Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Honest.
Here With Me
Chapter 15
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Hermione slept no more that night.
She kept watch, her eyes following his every breath, every movement. He had fallen asleep almost as soon as she had made it safe for him and while she knew he was exhausted she… missed him. Wished they were talking to one another. Was it possible to lay right next to someone and miss them still? Of course it was - her own tiredness was making her fanciful when what she needed to be was rational.
Calm, rational and above all smart.
She knew she couldn't begin to match Voldemort's strength. Hermione, being a girl (well, woman really, wasn't she, or as good as… a mere technicality she intended to rectify on her own time table, thank you) wasn't truly shaken by that fact. She knew that Harry's fears were more about being strong enough, fast enough, powerful enough to meet his predestined fate. For herself she still intuitively believed in the power of knowledge to change that destiny. What she was only now coming to understand, however, was the need for wiles to be able to use her knowledge to its fullest extent. Book learning alone was clearly not going to suffice; she needed something more to be able to wield it as the weapon she required.
Fate might have inextricably linked Harry to Voldemort, but Hermione had faith she could at least be a variable destiny might not have counted on. She just needed to figure out exactly how.
She was glad now that she had turned in her prefects' badge. Hermione knew that her nightly presence in Harry's bed was a complete violation of school rules. She also believed that those same rules were a blind violation of Harry's safety, compromising his ability to do what they were all counting on him to do. Nothing was absolute anymore.
She was immensely relieved that she had become his nightly guardian instead of Ron. He had clearly been struggling with Voldemort beside her for some time before she awoke. What would have happened if Ron, sleeping comfortably behind his own hangings in the next bed over, had never heard him? Why did Snape think that paralyzing Harry with Voldemort inside his head was any kind of answer? It might keep the other students safe, but when the Dark Lord found out about the prophecy and realized that Harry was much more than just an early failure it would be nothing less than tying on a bow and making a gift of him. Which raised another question in Hermione's mind: did Snape know about the prophecy? Exactly who did? Hermione did not believe in secrets; secrets were like entropy, they kept struggling to fill the vacuum. Voldemort would find out, sooner or later. There had to be a better solution.
Harry had successfully managed to throw him off again tonight. The questions that remained were how, and could he keep on? Was it possible that he could manage to do it so decisively that Voldemort would find no profit in continuing to try to use him that way? Surely that would affect the outcome of their final confrontation; one less weapon at Voldemort's disposal was one less thing for Harry to have to counter. Hermione was afraid that their current balance of power was particularly detrimental for Harry. Voldemort had so far only been able to make use of the connection to demoralize him, but Hermione knew that if he had managed to use Harry to kill Draco in the Forbidden Forest he would never have been able to forgive himself. And that was Malfoy. What if it were to be Ron, or Dumbledore? Harry already ached with guilt over his dreams of Cedric and Sirius; what he would do if his own hands were the weapons Voldemort chose to make use of Hermione could not bear to imagine.
She slowly pulled back from her musing to become aware again of Harry's sleeping form beside her. She gently repositioned the pillow that cushioned his injured arm between them. He flinched but didn't wake, shifting slightly. His head drooped toward her and she noticed how even asleep his face retained its seriousness, the constant shadow of worry. She wondered what he would look like if the burden he had lived with all his life so far was ever lifted. How would it change him?
She rifled her memory for its happiest Harry and tried to add five years, then ten to his image. There wasn't much to go on; the few truly relaxed and happy moments were mostly back a few years now. She remembered his hopefulness when they had first rescued Sirius, how the idea of living with his Godfather had seemed to give him some glimpse of a future finally better than the past. She realized then how increasingly serious he had become even before Sirius' death. Cedric's murder and the events ending the Tri-Wizard tournament had taken their toll. She could see the small pale slice in the crook of his injured arm where Wormtail had taken Harry's own blood to revive his enemy.
It suddenly came to her how much he'd grown since that fateful night, how tied his physical maturity had become to the increasing threat. Ron, Seamus, Dean, even Neville had all become taller and more muscular gradually over the last six years, their voices had deepened, their humor had slowly changed, metamorphosing from boys to young men. Harry had always been noticeably out of sync with the others, diminished by his repeated trips to the hospital wing at the close of each school year and summers of near starvation at Privet Drive. He came back to Hogwarts each fall thinner, smaller and less self-assured then the rest only to rebound with a growth spurt made all the more obvious because of what preceded it and how much it took out of him. The first months of school and the return to decent food, human companionship and Quidditch practice usually yielded a healthier, happier Harry until the annual intrusion of Voldemort tormented him again.
This year, it seemed, was somehow different. Even asleep he looked older than the others, as if he had only recently been thrust past them along the road to adulthood by some implacable force. The bones of his face stood out sharper against his skin, their configuration clearer, asserting themselves. He'd almost died in that cave, she reminded herself, but thought there was more to it than that. His neck and shoulders seemed stronger as well, more defined, as if trying to meet the weight descending upon them. There had been other, more subtle signs as well, bits of wandless magic almost unnoticed, the night that he had so tentatively shown her that he could reach her mind. Hermione was sure that Dumbledore had pulled him from the advanced DADA class to hide what he was learning. What if he had also chosen to shield Harry because of a significant change not just in the way he was wielding his magic now, but the very magic within him? Voldemort had certainly seemed pleased with what he had found in Harry in the cave that night. She remembered, "Ahh… Potter's growing even stronger than I knew!" coming from Harry's own mouth, those horrible black eyes alight in his face.
It was as if this year something was consuming him from within as well, energy drawn from an already diminished supply. How could Dumbledore be clever enough to guard Harry's growing magic but not perceptive enough to notice that all that magic was contained within a young human frame that bore watching as well?
Or was that what she was for? He hadn't fought her when she'd dropped the prefect badge on his desk. Then, in the Infirmary, when Madam Pomfrey had been so incensed to find her kissing the patient… "I'm certain Miss Granger meant Mr. Potter no harm. Quite the opposite, I should think." He'd known. All along. He'd admitted as much after the Quidditch match. "I can rather imagine this is an exciting and yet somewhat frustrating time for you both. It is not easy to change the footing of any relationship with the eyes of the whole school upon you."
It made sense of Harry's worry.
"What if he already knows what I think I felt that night in the cave? He's already told me that love is a power Voldemort has forgotten, or forsaken. What if he's encouraging us just because he thinks that you can help me somehow?"
"What if he is? I want to help you Harry."
"And I want your help, I honestly do. Your help. Not what Dumbledore might think you need to do to help me. Do you see the difference? I admire him, I'm grateful to him. But he scares me sometimes, Hermione."
That put Dumbledore's glowing words in something of a new light for her.
"I can do little more than wish you both well, but if I can be of any appropriate assistance, I hope you will come to me."
Maybe it was time for a little… heart to heart with the Headmaster. And perhaps a new training regimen for the Boy Who Needed To Live.
Hermione Granger began to plan.
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"What kind of kinky stuff are you up to, then?" Ron asked doubtfully when Hermione crept to his bed and woke him to ask him to take Harry to the Infirmary in the morning. "You're not supposed to break him, Hermione."
"Now you tell me!" was all she said, and scurried off to the girls dorms.
Harry was sitting on the edge of his bed trying to ease his arm through the sleeve of his robes.
"Never mind," Ron told him on his way through to the loo. "I'll carry them. Find your tie and get your books. We can still make breakfast if Pomfrey gets right to you."
This Hospital Wing thing was really getting old, Harry decided.
"So what happened?" Ron asked as they made their way across the Common room and out through the portrait hole. Harry waited until they were well out of earshot of the Fat Lady this time.
"Well, the good news is that the potion works," he said tiredly.
"Bloody Hell! No way! Are you telling me that… last night… you, I mean he…"
"Yeah."
"But I didn't hear a thing… did I? What did he do? What did you… Holy crap, Harry, what did he do when he found out Hermione was there?"
"He wanted me to kill her," Harry had to force the words from his mouth. "He was furious, just disgusted. Went from playing cat and mouse games with me to spouting the usual twisted rubbish. 'Filthy Mudblood in your bed!. Kill her. Throttle her! DO IT! I COMMAND YOU!' You know, that kind stuff."
Ron squeaked.
"I actually felt a little… erm, like for Snape for a couple of minutes there," Harry admitted. "The one and only time I've ever been happy I couldn't move. He kept on trying, though. Something just snapped in my arm while we were fighting about who it really belonged to. Hermione heard it, and I could tell she was grossed out. She started checking me over, as if to make sure the potion was really working and you know what? He was either really and truly disgusted by her or actually afraid, because wherever she touched me, he moved away."
"Hate to say it, but I'd be afraid of her about then as well. How did you manage to get rid of him? You did get rid of him, didn't you?"
"No, I've always wanted a Weasley for breakfast!" Harry hissed.
Ron started violently. "NOT funny, Harry. You have one sick sense of humor, mate."
"Sorry. I've got no sense of humor anymore, really."
They were almost to the door of the infirmary. Ron stopped. "Harry? How did you get rid of him?"
"I didn't. Hermione did. I'm really glad you weren't interested in the whole dream keeper thing, Ron, because you know what she did? She kissed me. Full frontal snog, and he almost took the back of my head off trying to get away."
Ron's look of stupefaction almost restored Harry's lost sense of humor.
"What are you going to tell Pomfrey? Better still, exactly how much are you going to tell Dumbledore?"
"First things first. We've got to quick think up something plausible for Madam Pomfrey. I'll cope with Dumbledore later. What do you reckon? Arm wrestling Millicent Bulstrode? Tripped over my own broomstick? Fell out of bed?"
"Any way we can implicate Malfoy? It was his hero, after all."
"Um, Ron, if we're trying to be the good guys we aren't actually supposed to lie about him, right? Did you know Bill calls Voldemort the Dark Wanker by the way?"
"Bill always did have a bit of a death wish. Bet he wouldn't call him that if he were sleeping in the next bed to you. And for your information, if you don't own up to Pomfrey that it was Voldemort trying to choke Hermione in your bed last night that broke your arm, you're still technically lying anyway. Just a thought."
"Thanks. I prefer to think of it as relatively harmless, self-preservation-minded bending of the truth myself. How about falling down the stairs?"
"No thanks."
"Ron?"
"You're not exactly graceful, mate, but anyone who can catch the snitch like you do isn't likely to be unable to manage stairs. By sixth year I think they stop believing you about the missing steps as well. That broom won't fly."
"Ron, whether or not we make breakfast this morning is resting on a good excuse to get Madam Pomfrey to fix this now."
"Okay. Leave it to me. Just follow my lead."
Ron stepped ahead of Harry into the infirmary.
"Madam Pomfrey! Quick! Harry was in the shower and we heard the strangest screaming. I think he's actually broken it! "
"Prepare to die a truly humiliating death, Ronald Bilius Weasley." Harry told him softly as three fifth year Hufflepuff girls awaiting relief from skin-clearing charms gone wrong (they'd seemed to have removed their noses altogether along with their spots) forgot their woes, burst into hysterical giggles and gave him a rather avid once-over. "Just remember, the smartest witch of our age is on my team now."
Madam Pomfrey rushed from her office looking just a tad flushed. Harry quickly pointed to his arm. She visibly relaxed and gestured down the aisle to the next bed but one. "You'll just have to wait your turn, Mr. Potter. Quite the morning this has turned out to be already!"
"Sweet Merlin let that not be Potter and the Weasel," groaned a voice from the second bed as they passed, "Is there no place safe from you two?"
Draco Malfoy sat holding a rather pungent poultice to the beginnings of a brilliant black eye.
"What happened to you?" Ron laughed. "Mobbed by your fan club?"
"Sort of," Malfoy sneered. "Your little sister's got a hell of a right hook."
Nope. Today wasn't looking to be Harry's day either.
"Ron, why don't you go ahead and get yourself something to eat? Looks like it's going to be a while," Harry tried, sitting on the end of the bed.
"Why'd Ginny punch you?" Ron asked. "She usually goes straight to the old bat bogey hex. You must have really ticked her off."
"I made the mistake of assuming she had more class. Being a true Weasley she went straight for the Muggle method."
"Ron, really, get yourself some breakfast. I'm fine. I'll see you in class." Harry told him.
"You're such an annoying git I'm surprised she didn't hex you on top of it. Here's a hint, she doesn't take kindly to red head jokes," Ron laughed.
"I rather like red hair actually. It's the temper that goes along with it. So unpredictable. One minute they love you, the next you're wearing murtlap and alloburry poultice."
"Ron, could you GO TO BREAKFAST and ask Hermione to meet us in the library after Arithmancy? Please?"
"Well, at least you'll never have to worry about the first bit." Ron said, a small, puzzled frown starting to form between his eyes.
Harry needed a distraction. Was it worth hinting to Draco that he'd spent some quality time with Voldemort again last night? No, he'd only go and tell the whole school again… unless he already knew. But then he'd know about Hermione being in his bed also. Bugger.
Draco was grinning behind his poultice, although that could mean almost anything, really. What the hell was Ginny thinking? More importantly, what was Ginny up to, punching him out?
"Well, Mr. Malfoy," Madam Pomfrey said, finally finished with the Hufflepuffs and bustling round his bed. "What happened to you?"
"Potter punched me. Completely unprovoked. Just hauled off and punched me, babbling something about Cho Chang and Granger."
Harry felt as if someone had punched him, in the stomach.
"Bloody he… He never did! You lying Slytherin sack of…" Ron gasped.
Harry saw Malfoy's eyes glitter purposefully into his own. 'Admit it or I'll tell him,' they said, clearly as if he'd spoken the words. Harry ached to send a few wordless words Malfoy's way, but knew that Dumbledore would have his stones for it; he was meant to be learning control, not giving the game away. There was nothing for it but to go along and take whatever came his way this time, but he'd well and truly had it with Malfoy's habitual blackmailing. Ginny Weasley was going to do some talking whether she felt like it or not. Today.
"I was upset about what happened to Hermione at the Quidditch match," Harry cut Ron off miserably. "I know it was wrong, I just … I said I was sorry."
Ron turned on Harry, his mouth opening and closing silently.
Madam Pomfrey tutted and pulled the poultice away from Malfoy's face, flicking her wand diagnostically back and forth before his eye.
"That must have been quite a blow. Fortunately you missed his eye and mostly contacted the cheek area. I see no damage to the eye itself, Mr. Malfoy. The poultice will probably do as much good as any healing charm. A masking charm could cover the bruising if you wish, but a black eye always shows some shadowing. A matter of choice rather than healing, really. Of course your Heads of House will have to be informed. You both must be quite familiar with the punishment for fighting by now."
"I'll leave it, thank you." Malfoy told her. "Does Professor Snape really have to be involved?" He grinned at Harry maliciously behind her back as Madam Pomfrey turned to Harry's bed and took hold of his arm. Harry tried to remain quiet but she was twisting and turning it, stretching his fingers and looking for the source of the problem near his wrist.
"S'up a bit, really," he hissed, pushing the unbuttoned cuff of his school shirt up over his elbow. She caught sight of the bruising on his forearm and ran a well practiced hand along it before following up with a wave of her wand.
"Broken, Mr. Potter. Really…" She murmured a series of charms, nudging the bones into alignment with flicks of her wand and then pouring him a dose of the potion that would begin knitting the mend together. Harry fought the fierce itching sensation he always felt when a bone was magically healed. "Odd place to break while inflicting a black eye," she said thoughtfully with the final movement of her wand over his arm. "Usually one sees damage to the opponents' fingers or wrist."
"I, erm…" He lifted his eyes to Malfoy. It's your lie, slug bait, he thought. Got any good ideas?
"Oh, punching my eye didn't hurt him," Malfoy said smoothly. "I used a reductor curse on his second swing. Self-defense of course. Pureblood wizards don't fight with their fists, after all. I could have stopped the whole thing without bloodshed if he hadn't attacked me from behind. Result of growing up muggle, I guess."
Oh yeah. I punched you in the eye from behind. Always were backarseward you…
"Harry? What are you doing? Are you going to let him get away with that?" Ron hissed furiously.
Madam Pomfrey glared at him. "Mr. Potter is in quite enough trouble as it is, Mr. Weasley. I suggest you stay right out of it. I'll just pretend I didn't hear your little cover story about the… about how he hurt himself. Now off you go, the three of you. Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape will take it from here."
"It'll save Ginny a detention or worse, won't it? What did you want me to do? Turn her in?" Harry whispered back as they left the Hospital Wing behind Malfoy. He was in a sling once more.
"Guess I'll still have to watch my back, shall I?" Draco sneered. "Hard to find some stupid window when I'm always having to look behind me."
"How will you know the difference, you snake. You've always had your head stuck up your arse anyway." Harry told him, unleashing the anger he'd worked so hard to contain before Madam Pomfrey. "Just try that again, Malfoy. I'm through with that particular game of yours. Done. I'm going to have a little talk with your… friend. Tell whoever you want."
"Weaselbee doesn't seem quite ready for that, does he? Clueless as usual. Guess you'll have to sic your little bed buddy on me then, won't you, Potter."
Harry froze, and Ron careened off him. Draco smiled. "Oh yes, Potter. I know."
There was only one way he could, wasn't there? He didn't believe Dean or Seamus or Neville would do that to him; or to Hermione when it came down to it. Still, no one else knew… Only Voldemort. But Hermione's jinx… wouldn't that have set it off? Something was very wrong here. Nothing Draco had said since the night in the cave had ever added up the way it should. Harry's mind was racing and he knew that Draco was watching him closely. Time for a quote straight from the old man, then.
"Why don't you prove it, then," Harry said, channeling his memory of Lucius threatening him with Tom Riddle's diary second year. He pushed past a suddenly disconcerted Draco and headed down the hall. "Come on, Ron. We're going to be late for Transfiguration."
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Harry caught up with Ginny Weasley on her way back from Care of Magical Creatures. She was walking up the hill in a group of Gryffindors and Slytherins. How perfect that Ginny's year shared Hagrids' class with the Slytherins as well; perhaps word of his preemptive strike would wend its way directly back to Malfoy.
He waded through the fifth years and stopped directly in front of Ginny, forcing her to stop as well.
"You and I need to have a little talk," he said.
"I'm busy just now Harry. Maybe after Quidditch tonight," she replied, avoiding his eyes.
"No, Ginny. Now. No more excuses, no more games. It's gone too far. Right now."
Harry didn't often get really angry. He was really angry now, and it showed.
"Bullying pig," she accused him, but it was so half-hearted, so un-Ginny-like that he didn't know whether to laugh or scream out of sheer frustration.
"Shut up and come," he insisted, diverting her in the direction of the lake.
He could hear the silence of the fifth years behind them, knew that it would only last until they were out of earshot.
They walked toward the lake. Harry reached over and took her book bag for her with his good arm and she laughed; a single dry bark that sounded more bitter than amused.
"Prince bloody Valiant, aren't you. God forbid I carry the heavy burden of my own books while the great and noble Harry Potter accuses me of betrayal and wanton behavior."
"Sounds like guilt talking to me."
"You wish."
"Oh yeah, Ginny, that's what I really want." He rounded on her. "Don't pull this crap on me. Everything else aside, I risked my life for you once and now you're… doing Merlin-knows-what with someone who hates me and whose sole goal in life is to make mine even worse. Someone who hates Ron, too, and disparages your entire family at every opportunity. Why? Could you just tell me that one thing? Why?"
"Why don't you ask Hermione?"
"Why don't you just quit playing games and tell me yourself? It's not about me, or Hermione. It's about you and Draco Malfoy."
"Oh, but it is about you. And Hermione knows all about it too."
"Ginny. You. Malfoy. You and Malfoy. Why. Now."
Finally backed against a conversational wall her face twisted alarmingly, tears welling in her eyes. Harry just knew he wasn't going to like what was coming. At that moment he would have gladly faced a hundred Hungarian Horntails to have been somewhere, anywhere, else.
"Because I loved you," she wailed. "It wasn't funny, it wasn't just a school girl's crush. It was real, and I wanted you so much I thought I would die from it and I couldn't let on to anyone. My whole family embraced you, took you right in. There was no escaping the fact you didn't love me back because there was no escaping you. My seventh brother.
You saved my life alright, but because it was the right thing to do and God forbid Harry Potter not do the right thing and save his best friend's little sister. I came back from the brink of death at the hands of Tom Riddle and there you were, bleeding and trying to hide that you were dying from me. I loved you so much at that moment, Harry, and it wouldn't have made the slightest difference to you if I had been Pansy sodding Parkington. And that hurt. And it didn't get better, and it went on not getting better right through seeing Michael Corner and then with Dean. There was no comparison. They were just… boys.
Everyone calls you the Boy Who Lived but you've never been a damned boy in your whole life. God only knows what you are, what the muggles and Dumbledore and Voldemort have made you, but you left a… a hole inside me, an emptiness that no one else could fill. Until I got to know Draco. Until I got past the Slytherin on the surface and really got to know him. I thought I could make him happy. I thought I could make him turn away from Voldemort. I thought I could make a difference, make something good happen for once. Make you see me."
Harry was dumbfounded. What had he ever done to deserve this particular nightmare? He'd never once done anything he'd been aware of to make Ginny love him, knew that she didn't really, she couldn't. The fierceness of his newfound feelings for Hermione at least gave him a sense of what she was talking about, but he was still lost somehow. How did she make the jump from thinking she loved him to Malfoy?
"I'm sorry. I'm so very, very sorry if I did anything at all to hurt you. I never meant to, honestly. But if this is to get back at me or something Gin, hit me, hex me, do whatever you have to do, just don't do this."
"This has nothing to do with getting back at you. It's not to spite you, it's despite you. How do you think it makes me feel that the one person I want now is someone you and Ron and Hermione all hate. "
"I would think it would make you feel awful. And confused, unsure, probably angry. I'm no genius when it comes to feelings but even I know those don't add up to love. So why?"
"Why do you love Hermione?"
"Please don't. Don't even try to compare them. That's so unfair the thought just makes me sick." Harry said.
She just looked at him.
"Ginny, he's… damaged. Worse than me, if that's possible. He's evil. He uses people, he cheats, he lies, and he truly thinks he has a birthright that excuses all of it. Tell me, show me, what is there to love? "
"He was those things. I won't deny that. He was born and raised and bullied into those things. You've seen his father, you can guess the way Draco was brought up. He's changed now, but no one will let him, no one will see. He wants to be different. I can help him. He needs me."
Harry's blood ran cold.
"Ginny, no. Nothing's changed. He's…"
"He's what? Using me? How can you say that? He saved your life, Harry. He said you'd never admit it, and he was right."
"I'll admit it. I'd stand up and shout it to the whole school if it would change your mind. Draco Malfoy saved my life! Of course he told me it was for you, if it weren't for the fact it would please you he would have enjoyed watching me die. Is that how you think you can help him? Trying to remind him not to enjoy pain, not to kill just for the sake of killing? He's not a little boy anymore, Ginny. It's not about teasing the weaker kids and making them cry, or getting someone into detention. Even if he does bolt from his father and Voldemort, the stakes for all of us have changed. He'll end up in the middle of things whether he wants to or not and I don't see him having to rehearse the unforgivables to work up his nerve to use one. It's second nature to him. Is that really what you want for yourself?"
"It doesn't have to be that way. He doesn't want any part of Dumbledore's war with Voldemort. You're the one who's going to be the killer, Harry."
It was said without malicious intent, almost as if she were pointing out something patently obvious that she thought he'd failed to grasp. That small thought was important to him; it suggested that she wasn't quoting the prophecy somehow but simply making an observation. She didn't know, Draco didn't know, Voldemort didn't know. That point acknowledged and filed away, he felt time resume and her words tear through him with a pain that pushed him right over an edge he'd been close to for far too long.
He turned from her and walked away, up the path toward the castle. His legs were shaking, he badly needed to pee. A loud roaring sound accompanied him; at first he thought it was the sound of his own blood rushing, echoing in his ears. But then his fringe flew in his eyes, his robes swirled round him as if racing him back to the doorway. His hands ached, as if his bones had grown too big for his skin to hold. For a moment he feared that Voldemort was back but in another moment's time he knew true fear; this time of himself.
This was him. Something in his heart was clawing its way out and he couldn't stop it. He picked up his pace, stumbling forward, toward what he could not tell. There was something he needed to tell before… someone needed to know… What? It was so important, everything depended on it, but he was keeping too many secrets, they were all running together and he forgot who it was safe to tell what. Dumble… No!
Hermione! He had to find Hermione.
His hands grasped the latch to the door and pulled.
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