Resistance
Chapter Ten: Revelations
Harry and Hermione just stared at each other, wide-eyed, breathing heavily, in the middle of the wrecked kitchen. Behind Harry, water hissed and splattered merrily onto the floor. Ron had moved his father out from the splintered remains of the cabinet, and Hermione vaguely heard him say,
"Adoperio," to seal off the spraying pipes. Suddenly the kitchen seemed very quiet, a tense, strained, expectant silence broken only by the squelching of Ron's rubber-soled trainers on the wet floor.
"Wha - what do you mean it came from me?" Hermione asked lamely, stammering a bit, and drawing her fingers through her snarled hair.
Harry felt like a deer in headlights. He was standing loosely, arms limp at his sides, knees relaxed, as if poised for flight. Professor McGonagall was pressing a cool cloth to Tonks' head. The Auror moaned and stirred. Luna was in the far corner trying to rouse Neville. Mr. Weasley sat up, almost completely sodden from the broken pipes, and rubbed the back of his head ruefully.
"You didn't feel that?" Harry managed to squeak, feeling like the world had suddenly began to whirl away from him at some breakneck pace, while he was left behind, gaping like a fish.
"No - I mean, yes, of course I did." Hermione fluttered her hands in the air, as if she were waving away an annoying insect. "It was - "
"I hate to break up your little party," Ron tossed the comment over his shoulder, as he gave his dad a hand up. It sounded only slightly sarcastic. "But there's an unrestrained werewolf at the bottom of the stairs, and I, for one, don't relish seeing it up here again."
"Remus!" Tonks gasped suddenly with a great rush of air, sitting up in one abrupt motion. Fred edged to the jagged remains of the cellar door, and peered down.
"Sleeping like a cub," Fred quipped irreverently. "We're going to have to get him back in the tunnels, ward this end back up."
"Do we have time for that?" Hermione asked. "How long will a Stunner last on a werewolf?"
"Seeing as how nobody's ever Stunned one successfully before…" Ron's voice was dour. Hermione couldn't help but wonder if he'd have been this stone-faced if it had been the two of them - rather than her and Harry - whose magic-in-tandem had stopped the werewolf.
"That's not true," Hermione interjected preachily, falling back on what she did best. "The White Werewolf of the Highlands was successfully Stunned on New Year's Eve 1785 - in front a villageful of witnesses."
"Only after fourteen people cast a Stunner at the same time," Luna put in, almost apologetically to Hermione, who looked back at her with mild surprise. Her bright blue eyes were inscrutable in the low light of the wrecked kitchen. "Of course, whatever it was that you two just did wasn't exactly your run-of-the-mill Stunner, so I would guess all bets are off. But I think your spell could probably have brought down a fully-grown Graphorn."
"What does that mean?" Ron asked, ostensibly speaking to Hermione, but with wary eyes on Luna.
"It means we have no idea how long Remus will stay Stupefied," Hermione replied glumly. Ron was looking at her now, with an unreadable expression. He heaved a sigh that seemed to well up from his toes, and picked his way through the splayed wooden shards to the stairs.
"Then we'd better hurry, hadn't we?" he asked laconically. Hermione watched distractedly as his ginger mop of hair disappeared out of her line of vision. After a brief pause, Fred followed. Hermione continued to stare toward the door in chagrin. He would rather take his chances with a Stunned werewolf than stay up here with me and Harry, she thought, somewhat sadly.
"Is she all right?" Harry's low voice of worry distracted her, as he addressed McGonagall. His brow was wreathed in concern, as he glanced at Tonks, who was now aware enough of her surroundings to look affronted by the question.
"I'm fine," she replied stiffly, getting to her feet, but obviously trying not to wobble. "Is - is Remus - ?" she asked shakily.
"He's alive," Harry said shamefacedly, looking like he'd just been caught out after-hours at Hogwarts. "Tonks, I - " But she cut him off, not allowing him to apologize.
"Hermione, you and I will need to go down and re-ward the tunnel after Fred and Ron have gotten him down there. Preferably before we repeat this scene." She gestured expansively at the wrecked kitchen.
"But the wards didn't hold last time," Hermione put in, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. "What if they - ?"
"What other choice have we got?" Tonks' face was grim and pale. Professor McGonagall affixed a healing charm to the laceration that marred Tonks' brow, and moved on to Mr. Weasley.
"Arthur, are you all right?" Hermione heard her ask in her gentle burr.
"I'm quite all right, Minerva," Mr. Weasley replied, waving her off. "Look to Neville. He's still out."
"Hello?" came a frail, frightened voice, drifting disembodied down the stairs. "Is everyone okay down there?"
"Merlin's Beard!" Tonks exclaimed. "We've forgotten about Penelope." Hermione and Luna both rushed to the doorway to call up reassurances. "Luna, can you levitate Neville up there?" The blond Ravenclaw nodded, seeming uncharacteristically alert and somber. "Have Penelope look him over, before you Enervate him. I'm not really sure what exactly went on here." Here, her eyes drifted over to Harry and Hermione, who both flushed and looked self-consciously at their shoes. Neither of them even noticed Luna quietly floating Neville from the room.
"Wish we could tell you what happened, Tonks," Harry muttered, uncomfortably.
"Is your magic returning?" Mr. Weasley asked, hope sparking a light behind his eyes. Hermione wondered how much he'd seen from amid the smashed cabinets and burst pipes. Harry was shaking his head helplessly and shrugging at the same time, indicating that he, too, was at as loss as to what had happened. Hermione regarded him solemnly, thinking of the failed Lumos spell.
"We'd better get down there," Tonks finally said, jerking her head in the direction of the cellar. Hermione nodded in agreement, but she had not even touched her foot onto the top step leading down, when a shrill, heartrending scream pierced everyone's ears. For a moment, time seemed suspended, and Hermione flinched to a halt, as Ron's dazed and lonely face swam into her mind, superimposed over the gaping maw of the werewolf.
Both she and Tonks had looked instantly toward the yawning darkness of the cellar, before realizing that the scream had clearly come from the infirmary. Hermione felt her grip on the viciously gashed banister loosened, as she relaxed slightly. It did not last long, however, as she began to make out words in the hysterical noise.
"Where's Harry? He said he wouldn't leave me. Who are you? Please…I need Harry. I need Harry."
Ginny was awake.
"Why in the name of the Four Founders would Penelope wake her up now?" Tonks muttered with some annoyance. Every line in Harry's body was alert, his head cocked up toward the doorway, through which the hoarse and despairing cries floated. He shook his head.
"She wouldn't have. Ginny must have come out of it on her own." His eyes flickered uncertainly toward Hermione. "Surely, that could be considered progress. Maybe she's fighting it off." He sidled toward the door hesitantly, looking back, his worried green eyes clearly seeking some kind of validation.
"Go and help Penelope, Harry," Hermione said softly. "Ginny needs you. There's nothing you can do down in the tunnels anyway." The reminder wasn't meant to be harsh, but soothing, reassuring him that he didn't have to feel badly for helping Ginny, that Hermione was glad that he could find some way to contribute, glad for the effect it could have on his self-esteem and well-being. But Harry flinched anyway, nodded once, rather curtly, and moved from the kitchen.
Hermione told herself that she was hurrying down the rickety stairs to help Fred and Ron before Remus recovered from the Stupefy, not so that she would not have to hear Ginny's screams of terror turn into sobs of relief.
~~**~~
Hermione drifted upstairs after the tunnel had been warded back up. Her mind was whirling, disconcerted, uneasy, even as her body was almost numb with fatigue. She felt frazzled, frantic, adrift in a sea of minutiae that wasn't forming itself into the clear patterns and easy answers she was used to.
There was something that she was missing. She was sure of it. And the frustration born of this knowledge was likely to keep her sleepless on her mattress, staring impotently at the ceiling. The insomnia, in turn, would not help her find the answers any faster.
Her feet slowed, but did not stop, at the strip of light peeking out from under the infirmary door. She could hear the murmur of low and anxious voices, and it sounded like Ron and Mr. Weasley were both in there with Ginny. She wondered idly where Harry was.
Without really realizing that she was in motion at all, she arrived at the room that she and Luna had been sharing, intent on gathering her toiletries and getting ready for bed, even though she had precious few hours until the sun rose. She was so tired. Her mind felt sluggish, churning through a sodden morass of observations. I need to brush my teeth, she thought.
Luna was perched on the window seat, still in the pajamas she'd blundered down to the kitchen in, bare feet tucked under her. She stared thoughtfully out the window, as the moonlight gilded her long hair bright silver. Hermione paused on the threshold, regarding Luna for a moment, feeling uncomfortably like she'd interrupted something private. She made an involuntary movement back, as if she would leave the room, but suddenly Luna spoke.
"My mother's been dead almost half my life. But sometimes I think I miss her more…now that he's gone too," was what she said. She did not turn from the window. "You think I'm mental, don't you?" Hermione winced a little, even though the other girl had spoken without rancor.
"Actually, I think it makes sense," she offered, taking a few steps into the room. "Your dad and your mum were a part of each other, and part of you. Now that he's … gone, it's like the last piece of her has gone as well."
Luna sniffed suddenly and loudly, and Hermione had the panicked thought that she'd overstepped. However, Luna merely resumed her gaze out the window.
"Father always thought that the full moon was a good time to go Snorkack-watching," she said vaguely. "He said that the light would turn their horns all silvery. We must have gone loads of times…" Hermione got the sense that Luna may have forgotten she was even in the room. "Father even learned this charm, where if he flicked his wand a certain way, it would bleat like a Snorkack. It sounded brilliant… you would have guessed it for the real thing. Sometimes, it was so cold. And he would bring cocoa in a thermos, charmed to stay warm. And marshmallows. Sometimes he'd forget his shoes until he was halfway down the front steps on the way to work, but he never forgot to bring marshmallows." She looked back up at Hermione then, and her eyes were fierce and shiny with tears. "We never saw a Snorkack. Never. We heard them sometimes… or thought we did." She snorted a little, and there was a new, cynical note in her voice that Hermione had not heard before. "Maybe you were right, and they don't really exist after all. Maybe Father was wrong."
Something deep inside Hermione twisted painfully. Luna had always thoroughly rubbed her the wrong way, with her dreamy, lackadaisical smile, her penchant for believing things based on erroneous reports and unsubstantiated rumor, and the inherent attitude that things would work themselves out eventually,. Hermione knew, she knew that to make things happen, one had to work for them, and to be able to work for them, one had to research, study, prepare. Hermione had never taken anything on Faith in her life, and …until Harry.
Maybe Harry was her Faith, she thought suddenly. Maybe he gave her the ability to have Faith, in the same way that she was his Reason. Maybe that was why they had always felt drawn together, even platonically at first… they were two halves of a whole.
Faith and Knowledge. Seemingly always at odds with each other, but together had the possibility to become something powerful, something more than the sum of its parts. People always say opposites attract, but I don't think that's true, Hermione thought suddenly. Ron and I were opposites, but Harry and I are complements. It's not necessarily the same thing.
"I think he was right," Hermione said softly, and her reply startled them both. Luna looked up at her with surprise. "He was an educated man, wasn't he? Ran a very successful paper? He obviously believed that Snorkacks existed. He must have had a reason to think so. You should trust in that."
"Trust?" Luna's eyebrows soared. "I watched my mother be blown apart by one of her own spells when I was nine years old. She was a Potions master, and even so, her skill did nothing to save her, didn't stop what happened. Father said that everything happens for a reason, and I believed him.
And then the Death Eaters came and killed him." Her last sentence was said in a sad, resigned voice
"Luna - " Hermione said gently, as if beseeching the girl to stop, to not rehash this obviously painful territory just for Hermione's own enlightenment. She didn't have to know.
"The Longbottoms were staying with us," Luna said, leaning her forehead on the cool glass of the window. "There had been some rumors, but even Father couldn't find any foundation for them. But Mrs. Longbottom was nervous, staying alone, remembering what happened to - to - " she looked quickly up at Hermione, who nodded, I know. "They blasted their way down the street. You could hear them coming from blocks away. At first, it seemed like they were just destroying things for fun, or trying to flush out a herd of Invisible Wildevarians, but then - somehow - somehow Father figured it out. He knew they were coming for us. They knew that the Longbottoms were there. Knew that - knew - " she faltered.
"Knew what?" Hermione prodded, fiercely, suddenly desperate to hear the rest of what Luna had to say.
"Knew that we were friends with Harry. Knew who had been in the D.A. Knew who had fought with Harry against Voldemort for three years running," Luna finished, blinking almost apologetically at Hermione.
"You haven't - you haven't told - " Hermione stammered, feeling sick to her stomach.
"I've only told Tonks and Professor Lupin," Luna said. "I wouldn't ever tell… tell Harry. I - and neither would Neville." Hermione nodded at her, almost pathetic with gratitude, and Luna continued. "Father and Mrs. Longbottom put us in a closet. Sealed it up, and masked the entrance. We - Neville and I - were screaming at them to let us help, let us fight. But they - they wouldn't listen. Father said that - that if anything happened to me - that I - I was so important to him, and to please resp - respect his wishes, and - I've never seen Neville so mad. He looked like a Red-Cheeked Warblefox in midsummer. He was pleading with his grandmother, saying that maybe we could make a difference…we'd had training from Harry Potter, after all!" Luna slumped a little on the window seat. "They Stunned us," she said, anticlimactically, almost wonderingly, as if, even yet, she could not believe that it had ever happened. "When we woke up, and blasted our way out of the closet….it - it was all over." Hermione found herself reaching out to Luna, laying a gentle hand on the Ravenclaw's slender shoulder. "The Order found us a couple of days later. You know the rest."
"And - and your necklace?" Hermione asked, rather inanely, her eyes going to the strand of butterbeer corks threaded through the spindles of Luna's headboard.
"I'd given it to Father, before… before they shut us in the closet. It must have broken in the fight…I found it on the floor next to - next to him."
"You used to wear it all the time… at Hogwarts," Hermione observed, almost fondly. "Why haven't you repaired it?" Luna slanted a sharp, searching look at her.
"Why haven't you fixed your watch?" she asked.
Oh. Hermione smiled apologetically and lowered her eyes. This, she could understand. Never forget. Never forget. Every time the lacy smashed crystal of her watch caught her eye, it reminded her that she had nearly lost Harry.
She would not let it happen again.
"Listen, Luna…" Hermione began hesitantly, after a long enough silence that Luna had turned back to stare out of the window again. The blonde turned at the sound of her voice, as if surprised that she remained in the room. "I know this is - I wanted to apologize… for the way you were treated at Hogwarts. People were unfair to you." I was unfair to you. "It wasn't right." Luna's eyes glinted with amusement.
"You weren't the one hiding my things or calling me `Loony,'" she observed calmly. Hermione noticed that just as Luna had taken for granted that Harry had told her why Luna could see thestrals, she also assumed that he had told her as well how her housemates stole her belongings and hid them.
"But I didn't - " make things any easier for you. Hermione floundered.
"I always liked school," Luna said dreamily. "For one thing, it was an excellent breeding ground for Vein-Winged Gribbleflies. And - well, I always figured Ginny was a shoo-in for Head Girl, but I wouldn't have minded calling the plays at the Quidditch Games again. That was fun. I believe Ronald rather liked it." Hermione stared at her, having completely forgotten that Luna and Ginny would have been starting their seventh year in barely over a month. "It's a shame we won't be going back. I wonder if anyone will ever give us our N.E.W.T.s?"
"We have to believe that things will go back to normal eventually… that Light will overcome. If we don't, then Voldemort's already won," Hermione said, Harry's blazing, determined eyes imprinted in her mind. Luna looked at Hermione archly.
"That doesn't sound like a very Hermione Granger thing to say."
"No," Hermione admitted. "It doesn't, does it? What would Hermione Granger have said?"
Luna looked at her warily for a moment, before answering thoughtfully,
"Hermione would have calculated our odds for survival and found them lacking. She would have said that there was nothing left to trust in but our own mental acuity and ability to improvise. She would have had a Plan A, B, C, on down to letters that nobody's ever heard of. She would logically break down every single aspect of every single obstacle facing us. And where would her unwavering faith in and love for a Squib fit logically into that equation?" Hermione couldn't help but smile at Luna's accurate assessment, and wondered why she had always assumed that the girl was dim.
"He doesn't," Hermione said honestly. "But I think logic is overrated, don't you?" They exchanged a knowing glance, and Hermione felt surprising warm tendrils of friendship extending toward the Ravenclaw like open arms. She shook her head slightly, wondering under what other circumstances something like that could have possibly happened. She grabbed the bag that she had ventured into the room for, and started to leave, but turned again when a sudden stray thought struck her abruptly. "Luna, when you and Neville were Stunned… who came to first? Was Neville already gone when you woke up?"
Luna betrayed no surprise at this non sequitur, but merely answered calmly, "No, I woke up first. I finally had to throw some water on him to wake him up. He wasn't terribly thrilled about that, but Father had put our wands in the pocket of a coat hanging in the closet." She shrugged. "I didn't see them until I'd already poured the water on his head."
"How was there water in your… closet?" Hermione asked, too puzzled by the story to laugh. Her mind was darting around between various scraps of information. Where's the pattern? There is always a pattern.
"Haven't you ever seen that bottle of mineral water that Neville always has with him? He started it sometime back during last school year, still does it. I always figured he really had Old Ogden's in it or something. Didn't smell like it in the closet though."
Hermione was frowning, all processors churning furiously. She moved toward the door again, more purposefully this time, and called over her shoulder,
"I'm going to shower. Don't wait up for me."
"Tell Harry I said hello," Luna replied, blandly. Hermione jerked her gaze to the girl in the window seat, but Luna was staring out the window, seemingly entranced once again by the moonlit view below.
~~**~~
Much as she had with Luna, Hermione paused on the threshold to Harry's room, which somehow managed to look bleaker than the other rooms of the house. Perhaps it was the fact that the only article of furniture in it was the bed. Perhaps it was the fact that there was only one window, and that was high and narrowly set into the far wall. Hermione didn't think that this room had been originally intended as sleeping quarters, and she wondered briefly what its purpose had been.
The door was cracked, and she pushed it open soundlessly, padding across the threshold in sock feet. Harry was sitting on his bed, facing the window, and muttering something under his breath. He looked as if he were shaking something in his right hand, the muscles in his shoulders and back were heaving slightly with movement.
She was on the verge of clearing her throat lightly to announce her presence, when she heard the word that he was repeating over and over again:
"Lumos. Lumos! Lumos!" He was flicking his wand, using sharp, impatient gestures, in much the same way that one might try to extract the contents from the bottom of a bottle of catsup. Hermione felt tiny cracks thread through her heart just before it collapsed into innumerable pieces. Oh, Harry… She hovered uncertainly just inside the room, unsure whether to stay or go.
The Trio had been in mostly accelerated classes during their seventh year, spending most of the time holed up in the Room of Requirement with Remus or Tonks or Bill or Charlie, learning things that normal seventh-years did not necessarily learn. They were given crash courses in field medicine, battle tactics, strategies, Legilimency, and Occlumency, to name but a few. Harry had picked up the mental skills quite easily and quickly, which all but confirmed the fact that Harry's earlier difficulties had been with Snape himself. Hermione had more trouble with it. She was better at the field medicine and tactics, excelling, as always, in anything that was tangible, anything that you could puzzle down to its simplest components and solve. She supposed that was why she liked Arithmancy so much.
She pondered for a moment what exactly had happened in the kitchen with Remus. She had been standing there, Harry between her and the beast, wishing that there was something that could be done, wishing that he still had his magic. Wishing? No, that wasn't the right word. Hoping? She wasn't sure, but… she straightened suddenly, coming alert as a thought occurred to her. Could she have used Legilimency - or some offshoot thereof - inadvertently? Perhaps like the mental images she'd gotten of Harry while he was Voldemort's captive…that he seemed to have sent to her through that residual link, without even realizing it.
Harry swore, and raised his arm, throwing the useless wand across the room in one smooth motion born of pure fury and frustration. It bounced noisily off of the wall, and clattered across the floor, finally rolling to a smooth stop somewhere beneath the bed.
"Harry?" Hermione finally ventured tentatively. Harry turned sharply, and a look of embarrassment momentarily skittered across his face. Hermione could practically see him thinking, How much of that did she see?
There was a long, awkward silence. Important questions that needed to be asked and heartfelt conversations that needed to be exchanged hovered in the room invisibly, poised, waiting.
"I'm - I'm sorry you had to see…that," Harry mumbled, gesturing toward the wall where he had hurled his wand. "I lost my temper."
"You're the one who told me it was okay to be angry, Harry," Hermione told him simply.
"I thought - when the light came out of my hands, I thought - " he stammered, almost incoherently. Hermione was nodding.
"I know." Her voice was gentle. She could well imagine the sharp spike of elation followed by the despairing plunge when the Lumos spell failed.
"Do you know what happened?" He asked, his voice still halting. She regarded him for a moment, then shook her head helplessly.
"I just - I just remember wishing that - " She hesitated. Was `wishing' really the right word? She shook her head again, while Harry watched, bemused, not knowing that it was out of irritation at her inability to express herself that she repeated the gesture. "I think - I think I just gave you some of my magic, and you - you did it," she finally finished lamely, wondering if she looked as bewildered as she felt.
"Hermione, I thought I had made myself clear about anyone giving up their magic for me!" Harry said, worry and anger warring for dominance on his face.
"I don't think I have less magic now. I just sent you some, and you channeled it through… I think. Professor McGonagall said your magical structure is still intact. So why couldn't you make use of magic lent you by an outside source?"
"I'm not … mad," he offered, evidently hearing the hesitance in her tone. "I just - I don't want anything that's got to come about at your expense, that's all."
"Even if it was at my expense, Harry, I'd consider the purchase well worth the price," she answered softly, sitting next to him on the edge of the bed.
"I wouldn't," Harry replied, looking at her with loving, yet apologetic eyes. She leaned into the arch of his arm bracing himself against the mattress and the rest of his body. She closed her eyes, as she felt his cheek rest on the top of her head. "What were you thinking about… when - when - in the kitchen?"
"I was thinking that I'd rather die than stand back and watch you battle him alone. I was thinking that if I only had enough magic to blast him down the stairs, or even if I could somehow knock him backwards - maybe if he fell, then we'd have enough time to - " He stopped and looked at her, when she sat up abruptly and stared at him, with shining eyes, as her mind rapidly began constructing a theory.
"I'd raised my wand. I was going to try to Stun him," she said, an expectant note in her voice, urging him to follow her in her line of thinking.
"And we did both," he said. "What do you think would happen if I used my wand?"
"Why do wizards even use a wand?" Hermione asked rhetorically. "It's to refine and focus the magical output. If you'd used your wand, the spell would have probably been more precise. But it looks like we need to be thinking or feeling in tandem, so that the magic produced is what we want to happen. Imagine if we'd both been thinking about Stunning him!"
"Wait - you think we can do that again?" Harry was incredulous.
"Why not? I'll need to go down to the War Room. There were a couple of books down there on Magical Transference, but I never looked at it from the aspect of Magical Channeling. Maybe I could find - " She was already standing, her toiletries spilling across his bed, forgotten. He grabbed her arm just above the elbow, and pulled her back down beside him, and she arched her eyebrows with a questioning smile.
"Harry - ?" It was almost a laughing protest.
"Not right now," he said succinctly. "It'll be dawn soon, and you've had no sleep at all. You can look in the morning."
"In the morning, everyone will be preoccupied with what happened to Remus, and us, and Ginny - how is Ginny?" She broke off suddenly to ask.
"She's okay. Penelope seemed to think that her waking on her own was good, but she still had to be sedated again. A counter-spell could probably be found, but Penelope doesn't think that anyone here would have the training or power to apply it correctly. The curse is so precise that the counter-spell would have to be equally as precise." He looked glum, and Hermione reached out to clasp his hand sympathetically.
"I've been looking into that too, Harry. You know that as soon as I find anything promising, I'll -"
"I know, Hermione. Sometimes I think you work harder than anyone else here. But I - I don't - "
"Don't what, Harry?" she asked in a throaty whisper, as he faltered and looked at her uncertainly.
"I don't want you to lose yourself in all this." He cupped her jaw lightly, and she leaned her face into his caress. Her eyes slid shut.
"I won't. Not as long as you're here," she whispered. He stretched out on the bed, and pulled her down next to him, shoving her shower things off of the bed unceremoniously. Her bottle of shampoo rolled nearly the length of the room, before being stopped by one of Harry's shoes. She made a token protest, moving against him in an effort to get up in a way that made him groan and her blush.
"I was going to take a shower," she tried feebly.
"Tomorrow," was his one-word answer, as he bent his knees into the curve of her legs, and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting them lightly on her stomach, temptingly close to the hem of her shirt. He brushed some of her long hair away from the side of her face, and laid a light kiss at the junction of her neck and ear that made her shiver with delight. She felt him smile into the column of her neck, and he kissed her again.
"You're not acting as if you want me to sleep, Mr. Potter!" she teased lightly, the smile falling off of her face, when she felt him suddenly tense behind her. "Harry, what's wrong?" she turned to face him, laying both hands flush on his chest.
"Nothing, just - just - " His face was crimson. "We haven't talked about - about that yet." Her lashes fluttered nervously as she averted her gaze.
"If you don't want to - " she began stiltedly. He put his hand up to her mouth to hush her, shaking his head wildly.
"If you think for even a moment that I don't want this - you, then you're clearly delusional, and in need of more than just a good night's sleep." He said, trying to speak flippantly, though his glowing face and tender eyes gave him away. "It's just - maybe it's not the best time to be beginning something so - so - " important, serious, beautiful, precarious, dangerous, perfect? Hermione mentally filled in the blanks for him.
"I think," she began slowly, speaking seriously and sincerely, in what Harry and Ron liked to call her Earnest Voice, "that there will always be reasons why a relationship isn't wise, no matter what is or isn't going on in the world around people. Relationships take work and love takes work, and those things are always difficult, but always worth the effort. I think we need this … closeness. At least, I know I need you, and I want - I want this…us. Someday."
"Whenever you'd like," he murmured against her lips, kissing her lingeringly on the mouth. She sighed against his cheek as they broke apart.
"How about your birthday?" The look of shock and hope and excitement and disbelief that battled on his face made her laugh.
"Hermione!" he chided. His birthday was only two days away. Her eyes twinkled with amusement that melted and swirled slowly into tender regard. His eyes grew more serious as well, and Hermione was sure that she could guess his exact thoughts. Hermione, I'm almost eighteen, and I know that the teenage-boy part of me is thrilled that you want this, but I hope you know that it is more than that, has always been more than that, and will always be more than that. You matter to me more than anyone else ever has, or ever will.
I know, Hermione hoped her loving gaze answered back, and I hope you know that this is more than just making the best of a bad situation, more than grabbing at what pleasure we can for fear we may lose everything. I hope you know that somewhere, deep inside, I believe that this would have been happening anyway, just like it is happening now, in spite of everything…
"I love you, Harry. Suddenly, I'm surer of this than I've ever been of anything in my life." His answer was another tender kiss, and then she turned away from him, spooning back into his warmth, as the encroaching tide of sleep swept them both away.
~~**~~
Remus was ensconced in the infirmary bed that had once housed Harry when that former occupant and Hermione cautiously peered in the next morning. Tonks was sitting watchfully at his bedside, while Penelope and Professor McGonagall conferred about something involving two smoking vials of potion at the foot of the bed.
"How is he?" Harry said softly, looking apologetic and shamefaced.
"He's okay," Tonks said. "Kind of out of his head right now, he's on so much bone-knitting elixir. They," she nodded her head at the two women at the foot of the bed, "aren't sure whether he can safely have any more, but his arms are still only partially healed." Her eyes were warm, and she seemed to be trying to absolve him from blame without speaking.
"We didn't know - it was so strong - we still aren't sure what happened," Harry stuttered, as if trying to expiate for what had occurred.
"Nonsense," Lupin slurred suddenly, fading bruises standing out on his pale face. "Woulda done the same thing myself… if - if you had - had been a, well an' Tonks would have to - except she's not - and - " he stopped, and his eyes closed slowly. Tonks looked up to the two teenagers, with a grin on her face that promised to tease Remus mercilessly about this later, now that she was sure he was going to be okay. Harry and Hermione were not smiling though, feeling absolutely terrible about what their unexpected outburst of magic had done to Remus.
"Listen to me the two of you!" Tonks hissed, in a voice that nevertheless commanded attention from both of them. "You did what needed to be done, and Remus and I are both just grateful that he didn't hurt anybody and that he's still alive. What happened to him last night was nothing compared to what he would have done to himself if he had attacked any of us. Do you understand me?" Her voice was stern, and they both found no recourse but to nod meekly. "At least you did something," she added with chagrin. "I promised him - I said I would be able to handle it, but I didn't. I couldn't face the possibility that I'd have to hurt him, maybe even kill him." She swallowed with difficulty.
"Tonks, everything happened so fast. There was no - " Hermione began, but Tonks cut her off.
"I hesitated," she snapped shortly. "If there's one thing they teach you at Auror training, it's that you never hesitate. Maybe you screw up, maybe you make a bum call every once in a while, but if you stand there with your mouth open, twiddling your wand, you end up dead. Who knows what would have happened - if not for you two - because I was incapable of making the necessary decision."
"It's not very fair of you to hog all the blame for yourself," Harry said in a voice that somehow managed to be both light and reproving. "If I'd been in your shoes, knowing that I might have to hurt someone I - " here his eyes drifted over to Hermione, and he seemed to lose his train of thought. "I don't know if anyone can be faulted for waiting, hoping that any other option might become available."
Tonks' eyes filmed over as she regarded her prone love, and her hand hovered over his, fluttering delicately there without actually touching him.
"I think we could have Stunned him," Hermione put in, shaking her head slightly. "If Neville hadn't cast early - but he's always been a little jumpy. It's a shame, but who wouldn't be when facing down a werewolf? I was thinking when I saw him twitch that it was just like first year, when his broom ran away with him."
"Neville's gotten so much better lately," Harry frowned. "I mean at the Ministry fifth year, and when Malfoy let the Death Eaters in last year… and then this year - I mean, somehow he and Luna stayed alive, didn't they?" Hermione supposed that Harry didn't know that they had been Stunned in a closet.
"He did manage to get himself lost and Stunned at St. Mungo's too," Hermione pointed out thoughtfully, and Harry turned to her, words of confusion dying on his lips unspoken. Penelope approached the head of the bed, and poured one of the debated potions down Remus' throat.
"We decided he could take a little more," she murmured softly, "but he really is going to be out after this. He should feel much better when he wakes up."
Tonks stood then, and ushered them both out of the door, past an only slightly twitching and under sedation Ginny, and down the stairs to the War Room, saying only as they went,
"I suppose we all need to discuss what happened last night… and I think I smelled someone baking pastries." She spoke cheerfully, but Hermione could see the shadows in her eyes, and knew that the Auror hadn't forgotten what she saw as freezing in a moment where action was required.
Hermione and Harry exchanged uncertain glances as they obediently followed Tonks into the War Room. The morning light in the room was low and pleasant, since the room faced west, and there was, indeed, a plate of warm and fragrant pastries on the table, along with the obligatory pot of tea. Mr. Weasley and Fred were hunched over a roll of parchment discussing something intently, while Ron was half-propped in the windowsill, in almost the exact same posture Harry had sported before. Hermione could tell by the way he suddenly went rigid that he was aware of their arrival in the room, but he did not remove his gaze from the window. Luna was seated at the far table, reading something right side up, and absently stirring her tea with her wand, without looking at it.
"Good morning!" Tonks said with a faux brightness that caught everyone's attention. Ron shifted so that his face was pointed toward them, but his eyes were still averted. Tonks helped herself to a pastry, poured herself a cup of tea, and settled at the table with Luna. "Where's Neville?"
"He's still sleeping," Luna said. "I checked on him, but Penelope told me to let him sleep. He had a rather hard knock last night."
Hermione felt extremely self-conscious, the weight of everyone's attention pressing on her, even though no one was really staring. She selected a pastry without looking, and moved toward the table, glancing curiously back at Harry when she saw Ron visibly stiffen from his place in the window.
Harry was fixing her tea. She watched him prepare it exactly as she would, were she doing it herself, and an unseen smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. Almost as if he felt her gaze, he looked up and her, and, though he did not really smile either, something glinted in the green hue of his eyes. She felt her face warm, as she remembered their conversation in bed the night before. Too late, she remembered Ron, who was staring out the window again, the only betrayal of his knowledge of their interaction a working muscle in his jaw.
"So," Fred said, conversationally, around a mouthful of flaky bread, "here's where we dissect the latest freakish thing you did, right Harry?" Harry shifted a little, as he sat, sloshing tea into the saucer. Hermione knew Fred was joking, and knew that Harry knew it as well, but she also knew that he remained uncomfortable with standing out in any way.
"I don't - " Harry stammered. "I think - " he looked helplessly at Hermione, and she suddenly realized that he didn't want to point a finger at her.
"I channeled my magic to Harry," she said quickly.
"But it wasn't permanent?" Mr. Weasley said, obviously thinking of the previous night's events. "Hermione, that could have been very dangerous. Channeling is not something done lightly. You could have cast away your magic completely." Hermione's eyes widened. Harry blanched, and scrabbled for her hand without looking, probably not even cognizant of what he was doing.
"I didn't know that was even possible," she squeaked through a tight throat.
"It's rare," Tonks admitted, "but it has happened. When you channel power to another wizard, you've got to be pretty self-aware in order to be able to call the magic back to yourself.
"So, Hermione pushed it toward me and then pulled it back to herself? Like a yo-yo?" Harry asked tentatively. "Why did her wand fire?" Tonks had apparently gotten an account of what happened from Ron or Luna, because she did not appear surprised at this.
"I think the power probably bled through," Tonks said thoughtfully. "Since she wasn't trying to channel?" This was said with raised, querying eyebrows at Hermione, who nodded.
"I was just hoping," she winced again over the inadequate word, "that Harry could have been able to do something. Then I raised my wand to Stun Remus - I couldn't think of anything else to do, I just - I just didn't want to watch Harry - he was defenseless, and I - I - " Her voice hitched a little, and she straightened, remembering who she was with and what she was trying to relate. "The spell came out of Harry's hands at the same time that it came out of my wand," she finished in a precise voice, keeping her emotions under tighter control.
"Then that's why he was blasted down the stairs?" Fred said. "It was like getting hit with three Stunners at once?" Tonks, Mr. Weasley, and Hermione were all shaking their heads in something like bewilderment.
"Not even three Stunners should have been able to tickle Remus," Mr. Weasley said. "Much less knock him down a flight of stairs. It had to - "
"I think Harry amplified it," Hermione interrupted, speaking all in one breath again.
"Without any magic of his own?" Tonks said dubiously. Harry flushed again, and Hermione felt herself grow more than a little annoyed.
"His magical structure is still intact! Professor McGonagall said so! Perhaps Harry's is so inherently powerful that he can enhance magic, whether his or no. Maybe that's why he could cast a Patronus so early!"
"The bottom line is," Mr. Weasley cut in, leaning over the back of his chair, to pat Hermione soothingly on the shoulder, " to figure out how to use this to our advantage, if it's even possible."
"I'd like to try it again," Hermione said, "under more controlled circumstances. Can we cast in tandem? Can we cast different spells at the same time? Can you cast if I've been Petrified?" She grew excited, and she knew her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were glowing. She was surprised when not only Harry's, but Ron's, protests drowned her out.
"I'm not letting you try it again!" Harry said. "I agreed before, but that was before I knew you could lose your magic permanently. You heard what Mr. Weasley said - "
" - it's too dangerous," Ron interjected, his words intermingled with Harry's. "If something happens -"
" - then we've two people without magic, and we can't risk that," Harry finished.
"Harry, don't be silly!" Hermione said, sounding aggravated. "This could be our answer. Don't you see? If - if we can refine this enough then maybe - maybe it would be almost like having your magic back. This could even be a jumping-off point for getting it back. If I can figure out how to enable you to retain some of the - "
"This is how it starts, mate," Ron stage-whispered, leaning over toward Harry, using a tone that strove to pretend companionability, but cracked with bitterness and fooled no one. "Just wait until she's behind a stack of books higher than her head all hours of the day, until you wonder if she still remembers you're alive. And then, you realize that it's all for some other bloke, and that you'll never be first, ever, and - "
Hermione had stopped talking and was staring at Ron in a kind of humiliated horror. Harry appeared to be torn between anger and apology; his hands were raised to placate, but his emerald eyes glinted with something altogether fiercer.
"Ronald, this is neither the time nor the place," Mr. Weasley put in, with as stern a tone as Hermione had ever seen him use.
"When is it, then? When, Dad? When You Know Who's come back and killed us all?" Ron's voice was clogged and hoarse with tears. Hermione flinched. It had been a long time since Ron had been afraid to say Voldemort's name. "No matter what happened, no matter who - who d - died… I tried to remind myself that as long as you were alive, things might be okay," he looked at Hermione then, but his glance swiftly moved to Harry. "I was so glad when she brought you back alive." His use of the past tense nearly tore Hermione apart. "I thought we had a fighting chance, maybe there was still something left worth giving up everything for - since my best friends were here, would always be here… the ones that I loved most."
He appeared to have forgotten anyone was even in the room with him at all, as the others merely watched him in a stricken silence. Harry had tried to surreptitiously distance himself from Hermione. Luna was watching Ron with wide, tear-filled eyes, her wand protruding, forgotten, from her tepid tea. Mr. Weasley was rigid, as if physically restraining himself, so that his son could perhaps purge this ire from his system.
"But you weren't ever with me, were you? Not really. You said that we both put the relationship on the back-burner and were okay with it. But I wasn't! You never bothered to find out how I felt about it. How could I tell you how I felt about it?" He was addressing Hermione again. "It was because of him. How am I supposed to fight that - you - him? I can't!" He seemed to suddenly realize he had an audience, and slumped, muttering only a broken, repeated, "I can't."
"Listen…whatever problems you three are having - they're going to have to either be put aside or worked out. If you can't do that, then none of you are of any use at all to this Order." Tonks was in full-on Auror mode. Hermione and Harry visibly winced. Ron was staring stonily at his shoes. "I'm truly sorry that you are having to go through this - that you aren't even allowed normal time to go through normal teenaged problems, to say nothing of the War going on. But we can not do this now. We can not fracture from within. You three are still going to have to be able to count on each other - and everyone in this room, in this house - put your very lives in each other's hands, just like you've done for the last seven years. Are you going to be able to do that?"
"Of course," Harry said promptly. Hermione was eying Ron with something like pain in her eyes, and her reply was a beat later than Harry's.
"Ron?" Tonks questioned.
"Ron, if you need us to - if you're not comfortable with this, then we'll - " Harry began, while Hermione looked at him with undisguised alarm. Ron jerked his head up, and leveled Harry with an angry gaze.
"Do not patronize me," he said clearly. "Do you think it matters now? If you promise to stay away from each other, do you think it makes any difference? It won't change the way you feel. It won't make me forget…anything…" He took a deep breath, and swung his gaze toward Tonks, his head pivoting heavily on his neck. "I can work with the Order, Tonks. I can even work with them, fight for them. But civility is all I'm going to be able to manage, thanks." He looked at Harry and Hermione again, and Hermione was struck by the fact that, more than being angry, he seemed broken. His face was blank, and his eyes were the eyes of someone that she had never met. "Friendship is out of the question."
He strode from the room in complete silence. Hermione made an involuntary move to follow him, but was stopped by Tonks and Harry.
"Let him go," the Auror murmured softly.
There was a scuffle outside the room, and Professor McGonagall strode in, evidently having nearly been knocked down by Ron in his flight from what his life had become. Her eyes flickered coolly over the occupants in the room, and seemed to assess the situation in only a heartbeat of time. But then her brow crinkled in slight puzzlement.
"Where on earth is Miss Clearwater?"
"She was in the infirmary with you," Tonks pointed out rather obviously, looking confused.
"She came downstairs several minutes ago, said she was going sit in on the meeting and would be back afterwards, if I'd keep an eye on Miss Weasley and Remus."
The Order members stood to their feet nearly as one, all shocked into silence by Penelope's obvious lies, and the danger implied thereby. Fred was shaking his head.
"I knew it. I knew all along that she was hiding something… I - " The front door opened and shut softly, and Fred propelled out of the room, wand out.
"Fred!" Mr. Weasley and Tonks shouted in alarm, bolting out of the door, followed by the others in the Order. Penelope was cowering against the front door, looking disheveled and panicky, her face streaked with tears.
"Who have you been talking to?" Fred asked, looking deadly serious. "What did you tell them?"
"No, please," Penelope said, "I haven't betrayed you. I couldn't, but I - "
"If you've nothing to hide, then tell us where you were." Hermione eyed Fred carefully. His voice was angry and hard.
"You don't understand. He didn't want me to say anything… yet," Penelope cringed.
"Who?!" Fred roared, earning a remonstrance from Tonks.
"He's gone - he's gone," she moaned, sinking to her knees, and rocking herself slightly on the floor. "I've been taking him food, but today, the place was ransacked, and he was gone. They've taken him. They've taken him."
It was Harry, oddly enough, who first cottoned on to what Penelope meant.
"Percy," he said quietly. Penelope looked up to him, startled, but swallowed noisily and nodded.
"You've been hiding Percy… all this time?" Mr. Weasley said in a dazed voice, looking like his legs might not support him any longer. Hermione moved to his side, just in case.
"I begged him to let me tell you. I told him that you would be overjoyed to find that he was alive, but he wouldn't let me tell. He was afraid that you wouldn't accept him. And I think - I think he was too proud. He - he was ashamed."
"Where was he?" Fred asked hoarsely, his wand now by his side.
"In an alley near Gringotts. We rigged a kind of shed back there, cast some masking and shielding charms around it. It was really awful… smelly and hot, garbage everywhere. But when I went just now, it was completely destroyed, and Percy was gone. There were marks of spellfire on the walls."
There was a moment of silence. Penelope stood with her hands clasped in supplication, looking intently at her feet. Mr. Weasley scrubbed an open hand over his face, seeming impossibly old and tired.
"Where do you think they took him?"
"The rally." It was Harry who spoke again, his voice falling heavily and portentously into the foyer. "They've taken him for the rally." No one even ventured a guess as to how he was so sure; no one wanted to even wonder whether or not he was still getting flashes of insight from Voldemort himself. The guilt stamped plainly across his face was almost too much for Hermione to bear. Penelope looked at him with large, wet eyes, and tried to bite back sobs. Everyone knew what that meant.
"How do we get him back?" Fred surprised everyone in the room by asking.
"It's not possible," Tonks said slowly, flicking apologetic eyes toward Mr. Weasley. "That rally is going to be a breeding place for Death Eaters. And they're all going to be watching for us, expecting something."
"So, we're just going to let Percy die?" Everyone in the room winced at the baldly spoken words.
"Fred, we could get everyone in this room killed, and still not save Percy."
"Hermione, tell her. We could try. We could use your Portkeys… the medallions. You got Harry right out from under Voldemort's nose." Fred had a desperate, pleading look in his eyes. Hermione could hear his thoughts as clearly as if he'd shouted. Not another brother, please. I can't lose another brother. Even one such as Percy, she supposed.
"Fred, that was - different. There were just a few Death Eaters there. At the rally, there'll be thousands. Wards up. They'll be looking for us. Voldemort all but called Harry out over the Wireless." Hermione looked at him sorrowfully, as if apologizing for not backing him up.
"If our people were to be captured at that rally, they'd be tortured for information," Tonks added. "It's simply too big of a risk."
"And I thought that's why we decided a long time ago that Remus wasn't going on any more missions," Fred said stubbornly. "As long as he stays here, no one can give away the location of this house. When are we going to actually fight? Is our long-term plan to just hole up in this house, while the rest of the world goes to hell outside??"
Hermione looked longingly at Harry, privately thinking that that really wasn't a bad idea.
"There's a difference between a fight and suicide!" Tonks argued patiently. "In sheer numbers, there is no way we can break up that rally without being completely overcome. In the end, they'll have gotten even more of their trophy deaths, and we'll be worse off than we ever thought about being before!"
"What if we went to the rally just to infiltrate it?" Mr. Weasley spoke up suddenly. "If a couple of us went in disguise, who knows what kind of intelligence we could overhear?" Tonks looked dubious. "I know it may not be possible to - to rescue Percy, but - but at least I could say - I could say good-bye… to my son."
There was a strangled sort of noise from Harry, and Hermione felt tears sting her eyes. Tonks looked unhappy with his request, but also like she was not far from crying herself.
What she had been about to say was interrupted, by a shuffling noise from the door of the War Room. Luna stood, framed in the doorway, a small Muggle radio in her hand and an earpiece in one ear. Hermione noted with some alarm, that the normally placid girl was gripping the edge of the doorframe so tightly that her knuckles were white.
"He's done it," Luna said in a tremulous voice.
"Who's done what?" Tonks asked with trepidation, as Hermione exchanged a look with Harry. His eyes were wide and blank, and filled with that same horror that she had seen on his face in her visions of his captivity. Please, not again…oh please.
"Muggle radio reports that Godric's Hollow and Ottery St. Catchpole have been completely destroyed. There are unconfirmed reports that it might have been from some kind of large-scale gas explosion, but they've no explanation as to how it occurred in two completely different locations at nearly the same time. No survivors." Luna tried to keep her voice impartial, but didn't quite achieve it.
"Then it has begun," Harry said hoarsely, looking helplessly at Hermione.
"All right," Tonks said, turning to Mr. Weasley with a grim look. "How many people do you think you'll need?"
TBC
Okay…more setup. I'm not terribly happy with this chapter, but it was necessary to get to the next chapter, which should have the scenes from the rally and Harry's birthday.
Hopefully, some of you liked it, because I'm not really sure I did.
Thanks for reading all the same, and you may leave a review on your way out, if you like.
lorien
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