A/N ok here we go, Unfortunately I don't own these folks...if I did my car would be paid off. Once Again, thanks to Lady Starlight for her outstanding beta work, and for putting up with me.
Chapter 6: The Most Noble and High House of ...Potter
***************************Godric's Hollow******************************
July 12, 1997
9:30 am.
Harry yawned as his eyes slipped open to find that he was curiously well rested for sleeping on a hardwood floor with only a thin sleeping back between him and the old pine, with one slight problem...he couldn't see. It was not the normal, hazy-fuzzy view of the world that he was used to when he first awoke before he put on his glasses, disregarding the whole question of exactly were those glasses were right now as he had thought he fell asleep in them, of course. No, what greeted his eyes this morning, was a wall of chestnut, which as he yawned again, he saw dance in his breath. Just then he noticed the oddly...normal...warmth covering his left side, and he figured it out, even without Hermione's help, he was Lily and James' son after all, and despite what a certain greasy haired personal enemy of the Trio might think, he wasn't dumb.
Harry used his free hand to gently brush Hermione's curls away from his face. He pawed around on the floor around him to finally find his glasses and slip them on. His vision cleared and as he looked up, he found a smirking, softly chortling; Ronald Weasley hanging upside down in his field of vision. "Ron, I..." Harry whispered but Ron shook his head.
"If you move her and wake her up, I'll hurt you myself. She needs the sleep as much as you" Ron replied as he took a sip from about his third or fourth espresso. His eyes were bulging slightly, and curiously fixed.
"Please Ron, I..." Ron rolled his eyes and cast a freezing charm on Hermione with a slightly shaking wand hand. Harry slipped out from under her, already missing the warmth and canceled the spell. The boys watched as she rolled over in her sleep and cradled Harry's pillow to her chest. Ron motioned towards the back door and Harry nodded. Ron led Harry out the door, though the kitchen and out onto a porch that in the clear morning light, now that the fog had burnt away, from which they could see a half-court Quidditch pitch taking up part of the immense back yard. "Cool." Harry said wondrously as he took in the gleaming golden hoops.
"Yeah," Ron replied, "I guess the wards are still up if the Muggles can't see this."
"Ron...about." Harry muttered nervously as he leaned on the railing, looking out at his dad's playground.
"No Harry, it's ok." Ron replied as he flicked his wand oddly and handed Harry the cup of espresso he had created. "We are over, if we were anything anyway. Looking back, I don't know why we thought it'd work to begin with."
"Woh" Harry snapped as he took a sip of the espresso, "Strong."
"Yeah, isn't it great." Ron replied, he glanced back at the house, then his eyes slowly panned back to Harry's. "You know; if we changed the taste a bit with a spell..."
"She'd kill us Ron."
"It'd be hilarious."
"Do you want a wired Hermione...you've seen a wired Hermione Ron...you've dated a wired Hermione Ron," Harry replied reasonably. Though it would be funny.
"No," Ron disagreed, "Not really." He shrugged and took another sip from his mug. "She never really ever let her hair down with me, so to speak. She looks damned cute with it up though" He looked over at Harry and the boys shared a grin.
At the open door to the kitchen, just inside the house, Hermione paused and closed her eyes tiredly for an instant as she heard "she." Here's where Ron gives Harry the whole don't hurt Ginny speech. She thought, annoyedly. She stopped to listen, a small frown darkening her eyes. I wonder if I should surprise him with Ginny for his birthday...
Harry looked at Ron, and nodded. "Yeah, when I saw her with her hair up at the Yule Ball...bloody hell Ron." Hermione's eyes grew wide, "I should have asked her to go with me; I was a prat."
"No I was," Ron admitted. "I had a thing for her even then." He turned and stared directly at Harry, and watched as green eyes tried to look just over his shoulder, "and you did too."
"No, I..."
"Bullocks, Harry." Ron laughed slightly. And saluted him with his mug. "Let's pretend for a moment, that I have greater than the emotional range of a teaspoon, was it? And that I have lived with the two of you for the last six years, that I have bled, cried, and damn near died with the two of you...you..."
"I can't Ron. What if I don't make it through this? What if?"
"Are you a bloody Gryffindor or not...is that not the bloody Sword of Gryffindor in your pack back in the den next to Hermione as we speak?" Ron set his mug down and held out his hand and started to tick off events, and in the kitchen Hermione leaned against the wall and slid to the floor as she crammed a fist into her mouth. "Let's see Harry, first year...you went to save her...theoretically weren't even her friend and you charged a bloody mountain troll for her, could you even handle one now?"
"Umm yeah Ron I could actually, pretty easily." Harry replied softly and Ron snorted.
"Yeah, mostly because of her." Ron retorted and Hermione's heart skipped as she crouched in her unplanned listening spot. She didn't catch Harry's grudging nod of course. Ron grinned slightly, "Second year, I secretly wondered if you were the Heir of Slytherin...she didn't. Third year, the girl who is terrified of heights, got on a hippogriff to save your godfather."
"He was her friend too, Ron." Harry objected.
"Not then," Ron countered, "Then he was an escaped criminal who we had just stood between him and you to keep from killing you, he was important to you."
"Ron she's as brave as either of us, hell braver than us, she would have tried to save him just because it was right." Ron snorted.
Ron sighed, "and then forth year, she was the only one who believed you Harry, I should have, my fucking heart did, but my brain decided to jump in for once and believe that you would have tried for the attention. I'm sorry Harry."
"Just don't go thinking again." Harry replied and they both laughed and Hermione covered giggles.
"Then fifth year...She and you were the dream team...you, I thought I wasn't really needed, I..."
"She will do anything for you." Ron looked Harry directly in the eye and Hermione strained to hear, as he finished his thought with a slightly awed mutter. "She'd kill for me Harry, but she'd die for you without a thought."
"That's just it Ron, I can't, I mean...what about last year Ron, she was at my throat all the time, she was distant and I thought I had lost her, I could barely take that, do you have any idea what it would do to me, to either of us if we lost her for real?"
"You mean like she shut down when you told her the prophecy Harry?" Ron snorted, "she was afraid Harry, she was scared totally and completely shitless..." Ron took a sip of his coffee and Harry did the same, mimicking him exactly. In the kitchen Hermione bit her lip as she fought not to cry. "You should know that Harry, you know her better than me."
"I do?"
"And I'm supposed to be the dumb one." Ron muttered annoyedly. "Yes, I will bet you good money that you could tell me, how she likes her tea, what the name of her first cat was, what chapter of bloody Hogwarts a History that she likes most..." he looked at Harry as his eyebrow inched upward.
Harry's lips were moving before he knew what he was saying. "Hot, two sugars, dash of milk. Emilia, it's from A Midsummer Night's dream, where her name is from. And she likes the chapter on the establishment of the Library of course." Ron's jaw dropped...as did Hermione's. "What, doesn't everyone know that?" Ron shook his head. "Bloody hell Ron, haven't you been paying attention all these years?"
Ron shook his head slowly, "I doubt dad knows that much about mum." Just then a soft crash came from the kitchen, and a soprano voice muttered, "bloody hell."
Hermione emerged from the house, her hair was pulled back into a messy tail and she still wore her rumpled clothes from the day before. Her eyes were half closed as she reached out and took Harry's espresso from him and downed it in two gulps. Her eyes perked up as she looked over at Ron with a grin.
"Fred's Wake'Em Up spell?" She asked softly. Ron nodded. Hermione leaned back against the railing of the porch and arched her back, popping it softly. She looked at Harry who shook his head rapidly for a second as if throwing off some spell before catching her gaze. "So Harry?" She asked with an odd tenor in her voice, "What are we up to today."
Harry took a breath, and Ron and Hermione watched as he changed from a tired teen in over his head to something...else. Someone that the sword in the den belonged to. Someone that one day very soon, would give Tom Riddle someone else to fear. "We go to Grimmauld, where else? Ron, since we will be in London, do you think you could slip out and get supplies? Hermione you and I will start looking through the Black Libraries for hints on the Horcruxes, more specifically on how to destroy them."
Ron and Hermione nodded, and started to head back into the house. Hermione made it halfway into the door, when Harry called after her. "Hermione?" He said quietly, not steadily at all, as if everything he had just said was a grand illusion.
"Yes, Harry?" Hermione turned and leaned on the doorway, her heart pounding rapidly for some reason.
"Thank you Hermione...for yesterday...for everyday actually."
"You're welcome." She replied softly, and he nodded and headed back inside. Hermione let out a deep breath she had not known she was holding and stared, unseeing, into the back yard for a moment before following Harry and Ron into the house.
***********************#12 Grimmauld Place, London**********************
The soft pop of Hermione and Harry's Apparition mixed with the slight louder crack of Ron's as the trio arrived in the kitchen of the old house. A smell of disuse and decay assaulted their noses as they arrived to find spoiled food and trash spread out in the kitchen that in Molly's tenure had been immaculate. "Bloody hell, what's that smell?" Ron shouted as he lit his wand and started to look around the room.
In the light of Ron's wand, Hermione glanced over to Harry; he nodded and then shrugged. She frowned as she lit her wand as well and led them from the kitchen out into the hall and up the stairs into the parlor. She eased the door open, following the smell, and gasped. Her left hand came up to cover her face as she saw the small, crumpled body.
Kreacher had gotten his hearts desire...he had died in the service of the Black heir. "Blimey." Ron exclaimed as he looked over Hermione's shoulder at the tiny, withered elf. He was lying under the rows of House Elf head that decorated this room. "So that's what smells." He shrugged, "So now what, who's cooking."
"Ronald, he was a foul loathsome creature, but he was that way because of wizards" Hermione snapped as she spun on her heal and leaned into Ron.
"He betrayed Sirius Hermione." Ron snapped back. Harry walked up slowly to the body and knelt down next to it with a small frown.
Harry ignored Hermione as she shot back to Ron something about a thousand years of repression, as he muttered, "Dobby." With small pop, he appeared. "What is the proper means for burial Dobby?" Dobby looked up at him, with wide, shocked eyes.
"Harry Potter Sir, Dobby will take care of this sir, there's no need for such a great Wizard as..."
"Dobby," Harry interrupted softly as behind him Hermione stopped arguing with Ron and looked down at him and Dobby, Ron started to say something else, and she hit him absently to shut him up, "What's the proper way Dobby?"
Dobby looked down guiltily, "Dobby does not knows sir, the Malfoys sir, they just threw old house elves out with the garbage sir. I am sorry sir..." Harry's hand flashed out and caught the tiny elf by the scruff of the neck and thereby preventing him from beating his head on the nearest piece of furniture. Dobby looked up at him gratefully.
"I won't do that Dobby, not even to him." Harry stood and flicked his wand at the body. The withered body of the ancient elf floated ahead of him as he lead the way to the warded back yard and set it on the ground under a tall, bent oak that was probably older than the house. Diffindo penatratus terratus a four foot, rectangular hole appeared in the ground under the tree. Harry didn't say a word as Hermione's wand flicked and a small, child-sized casket appeared around the elf. He just gave her a small nod and levitated the casket over and down into the ground, and with another flick, covered it with soil. A tiny headstone appeared with the words, "Kreacher, a House Elf of the Most High and Noble House of Black."
"Goodbye Kreacher..." Harry muttered as Dobby bowed his head and said something under his breath and Ron looked on from a bit further back without a comment. "You were loyal to your beliefs at least." He walked away from the small grave and walked silently back into the house. He passed Hermione as she entered the house and waved her to silence as she opened her mouth. Harry climbed the stairs and several minutes later Ron and Hermione could hear a bedroom door closing firmly.
Hermione looked at Ron, he shook his head. "No. No Hermione, if you want to go to him, go ahead, I'm not dealing with him right now, I've lived with him long enough to know to let him cool off. I'm going to go get supplies like Harry said." He looked through his pockets until he found Galleons. "Should have enough for a bit." He said as he counted out twenty.
Hermione nodded and dug in the front pocket of her jeans. She found a twenty-pound note and handed it to Ron. "Get a pizza or something on the way back."
"Where will you be then, when I get back."
She ran her lower lip through her teeth as she glanced up the stairs. The old house chose then to let out a loud creak and they dove for wands, only to replace them in hidden holsters a moment later with sheepish grins. She sat on a dusty couch and unlaced her boots, revealing thick, cotton socks. Hermione glanced up at Ron and shrugged. "I guess I'll start research, I guess."
Ron nodded and vanished with a loud CRACK. Hermione thought about the long climb to the library on the second floor, and then grinned. Pop. She felt the sensation of being squeezed though a bottle and reappeared in the massive, Black Family Library. Two-story tall shelves greeted her eyes in the massive room that was central to the large mansion. High windows at one end let in the London daylight through grimy panes. A single, once highly polished table sat in the center of the room surrounded by four comfortable looking chairs. The Black Coat of arms was hanging, centered between the windows and looking down on any that might dare enter this sanctuary. Hermione slowly walked over to the rolling ladder that ran around three quarters of room on a inset track and gave it an tentative push. It moved reluctantly and gave a loud squeak of long-unoiled metal.
A small, twisted smirk bloomed on her lips as she paced over to the fireplace and looked at a torn, battered couch that reminded her of nothing more than the Gryffindor common room couch. She looked up at the mantle, and moved aside a series of small bits. With a shrug she walked back to the books and started looking around, pulling likely volumes and tossing them in the general direction of the table. She didn't notice them floating across the room and neatly stacking themselves in tall, even piles.
Hermione had been engrossed in a series of books on the destruction of magical artifacts for almost an hour. Almost two feet of notes trailed down towards the floor, when she felt a familiar rubbing familiar at her feet. She glanced down, "Crookshanks." She exclaimed, as she suddenly remembered with more than a bit of embarrassment that she had forgotten him at the Burrow. He obviously hadn't as he jumped up on the table and gave her an annoyed glare. "I'm sorry ok?" She told the cat guiltily, "I had other things on my mind." Crookshanks obviously agreed with her as he turned and stared at the doorway, as if pointing something out.
Harry was standing, leaning on the doorjamb, with a wry smile on his lips and his pack slung over his shoulder. "Forgot something huh?" Harry dropped the pack, padded over, flipped a chair around backwards and sat down opposite her; Crookshanks took his ear scratch from Harry as only his due.
"How did you get him, you can't apparate until the 31st or they'll come after you for underage magic?"
"Seems that you aren't the only one who can read Hogwarts a History," Harry smirked and Hermione mocked laughing. She glared at him and he relented. Harry took a familiar gold ball from his cargo pocket and held it up with three fingers. "Seems that the Head's Portkeys, are old artifacts...they predate the underage restrictions and registration requirements on Portkeys." Her eyes widened as she realized the implications. "Yeah so do the wand cores in the sword and the daggers, not that it matters to us any longer...Speaking of which...."
"Never mind that, how did my plodding cat get here from Ottery St. Catchpole?" Hermione interrupted, placing a hand on Harry's stop his petting of Crookshanks. Crookshanks glared at her and she gave him an apologetic glance before meeting Harry's eyes again.
"Simple Mione," Harry replied with a grin, "I put on my cloak, ported to the Burrow and called him. They never saw me."
"He came when you called?" Hermione's eyebrows almost met her hairline. Harry shrugged and glanced down at her book.
"Where's Ron?" Harry asked as he walked back over to the door and retrieved his pack. He bent down in it and a soft, clinking sound rang like small bells in the room. Hermione watched curiously as he pulled a black velvet rapped package from the depths of his gear and placed it carefully in front of her. "Here, I have, this...feeling that these are yours, I saw your face when I picked them up anyway." Hermione gave him an odd look and carefully unfolded the velvet.
A pair of ancient daggers were sitting on the black fabric. Both were identical, with wire-wrapped hilts under thin, Damascus steel blades. Slowly Hermione picked up the right hand one, and as she did, the same rush of power that had filled her bones when she first held her wand or when she had held Godric's sword. Crookshanks let out an annoyed "meow" as a sudden; source less wind ruffled his fur along with Harry and Hermione's slightly unkempt locks. She tiled the dagger, catching the afternoon sunlight on facets of the layered steel and found a small Gryffindor lion embedded in the guard. Hermione picked up the second with her other hand and gasped as both of the knives elongated, their six-inch blades doubling in length as the guard stretched and formed forward facing points on either side of the blades.
A brief flicker of green fire lit her pupils and the left dagger spun in her grip in a blur, a second later she repeated the performance with the second one. "Harry..."
"Yeah." Harry replied, "Hermione I don't think I even ever told you, but that first time I used the sword on the Basilisk, I knew...I knew I could use it. I knew how it felt...anyway..." Harry dove back into his pack, and pulled out a dual sheath set for her new toys and pushed it across. "This showed up right after I picked them up..." Hermione picked up the pebbled, black leather sheath and examined it.
"It's black dragon hide." Hermione commented absently as she stood up and slipped it onto her belt behind her back. Both daggers slipped into it, shrinking back to their relaxed size as she slipped them home, and it vanished from sight. "Cool" Hermione muttered as she twisted around to see her back. She reached back and one of the two reappeared in her hand and did its normal expansion trick. She pointed it at a book across the room, "Accio book."
Harry quickly ducked as the 5th edition of Lethal Magical Creatures of Southwest Asia flew overhead and landed with a pop in Hermione's other hand. Harry's eyes narrowed as he half remembered some odd movie that he remembered Dudley watching...he glanced around for something. He spotted an old, tattered notebook, sitting on a shelf. He opened it and paged through the yellowed pages to find it empty. "Hermione."
"Yeah?" She asked as she turned back to him still examining her one of her new companions.
"Get it." He flipped the book in the air, and her eyes flared and her left hand blurred. WHACK. A heartbeat later, the notebook was held against the doorjamb by the mate to the blade still in Hermione's right hand. Harry and Hermione shared a shocked glance as she summoned it back, even though Harry knew somehow, he reached back and the Sword of Gryffindor appeared in his hand. A brief glare lit his eyes and he felt a new knowledge sweep though his muscles and sinews. A part of his mind...knew...the best way to fight someone with the paired sai-like daggers that Hermione now held or the best way to defeat someone with an axe, which if McNair ever escaped...could be useful, another part of his mind, the logical Hermione voice, admitted.
"That was weird." Hermione replied.
"What was weird?" Ron asked as he came in the room, bearing a boxed pizza and a six-pack of butterbeers. He scooted Hermione's books out of the way, remembering all too well the feeling of all his underwear being two sizes too small for a week when he had last placed food on top of one of her books.
"Probably the same as this." Harry replied and tossed him a similar velvet wrapped package.
"Cool, presents." Ron said as he opened it to find a single, larger dagger of a different design than Hermione's. Instead of a long, thin blade it held a thick, leaf shaped one, with a leather-wrapped handle under a simple steel crossguard. The crossguard was similarly emblazoned with the Gryffindor Lion, however and as Ron picked it up, it morphed as well, the blade grew to about two foot, with the pommel end gaining a large, rounded, skull crusher end.
"That looks like a Roman Gladius." Hermione remarked interestedly, as Ron held it up for her to inspect.
Ron placed the dagger/sword back down on the table and it shrunk to its normal size. He picked up the sheath that Harry handed him and slipped it in. Ron glanced up at Hermione, "Roman, huh?" She nodded, "Ok, that makes sense." He replied and took a slice of pizza from the box and took a large bite.
"What makes sense?" Harry asked.
"Mumph, Rromph, whanceptnto" Ron replied with a mouth full of pizza. Emerald and chocolate eyes glowered. Ron swallowed. "I said." He announced, speaking slowly as if they were both slightly slow, "that that made sense, some of my ancestors were Romans from the Legions that once held Britain." Harry and Hermione shared a look, it was as good as explanation as any, and they sat down at the table, where Ron was already into his second slice.
"Now that we have a second." Hermione said, gesturing with her butterbeer bottle after she and Harry had had their two slices apiece and Ron had finished the other half of the pizza, "Let's think about the Horcruxes, what do we know about them."
"We already did this the other day Hermione." Ron muttered, looking longingly at the empty box.
"Harry wasn't there remember, still at the Dursleys...humor me Ron." Hermione shot back dangerously. He nodded quickly and she gave him a bright smile.
"Let's see." Harry began. "First Dumbledore was assuming that there were seven including Voldemort himself...but I've been wondering about that." He admitted as he took a swig of his beer and got up to pace. Hermione and Ron's eyes tracked him the entire way. "When he came to kill me, Dumbledore was thinking that he was going to use my death as the means for the seventh Horcrux, right?" The other two nodded, "now assuming that I am not one." He grinned at Hermione and she returned a shy smile, "What is it?"
"What do you mean Harry?" Hermione asked. Her head cocked to one side and she started to play with an errant curl as she was absently taking notes with the other.
Harry stopped pacing and looked directly at her as he leaned against a half-empty bookshelf. "I mean we know of five, physical objects that hold Horcruxes, with Voldemort's body holding a fraction, the fraction that was knocked askew by me...Slytherin's locket, Helga's cup, Nagini, the ring and Riddle's diary. Dumbledore destroyed the ring, but it cost him his hand, and I destroyed the diary, and the other three are out there."
"We know all this mate." Ron replied tiredly, and looked longingly at the empty pizza box. Hermione shushed him, without looking at him and Ron rolled his eyes, they weren't paying attention to him again.
"Voldemort would have wanted seven parts." Hermione stated. "He would have believed the legend of the number being special, he left school before Arithmancy proved that seven was just a number."
"Exactly, that's what Dumbledore believed, minus the Arithmancy explanation of course." They shared another grin and Ron took the opportunity to practice new and interesting eye rolling techniques.
"But you're right Harry, if he hadn't spilt it off then, when he attacked you first, when would he have? Or did he?"
"That would leave him with only six Hermione...I still think that I might, be..."
"No, now stop it." Hermione growled at him and he sighed.
"But then when would he have, he likes monumental deaths...ones that mean something to, him and he didn't kill Dumbledore after all. Does he have to commit a murder to split his soul?"
"From what I can find, it is the conventional means...we need to talk to the portrait, Harry, feel him out." Hermione declared for the both of him and he nodded, "Let's concentrate on the ones we know about for now. Ok?" Harry nodded and Hermione got up and started pacing opposite Harry, "Do you still have that fake amulet?" Harry nodded and levitated it out of his pack. "Good I will use it to look through book illustrations, I would think that this RAB character would have made the fake to look just like the original." Ron picked up the green locket with the twisted S and stared at it while Hermione continued on, "now as to the others we need to track down Voldemort's past I guess."
"Well the Chamber and the orphanage are done, Dumbledore and I took care of those, and the locket is somewhere else..."
"Even if that's what where they were, there's no guarantee that they are still there though Harry."
"True," Harry conceded and ran both hands through his hair, messing it further as he tried to force some thought from a hidden recess of his mind.
Ohh, god that's so hot, Hermione thought as she glanced up and Harry stopped messing up his hair and gave her an odd, questioning look. "You say something Hermione?"
"No," she replied and he shrugged, all the while Ron was staring at the fake. "We know he murdered to get the cup, but not where it went from there."
"Guys." Ron interjected, as Harry and Hermione continued to bounce ideas back and forth, "Guys?"
"What Ron?" Hermione shot back with a touch too much heat.
But he ignored it, he knew what pressures she was under, what they were all under, and she seems to have gained a bit more of a...personal stake in the quest. Doesn't this locket look just like the one we found here summer before last? I'm just saying..."
Harry and Hermione's eyes met and their mouths opened in silent, "O"s. "RAB? R.A. Black?"
"The tapestry is still up." Harry replied thoughtfully as his and Hermione's eyes locked. She ran around the table and grabbed Harry, and they vanished with a soft pop. Behind them in the now empty library Ron started whistling softly and watching the locket dance in his fingers. A minute later, POP. Harry and Hermione reappeared.
"Regulus Augustus Black" Hermione said quietly with a air of shocked, awe. "Sirius' brother," She looked at Harry he shrugged and looked sheepish. He hung his head for a second and glanced sidelong at Hermione out of the corner of his eye. A tired, worn chuckle came from his throat as he backed against the wall and slowly slid to the bottom. Hermione crouched down in front of him. He shook his head and glanced up at her.
"Dobby?" Harry muttered and the elf appeared with a pop. Harry raised his head from his hands to look at the elf more or less at eye level.
"Master Harry Potter sir, needs Dobby sir?" Dobby asked as he bounced slightly on the balls of his feet. "Dobby would be most pleased to help Harry Potter, sir, or does Harry Potter's Mione need Dobby's help sir?" Ron snorted softly at the table and Hermione turned and glared at him for an instant.
"Yes Dobby," Hermione replied and the elf ginned hugely, basking, "can you tell us if there is another locket in the house like the one Ron is holding." Dobby gave a huge nod that shook his whole body and popped over to Ron. Huge, tennis ball sized green eyes peered at the locket closely and with another POP, he was gone. The trio glanced at each other for several long minutes.
POP, Dobby reappeared looking mournful, his head hung as he stood next to Hermione, "Mistress Hermione, there's no locket of that sort in this house, Dobby is sorry for taking so long, it took a bit to look through Kreacher's things." Dobby looked sad, and after another minute vanished.
Hermione looked on worriedly as Harry stood slowly and walked around the room with his hands fisting in his hair and his head down watching his feet. She watched as he walked over to one of the doors leading from the room, CRACK. A loud, snapping sound echoed through the house and Ron turned suddenly green, as Harry cradled his hand and walked away from the door.
Hermione was across the room in a flash, as Harry muttered, "that hurt a bit." She gave him a tiny glare as her wand came out of her pocket and passed over his hand and arm. A soft red glow hovered over his wrist and she sighed.
"Come on, you cracked it." She held his elbow gently as she led him over to the couch in the corner and sat him down. Her wand flicked oddly and Harry felt a tingling sensation and the pain faded. "There you go, dufus."
"Thanks, Mione" Harry whispered, to gain an exasperated smile.
"What brought that on?" She asked, then, "oh..."
"Yeah." Harry replied and she nodded. She sat down heavily next to Harry, and her hand brushed his. "It was all a waste."
"I'm sorry, Harry." Hermione glanced over at him and he sighed. "Damn it." She muttered and started absently petting Crookshanks as he jumped up next to her and began purring loudly and rubbing.
"What?" Ron asked with a bemused expression on his face as he looked back and forth between his friends, "What?"
Outside of the window, clouds rolled in, obscuring some of the afternoon sunlight. A large hawk or something wheeled past the window, as the room became oppressively silent. Hermione frowned and took Harry's hand openly. Harry glanced down at it before looking over at Ron. "It means Dumbledore died for nothing Ron...there weren't enough Death Eaters at Hogwarts to stop him had he been healthy...he swallowed the poison for..." Harry go up and stomped out of the room. Hermione looked a question and after a minute followed.
She walked out of the Library to find an empty hall. She walked up to Sirius' old room, no Harry. Down to the parlor and the kitchen, no Harry. She did find Dobby however. Dobby had a tray of glasses set out, along with a plate of cookies. Ron probably got Dobby to make some. She realized angrily, and resolved to discuss, once more, Dobby's role with Ron. She walked over to check out the glasses and glanced down to find a light orange liquid, pumpkin juice. Cool. Dobby looked up with a start then smiled. He came over to Hermione holding a small glass phial.
"Mistress Hermione...Dobby is glad you are here...Dobby has run out of the vitamins that he is supposed to put in Master Harry sir's food. Does Mistress Hermione have any more, Dobby tried to floo Miss Weals..."
"Just Hermione, Dobby, you are a friend." Hermione replied absently, then her prodigious intellect fully parsed the sentence Dobby had been saying when she interrupted, today it took a half second, as most of her thoughts were on Harry at the moment, wherever he was, "Wait Dobby, what are you putting in Harry's food?" Her eyes grew hard and the elf cringed, "and who told you to..." Dobby suddenly realized he had made a mistake as he cringed openly and stepped back slightly. He took a breath as to pop out, "Don't you dare move..."
"I is sorry Mistress," Dobby shook slightly, and Hermione's eyes softened.
Hermione knelt down in front of the elf, a kindly expression on her face. "Dobby let me see the vial." Dobby shook his head, and backed away, and the rest of Dobby's part of the conversation hit her. "Dobby why are you calling me Mistress?"
Dobby gave her an odd look, like she had suddenly sprouted antlers instead of ears, and while that was entirely possible in this house with probably more than one bag of WWW's special treats still lying around, she didn't think she had. "Because you are Master Harry Potter sirs, Mione...you is the Mistress of the house." Dobby replied simply and Hermione...blinked.
Oh...OH. She gulped and took a breath I can disabuse him of that notion later...but do you really want to? Another, soft voice that sounded just like Harry replied. I...a... "Then as Mistress of the House, give me the vial Dobby...now." Dobby shuffled his feet, but handed it to her. A whiff of the remnants of the vial, it was...Amortentia. Oh, bloody hell, "Ginny told you to give Harry this?" Dobby looked as if he had been told not to say anything, "it's ok Dobby you can just nod." Dobby nodded. "How much have you been giving him Dobby...I need to know, to as it is to help Harry. You didn't do anything wrong." Hermione added quickly to calm the agitated elf.
"When I first put it in, it was a quarter of this vial...now I am supposed to use two, Mistress." Dobby replied and Hermione slowly closed her eyes and sat back on the floor.
"Dobby, you have to take my orders over anyone except Harry right?" Hermione asked softly, tightly.
"Yes Mistress Hermione, and Master Harry sir can only...." Hermione waved him to silence and her heart fell as she saw how the elf must have been treated under the Malfoys, but she went on determinately.
"Dobby you are very loyal, I am glad that Harry hired you...he did hire you right?"
"Yes Mistress," Dobby replied with an annoyed frown, "Master Harry insists on paying Dobby entirely too much, and then he said something about giving Winky money too, and something about a trust funds for retirement and vacations...Dobbys closed his ears Mistress, he could not..."
Hermione cracked a small smile, "It's ok Dobby, from now on though, you are not to put anything in Harry's, or my or Ron's food or drink or anything without checking with me or Harry first, ok?" Dobby nodded solemnly, "And Dobby, if Ginny or anyone, asks, tell her you are putting it in, and give me the potion, Ok? And don't tell Harry of this, I will ok?" He nodded, "Do you understand," he nodded again, "repeat my orders back to me Dobby."
"Mistress I am not to adds anything to yours, Master Harry's or his Weezey's food or drink without asking you or Master Harry's permission, and if I am asked I am to lie, unless its to you or Master Harry, Mistress. And you will inform Master Harry." Dobby repeated clearly.
"Good Dobby." Hermione said with a small smile, while inside her thoughts were boiling, "Now there is nothing in those, right?" Dobby nodded, "Ok go give that to Ron" Dobby turned to pop away, "where is Harry Dobby?"
"He's on the roof overlook, Mistress." Dobby replied.
"Let me take him his and mine Dobby." Hermione asked softly and Dobby...leered, at her. He snapped his fingers and hers and Harry's drink goblets suddenly transformed into Muggle to-go cups, and a small paper wrapped package of the cookies remained behind as he vanished with a soft pop. Did Dobby just...leer at me? Focus girl. She crossed to the stairs and started to climb, realizing suddenly that she didn't' know where the roof access was, "Point me to Harry." She commanded her wand and it pointed left to a newly revealed set of stairs. Her mind was racing as she climbed the stairs. Think Hermione, think, its Harry damn it, you aren't going to fail him again. But what if he really loves her... if he did, she wouldn't have needed a potion...but why is she having Dobby increase the dosage all of a sudden. The wedding, Harry's voice answered her, of course, he was avoiding her, by hanging out...with me.
Hermione stopped and leaned back against the wall hard, Does that mean Harry, might, really... Suddenly she "heard" an odd noise, like someone talking just out of earshot, and a slight rush of something ran through her. What was that? Focus Mione. When did I start calling myself Mione? About the time Harry said it out loud. A slightly smug voice replied. And despite being by herself in the staircase, she blushed slightly.
What do I say to Harry? I have to think...Amortentia induces feelings of infatuation and lust; it doesn't create true love. She thought back to other books on the subject she had perused one bored night at the castle, It can be thrown off, by a sufficiently powerful wizard, though in doing so, one's magical power is reduced as it is being redirected to fighting off the portion. Oh...Ginny...oh you stupid fucking little girl. Harry couldn't have fought Snape, he was weakened at the time, he couldn't have helped Dumbledore, Dumbledore must have realized it too late...I have to get it out of his system, I need a flushing potion... "Dobby" the elf appeared instantly, "is the Potion lab in the basement operational?" He nodded, "Please see that it is fully stocked, ok?" He nodded once more and popped away without a word, probably still a bit afraid of her.
Hermione continued on, and reached the top of the stairs, she opened the door, to find Harry sitting with his back against a redbrick chimney, staring unseeingly out into the smoggy London skyline. His hair had fallen forward into his eyes, she noted automatically as she sat next to him. I won't tell him, not until I've flushed the remnants from his system...and I need to come up with something for next time we're with the Weasleys... "Hi Harry." Hermione muttered as she handed him his cup. He gave a soft chuckle as he spotted the Muggle take away cup. "You ok?"
"I will be."
"Yeah, Harry, you will be." She replied as she dropped her head to his shoulder and his fell on top of hers after a moment and they watched the far away traffic passing by.
Harry picked up his head after several minutes but did not move Hermione's. "I was thinking..."
"That someone might have taken the locket?" Hermione finished.
"Mundungus." They said together softly, and Hermione let out a sound closer to a growl. "Are you ready to become that felon, Hermione?" Harry asked softly, and she just squeezed his hand in response. "Get the Veritaserum ready." Hermione nodded and raised her head off his shoulder. Her lip twitched and she turned and kissed him on the cheek and got up. "What was that for?" Harry asked with suddenly oddly bright eyes, Hermione just shrugged and started down the stairs to make a restricted potion, and another one, a first year one, one that just might prove to save the very world in the end.
**************************Library, 12 Grimmauld Place******************
July 12, 1997
10:00 pm.
Hermione was going slightly cross-eyed as she ran her hand over a stiff neck and straightened up from her fourth or fifth complete book tonight on magical artifacts and sighed. Crookshanks looked up at her from his newly found perch on top of a short stack of books and gave her a not so subtle glare. He still had not quite forgiven her for forgetting him at the Burrow.
She stood up and picked a mug of tea from the table near her and paced to the high, two-story windows of the library. Tonight they were enchanted to provide a glimpse of the lake at Hogwarts. She watched quietly as the Giant Squid lazily waved a tentacle above the inky water. The Flushing Draught's done. She mused quietly. Should I give it to him tonight? What are you going to tell him...Mione, huh? That Ginny poisoned him so he would fall in love her...and oh by the way, you couldn't have fought Snape or saved Dumbledore, 'cause the stupid bint didn't research the side effects...I would have researched the side effects...but I would have died before we did anything of the sort to him...yeah...No, she forced the decision through her bickering consciences. We'll wait until after tomorrow night, it'll be safer...
A soft knock at the door interrupted her meanderings. She looked up to find the subject of her quandary leaning on the door facing.
Harry looked tired, she noted absently as he gave her a worn smile and walked over. He had his school bag slung over his shoulder; does he want help with something? Hermione cocked her head to the side, considering, as he stopped in front of her. She smiled slightly as Harry shuffled his feet, and ran a hand through his hair inattentively.
"Umm, Hermione."
"Yeah Harry," Hermione replied easily as she took a sip of her tea and looked over the rim of the cup at him. She canted her head slightly in a silent question
Harry reached into his bag and pulled out a torn, worn old copy of Advanced Potion-Making. "Hermione...I...uh want you to have this...look through it to see if anything's of use." Hermione's hand shook very slightly as she took the book from his hand.
"What about you Harry?" She asked very softly.
Harry gave her a sheepish look as he dug back into his bag and pulled a brand new copy from within its depths. "I...uh...had Dobby go get me a new one, I'll get along by myself next year...if you will help me that is?"
Hermione nodded, mutely as Harry grinned crookedly and left, muttering something about sleep.
She hugged the book to her chest and rocked back and forth on her heels as quiet tears flowed.
A/N: A house of cards starts to fall.