Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Honest.
This chapter is dedicated to Sannihun of Sweden - who waited so long. Happy reading!
Here With Me
Chapter 27
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Not only was it a Hogsmeade weekend, but thanks very much to their seemingly endless detention it was also their first one of the year. Ron had had little difficulty arranging for third or fourth years to secure supplies for them in past weeks; they were all going to HoneyDukes anyway. Extra incentives had had to be applied to lug books back for Hermione, but Ron was resourceful that way, and they'd managed. Still, there was nothing like browsing for what you were spending your money on, and Christmas was now less than a week away.
The air was sharp with the kind of cold that only abated with the first fall of snowflakes; so chilled that snow seemed to warm it by comparison. The sky was grey but stubbornly holding back. Madam Pomfrey had fussed at first about letting Harry go in such weather, but in the end even she didn't have the heart to make him miss his only chance to do some Christmas shopping. Harry's grumbled, 'it was stunner, it's not like I've got the flu or anything' allowed her to vent her feelings in a lengthy lecture on the extensive damage he'd put himself through since the year began, which he sat through in silence but with noticeably rolled and crossed eyes at the appropriate points. Having both played their roles to completion they went on their separate ways, but Hermione noticed Madam Pomfrey's subtle pat on his shoulder as she half pushed him off the examining bed. A stand off had been achieved both sides could live with.
Bundled in their heaviest cloaks, scarves and mittens they set off with the general herd, but shortly broke down into a smaller group that included Neville, Seamus, Dean, Parvati and Lavender as the journey progressed. Quite soon after that Hermione noticed Ron seemed to have disappeared from the general chatter and a covert glance over her shoulder found him several paces behind them, walking along deep in conversation with Luna.
"Don't look," whispered Harry, "He hates it when he gets all red in front of her. I can't wait until he clues in that she could bloody care less. She's perfectly norm…, well, reasonably normal in other ways, but he just about walks on water for her at the moment."
"Oh, and you've never enjoyed that feeling, have you?" she told him. "Let him alone."
"I missed that phase, you know, and it's likely to be deeply damaging to me mentally at some point. I just went from annoying boy friend to annoying boyfriend."
"I take offense at that Harry Potter," she told him in mock outrage. "First of all, you're already so mental who could tell if there was any more damage, and secondly I think you might just have been happy enough have been able to walk on water yourself recently. Very recently indeed."
"Erm," said Harry, and shut up. Mental yes, complete idiot no longer.
Her hand snuck into his and both grinned companionably at each other.
"You two are truly getting nauseating," Seamus observed. "Not to mention raising the bar considerably for the rest of us blokes, Harry. You're meant to be on our side you know."
"Yeah, Harry," echoed Dean "where's the baiting each other and quibbling? The requisite spats? You're making us look bad."
"Which side is that again?" Harry joked. "I like the view much better from over here, thanks. You ought to give it a try."
"Yes," said Parvati feelingly. "More of you should. Pass the word, will you?"
"To whom," Seamus asked her with a grin, "ought we be speaking? Give us a name, girl, and we'll let him know."
Parvati rolled her lovely eyes, but Lavender perked up and named names. Harry reckoned Seamus and Dean would have a busy time catching all of them.
They'd reached the outskirts of Hogsmeade by this point and Dean adroitly changed the subject by asking who was heading where. They began to break up into pairs and singles, agreeing to meet up at the Three Broomsticks for something warming before heading home. Hermione took off with Parvati and Luna to search for her gifts, leaving Harry with Ron. Lavender was still bending Dean and Seamus' ears, so they headed off in the opposite direction.
"Come up with any brilliant ideas for me?" Ron asked, hunching up his shoulders to warm his reddening ears.
"What, for Hermione, or Luna?" Harry asked.
"Both, mate, and cheap." Ron told him. "Its hell to be broke at Christmas."
Harry reckoned it was, and not fair, either. For all his worries that was one he hadn't had, thanks to the forethought of his Mum and Dad. He didn't want to be a total arse about it, but thought it worth a try to make the offer anyway. He'd rather have had his parents then their money, and Ron was awfully good about sharing his.
"Look, Ron," he said, "I don't want to put my foot in it or anything, but what if part of my Christmas present to you this year was to fund whatever you want for Hermione and Luna? No worries then; and it ought to make it lots easier to find something. It's not as if you can't do it or anything, I just thought…"
"That'd be great, Harry," Ron cut him off gruffly. "Make it the whole present and we're square. Big relief, that."
Harry bumped him gently as they walked along. "Deal, then."
"Deal." Ron bumped him back, and Harry almost went flying through the window of Coriander's Cauldrons and Crucibles.
Hmm. Cauldrons. What about a curse on Snape's cauldron? What if he could fix it so that the slimy git's potions went wrong every time for a while? Let him see how it felt. It would likely be next to impossible, but that meant Hermione could still do it. The thought of the contents of Snape's cauldron roiling into the perfectly wrong color for once and exploding more violently then Neville's ever had filled Harry with a rush of simple joy. Merry Christmas indeed, you great pile of animated bat dung!
Harry was so happy he thought he could break into song. His Christmas gift to Hogsmeade was that he didn't.
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For all that girls genuinely seemed to require a great deal more stuff than your average guy to get through life; they were astonishingly hard to buy for. Ron and Harry were finding it so, anyway.
Harry had never actually found it all that hard to shop for Hermione before; she was usually quite pleased with a thoughtfully chosen book or something useful for school like an ever-sharp or self-inking quill. This year, however, things were decidedly different between them and he felt the stakes were upped a bit in terms of getting it right. His dilemma was deciding between a really, really thoughtfully chosen book, or entering that other frightening end of the girl gift spectrum, namely jewelry.
One of the things Harry liked best about Wizard shops as opposed to Muggle ones was their individuality; Wizards frowned on mass production and preferred either ancient objects with a past or ones designed to be singular or personalized by the user. Even by those standards, however, the shabby little shop at the head of Frogsmarsh Lane in Hogsmeade was different; you never knew what you were going to find in Serendipity's Storehouse. It was an entirely useless place to shop if you had something specific in mind before you went, but if you went in for a spot of browsing the perfect thing had a way of appearing almost like… well, magic. It was there that he turned now; and there that he dragged Ron as well.
The cheerful old witch who owned the place sat at her usual worn and stuffing-spewing chair behind the ancient till, knitting and chatting away to a rather bedraggled looking parrot who had the run of the place and liked to comment on potential purchases. 'Don't buy that! It's poisonous!' chirped in a disconcertingly perky voice, was a favorite remark, regardless of the item in hand.
"Help yourselves dearies," she said without looking up from her needles. "Best to think of the person you're looking for while you poke around. Never know what you'll find in here."
"There's more stuff in here than the attics at Grimmauld Place," Ron whispered to Harry as they set off down one narrow aisle between piled shelves, "and that's saying something."
"Watch yourself," Harry advised him. "I wasn't paying attention once and it took me the rest of the afternoon to find my way back out. Try what she said, though, and think of Luna while you walk around. It's worked for me before. I found that replacement bishop for your chess set here fourth year, and we both thought that was impossible."
They browsed about for twenty minutes, never straying far from each other, when Harry found it. It was in a box of odds and ends that seemed to have been cleared out of someone's sewing drawer; there was a packet of needles, a variety of buttons and an ivory button hook, and a small silver object in the shape of a book, not more than two and half centimeters square. He lifted it gingerly with his fingers to find it was attached to an intricate silver chain. A small clasp kept it closed and he wondered if he dared open it.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained; it looked as if it could be quite nice if it was cleaned up and Hermione would love it. He just needed to make sure it didn't have a picture of Hitabel the Hideous pasted inside, or some disfiguring curse waiting for the next wearer. Wincing, he flicked open the little clasp and the covers fell open.
Several seconds later when nothing untoward had happened he resumed breathing and opened his eyes to examine it closer. There were tiny oval openings in both the interior front and back covers, clearly fashioned to hold small photos like a locket, and a reef of real bound parchment pages in between. The pages were so small Harry couldn't imagine they were meant for anything but to maintain the illusion of a book, but when he gently ruffled them with his finger he felt the subtle electric tickle of magic and they fell free of the book onto the shelf below. There was the briefest of hissing noises, and they enlarged to a notepad about the size of his extended palm. He picked them up cautiously and thumbed through each one; the last bore the explanation he was searching for.
It was a lover's locket, meant for communication between a socially discouraged couple, small enough to be passed back and forth and charmed so that it could only be open and read buy the two whose pictures were kept inside the front and back covers.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on the locket itself in his hand; it felt benign enough to him, but he reckoned he could get Bill Weasley to check it for him Christmas Eve. He'd be without a gift if it was cursed and Bill couldn't break it, but he couldn't help thinking that it was too perfect for Hermione, too exactly what he wanted to give her to have anything really wrong with it. It was more than a book, more than just jewelry, and just right for someone who was so much more than just a girl. And Merlin know Voldemort had already used up his diary, so it couldn't be his!
He placed the too-large pages back between their covers and they shrunk back down to their original miniature size to fit neatly back inside. He closed the little latch again, curling his fingers around it with a grin and setting off in search of Ron.
He found him in the very next aisle of shelving over, staring with a perfectly incredulous expression at the item before him. Harry moved cautiously closer and stared round his shoulder.
"Just what," he asked, "is that…thing?"
It looked like a rock. Not a particularly attractive rock, either, but a sort of wound-up-like-a-snake ugly rock. Only when Harry looked closer and poked it gingerly with his outstretched finger he realized in wasn't a rock at all. It was lighter and smoother and when rocked on the shelf made a partially hollow sound.
Recognition dawned. "You were thinking about Luna when you found it, right?" he asked.
Ron nodded numbly. "And once I saw it, it was like I couldn't look away. I kept trying to look at other stuff, really I did. There were some nice hair thingies over there, she's got gorgeous hair, really, but it was like my eyes wouldn't focus on anything else…"
Harry laughed. "You realize what you've found, Ron? I could be wrong, but knowing this place I doubt it. I'll bet you a year's supply of chocolate frogs that that, my friend, is the horn of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack."
Ron looked skeptical. "I thought Hermione said they weren't real."
Harry shrugged. "Maybe they just haven't shown up in a book yet. Maybe they're shy. Maybe they're extinct. Even if Luna's father made them up completely, I'm still willing to bet he'd say that's what that is."
"So you're saying I should actually get it?" Ron said. "Are you daft?"
"It says you believe in her. It says you don't think she's loony Luna. It says you're willing to take a chance to make her happy." Harry told him.
Ron wasn't ready to be convinced just yet. "What if she thinks it's awful, what if they killed it for the horn or something?"
"What if two male Snorkacks locked horns fighting for a female Snorkack and it came off that way? Sacrificed for love. That's probably a very potent potion ingredient right there."
"Harry, you need to come up for air more when you snog. It's affecting your brain." Ron laughed. "It's ugly as sin."
"That's the thing about Luna, though. The best thing. She doesn't care what things look like, she cares who or what they are. Do it, Ron. I have a very good feeling about this." Harry told him.
"Well, at least I can blame it completely on you if it goes wrong," Ron conceded.
"And snog your way to glory without mentioning me once if it doesn't. What's there to lose?"
Ron picked it up and turned it over, examining it. "It does look sort of crumpled…."
"Come on, then." Harry led the way to the front of the shop where the old witch was still knitting away and chatting up the obviously bored parrot. Its beady black eye fixed on Harry and Ron with the consuming interest of the sole survivor of a shipwreck marooned for months alone at sea.
"Whatcha got? Whatcha got? Whatcha got?" it squawked, walking carefully along to the edge of its perch.
The witch set her knitting on her chair and made her way to the counter. "Any luck then, boys?"
"We'll take these, please," Harry told her, nodding to Ron to give her the horn and setting down the locket. Ron groaned when he saw it.
"That looks normal enough," he said. "How is it that you something like that, which Hermione will love, by the way, and I end up with this?"
"If it's lockets you want, young man, there's plenty to be found. I've got a good lot of them right here," the old witch informed Ron kindly. She reached beneath the counter to remove a faded velvet tray and set it before him. Lockets of every shape and size and material flashed and winked at them, far outshining Harry's little silver book. Ron appeared mesmerized. Some had gemstones set in them; some were inscribed with initials or runes.
The witch's twisted old fingers sorted through them, straightening their chains and setting them apart from each other. Harry had just noticed something oddly familiar about a heavy-looking old gold one with an elaborate S engraved on it when his scar burst into brilliant aching flames of pain, the sharpest it had ever hurt since Voldemort had stolen his blood to reclaim a human form. He reeled back from the counter, doubling over and trying rather desperately not to be sick.
"Harry?" Ron crouched down beside him. "Mate? Is it…"
Harry nodded and scrabbled in his robes, handing Ron his money bag.
"Pay," he gasped. "I'll meet you outside. It's okay. I don't think it means he's close."
He stumbled through the door of the shop, the bell tinkling madly behind him. It had begun to snow while they were inside, and he lifted his face up to the sky, half expecting to hear the snow flakes hiss when they struck his scar. It was so much better out here; in fact it was almost…gone. It was gone.
He wheeled around and pressed his face to the glass of the door, watching Ron counting out the galleons and sickles as the witch wrapped their purchases in scrap paper and tied them off with bits of string. The velvet tray was still on the counter and he could see the lockets displayed on it. Where had he seen the one with the S before? It wasn't recently; he didn't seem to remember anyone wearing it. It was very ornate and obviously old, not the sort of thing Hogwarts girls wore at all, and he couldn't really see a teacher in it either. It was hardly Professor Sprouts' style, and though Professor Sinistra's name began with S as well Harry was sure he'd never seen anything like it on the astronomy teacher. Of course, it had been dark most of the time… No, he'd very definitely seen that somewhere before in the light of day.
He was fairly certain that something about that locket had set his scar aflame, and he wished desperately that he knew what it was.
Ron emerged through the door, the cries of the parrot squawking "Nevermore! Nevermore!" like a demented raven following him.
"Bloody bird. Are you all right, then?" Ron handed Harry his money bag and the smaller of the two packages.
"Yeah. I don't know… did any of those lockets look familiar to you?"
"Nope. They all looked like a better present than this stupid horn, though."
"Did you ask her about it? The horn."
"Looked at me like an idiot when I did. 'It's from a Crumple Horned Snorkack, of course!' she says. Came from Sweden and everything."
"Well, there you are. Your Christmas snog is assured, so long so you don't put your foot in it. Now what in Hogsmeade can I possibly get your sister?
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They completed the rest of their shopping in significantly less time than it had taken to find their first gifts. The twins were generally easy enough, Bill and Charlie undemanding, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley fairly conventional in their desires. Harry split off from Ron for the last bit it so that he could find something for him, promising to meet up again at the Three Broomsticks at the appointed time.
The Quidditch supplies in Hogsmeade were usually slimmer pickings by far than Quality Quidditch in Diagon Alley, but Harry found a book he'd never seen before, quite new from the look of it. "17 Spells to Supercharge the Older Model Broom: How to Get Firebolt Speed and Response from Your Cleansweep 5 and Above" had Ron written all over it; and his was even a Cleansweep 11. The spells all made sense to Harry and looked as if they just might work if you got the combinations right. At least Ron could have fun trying it out. He was amused at the thought of giving Ron the book this year and Hermione something else altogether, but that was just the sort of year it was turning out to be.
He bought Ginny a small, marble-sized glass ball that looked like a cross between Neville's Rememberall and Mad Eye Moody's foe-glass and was meant to be just that, it was advertised as an "Intention Indicator." The spell sheet that went along with it explained that if you wore it against your skin, it would change color from it's natural green (which he thought would look pretty enough for her to not mind wearing, very becoming to her coloring) to a stormy red if someone directly in contact with you was harboring malign thoughts.
He hoped that she was done with Malfoy, but he'd seen the sort of helpless, moth-to-a-flame look she'd had for him and remembered keenly her belief that there was something worth saving there. Harry couldn't agree less, but if she felt compelled to keep trying at least this would warn her off if he was right. He was still desperately torn about what had happened and felt vaguely at fault although he'd done nothing, as far as his mental reconstruction of the whole thing could reveal, to encourage her feelings when it came to him in the first place. Except be an oblivious git, which ought to have been off-putting rather than attracted her. Perhaps she really did have a saving people thing too, and that was the connection she felt?
Harry shoved the whole thing mentally into a corner and speeded his steps back toward the comfort of Hermione. He was battling the by now more determined snowflakes and dodging many a shopped-out Hogwarts student along the lane to the Three Broomsticks when his eye caught just a flash of something in a window and he slowed, then came to a halt.
It was an apothecary and potions supply shop, and at first he thought his weary brain had obediently worked its way back to a convenient curse for Snape's cauldron, but as he thought about it he knew he'd still need Hermione's help for that. They'd covered cauldron issues and how to guard yourself from them early on this year at the NEWT level, and Harry, as was so often the case, had simply been too preoccupied with some other pressing danger in his life at the time to pay sufficient attention.
So what was he looking for, then?
There was a display of "Magically Useful and Most Potent Objects" in the window, bezoars and fire-crab shells in a variety of sizes, great nuggets of amber, lumps of obsidian, stalagmites of hand grown crystals in a wide range of colors and stages. His eye had caught a collection of small geodes and nodules, though, none bigger than a snitch. The rocky exterior looked ordinary enough, the sort of thing you'd kick along a path without a second look, but the ones that were split open already revealed a remarkable variety of colors and types of crystals within. There were common quartz, amethyst and calcite ones priced quite cheaply; and even Harry knew that they were called for, ground and pulverized, in a variety of basic enough potions.
There was also a larger wooden crate in the back of the display, packed with straw and containing much bigger whole ones, each labeled individually as to their provenance and predicted contents. It was toward these Harry felt his attention inextricably drawn like a magnet. His face pressed against the freezing glass, eyes searching amongst the spidery writing, for what he was not sure. His heart seemed to be beating slightly faster and every instinct he had told him there was something there he was meant to understand…
Agate Creek and Monto and Murgon in Queensland; Narrabri, Boggabri, Merriwah, Werris Creek and Bellata in New South Wales. Some were from watery areas, some from mountains; but all were labeled as "naturally created" and their uses limited to potions. The last two were different; one was called a "thunder egg" and was said to have been created within volcanic rock, the other was called "dragon's breath" and explained to have been formed by an existing nodule being superheated while lying in the path of a dragon's flamestrike.
The thunder egg was already split to reveal a star-shaped interior filled with long crystalline projections; beautiful, but not what Harry was looking for. Not that he knew what he was looking for, mind you, so what was he thinking? The dragon's breath nodule was still whole, and Harry's desire to know what its interior looked like was almost overwhelming. He reckoned that this must be what most wizards felt like under the Imperius curse, and his helpful little voice didn't seem to be kicking in, either. He looked to the bottom of the tag beside it for the price and almost cried.
250 galleons? For a rock??
He dragged himself away from the window, determined to find out what was so bloody special about a Dragon's Breath geode that would require one to fork over 250 galleons for it. Why he actually really, really wanted to was going to be harder to address; he was unlikely to find that answer in any book.
Thank goodness for Hermione, then. In so many, many ways.
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The trip home turned out to be great fun. A nice warm butterbeer or two had restored most of the energy Christmas shopping had drained from them, and the snow was sticking now and layering itself insistently ever deeper on the ground. There were snowball fights amongst the boys and a great deal of snow shoved down warm necks under scarves for the girls. Harry learned Hermione could throw a snow ball as well as any boy after he'd managed to get a bit down the actual neck of her cloak as well, and hence in a nice cold drip down her spine.
"You are so in trouble, Harry Potter!" she warned him, biting her lip to hold back a squeak as the wet back of her shirt touched skin again. "That was absolutely freezing."
"That was the point," he told her, and grinned.
"Speaking of points, then, that's going to cost you," she informed him primly. "I'm going to be calling in, oh, at least thirty in retaliation," she said in a much softer voice, for him alone.
"Oh, I'm so scared," he whispered back. "Anything but that! You're too good to me, Mistress."
"Now there's a thought," was all she said.
Uh oh.
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Inspired, perhaps, by the snow settling over the castle and the knowledge that roughly half the student population had spent the day in Hogsmeade Christmas shopping, the house elves outdid themselves at dinner. There was hot soup and a warming lamb stew with fresh rolls for sopping up their bowls, and warm apple cobbler for afters. Ron looked happy enough to sleep right there on the bench at the Gryffindor table, and he was not alone. All across the Great Hall students (and not a few teachers) gave happy sighs of complete satiation as they rose from their seats.
Harry was taking Dumbledore's suggestion that he had outgrown his need of Hermione as dream keeper as starting with the new week, meaning Monday. None of the boys knew one way or the other; indeed, none of them seemed to mind her presence now in the slightest so he saw no reason to push the issue. He'd expected some at least token resistance about following the intent if not the word of the ruling from the ex-prefect in Hermione, but the fact that none was forthcoming when he mentioned it to her was chuffing indeed. It was nice to know she was looking forward to their imminent separation as little as he was.
They parted as always at the split landing of the stairs. Harry began heading up the stairs to the boys' dormitories behind Ron when he heard a distinct throat-clearing behind him. He turned to find Hermione still on the landing.
"What?" he asked.
She motioned him down the steps, and he had to dodge two third year boys to make it.
"If we're going to make this look legitimate to anyone else at all," she whispered, "we're going to have to start acting like a normal couple would."
Bloody hell, as Ron would have so aptly put it. What did that mean? What did normal couples at Hogwarts do that they weren't? He glanced out over the common room trying to look as if he'd understood perfectly but was just checking if he'd left anything vital in a room he hadn't effectively been in at all in the last twelve hours. As he did, his eyes glanced (as quickly as they could) off of Lavender Brown, lip locked with Cormac McLaggen of all people. Ewwww.
He glanced back at Hermione, but as he did, her meaning became clear. Cormac and Lavender were hardly about to… nope. Go away! Merlin, his brain was repulsed at the mere thought of the two of them kissing. Anything else was too deeply blech to consider. Mental spit. Anyway, they weren't likely going to see each other again once they went up stairs, as both of them were essentially too lazy to go to the trouble of putting on an act for anyone else if they were just going to sneak out later. That, and the fact that Lavender was on the vain side and like to look her best; she wasn't going to wash off her make up and put on pajamas warm enough to cope with Hogwarts in winter in if she was due to be meeting someone. So they were kissing good night. And Hermione thought it would look suspicious if they parted without kissing good night as well!
How did things get so complicated? Harry thought, as three fourth year girls sidled past them and continued on up the girls' stairs. This must have been going on forever, year after year, how come he'd never noticed a thing when he was in third or fourth or fifth? There was an unspoken rule about minding your manners in front of the firsties and seconds, but the prefects left well enough alone after that. The only apparent answer was he'd just been oblivious; it was a hard thing to disprove given his general obliviousness to other even more obvious things. It was another of those wand-pocket-in-the-curtains moment when Hermione explained the finer points of Hogwarts for him.
There was, therefore, a healthy dose of gratitude mixed with his desire when he kissed her then, and it must have showed. The fourth years broke out into wolf whistles from the top of the stairs. Surprisingly good ones, considering they were girls. Harry felt himself blush, but kissed her once more to cover it.
"See you later?" he whispered.
"Count on it," was her reply.
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A/N: And that, beloved readers, was the first of the long overdue new chapters of this story. To be quite honest, when HBP came out and I started MND, the attempted endings I wrote to this reflected the angst of the times. The first was a sort of comedy, where Harry woke up with Hermione by his side and realized all the events of Half Blood Prince were all just a very, very bad dream. The others were equally reactionary. I'm really glad now that I waited until I finished MND to update this, because I see things MUCH more calmly through my self-induced rose-colored glasses and I can actually work my mental way back to where they were here. Now I can see more of this story finishing out Harry's sixth year in a happily AU universe where some things are the same, and others (like the monster in Harry's chest) just never happen. So that's pretty much the scope of things if you're interested, and fair warning where this is going. It looks like this could well cover the whole second half of Harry's sixth year. Horcruxes will (obviously! Bad Mundungus Fletcher! Naughty Aberforth Dumbledore! ) be discovered and come in to play, but the lessons of the Rose Window are clearly not finished, especially where Harry is concerned and will play a large part as well. Voldemort will re-exert his influence and new stuff will happen. Hope you enjoy if you choose to stay and read. I am re-posting the original first three chapters to this story over the next several days as well, if you'd care to read those. We'll rejoin things up in the sixth year boys dorm next time.
Thanks!