Chapter 9 Demons
****************Room of Requirements, Hogwarts 7th floor*********************
September 2, 2005
6am
Harry was soaked in sweat. He had risen after several hours of holding Hermione, periodically stroking her hair to coax her back to sleep when she would wake up crying. After she had finally passed into an exhausted slumber at around three, he had eased out of bed and took a nap in a chair. Normally holding her would be his most favorite thing in the world, but at the moment he had needed to stretch out. When he woke, he wrote her a note saying where he would be and went to try to work out some of the pain that he was feeling.
Ever since beginning training under Moody at the start of his sixth year, he had discovered that the defense sessions helped with the pain, at least letting him ignore it for a while. Maybe this is why Dudley took up boxing, hitting something is cathartic. Moody was an old school Auror and he believed that to do the job you had to use what you had, whether it was a wand or a sword, or just your fist. Harry had already spent almost an hour doing katas, working on the bag, and practicing the quarterstaff, which techniques worked particularly well with a wizard's staff. Harry was now working with a heavy wooden sword, slowly moving though the motions of dispatching invisible enemies.
The room was outfitted in its normal fashion for the use of the DA or the members of the Order. A cushioned mat was on the floor, with several fighting dummies over to one side. Tall shelves of spell books lined the walls, with titles like Effectiveness of the Paralysis Curse vs. Trolls, and Dark Curses Volume 4 and others. Through the windows, which weren't actually real, a gray sky could be seen to start to reveal itself as the dawn came.
Hermione quietly slipped in to the room, having found his note on the pillow. She knew that he hadn't gone far though, as she could still sense his presence in the castle. A relatively new phenomenon that would bear looking into, but not today, for now she just took comfort in it. She grabbed a book on the Use of Potions for Disguise and Defense and settled in on a couch along the wall comfortably to wait, determined not to intrude, but more secure in his presence.
Harry was more or less oblivious to her arrival. Somewhere inside he knew she was here, as he could feel her presence just as well as she could feel his. But at the moment his own demons were haunting him, his unfortunately were older and tougher, he tried to kill them with the sword as he had tried with his hands and the staff already. No matter how many times he struck down imaginary Death Eaters however, flashes of memories still haunted him, flashes, of a twelve year old Hermione lying petrified on a bed, of Ron and Hermione under the water during the tri-wizard, seemingly in danger of drowning, of the brain tentacles wrapping Ron, of the flash of purple as it struck Hermione in the chest, and finally of Sirius' face as he fell through the veil.
"AGGGHHH" Harry dropped the sword and fell to his knees. It clattered noisily on the floor as instantly Hermione ran over to him and grabbed his shoulders.
"Are you all right?" She asked with a slight hitch in her voice, and a slight tremble in her hands.
"Yeah" Harry replied unconvincingly, he knew that he couldn't lie to her, but he tried anyway to try and save her pain, on this day especially.
He got up, and holding hands they stood face to face for a moment, each trying to hide their fears from the one person they could not hide from. Hermione spoke into the silence. "You didn't have to stop last night..."
Harry smiled crookedly, "Yes I did Hermione; it was your pain acting."
"No it wasn't, at least not entirely," She responded in a whisper.
"When can both act with clear hearts and heads. Then little girl, let's see you get away from me." Harry teased back, dropping his forehead to hers.
"And I thought I was supposed to be the mature one." She replied with a smirk, her eyes lighting up for him, just a little, for the first time since he had seen her and Tonks leave to go shopping on that fateful day.
"If it helps I think Ron and Luna are less mature than either of us." He responded, trying to lighten the mood even more.
"NO!" she gasped in an incredulous voice. Harry could see the wheels turning as she flashed to the obvious conclusion.
"Yep" Harry gave a single chuckle at the thought, and how he had found out, how Ginny had walked in on them at Grimmauld, and her surprised yelp had attracted Harry to see what was up in his house.
Hermione started to laugh, and then began crying softly. Through her tears, "Damn it why is it so hard?" Harry pulled her in close and kissed her forehead softly, he rocked her gently in his arms and felt for a response.
" I think it's supposed to be." He said, his thoughts flying back to his parents and Sirius, and the fact that the only reason he was here today was the witch in his arms, who had brought him through that dark time a year ago.
She wiped her tears, quietly, "It's like a hole in my soul Harry, I keep thinking that they will sending a letter any second now asking about that Potter boy, or how my grades are, or just nothing at all, just to say hello. I miss them and it's only a few days now since the attacks, what will I do, a week, a month from now." She asked, not expecting a response.
She got one anyway, because he had to say something, anything that could help. "We go on because that's what they would want Mione."
"How did you get so smart?" She replied softly into his shoulder, unconsciously snuggling closer into him.
"Hanging out with you mostly." Harry retorted with a shrug.
"Harry can we get some breakfast sent up to our common room, I don't want to go down there and see him. I don't know what I might do," as she pictured Malfoy's head on a pike. Just as Harry had in Dumbledore's office, the night of the attacks, she had put two and two together and got Draco. She was scared, not of him, but of what she could do to him. She had killed at least two of the Death Eaters at her house, no one had told her, but she knew anyway, and she knew if she could do that unthinkingly, she could easily destroy the younger Malfoy.
"Sure" Harry said, a little relieved. Without another word, he led her by the hand out the door and towards Gryffindor Tower.
**************** A small cemetery in the woods outside Canton, England**********
September 2, 2005
3pm
The day had dawned gray over Canton and stayed overcast, a light misting rain was now falling, causing streams of water to cascade from the umbrella Harry held over Hermione and himself. The weather fitted the mood aptly. The coffins of Roger and Jane Granger have just been laid into the ground. Almost the entire Order of the Phoenix was present as both a show of strength and as a gesture of solidarity to Hermione. The wizards in the crowd were all dressed as muggles, even Dumbledore was present in a somber grey suit, and Tonks had on a black dress with her hair it's actual black color instead of a more normal shocking pink. The muggles present this evil day, such as Hermione's one set of surviving grandparents have been told that the majority of the Wizards were the Professors from the boarding school that she attended, which was technically true. Hermione stood stone faced the entire time holding Harry's free hand for support, letting go only for a moment to throw a rose onto her mother's coffin. Ron stood next to them, under another umbrella with Luna, as close as their umbrella would allow. The entire time she never said a word, only nodding where appropriate, while silent tears streaked down her face.
The scene had been much the same several hours earlier with the exceptions that the Order had been in full regalia, for Percy had been fully inducted into the Order on his death, the black cloak covering the coffin. The other difference in the two scenes was that the weeping of Molly and Ginny was anything but silent. After a long time Arthur had pushed Molly's wheelchair away, as she had not yet recovered from the attack on the burrow.
************************Head's Common Room****************************
September 3, 2005
"Hermione," Harry said softly as he came up the stairs from the lower common room, "Arthur and Molly are here and they would like to see you. Are you ok, love?"
Hermione glanced up from the couch, where she had been pretending to read a charms text. Crookshanks followed her gaze towards Harry and jumped down from her lap to come over and rub on his legs. "I'm fine Harry, did they say what they wanted?"
"No," Harry replied, shrugging. Hermione's lips twitched into a frown, but she waved them in nonetheless. Harry flicked a small smile in return, before he returned to the lower common room and helped Arthur with Molly, as she was still weak from the after effects of the Cruciatus Curse. Harry helped Arthur with Molly as she sat down in a plush armchair opposite Hermione. Harry started to leave to give them privacy, but stopped at a covert motion from Arthur, so with a slight shrug he went and sat next to Hermione instead, his hand finding hers automatically as he sat.
Arthur sat in the chair next to Molly and leaned forward, towards the teens. "Hermione, before...Jane and Roger died, last Christmas in fact, they had a talk with Molly and I." Arthur stopped and looked over at his wife, who gave him a sad, half smile. "They asked us if we would consider being your guardian if anything happened to them." Hermione nodded at him, technically she would be of age in a few weeks in the Wizarding world, but she was still a year shy in the muggle one, though no one here really cared. Arthur wasn't done yet though. "Molly and I talked last night and we would like to go one better, Hermione we would like to adopt you into the Weasley clan. Only if you want to of course, God knows we aren't the richest family, even now but we..."
"Ok" Hermione replied in a small voice, tears in her eyes. As she saw Molly trying to get up to hug her and failing, she jumped up and hugged her instead, "Thank you..."
"Harry, can you do me a favor and get Ginny and Ron," Arthur asked hesitantly, Harry just nodded and left down the stairs only to reappear a bit later with Ron and Ginny in tow.
"Mum, dad, what's wrong." Ginny exclaimed as she came up the stairs, understandably assuming the worst. Ron just looked at his parents, and only nodded a greeting.
"Nothing's wrong dear, you have just gained a sister though." Molly replied through her tears. Ginny immediately looked over at Hermione and squealed. She ran over and gave her a huge hug. Ron slowly followed and repeated her actions, more sedately but with just as much feeling.
Over to the side Harry started to move away to give the new family privacy, only to be stopped by Arthur's gentle grip. He leaned close, and in a soft voice, "No Harry. Stay. You are just as much family as Hermione is now, anyway, I doubt it will be that long until we are related." Harry rolled his eyes a bit at the insinuation, but he didn't disagree. Silently Harry and Arthur wandered over to the clan, now in all the ways that really counted, two souls richer, not that either of them hadn't been an honorary Weasley for the last six or seven years.
A/N: The climb back begins. And as you can see there is more than one way to a big happy Weasley family. Next chapter
an interesting proposal from Dumbledore.