Chapter 3:
"You two know each other?" Hermione asked in confusion, looking between her past and present best friends.
"You know Kate? From before?" Tom asked Harry as Harry placed Hermione's trunk back on the ground. Harry nodded, and Tom gazed at her for a moment.
"Then?"
"Yes."
"Um, excuse me, but if you two could stop this cryptic conversation, I'd like to know what on earth is going on."
"We went to school with Tom's fiancée, you never met him, but I did. " Harry tried to explain, shooting an apologetic glance at Tom, who nodded his understanding of the situation.
"But you…oh, the fiancée who died." Hermione whispered. Tom nodded in confirmation.
"Did she know Susan?"
Harry smiled sadly, before nodding.
"They were friends, had classes together, they knew each other much better than I knew Susan. She and Hermione were often in the library looking something up, after graduation of course Susan moved down to London and met you, and we stayed in Scotland. They used to write letters until…" Harry remembered.
"Hermione?" Tom queried.
"My real name. Hermione Granger."
"Maybe we should all go somewhere and talk." Harry suggested.
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Sometime later Harry was looking curiously around Tom and Hermione's flat, taking in the little details, seeing the neatly stacked notes and books on the desk which was undoubtedly Hermione's.
"There's something the two of you are keeping from me." Hermione said bluntly as they sat down in the living room.
"Well, you're right as usual." Tom said sadly as Harry rummaged around in the trunk of belongings before retrieving a picture frame and holding it in his hands.
"You received this letter when you were eleven years old, it accepted you into our school, and a whole new chapter of your life. I know it seems ridiculous, but it's true." Harry said as he handed over the much treasured Hogwarts letter which Hermione's parents had kept framed in their home. He and Tom watched her anxiously, occasionally glancing at one another before continuing to watch their friend.
"So, I'm a witch?"
Hermione looked up to see both nod at her in unison, and smiled at the looks on their faces.
"So you two are wizards then." She said thoughtfully. Harry looked to Tom to answer the question.
"Harry is. My fiancée was, it was quite a shock she told me! But I'm not involved in the Wizarding world."
"I'm sorry about Susan, Tom." Hermione said, reaching across and placing a comforting hand on her friends arm. Seeming to instinctively understand how hard this must now be for him.
"It's ok. It was a long time ago now, I used to see her Aunt occasionally but it just made it worse to be honest, being around her family, knowing they were all magical, and being reminded that she was gone."
"Her family was magical…Does that mean my parents were magical?"
"No. Sometimes there's just one magical individual in a family, a lucky fluke. Your parents had their own dentist surgery in Sussex, but they were as thrilled as you were when you got your letter." Harry replied.
"Really?"
"Oh yes, I suffered through a weekend of your Dad trying to teach me golf, and not letting me cheat with magic, and when he wasn't holding the laughter in he was boasting about you. His little genius he used to call you." Harry winced at the memory and Hermione chuckled.
"Did I like school? Was I good at magic? Do I still have my magic?" Hermione asked, a stream of questions running through her mind as she processed all the new information.
"You were a bossy little know it all, and you drove us mad when we started school. One day Ron said something about it and you overheard…it was Halloween so as usual there was some kind of disaster and we realised you were missing. We ran off to find you, saved you, got ourselves in all kinds of trouble until you took the blame and got us all out of trouble again. After that we were never apart…well, other than silly things like Ron thinking your cat ate his pet rat…Never mind, I'm getting off track. This is a lot to take in, but why am I not surprised that you haven't even questioned the existence of magic or what it can do? You were an amazing witch, the cleverest and bravest I've ever known, and very powerful too. You will still have your magic, but you'll have to relearn how to control it." Harry said, wishing he'd taken it slower and not started to get into anecdotes involving trolls and then having to backtrack so as not to alarm her.
Harry and Tom patiently answered her questions for the next two hours, Harry pulling out photographs and letters, at one point having to delve into an old school textbook from the trunk to answer one of Hermione's typically complex questions about the nature of magic in relation to Muggle physics. There was one topic they had avoided however, how did they explain Voldemort…the wizard who had so closely touched all of their lives?
Hermione returned to her chair having ordered some pizza for the three of them, and looked at Harry and then Tom directly.
"I think it's time to tell me what you've been trying to avoid telling me. I'll have to find out sometimes, and to be honest I'd like to get it over with or I'll worry about it constantly until I found out my own way." Harry grinned to have the old Hermione back, taking a deep breath before beginning to tell his story, Tom listening as fascinated as Hermione, for he had of course heard the legends, but hearing it from Harry himself was something wizards all over the globe would pay millions for, particularly those in the media.
"Obviously not everyone is good, human nature being what it is, there are those who give in to the greed, hurt and anger, and when a wizard gives in to these emotions, allowing them to overtake what truly matters then he loses control. There have always been dark wizards, and there have always been those who fight them. I'll admit I napped through many a History of Magic lesson but you took copious notes, and you'll be able to read about them all again now. But what's important is the existence of dark magic, spells that hurt, that torture, that kill. The last Dark wizard called himself Lord Voldemort, people are still afraid to say his name. He killed indiscriminately, searching for power, and attempting to purify the Wizarding world by killing everyone not from an all wizard family. Naturally there were those who tried to stop him, the most important was Albus Dumbledore, our Headmaster at Hogwarts. He was the only one in the world as powerful than Voldemort. My parents worked with Dumbledore to fight Voldemort, and they faced him three times. Now, this is the bit you never liked, as you always did say there wasn't enough fact or reason behind divination, but I'm afraid it's the way it is. Everything hinges around a prophecy. One of Voldemort's followers, they called themselves Death Eaters, overheard the first part of a prophecy declaring that a baby boy born at the end of June would have the power to defeat him. Voldemort then decided that the obvious solution would be to kill the boy as a baby - but he didn't hear the last part of the prophecy and that's why he decided to try and kill me when I was a baby. He killed my parents to get to me, but because they died to protect me, the curse failed and instead his body was killed and his spirit fled. Everyone thought the war was over, all because of this stupid scar on my forehead." Harry sighed, pushing his hair back briefly to reveal the distinctive lightning bolt for a moment.
"He spent the next ten years trying to return, almost succeeding in our First Year at school, that was why you were in danger, he came closer still in our second year, and in our fourth year of school he managed it. He had a body again and killing me was the one thing he wanted more than anything, for revenge. It was alright for a while, he was still gathering supporters, but gradually the violence grew and grew, and he learnt what the rest of the prophecy said, what we already knew, that one of us had to die, if the other one was going to live. I had to kill him, or he would destroy everything…only four people knew that at the time…Dumbledore, me, you and Remus, my unofficial guardian…we all worked and fought, we were all in danger, and we lost many friends and people we considered family. We were almost twenty one when it finally ended, the last battle, it was a massacre, I truly hope you never remember it…that was the night we lost Susan. She fought with us as she had done since we were sixteen years old, and she was killed by a cowardly curse from behind…Tom and I met at her funeral a few weeks later…." Harry said trailing off into silence and Tom took over.
"I was angry that she'd been fighting at all - it was all too much. I understand now of course, her death did matter, does matter, she helped to end the war and that she would have been proud of. Harry approached me in the chapel after the service. I was angry at anyone who approached me, but just one look at Harry, and I knew that there was someone out there who felt exactly as I did, who understood my pain. He'd lost someone too that night. We spoke for a long time, talked about what we would do now, without Susan, without you…"
"We thought you were dead. Well, everyone told me you were, but I knew you'd tried to apparate - that there was a chance, but it took weeks to track down the magical trail you'd left behind you, not until after all of this, and in the end all the trail told us was that you'd been alive when you left and had later arrived in America. Your wand was still where you'd vanished from so you had no means to protect yourself, and we had to assume that the spell aimed at you had hit before you could escape. You were cursed from behind as well, you weren't expecting it because Voldemort was already dead - it was over, and the battle had ended really, but a few of his supporters had lingered and surrounded you…it was payback for me killing Voldemort - they didn't want to kill you - they wanted to destroy me - they erased your memory - so you wouldn't remember me - ever. There is nothing that can reverse the Obliviate spell without the risk of further damaging, or even, killing, the cursed individual. You did the most sensible thing as you always do, and tried to vanish before they could get you, but they were fast. Because the particles of your body were already moving to a new destination they were partly unsuccessful which is why parts of your memory are intact - you can still function, remember how to speak and walk and think - and most important of all you remembered something about your past which means you may be able to break through the spell. By the time we had got rid of the Death Eaters that had surrounded you, there was nothing but your wand lying on the ground."
Harry's voice expressed the pain that he had lived with for so long, and Hermione looked up to meet his eyes, wanting to go to him. She was almost out of her chair and hugging a man she'd only met that morning for the second time in a matter of hours, but the chime of the doorbell signalled the arrival of their pizza and she blinked, bringing herself back to the present.
After they'd eaten Harry stood to leave and Hermione and Tom stood also, an awkward silence suddenly filling the room after hours of conversation.
"I'll leave you to take everything in…your photo albums and diaries are in the trunk, you'll automatically be able to open and read the diaries, they're charmed to recognise only you. When you're ready come and see me - I wont force you into trying to remember - but when you're a little more used to everything there are so many people who have waited years to see you again…Ron, and the rest of the family. That's what they are - family…" Harry smiled at her and after shaking Tom's hand he walked out of the door. Seconds later something hit him from behind as he was wrapped up in one of Hermione's trademark bear hugs. He hugged her back as tightly as he could.
"Thank you Harry." She said with a shy smile before running back into the house and closing the door.
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