Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.
Fixing Harry
Chapter 3
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
They'd met Molly and Ginny in the twin's shop earlier that morning and split up to the various errands of the day. Hermione had gone with Molly and Ginny to secure her new school robes and Ron and Fred had taken Ginny's N.E.W.T. Potions ingredients list along with the promise to buy her a new cauldron while George kept an eye on the shop. The returning Hogwarts students had been overrunning the store already as they left. Argus Filch was in for a rather bad year; Hermione found herself feeling relieved she was no longer a prefect.
Hermione had thought it would be fun to go robe-shopping with Ginny and Molly; an hour or two of entirely mindless diversion full of color and textures and laughter, and an excellent distraction from worrying about Harry's interview at the Ministry. One of the few good things in the weeks following Voldemort's demise had been Arthur Weasley's long overdue promotion to a far better job within the Ministry, a bit of a surprise if Hermione were honest but a hugely welcome one none the less. He'd had a significant pay rise and Ginny was their last child, in her last year at Hogwarts. Molly was determined that nothing but the best would do for her daughter to make up for years of second hand goods, and while her school robes had been quick to choose and measure, her dress robes were another story.
Hermione took the amethyst velvet Ginny had just rejected and held out the last in the pile she had chosen to try on, a heavy deep green silk with an overskirt of tulle encrusted with stars and silver crescent moons.
"You do remember green and silver are Slytherin colors," she joked as Ginny tried them on. Ginny rolled her eyes. "Weasleys may have been in Gryffindor since the beginning of time, but the colors have never suited us. Red and gold and ginger hair - ugh." She shuddered.
"Those are lovely on you, really. The color is wonderful; actually they're just the shade…"
"Of Harry's eyes. I know." Ginny eyed her mother's position across the room, talking animatedly to Madam Malkin as they compared bolts of fabric. "What I'd really like," she whispered, "is to have Harry's eyes on me and to be wearing nothing at all. This is going to be the longest year ever. You don't suppose he'd consider coming back for the Yule ball, do you? I'm sure McGonagall would let me ask him."
Hermione seriously doubted it. At first she'd thought it was just a mood, a product of all that had happened since Voldemort's demise, but she was pretty certain now that wherever Harry was inside himself, his time with Ginny was a distant memory.
"To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't count on it, Gin. He hasn't been in anything close to a ball mood lately." Not that he ever had. Harry'd never seemed to like that sort of thing…
And then, Hermione surprised the hell out of herself. It came from nowhere, with a suddenness that completely bypassed her usual, rational train of thought.
"Ginny, did you and Harry ever…"
Did I just say that out loud???? But before she could even attempt to laugh it off with a joking 'Whoops! Never mind! Where'd that thought come from?' Ginny was actually answering. Bloody Voldemort on a fork.
"No. Can you believe it? It's just not fair, either, because, well, I know you probably think this is ridiculous since he's almost like your brother or something by now, but he's the best snog ever. Positively mind blowing. You know how intense he is about everything... just imagine all that coming at you in a kiss. I would have lost my knickers to him the very first time if he wasn't such a bloody gentleman and Mum's extra son. But then Dumbledore died and he got all obsessed with being noble and finding the horcruxes and it just sort of fell apart."
Ginny smoothed the green satin bodice, indeed the exact color of Harry's eyes, over her filling curves. Hermione reflected Ginny had grown up rather a lot in the last year; if Harry remained oblivious there'd certainly be a long line of others.
You know how intense he is about everything... just imagine all that coming at you in a kiss. Hermione was well aware of Harry's intensity; she'd been on the other end of it often enough in the last seven years. She knew very well the feeling of being held in the blaze of those eyes, and the single-minded rush of his relief when she had survived spell fire unharmed during their horcrux-hunting days. If you took the extra step and translated that mentally to an exchange between lovers, a kiss…
Whoa. Whoa! Get out! She shook herself, snapping back to meet Ginny's obviously equally faraway eyes in the mirror.
"You should go with these, Gin. They're perfect. If Harry gets a chance to see you in them and he isn't bowled over, he's a fool. You'll have them lining up at Hogwarts, anyway."
Ginny's smile lit her face and she nodded. "Let me just show Mum. I'm famished anyway. Let's take all this lot back to the Wheeze and find Ron and get something to eat!" She turned from the mirror and enveloped Hermione in a satin-and-tulle hug. "I don't know why anyone would willingly put up with Ron, but you're so lucky that defeating Voldemort hasn't changed him a bit. You're all set at least."
She whirled off to show Molly her choice, and Hermione slipped the amethyst velvet on to a charmed hanger. It immediately straightened and buttoned itself, removing every last wrinkle. She held it up against her and gazed at her reflection in the mirror. She'd skipped her last year at Hogwarts helping Harry and Ron destroy Voldemort's horcruxes. Despite the honorary degrees they'd each received in thanks for their part in the victory and the fact that she'd gone far beyond anything she might have done as course work while hunting down the horcruxes, Hermione had always been the slightest bit sad to have missed out on her final year of classes.
She'd never really reflected on the other side of it, the more social rites of passage the seventh year at Hogwarts traditionally offered. She hadn't been to a dance since her ill-fated date with Viktor Krum at the Yule Ball the year Harry'd been forced into the Tri Wizard tournament. Voldemort had regained his body and Umbridge had ruled Hogwarts the next year. The following one she'd sunk to asking Cormac McLaggen to Slughorn's Christmas party in an attempt to awaken something in Ron. The date from Hell if there ever was one.
The mirror revealed a girl in limbo; beyond school and dances but not yet set on life's path either. Hermione had told herself that she owed the summer to her parents because they had seen virtually nothing of her the proceeding year to keep them safe from Voldemort's notice, but there was a small part of her that craved the distance of her parent's world as well.
Everything Hermione had thought she believed in had been brought into question this last year, from the nature of magic to the superiority of books to the rightful place of administration and authority in the world. If she was honest with herself, experiencing Harry's violent battle with Voldemort had shocked her to her core; for all she'd thought she'd known what it might be like the truth had been worse than anything her imagination could have manufactured.
They hadn't really talked about it yet, the three of them. Harry's reticence hadn't surprised her at all; that Harry was up and about and as relatively normal as he appeared was a miracle if she chose to dwell on it. Ron's handling of the situation would have bothered Hermione enormously if she'd been ready to cope herself; it seemed to her that while she and Harry were agonizing he had dug a hole, dropped all that had happened to them in the last year into it, and was now jumping up and down on the fill dirt with glee.
She'd first thought that she might please her neglected parents and choose a Muggle University for her next step, but Ron was dead set against it; unwilling to immerse himself in a world as strange to him as the magical one had first seemed to her. She'd had a good offer of a job in the Ministry, but she was so incensed about their treatment of Harry so far that she couldn't bring herself to seriously consider it. That left applying for apprenticeships, most of which had already been filled for this year by others from her Hogwarts class who'd been interviewing while she was working out a spell to safely destroy a horcrux. There wasn't much call for that; wizards as warped as Voldemort only came round every thousand years or so. She had her notes, and she reckoned she'd write a book about it all someday, but for now it was far too immediate to cope with and reduce to written words on a page. She just didn't feel done, somehow. There was something about the last year that remained unfinished, something she couldn't quite put her finger on, but it was making a decision about her future inordinately difficult for the usually composed and ever ready Hermione Jane Granger.
"That's a lovely color on you, dear, I've always thought you looked ever so pretty in purple," Molly Weasley said kindly, and Hermione woke from her reverie.
She laughed. "But where would I ever wear it?"
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Harry had arrived at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes as was already with Ron and the twins when they returned. He had a disillusionment charm on; she had to look exactly four times at him before he took on his own familiar form and most casual shoppers in the store had no idea he was even there. Still it wasn't long before Hermione noticed he was gone from the group of them clustered around the new owl Fred and George had bought Ginny for school, a sweet tawny with large dark eyes and a beautiful mottled coloring. They were suggesting names, laughing uproariously, each more outlandish than the last.
She made her way to the back room that was Fred and George's private haven and housed the doorway down to their 'product development' room in the cellar. Hermione had questioned Ron and Harry's sanity when they'd rented their flat in this building; the thought of Fred and George as landlords creating ever more daring pranks below made it a long way from safe.
Harry had laughed when she'd voiced her concern, but if Hermione wasn't mistaken there had been a slightly bitter tinge to it. "What's safe? I'm not sure I'd know it if it introduced itself with a Bludger bat at this point."
Ron missed the subtext of Harry's words - as usual - and grinned as well. "Can't have things too quiet after this year. We'd waste away from the shock of it."
Harry had smiled then and agreed; Hermione was reminded just why they worked so well as room mates and friends. Harry loved that Ron was mostly oblivious to his darker thoughts, just as he seemed to rely on the fact that Hermione mostly wasn't.
He was there, sitting at the table where Fred and George often ate a quick meal while they worked and struggling with the bandage on his wand hand.
"Do you want some help?" she asked, and he started nervously, the way he did to almost everything these days. The buckled strapping that was meant to make the bandage stay in place fell to the floor beneath the table and he groaned and ducked quickly after it.
She sat down across from him, waiting for him to reappear above the table top, crossing her fingers his head didn't connect with it first. He really did seem to have the worst luck these days. When he sat up again without incident and extended the partially wrapped hand across the table with a grateful smile she took it, relieved.
"I took it off," he explained, "and now I can't get the stupid thing on right to save my life."
"Hard to do anything with your own right hand," she told him, undoing the bandage to start over again properly. "Unless you're left handed, of course."
He didn't acknowledge that - not that there was really anything to say. She looked at the soft pad of spelled cotton batting that covered the unhealing wound on his palm. "Did you change that this morning, or do you want me do it now?"
"It's fine," he said. "I was a good boy and followed the healer's instructions exactly. The fact that they're soaked in numbing potion is an excellent motivator."
She took the long stretchy bit and began winding it around, crossing between his fingers and thumb. "So how was your own personal Spell Damage ghoul, as you so delightfully termed them?"
"Not in the least bit ghoulish, actually. I think I may just have met one of the few decent people ever to be hired by the Ministry. Not counting Ron's Dad, of course."
"Well, that's good then, isn't it?"
"Not for her, I expect," Harry said, wincing slightly as she buckled the holder back on. "I've never understood exactly what it is wizards have against Velcro."
"Shakes their superiority that Muggles made it first. They'll never use it." Hermione joked. "So what's your damage?"
"She saw the burns. It should take her awhile to figure out they aren't the problem, so that should keep things status quo, I hope. Even Scrimgeour would have a hard time trying to prove Voldemort's living in an open wound on my wand hand."
Not if he really wanted to… Hermione thought, but let it go. Safer not to go there at the moment.
"I'm glad you showed her," Hermione said. "I didn't actually think you would."
A grin fleeting as a wince crossed his features. "I didn't actually mean to," he said. "I got a bit caught up in what we were talking about and I was showing her Umbridge's little gift. She noticed the rest on her own."
Hermione knew now that Harry's determined stubbornness in facing off with Umbridge and taking what she had dished out without telling or asking for help was just a glimpse of what he would ultimately accept as necessary in severing his connection to Voldemort. Those particular scars probably hurt him more than the wound left by Voldemort's wand; they'd cost him dearly and severed his trust in both Dumbledore's and the Ministry's ability to protect them at all from what was to come with great finality. A necessary evil in the long run, just another blow to remind him he was ultimately alone. He hadn't been, she and Ron had made sure of that, at least - though that had been the sum total of the help they'd really been able to provide in the end.
That Harry had willingly shown that particular scar to a Ministry employee was… unexpected, at least.
"So what is a decent employee of the Ministry of Magic like, exactly," she asked, curious.
"She seems to have retained her sense of humor, for one," Harry said, thinking. "She has a definite willingness to bend the rules a bit, which will probably get her fired now just because it's me she's bending them for. Merlin knows offing Voldemort hasn't done in my ability to get anyone nice to me in trouble or worse. She ousted Leonard Flargemore from sitting in with us and doing the gunslinger thing with his wand, which is enough to make me love her right there."
"What's her name? How old is she? How long has she been working for the ministry?" Hermione fired off.
"Erm, Elspeth Hawktalon, I have no idea, and I'm not really sure. You have seventeen questions left," Harry told her with a faintly suppressed grin.
She felt a blush start to stain her cheeks and was unsure why. She'd never cared about his teasing before, Harry never meant anything by it.
"How can you have no idea how old someone is after meeting with them for at least an hour? Is she Fleur's age? Molly's? Professor McGonagall's?"
"Somewhere in between Fleur and Ron's Mum, I suppose. Closer to Ron's Mum maybe, but not really. I don't know, I'm rubbish at that sort of thing. If you're thinking young and inexperienced enough not to be able to manage this, then no. She's more than likely being set up, because she seems like she knows her stuff to me. Funny thing though, when we were talking sort of "off the record" she cast a muffliato."
Hermione could actually feel the hairs on her neck bristle. "Do you think she's a friend of Snape's?"
Harry laughed then. "Is anyone really a friend of Snape's? And no. She said she learned it from her husband, who seems coincidently to be dead. Perhaps he was the friend of Snape's, it's a common enough side effect of knowing him."
"I think we should find out. Just to be sure. It never hurts to be forearmed and know who you're dealing with. Let's ask Remus if he knows her, and I'll do a little research as well. Did she tell you his first name, by any chance?"
Harry's eyes took on a look all too familiar to her from their days at Hogwarts. Hermione sighed.
"You have the memory retention of a toasting fork, Harry Potter."
"Better than the emotional range of a teaspoon, though," he said, with his most deliberately winning smile. "And you seemed to have changed your mind about that, in the end."
Almost as if his words had conjured their subject, Ron made his entrance. "Go figure the two of you would be having a private party back here," he mock-griped. "Can anyone join in?"
Harry kicked out the chair across from him, next to Hermione. "I've only got a disillusionment charm on, casting glamour under current circumstances seemed just a bit too suicidal to consider."
"Good point. Lot's of little Hoggies out there, I'm sure they'd all just love to swarm the infamous Harry Potter. Especially the girls."
"Why, when they can swarm the equally infamous Ron Weasley and he actually enjoys it?" Harry shot back.
Ron grinned. "Defeating You Knew Who has to be good for something, Harry."
Hermione snorted. "Oh yes, because ridding the world of an evil bigoted tyrant isn't half as important as upping your ability to impress entirely empty-headed girls."
"You're far from empty-headed, Hermione. Don't be so hard on yourself. The best revenge is to enjoy the spoils, after all. How was your Spell Damage thing, Harry?"
His good humor was irrepressible. A damn good thing, really, considering the storm clouds gathering in Hermione's eyes. Ron was a great friend and all, but Harry found himself really glad to be a guy sometimes. He could be such an utter jerk to her, entirely without meaning to. Not that he was any expert, but Harry reckoned Ron had better get unstuck from his perpetually teasing style of courtship right quick now or Hermione was either going to give him the dump or hex his bollocks off. Harry tried to shake off the sense of being a lead balloon tied around both his best friends' ankles. He wondered sometimes if his depressing presence wasn't a big part of the reason the two of them couldn't quite seem to get it together.
"Fine. Doesn't seem like it's going to be too bad after all," he said cautiously.
"Well, we're going to Flourish and Blots to get Ginny's books," Ron pronounced, "and likely a stack and a half for this one," he flashed a happy smile Hermione's way. "I actually promised to carry her books. Managed to get through six years of Hogwarts without doing that and look at me now."
Harry tried to think of something clever to say, a decent tease for the two of them, and failed utterly. Hermione's storm clouds hadn't abated a bit, and it boded well for no one that she wasn't saying anything. If she wasn't across the table from him Harry would have tried to at least lay a calming hand on her shoulder to try and be the ground to the current of her annoyance. Ron was in for a bit of a shock if someone didn't, by Harry's calculations.
"We're going to Florean Fortescue's afterwards," Ron continued. "Coming?"
Harry knew he should go, but felt suddenly, wretchedly tired.
"Thanks, but I think I'll go check on Remus. See how he's doing."
"Make sure you Floo first, in case Tonks has the day off," Hermione reminded him.
It was an innocent enough comment and an excellent point, but it caught Harry exactly the wrong way.
"I may have the memory retention of a toasting fork, but even I can work that out, Hermione. Ron's given me the full set of signals to look for, thanks."
Not that he'd had the chance to use them yet, as far as Harry could see, but let her chew on that. He rose to leave just as the faucet in the sink across the work room abruptly blew off, sending a geyser of water cascading his way. He stood frozen in the flood of cold water, shocked and sputtering. Ron was laughing so hard he had tears streaming down his face, and once the twins and Ginny arrived in the doorway they weren't far behind. He noticed Hermione looked thoughtful rather than amused; but then she always did need to find the why of things before surrendering to them. Harry himself was torn between laughter and fury and so was surprised to find tears in his own eyes as well. Damn good thing he was already soaking. Who'd have guessed effing Voldemort would have had the perverse cleverness to make the Boy Who Lived a laughingstock as his parting shot?
Merlin, but his life was mess.