Chapter Eight: How The Heart Heals
Dumbledore had long since left.
…the only people who have ever attempted this, along with their recovered victims, refused to speak of the experience afterward…
He had watched only as far as Hermione smoothing her hand over Harry's face. He had recognized the look in both their eyes, and knew that what was about to happen should be theirs, and theirs alone.
He quickly said the incantation to disable the Scrying Glass. He had no sooner done this, than the glass layer at the bottom of the bowl cracked, returning to the pieces it had originally been. He looked over at Harry and Hermione's bodies.
The dark cloud around Harry was gone. In its place was a blanket of light, covering the two teenagers. As he watched, a small, perfect orb of glass appeared in the air over Harry. It spun, becoming a blinding radiance. The pieces of glass in the stone bowl flew towards it, joining with it until the orb became a perfect crystal sphere, which lowered itself until it hovered just over Harry's heart. The light grew dimmer, then disappeared. And with it, the orb.
Harry's soul had returned.
Dumbledore noticed that Harry was crying. His eyes were shut, his face calm, yet tears were running down the sides of his face, flowing over Hermione's hands to the floor.
It was then Dumbledore left. He would never speak of this either.
Hermione woke to find she couldn't breathe very well. She kept her eyes closed, taking stock of her position. She could smell the faint mustiness of Grimmauld Place, feel a wooden floor beneath her, and she was leaning against something warm. A pair of strong arms was around her, rocking her back and forth.
She leaned against Harry, snaking her arms around him and pressing her face to his chest.
He was crying, she realized with a start. She had only seen Harry cry once, and he had, technically, been four years old at the time. He was holding her so tightly she could feel his heart beating, in perfect time with hers. The grip of his arms around her back was slightly painful, but she didn't want him to stop holding her. He was saying something, but she couldn't quite hear what it was, he was talking so softly.
"What are you saying?" She murmured.
"You love me…. You love me…" He said, his voice containing incredible joy and gratitude.
Hermione slowly pushed away from him. She looked up into his eyes, bright green again, and wet with tears. She shifted so she was sitting on his lap, running her fingers under his eyes, wiping away his tears. She smiled, and kissed him. He smiled and kissed her back. Then he smiled at her, a happy, honest smile.
"You love me." He said again, with a finality that made Hermione sure he had been telling himself as well as her.
She laughed and put her arms around his neck. He laid his head on her shoulder and drew a shaky breath, then released it.
"And don't you ever doubt it." She whispered, stroking his hair.
*
"Professor, can I ask you something?"
"Obviously you've just done so. You may ask me one more question, however." Dumbledore replied, eyes twinkling.
It was the night after Harry's soul had been restored. Dumbledore was sitting in the drawing room at Grimmauld Place, on an old threadbare sofa that hadn't yet been replaced.
Harry was sitting on an identical couch, Hermione laying down on it with her head in his lap, fast asleep. Harry was stroking her hair, lost in thought, when he suddenly looked up, and asked Dumbledore something that had occurred to him after Hermione told him about the Scrying Glass.
"If you had known what life was going to be like for me, at the Dursleys, I mean, would you still have sent me there, knowing I could die if you didn't?"
Dumbledore sighed heavily. "You sure do pick difficult questions to ask, don't you?
To be quite honest, Harry, I asked myself the same question while you were, ah, indisposed, and I think I have an answer, if you're sure you want to know."
Harry said nothing, but waited patiently.
Dumbledore sighed again and said, "In the sense that you need to live because you are the only one who can face Voldemort with a chance of winning, yes. In the sense that I would spare you pain wherever possible, no."
"I suppose that just goes to show how selfish I am," he continued sadly. "that I would cause you harm in sacrifice for what is sometimes mistakenly called, 'the greater good.' If there was any other way for you to be kept safe, I would never have put you there. More than that, I cannot say, for regrets cannot change what has already happened, and I regret many of my decisions regarding you more than I could possibly express with words."
He watched Harry for his reaction. Harry was silent for a time, then he said, slowly and deliberately, as if each word was a revelation to himself as well as to Dumbledore, "Maybe not with words, Professor, but if there is one thing I have learned from all of this, it is that actions speak louder than words. Last summer, you left me alone, and I doubted if you cared for me as much as I had believed you did. This summer, however, you proved you did when you sent for Hermione, and in doing so, saved my life. I know you care for me, and I don't blame or hate you for sending me to the Dursleys, as I did a few days ago. Those experiences, however horrible, are part of who I am, and, in spite of them, or perhaps even because of them, I'm a stronger person than I might have been if I had never been sent there."
"And besides," he went on, disregarding the tears in Dumbledore's eyes. "It's not as if the Dursleys are never going to regret treating me the way they did. There's just a little over a year until I'm old enough to use magic outside of school, and since the Dursleys already know about the magical world, it's not as though I'll be breaking any laws if I decide to give them a little payback will it? As long as I restrain myself from using and Unforgivable Curses of course." He smiled in a very self-satisfied manner, and Dumbledore looked away to hide his smile.
"Can I come?" Hermione said sleepily from Harry's lap.
"Come where, love?" Harry asked, smiling down at her.
"The Dursleys, when you go to give them some payback, can I come with you?" Hermione begged. She had obviously not forgotten her experiences with Four and Apathy.
Harry raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, smiling at her. He hadn't forgotten the jinx she had use on Marrietta Edgecombe last year, and secretly thought Dudley would look much better with a few choice words written across his face in purple pimples.
"I thought you'd never ask."
AN: And I thought I'd never finish. Thanks to all the people my dad told about my story, who urged me to "get this finished, and to heck with schoolwork for a while" (grins evilly)
So, I don't think this story is too bad, considering it's the first fanfic I've EVER written. I've got a few more ideas in the works, including one where Hermione and Moaning Myrtle have a showdown over Harry, with a lot of bathroom flooding and misplaced jinxes. It's supposed to be a comedy, but don't be surprised if it never shows up, because when I mentioned it to my dad, he just sort of grunted. Of course, he was watching our "Chamber of Secrets" DVD at the time, so he may not have even been listening.
I'd like to thank Luna Tyler for looking over my first few chapters, my Dad for being a wonderful beta and letting me steal his laptop for the past month so I could do this story (And my homework too, of course) and my friend Bluemoon, who I hope will let me come to her house this summer so I can get Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on the night it's released, because she lives much closer to bookstores than I do!
Until I write again,
Renaiya