Author's note: This started as a one shot inspired by the great Kallysten's better-titled "Heaven's Key" and immediately grew into a won't-end-no-matter-what-I-do pain in the arse.
By the by: the first part is mostly Hr and D friendship, so if you don't like fluffy, redeemy-dreamy Malfoy, then best scroll on to better fics. You've been warned. This means YOU LoupDeNoir.
Hogwarts, summer to sixth year. H/H, Hr&D, R/Lav, D/Luna. PG13
The Unfinished Light of Heaven
Hermione was going to leave her bedroom. That was the resolution for the day, which wouldn't be hard seeing how there wasn't much of a room to leave. It certainly didn't look like her formerly habitable Muggle sanctuary. Evidence of her growing melancholia, more like. Books and papers were strewn everywhere, with everything from pencils to torn tissues marking the more interesting chapters in the spellbooks she'd come across. Scraps of paper were tacked up on walls, tabbed with cross references pointing to and away from them in a web of markings that had long ago ceased to make any discernable sense.
Her unmade bed was covered with mnemonics tricks and schedules she'd drawn up for the NEWT level spells. They were sure to give her the most trouble, so she'd set a timeline for learning them. Several timelines actually. Timelines that were revised daily so she could never be sure of the progress she made.
She hadn't intended to spend the summer in such a Howard-Hughes-like state. But the passing afternoons played a conspicuously small part in her summer plans. Almost as conspicuous as the absence of a certain raven-haired hero.
"Harry," Hermione sighed and shut her Reflections On All Things Nonsensical textbook. Her thoughts once again drifted to the Perils of Potter as she reached over to reread Harry's latest letter.
She had been hoping for something other than his admitted boredom away from Hogwarts or his deserved contempt for those beastly Dursleys, but was again disappointed. All his letters struck her as penned afterthoughts. Something obligatory. Not intentionally cold, but, dear gods, a girl could only take a rephrased "I'm fine, how are you' so many times…
Hey, Mione…glad to hear from you…don't worry about me…promise to read up on (fill in blank)…will be useful in (insert subject here)…can't wait to go to the Burrow…
A little confidence wouldn't be too much to hope for, would it? After five years of friendship and a sort of one-sided love… well apparently it is… she thought with a sigh.
She'd owled him a few times. Less often than she'd like. Each letter was perfectly polite and to the point, oddly lacking the insistence and urgency of last summers' manic few.
Hey Harry…I'm so glad that your summer's going well. I hope the Dursleys aren't being too terrible. Be sure to read up on (insert topic here). Having a fine time at home, did (something- something) yesterday. Hopefully will (do something) again.
Every time her treacherous hand began penning phrases like "be sure to write Dumbledore" or "practice your Occlumency," she had a sudden image of Harry tossing her letter aside and reaching for the nearest Quidditch book.
She hated that she was constantly questioning her place in his life, worrying over her "right" to nag and mother him. It was Harry after all. Her Harry. Her best friend and… well, she wasn't sure what else he was to her, but he was definitely hers. Brave, strong, handsome, um, that is to say, not so much handsome as capable. "Definitely capable," she muttered.
She found herself reading over her expressionless reply, trying to find any potential pitfalls or "girlish" statements that would drive him away. Once upon a time she wouldn't have thought twice about admitting her all encompassing concern for him, but things had changed. Many things.
Somehow, between her falling in the DM and her waking up in the hospital, she realized something. Something that made it physically painful leaving his letters unanswered and not worrying about him and not speaking to him and not getting him out of that God-forsaken-suburban-hellhole…
She'd realized that she was in love with her best friend. Yes, she, Hermione Jane Granger, loved Harry James Potter. Melodramatic? Maybe. Inconvenient? Of course. But she realized years ago her sense of timing would never be her most endearing characteristic.
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What do you mean "…and you were right"?
Ha Ha. Very funny.
Now, if you don't mind, I'd just as soon tell this story without your interruptions.
As I was saying, the school year had ended as it always did, with Harry coming out of traction and my getting ready for another vacation I'd guilted my parents into.
Then of course, Dumbledore summoned me to his office…well, you know the rest.
Explain? Well, there's nothing to explain. Dumbledore, aka Mr Vague and Unhelpful Until After the Fact, asked me to his office two days before summer break. I took a chair at an appropriately round table, seated at which were several members of the Order: Moody, Tonks, Lupin, Snape, McGonagall, Hagrid, Arthur Weasley…surprisingly enough, Bill Weasley, a few others… do I have to name them all? No…good. Because my spelling's not fantastic at the moment. Are there one or two l's in 'Bellatrix'?
Anyway, from what I understood, and the explanation was long in coming, what with Snape's minute-long sneers and Lupin's eternal sniveling (well, he does snivel), my injury in the Department of Mysteries had left me "marked" like Harry. I was "bonded" to the escaped henchman Dolohov and would suffer and prosper as my counterpart suffered and prospered. Of course how a mute Deatheater could prosper, I'd no idea.
And apparently neither did Snape. "But," he said with a sly smile, "until we do Miss Granger, you can look forward to vivid nightmares and the occasional blinding pain of your wound." He motioned towards my still-healing sides and front with a look of grim satisfaction. Git.
The seriousness of my DM injury would be the first thing I'd lie to Harry about that summer. The first of many things. As June progressed, I began leaving more and more things out of my letters. Like how I'd canceled my trip to sunny Greece so I could lock myself in my room and dig through old textbooks; or how I'd forgone any study plan and was instead hunting and pecking for offensive and defensive dueling tactics; or how my injury pulsed and throbbed painfully until I was popping Tylenol and pacing at all hours of the night.
The truth? Why would I tell him the truth? This was Harry. My Harry. The man was sporting a sense of responsibility the size of the Gobi desert. He'd blame himself for my injury then try to 'avenge' it by doing something brash and ultimately useless, most likely endangering himself and others in the process.
Scary how well I knew him, huh?
Anyhow, the summer before seventh year found me at home. I wanted to stay in England in case Harry needed me. Needed me? Ha. I'd proven myself rather useless on the daring-rescue front. Failing at the ministry, falling in a dead faint during Sirius's death, sleeping through Voldemort's appearance…
So I spent my time researching dueling and defensive charms. I had a strange idea of finding a way to block the Avada Kadavra curse. Sort of an after-the-fact compensation for my fall at the DM. I was so engrossed in my obsessive, er, non obsessive, completely organized search on everything Avada Kadavra related, that I nearly missed the Hogwarts letter left on my windowsill.