Sway

Problem: Received Take-Home essay final exam for Politics and Culture class and realized you haven’t done any of the readings this semester.

Solution: Write a fanfic to distract yourself!

This is the prologue and first chapter to a story I’m toying around with starting, it’s a switch from what I usually write (Harry Potter fandom or not) and I’m wondering if it’s worth continuing. It’s a post-Hogwarts story, with no real direction beyond getting Harry and Hermione together, but something’ll probably crop up.

-- jamie

effectivelyabsent@yahoo.com

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They had all given it a go. It was inevitable, a tight-knit trio such as theirs was inevitably bound to romantic entanglements.

Ron and Hermione had tried first. Following the angst-riddled debacle that was fourth year, it was almost laughable how quickly the two had become one. The summer was apparently a time of physical maturation and emotional growth for Ronald Weasley and upon arrival fifth year he had all but professed feelings toward Hermione. With only token, grudgingly-given, encouragement from Harry (no doubt only seeking to fulfill his duties as ‘best friend,’ and not actually approving) Ron had broken down and asked Hermione out at the beginning of the term.

They made it to Boxing Day.

Christmas that year was an awkward celebration of soured feelings and gift-exchange. Harry, in a valiant effort to prove his non-existent acceptance of the couple, had purchased two tickets to a Weird Sisters concert in Hogsmeade for the following month, a gift that was received uncomfortably, due, in large part, to the looming threat of a break-up. And as the break-up became reality the following day, Harry had taken Hermione to the show and given Ron a Chudley Cannons sweater in lieu of his original gift.

The concert proved to be an exercise in restraint for Harry as a month was not sufficient time to make professing your love to your best friend’s ex-girlfriend (and, incidentally, your other best friend) a polite practice. Questions would haunt Harry as to whether this was ever a polite practice.

Owing to the fact that Harry and Hermione were raised in muggle environments and subsequently were not as well-versed in the Weird Sisters music as Ron was (in fact, their only exposure had been the fourth year ball), the concert was spent trying to ascertain the rhythm to songs they had never heard in order to be able to nod their heads in time properly. It was also spent trying not to stare at each other with gazes full of longing and doubt. It was mutually agreed on the walk home that the Rolling Stones show playing in the nearest muggle village would have been a better spent time and Harry hummed ‘Beast of Burden’ for the next week.

Sixth year was spent uneventfully (well, uneventfully romantically anyway, Voldemort continued to insist on annual plots to kill Harry). Hermione had found herself a nice Ravenclaw prefect to date, Ron was courting the new female Gryffindor chaser, and Harry was realizing he had ‘commitment issues.’ Hermione had dated the boy all of sixth year and into the summer. She seemed, for all intents and purposes, happy. The only time she would express any sort of melancholia was when a comment such as, “We all thought you’d end up with Harry!” was made. Ron, over his self-proclaimed ‘childish crush’ on Hermione, had dated around and also seemed content with his love life, as it were. Harry, on the other hand, could not, for the life of him, make a relationship last more than three weeks. Every girl proclaimed him “distracted” or “distant” and he proclaimed his fair share as “flaky” or “selfish.”

When the time finally came, during the middle of seventh year, for Harry and Hermione to be together, it was built on such a shaky foundation that it self-destructed before graduation. Harry, having narrowly escaped death once more (and destroying Voldemort in the process), sought out Hermione for comfort and Hermione gave it. It became a relationship of co-dependence and crazed, powerful interludes in the astronomy tower (or Harry’s dorm, or Hermione’s room, or, once the Charms classroom. . .). Before irreparable damage could be done to the friendship, the relationship was mutually ended and the two completed the semester on ‘friendly’ terms.

Harry surprised everyone and accepted an internship at The Daily Prophet (only answering cryptically that it was time to take it easy when questioned), Hermione had gone on to further academic pursuits, and Ron, ironically, was set to play professional quidditch as a second-string beater.

The trio drifted, with visits turning to owl posts and owl posts turning to sporadic owl posts, when Ron was traded to the team backed by the town Hermione was attending school in and Harry was assigned as the Prophet’s liaison to the team.

By some strange twist of fate, the ‘dream team’ was to be reunited.

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The title is from a Rolling Stones song of the same name, the lyrics can be found all over the place on the net.

effectivelyabsent@yahoo.com

Here’s the first chapter -

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“Potter! If you’re not going to send us an articulate work-up of the team’s players, we may as well send a house-elf to do your job!”

Harry read the note over again in incredulity. It did indeed imply that his latest piece had been less than satisfactory.

Well, shit.

How was it that he was expected to properly report on the events of the team when the events in his own life were rapidly becoming infinitely more interesting?

To say that he was shocked to find himself together with Hermione and Ron again would have been a gross understatement. He had deliberately distanced himself following Hogwarts. He had “issues,” as his next-door neighbor, the psycho-analyst, would put it. With his destruction of Voldemort in seventh year came a rush of feelings. Feelings of relief and feelings of guilt that he hadn’t been able to do it sooner. When the Prophet offer came, he jumped at the chance to throw himself into something new. Something separate from all the memories he had of school. Turns out he had a knack for it (but really all Harry did was think about how Rita Skeeter would cover something and do the exact opposite).

It was fulfilling, but he was lonely. He still had Sirius (and he’d even been able to pen the article on his name-clearing himself, the most rewarding article he’d written to date), but it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t in love with Sirius. And he was absolutely horrible at wizard’s chess.

He missed Ron and Hermione more than he’d admit to anyone. He was working through his “issues” and now sported some emotional scars to match the physical one on his forehead, but he was better. He wanted his friends back. As far as he was concerned this new assignment was a blessing.

He’d immediately owled Ron and they’d arranged to share a flat as they’d both be in need of a place to live in the new city. Harry’s next thought was to owl Hermione, but he hesitated. She would no doubt be cross with him for his absence in her life following Hogwarts, but how exactly to respond to that. . ? “I’m sorry Hermione, I was and am still madly in love with you, but I had a lot of grief I had to deal with and it’s still there, only mitigated, and I just didn’t want to burden you with it, but god it’s so good to see you and do you want to make out?” Somehow he didn’t think that’d go over well.

Ron was fantastic though, when they’d moved in yesterday he’d clapped Harry on the back and spoke to him like he’d seen him yesterday. They hadn’t been able to talk for long about trivial things (Harry had to get down to interviewing the team’s newest player for his 11:30 deadline), but he’d gleaned that Ron was playing the get-together/break-up/get-together again game with the same girl for about a year, that Fred and George’s joke shop was expanding to a second location (Harry knew this of course, having been receiving statements as the company’s financial backer since fifth year), and that he was now Uncle Ron to Charlie’s newborn twins.

Having woken up late this morning (deadlines were almost as bad as potions exams), Harry realized Ron had gone off to practice and that he was left with an empty day. He briefly wondered if Ron had told Hermione about Harry’s re-location. He knew that she’d know about Ron as he had put the article in the paper himself, but she could still be in the dark about him. He decided showing up at one of her lectures would be a good way of finding out. After contacting the university (it’s amazing what people will tell a reporter) and finding out Hermione’s schedule, he set off to sit in on “Wizard Foreign Policy.”

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Standing at the back of the lecture hall, Harry noticed Hermione’s bushy hair immediately and what luck- she had an open seat next to her. He figured Hermione being who she is, wouldn’t just start scolding him in the middle of a class, he’d have almost 45 minutes to calm her down before it was over. Brushing his hair over his scar so as to not attract any undue attention, Harry padded softly down the aisle and slid in next to her.

She barely looked up and continued to frantically scribble in her notebook, cocking her head after a few seconds, she appeared to sniff the air. Her eyes widened and she turned her head to look Harry right in the face and gasped.

Harry then saw Hermione do something he’d never thought she’d do. She grabbed his arm, hauled him out of his seat and out the back door of the lecture hall.

“Hermione! You’re skipping class!”

“Harry! You’re HERE!”

She shoved him, HARD, and then went after him to grab him in a hug.

“I, I, d-don’t understand. . .what are you doing here, Harry?”

“I’m here with the Prophet covering Ron’s team, I’ll be here all season.”

He was practically beaming as he said it.

“I just can’t believe this! Where have you been, Harry Potter?!” Ah, there it was, that stammering, hugging Hermione was too good to be true, now he was in for it.

“I’ve been. . . around. I had a lot of stuff on my mind after school and I didn’t want to burden you with it.”

“Harry!” It’s amazing how that was the exact tone of voice he imagined his mother would take should she have been able to scold him, “How could you possibly think that? You were never a burden, Harry. An annoyance sometimes,” said with a grin, “but never a burden.”

He laughed softly at her joke and said, “It doesn’t matter now, I’m here, and I’m sorry. Things will be better now.” He realized as he spoke that he was right, things WOULD be better now. Hermione was with him again. Not in the sense Harry felt she rightfully should be, but there was time for that. He had a whole quidditch season!

“And of course you know Ron’s here as well! This will be fantastic!”

“Yes, Ron and I are actually sharing a flat, we live about 11 blocks over from where we are now.”

“Oh, Harry! I just can’t get over this! Say you two will come over to dinner tonight, we have so much to catch up on! And I’m not done reprimanding you!”

“Of course we’ll be there, Hermione, just give me a time and a place, and I’ll make sure to get us there.”

Hermione wrote down her address and seemed to realize for the first time that there was a class in session and that she was missing it. She bid Harry farewell, kissing him on the cheek and squeezing him in a tight hug, as if she just couldn’t believe he was actually there. She slipped back into the lecture hall, muttering “Burden? Ha! Oh, Harry…”

Well, Harry thought, dinner should be. . .interesting.

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Well, that’s what I’ve got so far, let me know what you think.

This fic is turning into a total challenge, the only things I can write to my satisfaction are first person POVs and term papers – I keep lapsing into ‘I’ dialogue or trying to construct a thesis. I’m going to see it through though, if only to myself distracted from final exams. You’re all free to stop reading at anytime, you shouldn’t have to reap the effects of my procrastination and ineptitude when it comes to the third person POV narration.

--jamie

effectivelyabsent@yahoo.com

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Looking in the mirror for what had to be the twentieth time in as many minutes, Harry sighed exasperatedly.

Bloody hell, it’s only Hermione and I can’t possibly look that much different than I did at the end of seventh year, it’s not as if she’s going to swoon into my arms if I can get my hair to behave. And all this journalism isn’t doing much for me in the way of hulking muscles.

With one last baleful look at the mirror, Harry hollered out to Ron, “Oi! Are you ready? She said to be there at 6:30!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Ron bellowed back as he meandered out of the bathroom, scrubbing his wet hair with a towel.

“Ron! You’ve only just showered! Hurry up and dress, I’m not going to be late on account of your lack of speed when it comes to personal hygiene.”

“Now listen, Harry, it’s not *my* fault you haven’t seen her in years, a few more minutes isn’t going to kill you.”

‘That’s what you think,’ Harry thought, but shut up anyway. It was remarkable how quickly and easily the two had fallen back onto old patterns.

If only he and Hermione could do the same was his next thought, which he rushed to amend. He didn’t want what they used to have. He wanted something new, something better, and for god’s sake, something healthy, not frantic groping in the broom closet in a rush to drown out the screams of Voldemort’s final attack. Not that he was adverse to groping in a broom closet, he’d just prefer it to be out of love and not a repression tactic.

He was startled out of his musings by the sound of a *pop!* Not ten feet in front of him stood a very startled looking young woman dressed in muggle clothing.

“Um. . .hello?” Harry ventured.

“Er, hi, is the Ron’s new fla- You’re Harry Potter!”

“Yes, that’s me, and you are. . .?”

“Oh, excuse my manners! Apparating into your flat like I owned the place! I’m Emma, Ron’s gir-”

“Emma! Glad to see you found the place all right!” A now-dressed Ron said as he swooped in to give Emma a kiss on the cheek.

“Harry, this is Emma, Emma – Harry. I owled Hermione and checked to see if Emma could join us this evening as I’d already had plans with her and she’d said it was absolutely fine, ‘the more the merrier,’ to be exact. If you ask me, she’s nervous to be around you again.”

“Nonsense. Why should I make Hermione nervous?”

“You didn’t see her when your owls stopped, she really thought she’d done something to cross you. Thought you were resentful of the end of your relationship, thought you couldn’t stand to be around her anymore.”

‘Oh, Hermione,’ Harry thought, ‘if only you knew how much I DID want to be around you. And only you.’

“Well that’s just silly. I’ll have to make sure to right it tonight.”

“Yeah, Harry, ‘right it,’” Ron drawled with a wink, prompting an elbow jab from Emma and a blush from Harry.

Saving Harry further embarrassment, Emma inquired “You’re a writer for the Prophet right?” To which Harry nodded, “I really enjoyed your article on muggle/wizard relations in children under eleven.”

“Thank you, erm, very much.” Harry still awkwardly received compliments that didn’t have to do with his quidditch skills or the defeat of Voldemort, and, come to think of it, even those were accepted haltingly with a glance at the floor.

“Shall we be off? Wouldn’t want to keep Hermione, or rather, Harry waiting.”

‘Is it just me or has Ron become incredibly annoying in the last ten minutes?’ Harry considered as they stepped to the fireplace to enter the floo network.

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Upon arrival at Hermione’s flat, Harry was feeling dizzy and hot, owing, no doubt, to the prospect of spending an evening with Hermione again, but he chalked it up to the floo powder.

“Honestly, Hermione! You couldn’t have gotten special permission to allow apparating into your flat?”

“Ron, I told you, this is a muggle neighborhood, a muggle neighborhood which I happen to love. Do you know the trouble I had to go through to even get it hooked up to the floo network? You could’ve apparated to the back of the pub on the corner and walked here.”

Ron blushed and quietly said, “Emma said that if I were to get inside a pub, she’d never get me to leave,” to which Emma nodded emphatically.

Harry cleared his throat and spoke to Hermione for the first time in years save for this afternoon. “I really like your flat, Herm, it’s very you,” gesturing to the stacks of books and the couch reminiscent of the Gryffindor common room.

A buzzer went off and Hermione bustled back to the kitchen, not more than two minutes later soft cursing was heard and the smell of burning permeated the room.

“Well, dinner’s a lost cause.”

“You never were much of a cook.”

“Shut it, Ron. Anyway, if Emma’s all right with it,” she nodded to the girl, “perhaps we should just go down to the pub for dinner.”

The hair on the back of Harry’s neck stood up, alcohol in the presence of Hermione made him shudder with the possibilities, but he agreed anyway.

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The pub was full of muggles and the cigarette/beer/sweat/hormone smell Harry had come to identify with all pubs hung heavily.

“We’ll just get a table there in the back, the food’s not the best, but I’m sure the company will make up for it,” Hermione said, eyeing Harry nervously.

Harry grinned and followed the three back toward the seating area. ‘Honestly! I feel like such a child! I’m 20 bloody years old and Hermione was, IS,’ he corrected himself, ‘one of my best friends, there’s no need to treat the situation so delicately! Snap out of it, Potter!’

Sliding into the booth next to Hermione, Harry exhaled loudly and braced himself for the ensuing conversations.

Hermione, true to form, wasted no time getting to the heart of the matter.

“So tell me, Harry, what have you been up to lately? I mean, we haven’t really talked in what, two whole years?” Hermione had tried, but failed to keep the edge out of her voice.

“Do we really have to talk about this? I’m more interested in what YOU’VE been doing with yourself.”

Hermione muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “It’s your own fault you don’t know,” when Ron piped up “Yeah, Harry, I didn’t get much of a chance to hear about you last night, I’m anxious to hear what my wayward best friend has been up to as well.” Ron looked at Hermione and thumbed at Harry “This one was all business last night, wanted to know what I thought of the new team, our chances for the playoffs, he’s an honest-to-god reporter now.”

Just then a plump looking waitress ambled over to the table to take orders, and Harry silently thanked her for the reprieve from the inquisition. He wouldn’t be sure later, but was pretty sure the entire table ordered fish and chips, with a pitcher of lager.

“What are you playing at, Harry? You looked like you’d just been given a stay of execution when that waitress walked up, surely what you’ve doing can’t be that bad.”

“Ron, if Harry’s uncomfortable perhaps we should talk about something else,” Emma joined the conversation, receiving an appreciative look from Harry and glares from Ron and Hermione.

Resigned to his fate, Harry opened his mouth to confess, but decided at the last minute to dodge what they were really asking, which was why he’d avoided them, “Well. . . erm, I’ve just been writing for the paper, they let me stay on after my internship and I’m now head of the Sports department, but they allow me to correspond on whatever stories I see fit, like when Sirius was freed. I have brunch with him and Professor Lupin every Sunday. My editor is a rather imposing looking wizard with more giant in him than Hagrid, hence the reason I was so anxious to get my story in last night. He’s a real stickler about putting the paper to bed on time.”

“‘Putting the paper to bed on time,’ listen to you! I never thought I’d see the day when Harry Potter would be concerned about putting anything to bed on time, let alone speaking newspaper lingo.”

Harry visibly relaxed, Ron seemed content with his explanation, he could feel Hermione holding herself stiff next to him, so he gave her a look to convey that they would talk later. ‘Preferably when I’m drunk off my arse and can actually be completely honest with her,’ Harry thought guiltily.

And with that a pitcher of lager was placed in the center of the table and Harry rushed to fill his glass.

Eager to shift the conversation away from himself, he asked Hermione how school was, a topic that unfailingly got her going.

“Well, I’m taking six classes this term, I’m going for a second degree in advanced transfiguration with an eye toward muggle studies as well. I’m hoping to get a job in the Ministry’s research department when all’s said and done. . .”

Harry watched as Ron’s eyes glazed over and he could see his hand shifting under the table to rest on Emma’s thigh. Harry took a minute to observe him, he looked well, professional quidditch obviously agreed with him, his arms and chest had filled out in a way that Harry, even at 20, couldn’t possibly imagine for his own lanky stature. He looked relaxed with Emma and if the evening thus far was any indication, she kept him in his place, which, Harry decided, was exactly what Ron needed. He turned his attention back to Hermione, “. . . and the professor actually told me that it was the best paper he’d read on recidivism amongst former death eaters to date! Can you believe that? The best ever!”

Harry smiled at her, proud and happy for her at the same time, the selfish prat in him had harbored dark thoughts of Hermione’s broken heart and inability to fair well following his virtual disappearance. He was glad that part was wrong. Hermione deserved happiness, he only hoped that with the past in the past, they could achieve it together.

Dinner was served and Harry, so entranced with actually sitting next to the flesh and blood Hermione, and not some imaginary one (with whom he’d had several conversations with over the past years) couldn’t even taste the food he was chewing.

Emma regaled the table with tales of Ron’s ‘initiation’ when he was moved up to first string, and Ron blushed in all the appropriate places and in turn spoke of the time Emma had first met the Weasley’s and was unaware of the stupidity it took to actually eat anything offered by Fred and George.

This was nice, Harry thought. He actually felt, for the first time in a long time, that he belonged somewhere. His self-imposed exile and depression had ended and he actually felt like the adult his age proclaimed him to be. He only needed to have that “talk” with Hermione and all would be as it should.

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effectivelyabsent@yahoo.com

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Three pitchers of lager later Emma had cajoled Ron onto the small dance floor by the jukebox and they were blissfully unaware, swaying in time to the music, leaving Harry and Hermione alone, side-by-side in the booth.

“Er. . .Hermione, listen, I want to apologize. For everything.” Harry said, not quite sloshed, but braver than he’d be without alcohol, laying his hand on her leg.

“I’m sorry I just stopped writing and visiting like that. I was in a really dark place, I was so mad at myself for not having stopped Voldemort earlier. Years earlier, hell, an hour earlier and that muggle village would still be in tact. I couldn’t stand to look at myself and I figured no one else could either. And I know now how stupid that was, what a great help you would’ve been, how you would’ve shouldered the responsibility of a basket-case like me willingly, but, Hermione, I was becoming a liability. Look how well you thrived at your new school! Could you imagine trying to write the best paper a professor had ever read while trying to take the edge off my self-deprecating tendencies? It wouldn’t have worked. I AM sorry I did it, because of how upset you look right this very moment, but I have to tell you, I’d do it again, because, Herm, I love you and I don’t ever want to cause you any undue anguish. Merlin knows we’ve all have enough to last six lifetimes.”

“Who do you think you are?! Making decisions for me like I’m a child! Honestly! Harry, I understand that you had your heart in the right place and normally that would be enough, but you were so very, very wrong this time that it’s almost laughable. Do you know the anguish it caused me when you all but disappeared from my life, became nothing more than a byline in the paper? I really thought I had done something wrong, thought you were upset with me over the end of our relationship, if you can even call it that,”

Harry flinched, but nodded for her to continue.

“Thought there was something to do with Voldemort that you were keeping from me. And Ron was worried too, though he tried not to show it. Do you know how many of our owls to each other started with, ‘Have you heard from Harry?’ Do you?!”

Harry started to reply, but realized the question had been rhetorical when she started up again.

“And the Prophet, Harry? What was that all about? There were no less than three quidditch teams trying to figure out just where the hell they were going to get a starting seeker after you took yourself out of the running.”

Harry blushed, he had known could’ve walked on to any team of his liking and it embarrassed him that Hermione had known that too.

“Really, Harry, journalism? Your marks in letters hardly qualified you for such an endeavor. It seems like you were trying to make yourself fade away as much as possible while still assuring the community you were alive through a name in the paper.”

Hermione seemed to realize she’d offended him with the mark about his writing skills and rushed to qualify herself, “I have to say though, your articles ARE phenomenal.”

“Yeah,” he grumbled, “who knew what Harry Potter could accomplish once he set his mind to it?”

“I knew, Harry, I always knew.”

“Look here, Hermione, I AM sorry, but I have to believe that my staying would’ve done more harm than good. I HAVE to believe that because I couldn’t live with myself if I thought it wasn’t true. The paper offer came and I just took it, on an impulse, it seemed like the perfect place to hide, which is, like I told you before, exactly what I wanted to do. I swear that I won’t hare off again, I’ll be here for you, forever, if you’ll have me.”

“Of course I will Harry, but the real question is will you let ME be there for YOU?”

Harry nodded slowly and she looked relieved.

“And AS for our relationship, I think we should start fresh. I’ll try to forget that you taste like sugar quills and cider and you can forget what kind of undergarments I wear.”

Harry looked horrified.

“Oh, Harry, we’re only forgetting so we can learn again, on much happier terms.”

He grinned at that and pulled Hermione into a hug.

“Oi, you two! This is a public place! Fooling around of that type won’t be tolerated,” Ron hollered as he walked back to the table, Emma in tow.

Hermione shot him a ‘look’ and Harry became immediately interested in the handle of his mug.

“Anyway, the barman said this was last call, thought I’d see if you wanted to join us for the last dance.”

Harry looked at Hermione and when she nodded her acceptance, he took her hand and led her out of the booth.

Harry heard the introduction to a song he recognized, and wondered briefly how they were supposed to dance to this, but then Hermione put her arms around his neck and he found didn’t care anyway, smiling to himself as the lyrics of the song floated by them –

Golden brown texture like sun
Lays me down with my mind she runs
Throughout the night
No need to fight
Never a frown with golden brown

After seeing Emma to the back of the pub so she could apparate home, they walked Hermione back to her flat. Harry tried not to be upset when Ron received the same farewell as himself – a kiss on the cheek and a quick hug.

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The lyrics are from ‘Golden Brown,’ by the Stranglers, most definitely a cool song.

effectivelyabsent@yahoo.com