, "You called me about a mirror--"
Harry turned to face her. He strode over to the bed, where he'd left the mirror. "This one," he said, showing it to her. She reached out to take it from him, to inspect it, but he abruptly pulled it away and hurled it, hard, against the doorframe of his room.
"Harry!" she shrieked, half in surprise and half in fear.
"It's OK, Hermione. I told you I threw it in my trunk last year and broke it."
"Then what on Earth was that one? And why did you break this mirror?" Her posture was stiff, and for the first time when facing Harry, she looked as if she'd realized the type of power that he contained.
"Because the mirror that he gave me... it had a message from him on the back. Really short, and it didn't say anything. Last year, I hurled it in my trunk and it shattered. This is the same one."
She stood stiffly, not completely at ease. "How is the one you just broke the same one as the one you broke last year?"
"I don't know," he said, "but it is. I found it today, and I was really upset, and I threw it against my wall. I realized that I'd broken it before. I knew this was a magic mirror, but I didn't know that, well, this would happen."
"If it's a magic mirror, why would you have broken it? It might be helpful someday. Repar--"
"No!" he said, pushing her wand upwards so that the spell hit his ceiling, and instantly repaired an old crack that had once divided his room. Seeing the fierce question in her eyes, he coaxed her wand hand down. "Watch," he nodded toward the shards of glass on the floor.
Looking between him and the floor, she slowly walked closer to the wall. Kneeling down next to the splinters, she inspected them carefully, until they began to glow gold and lift off of the floor. She let out a small gasp and scooted back a small distance as the shards spun and spun, faster and higher, until they finally fell to the floor once again, but as a whole and unblemished mirror.
"Amazing," she whispered, slowly reaching out to touch the mirror. She turned it over and over in her hands, until her eyes came to rest on some very small script engraved on the back. She couldn't easily read it in the semidark corner of Harry's bedroom. "Is this... is this his message?"
"It was," he said. "It isn't anymore. It looked like some foreign language, but I didn't recognize any of it. I can't read any of it. That's why I called you." He paused. "I knew you'd be able to figure it out. You're the brightest person I know. I figured that if you couldn't understand it, no one could."
She blushed a brilliant pink. "Do you think there's anywhere that we could go to look at this where there's more light?"
"Yeah," he said. "Better go to the kitchen... oh, wait, you Apparated all the way here and I didn't even ask you if you wanted anything to drink! Do you want anything?"
She smiled, getting up and taking her wand in one hand and the mirror in the other. "Maybe some tea," she said. "I've heard stories, you know, that you can cook."
"Maybe I can," he said, grinning at her. "I've been the House-Elf here for as long as I could remember."
"Speaking of here... where are the Dursleys?" she asked, looking around quizzically.
"Don't know, don't really care."
She shot him a reprimanding look. "Is it... alright for me to be here?"
"Why wouldn't it be?" Harry asked, confused. "It's not like I have friends over all the time, in fact, I don't think I've ever had a friend over. It's never come up. Why wouldn't it be alright? After all, there's nothing much they can do to us."
She gave him a look that said yes-I'm-of-age-but-I'm-not-going-to-do-magic-on-Muggles. "I meant that they aren't here, and I'm alone here with you, and I'm a girl."
He laughed. "Let them have a shock. Abnormal, freakish Harry bringing a girl home before Diddykins."
Her eyes widened and she slapped him gently on the shoulder as they walked down to the kitchen. "It's a very nice house," she said.
"Nicer than its inhabitants," he quipped.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Mind if I use your telephone?" she asked. "My parents are probably very concerned. I hung up the phone with you, and told them that I was going to help you."
"Right there," he said, pointing to the phone. "They just let you go?"
"They knew they couldn't stop me. I'm close to my mum. I tell her everything... she knows about everything that happened last year. She knows the danger I put myself into, but she knows all she can tell me to do is to be careful. She took me to get my license. My parents love me, and they trust me to do what's right. Now, I think it's amusing that they let me Apparate cross-country, but I can't walk down the block on my own..." she laughed as she dialed.
Harry left her with the phone and went to put a pot of water on the stove. It was amazing how much better he felt with her there. It gave him both a wonderful and a terrifying feeling to know that she came running when she knew he needed help. She trusted him, cared for him enough to come to him. But he knew the magnitude of danger that she was putting herself into because of that. How dangerous it was to care about Harry Potter. The Dursleys' stove was slow, and just as the water came to a boil, Hermione hung up the phone.
"How much sugar do--" he started.
"It kept ringing," he heard Hermione's distant, emotionless voice say. "They aren't there."
Harry put the sugar down and came out to find Hermione staring out into space, with one hand on the telephone receiver. "Hermione, what..."
"They're not there, Harry," she said, her voice sounding foreign even to her. "The phone kept ringing, and ringing, and the answering machine's been disconnected, and..." her voice broke. "They're not there! What's happened to them, Harry?! What? They... they aren't there..."
"Maybe they... went to get the post."
"It's Sunday, Harry, there's no post on Sundays. I was just there. They were going to wait by the phone, Harry. They were waiting for me. And they're not... they're... they're not there." Her legs seemed to crumple under her and she fell onto the floor, kneeling and with her eyes red. "Not there," she repeated softly as the tears started to fall.
Had it been anyone else, Harry would have tried to talk logical sense into them. But he knew Hermione. He knew her sixth sense. Her parents were Muggles, and with the war... he knew how she felt. And the sick feeling that she was probably right swallowed him. Hermione was one of the most logical people he'd ever met, and if there was any other explanation, she'd go with that one instead of thinking the worst. His insides burned as he watched her, still kneeling and curled up in a ball, her arms wrapped around herself. She lifted her red eyes to his and a rush of feeling filled him. She fell onto his chest, and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her.
He held her close to him, kneeled next to her on the floor. Her arms still around her own midsection, she buried her face in his chest. He pulled her closer, wrapping his long arms around her back. His hands traced wide and unfamiliar patterns on her back, as though he was trying to comfort all of her at once. He sat there with her for several minutes, until he felt something hit him in the back of the head.
He turned around to see a small, rather ordinary-looking owl settling onto the railing of the stairs. He reluctantly removed one of his hands from Hermione so that he could reach behind him and retrieve the letter that had hit him. He read the address carefully.
Ms. Hermione Granger
The Kitchen/Hallway
You-know-where
"'Mione," he said softly. He'd said her full name, but the first part hadn't come out as he tried to keep his voice from cracking. "You've a letter."
Lifting her head slowly, she reached out with shaking hands to take the letter. It had only a partial address. It didn't indicate anything but the Kitchen/Hallway of You-know-where, and had no other location markings. She turned the envelope over, but found the seal to be plain. There was no indication as to from whom the letter had come. She shakily pulled the fold of the envelope apart and took out the scrap of parchment. Unfolding it, she began to read aloud in a very soft, unsteady voice.
"They are fine. You are in danger. Stay where you are. Do not owl anyone. More to follow," she finished quietly. She turned the parchment over and over, as if looking for anything more. She raised her eyes to Harry's once again.
"Hermione, they're fine... your parents," he said softly. "That's great!" He tried to make it sound as if he meant it completely, but found the attempt futile. They both knew that all was not well.
"Yeah," she breathed, but was obviously not content with that. Tears still welled in her eyes. "They might be fine... but we're not... and if they're fine, where are they?"
The phone rang before Harry could find an answer. He stood and picked it up, saying "Hello," in a voice that was as normal as he could manage. What he heard on the other end, however, was as far from normal as it could be.
"I need to speak with Miss Otter."
He furrowed his brow. Miss Otter? And he knew that voice. Suddenly, the realization hit him.
"Professo--"
"Yes," she said quickly, cutting him off before he could say her name. "Would you please give the telephone to her?"
Dazed, he pulled the reciever from his ear and covered the mouthpiece. "Hermione, it's for you," he said. "It's... it's a tabby cat."
Her eyes went very wide and she rose quickly, taking the phone from him. "Yes?"
"Miss Otter," the stern voice on the other end began, "Your family is safe. There was an attack. The Mark was found at your house. The target of their attack, however, appeared to be you, and not your family. The enemy detected what you had done and came looking for you. We detected it also and your family has been relocated. They are not seriously injured. They are being taken care of and their injuries are being attended to. You are to remain where you are. You are not to leave the house that you are in via magical methods. You may leave the house for short periods of time during the day, but you must not leave Muggle Surrey and you must live entirely as Muggles outside of the house. Do not go looking for your family, they were taken into a secret location. Do not send letters to anyone using your name, and do not send any owls. Your family is fine and healthy and safe, trust in our protection. When we are able to set up a method for them to contact you, we will do so. You may do magic except for communication or transportation. There are wards surrounding your location and your signature will not be detected. There were several attacks. The ginger family has also been relocated. Do not look for anyone. Stay in your current location."
She stared straight ahead at nothing in particular, her eyes shiny, but her resolve strong. "I will," she said.
"Hang in there," the voice softened slightly and said. "Now, may I please speak with Mr. Prongs?"
She handed Harry the phone before sliding down the wall to stay staring ahead.
"I'm here," he said.
"You are to take care of her. She'll be with you for a while. Don't worry about your family. They're going to win a sweepstakes. Do you have a pen?"
He reached for the pen and little hummingbird pad of sticky notes that sat next to the telephone, on the corner table. "I have a pen."
"And something to write on?"
"Yes, Professor," he rolled his eyes. She knew him too well.
"You must never use any... abnormal means of communication. If you need us, you will need to call. The... the others do not even look at this type of communication, as it is below their standard. Either myself or Mr. Phoenix will have this cellular phone on at all times."
As he took the number down, he laughed internally at the image of Professor McGonagall, or worse, Dumbledore on a cell phone.
"Help her, please. Take good care of her. Take good care of yourself. I will speak with you soon."
"Yes, Professor."
He heard the click on the other end of the line, and he hung up slowly, as if he must have imagined the entire conversation. Professor McGonagall, calling Hermione at his house, on the Dursley's telephone. He vaguely wondered when she'd learned to use a telephone. He took the sticky note and folded it over once, sliding it into the pocket of his trousers.
Hermione was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall and her legs out straight in front of her. She was staring into space silently. Harry knelt down on the floor next to her and took one of her hands in his. He didn't know why he did it, he just knew it seemed like the right thing to do. As he squeezed her small hand in both of his, she lightly squeezed back and turned to look at him He could see the pain in her eyes, and he could see something else that he had very rarely seen in her before. Fear. She was one of the bravest souls he'd ever met, and here she was, her resolve strong but her heart hurting.