Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Honest.
Here With Me
Chapter 5
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Hermione chose to wait until late in the day to visit Harry. Madam Pomfrey looked up from her little office when Hermione arrived and waved her on without a word. She knew the rules by now.
His eyes were closed but struggled open reflexively when he heard movement beside him and he smiled when he recognized her; the sweet, hesitant grin of welcome that she so associated with essential 'Harryness'. Nothing could ever mimic that for her. She loved that he seemed to find solace and comfort in her company, that he openly admired her mind and willingly accepted her need to be needed for her brains and ability instead of more typically girlish qualities. She often wished to see herself through Harry's eyes, well aware from his unstinting loyalty that what he saw must be somehow far closer to what she actually wished to be.
"Hi." His voiced still sounded forced and painful. He shifted over on the bed, making room on the edge. She pulled the battle scarred old wooden chair she'd spent so much time on over the last five years across the floor and settled on it, leaning forward to rest her chin on her arms and her arms on the bed. He curled his good arm under his head and rolled to his side to bring them level.
"Hi," she said back. He appeared pale and tired, eyes shadowed, the split on his lower lip still raw. 'Well, he lost rather a lot of blood, didn't he?' she thought. 'What were you expecting? You just don't want to see him vulnerable. It's not like he chose this.'
"Ron told me about turning in your prefect's badge. I'm really sorry, Hermione. I never meant for… I mean, it was my mistake yet again. You shouldn't have to pay for that." Genuine regret watched her from his eyes and she wished for something simple as a charm to dispel it.
"Don't be sorry. I'm not, not really. It's almost as if I've outgrown it or something this year. It seems kind of, I don't know, pointless now…"
Now that Voldemort has changed all the rules.
"Who are you, and what have you done with Hermione Granger?" he joked, but sadness seemed to swell up and join the regret. She had to lower her own eyes.
"I'm sorry too, Harry. I know saying that sort of shakes the foundation of who I've always been for you and Ron. None of us can really stay the same anymore."
Not and survive, anyway.
"You gave me a lot to think about in that cave, Harry," she told him. "You and Malfoy both, actually."
"You want to take Malfoy with a very large dose of salt, Hermione. He seems to be trying to get us to think he's headed in the right direction down a very crooked path."
"Harry, were you really asleep after he told you about seeing Ginny and not becoming a Death Eater? Did you hear us talking, well, arguing really, after that?"
He closed his eyes briefly, as if rewinding his memory and searching for what she asked. "I think I must have been asleep. After the bit about Ginny and Draco everything sort of goes horribly blank. Hardly surprising, when you think about it. But then it gets very confused between what was Voldemort and what was me."
She didn't know whether to be relieved or not that he had missed Malfoy's pointed remarks about the two of them.
"Do you remember Voldemort telling Draco to hurt you?"
He nodded slowly. "That was really strange. He kept sort of taking over and then pushing me back again. Malfoy would be throwing a spell at me and I'd just get to where I could handle what he was doing and sort of get back in control and wham, Voldemort again."
"Do you remember what Draco made you do?"
"You mean the last bit, don't you? Calling you a mudblood and saying that you repulsed me. I didn't, did I? I couldn't have. Because… well, because you don't. Obviously. Exactly the opposite." He pushed himself up onto the elbow of his uninjured arm and she sat up as well, lifting her chin from her arms.
"Not so obviously, Harry. It's never been obvious to me. I think I was fairly confident that you hadn't the slightest bit of blood prejudice and I didn't actually repulse you, but I could never be sure of the opposite. I've always lingered in the middle ground of Harry's-friend-who-happens-to-be-a-girl."
"No. That's where you thought you lingered, Hermione. You lingered lots of other places in my imagination, believe me. But I could always find a hundred reasons not to give you the chance to just answer the question. How could you ever want someone like me? You saw me on the train, the clueless muggle kid wearing Dudley's old clothes. You came to know that I'd lived this totally messed up life, that no one had ever loved me, had ever even liked me and lived to tell about. It was as if I'd pulled a fast one on you and Ron that first year and I've been terrified ever since you'd actually see through whatever you thought you saw in me to what was really inside. I thought the answer to that was nothing. Now I know that it's worse than nothing, that there's some part of Voldemort in me because of this bloody scar."
"Whatever part of wretched Tom Riddle might be attached to that scar, the rest of you, the best part of you is Harry James Potter," she said fiercely. "We found that out last night. No matter how you choose to torture yourself, there's another side to all of this."
"How about how I almost killed you last spring in the Department of Mysteries because of it? Where's the other side to that? I might have wondered if I'd been taking you for granted before then, but that's when I knew. All at once I just knew that I couldn't go on if anything happened to you. I… my mind just kind of stopped. And it was because of me you were there."
She looked at him, struck wordless for once, dumbfounded.
He saw her face and went instantly still, painfully sure he'd said the wrong thing as usual, but uncertain exactly how this time round. He fought the rising urge to complete the usual cycle, to pretend there was nothing there, push her a safe distance away.
He struggled up further, sitting cross legged on the bed. Everything throbbed, and he fought to clear his head.
"Hermione, I can't do this anymore. I'm not even sure how we got here, or what I said that hurt you, but I'm sorry. I've been trying to say I'm sorry and that I think I might love you and I don't know why I always mess it up, except that I've always been afraid to put everything on the line and just ask you if you could ever love me as well. And stay conscious long enough to hear the answer."
He was looking down at the blanket over his knees, avoiding the consequences of her silence. When he finished his eyes slowly rose to peer hesitantly through his fringe for her reaction and she was utterly undone. It was as if a powerful hand had literally grabbed hold of her heart and squeezed until the message was more than clear.
"Of course I love you, Harry," she choked out against the tightness of it. "I've loved you for ages. It's just you never seemed to see me. I thought you'd never think of me as anything other than the one who argues with Ron and tells you to get your homework done." It was her turn to look away then, her turn to say things that she wasn't ready to watch him hear.
"There's something about how accepting you are about things, about how you just keep on trying no matter what happens that makes me feel safe with you, and hopeful. You make me believe in things that aren't in books. You make me look deep into things, and to think them through for myself instead of just accepting what seems to be true. You make me feel like more than just a walking encyclopedia, Harry. You make me feel special. Useful. Wanted, instead of… tolerated, for all the things that make me different from the other girls."
They were quite still a moment, as if unable to take in the enormity of what they both had finally admitted to the other. Harry hesitantly extended his left arm toward her and with a small squeak she flew at him and buried her head in the crook of his neck, sobbing out of sheer relief. He patted her back gently, wondering again if there was something related to the curse of his scar that meant no matter how hard he tried to please a girl they would always end up crying their eyes out over him. As if reading his mind, which he was growing quite sure she could probably do by now, Hermione pulled back her head, smiling tremulously through the tears.
"Sorry, Harry, I never meant to pull a Cho on you, honestly. This is the part where you're finally supposed to kiss me, and I've gone and spoilt it for you."
"Never mind," said Harry, fighting his shyness and the awkwardness of their position to kiss her anyway. Hermione's tears and Cho's were a world of difference. For one, hers were actually for him and not some other bloke, and, well…
Harry stopped thinking. Anything more then Hermione was simply gone. His heart was somehow full, his brain was full, every other sense he possessed was otherwise occupied. He knew her, felt he knew at last what she wanted from him. She was utterly familiar, like finding some missing piece of himself that instead of complicating his life swiftly and succinctly simplified everything, answering questions he'd barely known he had. He was dimly aware of her gentleness with his lip, felt the rising need to explore this new connection between them warring with the desire not gross her out by bleeding all over her.
This conflict was resolved by a shocked "Miss Granger!" from Madam Pomfrey, directly behind them.
He felt Hermione pull sharply away like a tearing of his own skin. Her abrupt departure brought Madam Pomfrey's outraged countenance into view. Just as he attempted with his own heated gaze to begin to warn her not to blame Hermione he realized that Dumbledore was standing just behind her.
Busted.
"Now Poppy," Albus Dumbledore remonstrated gently, "I'm certain Miss Granger meant Mr. Potter no harm. Quite the opposite, I should think."
Harry saw Hermione's fierce blush out of the corner of his eye. He only wished he could manage something half as innocent; being slightly low on blood at the moment, the rush south at the first touch of Hermione's lips had left him with a serious deficit… nothing left over to blush with. The room was beginning to spin in a most unhelpful manner.
"Lie down, Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey told him in her very best Head Nurse voice, the one you ignored at your own peril, the penalty being proportionate to the foulness of the potion you ultimately received.
Harry slunk back against his pillow, wincing.
"I can see that you are still somewhat under the weather, Harry. Most of my questions for you will wait until the morning. Miss Granger and Mr. Malfoy proved wonderfully observant under the circumstances and answered quite of few of my concerns when we met this morning. My only interest at the moment is what we need to do to assure that you sleep safely tonight."
"I don't know, Sir. I've been worried about… I mean, I managed to throw him off last night, but I'm still working out exactly how. I don't want to risk Voldemort gaining access to the castle or anyone else being hurt because of me."
"I am afraid we have few choices then. I have also been working on finding a solution throughout the day, and will continue to do so throughout the night if necessary. For now, however, I am afraid we shall have to restrain you."
"How?" Hermione asked. "I wondered about that last night. How can you restrain him and still keep him safe? What spell could you use without leaving him a sitting duck for Voldemort?"
"That, my dear Miss Granger, is the heart of the problem. I was hoping that Harry could give us some insight into what might help him. I could not - would not - use any means that increased his own vulnerability."
"I need to be able to wake up," Harry said at once with a shudder. "Please, as long as I can wake up I'm not sure if I care what else you do."
"He's not in any condition for most traditional immobilizing spells, Albus" Madam Pomfrey fretted. "Petrificus totalus is out of the question, for example, as his body can not carry out any healing while he is paralyzed and only the eyes are spared. Perhaps in a day or two, but not just yet. Most limb affecting jinxes have either such short or unpredictable results that we'd spend all night recasting them and he'd get no sleep at all. And sleep is what he needs to help him heal. The sooner the poison is fully eradicated from his system the sooner I can heal the arrow wounds themselves."
"Perhaps we should just tie him to the bed posts." Professor Snape's voice was at its silkiest; none of them had noticed his approach and he was clearly enjoying the dilemma of what to do with Harry.
"Couldn't I go down to Hagrid's?" Harry asked desperately. "He wouldn't mind, and it would keep things out of the castle if anything went wrong."
"Mr. Potter's condition requires reintroduction of the anti venom potion into the wounds every four hours and I, for one, am NOT spending the night in Hagrid's hut. I have other patients here that require my attention as well."
"Hagrid would do it!" Harry pleaded.
"It's out of the question, Mr. Potter!" Madam Pomfrey insisted.
"I could do it," Hermione volunteered. "Draco and I managed in the cave."
"Given your behavior earlier this evening and the nature of the arrangements at Hagrid's I rather think not!" Madame Pomfrey said, with great finality.
Hermione's cheeks flamed again, and if Snape's ears could have been seen through his greasy tangle of hair they would have pricked. Harry wished she could read his mind when he actually wanted her to and tried to think soothing thoughts. He could tell he was going to pay for their interrupted embrace later, and it had been going so well for a change…
"Perhaps Mr. Malfoy could be convinced to assist Hagrid this evening?" Dumbledore suggested hopefully to Snape.
"Not if anyone mentions the alternative is tying me up," Harry said glumly. "You might as well go on and do it."
"I believe that he is available for detention this evening," Snape said, "but given his statements to you earlier today and the news I came to bring you I think it unlikely you could consider it a viable option, Headmaster."
"And your news, Severus?" Dumbledore queried.
"Perhaps we could step out into the hall?"
"Is it Malfoy's father, Professor Snape?" Harry asked with a sinking feeling, remembering the vision with Peter Pettigrew.
Snape's eyes swiveled back toward Harry, black and glittering. "And what exactly do you know about the disappearance of Lucius Malfoy, Potter?"
"Last night before he possessed me, Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew went to Malfoy Manor. I didn't see what happened because Draco woke me up, but when he was in me I could feel his frustration, his rage about something. I thought it was Draco's decision, but if it's Lucius you're worried about, he's not dead. I'm pretty sure of it. I know what Voldemort feels like after… well he wasn't that happy."
Dumbledore, Snape, Madam Pomfrey and Hermione all stared at Harry for a moment in silence and he felt the sick, shamed clenching in his stomach that revealing his connection to Tom Riddle always brought on.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I meant to tell him, but there was nothing Draco could do to stop it…"
"Harry," Hermione cut in firmly, stepping bravely back toward the bed as if daring Madam Pomfrey to stop her. "You should never have to apologize for having to live with the knowledge of what Voldemort thinks or does."
"Miss Granger is quite right, Harry. Lucius Malfoy's dealings with his master are in no way your responsibility. But as Draco's Headmaster and Head of House, Professor Snape and I must of course be concerned." Dumbledore turned to Madam Pomfrey with a reluctant sigh. "Poppy, I leave the final determination to you as to what is best for Harry's well being. He must be kept in control of his own faculties, and yet he must be safely restrained. Hagrid cares deeply for Harry and would certainly look after him with some assistance, or he must in fact be tied with restraints to his bed here in the infirmary. I give you my permission to assign another sixth year student or even two to help you, whichever you decide, and will return as soon as possible to be of any assistance myself."
"He will be quite safe, Headmaster." Madam Pomfrey assured Dumbledore, although to Hermione's eyes she still appeared flustered and undecided.
Dumbledore and Snape left the infirmary deep in muted conversation.
"Well then, Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey began.
"Please, Madam Pomfrey, please don't. I'll be perfectly fine at Hagrids', no bother at all, I promise." Harry implored.
Hermione reckoned Madam Pomfrey would have to have a heart of stone to withstand that plea. Harry rarely turned on his not inconsiderable charm; Hermione wasn't even sure he knew properly how to control it or if it just reached capacity and let loose the way his magic had occasionally been known to do. Either way, its sparing use and the intensity of its focus was a lethally appealing combination, almost veela-like in its effect. On Hermione, anyway. It seemed perhaps Madam Pomfrey might not be immune herself.
Poppy Pomfrey hadn't taken care of Harry Potter's many and various injuries over the last five years for nothing. She considered it her personal mission that the boy-who-lived lived long enough graduate from Hogwarts, at very least. Such a mission required firmness, fortitude and a calm, cool head. By far the best option she could see was to keep him safely in the infirmary under her care. It would be difficult to ask him to accept restraints, although she knew if she insisted he would submit without fuss when the time came. He was such a good boy, really, had been remarkably patient and accepting of quite a string of painful treatments over the years… The thought of seeing an evil thing like Voldemort take possession of a helpless, tied-down Harry suddenly revolted her. She met the anxious green eyes awaiting her verdict and sighed.
"Oh all right, Mr. Potter. If Hagrid agrees to be responsible for you this evening and Mr. Weasley will accompany you there, you may go. I will leave strict instructions as to your care and I expect you back in the infirmary first thing tomorrow. Is that quite clear?"
"Yes Ma'am," Harry said. "But, erm, Madam Pomfrey, I know that Ron will come with me and I couldn't ask for a better friend but he's really, really squeamish when it comes to…" Hermione noticed that Harry left Ron's squeamishness to Madam Pomfrey's imagination; it was not immediately clear whether he was referring to his somewhat gory shoulder or Harry himself. "Hermione knows just what to do and it didn't faze her a bit… she'd make a wonderful healer, really…"
"I suppose if Hagrid is willing to take on both Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger as well that would be… safe enough." Madam Pomfrey made up her mind. "Very well. I shall send an owl down to Hagrid. If he agrees, that will be our solution. I will pack a supply of your medicines and explain their usage to Miss Granger. Come with me, please." She wasn't leaving that girl alone with him for a minute. Perfectly lovely girl of course, brilliant little thing and Merlin knew Harry deserved a bit of happiness in the midst of all the wretched things that seemed to keep happening to him, but really… the boy was in the throes of centaur poisoning. Some things could just wait! If she had any ideas of becoming a healer she'd have to get that through her head straight off.
Hermione glanced back over her shoulder as she followed in Madam Pomfrey's wake and rolled her eyes at him.
He figured he'd scored brownie points getting her included in the envoy to Hagrid's, but he was still just a little too nervous to unleash a grin back.
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It was wonderfully cozy, safely kipped in Hagrid's house later that evening. The rain still dripped outside but the temperature had dropped considerably. Fall was firmly in control once more.
Hagrid had insisted in turning his enormous bed over to the invalid, attempting to smother Harry with every blanket he could find. Harry felt cocooned in warmth, drowsy and almost comfortable for the first time since Goyle's elbow had found the back of his head. Hermione and Ron had sleeping bags on the floor but now sat on the foot of the bed drinking hot cocoa and politely risking their teeth on Hagrid's rock cakes.
"So how did you say we could tell if he was possessed, something about his eyes; was it?" Ron asked Hermione in an undertone with a quick, furtive glance in Harry's direction.
"Yes, Ron, he can hear you." Hermione replied, exasperation evident in her tone. "And no, it's not a secret. Harry knows. Last night whenever Volde…"
"Erm!" Hagrid spit a mouthful of tea back into his cup
"You Know Who, was in control," Hermione continued calmly, "Harry's pupils would dilate so that you couldn't really see the green bit at all. You'd swear his eyes were black. When Harry was back the pupils shrank back down and they'd go green again. But I was thinking that there must be a more fool-proof method than pupil dilation, something less dependent on a biological process that could be affected by poison or controlled by Voldemort if he discovered it. A safe word, or something like that."
"I'm already trying to hide too much from him." Harry said slowly, not bothering to open his eyes.
"You said something about that at the cave, Harry, about keeping the prophecy from him. What do you mean? He already knows that the containing orb broke and the prophecy was lost. Have you found out what it meant?" Hermione asked.
Harry inwardly sighed and knew the time had come. He'd known he'd have to tell them sometime and at least they were all together, the people he cared for most. He'd only have to say it once. He opened his eyes and levered himself off the pillows with the working arm until he was sitting as well.
"Steady on there, Harry," Hagrid said anxiously. He was taking his responsibility quite to heart and seemed unnerved by the prospect of anything at all happening Harry on his watch. Harry managed a brief smile to reassure that he was okay.
"Dumbledore already knew about the prophecy," he told them. "That's why his initials were on the card as well. It'd been made to him first, sixteen years ago in the Hog's Head, in Hogsmeade."
"Who made it?" Hermione asked.
"What did it say?" Ron asked almost simultaneously.
"Trelawney made it," Harry admitted.
Hermione snorted, as if to say 'well, then, that's that settled!'
"And it said, 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.
"Whoa," said Ron. "What the bloody hell does that mean?"
"Dumbledore said it actually could have been made about either me or Neville. We were both born at the end of July, his birthday's two days before mine and his parents were members of the Order as well. Voldemort had someone listening in the pub that night, but whoever it was got thrown out before they could hear the whole thing. He never heard the 'mark him as his equal,' part or the rest of it. Hence the scar. So now while everyone else at in our year is trying to decide whether they want to be aurors or healers or work in muggle relations or what all, he's left me two lovely career choices. Die, or become a murderer."
"Merlin, no wonder Trelawney's been predicting your death ever since third year!" Ron gasped, then seemed to realize what he'd said. "Erm, sorry mate, didn't mean, you know…"
"What's this 'power the Dark Lord knows not' then, 'arry?" Hagrid asked. "Did Dumbledore know what yeh've got to get 'im with?"
Harry shook his head, eyes on Hermione's pinched white face. "Only a theory. He thinks it's got something to do with the fact that I can still know emotions that Voldemort's cast off over the years as worthless. In the Department of Mysteries when he possessed me… the pain was so bad…" Harry's voice, still straining against the residual poison, broke. He swallowed desperately. "I thought I was dying, I couldn't believe that you could hurt like that and still live. When he told Dumbledore to kill us I actually wished that he would. I remembering thinking death is nothing compared to this… and I'll see Sirius again…' There was no payoff in that for old Tom. Dumbledore said he probably couldn't bear to be in the same body with me then, the same way the love left in me from my Mum made him turn to dust with Quirrell. Dumbledore reckons it's got to do with what makes us all human, because even though my blood gave him a body back he still isn't really human. He's just alive."
"I know it's not as simple as it sounds, but you've just got to kill him, Harry. We'll help you. Just kill him. Kill him and finish this once and for all." Ron's voice sounded harsh and frightened and almost as strangled as Harry's.
"I'll try, Ron. What else can I do?" Harry said tiredly. Hermione's uncharacteristic silence was killing him and he sensed that it had both Ron and Hagrid disconcerted as well.
"Well, then I reckon the three of yeh'd best be getting some sleep. Mornin'll be 'ere b'fore yeh know it." Hagrid told them, hoisting himself from his chair. "Goin' to take Fang fer a quick nose round while yeh settle in. Just sleep tight 'arry. No use lookin' for trouble before trouble finds yeh firs."
Hagrid disappeared through the door with Fang in tow. Ron settled down in the sleeping bag closest to the fire with an apologetic glance at Hermione.
"I thought it would be easier if you didn't have to climb over me to get to the bed. You know, to give Harry his medicine."
"Buck buck buck…" Harry muffled the chicken noises in the pillow, just loud enough that Ron could hear.
"Buck you, mate," his best friend said with a grin, and rolled over. Harry grinned back.
Hermione collected one of the potions Madam Pomfrey had sent and returned to the bed, sitting beside him without meeting his eyes.
"It's almost time for the anti-venom one. Do you want to do it now, or do you want me to wake you again in another half hour?"
Harry reckoned that in a half hour's time both Hagrid and Ron would be fast asleep and if he could manage to keep quiet it would give him at least a chance at some uninterrupted time with her.
"Later, please, Hermione. If you don't mind, that is."
She shook her head wordlessly and went to settle into her own sleeping bag. Hagrid returned a few moments later with Fang, blew out the lantern and retreated to his enormous stuffed armchair close by the fire. Fang ignored his basket and instead sprawled back-to-back against Ron's sleeping bag. A faintly muffled snore registered no conscious displeasure on Ron's part and the giant wolfhound settled in for the evening with a yawn. Within what Harry estimated to be between fifteen to twenty minutes Hagrid and Ron were well into the first heats of Britain's National Snoring Championships with Fang hardly shaming the species in the giant dog division.
"Good Lord Harry, how do you deal with this every night? No wonder you keep having dreams. Voldemort's wondering what all the noise is." Hermione mumbled, crawling to the side of the bed. "I'd go spare, as Ron likes to say, if I had to live with that."
Harry tried to sense her mood beyond the frustration with the two happy woodsmen, still wary of her silence during the discussion of the prophecy. He lay absolutely still while she fetched the potion bottle and equipment Madam Pomfrey had sent. He heard her sigh when she realized that the shoulder she needed to work on was on the side of the bed pushed against the wall.
"Shove over this way, Harry. I've got to get over there to see what I'm doing."
He shifted closer to her, making room for her on the other side. She leaned over him and set the bottles and bandages down, then climbed up on the bed. He expected her to clamber over to the space he had made and had to remind himself to keep breathing when she chose instead to straddle his hips over what were suddenly WAY too many blankets and rest both her hands lightly on his chest. She was watching him intently and he instantly decided that shutting up and acting appreciative was the way to go. There was clearly something on her mind and it was more likely to come out if he kept quiet.
Almost a minute later he was considerably less sure of his plan. The thickness of the blankets between them would have been a blessing in the past as he attempted to maintain the illusion of being completely unaffected in any remotely physical manner by his best (girl) friend; now that he was significantly more comfortable with revealing the nature of his attraction to said girlfriend it was just annoying and growing kind of… painful. Her warm brown eyes continued to hold his and he had the distinct feeling she was waiting for something. On impulse he reached up and touched her face gently, stroking her cheek bone with tentative fingers. Her eyes closed and her expression grew content and faintly catlike, Crookshanks with a fresh catnip toy. Way too good to let go without further exploration.
"Hermione?" her eyes reopened reluctantly. "Could you either, erm, remove yourself from, um, where you're currently, uhh, sitting and start with the potion or maybe come down here, 'cause I can't reach you with just the one arm without hurting us both."
She grinned. Hermione Jane Granger, smartest witch of her age, was grinning at him with the most promising little grin like he'd never said a word about any wretched prophecy. What could it mean?
There was really only one way to find out.
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