Fixing Harry

Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

A/N: This is something I’ve been playing with in my (ha ha) spare time. I have four more chapters completed, but wasn’t sure whether this was anything anyone would want to read here. I think the basic premise becomes clear as you read along… it is Post Voldemort’s defeat and begins Ron/Hermione, although she already has serious doubts and there will never be anything of an intimate nature between them… because I’m writing it, and it squicks me. It would become firmly Harry/Hermione as soon as they catch a clue, but I love Ron and Harry’s friendship, so fear not on that front. Trust me. My best estimate is 15 – 20 chapters. So, anyway, if you find this at all compelling I will post it here – please let me know with a quick review, even if it’s just a post it or kill it. Unless your name is Hmmm – then I don’t want to know. Thanks! ~ Lynney

Fixing Harry

Chapter 1 – Elspeth Hawktalon

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For some, working in the Ministry of Magic was the be-all and end-all; the pinnacle of their careers. For others, it was just a decent paying job with better than average benefits.

For me, it was a big mistake.

It had never been a particularly good fit, but I really needed a job and a friend of a friend knew the wizard who was hiring; enough, at least, to get me in the door. I’m a certified Spell Damage Reversal specialist, but more than just a bit of my previous work experience is in Dark Arts effects. More than would usually get you hired by the Ministry, anyway. The official line on Dark Arts here is only Voldemort works in them. Codswallop. Fudgeswallop, actually, but for all he’s had to step down nothing’s really changed during the Scrimgeour administration. I played it down as much as I could at the time, but there’s only so much you can do when it’s a big hunk of your curriculum vitae. I’m pretty sure mine was the lowest starting pay rate of anyone in the department, ever, and I’m sure it probably still is. And I’ve been here ten years now.

The dregs of the department work load always seemed to trickle down my way; all the cases no one else wanted to deal with. Lots of spell damaged Aurors. Lots of plain old scared-shitless Aurors, too – which made them the healthy ones from my perspective. I’ve had to do my fair share of case work for the Wizengamot over the years, mostly determining whether or not someone was acting under Imperius, and whether or not it was You-Know-Who’s doing if it was. They were still catching up on everything he’d gotten up to the first time around when word came out of Hogwarts that he was back three years ago. Bureaucracy at it’s finest, there. I’ve made way more than my fair share of trips to Azkaban to certify a Dementor’s Kiss was… effective, since then. Never really miss though, those Dementors. All in a day’s work to them.

The thing of it was I’d had my daughter to raise, and no one but myself to rely on then. Working for the Ministry had seemed safe after the chaos of losing my husband, a responsible choice to make. Emily was eleven this year and she just yesterday got her Hogwart’s letter. She was over the moon, couldn’t wait for the first of September and the trip to King’s Cross. Oh she’ll miss me, my brilliant little witch, but she was ready and so was I. With her safely at Hogwarts and her tuition the one thing actually covered by her father’s inheritance, I was finally ready to move on to a better job.

And I didn’t mean the Janus Thickey ward for permanent spell damage at St. Mungo’s, either.

I was primed for a change in career; I’d had enough of bureaucracy and the cowardice and callousness it fostered. Scrimgeour had proved little better as Minister than Fudge in that regard. He was certainly more realistic and unquestionably more forceful, that was certain, but whether or not that was enough – or even a good thing – in this post-Voldemort world remained to be seen. It was hard to see what the long term effects of the Boy Who Lived Again’s victory would yet be, but short term the prospects were giddy. There was a collective social sigh of relief being heard throughout Wizarding Britain and all kinds of signs of economic rebirth.

One sign of it was the opening of a new bookshop in Diagon Alley, with an aim not to challenge Flourish and Blots stronghold on the purveyance of Hogwarts texts and rare spell books but to introduce more Witches and Wizards to great Muggle literature and contemporary Muggle novels in an attempt to improve understanding and acceptance of their take on the world we share. I’m half muggle myself, not that that counts for much. Still, our new savior had been raised by Muggles, and it obviously hadn’t hurt him any now, had it? Perhaps interest in Harry Potter would start to soften some of the Muggle prejudice. It had been a small minority that had actually followed Voldemort, but quite a few more harbored dangerous feelings of superiority about the Muggles that so outnumber us.

So it was a risky prospect, but the prospector was another friend of mine and I’d accepted his offer of a job there with a certain amount of childlike glee.

I had my resignation parchment all written out. The ink was barely dry when I rolled it up and headed for my Director’s office. There was a spring in my step as I wended my way down the hall, I tell you. I hardly recognized myself.

He stepped from one of the elevators just as I passed them, obviously coming from a meeting somewhere else in the building as he was burdened by a great number of rolled parchments and several books, one with a page marked with his quill, but no cloak or hat. Elementary, my dear Watson. Oops! There goes the Muggle reader in me again. This felt good.

A fluttering cloud of memos hovered about his head, each anxious to be the first he looked at when he regained his office. At least this meant I wouldn’t have to deal with Dora, the department secretary, to get in to see him. There was a witch in quite the worst sense of the word.

“Ah, Miss Hawktalon. Excellent. I was just going to have Dora send for you. Have you a moment?”

Lots of them, as a matter of fact! I quit! And for the three thousand, six hundred and fiftieth time, it’s Mrs. Hawktalon. Almerick might be dead these last ten years, but I was still married to him!

“Of course, Sir. May I… take any of that for you?”

And light them with a simple Incendio?

“Excellent!” he said again, and shed half his load into my arms. I followed him past the glowering Dora’s desk and into his office, swatting flying memos like midges on a summer evening. Pesky things. Another aspect of Ministry life I wouldn’t miss.

He deposited his load upon his enormous, already overburdened desk and motioned for me to follow suit. I did, retaining the solitary scroll that was my resignation letter and settling myself in one of the less than comfortable chairs positioned on the far side. Clement Bagnold was not fond of interruptions and discouraged them in every way possible.

“I have a new case file for you. Miss Hawktalon,” he said. He moved across the room, searching for something in the pocket of his cloak on the coat stand. His fingers produced another pair of glasses with a relieved sigh. The flying memos zoomed a little bit closer, perhaps sensing his preparation to sit down at the desk. He opened the door that I knew led to his personal loo – no mixing with the common wizards in the hall for Clement Bagnold, Director of both Magical Misfortune and Spell Damage Reversal – and stepped inside as if he meant to use it. The memos swarmed rudely after him; he ducked, spun, and slammed the door on them. There was a faint bumbling noise from inside as they fruitlessly swarmed the door.

“Actually, Sir, about that….”

“Unusual case,” he interrupted me smoothly, almost as if I had not spoken. I’m quite sure that in the important caverns of his mind I had not. “Most unusual. Bit of an honor, actually, to get it. The Minister himself thought you were the perfect choice under the circumstances.”

The Minister? The Minister didn’t know me any better than a toadstool flattened by his boots. Probably less, actually – at least he might potentially realize he’d stepped on the toadstool. If he slipped, or something. Oh, and it’s all pointless anyway, because… I quit!

“Really, Sir, I…”

“This looks as if it has the potential to take up a good chunk of your available time. I offered to clear your schedule, actually, but the Minister said the Wizard in question wouldn’t like to think he was being treated specially in any way and there was no rush at all. Thorough is the thing on this one, Hawktalon, he wants proof positive no matter how long it takes.”

The Wizard in question? Why was Scrimgeour taking such a personal interest in a Spell Damage investigation? And since when did he care what anyone’s preferences were? I’d seen him run steamroller over plenty of others from afar, both as Head of the Auror Division and now Minister. Wild Erumpents couldn’t do less damage than Rufus Scrimgeour if you got between him and his quarry. Of course, none of this matters, because I quit!

“The thing is, Sir, I…”

“Still, I’d like you to start with it right away. Even if we’re to be given time with this one, I’d like it to be very obvious we’re taking it quite seriously, being proactive and responsible. It does have the potential to be… quite explosive, actually, if it goes wrong.”

Explosive? Okay, now I really quit. Give notice. Desert the troops. Run away screaming.

“Actually, Sir, I…”

“This is a time of great rejoicing in the Wizarding world, Miss Hawktalon, but peace is a fragile thing. We are far from the strategizing of the politicians here, but even we can understand the potential disaster to the renewals in Wizarding society we are all experiencing if Harry Potter proved to have been irreversibly damaged by the Dark Lord. He is a symbol of strength and hope to us all, but he is also extremely powerful. Too powerful to risk ignoring the obvious signs. He has agreed – albeit apparently quite reluctantly – to cooperate fully. So there is everything to be gained by getting right to the bottom of it as quickly and quietly as possible.”

Whoa. Was he saying what I thought he was? That the Minister of Magic had called for a Spell Damage Investigation on Harry Potter? And he’d actually agreed to let them do it? There had to be way more than met the naked eye going on there. Nothing about Potter’s relations with the Ministry either before or after Albus Dumbledore’s death almost three years ago now had ever suggested the slightest love lost between them. He’d steadfastly refused their “help” and apparently gone on to take down Voldemort on his own, if you read between the Daily Prophet’s lines. Or read the Quibbler, somewhat more embarrassing to admit a subscription to but definitely more informative and surprisingly more factual than the Prophet.

“Sir, are you saying…”

“I have his official Ministry file right here, but I have to tell you outright that it contains none of the specifics of the final battle or what led up to it. While the Minister claimed that would be restricted information and not be cleared for general consumption for some time, strictly off the record I believe whatever they have to be scanty at best. They will most likely be looking long and hard at anything that comes to light in your investigation. Because of this, I think it most unlikely Mr. Potter will be all that forthcoming with you. This will in turn, of course, seriously hamper our efforts to make an accurate assessment.”

His eyes raised from the parchment he was reviewing and met mine steadily across the desk. “This situation will require considerable tact; to do your job thoroughly you will have to convince Mr. Potter to reveal the necessary details from which a determination about whether or not he bears significant Spell Damage from his altercation with You Know Who can be made. Your case notes and observations will be closely monitored by both myself and the Minister’s Office, and for your safety there will be an Auror present at all times.”

Harry Potter. They wanted me to run a Spell Damage investigation on Harry Potter. An apparently only semi-willing Harry Potter.

Did I really want to risk pissing off Harry Potter?

No way. But did I really want to meet the Boy Who Lived and see what made him tick?

Oh yeah. Fascinating stuff there, the kind that made me interested in Spell Damage Reversal to begin with. I mean, his scar alone was one of the most talked about spell damage icons of all time. And who wouldn’t want to at least try and help Potter after all he’d done for us? Ridding us of Voldemort and his ugly, divisive blood prejudice. Making the Wizarding world – and Hogwarts - safe for children again. Stopping the mindless violence, and the slow drawing of good minds toward bad ideas. He was still only seventeen years old; and yet he’d seen and done so much. You’d have to be a complete and brainless idiot not to want to work this case.

Okay. I un-quit. For awhile. For this one case. As long as it took. The book store would just have to wait.

I subtly shoved the parchment bearing my letter of resignation up the sleeve of my robes.

“I’ll get started right away. Has anything been scheduled, or shall I contact Mr. Potter?”

If Clement noticed any shift in my demeanor he gave no sign. “It is all arranged. A schedule of meeting times over the next several weeks has been drawn up by the Ministry. There is a copy in the Investigation folder and one was given to Mr. Potter as well. You will be meeting in the small conference room on the ninth floor. It has already been reserved for your use on those occasions.”

“Does there really have to be an Auror present? I mean, if it’s only for my safety, can I make a professional decision after assessing the, erm, subject and situation, to have them on the ready in the hall instead? I expect this is going to be difficult enough without an Auror looming.”

My boss sat back in his own comfortable leather chair and observed me sitting gingerly on edge across his desk. He steepled his fingers beneath his chin and glared at me thoughtfully.

“Miss Hawktalon, let me ask you a question. How accurate do you believe the source of most Wizard news reporting to be these days?”

“On a scale of one to ten, ten being most accurate, I would guess we are somewhere near a negative two at the moment, Sir. But there’s always a great deal of misinformation during times of great upheaval.”

“Quite. So if the Daily Prophet, a rag barely worthy of lining the cages of the Owls who deliver it, reports that the Boy Who Lived is having difficulties controlling his magic, it would most likely be either a significant fabrication or conversely under-reported, would it not?”

“Yes, Sir.”

My vote? Serious fabrication. They hadn’t had anything nice to say about Potter since he was about fourteen and that horrible Rita Skeeter discovered him.

“Alas in this case, it would be under-reported, and I rather guess even the case folder holds only a small fraction of what might be truly going on with Mr. Potter. He has been experiencing significant lapses in control of his magic, with some rather damaging results. No one has been killed. Yet. But suffice it to say that the Auror stays at least until you can present me with an alternative plan spelling out quantitative safety measures. In point of fact, the Minister intimated to me that if they are not under control soon Potter may be taken into protective custody, so do not underestimate the severity of the situation. Am I understood?”

My past proceeded me here; clearly he felt like he had to spell it out in simple block letters. He was probably right, too. But protective custody? Harry Potter? Something just didn’t smell right there.

“Yes, Sir. Completely Sir.”

No one has been killed. Yet. Well, when you had power like Potter was rumored to have, things were exponential. Your average Witch or Wizard just might implode your coffee mug if they became severely stressed or uncomfortable during an intense investigation. Potter could probably take out the whole Ministry or something. I was more on the average side of the magical scale myself. So an Auror it was; but I’d have to think of something better once I saw which way the wind blew. No one felt too much like talking with a licensed to hex Ministry Auror hovering over them. Including me.

“I’ll get right on it, then,” I said, rising from my chair.

“Excellent. Excellent. I’ll be looking for your written assessment of the file and a case plan projection on my desk tomorrow. Plan to meet with me Thursday afternoon after your first session with Potter.”

I nodded my assent and headed for the door. I’d almost made it before he remembered.

“Miss Hawktalon? It appeared you were already on your way here when I exited the elevators. Was there something you wished to discuss with me?”

I smiled. “Not just at the moment, Sir. Perhaps another time.”

Like as soon as I’d figured out what was bothering the Boy Who Lived. Because then? I quit!

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Harry was at that moment making Ron and himself some breakfast. They’d slept in; well, to be honest, Ron was still sleeping in. Who knew defeating Voldemort would leave you so bloody tired all the time?

Considering the fact that he’d never honestly expected to live through it, Harry was pretty okay with the tired part, really. Some of the other side effects were a good bit more painful and annoying, but still, they were all pretty insignificant when you tried to look at the big picture.

Of course, Harry was trying to do anything but looking at the big picture right about now. The back of his eyelids seemed so much safer, and with the connection of the scar broken and Voldemort dead and gone at last not all his dreams were bad. Some of them were even – dare he say it? – kind of enjoyable.

He was alive. Voldemort wasn’t. Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives… Harry had at first reckoned that meant he’d get to live if Voldemort and the horcruxes that had given him his artificial immortality were gone. Now he wasn’t so sure about the wording, though. Live? Yeah, he was technically alive, and don’t get him wrong, he was damn grateful for it. Live an actual life like anyone else? Well, that was turning out to be another story altogether.

Harry poured himself a cup of coffee and floated it and his plate over to the small table they’d set by the window. It had had four chairs with it, but the fourth was already pushed back against the wall, only to be retrieved if the twins came up from downstairs. Even though Hermione had returned to live with her parents for the summer, the unbreakable bonds of the trio were still evident in the placement of three chairs around the kitchen table in the flat where only two lived.

Despite the inexplicable short-circuiting of his magical proficiency since the confrontation, floating things was still safer than walking them at the moment. Harry still looked and felt like he’d gone nine rounds with the world’s most evil wizard. According to St. Mungo’s all would be well in time, but even magical healing had its limits.

Of course, he still looked a lot better than he’d left Voldemort.

Harry took a sip of coffee and stared out the window, watching a small bird enjoying a bath in a puddle left over from last night’s thunderstorm. It hopped and dipped through the water, small splashes and ripples marking its progress. Satisfied at last with its dousing it shook, spraying droplets all about, preened each wing and took to the air, renewed.

Harry’s heart ached to join it.

He wondered now how he’d had the prescience not to give in to the impulse to incinerate what was left of Tom Riddle, the way he’d so wanted to. It had been such an awful battle, so endless and terrifying and exhausting and painful that the impulse to thoroughly and utterly destroy his enemy; to make forever sure there could be no hope of resurrection, was almost overwhelming. But he hadn’t; he’d heard Hermione crying and turned to her instead and he was growing increasingly, privately sure that one action might have saved his life. Voldemort’s remains had been examined extensively by a Ministry trying desperately to unlock the secret of his power, and Harry had more than just a suspicion that if he had incinerated Voldemort the one they’d be picking apart right now would be him.

Scrimgeour hadn’t forgiven Harry his refusal to throw his lot with the Ministry. Shortly after he’d regained consciousness an official Ministry delegation had visited his bedside at St. Mungo’s, officially to inform him of the Ministry’s delight in his disposal of the Dark Lord and its willingness to suspend a full investigation of his involvement in return for his full cooperation. Aching and strung out on pain potions Harry’s reply had been to knock themselves out and investigate away. Scrimgeour’s response was personally delivered and none-too-subtle. Power on the scale of Voldemort’s would never be tolerated or left unregulated by the Ministry again. Surely Harry could understand that. He would be cooperating.

Harry’d been a good bit less strung out during that visit and had remained carefully noncommittal throughout it. The tectonic plates of power had clearly been shifting then, both at the Ministry and throughout the Wizarding world. The only one left alive Harry trusted when it came to dealing with officials was Remus Lupin, and he was counseling Harry to lay low from his own bedside, to play along and keep his ears open while the powers-that-be realigned themselves. Which was why, two fairly public and damaging magical emissions later (one at an award ceremony Harry had been forced against his better judgment to attend and another at a funeral he’d wanted to attend even less) Harry had given in to Scrimgeour’s prescribed Spell Damage interview in regard to the battle.

His mind wandered gingerly toward those memories, approaching them the way one might a snake; cautiously and with a big stick at the ready.

Nope. Still wasn’t ready to look that close.

He was saved by two almost simultaneous sounds; the small pop of a nearby apparition and the appearance of Hedwig at the window. The pop made his still overwrought nerves jump violently, a fact he tried desperately to cover by physically moving to let Hedwig in. He turned with her on his arm to find Hermione quietly watching him.

“Good Morning?” she asked. Nobody ever wished him anything, stated anything anymore. It was all one bloody question after another. He chose an alternate meaning for her words.

“He’s still sleeping. It’s safe to wake him though, breakfast’s ready. Have you eaten?”

She nodded; of course she had. This was Hermione, after all. “I’d love another cup of tea, though. I’ll get it, you sit and finish yours. What’s Hedwig brought you?”

Harry sat; she’d helped them move in to the flat and knew perfectly well where everything was. He undid the binding from Hedwig’s proffered leg and removed the message she bore. She took the toast crust reward from his fingers with exquisite gentleness, large eyes examining him minutely. Even his owl worried about him.

The message, when he’d unrolled it, proved to be a summons to the Ministry the following morning for his first interview with the Spell Damage Reversal Specialist. Harry sighed and crumpled the parchment into a ball, lobbing it at the rubbish bin in the corner.

Big surprise. He missed.

Hermione scooped it up and dropped it in on her way to the table; the bin’s contented burp following after her.

“Thanks. Just the time for my meeting tomorrow with the Ministry spell damage ghoul,” he told her.

“I know you don’t like the idea, Harry, but it really may not be a bad one at that. The sooner you get to the bottom of it the better; it’s probably just a secondary effect of one of the spells from the battle. Once it’s resolved Scrimgeour’s got nothing on you and you’ll be free.”

Harry nodded, not quite meeting her eyes.

“You will be. I know you don’t believe it now, Harry, I’m sure it hard with all of this hanging over you…” the wave of her hand took in his current physical state as well as the more amorphous issue of his loss of magical control, “but it will make all the difference. You can get on with healing and deciding what you want to do about a job and …”

Harry smiled to himself. Forthright Hermione, who could be so precise and specific about his career options and responsibilities to himself failed utterly when it came to the rest of the typical parameters of making oneself a life. She’d always been offhand and brusque about the whole concept of Harry seeing anyone, encouraging and disparaging at once. No one had ever been quite right or good enough. He reckoned she was caught between the rock of him not seeing anyone at the moment and the hard place of wanting to tie up the loose end of him so she could enjoy things with Ron in peace.

“Ginny will be coming up tomorrow to do her school shopping,” she said, a deliberate non sequitor.

Harry pushed a hand through his fringe and let his chin come to rest on it, propping his elbow on the table as he reverted his gaze back out the window. The bandages that still covered his palms and ran up his wrists itched annoyingly today and he could feel his spine stiffening with it.

Whatever monster had raised its head to sniff the potent fragrance that was Ginny had died an unnoticed death within him sometime during the chaotic events of last year. He’d hardly seen her at all the whole time they had been tracking down the horcruxes; he’d been glad to think her safe at Hogwarts when he’d thought of her at all. She’d been there at Hogwarts for the final face off with Voldemort, but he’d never even seen her; it turned out they’d been in different parts of the castle. She’d been among the first group of his closest friends allowed in to see him at St. Mungo’s and by about the third or fourth visit when the pain-killing potions had finally been reduced to less mind-fogging quantities he’d realized she thought that Voldemort’s demise meant that the two of them were somehow back together. The thought had left him flat, unmoved and unwilling, really. She seemed so young and frivolous somehow in her post-battle giddiness, although he knew he was being unfair. All he’d really wanted was Ron and Hermione, the friends that had been with him through it all.

He’d been neither welcoming nor dismissive then; he’d no idea what to do about it now but he was pretty sure that despite her repeated raising of the Ginny question Hermione knew that there was little left there. He figured she just wanted him to be happy so she could move on with Ron without worrying about him; he wanted that for her too, but was unwilling to play Ginny along even for Hermione whom he loved more than… anything. Much as he’d like to give her the gift of his life resolved neatly and tied up in a happy-ever-after bow so she could get on with hers, he couldn’t bring himself to do it like that.

“I’ve no idea how long this Spell Damage person will take. You and Ron and Ginny go on, and I’ll meet you later if I can,” he told her.

She nodded in agreement and sipped her tea. The angle of early July sunlight had grown stronger through the window as they sat and now made a halo of light around her, burnishing her hair to gold. He watched her fingers wrapped around her mug, the familiar way her eyelashes drooped when she sipped her tea as if she wanted to shut out everything for that moment other than its warm sweetness. The dentists’ daughter denied herself teeth spoiling sugar in almost everything but her tea; Harry knew her weaknesses intimately. He could almost feel the comfort she drew from it inside himself.

Ron emerged, yawning hugely, from his bedroom.

“Thought I smelled breakfast!” he said happily, and headed through to the loo.

Harry floated Ron’s plate over from the counter and thought again with fondness of the house elves of Hogwarts.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to be doing magic,” Hermione said. Her voice was neutral, un-accusing. He knew that she hadn’t honestly imagined he wouldn’t.

“They took my wand. They can’t track the wandless. And it’s just little stuff anyway; no one’s likely to get decapitated by a misaimed plate of bacon or anything.”

“Ridiculous, taking your wand,” she said, suddenly frowning. “That still makes me just furious. It’s completely illogical. All of the… problems you’ve had have been spontaneous, anyway. They haven’t been misfires of cast spells; they’ve all been more like eruptions of magical energy, just sort of leaking out of you.”

“Merlin knows I’ve got enough spots for it to leak out at the moment,” he said ruefully. “And when has the Ministry of Magic ever been logical.”

Ron came and sat down between them, looking from one to the other. “Let me guess. You,” he nodded at Harry, “used magic to get breakfast on the table and you,” he shifted his attention to Hermione, “are giving him the old Ministry approval lecture.”

“Hardly a lecture,” she bristled. “As a matter of fact we were talking about the idiocy of the Ministry confiscating Harry’s wand.”

“Not like he needs it, does he?” Ron replied, unconcerned, and dug in to his meal.

“That’s hardly the point, is it? The Ministry has no business stepping in and taking someone’s wand when they’ve just saved the world as we know it from the most evil Wizard in history. What about Harry’s right to protect himself against the Death Eaters still at large?”

“I’m hardly afraid of Malfoy. And his Auntie Bellatrix looked worse than me last time I saw her,” Harry interjected.

“He doesn’t need a wand to take on those wank… erm, leftovers. And they do have Aurors watching over Harry all the time. We’ve almost got their schedule figured out now. We actually got Tonks to have lunch with us the other day when we were in Hogsmeade and she realized we were on to her.”

“Whether or not he needs a wand is irrelevant. The laws are flawed. Anyone else would need one,” Hermione pointed out.

“No one else would have just saved the world from the most evil Wizard in history, as you put it. Harry’s different. And the bloody Ministry isn’t stopping us from doing anything.”

“They could, though,” Harry said. “Hermione’s got a point.”

“You always side with her,” Ron said, half annoyed.

“Someone has to. She’s your girlfriend, and you never do,” Harry shot back.

It should have been a joke; he meant it to be. Ron and Hermione had been arguing as long as he’d known them both. Hell, if Ron hadn’t been taking the piss out of her to begin with, she wouldn’t have been in that bathroom crying her eyes out when Quirrell released the troll into Hogwarts first year and they might never have gotten together. He’d always played the middle.

Clearly Ron took it as one, anyway.

“Can stand on her own opinions, that one. Only needs me to snog.”

Hermione’s mouth tightened into a straight, grim line; there’d be no snogging her anytime soon. And she didn’t look like she’d taken Harry’s comment quite the way he’d meant her to.

Harry cast about for something to say to defuse the building storm when there was suddenly a tremendous, tinkling crash as every window on the east side of the building abruptly blew out. The sound of glass raining down on the street below seemed to last forever.

Silence, when it came, was momentary at best. An appreciative: “Nice one, Harry!” and a round of applause rang out from the twins already in their shop below.

“Good thing we live in a Wizard building in a Wizard part of town is all I can say,” Ron said. “Don’t even think about trying the reparo, mate. We’ll take care of it. Really.”

“Bloody hell,” said Harry.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

<Fixing Harry>

Chapter 2

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Well, that was interesting.

I had my first interview with the Boy Who Lived today, although the title appears questionable just at the moment. Survived might be more like it. I wouldn’t have actually thought they’d have let him out of St. Mungo’s quite yet, but there you are. I’ve never much cared for hospitals either.

I’ve written up my official notes already and turned them in to Clement, but I realized fairly early on during our meeting that Potter was going to be a multiple notebook subject. Much like the less-than-ethical accountant, I have indeed been known to keep two sets of books.

So where should I begin?

The young man who made his way through the door couldn’t have been any less what I expected. He’s not terribly imposing at all – perhaps a head taller than I, rangy and thin. His hair is longish, quite dark and clearly not entirely under his control. He wore a white shirt and his Gryffindor tie with Muggle jeans under his school robes, reminding me he is only freshly out of Hogwarts. His proffered hand was somewhat hesitant but very polite; especially considering both hands and wrists are still wrapped in bandages that left only the fingers and thumbs free. I shook it, gingerly.

It’s his eyes that betray the extent of his magic.

I’m willing to bet he’s sick of people commenting on them by now. I knew his mother by sight; she was already in her seventh year and Head Girl by the time I entered Hogwarts. She had long ginger hair, and the green eyes we all envied so are even more distinctive with her son’s darker, almost black locks. It’s not just their color alone that makes them unusual; or you might take note of them and then forget as your acquaintance proceeded and your attention moved on to other things. They hint at tales you somehow know he would never willingly tell, too old and wise for such a young man. And yet they also seem slightly befuddled, as if they’ve been yanked back from sights unseen by the rest of us, momentarily lost in the world they find around them. The thing of it is you don’t stop noticing them when you’re with him. I’d wager even his friends from his first year at Hogwarts still do on a good few occasions. I can’t quite put my finger on why yet, but I will. I may not be the Ministry’s idea of a star employee, but I’m still pretty good at what I do. And they may not be spell damaged, but it’s a fair wager he is. He’s definitely got the feel.

The meeting room we were assigned had the usual well worn wooden table surrounded by the usual plain wooden chairs, undistinguished except for their sheer discomfort. I had placed my parchments and quills and the dregs of my coffee at one end and I noticed Mr. Potter look longingly at the other end before making his way to sit politely closer, cattycorner to me. He’d brought a Muggle bottle of water with him, and he set it down on the table. His Auror escort; a spotty young wizard no more than two or three years older than Potter himself, followed and plunked down in the chair his subject had so wistfully passed by. He eyed us both resentfully and began to play with his wand.

I absolutely despise wizards – or witches, for that matter – who play with their wands. They’re not toys, after all. It’s such a power play, conscious or not.

There was much I wanted to know about Potter. Asking the usual Ministry questions – information rendered redundant by the fact it was all already in the file between us that we both knew perfectly well I’d read - seemed almost an affront.

“Harry James Potter?” I began with a sigh, reaching for a fresh parchment and quill.

He nodded once, cleared his throat and said, “that’s me.”

“And your patronus would be…”

“A really stupid security question, because it’s already been printed in the Daily Prophet?”

“Just answer the witch’s question,” said the Auror at the end of the table officiously.

I couldn’t help a little grin at Potter’s excellent point. “Can I quote you on that?”

He looked a bit spooked by my response, at least until he appeared to notice the lack of Ministry-issued annoyance on my part. “Erm, it’s a stag, actually,” he said then, playing along. Interesting.

We worked our way fairly quickly through the rest of the standard questions until we got to one of the last: “Do you have any current or outstanding warrants or limits on your wand?”

“Not that I know of last time I had it,” was his answer.

Spotty the Auror snickered. He was starting to piss me off, that one. Exactly the reason I wanted out of the Ministry.

“Did you… was it destroyed when you… during the battle?” I asked curiously. Oh that was professionally done!

“D’you mean it’s not in there?” he asked, eyes flicking toward his file. “Your lot made me turn it in, after the Order of Merlin… um, occurrence.”

Bringing us nicely to the topic at hand. It annoyed me no end that no one had bothered to inform me about confiscating his wand. That was a rare move. It was an enormous thing to a Wizard, losing his wand; you might as well chop off their right arm if they’re pureblooded. Which he wasn’t, of course, but I couldn’t help noting he didn’t seem overly concerned for a half blood with an almost visible Death Eater target painted on his back. Either he had an unofficial replacement or he really was as powerful as they say.

The Order of Merlin occurrence he was referring to was the second noted catastrophic magical misfire in his file, but it seemed a reasonable enough place to start. The other was Mad Eye Moody’s funeral, an event I was in no hurry to discuss.

“About that, the Order of Merlin incident. What exactly happened there?” I asked him, pretending to be enthralled with my note taking.

“What does your file say happened?” he countered.

“I can’t actually tell you that,” I admitted. Sheepishly. Stupid rules.

“It’s about me, it’s what I supposedly did, and you can’t tell me what it says?” His eyes were challenging me then.

“Just answer the Witch’s ques…”

“Listen, Leonard,” Potter said suddenly, turning to Spotty, his annoyance finally more than he could apparently swallow.

Leonard? Leonard the Auror was even funnier than Spotty.

“I’m not your prisoner,” Potter continued. “You’re my escort. So why don’t you just kindly shut the bloody hell up, as you have nothing official to say about any of this.”

It seemed they might have been sharing a good amount of time together lately. Not particularly happily, either.

“I’m not your escort, I’m her protection. I’m here to make sure you don’t have any more little magical “accidents.”

“Which you, Leonard, could do exactly what about?” The Boy Who Lived asked in a voice that actually gave me the shivers. Leonard, as a complete bullhead, seemed curiously unaffected.

“As you were already informed, Potter, I have permission from Minister Scrimgeour’s office to use the full range of allowable immobilization hexes up to and including….”

“Go on then. Try one.”

Okay, now this was totally not going according to form any longer. “I really don’t think that will be…” I started.

“Petrificus Totallus!” Leonard snapped, wand pointed and dead on.

Potter murmured something I didn’t catch; but the shield he created generously included me. The Auror’s petrificus crackled and was absorbed into the shield spell rather than careening dangerously off, as was more typical. It wasn’t a true Dark Arts spell he used, but it was far from Ministry standard.

He brought down the shield with a small, almost negligible wave of his bandaged hand and turned earnestly toward me again. “I can’t guarantee you I have total control of my magic, but I can promise you that I will do everything in my power to protect you from anything that might happen. Do we really need him?”

Wandless magic. SO cool! And he was entirely serious in his intent to protect me. Clearly these incidents had been weighing on him, and he had thought his options through in case they recurred. I needed to know more. Before my head exploded. Wow. He was the real deal.

“Tell you what, Mr….” I squinted at Spotty Leonard’s badge, “Flargemore.”

“Auror Flargemore!” he interjected.

“Auror Flargemore. Mr. Potter has just assured me of my safety, and as his Ministry-assigned Spell Damage Reversal Specialist I find that sufficient under the circumstances. So how about you wait right outside the door, and I’ll let you know if I need you.”

“You’re joking, right?” Flargemore sputtered. “You’re not concerned about…”

“Nope,” I told him. “Just fine with it. Run along. Get yourself a cup of coffee or something. Oh, and put the wand away before you hurt someone, okay?”

I was pretty sure Potter cracked a grin at that; it was hard to tell because he took a big swig of water just then.

Auror Flargemore stood up and stretched to his full height, which was admittedly taller than either of us. His mouth opened and closed several times as he struggled with what to say, his outrage warring with the simple fact that I was well within my rights to ask him to leave. Aurors usually try not to get on the bad side of the Spell Reversal Department; they never know when they’re going to need us. And whatever sort of envy-based emotion was driving his behavior toward Potter wasn’t quite brave enough to survive their little standoff. In the end, he just stopped gulping like a guppie and left.

Potter might not have sighed in relief, but his spine unkinked noticeably.

“So tell me again, that file you have there is all about me, but you can’t tell me what I’ve done to deserve being shadowed by the likes of Leonard 24/7,” he said.

“Yes, it is. And no, I can’t. Welcome to the Ministry of Magic. We could, however, play a little muggle game in which you tell me what you think it says and why you want to know, and I say “hot” or “cold.” One thing your file does mention that I can tell you is that you were raised in a Muggle household. Do you know the game I mean?”

He actually goggled at me, mouth dropping open in surprise. He’d clearly been exposed to a healthy dose of Ministry Mind Set before and had no idea what to make of me.

“You do realize they’ve surely upped the standard listening charms for this interview,” he said.

“My mother always said, ‘don’t say the spell if you can’t take the… trouble.’ I told him. “And I know a couple of good spells,” I mouthed silently. I had already cast a couple to be honest. They cause a lot of white noise if certain conditions were met, but never kicked in otherwise. A fallback.

I cast a muffliato then, and grinned. “All off the record, now.”

His eyes narrowed alarmingly. “Where did you learn that spell?”

“From my husband, actually. Why?”

“Who is your husband?”

The questions were quick, tense and full of an apprehension I could not place.

“Was. Almerick Hawktalon. He was an Auror. He died ten years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and I could tell he was. He still obviously had questions, but his own natural protectiveness about those he had lost prevented him from treading on mine. Just yet, anyway.

I pushed up my sleeves and held out both arms, the undersides turned up. He looked surprised, but he looked. This boy had no reason to trust anyone anymore.

“I see you are an imposter,” he told me, straight faced. “You can’t possible work here. Where’s your mark?”

“How do you make a magical tattoo of a numb mind? The empty skull would get awfully close to the Death Eaters’, and they don’t seem to be the sort to take kindly to trademark infringement.”

He looked at me a moment, torn, as if he wanted to tell me something but was uncertain if he should. The conflicting emotions that ran through him each seemed to have their moment; impatience, anger and mistrust warred with his own seemingly inherent mild nature and desire to please.

Not a natural poker player, this one.

He appeared to abruptly reach a decision and thrust out one hand onto the table, rapidly un-strapping the wrappings around it. The back of his hand was revealed; perfectly normal, if a little pale. Since he quite obviously wouldn’t be going to the trouble to undo the bandages to show me that, I leaned forward to look closer. And there, in faint white scars against his skin were etched the words ‘I must not tell lies.’

“That’s my mark courtesy of the Ministry. And I find it just a bit ironic, considering they’ve never told me much else themselves. So I apologize in advance for being such an unwilling and unhelpful subject. It’s not you I’m angry with and I’m sorry you’ve got stuck with me, because I’m afraid they’re wasting your time with the whole Spell Reversal thing.”

Okay… see, that was just wrong. He’d called it courtesy of the Ministry, but it had to have happened while he was at Hogwarts. A child, for Merlin’s sake. I pulled out my wand without thinking, intent only a revealing what sort of spell had etched those words into his skin. He jerked back as surely as if I’d hexed him already and I reminded myself again that this was a Spontaneous Magic subject I was dealing with. Forgetting that had a way of getting you killed.

“I just wanted to know the spell,” I said softly, as calmly as I could. “I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

“It wasn’t a spell, it was a cursed quill. She made me do lines with it for detention. It writes in blood, and scratches whatever you write into your own skin. If you have to do it often enough, it scars. She’s an employee of the Ministry still. We were just kids, it was my fifth year. No one believed us that Voldemort was back. They just wanted to shut us up. It’s one thing not to see the truth in front of you, it’s something else altogether to try and silence it.”

Too true, that.

“I meant I should have asked about using my wand. But I’m sorry for that as well. I suspect I know who you mean, and I remember what happened. You don’t have to apologize to me for speaking out about what the Ministry did at Hogwarts that year. I’ve done my fair share of talking back here, not that anyone that matters ever really took in a word of it. I’ve never exactly been up for Employee of the Year.”

I did the inexcusable, then. I touched a Spell Reversal Subject with something other than the tip of my wand. Highly unprofessional, but let’s face it, the kid was apparently walking freely around Diagon Alley – as free as you can get with an Auror escort, anyway – so how dangerous could they really think he was? I took hold of his hand as gently as I could and turned it over, palm up.

I learned several important things about Harry Potter at that moment.

1. He leaks magic like a sieve. A better Witch than I would probably have picked it up when he first walked in, but when I actually touched him I got a shock roughly equivalent to teasing the stinger end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt - or sticking a wet spoon into a Muggle toaster while pressing “toast.”
   
   
2. He is unfazed by graphic, creative profanity, other than the fact that;
   
   
3. He is absolutely adorable when he blushes.
   
   
4. He has what would appear to be a painfully unhealed burn starting on the palm of his hand and running for an inch or so up the inside of his wrist. My guess would have to be he has two of them, since the wrapping on the other wrist is identical. My next guess would be it was a result of a wand held in both hands at very least overloading and more likely magically incinerating.
   
   

“Sorry,” I told him lamely, thoroughly ashamed of myself.

“Likewise,” he said, his head ducked over his hand, re-fastening the wrappings.

“You sure you still had a working wand after that?” I asked him.

“It wasn’t mine that did it,” he admitted, still not coming close to meeting my curious gaze. “That was… his. The core exploded when I tried to use it against him. Stupid, I know, but…” He shrugged.

The shrug was eloquent; he said much with the simple rise and fall of that shoulder. He’d done what he had to do to survive; tried things he’d known weren’t likely to work. He’d been desperate then, if he’d had a plan it had fallen through and he’d grasped at magical straws. The very worst environment for spell damage; chaotic, often spontaneous magic was the worst sort to try and unravel.

“Here’s a question.”

Green eyes rose to mine then; he really did have an inborn desire to please.

“Do your healers use Dragon hide gloves?”

He smiled sheepishly, and actually nodded. “They did, anyway. They said it would wear off and it mostly has. It’s way better than it was, at least. I was in an isolation ward for two weeks right after because it seemed to affect everyone else’s magic, too. Ron, erm, my flat mate doesn’t even notice it anymore.”

Well. None of that made the Prophet, I assure you. The more interesting part is why that wasn’t evident in his file, either. St. Mungo’s had gone completely mum on that bit of it. Decent of them, really. Remarkably so. He clearly had friends there, whether he knew it or not.

“Here’s another question. I know I’m full of them, but it is my job, after all. If you’re dripping magic by the bucket load and you’ve got two magical burns that don’t seem to be healing at all well as far as I can see, why do you think you’re wasting my time? That’s exactly what I’m meant to help you with.”

“Is it?” he said, going quite still. “Really? Because unless I miss my guess the Ministry’s got an altogether different motivation for our little chat.”

He was, unfortunately, probably right. Why else would a low level spell hack like me – at least by their standards – be handed the case file for the Boy Who Took Out Voldemort? It didn’t make sense at all.

“And I’ve a feeling,” he mumbled into my silence, “they’ve chosen well. I’ve said too much already. Are we done?”

Not even close. It was time to choose my words carefully; something I’m hardly known for my ability to do.

“For today. I believe they’ve already considerately scheduled you a second session day after tomorrow. Same time, same place. I was thinking, though, that perhaps given your… situation, we might go for a little walk instead. I’m sure your healers are encouraging you to keep moving and from a Spell Damage Reversal perspective it would be most helpful for me to see you in another setting.”

And I wouldn’t have to cast the muffliato, which just added to the magical cacophony surrounding him already. He didn’t really have a choice unless he was willing to take on Scrimgeour’s direct orders, and I didn’t get the sense that he was. Quite yet, anyway.

“Where?” he said resignedly. “I’m afraid it will be slow going for you.”

“Meet me here. I’ll have the paperwork all set for the change of venue and we can apparate directly.”

He nodded once and rose from his chair. Despite other obviously lingering injuries – he did have a good bit of a limp still, for one, – he retained the fluid quality of movement that many Quidditch players have. Almerick had had it, and so I tend to notice. He tipped up his water and drained the last of the bottle, the pale column of his throat working as he swallowed, oddly vulnerable to my eyes. This boy, this young man really, you could hardly call him a boy any longer, had managed the nearly unthinkable. He had defeated a wizard entirely steeped in evil, not once, but twice before the age of twenty. He was as intensely Magical as anyone I had ever been in the presence of, and there was so much more about him I wanted to understand.

He smiled, though it failed to make its way anywhere near his eyes, and nodded politely once more before leaving. I thought he looked tired and… forlorn.

Wizards are hard on their heroes these days.

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A/N: I know that was heavy on Elspeth’s reactions and light on the trio, but I had some things to set up. Fear not – the entire next chapter is all trio, all the time. Thanks for reading, and your reviews and comments to the first chapter were a HUGE encouragement – I hope I can live up them.

~ Lynney.

Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 3

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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?”

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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.

Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 4

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Subject: Harry James Potter

Interview Date: Thursday, July 10, 1998

Interview #: Second

Observations: None of your bloody business, you posturing vultures.

As you can tell by the observation heading, I did a little off-the-record research on my new Spell Damage subject. As you can also tell, this isn’t the copy of my notes I presented to Clement Bagnold.

First though, let me get down the real version of our meeting before I forget anything in my frenzy about the rest of it.

Clement wasn’t entirely thrilled with my ejection of Auror Flargemore, but there wasn’t much he could do about it other than lecture me. Same with the change of venue; it was actually unusual to meet Spell Damage subjects in the Ministry; most of the time they were more than happy for us to go out to St. Mungo’s or to visit them at home; in fact they encouraged it. Especially Spontaneous Magic subjects. Who wanted them going off in a Ministry elevator? And what if they had something catching? Half of me was glad I had arranged to meet Potter at the office just so I could watch the worst of them cringe a bit as we made our way back out again.

I chose the London Zoo because it was neutral, close (I wasn’t entirely sure what his feeling on apparating was at the moment, and there was always the Underground if he couldn’t manage it) and because the weather had turned hot even for London in July and it was likely to be mostly abandoned for more air conditioned pursuits this morning. We would have to put up with Flargemore or whoever the Auror of the day might be since I was taking him into Muggle territory, but as they would be there nominally to protect a wandless Potter from possible attack by unapprehended Death Eaters instead of me from him, they should, in theory, remain unobtrusively out of sight.

Not a bad little plan, if I do say so myself. As uncomfortable as this limbo must be to Potter, common sentiment must be making it hard on Scrimgeour as well if he was really out to get him. No one wanted another Voldemort, but no one else really seemed quite prepared to condemn The Boy Who Lived after all he’d done for the Wizarding world based on two incidents that appeared to be entirely out of his control. If we could just manage to identify the cause of his outbursts and control them I was convinced Scrimgeour would find the going tougher still, if not impossible. My goal today was to find out if there had been smaller, more easily hidden episodes since and if so, what the particular circumstances were. I had already begun charting possible spell combinations.

He seemed unfazed by our destination; not as pleased as I might have secretly hoped, since I rather enjoyed it there myself, but not dismissive or appalled, either. We left our robes in my office and set off comfortably in Muggle clothing. He had on well-worn jeans and trainers and a Falmouth Falcons tee shirt that we spelled to plain gray, seeing as tee shirts with swooping and diving Quidditch Seekers are not all that likely to pass unnoticed in a Muggle Zoo. I noticed he was limping significantly less than even the week before. Not bad for barely five weeks after a battle with the dreaded You Know Who in my book. Anyone casually observing us at the Zoo might easily believe he’d recently been through a car crash and was having a first therapeutic outing. Or I could make them, if came down to it.

Some of his lack of enthusiasm was surely the underground trip; he was super tightly wired and tended to start like a nervous rabbit at fairly innocuous sounds. Not all that unusual considering what he’d been through; there were spells and charms that could help with that but time was truly the best healer. He seemed much happier once we reached the Zoo itself and began our wander ‘round.

“Do you have any favorite animals? Anything you’d particularly like to see?” I asked him.

“Is that your way of asking if I’d like to go practice parseltongue in the reptile house?” he responded, eyes roving the map of exhibits. “Because I can save you the trouble if you’re squeamish about pythons. Yes, I can still speak it, and no, no more or less than before I killed him.”

Touchy much?

“No, actually, I really wanted to know if you had any preference about what we saw.” I told him.

He had the grace to blush; his skin was so fair he’d no hope of hiding it.

“Do you have a favorite?” he asked. “I don’t mind where we go.”

“I’m quite partial to the Sumatran Tigers, although you can’t beat the Oriental Small Clawed Otters for a good show.”

“Come here often?” he joked. “Lead on, I’ll just follow along and give you an excuse for being here.”

“There’s always the children’s petting zoo. They let you pet the llamas, you know.”

I almost got an actual laugh, there. You know the kind; amusement rather than bitterness.

“I’m sure they do. That might look just the tiniest bit suspicious with our friendly Auror brigade in tow, though. There’re two of them today, and they were none too happy to have to come up with the Muggle cash for the Underground and the Zoo entry from the look of them. Four cranky adults crashing the petting zoo aren’t likely to go unnoticed. ”

He was good. I’d known they were around somewhere, but I hadn’t identified them yet. Then again, he probably saw them all the time.

“Three cranky adults and one happy animal lover, but never mind. You’ve got a point. Tigers it is, then. The otters are on the way if we go across there,” I showed him, pointing out the route on the map. “There are plenty of places to sit along the way, just say if you need a break.”

He nodded his agreement, and we set off. The heat rose from the pavements in shimmering waves. I stopped him and remembered to shift my wand discreetly in my sleeve and warn him before I spelled his glasses dark. “Bad for your eyes, all that magnified light,” I told him.

“Do they look just as dorky as sunglasses as they do the rest of the time?” he asked with another small, almost laugh.

“About the same actually. Of course, I don’t think they make you look… dorky, is it? More, I don’t know… how about smart. Scholarly. Pre-professorial, since you’re a bit on the young side for that.”

That got the one that was building. An actual laugh. Ta daa!

“Better then a glamour then,” he grinned. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

He was no idiot, this boy. I’d seen his grades. I wondered why he was so unimpressed with himself.

“Did you come here at all as a child? You were raised in Surrey, right?” I asked.

His face did that thing again when a whole tide of emotions seems to hit at once and he can’t decide which to go with.

“Once. I came here once, just before I got my Hogwarts letter, actually.”

“Were you close to your cousin, the one you were raised with? I noticed you were almost the same age. Was it difficult to go off to Hogwarts?”

His laugh then sounded anything but pleased to be reminded. “I was close to Dudley in the sense that his fist was very well acquainted with my face a lot of the time, and you’ve got to be within arms’ reach for that. Otherwise, not so much. Hogwarts was… a haven for me. A huge relief. Well, in some ways, anyway.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Which doesn’t mean I’m going to turn into some desperate Muggle hating tyrant or anything either,” he said. “They just didn’t understand magic, my relatives. It frightened them, and they wanted nothing to do with it, or me.”

Well, that sounded jolly. Lovely way to grow up. No wonder Hogwarts was a relief.

“So you were counting down the days until your letter, then.”

I got a sidewise glance from those green eyes, assessing my reaction as he spoke. “Actually, I had no idea that I was even a wizard until then. They’d hidden it all from me before the letter arrived; they told me my parents died in a car crash. I never even believed in magic.”

He hadn’t believed in magic. Harry Potter hadn’t believed in magic. It hardly seemed possible.

“I figured out later that some of the things I’d always wondered about were because of my magic. My Aunt used to get really frustrated with my hair when I was small, and once she cut it all off. It was horrible, it looked like I’d been prepped for brain surgery and they’d changed their mind halfway through. I cried myself to sleep, thinking how I was going to be terrorized at school the next day by my cousin and his gang of friends. When I woke up the next morning it had grown back exactly the way it had been before she’d cut it.”

He has thick, wayward hair. It’s longer now than it was when the wizard press gave us our first look at him; I think it must have been four or five years ago the first picture I remember appeared in the Daily Prophet. He was standing beside Gilderoy Lockhart, his eyes enormous in the camera’s flash.

It had stuck out wildly from his head then; now it was more of a just-got-out-of-bed look that was – dare I say it? Oh what the hell, they’re my own notes after all – kind of attractive. It suits him. He’s not a bad looking kid at all, but he has this kind of otherness to him that it’s easy to see he senses. I don’t think he gets past it to see what the rest of the world does. I want to ask him if he has a girlfriend, and if not, why not, but it seems a little early on for that. All his major magical outbursts have apparently been at highly public events, it wasn’t like he was losing control when he was, you know, losing control. Don’t laugh; it’s not a completely unheard of Wizard phenomenon, actually.

Speaking of magical outbursts, though, that sure had all the hallmarks of one, the overnight grow- out of the tragic hair cut. He’d wanted it badly, and his magic had responded to his frustration.

Of course he did have one other early incident on his official record, although the details were rather vague. Still, if he’d grown out his own hair without even knowing he was a wizard…

“Tell me about your Aunt Marge,” I said.

We’d reached the otter habitat. It was sweltering hot, the sun blazing, although there were now gathering storm clouds on the horizon. The Zoo’s other patrons – the ones with any sense – were mostly visiting the indoor exhibits. The otters were somnolent in their tepid water, staring at us as if we were clueless giants too stupid to immerse ourselves to escape the heat.

“Just to go on the record, she’s only my Aunt in the most obscure sense of the word. She’s my Aunts’ husbands’ sister. There’s no blood between us and no love lost, either. My Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon told everyone that I was away at St. Brutus’ Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys whenever I was at Hogwarts. I don’t even remember what I did to set her off, but she got on her soap box to announce just why she thought it was no wonder I had to go there. First she said that my father had been a layabout and a drunk, and then she asked if they caned me enough at St. Brutus’ to set me straight; that the way I behaved what I really needed was a good beating. Then, to top it all off she informed me my problem was simple; if there was something off with the bitch there’d be something wrong with the pup. She bred dogs, not that that excuses her. I got so mad I couldn’t see straight, I’d grown up thinking my Mum died in a car crash and I’d only just learned since I’d been to Hogwarts that she’d willingly chosen to die for me, that she’d thrown herself in front of a killing curse to save me. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I blew her up. Completely inflated her like a hot air balloon. And away she floated.”

Served her right, if you asked me. The image was hysterical, although I could just imagine his panic when he realized what he’d done. What a wretched way to have had to grow up.

“The wording in your file was very vague. It didn’t appear to be handled like an average Underage Use of Magic case. You’d already had a warning, too.”

“I hadn’t actually used my wand to do it. But I panicked, because I thought they were going to expel me anyway, because of the warning from the year before. If my Uncle didn’t kill me first, that is. I just ran away. It turned out that my godfather, Sirius Black, had escaped from Azkaban right around then and the Ministry was terrified I was going to get myself killed before I could have a go at Voldemort, so Fudge hushed it up.”

Typical Fudge.

“So you had a verified wandless spontaneous emission of magic at what, thirteen? Well, that’s heartening isn’t it?”

He looked at me quizzically. “So it would be better if I was always a freak, rather than just now after killing someone.”

Didn’t have to be a genius to answer that question under the circumstances!

“Yes, Mr. Potter, it would be. It’s not unusual for underage wizards to lose control of their magic, and a propensity to do things wandlessly ups the ante considerably, since you wouldn’t actually need the focus of the wand in hand. And you didn’t exactly kill someone so much as do the rest of us a really big favor. The wandless thing, by the by, doesn’t show up in your official file. Any idea why that would be?

“I didn’t want them to know?” he guessed. “Nope, that can’t be it, because with my luck they’d find out for sure then. Maybe your guys just stink at intelligence?”

“Maybe they’re not my guys. Maybe I’m not the enemy. Maybe you hate that I’m asking you all these questions, but maybe I can actually help you, too. Have I given you any reason not to trust me?”

“Other than being employed by the very people that want to lock me up for doing what I was supposed to do? No. No you haven’t.”

Warning! Very big mistake coming up here. Just plain stupid. Almost blew the whole thing, right…. here.

I cast a subtle cheering charm on him. Slid the wand down my sleeve into my hand behind my back, pointed and let fire. A nice, harmless happy-charm. So simple, so innocuous and easy that you learn the basic variation third year at Hogwarts. My goal? Just to take the edge off the chip on his shoulder long enough that he might listen to logic and let me help him. We do it all the time, Ministry approved. Lifting my arms to push back my hair slid the wand right back up the arm of my shirt. That’s why Spell Damage Specialists like me tend to wear long sleeves no matter what the temperature even when we aren’t venturing into Muggle land.

“Do not fucking ever try that again,” Harry Potter snarled at me, eyes narrowed to furious green slits.

Holy hell! I felt myself instantly tense, waiting for… something. He was really, truly angry, and while that was in no way my intention it was exactly the sort of thing that should have sent his magic firing on all cylinders. And firing on all cylinders it was; I could feel it. It made my skin almost vibrate; the energy that seeped off him. I thought for sure the park bench behind us would suddenly incendio, or the otters would morph into Hungarian Horntails or something. Inflated Aurors at the very least.

Nothing.

“That’s not right,” I said suspiciously, as soon as I found my tongue.

“Too right it’s not. Who the hell do you think you are, casting a cheering charm on me? You say you think you can help me and you haven’t given me any reason not to trust you and the words are no sooner out of your mouth than you ambush me.”

He was right there. Of course, it wasn’t what I’d meant; I’d meant that if his problem was true spontaneous emission of magic his anger ought to have triggered it. His issues were obviously more complex, certainly the result of more than one spell and potentially even unintentional rather than deliberately cast. That might even effectively rule out Voldemort and render him innocent of possibly harboring the Dark Lord. But he was correct none the less that I had never once considered casting the charm to be a violation of his trust. I thought I had been doing what was best for him, which made me either incredibly self-confident or a very big idiot. Probably both. This was no average Wizard who’d caught a hex wrong. What had I been thinking?

Well, duh. I wanted him to like me. I wanted him to stop fighting me and just let me help him. It wasn’t the fame of it; I didn’t crave headlines reading Ministry Spell Damage Specialist Elspeth Hawktalon Resolves Curse Impairment for the Boy Who Lived! I didn’t care about fame of any kind and really did want out of my job. There was just something about him. I wanted to help, and I thought I could.

“I’m truly sorry, Mr. Potter. You’re absolutely right, and I apologize. That charm is approved by the Ministry for therapeutic use, and I just…”

“Just thought you’d play God and alter my mood a bit so I’d be more open to your suggestions. And as long as you’re feeling free enough to mess about with my moodiness, you’d best call me Harry. I hate that Mr. Potter crap.”

That was a surprise.

Two things struck me then. The first was that the charm I cast is meant to be unobtrusive and undetectable, and yet he knew instantly that I’d done it, and obviously repelled it. (It was quite unusual to use negative profanity whilst under a cheering charm after all; one would have expected his choice of terms to have had quite another context. I’ve had to fight off subjects that became too cheery on rare occasions. He, on the other hand, had been quite authentically pissed off.)

The second was that it had gotten awfully dark while we’d been arguing. A raindrop plopped on the sidewalk between us.

“Not my fault, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, staring straight ahead at the otters.

“I wasn’t. I know it’s not. Look, I made a mistake, Harry, and I hope you’ll forgive me. My intention truly was just to relax you so that all the mistrust you’ve got for Scrimgeour wouldn’t keep you from at least listening to me and maybe accepting my help. And I haven’t added anything about the wandless stuff to your file, if that’s what you’re thinking. I can understand how you would perceive what I did as unconscionable now; I just didn’t see it through your eyes. You can’t expect people to understand you if you never let them get close enough to know what you’re about.”

“I meant the rain,” he said with a slow sideways grin. “I didn’t make it start.”

I knew it couldn’t possibly be as easy as that, but for whatever reason he was acting as if my apology was accepted and I was forgiven. Turns on a dime, this one, but no brakes!

Rings began spreading across the smooth surface of the water in small rippling waves wherever the rain drops fell. The otters perked up noticeably, skimming the water, and the ones who had been on the shore waddled happily to the edge and glided in. The pups seemed to race the outward flowing rings until a game of tag ensued; rather than watching benevolently the adults soon joined in. Otters are so much smarter than people. We were starting to get rather wet, but Po… Harry’s eyes were intently watching their play and I was loath to disturb him now.

“Do you think the form our patronus takes reflects something about our true nature?” he asked seriously.

It seemed a mistake to say yes; that he could quite obviously be proud and fierce if he wanted, but he could spook, turn tail and bound away right fast as well. I don’t think that was what he wanted to hear. My own patronus was a cat, boring and ordinary. I looked out over the otters and suddenly the connection was obvious.

“They seem to, yes. Not always the way we see ourselves, but perhaps who we truly are as Witches and Wizards. Why?”

“I have a… friend. A good friend, whose patronus is an otter. I think this is the first time I’ve actually seen a real one now that I think of it. Hers is very like these, but watching them play like that… They’re so…” he seemed to struggle, so I provided some of the more obvious adverbs.

“Playful? Bright? Lively? Clever? Mischievous? Lighthearted?”

He gave me a look that said quite plainly, ‘Aren’t you the walking thesaurus?’

“See, that’s it. She’s about exactly half those things; the others don’t seem to fit at all.”

“See how they waddle around on land but glide like water itself when they’re in it? Maybe she’s just got to be in her natural element for the rest of it to show.”

Okay – hardly the most profound of comments, right? I was looking at the otters and just said the first thing that came to mind. Still, you could almost hear the gong going off in his head from the look on his face; whoever his friend was something must have made sense to him at last.

Since he’d said ‘she’ my mind naturally leapt to the girl from his class at Hogwarts who’d helped him defeat Voldemort; Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley had both gotten their share of most likely invasive and annoying press coverage too. I’d never come across her but I could recall Granger’s picture in the Prophet over the years as well; there’d been some nonsense or other about her two-timing him with Viktor Krum when they’d been all of what, fourteen? The latest pictures after Voldemort’s defeat showed a girl a good bit smaller now than her two friends, with determined features, a bright, inquisitive expression and rather a lot of wavy brownish hair.

Hmm. Of course, it could be anyone. Still, Granger and Weasley were his closest friends and witnesses to both incidences I was investigating. Perhaps it was time for a chat with them. My sense was he’d find that a huge invasion of his privacy, so it would likely be best to simply have them sit in with him one time and see how it went, first. I was completely within my rights to just contact them and question away, but I really didn’t want to risk the fragile peace between us yet again. It’s harder to help someone when they hated you, and I was feeling quite intrigued by the whole problem by now and thoroughly compelled to do something about it.

There was a sudden crack of thunder and the rain let loose. We never did get to see the tigers.

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When we returned to my office and he’d retrieved his robes, I brought up our next meeting.

“I’d like to meet with a couple of the people who were present for both the incidents Scrimgeour’s complaint lists. Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley were there, and I understand they’re still close friends. Ron’s your flat mate isn’t he?”

He nodded, his expression guarded.

“Would it be possible to bring them with you next time?”

“Ron’s out of town at a Quidditch tryout camp next week. Hermione might come. What are you going to ask her?”

“Oh, all your deepest, darkest secrets. How often you skived classes. Whether Filch ever caught you comparing the relative positions of Venus and Mars on the Astronomy Tower. Boxers or briefs. That kind of thing.”

But what I really want to know is how you survived the childhood you just told me about. How you carried on after Dumbledore died. How you managed to defeat the Darkest Wizard of the age and what he might have done to you that night at Hogwarts. I want to know at least some of what they must know. I’m sure the answer is there somewhere.

A blush stained his cheekbones, but he laughed it off. “Hermione can probably tell you every single time I missed a class, but she won’t be much help to you with the rest of it. We’ve only ever been friends.”

What a boy. They always underestimated their girls-who-are-friends and overestimated the girlfriends. I’d bet this Hermione knew all the answers and the ones he’d dated never paid attention or forgot entirely.

“That’s fine. She’ll still be a help; she was there. And isn’t she supposed to be the smartest witch to pass through Hogwarts in ages?”

“That she is, without a doubt,” he said. He sounded quite proud of her, and I got a small sense then of what it meant to be his friend. “I can’t promise you, but I’ll ask her.”

Interesting. Perhaps that was part of what spurred me on in my research, talking of his clever witch. Of course, I wasn’t talking about the sitting in the Ministry sorting through old parchments kind of research. I was talking about the best kind; the kind you do in a pub. So perhaps not.

Because it had struck me that I wasn’t making full use of my resources. I was a Hogwarts alumnus as well; I knew many of the teachers that had taught him. If I could get them to believe I wasn’t taking the Ministry’s line on him, they’d be my most valuable source of information. One person in particular I knew I could bri…er, could get to talk to me, must have taught him at least a couple of years. This person was sharp as a knife when it came to assessing character, and he owed me. A lot, actually, and I didn’t feel the least bit shy calling in this particular debt.

Potions Master Severus Snape.

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So it was that I found myself in The Augurey’s Best Guess, a well-rumored but little-known Wizarding pub that flits around the countryside without fixed address. You have to know The Proprietor to get in, and the only way you get to know The Proprietor is to come with someone else who does. If he doesn’t like you, you’ll never know; your memory gets wiped on the way out. Only if he approves do you get to remember being there, and how to request a return visit. It’s always the same inside; a comfortable, understated sort of place with a long bar for drinks and lots of table-filled nooks and crannies in which to meet and eat in relative privacy. Walk out the door, however, and you’re never likely to find yourself the same place twice. I’ve no idea the magic behind it; it never seemed polite to ask.

I came here with Almerick fairly frequently; he’d been a great favorite actually and he proposed to me in the coveted corner table behind the stuffed Augurey. I still remember exactly the way his eyes had gleamed in the lamplight when I’d said yes. As if I could have ever said anything else. He was almost six years older than I, Almerick, but that had never mattered once I’d managed to get his attention. He was brilliant - if in a most off-kilter kind of way – and clever and kind at once. Not a combination to take for granted. So many brilliant Wizards know only too well what they are, and look down on the rest of us. Take, oh, I don’t know, Voldemort for example. Far too smart for the size of his heart.

Or Severus Snape, for that matter. Another wizard fallen victim to his own intelligence. Severus and Almerick were… well, you couldn’t possibly call them friends, certainly not at Hogwarts, anyway. Respectful competitors sums it up best, I guess. I think they were well aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, but it never occurred to Almerick to rub his nose in it when he beat Severus at something. I only knew of them at school for the one year; they graduated that June. Snape apparently went dark and got caught up in Voldemort’s insanity, while Almerick went into Auror training. I actually met him five years later during my own sixth year when I did a career internship. I’d thought I wanted to be a healer then, I only realized Spell Damage Reversal was my strength a bit later. I was doing the typical four week rotation through St. Mungo’s when they brought him in.

But that’s a story for another time. Suffice it to say that it was Snape’s fault he was in St. Mungo’s that night, so you could say in a way that he brought us together. It was Snape’s fault when he died ten years ago, too, so you could truthfully say he sundered our bonds in this life as well. I know I’ll be meeting up with Almerick again somewhere, sometime. Not a doubt about it. We were meant to be together and we will. This was just another interlude.

I know quite well how to play all Snape’s little games now. So when I made contact in the usual way and told him where to meet me, I was fairly confident he’d come.

He’d sullenly suggested the Cockatrice’s Cup in Langsdale and I’d laughed and told him not to be so cheap or think me such a fool. The Augury is my territory, and I feel safe here.

So here I am. And here he comes, still swooping like an angry bat past the only mildly curious wizards at the bar. His progress is halted when one speaks to him, but the exchange is brief and the other turns back to his drink, shaking his head and likely rebuffed.

He sits down across from me, black eyes glaring with the same cold fire.

“Snape.”

“Hawktalon. I am assuming it still is Hawktalon? Or have you found yourself another obsession?”

Bastard. His aim is still pretty sharp.

“As a matter of fact I have.” I tell him. “I’ve been keeping myself quite busy lately with a former student of yours.”

“Taking a leaf out of Almerick’s book and robbing the cradle, are you? How charming.”

“Tell me everything you know,” I instruct him, reveling, “about Harry Potter.”

He is stunned for a moment. 20 points to Gryffindor! He recovers fairly nimbly, however and barks out a laugh.

“As little as I could get away with, I assure you,” he said. “Have you any idea how sick I am of the very name, let alone the whelp that answers to it? I got it from Dumbledore in one ear and the Dark Lord in the other for the best part of six years. I played pushme-pullyou for that little cretin and what do I have to show for it? Nothing.”

“You played both sides until no one knew who you favored. Narrowly escaping Azkaban sounds more than fair to me. How did you manage that, by the way?”

He is silent a moment and glares at me. Oh. Oh! Oh no, that’s too good.

“I should have thought that might have made you just slightly less sick of his name.”

“Then you are quite possibly a degree more idiotic than he is.”

“Did you ever say thank you?” I wondered.

“Despite my better judgment I was about to make an attempt to do so after his Order of Merlin ceremony. I narrowly escaped with my life. I consider the attempt made. Until some unfortunate figures out his little control problem, I’m….” He stopped abruptly and a wolfish smile curled those sour lips. “It’s you, isn’t it. They’ve saddled you with Potter. Fate has a sense of humor after all.”

“As a matter of fact they have. He seems like a perfectly nice young wizard to me. The whole spontaneous magic thing is hardly his fault, is it.”

Our waiter came just then to take our orders, and there was silence between us until our food and drink was chosen and we were alone again.

Fathomless black eyes glared intently at me and I did my best to meet them head on.

“Let me guess, Elspeth. You like him. You find him an appealing young man and you wish to help him, to solve all his problems and fix the broken hero.”

“You make it sound a bad thing.”

He let out another bark of bitter laughter. “No, I just never thought it would be this easy to dispel my debt to you. I advise you to run away. Screaming. Quit the Minions of Idiocy and get a real job if you must. Do everything within your power to be free of Potter. There, I’ve saved your life. We’re even. Good day.”

He started to rise, but had dropped back to his seat before I’d even finished hissing for him to sit down. He’d never really meant to go. He isn’t stupid, after all.

“Tell me what you know,” I told him. “Perhaps then we will be even.”

“Even your bleeding heart of a husband would never have sold himself that cheaply,” Snape sneered. “And I noticed the qualifying ‘perhaps’.”

Our drinks arrived, and our waiter hurried away, as if he could feel the waves of anger rippling back and forth between us. Unlikely, as most of them were squibs, but you never knew.

“Hearing himself termed a bleeding heart from your lips would likely have chuffed Almerick no end. I’m only sorry he isn’t here to enjoy it. And I think he’d be cheering me on right about now. He wouldn’t think it too cheap at all.”

Snape took a long sip of his drink then, relishing it. I had no real idea what his circumstances in life were now, but my guess was that they didn’t stretch often to the brand of single malt he’d ordered and he was either attempting to throw me off or sure that I was paying. For all he’d been cleared in the end a cloud of mistrust still hovered over him and there’d been no way he could go back to teaching. I doubted he missed it; Hogwarts had been his penance and prison as well as his safe haven. Double agents could never grow too fond of either bed.

“The Dark Lord truly hated Potter, and he began to fear him in the end. Year after year, chance after chance Potter always managed to slip away by the skin of his teeth. Potter saw it in the simple terms of the prophecy that bound them. One would live, the other die. The Dark Lord, however, began to sense uncertainty, and he looked on their future differently. He was determined not just to kill Potter as the prophecy ordained, but to make a final lesson of him. He wished to bend him, forever break him and reshape him as his own. You know, I assume, about the horcruxes?”

He knew with certainty at least I’d know what a horcrux was, and it wasn’t knowledge I was proud of. But Death Eater Horcruxes? Not a single word had been made public about that.

“Er, no. Horcruxes as in plural? Did they all make them, then, the whole inner circle?”

Snape nearly snorted up all that expensive drink.

“As if he cared about them. And how typical of the Ministry to have failed to learn the lesson that hiding the knowledge of things will never make them go away. No, Hawktalon, the Dark Lord himself made six horcruxes of his own soul to ensure his immortality.”

I am quite sure I goggled at him then.

“He was making the last one the night he went to kill Potter as an infant. Lily Evans invoked some very old magic to protect her son and the whole world quickly learned the result. The boy lived, and the Dark Lord, although not dead as so many believed him to be, was little more than a wretched shred of a tattered soul. Had he made but one horcrux, he might have managed to come back sooner, and stronger. Ripping his soul six times left little to work with. Still, he managed. Little more than three years ago now he used some truly dark and desperate magic to regain a true body. It was apparently just as Potter told it at the time, though no one would listen to him. They tied him to a gravestone and took his blood, then forced him to watch as they used it to bring his worst fear to life. It was perhaps the one and only time I felt for the boy. There was nothing he could have done; even Dumbledore had failed to see the plot before us begun with Potter’s forced entrance into the Tri Wizard Tournament.”

It was like he was speaking a foreign language; my head was spinning. I’d thought I knew a good bit about Harry after reading his ministry file. In reality, I knew nothing at all. None of this was in there. Not anything like this, anyway. The language was all “Potter reported seeing the Dark Lord the night of 24 th June 1995. The boy is clearly lying and seeking to renew attention as You Know Who has been dead a dozen years now.”

Merlin.

“He told you none of this,” Snape said, merely stating the obvious. “How puzzling. He must be awfully certain of his celebrity these days not to be doing the ‘poor pitiful Harry’ routine. Either that or you are still too busy nosing around his pampered childhood looking for Freudian excuses for his magical instability.”

Hey!

“It didn’t sound very pampered from what…”

“He told you,” Snape finished. “Say no more. I can save you the trouble, anyway. The Dark Lord never once spoke of what might happen if he did not defeat Potter, even as he began to suspect that more of his horcruxes might have been compromised than first thought. But he did begin to encourage a most suspicious behavior in one of his favorites. Bellatrix Lestrange was a truly mad woman, in both senses of the word. She was thoroughly insane, and she hated Potter with a passion. I heard her promising him once that she would not rest if anything happened to him. He crucioed her for having the very audacity to vocalize such a thought. But then, as she lay gasping in her own special half agonized, half pleasured way, he asked her, ‘tell me, what would you do, my Bella?’ She said she would make sure that the world hated Potter and cast him aside. She said, ‘And when they do, my Lord, I will recall you through him. When he is forgotten in Azkaban, he will know my kiss before the Dementors come, and you shall be reborn.”

My skin shivered reflexively. “She really was insane.”

“Is, Hawktalon. Is. She is in Azkaban herself. And do not think there are not those who even now would heed her call and help her.”

“You don’t think she has anything to do with this?”

Snape shrugged; a highly unusual gesture for him that looked out of place even as he did it.

“Why should she? If Scrimgeour is truly as concerned with power as he seems, Potter will be an unbearable affront even if his current problem is resolved. The boy was always too powerful for his own good; he had his father’s lackadaisical approach to everything but Quidditch and the mental discipline of a Diricawl. I tried to teach the brat Occlumency after the Dark Lord’s return, and he was…worse than useless. Clearly Lily gave him nothing but his infamous eyes.”

“You never did like James Potter,” I remembered vaguely.

“I’m sure you thought he was too dreamy for words,” Snape sneered.

Actually I’d been too young, too busy learning the ins and outs of being a witch at Hogwarts to give any of them all that much mind. They were the seventh years, beyond our reckoning. Although I do have vague recollections of a suspicious dream or two starring one of James’ friends. I’m not really sure which of them Snape hates worse, and I’m not anxious to find out. Not that I care what he thinks.

“Seventh years always think they’re the center of the known universe. I hardly remember any of you, to be honest.”

He actually rolled his eyes at me. The unmitigated jerk.

“So in summary, you’re telling me exactly what?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t we wait for the pudding to summarize our conversation? What would we talk about else?”

“If you’re a good boy and spit it out now, I might actually leave you to enjoy your precious postprandial the way you like it best,” I told him. “Alone.”

“Alright then. You wanted to know what I know about Harry Potter. I know he’s powerful. I also know that Scrimgeour’s barking entirely up the wrong tree if he thinks Potter would go Dark. He doesn’t have the wits. What he does have is the instinctual determination and ability to come back for blow after blow of the dumbest animal. The Dark Lord did things to him that night that even I don’t want to remember. I don’t recall any individual spell that would account for what apparently happened to him afterward, but it was a desperate battle in the end. Potter managed to get a hold of the Dark Lord’s wand and turned it on him, but it incinerated in his hands. It was a phoenix feather core, you know, the same phoenix who gave the feather in Potter’s own wand. And here is the part I’m willing to bet never made it into any Ministry report, knowing Potter.”

Time to score some points.

“I know all about the wandless magic, Severus. That just makes his problem more noticeable and difficult, it’s hardly a root cause.”

“Oh he was far beyond wandless magic then,” Snape continued, unimpressed, “and watch him; as powerful as he is, he is still young, still learning. He uses his hands. No, there was no way that was going to help him in his condition. He appeared to be through. And then the little pile of ash at his knees began to stir, and a new wand rose out of it like the proverbial phoenix from the flames.”

Holy hell! Nope, that wasn’t in my file.

“Did he use the…” I didn’t even want to say it. As much as I firmly believed Voldemort deserved it, if Harry had used an unforgivable to defeat him I could already see Scrimgeour’s next line of attack.

“No. He used it to summon a boggart of all things. Potter’s boggart takes on the form of a Dementor, because he discovered at some point that the Dementors could draw out of him the memory of the night his parents died for him. And like everything else he does, Potter is apparently a tad different then the rest of us. His boggart Dementor was powerful enough to perform the kiss.”

“But wouldn’t Voldemort simply turn the boggart into his own form before banishing it? That’s O.W.L. stuff. Why would he…”

Snape smiled again. How could a smile be so humorless?

“Oh the Dementor wasn’t for Voldemort. It was for himself. He let it kiss his scar.”

Even Snape paled slightly at the recollection; not a small thing to achieve. My mind reeled.

“Why would he…”

“It turns out it was a horcrux all along. The last one, actually, though the Dark Lord didn’t know it. None of us did. They’d planned it all; Granger had made a clever fake out of one of the ones they’d already destroyed. Voldemort had reclaimed it, he thought intact, from its original hiding place and he had it in his possession before the battle, so he was certain that no matter what happened he had at least one left.

After the Dementor was through with Potter and he had screamed what I was sure would be his last scream in this world; the Dark Lord stood over him and laughed. He broke into his usual little soliloquy about how he would always win out and Potter had put himself through it all for nothing, and then he cast not the killing curse but a spell of my own devising. He meant to mark Potter with a giant bloody “V” before killing him, so there could be no doubt, I suppose. Potter was perhaps less out of it than he’d seemed, or he finally managed to squeeze a thought out of his excuse for a brain. After the pain of the first stroke he recognized the spell and managed to cast a reflecting shield. The sectumsempra the Dark Lord meant to finish carving the second line in the “V” ended up severing his own carotid artery. Almost cut his head off, to be honest. He was dead before he even landed on Potter. Who oh-so-cleverly began to pummel the life out of his already dead body until Granger finally managed to call him off.”

Snape’s black eyes flickered, the way they do when he’s telling you either a really big lie, or else the truth. Whoever knew with him?

“Belatrix was there that night, as were any number of the Death Eaters, but only she knew of what he believed to be his final horcrux. It was never found after they fled. I think she has it somewhere, and I believe she thinks it to be real.”

I was sickened. Really, truly, hopelessly sickened. It would have been a horrifying enough story as an anecdote, but knowing Harry now, understanding what he was attempting to put himself back together after… I’d never have made it this far, but if by some accident of fate it had been me instead of him I’d have hexed the balls off of Scrimgeour and fled to some deserted tropical island, never to be heard from again. His restraint stunned me, and I wondered not for the first time exactly what motivated it.

And I’d tried to put a cheering charm on him.

“You win.” I managed to choke out to Snape just as our food arrived. “Two dinners. On me.”

“Put it on my tab, please, I’ve, um… lost my appetite.” I told the young man bearing the tray.

He wasn’t much older than Harry and I felt my stomach surge again. He took one look at Snape and nodded graciously, and as he set his tray down and I rose from my chair he whispered, “Always had the same effect on me, he did. I had potions first year right before lunch. Couldn’t eat a thing afterwards.”

I wondered if Snape still checked his food for poisons.

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Hence the heading of this report. I’m sitting now in the comfort of my own home, my daughter safe and sleeping soundly upstairs. She is a pureblood, but I am not; any way you look at it if the war had gone on long enough it would have touched us in some way for sure. We are safe because of someone the Ministry deems too powerful to live free; because of one Severus Snape terms the dumbest animal.

I will help him. I will clear him if it’s the last thing I do.

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A/N: Oops! That went on a bit, but it was all full of stuff that had to be said before the next part to come. Once again, I promise the next chapter will be lots of Trio, and I think I should be able to manage the beginning of the H/Hr. Yippee! Always my favorite part. Thanks for reading, and for all the awesome reviews! **Blushes** You guys are the absolute BEST. I do read them all when I can, but unless you ask a specific question, I just try to update faster rather than answer each one. I really appreciate you reading, and all your comments are considered and taken to heart. Thanks!

Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 5

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Hermione apparated into the kitchen of Ron and Harry’s flat early the morning he was due to leave for the Quidditch trials. She had a box of the Muggle bakery doughnuts that Ron so loved and she’d thought that she would surprise them both with breakfast.

Hermione wasn’t much of a cook, herself. Of course she could cook, anyone could if they put their mind to it, couldn’t they? It was just the orderly addition of ingredients and the proper attention to instructions, after all. Somehow, however, her best efforts always ended up never better than ordinary, and Hermione was not the sort of girl to waste her time on ordinary. She appreciated good cooking as much as anyone, but if hers wasn’t going to surpass the taste of store bought food what was the point of going through the trouble? So she cooked only to the point necessary to sustain herself and was more adamant then ever now that house elves be paid and appreciated for their efforts.

Because boy was she ever going to need one if she ended up with Ron.

A prospect looking slimmer by the day, she reasoned, setting the box on the counter. They just weren’t getting on. Not that they hadn’t always had their little quarrels, but this was different somehow. Primarily because the thrill (such that it ever was) was… gone.

It had all started out as so much more of a challenge. Ron had seemed at first to truly despise her and then graduated through Harry’s persistent intervention to simply mocking her. By third year he was baiting her, and by fourth his jealousy was evident. Fifth year they had grown tentatively closer, drawn by their mutual worry for Harry, but sixth had proved the breaking point. Hermione had suffered the indignity of his utter obliviousness about how exactly to proceed with her while having to watch his pitiful succumbing to Lavender Brown’s more obvious charms. Not stopping to think that Lavender’s type might actually be all Ron was ready to appreciate Hermione had instead suffered through a severe case of inferiority poisoning and the worst year of her Hogwarts career. It seemed like one overlong bad dream, a dream punctuated by Dumbledore’s death and the realization that she had been so obsessed with failing to attract Ron that she had in turn failed to see that the obsession with Draco Malfoy she had mocked Harry for had at least been valid.

It was more than she could say about hers with Ron. They had both been deeply shocked, first by Snape’s murder of the Headmaster (while his apparent defection was entirely believable; the fact he would actually kill Dumbledore was somehow much less so even despite their active dislike of him) and then by Harry’s retreat from the beginnings of his own relationship with Ginny and his avowal not to return to Hogwarts. The world as they knew it was shaking apart; all they’d ever feared for Harry and themselves seemed to be coming true and they’d clung to each other like lifelines.

Seventh year had tested them in fire. They should have come through it bound forever after the things they’d been through. And she did feel forever bound, with a strength she had never imagined existed and a tenderness that seemed impossible after all she had endured.

Except it was to Harry, not Ron.

She’d tried not to think about it. When she’d found herself literally unable to pry herself from his bedside at St Mungo’s and she’d had to admit that hadn’t worked, she’d tried to rationalize it.

It was a reaction to all they had gone through to help him defeat Voldemort. She felt sorry for him. She admired him.

She bloody well wanted to jump him, bandages and all. She wanted to hold him and never let go. She’d seen him lying there on the floor when the Dementor had finished with him, and his echoing scream had forever smashed the protective in-case-of-emergency glass around her heart. Truth had flooded her until she gasped for breath, certain it was too late and she had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

It didn’t matter if he was supposed to die; she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t change the way she felt even if he did. And then, he’d lived.

She loved him. She’d probably always loved him, from the moment she’d first fixed his glasses and he’d gifted her with his heartfelt and impressed thanks. He’d never stopped doing that, never stopped remembering her when others forgot, defending her when others slighted or attacked, listening to her when she had an idea, asking for her help and believing he needed her. She’d taken it all for granted, taken him for granted. Love was banter, flirting, fighting and making up. Wasn’t it? That was what Ginny thought, and Lavender and Parvati.

She’d been an idiot, closed her eyes and ears to her own intelligence and her own heart in the process. Love for her, plain Hermione Jane Granger, was steadfast, boring and true. It was determined to go on, despite anyone’s best efforts to stop it. It was faithfulness, and unfailing loyalty. It was Harry.

And it was too late.

He saw her as Ron’s now. She knew he loved her dearly, but as a friend, as his other friend. She was quite certain that in Harry’s mind she had chosen and she belonged with Ron. Except that she could feel that whatever she might have had with Ron was failing, and she was afraid that if it fell apart she might well lose them both. They were flat mates now; if there was a break up and it wasn’t nice what happened then? She knew Harry would never forsake her entirely for Ron, but what if she weren’t welcome in the flat? What if Harry avoided her for weeks on end so he didn’t have to hurt her, to filter every thing through the ‘don’t mention Ron’ phase? What if…

What was that noise?

It was early, half seven. She’d thought to surprise them, was sure neither would be up. So what was making that thumping noise?

She crossed the kitchen and started down the little hall to the bedrooms. The bedroom doors were dark, but the door to the bathroom at the end was half open and a wedge of light shone into the dimness of the hallway. The distinct bumping sound she’d heard emanated from within.

She crept closer, wondering even as she did why she didn’t just call out. When she came close to the door she realized almost at once that the direction of its swing blocked her from view within, but she had a clear line of sight in the one of the mirrors.

Ron and Harry had been sharing bathrooms for seven years and were far from shy around one another. There wasn’t room – nor had either the patience, for it was not as simple a prospect as it sounded, even using magic – to add another loo. So they had simply slightly enlarged the one they had with Fred and George’s help, adding a second sink and mirror and a shower stall in addition to the enormous old fashioned bath tub it already contained. It gave them room to move around each other in a rush, and Harry liked to think that someday it would actually be necessary. She had seen in his eyes the suspicion Ron would be using the shower to wash away the nastiness of visiting him in Azkaban.

Now Hermione could see clearly that it was Harry who had just recently finished a shower and stood before the sink behind the door, drying his hair with one towel, another tucked – far from securely in Hermione’s mind – low around his waist. Ron was sitting with his back to her in the big old claw foot tub, not having a bath but simply lounging in his pajamas while chatting to Harry. The noise she’d heard was him lifting and dropping the metal soap dish that hung over its curved edge with his foot. Even as she pegged it, Harry turned to him with rolled eyes.

“Ron, d’you have any idea how annoying that is?” he asked, finishing with the towel for his hair and hanging it on the bar beside the tub.

“You’ll miss it when I’m gone,” Ron told him.

“I think I can manage to live four days without it. If I miss you too much I can just come in here and rattle the soap dish for myself.”

With Harry turned toward Ron she could see in the mirror’s reflection the angry line of the half-V scar that still ran across his chest even after the healers were done with it.

“Fine. Who’s going to spell your ugly mug for you then? You’ll have a full beard when I get back,” Ron said smugly.

Of course. Harry was hardly casting any spells, no matter how routine, on something quite as vulnerable as his neck at the moment.

“I’d have a hard enough time getting the shadow of a goatee together in four days the way mine grows. Don’t get your hopes up there, Ron. I’ll just shave like the half muggle I am.”

“That’s just barbaric, that is,” Ron informed him.

“Well, those of us stuck without a houseful of convenient brothers or a Dad to do it for them just had to get in touch with our inner barbarian, thanks much to the equally barbaric underage magic laws.”

“You used to look like you’d spent the summer having your face attacked by Grindylows for a few years there,” Ron agreed. “Didn’t take you long to learn to cast that spell on the train.”

Harry smiled ruefully. “I got the oldest, dullest most useless blades in the house then. You didn’t think they’d let me have something sharp now, did you? Dudley got me good once. He actually put his nice new ones in for mine. Bled like a stuck pig on Petunia’s revolting bathroom carpet the next morning and got the snot kicked out of me by Vernon. Old Dudders laughed so hard I thought he was going to be sick. I actually wished he would. Where was all my spontaneous magic then, I ask you!”

Ron laughed. Hermione’s stomach clenched. Harry turned back to the mirror to brush his teeth.

“Angelina told Fred that that Hufflepuff chaser from our year, Megan Jones, was scouted by the Wigtown Wanderers,” Ron said idly.

“They’re still playing the Parkin’s Pincer as if no one’s twigged it in the last five hundred years. They need a backup bench of chasers miles deep to replace all the ones they lose to collisions,” Harry pointed out while readying his brush. He began to clean his teeth. Hermione realized she’d never seen him do so before, and that her parents would probably approve of his technique in this matter, if nothing else.

“It’s their signature move; they’ll hardly give it up. Still, she’s a bit of alright. Wouldn’t mind playing with her. She’s got a sense of humor like one of the boys but she sure doesn’t look like one when the pads come off.”

Harry’s back stiffened, and he spit.

“Don’t mention that to Hermione on the way out if you know what’s good for you,” was all he said, but his expression, reflected twice by the time it reached Hermione, said far more.

“Never fear,” laughed Ron. “I want to live long enough to try out.”

“Why’d’you do it then? Keep looking, and doing it in front of her? Sure seems like you’ve got a death wish from over here.” Harry asked.

Ron frowned for a moment, as if actually considering the question, the great dolt. When he replied, however, it shocked her to her core.

“That’s just it, isn’t it.” Ron said. “Feels like I’ve got a bloody leash on and we’re eighteen. She’s at me all the time to grow up, but when it comes to the grown up part of snogging her she’s always damn sure we’re not ready. And there’s no revving her up past it, I’ve tried. She’s a bit lacking on the more, erm, exciting end of things, to be honest. Getting her jealous seems to move it all along somehow.”

She knew she deserved that. It was true, really, all of it. But it still hurt, oh how it hurt.

“Let me tell you a little something about your girl then, Ron,” Harry said evenly, although he sounded most unlike himself. “I’m as far from an authority on human emotions as you’re going to get in a long day of looking, but anyone that can get as provoked, as protective, and as dead set and determined as our Hermione isn’t lacking in the passion department. They’re all related somehow. You’re likely just coming at her wrong.”

“Trust me, mate. I’ve got the mechanics down, thank you Lavender Brown. Something’s just off there.”

“So if, hypothetically speaking of course, Megan Jones proves willing, you’d what? Dump Hermione?”

Ron frowned again. He didn’t usually have to think this hard talking to Harry, that was one of the things he liked best about him, Hermione knew. Harry’s usual reticence was perfectly suited to Ron’s lack of interest outside a closed range of topics.

“Merlin. No, I couldn’t do that to her, I mean it’s Hermione, after all. But she’s never liked Quidditch, has she, and we’re only sort of seeing each other, we’re not about to get married or anything. I reckon we’d just keep on the way we are.”

“Aside from the fact that Megan would have to be a bloody pushover…” Harry began.

“Well, she is a Hufflepuff,” Ron interjected.

Harry snapped. “Ron, listen to yourself.”

“Lighten up, Harry. I’m sorry I said anything, I was just thinking out loud, alright, and I forget sometimes you’re still so…”

“So what?” Harry snarled.

“Touchy! Bloody hell, Harry, take it down a notch or you’ll end up exploding the toilet this time.”

There was a loud crack, and a gush of water.

“Bugger me,” said Harry wearily.

“My fault. Power of suggestion, mate,” Ron told him. “Let me get my wand.”

He started to haul himself out of the tub but Hermione saw Harry shake his head and gesture in the direction of the toilet, beyond her view. There was the snicking sound of mending porcelain and she heard him murmur drying and scourging charms. They seemed to come off fine; neither commented and there were no untoward sounds of a spell gone wrong. There was nothing wrong with his magic really, she mused, it seemed stronger than ever. It was just the odd moment of control, as though it got away from him when he was distracted or not focusing on it. She’d never seen a spell he was actually intent on go wrong, come to think of it.

Except she shouldn’t be thinking of it, because Ron thought she was… well, bugger him! She was just as passionate as anyone when someone wasn’t constantly riling her up for effect before hand, certainly more so than Lavender, who’d casually admitted to thinking of clothing combinations for the next day while snogging. She’d show him!

What the hell was she thinking? She didn’t want to show Ron. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? She wanted to show Harry. Mother of Merlin could that towel slip any lower without coming off? He was lovely, every last scar of him, and all she really wanted was to prove to him with her lips and her fingers and every willing inch of her that nothing he had done was in vain and that he was loved for who, and not what, he was.

And he though his life was a mess…

Hermione reined in her wayward thoughts abruptly with a flush of shame. He was being harassed by the Minister of Magic himself, his very future in doubt, and she was carrying on like a thwarted child. Her attention was drawn back to the bathroom; she realized they were still talking.

“…and she wanted me to bring you guys with me next time. I said you’d got Quidditch.”

“What time are you meeting her?” Ron asked him.

“Ten. Outside the Ministry. I think the zoo was enough of a stretch we’ll probably just go get coffee somewhere. Keep the Aurors happy. I still can’t believe they’re letting her take me anywhere out of earshot. Either they think she’s telling them everything or she really is. I have no idea who’s telling the truth anymore. ”

Hermione quickly concluded they were talking about his Spell Damage Reversal specialist.

“I can manage that if I leave straight away after. Gives me the perfect excuse not to trail back to the Burrow first for my lecture from Mum. I’ll be there, mate. Have you asked Hermione yet?”

Harry shook his head and ran his fingers through his drying hair. “Best go put some clothes on and get myself somewhere to phone her. We’ve got to work up a better line of communication while she’s at her Mum and Dad’s.”

“Bet the Ministry’s behind not getting the provisional hookup to the Floo.” Ron said. “You know, you should ask her to come stay here while I’m gone. Seriously. The wankers downstairs can’t be counted on in an emergency, you do know that, and you probably shouldn’t be on your own just yet.”

“She was pretty clear about wanting to spend time with her parents this summer. I’ll be fine, honestly.”

Harry hitched up the towel, either not a moment too soon or finally, depending on your point of view. Hermione would have whimpered if wouldn’t have got her caught. Funny, she didn’t seem to have the least feeling of guilt for having spied on her two best friends. And close as they all were, any way she looked at it they certainly wouldn’t have been having this conversation casually in front of her.

He raised his attention from the towel and let his eyes meet Ron’s as he began to head for the door. She knew she needed to move away quickly or he would see her, but she could sense he had one last thing to say on his way out and for some reason she needed to know what it was.

“Don’t do it, Ron. If you think things aren’t right, then fix them. Because if you hurt her breaking up with her, I’d be there for you both no matter how ugly it got, but if you did it playing about with someone like Megan Jones I’d have to hex your bollocks off, and we both know how reliable my magic is these days. I’ll do it from Azkaban if I have to, and I’ll haunt you like the Bloody Baron if I die. We’ve been through too much together to hurt each other any more, the three of us. I love her, too.”

He reached the bathroom door and Hermione knew there was nothing for it but to disapparate as quietly as she could, and reappear in the kitchen before they spotted the pastry box.

If only she could stop crying they’d never know she’d been just a little too early this morning.

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Hermione ended up in Diagon Alley, where she bought a pot of Mrs. Melancholy’s Tears-Be-Gone, a combination under eye concealer and red-eye whitener much favored by Witch brides and charmed to guarantee the wearer tear-free for eight hours no matter what happened. Hermione had first learned of it when Ginny used it before Fleur and Bill’s wedding. (‘Why Bill?’ Ginny had moaned as she carefully applied it. ‘What did he ever do to deserve Phlegm? Bloody Veela.’)

She remembered joking with Ginny how awful it would be to be left at the altar after using it and being unable to cry. ‘My head would explode!’ Ginny had declared in between fits of laughter. ‘Right after I hexed Harry’s bits off!’ She’d still thought he’d come back to her then, but oddly enough she’d known just what she’d do if he proved uncertain. Clearly Harry knew what he was doing.

She’d gone to Flourish and Blots, which opened quite early and would never turn Hermione Granger away, teary-eyed or not. Only after the mirror in the ladies’ lavatory there had assured her she looked as if she hadn’t cried a single day in her whole life was she ready to apparate back to Ron and Harry’s.

As fate would have it she managed to pop in just as Harry was rounding the corner into the kitchen. His nerves were still a touch overwrought and she’d managed to spook him badly enough that he dropped the glass he’d been carrying. In the resulting confusion of cleaning it up (she’d cast a hasty reparo just as Harry had crouched down to pick it up; her spell had hit his bandaged hand and reacted with the numbing charm on his wound, he’d yelped and pulled back just as Ron arrived to explore the crash, and the two of them had fallen over each other and landed on the floor at her feet) no one noticed the pastry box had arrived before she did.

“Look, Harry!” Ron had said happily, crawling to his feet. “She’s brought us doughnuts for breakfast! You’re the best, Hermione!”

Yup. That Mrs. Melancholy’s was worth every knut.

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Ron seemed genuinely pleased with the doughnuts and ate half the dozen on his own, chattering away excitedly about the trials and which scouts might be there. Harry had apparently heard it all before and was lost in thought in the depths of his coffee. Hermione let it wash over her until she couldn’t stand another word.

“I meant to ask you, Harry,” she said suddenly, “My parent’s are going to a dentist’s convention tomorrow for a week. I’d meant to just stay at the house, but now they’re having their water pipes flushed and the water heater replaced while they’re gone. Would it be alright if I were to stay here with you for a few days and use Ron’s room? You wouldn’t mind, would you Ron?”

It was a blatant lie, and she surprised herself utterly with the fluidity with which it passed her lips.

“Have at it,” Ron said. “I was just telling Harry this morning that he should ask you, actually. Safer for him, too, having someone that can do magic around the place. Legally, anyway. I would have cleaned up a bit if I’d known, though.”

“Harry?” she’d prodded, and his eyes had risen suddenly and guiltily from whatever thought they’d been lost in.

“Er, sure?” he’d said, without the slightest idea of what he’d been agreeing to.

Just as well, really.

That settled, she’d agreed to go with them to Harry’s appointment but told them she’d meet them there, unwilling to try and keep up her act while helping Ron pack his Quidditch gear. She wasn’t crying but her head ached and her eyes burned, for all they appeared clear on the outside.

“Alright, then?” Harry had asked as she prepared to apparate home to collect her things for the next few days. “You seem a bit…” he’d struggled for a word, then gave up and shrugged helplessly, “a bit off, I guess.”

He was setting the dishes to scrubbing themselves in the sink, watching her over one shoulder.

What am I doing? she thought. “Just fine, Harry,” she said. “I’ll see you at ten, then.”

She heard Ron calling him, asking to borrow his broom servicing kit as she stepped into her turn and time and space squeezed her away.

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A/N: Thank you to both the anonymous reviewer who spotlighted my error on the dates of Elspeth’s interviews with Harry (the second one was a week later, not two days as I had first planned) and to several reviewers who pointed out that Elspeth’s daughter is not a pure blood as I had mistyped – Elspeth is half muggle, Almerick was pureblooded. Thanks you guys, for reading and reviewing. I really appreciate your comments.

Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 6

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Subject: Harry James Potter

Interview Date: Monday, July 14, 1998

Interview #: Third

Observations: I’m an interfering old bat, just like my Mum. Or I think I’m about to be.
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Off the record once again. Way off. It was the official version that took me awhile this time round.

I think I started to get an idea of at least part of the problem today. Well, perhaps not the problem itself, but at least one of its most potent triggers. And we’ll need to get right to work on it because I don’t imagine it’s an area of his life Harry really wants to share with the Ministry - or the Deadly Prophet for that matter.

Unfortunately, it happens to fall into one of life’s categories in which I am both expert and totally at a loss.

He brought his two best friends with him, just as I asked. I know that he knows I could just have circumvented him entirely in approaching them, so I was hopeful that their presence was an indication he’d truly forgiven me for the cheering charm incident and begun to believe me when I said that I wanted to help, regardless of whatever the official Ministry intent turned out to be. Personally speaking, I was relieved to find I quite like them both.

Ron Weasley is as unalike Harry as it seems possible for friends to be. They are day and night, both physically and by their very natures. Ron’s boldly ginger hair is bright to Harry’s darkness; his fair, freckled skin is a healthy pink contrast to Harry’s present pallor. He is quite tall but sturdily built and well muscled with it, whereas Harry seems to have only recently closed in on his maturing height, as if growth kicked in only after some inhibiting factor was removed. Harry is still whippet thin, his musculature evident but stretched to accommodate his new frame, so he looks both younger physically and years older emotionally than his friend. Ron could actually be really imposing if not for the openness of his expression, but if you were unaware he had recently disposed of Voldemort Harry’s only possible intimidation factor would be his natural intensity; his face is as closed to a casual observer as Ron’s is accessible.

Put it this way; they were utterly opposing types and in theory at least blessed as friends. It seemed unlikely they’d ever have to face off over appealing to the same girl.

I would not imagine that their differences were what drew them together; they seem altogether unaware of them and the interplay of their conversation throughout the interview emphasized their shared experiences more than anything. Ron, however, seems anxious to let the experience of that final battle with the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters slip from his mind like water on a duck’s back; smoothly and without a trace. I don’t think he can; it’s a nice idea but that sort of thing has a tendency to bite you in the arse later even if you relegate it to the doghouse at the back of your mind with a really big stick. You can’t just ignore it. He may be sick of Harry slaying demons, but life has taught me he’ll likely be wishing he’d finished his off as well in the not too distant future. He is clearly excited now by the prospect of the Quidditch trials, although I think it’s a tiny bit unusual he seems so unbothered by his old teammate’s inability to join him. Perhaps he feels the need to remove himself from Harry’s rather long shadow, and is finding this the perfect opportunity.

Now that I’ve given Ron his due, I have to admit my attention went first to Hermione Granger; my interest piqued by Harry’s comments during our last interview. She’s ordinary enough at first glance; of medium height and plain coloring and clearly a girl to whom thought takes precedence to fashion. They have all dressed in muggle clothes for our excursion, and she wears simple jeans, sandals and a plain, slogan-less lavender scoop neck tee shirt. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail against the heat and humidity but small curling tendrils escape, giving away how much the weather affects it. She is otherwise unadorned, and wears no obvious jewelry of any kind.

You don’t need to wait for her to speak, however, to see there is far more to her than a first glance can reveal; her frank brown eyes are busy assessing me even as I assess her and they give the impression of being every bit as sharp as mine are supposed to be. She is undoubtedly clever and that is the characteristic that seems most often used to describe her, but she is clearly kind and deeply concerned with the world around her in a way not entirely different from Harry. As the interview goes on I can see she is aware her brains are a gift, a burden even, as she seems to feel compelled to use them to help others. She appears tired now as well, as though she’d like to lay that burden down for awhile and just be a girl of eighteen but she can’t, anymore than Harry can stop being the Boy Who Lived. It’s likely small compensation, but her real beauty lies in the same place her troubles do. It’s when she talks about the injustices and mysteries of the world that she comes alive; her plain brown eyes are so much more than plain when they are working out solutions and her empathy gives her features a kind of warmth beyond the ordinary.

The thing I find most intriguing, however, is the one thing she doesn’t seem able to control. Before we even leave the office and sit down for our interview proper I can see it, and I watch for it throughout our time together.

She can’t stop looking at Harry. There are a thousand different reasons for the glances. She listens closely to him, and you can see quite clearly when she is comparing his words to what she thinks he will say, and when he surprises her. It isn’t often, apparently, that he does. If she senses he is becoming uncomfortable or agitated her own body language changes; either subtly confronting the confronter or moving soothingly toward him. I’d say it was an excellent defense mechanism in response to his recent habit of causing things to explode, but you can easily see the roots of it predate this problem. I’d bet good galleons it goes back to about their second or third year as friends at Hogwarts from the ingrained nature of it. She is clearly protective of him, just the way a good friend should be, and you can’t help but think that he’s either lucky in his friends or a good one as well.

And then she looks again, and there it is.

It’s a glance women everywhere recognize only too well in others, beyond the barriers of language. We either sympathize when we see it, or our territorial instincts kick in hard. There is a rich mixture of longing, tenderness, love and regret in her eyes, and there is little doubt what she’s thinking. The part that concerns me most is that there is but the merest trace of hope.

What’s up with that?

I’d be kidding if I said I didn’t want to interfere; I want to desperately. I just wasn’t sure yet whether I should, or how. I needed to know way more before I should even consider it. It was a hell of snap judgment to make considering she’d so far said little more than ‘hello’ and ‘nice to meet you,’ after all. I had no idea whether either was seeing anyone else, or if Harry had ever been aware that the intensity of her feelings where he was concerned was likely more than friendly. Even being acquainted with him for as brief a period of time as I had, my guess would be he did not. Harry could probably pick up danger from around a blind corner, but love seemed an unexpected stranger he would likely crash into head on. If he was lucky.

We left the looming shadow of the Ministry and headed for a coffee shop I had used many a time when there was a compelling reason to avoid wizard territory. It was especially likely for these three; usually full of University students between classes catching up on work or socializing. They would blend in age wise, and it was noisy enough and in such a state of constant transition that a subtle muffliato would go unnoticed and ensure we were not heard as well. Armed with our cardboard cups of coffee (Harry and I) herbal tea (Hermione) and orange juice (Ron) we claimed a table and four chairs near the windows where we could enjoy the passersby or be on the lookout for enemies, as the case might be.

Harry chose the chair adjacent to mine, which I would have taken as a lowering of his defenses had I not been fully aware that he was fully aware that it made it easier to avoid my direct, head-on attention. That honor was given to Hermione, leaving the place opposite Harry for Ron.

“So,” I began as pleasantly and unthreateningly as I could. “How long have you two known Harry?”

“I think that’s been covered in the Daily Prophet, actually,” Mr. Attitude-on-a-Stick informed me with a grumble. Just a little uncomfortable being dissected in front of his mates, then.

“Perhaps I didn’t find you so fascinating at the time that I bothered to read it?” I suggested, daring to yank his chain a bit.

“We met on the train to Hogwarts,” Hermione said, mimicking my pleasant approach. Harry shifted in his chair and swiftly sat up straighter, shoulders squaring. My first guess was he’d just been kicked under the table, and my second was it hadn’t been Ron who did it. I could really like this girl.

“Friends ever since,” Ron agreed, smiling faintly at Hermione.

Uh oh. Hang on. Were they? Or was it just him, unrequited? Or what?

Oh yeah, this was supposed to be business. Spell Damage. Find it and reverse it. Get it in gear, Elspeth.

“The reason I asked,” I said, for Harry’s benefit as Hermione surely knew and Ron came from a magical family, “was that being friends at Hogwarts actually exposes you pretty thoroughly to the nature of your friends’ magic. You may not realize it until later unless you spend a good amount of time together in the summers out of range of the castle, but even second and third years can start to subconsciously recognize their friends’ magical signatures. I’m interested in whether you two think his has changed at all around the two of you.”

Ron immediately shook his head; Hermione looked thoughtful.

“You mean just since defeating Voldemort?” she asked.

Interesting. I’ll bite. “Well, at any time, actually. It could still point us in a direction to help resolve the problem. Perhaps it was a preexisting curse and something during the battle touched it off.”

“It seemed to me to, um, fluctuate quite a bit all last year. We did spend a fair amount of time outside Hogwarts, Harry wasn’t actually attending classes and Ron and I helped him with a sort of extra credit project to make up for it,” she said slowly.

She seemed a bit flustered, and it occurred to me that she was not a natural liar; I bet she could do it flawlessly to protect either of the two boys that sat beside her, but she was torn now between helping Harry and shielding him and unsure of where the line lay. I would have to somehow earn her trust as well. Although anyone that could come up with ‘extra credit project’ for destroying horcruxes in the plural and actually managing to spell a convincing fake of one was bound to take quite some convincing.

Harry had turned seventeen last year, a fairly big milestone in a Wizard’s life and likely to play a bit of havoc with their magic, but not I would think to the extent she spoke of, and she would have had Ron for comparison, at that. Horcruxes were truly dark and not very well understood; their mere existence was a thing seldom referred to. I knew what they were in theory, had heard family tales of the consequences of one long, long ago, but nothing more than that. Exposure to them, especially repeated, could likely screw things up a good bit, but I had nothing to go on there but instinct. Best to eliminate what I knew before stumbling off into uncharted territory.

“By fluctuate, do you mean he had problems performing on occasion, or his results were unpredictable, or what?” I asked. I almost added ‘magically speaking’ but managed to bite my tongue.

“Hullo, still at the table,” Harry said pointedly. “There was nothing wrong with my magic last year.”

“Well, except the time that…” Ron started, and jumped. Back, so that trajectory pointed to Harry.

“There was nothing wrong with it, Harry,” Hermione said placatingly. “But you’ve already said she knows about the wandless stuff, and you couldn’t even manage a decent non-verbal most of sixth year. That changed, although that tendency could also be covered by your coming of age.”

She’d done her research then. Unsurprising.

“There was one thing though, that actually might be relevant. Harry spent a good bit of time in a house full of dark artifacts that year. A fairly unfriendly house. There was a little incident there…”

I saw a flicker of something in Harry’s eyes then. He seemed to know what she was talking about immediately, but perhaps not have made the same connection.

“Oops,” was what he said. Succinct and to the point for a change.

Ron grinned, and it turned into an outright laugh. “That was a bloody good one, Harry, you have to admit it.”

“The only good thing about it would have been the look on her face afterwards, if only she’d had one,” Harry said darkly.

Now that didn’t sound good. The only thing that had actually saved him from direct Ministry interference up to this point was there was no nice innocent victim to press charges. There might have been a couple of expensive dress robes ruined at the Order of Merlin affair, and thankfully everyone had already been wearing black at the funeral, but if he’d actually hurt someone and Scrimgeour could get a hold of them… Somehow I couldn’t see Harry being quite that unconcerned about causing anyone injury though, he seemed to have such a hyperactive guilt complex.

Hermione picked up on my train of thought straight away and set about shunting it on to the right track.

“There was a truly awful portrait there. You ought to have to pass some sort of personality test to be preserved in magical paint, really. She was worst blood snob and she truly hated us. When she found out the house actually belonged to Harry she was just unbearable. There was a sheet over her and we’d all sneak past her to avoid the things she’d come out with. We got back from a… sort of field trip for Harry’s project one night and were just trying to get some sleep before coping with the… um… what we’d found. She heard us going up the stairs and she said some really nasty things…”

“It was total rubbish, as usual,” Ron said with a grin of recollection, “but I’d never seen you turn quite that shade of red before…” I was expecting him to say Harry, and truly surprised when he ended his comment with, “…Hermione.”

Harry’s eyes were a wonder to behold then; so dark they were almost black.

“The difference was that I actually wanted too see her go up in smoke even if I didn’t say the words,” he said. He had the careful sound of someone trying not to let a powerful urge overtake them. “Just like I wasn’t exactly disappointed to see Vernon’s sister inflate into the poisonous hot air balloon she was, even though at thirteen I didn’t know the spell to do it. The other two were completely different, I never meant for anything to happen, there wasn’t anything to be mad about when they did.”

“Just to be sure I understand, this portrait said something rude about Hermione one time too many; and you accidentally incinerated it?”

“It was beyond rude, it was just… lies, hurtful lies and yeah. Up in smoke she went.”

“Not a moment too soon, either. Right hag she was.” Ron agreed.

Interestingly enough, whatever the portrait had said had bothered Harry and Hermione a good bit more than it evidently had Ron.

“Even Dumbledore couldn’t get that portrait off the wall, though,” Hermione said earnestly. “Lots of really powerful witches and wizards had tried to find a way to shut her up. She or her wretched house elf always managed to get round them. It took extraordinary magic to do it, really, especially if it was just intent without a spell to focus it.”

“What about after that?” I asked curiously. “Did you notice anything different? There could have been a responsive curse on the portrait. Can I ask who she was, or is that some top security clearance secret as well? Does anybody but you three know Harry did it?”

“Do you even stop to breath between questions?” Harry grumbled. “Because I’d hate to say something really thought provoking and make you hyperventilate or anything.”

“Not seeing any danger there so far,” I told him with my sweetest smile. “Feel free to answer in the order they were asked or improvise. I’m nothing if not flexible.”

Whatever he was going to say he thought better of it, but he was almost smiling. He really was a nice kid at heart; it was hard to mind the occasional attitude. It seemed to me he deserved some slack after it all.

“Nothing different as far as I could tell. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was cursed, but she’d have come up with something way more personal and painful than this, probably involving my reproductive ability. I don’t think the Ministry knows so I would guess your security clearance is fine. Walburga Black. The name says it all. And yes, lots of people knew, it was a safe house at the time. Friends of mine live there now. In order, just as asked. Do I get brownie points?”

“No, but I’ll bake you some yummy brownies for next time. You need fattening up. It’s a service provided free of charge by your friendly Ministry of Magic.”

He blushed, and it was just a cute as the first time I noticed and much less painful. For me, anyway.

“So,” I began, trying to wind things up. “What do you two think is going on with Harry? Do you think the Ministry has anything to worry about?”

“Other than the fact that Scrimgeour’s leading it and it can’t tell its head from its other end, she means,” Harry cleared up helpfully.

“It’s a disgrace, taking his wand and saying it’s for his own good. They might as well paint a target on him and post a notice telling anyone who wants a chance to have at him. It’s like they’re actually trying to get him to do illegal stuff to defend himself,” Ron said indignantly.

From his sudden shift in position and the slight sloshing of his drink I surmised someone had once again kicked him under the table. Swift computations taking in to account the angle of his retreat pointed to Hermione this time. They’d all be limping home at this rate.

“I mean, he’s doing much better, isn’t he, it’s only plumbing really at this point, and the occasional window,” he said hastily.

Harry groaned softly but I know he didn’t see my look of glee, because I was really careful to hide it. I actually had to drop down beneath the table and pretend to be retrieving a napkin. God bless Ron Weasley. I’d been thinking I would have to do a bit of surveillance round their flat to see what was really going on.

“So the Ministry doesn’t need to be overly concerned that Harry’s exploding people’s plumbing? Sounds like a busy time for some Department or other.” I replied. “Does your Dad’s group handle that sort of thing, Ron?”

“It’s only ever been wizard plumbing, and it’s always been cleaned right up. Perhaps we can move on,” Harry suggested. “Do we get to ask you stuff as well?”

He was going to sic Hermione on me, I could tell.

“You can try. I’m the absolute bottom of the heap, though, so if you’re looking for what the Minister’s thinking or saying your guess is as good or better than mine,” I told him.

“I don’t mean to be impolite,” Hermione began, “but have you ever wondered why it was you were the one chosen for Harry’s case?”

Did I call that right, or what?

“You mean because I’m the bottom of the barrel and he’s the Great Harry Potter?” I asked her.

Harry squirmed uncomfortably beside me.

“Well, erm… yes,” she replied, not backing down an inch. The paltry feelings of the Ministry worker were clearly nothing when it came to Harry’s welfare. “Have you?”

“There are two possible reasons that I can come up with. The first is that they’ve realized I’ve been hiding my light under a bushel all these years, and I’m really brilliant and all the dark arts stuff in my background that’s kept me down so far is exactly what might be needed here. The second is that Scrimgeour was looking for the lowest of the low with the express hope of appearing to be trying to help Harry while actually doing nothing at all.”

“Why would he do that?” she asked. “The second one, I mean. What’s the point?”

I could tell they were used to sitting down and hashing out problems together; they’d probably done a lot of it last year alone. I though about Voldemort’s horcruxes, guessing they must have worked out together how to neutralize them; no easy or ordinary task. They had risked their lives, but they had never had to play politics with their livelihoods on the mundane level us merely average adults did.

“As an actual employee of the Ministry,” I said, “I’ve said too much just with items one and two. You, however, could definitely figure it out, being the smartest witch of your age and all.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You can concede the possibility that the Ministry chose you as its least competent employee in a possible attempt to render Harry no real defense at all, but you can’t comment on why Scrimgeour might have done it?”

“And keep my job if it ever comes to light? No, I can’t. Not that I haven’t said worse, but we both know the Ministry has ways of making anyone talk. The trick is to make them think you’ve got nothing interesting to say. I can suggest that it is possible that’s why they chose me, yes. I can assure you that they would have been wrong in their assumption, though. I may not be a star employee and I definitely have a few black marks on my permanent record, but they aren’t there because I’m not competent. They’re there because I am and I refuse to withhold what I can do from someone who needs it. You may not want to believe that, but if you try you’ll see why I’d like to stay below the direct notice of the powers that be. I’m more help to Harry from the inside than fired for speaking my mind.”

Harry nodded once in agreement to this; I could see it had crossed his mind this might be an argument I would use, I just wasn’t sure if he believed me. I could see Hermione’s mental cogs churning away behind those brown eyes as well.

So it surprised the heck out me that it was Ron who spoke next.

“If you really want the truth about why Scrimgeour’s afraid of Harry, all we need to do is invite Percy round and let Harry have at the plumbing. That prat’ll spout out the whole of whatever he knows in fury the first minute he gets wet.”

I’d forgotten about Percy Weasley, actually. It’s easy to do, he’s an annoying little piece of work, always sending stuff back marked up with petty changes before he’ll pass it up the line or denying permissions on the few things he actually controls. He did an investigation in Spell Damage once, concluding we cost too much and it would be more efficient to just send everyone on to St. Mungo’s. Clement had taken great pleasure in teaching him a thing or too about the differences between us and the Wards on the Fourth Floor.

Other than the long-termers of Ward 49, some of whom are ours but ‘not yet cured’ (Clement hates the defeatist attitude of ‘incurable’) St. Mungos handles accidental stuff. Say your wizard comes home drunk as a skunk and appearing just a tad happier about it than he ought to under the circumstances and you hit him with five or six highly emotionally charged hexes that just happen to produce an unusual result. That’s a case for to St. Mungo’s. If you disappoint Lucius Malfoy in a business deal (or are unfortunate enough to attend some upper echelon event wearing the same robes as his lovely wife Narcissa) and you end up with a horribly disfiguring unidentifiable hex, you come to us. One is an accident, assuming of course you didn’t really mean all those hexes quite that way in the light of day. The other is a crime with intent. Of course, anything involving a Malfoy (such as how all three of them escaped Azkaban) is a crime, but intent changes everything; quite literally when it comes to jinxes, spells and hexes. For example, the jibbering jinx we put on Percy has remained unsolved unto this day. Ask him about the cost of cauldron counterfeiting one time and watch him go! It’s a beauty to behold, just make sure you aren’t drinking anything at the time.

It was hard to believe he and Ron were related, except of course for the hair. Still, if it came down to it Ron was right; there just might be a way to use the officious little brown noser, and he did work far closer to Scrimgeour than I ever got.

“One: it’s not bloody illegal to blow up your own loo,” Harry ticked off. “Two: I didn’t use a wand to do it, so they can’t track it and shouldn’t be worried about it, anyway. Wandless magic wasn’t illegal last time I looked. Three: I’ve refrained from using any magic at all in public places except for a disillusionment charm I’ve cast on myself, protecting wizards everywhere from whatever the hell is wrong with me, so point Four: Scrimgeour can go eff himself. I’m not doing anything wrong, and I’m frankly just trying to eat and sleep and use the loo like every other wizard in London. I’m cooperating like a good boy because I just want some bloody peace. If that’s too much for the Ministry of Magic to cope with, then it’s time to do a runner or else turn around and take over the whole rotten place and make Ron’s Dad Minister. There, Elspeth. You’ve heard my wicked plan at last. File that.”

Ron laughed, but Harry’s eyes were angry even if his face was carefully passive. Hermione appeared thoughtful.

“You know, Harry,” she said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not exactly what he’s afraid of you doing.”

Score one for Hermione. The thought, outlandish as it was once you knew him, had occurred to me as well.

Harry laughed then, until he saw that she was serious. “Hermione, why would anyone think I…”

“Because he doesn’t know you. Because nobody knows you, Harry. They’ve had Rita Skeeter’s lies and Fudge’s lies and Scrimgeour’s carefully worded statements, which are really just lies in fancier clothes. The one and only time you ever gave the Wizarding world a glimpse of who you were was when you gave that interview to Luna’s father, and look what it did for The Quibbler. People believed you then, they’d believe you now if you told the truth and it would make it awfully hard for the Ministry to keep on after you if the average witch and wizard in the street thought they were harassing you without cause.

The problem with magic is that it’s so easy for us to change things we get fatalistic about anything the wave of a wand won’t cure. Like fear and ignorance and corruption. You don’t like talking about yourself and no one blames you for that, but I swear you could really influence the balance of power if you wanted to.”

“But I don’t want to,” Harry said almost plaintively. “I just want to be done with all of this and get on with my life.”

It struck me that despite not liking the idea of what we were discussing he was far more relaxed hearing it from his friends. If it had been me throwing out notions about why Scrimgeour might be out to get him he would have been far fiercer and closed off to the concept. This could speed things along considerably.

“Not the point, mate,” Ron told him. “You never wanted to be his poster boy back in sixth year when Percy let him at you at Christmas, but he kept on asking. He’s going to get you back for being Dumbledore’s man now.”

Score one for Ron as well. There had always been an uneasy balance of power between Dumbledore and the Ministry, and it hadn’t taken an idiot to figure out who could have called all the shots if they’d wanted to. I’d always thought Dumbledore a genius for choosing Hogwarts over politics and bureaucracy. You got to insinuate yourself in the impressionable minds of children there free of the baggage of apparating licenses and Underage Use of Magic warnings. It was way easier to feel faintly nostalgic and warm and fuzzy about your Headmaster, regardless of the trouble you’d got into, then the Minister of Magic.

“So what do I do then?” Harry asked. “Bend over?”

Now there was an image… Mental slap! Back to work.

“Look,” Hermione said. “I think we’re getting caught up with the symptoms rather than the cure. We need to resolve why Harry’s having trouble controlling his magic in the first place. If we can identify the curse or hex at the root of it, we can eliminate the problem. And if we eliminate the problem, Scrimgeour will have nothing to harass Harry with, like him or not.”

See what I mean? Cuts right to the heart of the problem, intentions good. Unfortunately, my feeling is even if we managed to clear up Harry’s control issues, Scrimgeour’s still going to want to magically neuter him to render him less of a threat to his own hold on things. Fudge might have been determinedly oblivious, but Scrimgeour’s got a far tougher outlook, and he’s nothing if not a man of action once his course is clear. Although he could never quite get himself a clear shot at Voldemort, come to that. I’m sure that little fact doesn’t make Harry taking him down any easier to swallow.

The problem I think Harry will have to tackle at some point is that Scrimgeour truly thinks he’s doing what he is for the best. He’s not a bad person as far as I can see; he’s just a good politician. (Something altogether different from a good bureaucrat, although neither is amongst my favorite creatures. I’d feel safer around an angry dragon than either of them.) His years as the Head of the Auror Office - and before that fighting dark wizards as an Auror himself - have given him a healthy respect and disdain for how seemingly unthinkable things can happen in the blink of an eye. Allegiances change, alliances are remade, friends become enemies; and anyone as young and powerful as Harry is a threat. Particularly without the leashing effect of an older and more experienced wizard, something Harry lost when Dumbledore died. Scrimgeour may not have cared for Dumbledore’s methods, but he was a known factor. Harry himself, for all his declaration of being Dumbledore’s man, was not. In Scrimgeour’s defense, he had likely seen a lot of things throughout his career, things none of us knew the truth about. That was part of the problem – how could you really judge who was telling the truth when the whole truth was never told?

But in Harry’s defense, Scrimgeour simply didn’t know Harry. There was no way this kid was going dark, and it wasn’t, as Snape had insinuated, due to lack of wits.

It was time to finish up our business for this particular meeting. I had some ideas to go test out now.

“I have to ask you two again, Ron, Hermione. You were both there at Hogwarts that night. I know they aren’t pleasant memories, but I need you to think through them again in light of what’s happening now to see if something doesn’t stand out differently. Try it as if you were in a pensieve – which I would dearly love to use, but I’m imagining none of you would agree to…”

Stony looks all the way round at that particular idea. There’s way too much paper work involved to try and force the issue though, because the memory becomes public record and has to be maintained indefinitely, blah, blah, blah. I frankly think it’s too invasive in 99% of cases when Veritaserum will do just as well, but sometimes what someone didn’t notice is more important than the truth about what they did. We’re none of us deities, though, and that’s getting into uncomfortable territory for me, calling those shots. We’re magically capable of way more than we should ever morally use.

“Then just sort of think it through from a different perspective if you can. Who else was there that might have had a clear shot at Harry and a reason to want something like this? Was there much spellfire? Were there many instances when hexes and spells collided that you took notice of? Was anyone alone with him at any time? Did Voldemort ever hit Harry himself with anything that didn’t seem to have an immediate effect?” I made a snap decision not to lie to Harry about talking to Snape then. I wasn’t going to volunteer that I had, but if it got down to it and he asked I’d tell him the truth. “I’ve heard a bit about what went on, but I need to see it the way you did.”

Ron gazed out the windows, but I didn’t think for a moment his mind was back on the battle. I think he simply wanted out now. Harry was lost in the dregs of his coffee cup but his respiration had clearly picked up a good bit and though his hands were steady on his cup there was a muscle working convulsively along his jaw. I wasn’t surprised (although I was glad I wasn’t his dentist.) I’d expected him to be stressed and I was watching him as closely as I could without being hugely obvious for signs of imminent magical meltdown. So far, so good. Hermione’s clear brown eyes were the only ones not to dodge away, and I was hugely relieved. To be honest, hers were the recollections I was most hoping for.

She spoke carefully, although I think it was more out of concern for Harry than anything she’d been told not to say. “Voldemort didn’t appear himself until the fighting was mostly over; if it had gone the other way he might not have shown up at all. He definitely had a plan and he wanted to be in control. We’d given him reason to think he still was.”

The fake horcrux, the one she’d managed to make appear real. He would have thought himself immortal still. Oh, how he would have gloried in that thought as he’d faced a very mortal Harry.

“We hadn’t planned on the confrontation coming quite that soon though. We were close, but we weren’t ready and he knew it. In the end there may have been less than dozen of us in the Chamber. The Aurors and the Or, um, others, were all in Hogsmeade fighting to save the town; the Death Eaters made sure of that. It was only teachers and children in the castle. So no, there wasn’t much spellfire, or lots of haphazard hexes. It was very orderly and inevitable when it came down to it.”

“Can you tell me who was there?” I probed gently. “Who he had with him?”

“Bellatrix, of course. Rabastan, but not Rodolphus. He must have been leading the Hogsmeade side of things. Rookwood, Nott, Mulciber, Avery, the Carrows, Alecto and Amycus, though they were really just guarding the door. And Antonin Dolohov.”

“Did any of them use anything you didn’t recognize? Even if it was wordless, a color or sound that was different than what you’d seen before? Dolohov is known for experimenting with new spells and…”

“Dolohov was known for it. Now he’s known for being dead,” Harry said listlessly. “It wasn’t him. I didn’t really give him time, I was a little… over enthusiastic when I saw he was there.’

Hermione’s eyes literally tried to caress him even as her hands remained neatly folded on her lap. It was almost painful to see her.

“Was it like the portrait?” I asked curiously. “Or like it is now?”

He shook his head. “No, I… He was the one. He hurt Hermione in the Department of Mysteries our fifth year, he tried to kill her. He recognized her, and he got this look on his face, you could see… and I …”

“You killed him” Ron said calmly, not looking at him. I got the sense he might have envied Harry this one thing for some reason. “You did the bloody world a favor and cracked his bloody head open with one big angry-arse reducto. There was nothing weird about it and nothing to apologize for, Harry. And you missed one, Hermione. You forgot Snape.”

I had wondered how he was going to show up, and when.

“Wouldn’t have put it past him, you know,” Ron snorted.

Come to think of it….

“Good for Hermione,” Harry said darkly. “Wish I could forget Snape.”

“Unlikely as it sounds to say when actually facing off with the embodiment of evil,” Hermione said quietly, “nothing really strange happened until …”

Harry shifted uncomfortably and his bandaged hands disappeared under the table.

“Until… umm.”

She was rethinking her words quickly, but not quickly enough. Ron’s eyes were shifting between the two of them, but hadn’t twigged it yet. I wondered if I should reveal what Snape had told me when Harry kicked into gear and diverted things nicely.

“Until he died, the bastard. It took him almost fifteen years to finally properly die. It wasn’t even the body he was born with, but when he was truly dead it was like all that time in between just collapsed. He shriveled and dried up like a corpse. A long dead corpse, what he should have been.”

Ron nodded suddenly, as if remembering despite himself. “That’s when Bellatrix went nuts. They were so sure that…” he swallowed, thinking about it. “The death eaters were so sure Harry was done for. There just didn’t seem any way out, and Voldemort was laughing and joking about the great Harry Potter taking his mark one way or the other.”

Snape had said something about that. “He meant to mark Potter with a giant bloody “V” before killing him, so there could be no doubt, I suppose. Potter was perhaps less out of it than he’d seemed, or he finally managed to squeeze a thought out of his excuse for a brain. After the pain of the first stroke he recognized the spell and managed to cast a reflecting shield. The sectumsempra the Dark Lord meant to finish carving the second line in the “V” ended up severing his own carotid artery. Almost cut his head off, to be honest. He was dead before he even landed on Potter.”

“He made the first cut,” Ron continued, his eyes fleeing Harry again for the safety of the window, “and then there was just blood everywhere. It took a couple of minutes to figure it all out. When Bellatrix saw what happened to him she tried to take Harry apart.” He glanced back at Harry then. “Good thing you were fairly well out of it, mate, because it was not pretty.”

Harry frowned. Interesting that it wasn’t ringing any bells with him. Hermione looked thoughtful but she seemed to be considering what Ron said rather than recognizing a memory of her own.

“What spell did she use?” I asked. I was getting really a bad feeling now, remembering Snape’s other words.

“She said she would make sure that the world hated Potter and cast him aside. She said, ‘And when they do, my Lord, I will recall you through him. When he is forgotten in Azkaban, he will know my kiss before the Dementors come, and you shall be reborn.”

“No spell. Fingers, teeth, anything she could use. They’d most of them dropped their wands and started hoowling when their marks kicked in the news he was dead. She still had a handful of his hair when we pulled her off him and she was just covered in…” Light dawned slowly on Ron’s face, and he ducked it as well. “No way. She’s in Azkaban.”

Hermione was all over it now. “They were caught fleeing Hogwarts, before they reached the apparition point. She could have passed it off to someone else. Rodolphus could have met her on the way from Hogsmeade. Has he ever been captured? Or a student, a Slytherin. She’d have had hair, blood, maybe even skin…”

“You can cast some pretty evil spells with that.” I agreed, mentally categorizing those I knew. Although I’d like to think not at Azkaban itself. What were we keeping those Dementors for else? I hope they’d all got a giant pay cut for dancing off after Voldemort. No sucking souls on Sundays or something. I hated those creepy things.

“That gives me a lot to be going on with. I doubt there’s anything to Bellatrix, honestly” I lied, “but I’ll check it out as best I can, and where all the others ended up as well. I know none of them are due to be kissed or anything, because they’re still being interrogated. The top of the heap I’m the bottom of have a part in that, and I’ll see what I can learn there. In the mean time, Harry, I hate to say it, but you’ve just got to keep on keeping your nose clean. Stay at home, read a good book, eat lots of take away.”

“Hermione’s mate-sitting him while I’m at the Quidditch trials,” Ron said with a grin of relief as we all began to collect our cups and trash and rise from the table. “And those are her three favorite things.”

A flash of annoyance and something else I couldn’t quite place crossed her features and was quickly gone.

Harry seemed resigned to his fate, although I sensed the more he recovered the more irksome he’d find it. “The prisoner of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes,” he said with a shrug.

Is that where they lived? Over the Weasley twin’s place? Whose brilliant idea was that? Wasn’t that suspiciously like having a fireworks shop over a match factory? Or vice versa. Merlin. Maybe it was time for a home visit.

But I had begun to wonder if with Ron away at Quidditch tryouts and Hermione safe where he could see her there would be any untoward magical incidences involving Harry Potter. For the next four days, at least.

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A/N: Thank you, Lady Starlight, for your punctuation correction. And to all of you who have pointed out the error of my ways and days, I have corrected all the dates I could find. I was an English Major, not a math genius. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking with it.

Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 7

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Harry was napping when she apparated into the flat later that afternoon, sprawled across the couch with a book tented across his chest. The setting sun was slowly filling the room through the two big windows across from him, but he was deeply asleep and unaware of its encroaching brightness. It was absolutely silent save for the ticking of the cast-off clock from Ron’s Great Aunt Muriel on the mantle, and very warm. Their cooling charm against the July heat was clearly past due to be recast.

Hermione set her duffle bag down quietly, hoping not to disturb him, and released Crookshanks from his travel basket with a stern look. He immediately moved off on silent paws to prowl and secure the perimeter in the way of most cats. It was hard to imagine there’d be mice anywhere between Fred and George exploding things in the basement and Hedwig hunting in the evenings, but he’d still feel obligated to be report if things were otherwise.

As she stood up again, she saw her shadow cast its shade over Harry’s sleeping form. Mesmerized, without thinking, she lifted her shadow hand until it touched his cheek, cool and insubstantial. She let her shadow finger run the length of his cheek bone and down toward his sleep-parted lips with a soft sigh. The sight both stirred and frustrated her; to see her desire come to life before her eyes yet feel the empty reality beneath her searching fingertips was almost more than she could stand. She fled, eyes stinging, for Ron’s room.

It was a mistake staying here; as angry and shaken as she still was by Ron’s admissions during the boys’ conversation in the bathroom this morning no good could possibly come of it.

Being Hermione she decided to wrest back control of her emotions by making a list.

She set her bag down on the floor again and moved further into the midden that Ron called home. The bed was rumpled, pillow still hollowed from his head and blankets tossed back, half on the floor. The night table was cluttered with Quidditch magazines (she rather hoped they were all Quidditch, anyway) chocolate frog wrappers and a linty collection of knuts and butterbeer caps. A pile of dirty laundry grew fungus-like both up the wall and across the floor. The one clean corner was the spot where his Quidditch gear normally lived. It suddenly occurred to Hermione that Ron’s room didn’t contain a desk. Or an actual book, for that matter. Even his Quidditch reading was reduced to the depth of a magazine article.

She was dating a boy, seeing a man, walking out with a wizard who possessed neither books nor a desk. What had she been thinking? Where had her brain gone? Had she really just failed to notice it at Hogwarts, where learning hadn’t been optional but a part of their very existence?

She whipped out her wand, determination growing within her. Several simple spells later the bed was made with fresh linens, the laundry relegated to hampers (it had taken three good sized ones, when was the last time he’d been back to the Burrow?) and the magazines piled neatly on the floor beside the bed, knuts in a orderly stack and butterbeer caps discarded. She’d thrown open the window, but the heat and humidity had defeated her; she shut it again and cast dust dispelling, air freshening and cooling charms instead.

She settled herself on the edge of the bed and pulled the cleared-off night table close. She had to lean at a slightly odd angle, but it was better than nothing. She took her journal and a self inking quill from her bag and opened to a fresh page.

She headed the page: Reasons to break up with Ron

1. Are we really even together?

2. His room doesn’t contain a desk. Or books.

3. Book stores make him break out in a fit of allergic whinging.

4. Reading makes him fall asleep.

5. Discussing a book with him means explaining it to him first, since he fell asleep while reading it.

6. If he makes it on to a Professional Quidditch team, you will hear nothing but Quidditch plays and statistics until he is too old to sit a broom.

7. All we do well together is argue. We are really, really good at it. Too good at it.

8. He wants to shag. You don’t feel the least bit like shagging when you’re with him.

9. He wants to shag Megan Jones. She may as well be the anti-you.

10. This makes him an idiot.

11. You want to shag Harry.

12. So bad it hurts.

An even dozen seemed enough. On the facing page, she wrote: Reasons not to break up with Ron

1. He is a good-hearted person. Brave and true. He would defend you or Harry to the death if necessary.

2. He is light-hearted. When he doesn’t make you so mad you could kill him, he does make you laugh. You don’t do enough of that.

3. He is loyal, and a good brother. Family means a great deal to him. These are excellent qualities in a potential mate.

4. All of this would make him a wonderful dog replacement, although he is messier than most dogs and you are not, after all, a dog person. None of it makes your heart feel close to the way it does for Harry, who also shares most of the above traits. Except for the light hearted one. And of course the family thing. Although, statistically speaking he could have been an excellent family person if an evil wizard hadn’t killed all of them first. In fact he WAS an excellent family person, considering he refrained from actually harming the Dursleys despite years of constant provocation. So he too would make a reasonable mate. And you actually feel like mating with him.

5. Ron is quite possibly too good for you, as you are technically sort of with him even now that you have realized that it is his best friend that makes you understand that love is more than like, more than just attraction, more than banter and playing hard to get and empty sexual tension.

6. Therefore he deserves better than you.

7. And you should tell him so when you break it off.

8. Then tell Harry how you feel.

9. So that Ron will not feel bad in any way when Harry gazes at you with those beautiful eyes and scratches at the back of his neck so that you can’t stop looking at his shoulders and thinking how comfortable they’d be to just lay your head against when he says…

NO!…

It took her until the second cry to realize that it wasn’t her subconscious she heard; Harry was actually crying out in his sleep in the other room. She threw down the journal and quill on the bed and ran, skidding around the corner from the hall just as either the dream itself or the sound of his own voice woke him.

He was in that state of anxious confusion nightmares often leave in their wake; heart pounding, chest heaving to catch his breath. He’d been alone in the flat when he’d drifted off, so the sound of galloping feet in the gathering shadows when he awoke from the private hell of his dreams was more than his post crucio-overloaded and still recovering nervous system could cope with.

The last thing she remembered was him launching himself off the sofa with a strangled scream of terror and landing atop her as both crashed to the floor. Being beneath him in the mutually wanton struggles of her dreams was way more pleasant than the results of his instinctual defensiveness and a hard wood floor. The guilt and horror that dawned in his eyes just as hers refused to stop seeing was almost worse than the pain that bloomed as her head connected solidly with said floor.

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“How long has she been out?” The voice asked.

It was a known one if not exactly familiar, she simply couldn’t place it.

“I don’t know exactly. Maybe twenty minutes now? I started to panic a bit as time went on and she didn’t wake up but I’m not sure when it was I flooed you…”

Well, at least she knew that was Harry.

“I’m not a healer, Harry. Although I can tell you panicked more than just a bit. From the sound of you I thought you must have blown up half of Diagon Alley. Not to worry, and it’s a good thing you called. I know a couple of healers who’d make a house call, we should…”

It was Elspeth. Harry’s Spell Damage Reversal Specialist from the ministry. The one she’d met just this morning; no wonder the voice was both familiar and not well known.

“No,” she managed thickly, blinking against her heavy eyelids. The last thing he needed was to have to explain injuring anyone else, no matter how innocently it had happened.

“Hermione?”

He was a bit hazy but growing sharper above her even as she blinked once more. She worked out that part of the strangeness was that he was upside down somehow; it took a while longer to fit together the various pieces of data from other body parts swimming upstream against the throbbing in her head. He was upside down because her head was pillowed between his knees, the aching lump on the back of her head in the hollow created by his crossed ankles supporting her neck. One of his hands seemed to be cradling her head, the other still trembling as it stroked back her hair. She could see at once she’d frightened him badly by failing to quickly regain consciousness.

“How do you feel, Hermione? Do you feel dizzy or nauseous? Seeing double or blurry? Do you remember what happened?”

“Harry’s right, you do ask a lot of questions,” Hermione heard herself respond, though somewhere part of her mind admonished her for being rude. She felt sort of sleepy actually, but suddenly realized she was nestling her cheek against Harry’s inner thigh. The mere thought of a Ministry employee watching that had a smelling-salt like effect and she struggled to sit up. Both of them helped her but Harry’s supporting hands kept her close and remained steady against her back.

“I’m okay,” she said, and she did feel better, more awake and aware now that she was upright.

She felt his hand gingerly touch the back of her head and heard herself squeak.

Actually squeak. I squeaked! Get a grip, Hermione.

“You’ve got a lump the size of a Vipertooth egg,” he told her. “Hermione, I’m so sorry. It never occurred to me you’d be here by now… and I think I’d been having a dream…”

“Lean forward a bit,” Elspeth said, and Hermione felt a sudden pooling of coolness around the spot, lovely and numbing.

“Oh!” she heard herself say. “Thanks.”

“I don’t imagine you two boys keep much in the way of healing potions around the house?” Elspeth asked, and Harry looked stricken and shook his head. “Never mind.”

Hermione watched as she rose and made her way across to the fireplace, taking a small handful of floo powder from the pot on the mantel. There was a purposefulness to her movements, a swift, no-nonsense sureness that reminded her of Madam Pomfrey in a way and made her feel safe and reassured. She sat up straighter and felt Harry’s hand drop from her back, as if he’d realized she was recovering herself and didn’t want to overstep his bounds.

And alas, pretending to faint again just to get back in his lap was totally beneath her.

She watched as Elspeth crouched before the hearth and a child’s face appeared in the green floo flames.

“Em?” she said. “Love, run upstairs and bring me the blue box of potions from the airing cupboard, please? You can bring them through, just be sure and tell Gran you’re coming, okay?”

The little girl nodded and disappeared abruptly.

“Your daughter?” Hermione asked curiously. “How old is she?”

Elspeth turned from the fire and sat down again on the floor beside them. “Eleven. She’s just had her Hogwart’s letter and she’s over the moon about it.”

Hermione liked that she was clearly assessing Harry just as closely as herself; even though he was the subject of a Ministry investigation it seemed to her Elspeth’s concern was both real and well intentioned.

“How did you feel when you got your letter, Hermione?” she asked, and Hermione realized she actually wanted to know, she wasn’t merely asking to keep her from falling unconscious or anything.

She cast her mind back to the days before Harry and Ron. Hard to do now, to peel back the layers of herself that felt the most real to the child she had been before.

“It was as if someone had suddenly handed me the key to myself,” she said slowly. “I was muggle born, you see. No witches or wizards anywhere in the family, ever. It explained so much about me that had been inexplicable before. Connected me to something when I had always been different and apart. Professor McGonagall was better than Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother to me. So over the moon would have fit me as well, I guess.”

Elspeth smiled her understanding, and Hermione felt she really did. She also construed Harry’s gratuitous removal of a tuft of Crookshank’s hair from her shoulder for his best attempt to express the same.

“I’m half and half myself,” Elspeth said. “My mother’s a witch and my Dad a muggle. I grew up in mostly muggle house, but there was always magic around my mother no matter what she did and I spent enough time with her relatives to feel a part of both worlds. Very lucky, I guess, that’s so often not the case when the two worlds collide.”

Hermione nodded feelingly and felt a subtle but similar movement behind her.

The fireplace burst to life and a slender girl carrying a good sized box rather like a small suitcase with a handle came through the flames like a pro without the slightest stumble and approached them.

“That would have been me sprawled across the floor and half the bottles broken,” Harry told her admiringly. “You’re good.”

The girl’s face broke into a shy grin and a blaze of embarrassment that would have done Ginny proud at the same age. She was very fair, her long hair almost white blond and an even better foil for a blush than Ginny’s ginger had been. She handed her mother the potions case.

“Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, meet Emily Hawktalon. She’s wanted to meet you both ever since she heard I was meeting with you, Harry.”

Hermione thought it was time to ease both the little girl’s embarrassment and Harry’s by taking him down a peg or two in the hero worship department.

“He’s not kidding you, Emily. He’s never been any good at the floo. The first time he used it he sneezed and ended up in Knockturn Alley and he’s been staggering out of fireplaces ever since. He’s just run into me and knocked me out cold, so thank you very much for bringing the potions.”

The girl’s blush eased back to the merely painful from the almost fatal. Hermione realized she looked almost familiar somehow, as if she was a smaller, altered version of someone she knew but couldn’t place. She certainly didn’t look anything like her mother; Elspeth had reddish hair, not fiery Weasley ginger but a more subdued chestnut, and hazel eyes.

It struck her then where she’d seen Emily before. She was like a young, female Draco Malfoy sans the annoying Malfoy sneer. Same sharp bones, same platinum coloring and silvery-blue eyes, but in an open, curiously alive and guileless face without the slightest sense of superiority. It made her wonder how handsome Draco might have been had he suffered Harry’s fate and been wrenched from his parents and raised by others. She also wondered if they were related at all.

Elspeth finished sorting through the bottles and made her way into the kitchen, bringing back an assortment of glasses. She measured and poured three potions, handing them across to Hermione one by one. “Inflammation, pain, and a mild restorative. When was the last time you ate?”

She searched back through her memory and realized it had been the choked doughnut at breakfast; she hadn’t stopped to eat anything when she’d picked her things up at her parent’s house, she’d been too busy convincing them she’d be fine, she knew what she was doing, she was a big girl.

Ha.

“I though so,” Elspeth said sagely without so much as a word from Hermione. “And I expect Harry could do with feeding as well. Do you two like muggle food or are you purists? I know a really good pizza place with a safe back alley a witch can apparate in and out of in a flash. Would you like a pizza?”

Hermione reckoned she could murder a pizza, and Emily bounced beside her mum hopefully. Despite being raised in a muggle household Harry might as well have been wizard in that respect; Petunia Dursley had done nothing so common as serve take away pizza and when they went out to eat they were hardly going to spoil their appetites or waste their money taking Harry. Even Ron had beat him to it, thanks to Bill. She still remembered his first pizza and his almost sensual delight in sitting on the floor with her and Ron at Grimmauld place and eating ravenously from the box. Horcrux hunting had on occasion been truly hungry work; he’d stopped for nothing and they hadn’t liked to be the ones to remind him time was marching on by being hungry.

“That sounds really good,” he admitted.

“Done,” said Elspeth. “I’ll be back in a flash. Em is an excellent table setter. Just point her to your silverware. Can I apparate from here, or do I need to hit the street? Did you guys do your own wards?”

“You can go from here. They’re based on coming in, not going out. Maybe I’ll even fix it so you can come back, if you’re bringing pizza.” Harry told her with a grin.

“”You will if you want any,” she said, and was gone.

Emily looked across the hall to where her mother had gone and reappeared with glasses. “Is that the kitchen? Will we eat in there? I can get things ready, really.”

Harry looked at Hermione, green eyes still anxious. “Do you feel up to sitting at the table? We could bring it to you in here…”

“I’m fine, Harry, really. Better than fine now after the potions. Look, feel for yourself. The lump is gone.”

His hand moved tentatively toward her but dropped well before it got there. “I’m so sorry…” he said again.

“I’m fine. And that is the kitchen, Emily. If you don’t mind setting out the plates and things that would be great,” Hermione told her.

Emily disappeared for the kitchen, her pale hair swishing silkily behind her.

“Who does she remind you of?” Hermione asked Harry softly.

He blinked; she got the feeling he hadn’t really been thinking of anything but his guilt for knocking her out and he had to gather his impressions together. The light dawned before long though; Harry might not be the swiftest horse in the barn but when pointed in the right direction he seldom failed to find water.

“You almost don’t see it because of not having the superiority complex, I suppose. Everything else is there, that’s just what defines them as Malfoys. I wonder how close the connection is. Elspeth certainly doesn’t look like one.”

He lurched forward to his knees and offered her his hand to help her up. Hermione felt a fraud for taking it; she grasped it lightly as she could around the wrist, avoiding his bandages. It infuriated her that she could be all but cured of a probable concussion and a lump the size of a dragon’s egg in moments but he’d had to cope with the wounds on his hands for weeks now without relief. She vowed to ask Elspeth outright what was being done about it.

She excused herself to use the loo and felt Harry’s eyes follow her anxiously down the hall. She turned and made a shooing motion toward the kitchen, pantomiming helping Emily; and he padded obediently off.

When she returned from washing her hands and splashing cold water on her face, feeling at once both refreshed and repulsed by the state of their towels, she found Harry and Emily sitting companionably together at the table, their two heads bent over something. They were such a contrast of darkest black and palest blond it was striking. They both looked up at her arrival.

“She’s the one you want to ask,” Harry told her. “Smartest witch in forever, that one. Finished reading her textbooks over the summer and had them off by heart by Christmas. Tell us, Hermione, should Emily save her book money on a used copy of Bagshot’s History of Magic or is the revised version really better for propping you up while Binns drones endlessly on?”

“Harry! Don’t listen to him Emily; History of Magic is really an important class. It’s not just dates and wars and things, it’s the whole evolution of magical culture in a shared world. Just because he spent his time plotting out Quidditch plays and sleeping…”

“Hey look, there’s a new text down for Defense. Disabling the Dark Arts by Angus McFangus. That can’t possibly be his real name, can it? I wonder who’s teaching this year.” Harry cut her off with a sheepish grin. “And she’s right, I was a rubbish student. You’ll do far better following her lead,” he confessed to Emily.

Elspeth appeared in the kitchen with not so much a crack but more the soft plop of a dripping faucet, bearing a flat fragrant box. She looked suspiciously at Harry and her daughter poring over the booklist as if she knew that little good could come of it. Hermione helped her pass round slices while Harry produced pumpkin juice for Hermione and Emily and butterbeer for Elspeth and himself.

It came to Hermione as they were eating that Elspeth and Emily Hawktalon appearing as they had was a blessing in disguise, and her now barely sore head was a small price to pay for the disarming effect they had on Harry. His guilt over hurting her would have been overwhelming had they been left to their own devices and she might very well have resorting to attempting to comfort or distract him in a most disastrous way.

It was remarkably normal and calming to be sitting together, hunger satiated, finishing their drinks and talking about the most wonderfully ordinary things; books, robes, cauldrons and familiars. Hedwig had been the instigator of that last, having arrived at the kitchen window with a package from Molly Weasley and what was evidently a note from Ginny. The box contained a diminutive apple pie; Harry set the note aside without reading it. He re-enlarged the pie and found clean plates and a knife and set them before Hermione to do the serving up; it was so peaceful and domestic she could almost push aside what Molly would think of her if she knew what Hermione was dreaming about while she sliced her luscious pie. Almost. And why was Ginny writing Harry?

Emily was entranced with Hedwig and the snowy owl, accustomed by now to being made much of by Harry’s friends after her early experiences of being locked up and insulted at the Dursleys, had perched happily on the back of her chair and was preening shamelessly for pizza crusts.

“What familiar did you bring to Hogwarts?” Emily asked her curiously, and Hermione realized she hadn’t seen Crookshanks since arriving. Decidedly strange, since he would have typically been twining around their feet under the table looking for a hand out. She made the little pss-pss-pss noise so irresistible to cats

“She’s got a half kneazle named Crookshanks. The trick is to find the pet that’s been unsold so long they practically give it away; it certainly worked for Hermione.” Harry said with a grin. “Crookshanks is a faultless judge of character.”

Crookshanks chose just that moment to appear carrying three struggling somethings proudly in his mouth.

Hermione was horrified and ordered him to drop them “this instant!”

Elspeth leaned round the edge of the table to get a closer look just as Hermione heard Harry say;

“Good boy Crookshanks, don’t even think of dropping those here… oh shite.”

Emily squealed, probably a combination of realizing Crookshanks had just dropped three very pissed off doxies onto the kitchen floor and hearing the Great Harry Potter swear.

The doxies began zipping around the kitchen like angry wasps as Elspeth, Harry and Hermione ducked and flailed spells at them.

“I don’t suppose,” Elspeth started, but Harry cut her off.

“No. No doxycide either.”

It turned out he had better luck with his hands than they did with their wands, unsurprising under the circumstances since it gave him a broader focal point and he had been a seeker, after all. He managed to stun one, but it was when the second one dive bombed Hermione that the inevitable happened.

“Well, that one’s done for,” Elspeth said, looking at the still-smoking hole in the kitchen wall. And the hall wall. And the study wall beyond it to the gathering dusk outside. “Hedwig’s got her own owl door now.”

Hermione could smell the pungent scent of singed hair, and realized it was her own.

Harry sat down abruptly and buried his face in his trembling hands. And was promptly bitten by the third doxy, who was down to one wing and buzzing angrily under the table. Crookshanks recaptured that one with a tell tale crunch.

Hermione could see every bad word he’d ever learned swell and ebb in his eyes.

“And before anyone asks,” he ground out between gritted teeth, “No doxy anti-venom either.”

“If I’d have had my wand I’d have stunned it for you, I saw that one couldn’t fly,” Emily said sympathetically. “It’s willow, eleven inches and thestral tail hair core. I’m really sorry, Harry. Don’t be too upset about the holes. Mum can fix you, honestly. She’ll find a way.”

She patted his shoulder anxiously, and it struck Hermione that in that strange, despite-it-all way she knew so well, Harry had made another friend.

“S’alright ,” Harry told her with a rather fixed smile. “It just… stings.”

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Elspeth took Emily home to bed and retrieved some Doxy anti-venom. She insisted on coming back and administering it to Harry to make sure the dosage was correct.

“The bite will be quite sore for a couple of days,” she told him, “Even after the anti-venom. You should definitely go and see your healer tomorrow and make sure it’s not going to counter or conflict with anything they’re giving you.”

He grumbled something noncommittal, but Hermione met her gaze moments later and smiled; she would make sure he went if he knew what was good for him.

She followed Elspeth back into the other room; she’d returned by floo and meant to go home the same way and it gave Hermione a moment alone with her before she did.

“Thank you, for coming and looking after us both and for what you’re doing for Harry. You do believe him, don’t you, that there’s nothing intentional about any of this?” she asked.

Elspeth’s steady eyes met her own kindly. “I don’t believe for a minute there’s an ounce of evil in that boy,” she said. “There’s almost certainly something going on that involves him, but I really can’t tell exactly what yet. Time will tell, we just have to be on the right side of it so that we can stop whatever it is before it gets out of hand.”

“Speaking of hands,” Hermione said. “Do you know what’s being done with his? He won’t talk to us about what the healers say, but they don’t seem to have improved at all.”

“I don’t,” Elspeth said, “but I should. I moved on rather quickly at first because I could tell they weren’t the source of the problem I’m supposed to be solving, but there’s no saying it isn’t affecting it, really. I’ll speak with his healer, I’m allowed to do that, and see what I can find out. Will you do something for me as well?”

“Of course,” Hermione agreed. “What?”

“I need you to think back to the Order of Merlin ceremony and the funeral. You don’t need to answer me right now, in fact I’d prefer if you didn’t. Take your time and consider.”

“Okay. I will.” Hermione felt a flutter of trepidation, and wondered what Elspeth thought might be so important to what was wrong with Harry.

“When I spoke with you three this morning, two instances Harry spoke of stuck in my mind. The incineration of the portrait of Walburga Black, and the, as Ron so aptly termed it, ‘one big angry-arse reducto’ that killed Dolohov. Both of those had one thing in common.”

“They were very powerful incidences of magic, perhaps outsized to their circumstances,” Hermione offered, frowning.

“They were both defending you. Whatever the portrait said, it hurt your feeling or upset you, and clearly had a similar effect on Harry. Dolohov hurt you quite badly at the Department of Mysteries, and the moment Harry saw him again, his magic let fly. Tonight he was doing a perfectly fine job rounding up those doxies until one got too close to you. You’ve been friends for a long time, and his nervous system just went through a rather forced realignment. I’m just wondering if there isn’t a pattern somewhere.”

Elspeth smiled kindly, and Hermione wondered if she looked as spell-shocked and disbelieving as she felt. She watched the older woman grab a handful of floo powder and toss it into the empty fireplace, launching a burst of green flame. She turned back just before entering.

“I’ve really enjoyed meeting you today, and I want you to know I feel much better about Harry now that I have. One of the greatest powers a wizard can ever learn is true friendship. Despite all it seems he’s been through, he’s been very lucky in that with you and Ron. Don’t ever take it for granted. It’s a gift.”

She disappeared in a swirl of green flame, and Hermione wondered once again how she could ever untangle the knotted skeins of her life without severing one or the other.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 8

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He checked on her twice that night, just to make sure everything was okay and she hadn’t slipped into a coma or anything. He could just imagine that owl. Erm, Ron, don’t know quite how to tell you this, but I’ve I broken Hermione this time…

He was such a bloody useless git.

Both times her breathing was even and regular. She appeared peaceful enough, her face calm and her sleep seemingly untroubled. It occurred to him as he watched her the second time how much of what he truly recognized as Hermione was in her expressions; the swift play of impatience, amusement and worry across her face, the blaze of her curiosity on the trail of some elusive idea. Stripped of her consciousness he thought she looked different, unfamiliar. Girlish.

Well, perhaps not so much girlish as… his mind grappled with what exactly to call her. Woman seemed impossible, this was Hermione after all, but girl no longer seemed to fit. He’d had a foreshadowing of that little epiphany tonight in the kitchen while looking at Emily’s booklist.

Harry had never paid any real attention to anyone younger than Ginny; the successive classes following their own at Hogwarts were but a dim impingement on his brain in the halls. Don’t trip over the sprogs. He hadn’t wanted to know them well or closely; he was not nurturing by nature - having never exactly been nurtured himself - and they were small, vulnerable. Voldemort fodder, if he didn’t do his job right.

Watching Emily tonight, taking in her excitement and wonder at what awaited her at the school had brought him full circle. He was both grateful that things had turned out so that she could carry on the tradition of going, and amazed that he and Ron and Hermione could have ever been as naively hopeful, as expectant and unwittingly brave, really, when you considered the possibilities of Hogwarts. Not that he’d had a clue, but Ron and Hermione must have. He remembered so clearly the kindly accepting ginger haired boy with his hand-me-down rat, and the officious bushy haired girl who’d reparoed his glasses and told him she’d read about him in a book. He’d glanced from Emily to Hermione, probably apologizing for confessing his boredom in History of Magic, and his brain had suddenly accepted what his eyes must have been seeing all along.

She was a girl no more, at least not in the sense that Emily was. Hermione was done now with school but uncertain yet of life’s path ahead, poised and teetering on a brink just like Harry. Unlike Harry’s grim horizons, however, he could see life spread before her like a vista; University, research, writing, apprenticeship, love, marriage, motherhood. She could have any of it, all of it. She was only a year or two younger than his own mum must have been when Harry was born.

And yet somehow the ever indomitable Hermione appeared almost vulnerable to him in that brief moment of realization. As purposeful a chick as she had always been in Hogwarts’ nest, defending him last year had cost her the chance to fly with the others and she seemed uncertain now about setting off on her own, as if something was still holding her back. He knew that it was his fault, that she had given up her chance at Head Girl and her final year of classes to help him. The honorary degrees they’d been given had been a gift for Ron – Molly was over the moon about his – and a surprise for Harry, but Hermione could have wowed the world with her N.E.W.T. scores, he was sure of it, and an honorary degree hardly did her justice. His heart was heavy with the knowledge of what helping him had cost her.

For all that most of that weight was guilt he understood that at least some part of it was possessiveness. He didn’t really want to lose her now, didn’t want her to go on ahead wherever she was going without him. Even now it was her voice that spoke for his conscience inside his head, her belief in him that had so often sent him on when he faltered. What would he be without Hermione?

He should back away from the bed, turn away and never look back. He should leave her and Ron to get on with their lives untouched by whatever grim hand of fortune or fate still beckoned for him. He knew he should. He just didn’t want to; something about her beckoned to him also, something that had always made him want to hang on hopefully one more day, one more hour. One more minute by agonized minute during the seemingly endless cruciatus frenzy when Voldemort had finally cornered him.

He couldn’t place what it was. All he knew was that he was completely without jealousy or regret that Ron was trying out for a place on a real Quidditch team without him, but he was curiously uncomfortable whenever Hermione talked of possibilities that would take her beyond the realm of daily contact. And curiously beyond uncomfortable when Ron had made his revelation in the bath tub that morning. He could still feel the surge of whatever it was that had coursed through him and exploded the loo, but when he tried to slow it down and examine the root cause of it the discomfort almost made him nauseous and dizzy.

Harry exhaled softly, trying to blow away his thoughts and clear his brain. He turned from her bedside, fairly certain by now she did not in fact need him for any practical medical reason and he was simply gawking pathetically at her without being able to provide the slightest plausible reason should she wake. His bare foot stepped on something with corners as he did and he resisted the urge to relieve the sharp pain with a curse. The object, when retrieved from the floor, proved to be a small book with a plain unmarked cover. A journal or notebook, undoubtedly Hermione’s. He set in on the night table and retreated to his own room and empty bed.

Where he tossed. And turned. And squirmed. And finally threw the covers off again in exasperation and made his way to the kitchen for a drink. He’d been perpetually dehydrated somehow ever since that night and nothing seemed to quench his thirst. The most satisfying thing he’d found so far was lemonade, and he’d taken to keeping a spell-chilled pitcher ready at all times. He poured himself a glass and drank it thirstily, then poured a second and took it to the table.

He lit the candle with a wave of his hand, remembering with a smile how Dumbledore had always awed him with the casualness of his wandless magic. It was a bloody good thing the burns from Voldemort’s wand seemed not to negate Harry’s ability to coax out magic from his hands, or he’d be up a creek for sure.

He wondered how defeating Grindelwald had effected Dumbledore’s magic and what the Headmaster would make of his current predicament. No one had seemed to second guess him his power. Professor McGonagall had invited Harry to visit her any time; perhaps he should take her up on it and ask the Headmaster’s portrait his opinion of events.

Harry lowered his aching frame into the chair, feeling ages older than seventeen. The doxy bite likely wasn’t helping anything, anti-venom or no. His palms were losing the faint tingling that meant the numbing charms were working and had started to hurt again, which meant in turn it was past time to change the padding. He set his glass down, meaning to go and get fresh ones, when his fingers brushed a slip of paper on the table and he saw it was Ginny’s note.

Great. Just what he needed.

He knew he should open and read it, but the very thought drained him somehow. He took up the grocery-list quill that lived on the window sill and began doodling absently on the back, trying to work up the desire to find out what she wanted.

He had no idea how much time had passed when he became aware of the feeling of being watched; he looked up to see Hermione standing quite still in the doorway.

“Sorry, Harry. I just didn’t want to risk startling you again,” she said softly, moving now that she was sure he saw her. She settled into the chair across from him. “I went to check on you on my way back from the loo and you weren’t in your room.”

“Amazing we managed not to run smack into each other in the hall. I checked on you at least twice to make sure you hadn’t stopped breathing or fallen into a coma,” he admitted. “How do you feel?”

“I’m fine, Harry,” she told him. “Honestly.” Her eyes seemed to be watching him quite closely, as if searching for something. He lay down the quill, feeling awkward but uncertain exactly why.

“What did Ginny have to say?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted sheepishly. “Didn’t look yet. I was just… thinking.”

She took in the fierce, twisting dragons looping back on each other with slavering jaws that now covered the whole exterior of the note. “Oh so romantically, I see.”

He winced, but when he met her eyes again they were wide and she appeared flustered.

“Oh, Harry, that was… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that… I’m just not awake yet is the thing. Mouth moving, brain sleeping,” she said apologetically.

It seemed the perfect opening for what he’d been thinking, though, so he took the bit in his teeth and ran with it.

“Hermione, I… I don’t love Ginny,” he said with a rush. “I know you want me to, and that once he got over his initial disgust at the idea Ron saw its advantages, but I just don’t. I’m fond of her, I care about her happiness and safety in a she’s-a-Weasley sort of way, but I can’t make myself love her, even for you. I’ve tried.”

It was perhaps the most difficult and honest thing he’d had to say since killing Voldemort. It seemed clear he was going to have to deal with the consequences of being alive now; at least this was one decision he felt sure of.

“I’m sorry, Harry. That’s a shame, because I know she…” Hermione’s voice trailed off and her eyes narrowed, a distinct change from her previous ‘oops, did I say that out loud?’ expression. “What do you mean ‘you can’t make yourself love her even for me’?”

“I know that it would tie things up neatly for everyone if I did. One big happy Weasley family and all. I also know that I’m an idiot about anything to do with love and I’m always on the wrong page of the script when it comes to what girls want to hear, but I do know that I don’t feel what I’m supposed to about Ginny and I’d never make her happy no matter how hard I tried. Maybe I can’t, maybe I’ll never be right for anyone. Maybe I’m just defective or screwed up from being raised by the Dursleys. I’m sorry if you and Ron feel like you have to watch over me now before you can be happy together, because you really don’t. You guys have done so much for me and I don’t want to be…I’m not your responsibility.”

Hermione’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, as if she were about to begin and then abandoned twenty different responses. To Harry’s abject horror her eyes began instead to fill with tears.

Okay, so he was a total idiot. But how could he have known telling Hermione he didn’t love Ginny would actually make her cry? It was like there was a whole secret language somewhere, and it proved his point perfectly. He was less than useless when it came to this sort of thing.

He watched her tears as they pooled against her lower eyelids, crested and overflowed. Her eyes were made for exasperation and fury and determination; they seemed entirely foreign magnified by tears. Hermione didn’t cry. Not often, anyway. Anxiety filled him; he could not stand for her to be hurt or disappointed in him, he owed her so much. His heart seemed to contract, his head to pound.

So this time, when there was a sharp crack and the note between them burst into bright blue flames, he was neither entirely unsurprised, nor unprepared. They both pushed back hurriedly from the table and Harry did a quick smothering charm. Wafts of black ash fluttered in the air like the residue of an unheard firework; he actually checked the ceiling to make sure it was intact. It was while he was still looking up that he suddenly realized his arms were full of girl, woman, witch. Whatever she was now, she was no longer actively crying. She was warm, soft and trembling faintly against him, both familiar and utterly unknown. As soon as he looked down at her - but long before his brain could even remotely begin to process what his nerve endings were telling him - her lips found his.

Wait, this was Hermione. This was Hermione? Good lord, this was Hermione?

As the shock fell away Harry felt a hundred things at once that he’d never even imagined in regard to her. She fit against him as if she’d been for no one else, and every inch of him that touched her seemed to flare with heat and harden to confirm the fact. Hermione. Kissing her was neither wet in any unpleasant way, despite her earlier tears, nor uncomfortable, nor – despite Ron’s insinuations – lacking in any possible way he could conceive of. And then one of them relaxed their mouths ever so slightly and the other pressed ever so slightly harder in response. His breath was coming sharper and faster through his nose and then stopped for a moment altogether because her arms had come around him, holding him as if she had no intention of letting go.

All he could think was yes.

Of course, that was also the answer to ‘wait a minute, isn’t she your best mate’s girl?’

So what the hell was he thinking yes about?

He stiffened, and Hermione’s lips slipped from his even as her hands slipped likewise from around his shoulders.

They slid down to his hips and rested there uncertainly. Her lingering touch was almost more than he could take and he felt himself breathing hard and wrestling for control of his thoughts.

It came to him suddenly then that she must pity him; it was a pity kiss, an I’m so sorry you’re a freak kiss. She was comforting him, she had long done that, but the line had been crossed by his own pathetic urges rather than any desire on her part. She’d chosen; she loved Ron.

It hadn’t felt like pity to him, but then he’d never once imagined that physical contact with another could feel like a completion of himself rather than yet another thing to live up to. For a single moment he’d felt light, almost happy… and the cost to get him there had been the pity of his best friend, his other best friend’s girl. He was less than pathetic. He wished desperately that he could just disappear, cease to be. He’d never work out a place of his own in this world, he was never meant to survive Voldemort’s death…

As if in answer he felt himself start to waver, almost to… dissolve. Great. How Harry was that? Thanks for the pity kiss, Hermione, mind if I pass out on you now?

Only he didn’t feel dizzy or unclear; on the contrary everything felt sharper, clearer, more intense even as his body seemed to grow ever more insubstantial by the second. Only when Hermione’s hands seemed to literally pass through his hips and fall away did he realize that what he was feeling was truly happening as he felt it.

He heard his name, recognized the tugging call of it, but it appeared to come from two places, somewhere close and another farther on. One was ethereal, calm, beckoning and offering at the same time. The other was sheer human panic, laced with love and fear.

Hermione.

“Harry… Harry! Harry, please.”

Pleading. Hermione, pleading. He could not turn away from that; it was perhaps the one thing left he could not fail to heed.

Coming back was different from fading away; it hurt. He was left cold, shaking and sore as if he’d been pushed through a sieve and reassembled. Her hands must have been clutching at him after he’d felt them fall away, for it was almost as if she pulled them out of him this time, passing through solid bone and skin to catch hold of him with a strength born of desperation. He reeled slightly and staggered against her, and then he realized she was kissing him again. He could almost taste her fear of losing him, a palpable tang passed from her to him through the sweet softness of her mouth against his. Gods, what was he thinking?

It was his turn to try and reassure her, to make some sort of amends for responding to her kiss, pity or not, with whatever the hell it was he’d almost done. He’d never been any good with words, but he suddenly felt as if he knew how to use the rest of him to say exactly what he felt. He took hold of her, began to lift her against him, felt himself veering between the sofa next door or his bed down the hall…

And stopped cold again. Hermione, idiot! Her-mi-on-e. Get a grip.

He pulled back again, heard his own ragged breathing still working against hers.

“What was that?” she gasped out, eyes burning into him.

“That was me, finally hitting bottom,” he forced back. “I’m sor…”

“If you say sorry,” she told him, “I’ll have to hex you. And right now I’m sure that I could do it without a wand as well.”

One look at her and he could hardly doubt it.

“I don’t mean the kiss, Harry. We both know perfectly well what that was, and we can talk about it in a minute. I mean that thing you did, the fading thing. You got this… this look on your face, I can’t even find the right words to describe it, and you started to insubstantiate. Harry, my hands passed right though you. Like a ghost, only… not. It was different, but it still wasn’t right. What did you do?”

“I wished I could disappear,” he heard himself whisper obediently, although he’d had no intention of telling her that part. “I just wanted to stop being. Hermione, you have no idea… I…”

“Trust me, Harry, I was having every idea you were,” she said, and he saw a blush rise again in her unnaturally pale cheeks. “Come with me.”

She lead him into the front room by the hand, motioned for him to sit on the sofa and then sat herself on the other end, a single safe, squashy cushion between them. She closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to take a deep breath, letting it out through her nose.

“Harry, Elspeth suggested something to me last night that really made me think. She pointed out that your whole nervous system was affected by Voldemort’s cruciatus attacks and that there might be a pattern to the way you were losing control of your magic. She also pointed out, though, that it was still consistent with things that happened before that night. She seemed to think that you were unconsciously defending me each time. And I think she might be right.”

Defending Hermione? He would, certainly. Consciously, so he supposed subconsciously it was possible as well. But…?

“Hermione, don’t get me wrong. I’d defend you to the death, you know that, but you weren’t in any real danger at the Order of Merlin thing, or the day I blew out the windows or Fred and George’s sink,” he pointed out.

“Not in danger, no. But what else was going on?”

He tried to bring his mind back to each incident, looking for a pattern that involved Hermione. She’d been there for each; that much was surely true. Still, there’d been no real danger at all, except for him.

The Order of Merlin thing had thankfully not happened until almost the end. Harry had still been rather ill at this point, but the Ministry had urged the Wizengamot to act quickly for the sake of public confidence, and he’d had little choice but to attend; how could he not watch Hermione and Ron receive recognition long overdue them by the very Order that had decorated Dumbledore? He’d made it through the interminable speeches by various ancient wizards and officials. He’d watched with pleasure as Professors McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout received special commendations for bravery in protecting their students, as Bill and Arthur Weasley were noted and commended for their efforts to defend Hogsmeade (the Aurors had obviously had their own awards; Tonks and Kingsley had both received useless insignia for uniforms they seldom wore, and far more welcome pay rises).

He had felt so very grateful to be alive to see Ron receive his award, to watch his face flush with pride and see him soak in the admiration for his efforts he’d so long deserved. Hermione had been uncharacteristically quiet as she awaited her turn and Harry’d reckoned she was rehearsing her acceptance; he wondered if it would be house elves or an end to blood prejudice that won out as the issue if the night. Ron had evidently thought the same thing, but while Harry had been looking forward to her remarks, Ron took another tack. Returning from the podium himself, he’d taken one look at her and begged in a whisper, “for Merlin’s sake Hermione, can you let this one night just be about me doing something right? Forget about the bloody house elves or I’ll be hearing about nothing else for months.”

Harry remembered well the way her face had fallen, how her eyes had shuttered themselves with her curt and silent nod. She’d accepted her award graciously with a sparely worded response, and sat down again within moments.

He’d understood Ron’s feelings, because he knew Ron so well and felt in many ways responsible for some of his long-delayed chance to shine. Still, he could not help but feel the hurt in Hermione’s response, too. He knew her equally well, well enough to know on how many levels Ron had failed her in that moment. His turn to rise had come too soon after hers; his mind had still been abuzz with his friends’ discord. He’d hoped to make a point about the Wizengamot ignoring Remus’ enormous sacrifices to the cause and how much he’d managed to contribute despite the not insignificant burden of being a werewolf, when it happened. He’d ducked his head, received the medal around his neck, turned toward the audience and raised his hand to quell their polite applause… and seen tears running down Hermione’s lowered face.

The artfully designed and carefully decorated ice sculptures that adorned every table had promptly exploded. Violently. Shards of ice had shot everywhere, with the major casualty being the hollowed pumpkins filled with soup that were likewise scattered every several places at each table. Scalding pumpkin soup and flying slivers of ice attacked the crown with a vengeance. He’d been left gaping, horrified, and the only target of suspicion for a gaffe of that magnitude - a fact he’d confirmed by muttering an all too audible ‘sorry’ before he’d fled.

“I don’t understand,” he said now. “I think I remember everything that happened at the Order of Merlin thing, for example, but how does it relate to my protecting you? If anything, it would have been my fault if you were hurt.”

“I was angry with Ron because of him trying to tell me what to say that night. The morning the windows broke Ron had just accused you of siding with me in an argument. Just before the twins’ faucet exploded Ron made a joke about empty-headed girls admiring him. Harry, do you like it when Ron and I argue?”

“No,” he said honestly. “But you always have done, since the very beginning. It didn’t seem to bother you that much after awhile though, and you always came back for more, so I just kind of assumed that you guys liked doing it, that it was part of the way you um… you know. Got together.”

She sighed softly. “Do you think we make a good couple?”

He paused, the instinctive ‘yes, of course’ frozen on his lips. His heart was beating faster again, and he felt the telltale twitching of his magic like an angry cat’s tail within him.

“No,” he said slowly, feeling a traitor but honest at last. “I know he loves you, Hermione, but I don’t get… I wish… I just think that you shouldn’t have to put up with so much from one another to be together. I hate when he makes fun of your ideas, but I know where he’s coming from sometimes when he feels stupid around you. There are times when he says things that just make me think he’s never going to understand you, it’s painful to be there because I know it’s going to upset you the minute he says it. But that’s just me being a third wheel, I know it. I understand there’s stuff between you that has nothing to do with me and it doesn’t matter if anyone else understands it.”

He waited for the relief that should have sprung from finally expressing his opinion about them, but nothing came.

“That’s just it,” she said sadly. “There should be something behind it all, but there isn’t. There never has been. I always thought of you as my safe one and Ron as the one the sparks would fly with. It never worked out that way, and I never even came close to feeling with him what I did just now with you. Maybe it’s everything we’ve been through and almost losing you to Voldemort, maybe it’s growing up a bit. I don’t know. But just now, when you started to disappear… that was my very worst dream coming true right before my eyes. Harry, I can’t bear to keep on living a lie because I don’t want to hurt Ron’s feelings. I don’t think Ron is hugely happy with me either, and maybe he’s not breaking off with me for the same reasons.”

Her eyes lifted from the corded edge of the pillow her fingers had been worrying as she confessed and bore into him with weight of all she had said. “I still feel safe with you, but I don’t think I want you to be my safe one anymore. And if Elspeth is right in her theory about why your magic is letting loose, I thought that you might feel something for me, too.”

Harry sat very still on his end of the couch and stared at her.

“D’you mean you and me? That you actually want to be with me?” Words failed him and his brain flailed.

Ron would kill him… but Ron wanted a Megan Jones on the side because he thought Hermione didn’t want to… Sweet Merlin, what exactly did Ron want? That had felt like a pretty damn passionate kiss to Harry, not that he had anything that counted to go by… And didn’t it matter what Hermione wanted as well? He remembered the feel of her in his arms and his pulse flared again, along with something else he didn’t want to think about too closely. Gods above but it had felt wonderful, so right even when he had known it was wrong. How brilliant could it be if they were actually allowed…

Or how about digging his mind out of his pants and thinking about what she was really asking him? This was Hermione, after all, and she had just taken a huge and clearly uncomfortable risk, laying bare her feelings before him, uncertain still of his reaction. He owed her an answer, and if he managed to overlook the likelihood of Ron’s towering rage when he confessed to him what he was about to confess to her, he actually had the potential to have something good to him for the first time since Hagrid told him he was a wizard.

“I don’t know what my magic’s thinking,” he said slowly, trying to feel his way through the minefield before him, “but I’m pretty sure that I’m feeling a lot more than I’m supposed to for you right now. And I’ve loved you as much as I know how to for ages now, so it isn’t just, erm, that. I thought you felt sorry for me before; it’s why I wanted to disappear. I couldn’t bear for you to pity me for surviving Voldemort just to have all this happen and I thought you were holding things off with Ron because I was in the way.”

The sun was coming up now, but the windows in the room they were in faced west and the light was soft and dim. Hermione was propped against the arm of the sofa, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wound round them tightly. Her chin rested atop one knee and her eyes continued to survey him seriously. For the first time in a long while Harry didn’t feel like dodging their observation, as if measuring up to her standards now could change the whole of his life. Instinct told him he should do something; that despite having spoken the last words there was still something more she needed from him. She’d gone out on a limb for him, kissed him twice. The least he could do show her what he’d learned from that.

He gathered the last of his courage and shifted forward on to his aching knees, half crawling the distance between them until he was flush against the barricade of her drawn up legs. He reached out tentatively and stroked the back of her clasped hands with his fingertips, his eyes never leaving hers. She frowned slightly, seemingly torn, and then unclasped them. Her arms fell away from her raised knees. He took it as a lowering of defenses and leaned over them and kissed her, gently and questioningly, little more than a brush of her lips with his. She exhaled softly, eyes closing and lips parting; another barrier relinquished. Forearms braced on the sofa arm behind her, he let his fingers slip through the silky mass of her hair behind her neck before kissing her again, more confidently this time. Her hands removed his glasses; he vaguely heard them hit the floor but was too preoccupied now with the entrancing way her tongue felt beneath his to care. Without them an instinctive tilt of his head realigned their questing lips and brought them closer still. Her hands slid to his shoulders, to his neck, to his cheeks, brushing softly across his ears and then twining into his hair there and urging him closer still.

It was brilliant, amazing, and he was just wishing it would never end when her knees fell apart beneath his chest and he could feel suddenly feel her heart racing his through his own skin and it was all way too much for him to handle. He sucked in a needed lungful of air in a shuddering gasp and pulled back. She came with him, entwined, but her eyes flew open and met his again, dark and still serious and so familiar it almost hurt.

What was he doing? He knew with certainty now that they could both be so much more to each other than he’d ever even known how to want, but what else did he have to offer her? He could love her more than Ron, he was achingly positive of that, but his life prospects now were uncertain at best, nothing you could in good conscience share with someone that could have so much more with almost anyone else.

“You’re doing it again,” she said. “Thinking. Stop.”

“Hermione,” he heard himself respond, and tried desperately to pull his scattered thoughts together. “I have to stop now, and trust me; it’s not what I’m thinking you should be worried about.”

“You see what I mean, though,” she said. “Or maybe not? Am I making a fool of myself? Was it like that with Ginny…”

He couldn’t bear that comparison, or for her even to think it. He stilled her lips with his fingers and shook his head.

“No. And don’t. Let’s not…no matter what happens, lets keep this between you and me, not bring them into it. I’ll tell you this; I knew I was bad news for Ginny and I broke it off with her to keep her safe, but I could never make myself do the same for you. I know you can take care of yourself better than I ever could, it’s not that. I just don’t think I could bear to lose you, no matter what was between us. You’ve been my best friend forever, Hermione. What if I screw this up? What if it turns out like…”

“It won’t,” she said firmly. Being practical Hermione, however, she had a Plan B. “Still, let’s promise each other right now that if it doesn’t work out between us, we’ll forgive each other everything and never forget why we were friends to begin with.”

“If we can do that in a way that doesn’t involve anything more intense than pinky-swearing, you’re on,” he told her. She was for all intents and purposes sitting in his lap now, and he knew she could feel what he was talking about. Harry hoped that his magic was the only thing he didn’t have total control of at the moment, but he didn’t have much to go on there, either.

“That will do for now,” she said with a flushed little grin he found made him feel suddenly incredibly possessive. He’d never mentally connected Hermione with flushed little grins and hungry eyes, and he clung to Ron’s complaints from the day before to reassure himself that she couldn’t have given him that look too often, if at all.

“But I think before we say anything to Ron or anyone else, we should do the unbreakable vow.”

He felt a reflexive wave of panic at that; but managed to catch himself before he said anything stupid. If it meant they’d stay friends even if Ron beat the snot out of him and Ginny bat bogeyed wizard photos of them in the Gryffindor common room for all to see, what was there to fear? He might be rubbish at the mere notion of commitment, but he knew that he would never have reason to second guess her friendship, ever.

He only wished he could offer her the same.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 9

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Subject: Harry James Potter

Interview Date: Tuesday, July 15, 1998

Interview #: N/A

Observations: Something’s rotten in Denmark. And it’s not smelling so great here in the
Ministry, either right now

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

After my unexpected home visit to Harry last night, I took it upon myself to spend my morning doing a little research. It was partly inspired by his faith in calling me when he couldn’t rouse Hermione – that fact that he thought of me first and actually trusted me as much as any of the many healers he must have been exposed to since Voldemort’s defeat was pretty chuffing. Unless of course he’d truly panicked, and I was just the last person he’d spoken to that morning and thus on his mind… Even so there was still my daughter, who couldn’t stop talking about Harry and Hermione and now couldn’t wait to meet the infamous Ron Weasley as well. In retrospect letting her come along was not one of my more intelligent moves; if anything happens to Harry now I’ll be held accountable in Emily’s eyes, and trust me, those are eyes are not to be trifled with.

So I sat down and sifted through his file to pick out what we had of his medical records and treatment. I had glanced them over quickly before meeting with him and not seen anything that screamed ‘obvious answer.’ I read through them now more carefully, and with a very different set of eyes.

Harry was admitted to St. Mungo’s at 6am the morning after the confrontation apparently rook place at Hogwarts. Hogsmeade had been attacked that night as a diversion to make the Ministry and the Aurors think that Voldemort was proceeding toward Hogwarts, when in fact he was already there. The fighting in the town had been said to be fierce, and there had apparently been quite a few losses and injuries and magical maladventures on both sides, as well as amongst the general population who’d fought back to protect their livelihoods. All of these patients had reached St. Mungo’s well in advance of Harry that morning, as the invasion of Hogwarts was not discovered until the outcome of the battle for Hogsmeade was fairly settled, so it must have been to a chaotic and disordered facility that he first arrived. He was checked in under the auspices of a flustered Minerva McGonagall (if her signature was any indication, it had been far firmer signing my detention slips at Hogwarts) and a Ministry Auror first class named Hightower.

My instincts told me that Professor McGonagall had then returned immediately to her school and Hightower to the sweep up, because Harry’s first noted observation by a licensed healer was not until 8:50 am. Almost three hours later. Interestingly enough, the handwriting on this report gets more than a little shaky when it gets to his name. That sort of ‘oh shite I’ve just let Harry Potter sit on a gurney in the hall for hours’ sweaty palm shaky.

The observation was a triage statement, meant to identify his problems and rank him in the queue to be looked after. The top priority box was thusly checked, although he appeared to be holding his own fairly well then from what I could read between the lines. His pupils were listed as uneven but responsive; he knew and could provide his name and age. He apparently asked for a drink of water. The healer-in-training that looked him over noted that he displayed all the symptoms of being in shock, and included superficial bleeding head and chest wounds, probable fractures of both knee caps, spell burns on both hands and evidence of multiple applications of the cruciatus curse as the likely cause.

Yeah, because battling Voldemort and letting a dementor suck the horcrux out of your curse scar was no cause for worry, really.

His head clearly wasn’t spinning on his neck; he wasn’t spitting flames or speaking in tongues. If I knew Harry at all he’d just sat there wrapped in his itchy standard issue St. Mungo’s blanket and stared at the floor tiles wondering what the hell had just happened to him. He would quite probably have been devastated by the evidence of the destruction at Hogsmeade that surrounded him and resigned to patiently wait his turn.

I wondered where Ron and Hermione had been. Most likely still at Hogwarts Infirmary, since neither had been reported to be injured, an idea I found unlikely to be true given the circumstances. Their needs were probably well within the scope of Madam Pomfrey’s abilities and resources at the school, although it was my guess it was Auror Hightower who had insisted on Harry being taken to St. Mungo’s. I couldn’t see them as being particularly happy to be separated at that point, particularly Hermione.

I wrote that down as my first question; my second was to follow up on the absence of any indication that Harry had been leaking magic in unmanageable quantities then.

The next reports I came across in the stack were out of order and not standard St. Mungo’s forms at all. They were interviews of Harry’s healers by Ministry workers instead and the difference was both telling and frustrating as hell. They asked all the wrong questions, for one. It was clear no one from Spell Damage – or anyone else with a clue - was involved until much later. In fact, to add insult to injury, more than half were completed and filed by none other than Percy Weasley.

Good lord but he was a piece of work.

11am

The subject, Harry James Potter, appears to me after close observation to be unconscious. I did prod him once with my wand to ascertain whether or not the condition was feigned. Healer Eskabold Allweather informs me this is magically induced to help reduce the impact of the cruciatus curse on the nervous system and promote healing and is not in fact an attempt to avoid talking to Ministry representatives.

Potter is in visibly poor condition (not that he ever looked all that good, grooming and comportment never being an obvious priority during my personal acquaintance with the subject while at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where I was both prefect and Head Boy.) It is hard to believe in my professional opinion that he could have played any truly significant role in the demise of Lord You Know Who as he was clearly extensively physically battered and still reeks of what can only be YKW’s residual magic.

It is my opinion that his record as a willful abuser of underage magic regulations (see Wizengamot Disciplinary Hearing Records August 1995) and pathological liar and volatile attention seeker ( in the highly qualified estimation of Dolores Umbridge, past Ministry Secretary for Magical Education and currently head of the department for Bestiary Inspection and Tracking of Centaur Habitats or BITCH) should render his account of the encounter suspect and due diligence be exercised to double check his claims. It is far more likely that fear of the advancing Ministry Aurors approaching Hogwarts drove YKW to take his own life.

Percy Ignatius Weasley, Office of the Minister

Can you believe that odiferous pile of hippogriff leavings? It would be funny if it wasn’t an actual Ministry report and someone who didn’t know Percy was an officious little prig with a huge inferiority complex towards wizards like Harry might actually read it and believe a word of it. There are quite a few of his in there; he apparently spent a good bit of time at St. Mungo’s that week. The only interesting thing is he is the first to document Harry’s early magical power issues. Since Percy Weasley is hardly in the sensitive range as a magical barometer, it must mean that it was already evident and being otherwise kept quiet by the healers for some reason.

Apparently at some point around observation number three he made his daily attempt to see if Harry was pretending to be unconscious by poking with a finger rather than his wand. His whinging about the result was a wonder to behold. Magical menace and hazardous vessel of malevolent spell residue were two of the nicer things he called Harry. Oh, and ‘this attention seeking nuisance has placed himself at peril at the cost of the honest wizards who now pay for his magical rehabilitation, when Ministry Aurors could have neutralized YKW for significantly less’ has a receipt for reimbursement for new robes from Madam Malkins’ stapled to it. Apparently his sleeve was singed in the incident.

Day four brought about another interesting point of which I was unaware.

…The subject is conscious again today, although still pathetically incoherent and very difficult to interview to any degree of satisfaction. Healer Allweather assures me that the pain potions are necessary and unfortunately gave every indication that he would protest a Ministerial decree against their daytime use to facilitate the debriefing process, so I shall not be pursuing that avenue for the time being. I must however note that the subject was perfectly capable of recognizing and even managing excessive physical displays of affection for visitors. Ethical standards dictate I must disclose that those visitors included Ronald Bilius Weasley, Ginevra Molly Weasley, Molly Prewett Weasley, Arthur Weasley, Head, Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects, Bill Weasley, Fleur Delacour Weasley, Fred Weasley and George Weasley, all persons who claim relationship to myself. Any rumors to the account of a relationship beyond the order of House affiliation with Ginevra Weasley can thankfully easily be laid to rest by simple observation although unfortunately Ron still gets on with the unbalanced brat….

For anyone as self involved and uncaring as Percy to have had any knowledge of a relationship between Harry and his sister there had to have been some pretty blatant and persistent rumors. They could have snogged each other’s tonsils out in front of him and it would have taken someone else to call his attention away from his perpetual dissertation on his own importance to the Minister and his professional prospects. Was that why Harry seemed so oblivious of Hermione’s feelings? That could account for the hopelessness of some of those gazes she sent his way.

I suppose I should hope I hadn’t put my foot in it… but nah. I really think I’m right on this one.

Beyond messing about in his love life or lack there of, I found out very little else of value to assessing Harry’s medical condition, particularly in regard to his hands. Records I was quite sure should have been there appeared to have never existed and others were uncharacteristically vague for the usually meticulous Healers who signed them. On the plus side, however, I knew Eskabold Allweather fairly well through my training days at St. Mungo’s. Well, that, and his wife is my Aunt Heather. Who knew Uncle Eskabold was one of Harry’s healer’s?

I sent an owl asking him to lunch, feeling optimistic that I might be on the trail of some useful information at last, and his return owl came back with an enthusiastically scrawled ‘Merlin himself whispered in your ear, my dear! I’ve been positively craving lamb for ages and you know how Heather feels about that. Will The Augurey at one suit? I have the afternoon off and The Proprietor assured me a table will be available. Best ‘til then, Uncle Boldie.’

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I thought it best to meet Uncle Boldie with the few ducks I had in a row, so I took myself off down to St. Mungo’s. I considered asking the welcoming witch of the day for the Department of Magically Mislaid Medical Records, but she seemed to lack the requisite sense of humor. Instead, I got a Ministry Consultant badge and took myself off to consider my options.

Witches and Wizards think differently than muggles, and as such, their organizational systems require some mental adjustment. If you lead the sort of life that straddles both worlds, the adjustment can be huge and painful. For example, in theory it is impossible to “lose” a file in the Wizarding world. You simply cast an accio-name-of-the-file and it zips its way to you from whatever pile it was under or wrong drawer it was in. Of course, that can be a disadvantage as there are surely times that wizards – much like their muggle cousins – really, really wish that certain things would disappear. The difference is in how they go about it. Not having the accidentally-circular-filed option or the shove-it-under-the-pot-plant option, wizards hex their files. “Lost” wizarding files can bite, spontaneously combust, go blank, appear and disappear until your superiors believe you have lost your mind, shred themselves before your eyes or suddenly attack your coffee mug with disastrous result. Tracking lost wizard files requires the skills of a big game hunter. Tracking them in a large, busy institution like St. Mungo’s requires a certain element of insanity.

Harry had most likely gone through intake on the ground floor (Artifact Accidents-
Cauldron explosion, wand-backfiring, broom crashes, etc.) Most clearly physically injured patients start there, whether their injuries were artifact induced or not. I know he was transferred to the open ward on the fourth floor next (Spell Damage: Unliftable jinxes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms, etc.) Obviously still not a perfect fit; Voldemort hadn’t incorrectly applied a cruciatus in many years by the time he got to Harry. Unlawfully, cruelly and without remorse, yes, but he was still highly proficient at it. The only thing he’d incorrectly applied to Harry had been the killing curse those many years ago.

This sounds like splitting hairs, but it can be a big deal in terms of getting the right healer to cope with things. Harry’s hands are the direct result of an Artifact Incident, but who was really to say if he had misused the wand by turning it on its owner (typically wands work better for their owners, but will still produce a spell of varying potency while in the hands of another, even against their own wizard.) The fact that his own wand was the brother to the one that burned him could not be ignored, and a wand emerging from the ashes of itself, even a phoenix feather wand, was unheard of as far as I knew. Those facts pushed him well into the Spell Damage side of the spectrum. Treating that type of injury requires excellent collaboration by specialists in both fields. Persistence and a whole lot of luck didn’t hurt either.

It also meant that the files I was looking for could have been “lost” in a variety of ways and places. I decided to start on the first floor in Creature-Induced Injuries (Bites, stings, burns, embedded spiders, etc.) since I knew for sure he hadn’t been there.

Until today, anyway.

For there he was, sitting patiently on the edge of an examination table behind the windowed door of the very first room I passed, one knee swinging and the other propped along the table. He’d actually taken my advice on the Doxy bite! As I watched, however, his eyes lifted from their examination of the floor tiles and shifted across the room in response to something I couldn’t see, and he smiled. A real smile, the kind that curls your lips and reaches your eyes and everything. The subject of this rarity was out of my line of sight but I doubted very much it was his healer. In fact, I was fairly sure it wasn’t, because there were three healers clustered around a smoking beaker on a wheeled potions cart just up the hall, and this just wasn’t that busy a ward most times.

Much as I wanted to see who was making Harry so smiley, I was even more intrigued by the interest in that test beaker. I edged closer, pretending to be reviewing the top document in the file I carried.

“… doxy bite, of all things. He said his Ministry Spell Damage Specialist happened to be there when it occurred and gave him the anti-venom,” the first healer said.

“Bit of luck, that. Who’d have thought to test for yew poisoning?” The second agreed.

Yew poisoning? From a wand? That was crazy. For one, the wood of the yew wasn’t even the poisonous part; it was the seeds and fruit. Voldemort’s wand had to have been at least 70 years old and handled constantly… but it had burned, and been reduced to ash. Burned in a magical reaction, a result of magical force gone haywire. Interesting. Yew ash had all sorts of possibilities. But why had they found traces of yew poisoning now when they were looking at a doxy bite? They should have taken a blood sample and tested… ewwww. Was that Harry’s blood smoking in that beaker? That really wasn’t right.

I ducked back before they noticed me and into the room where Harry waited. He seemed relatively unsurprised to see me and took the invasion calmly enough; no spooking or running into things today. In fact he was grinning at me kind of goofily, with a really pleased expression. And look! The person out of my range of sight was none other than Hermione!

My grin must have gotten kind of goofy too. Hermione’s eyes narrowed slightly, then widened. She sighed. “Don’t get used to it; they’ve given him a solution of bugleweed, exstacia, goldenseal root, Norwegian scapwort and yucca. If he dies now, it will still take twenty years to get the smile off his face.”

“Hermermione,” he said with an attempt at mock sternness that failed completely. “Don’ be Mrs. Grouchy Knickers. I’m aslobutely fine.”

“You’re aslobutely out of your mind,” she told him, but she couldn’t help a little grin when she said it.

In contrast with his usual faintly cynical seriousness, this Harry was an aslobute hoot.

“They said the vantienom didn’t work so well, but I cn still go home later if Merhione watches me.”

“Good thing for you you’ve good such a good friend in Merhione,” I reminded him. “I suspect Ron would have alerted the twins by now and they’d be charging five galleons a peek in a pensieve for this in no time flat.”

He took this in and wrestled with it a moment. “Ron’s a goof friend,” he said seriously. His face took on a kind of wonder so innocent it could only be drug induced, but what he actually said next made it exquisitely obvious that it was real to him and he was speaking from the bottom of his heart - albeit through severely damaged inhibitions. “Don’t tell Ron,” he whispered, his eyes enormous and locked on my face, “but Merhione loves me.”

Merhione squeaked and moved quickly to his side, grabbing his good leg just above the knee in a death grip. He gazed down at her adoringly. My sense was she could have sawed it off and his expression wouldn’t have changed. Obviously last night had been productive indeed.

“That’s fantastic, Harry,” I told him. “You’re a very lucky young man. And I promise not to remind you tomorrow that you told me a word of this.”

Harry nodded agreeably; entirely clueless in his happy-potion land. The door to the examining room swung open and one of the three healers of the smoking beaker joined us, bearing a small odiferous cauldron. He eyed me suspiciously, so I introduced myself. Happily enough, I’d never met him before. Even happier, he’d never met me.

“Elspeth Hawktalon. I’m Harry’s Spell Damage Specialist from the Ministry.” I informed him.

“Arshmore Spingallon. I’m from AI, just up on CII for the consult. Most unusual case, fascinating,” he said.

“Were you one of Harry’s healers after the battle with Vold….”

“!” said Arshmore Spingallon, almost dropping his cauldron.

“You know who,” I finished smoothly as I could. One of those.

“Yes. We admitted him first, before he went up to Damage. Seems to have been some delayed reaction to the ahh, one of the erm, artifacts of the battle.” He looked at me closely, as if trying to decide which side I was on. As I wasn’t even truly sure what the sides were at this point, and thus my options, I kept mum on that. That was a question for Eskabold. I nodded encouragingly, as if I knew all about it, but committed myself to nothing.

“Could be accidental poisoning, could be an allergy. All we know is he tests positive for yew.”

Was it just me, or did that sound like a really great name for a song?

“And this was uncovered while treating the doxy bite?”

“We administered a second dose of doxy specific anti-venom, and he began to show signs of anaphylactic shock.”

Anaphylactic shock or even mild allergic reactions are actually unheard of in purebloods, and so poorly understood in traditional wizard healing circles. You can’t just give your average half blood or muggle born witch or wizard Benedryl or epinephrine either, unfortunately. For one, healers don’t do intramuscular injection, or any kind of shot, really. Wizards are utter babies when it comes to needles. Wizard physiology responds differently, anyway, and most anti-allergy medicines actually induce spastic hiccoughing that can last up to 48 hours. It took some time to come up with a good potion equivalent that was specific and fast acting enough, but didn’t cause even less desirable reactions to the wizard in question. Harry was lucky he was in St Mungo’s at the time, and I felt very relieved that nothing had happened after the first dose I had given him.

“It was when the reaction occurred you discovered the pre-existing yew issue? He certainly showed no outward sign of oh! That’s why they weren’t healing?”

His hands, stupid. I was so fixated on the smoking blood and the typical body-wide signs of poisoning it never occurred to me to think of the actual wounds where the wand had burned.

“We never thought about an allergic reaction,” Hermione agreed. “Although it seems as if it’s Harry’s magic that’s reacting and causing the physical effect, rather than the other way around.”

“Harry’s magic doesn’t like yew?”

“Does too! Likes her very much,” Harry asserted.

Giving in to the kind of laughter he was inspiring was NOT going to get Spingallon to take me seriously. I couldn’t look at Hermione though, because I was fairly certain she was in pretty much the same boat I was.

“Apparently not,” said Spingallon, who was thoroughly ignoring his patient now. “We’ve treated him with a cocktail of detoxifying ingredients, and we’re going to apply a neutralizing poultice for thirty minute or so and send him home. If that doesn’t clear things up, we might have to bring in the sneetches.”

Whoa. He wasn’t talking about the Dr. Seuss variety, either. Sneetches are actually magical leaches that slither in through open wounds and rid the wizard of stubborn poisons. They’re said to be most unpleasant. Try telling a wizard that muggle children have a story book about star-bellied sneetches and they’ll get that look that says Voldemort might just have known what he was talking about every time.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Hermione said, and she appeared so thoroughly repulsed I knew that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

“Fervently,” I agreed. I sure wasn’t going to be around for that treatment. Spell damage could do some unpleasant things, but just the idea of those things gave me the willies.

“Okay,” said Harry agreeably.

“Well then,” said Spingallon, setting his cauldron down by Harry on the examining table. “Let’s get this on then. The sooner we do, the sooner you can head home. We’ve already set you up and appointment for Thursday morning to see how it’s worked. Left or right first young man?”

“Left, I guess,” Harry told him, obediently extending his right.

Spingallon began unbuckling his bandage-holder, eying Hermione and I. “I assume one of you two is the licensed apparator who’s going to side-along him home? He’s in no shape to apparate, you know.”

“I really, really need to usethelittlewitchesroombackinamomentHarry,” Hermione managed, and fled.

“She’ll be right back,” I assured Spingallon. “She’s going to take him home. I have a lunch meeting with Eskabold Allweather.”

I never drop names unless it’s a real emergency. It seemed to work this time.

“Excellent. Top, top healer, Allweather,” Spingallon said. “Nice to meet you, then.”

I smiled and followed Hermione’s lead. There was no real point in saying good bye to Harry; he wasn’t going to remember any of this.

She was in the hall, doing something so hard there were tears streaming down her cheeks. She was either laugh-crying or cry-laughing. I’m sure an awful lot of it was stress-related. UST is hard on everyone.

“I take it the mate-sitting is going okay?” I asked her.

She just nodded, wordless. I think it was mostly laughter and she was just unused to being goofy around professional healers. Or maybe at all.

“If you need anything, anything at all, please call me,” I told her. “Harry’s not the only one who went through a lot these last few years, and it doesn’t make you any less smart to ask for help. It makes you brilliant, actually. Too few people do.”

She ducked her head shyly, but when she raised it a moment later it was as if she’d cast some wandless charm upon herself. Her eyes shone, her skin glowed, her hair, well, it was still pretty bushy and had a tendency to run to ringlets but it suited her, anything else would have just seemed wrong. She was transformed none-the-less, and the reason was completely clear a moment later.

“It was a really interesting night,” she said softly, almost a whisper, and gave me one of those I just had to tell somebody grins. “There is something I’d like to tell you about though, that could be important. Could I come with Harry tomorrow afternoon if your meeting is still on?”

I assured her she could and that I’d look forward to seeing them both. Interesting indeed.

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Well, that gave me both more and less than I’d hoped for. There was no time to pursue the missing records, but I had collected a bit of information Uncle Eskabold wouldn’t know. Hopefully we could put all the pieces together and start to see what it was all about.

So I apparated back to the Ministry, and flooed to The Augurey’s Best Guess.

Uncle Eskabold was already there, and he’d taken the liberty of ordering for us both. No real liberty; he always got the same thing when he came, and I liked it too. Lamb chops, two inches thick and still pink, fragrant with rosemary. New potatoes and sprouts for him, asparagus for me. Port for after. Always the same.

Aunt Heather Allweather is a very Glinda sort of witch. She loves puppies and bunnies and little lambies, and since they never had children, their place is overrun with animals. She breeds special puffskeins with long, silky hair, collects the sheddings and spins them into knitting yarn which she dyes herself. It’s high priced stuff, because she spins in custom charms and never reveals what they are or who they are sold to, so all the most glamorous witches have scarves or shawls knitted with her yarn. She sells regular wool too, made from the shearing of her sheep, so consequently eating lamb is not done in their household. You can lure him anywhere with a good lamb chop or a decent stew.

He greats me with a pleasure that is on a par with his evident joy at the arrival of the lamb.

“Uncle Boldie,” I asked him after we’ve both enjoyed our first delectable bites, “why didn’t you ever mention you were one of Harry Potter’s healers after the battle?”

“Never came up,” he said. “Didn’t like to make light of the boy in passing conversation, either. Bloody brave, doing what he did. And he didn’t get much help, did he. Not then, and not now. Why’d’you ask?”

“Because I’m working with him now. Scrimgeour got Clement to put me on the case specially, and I’ve a suspicion all is not what it seems.”

He seemed pleased with that news, and paused in the consumption of his second chop. “Really? But that’s excellent, Elspeth, excellent! The boy needs a witch with a clue in his corner. There’s a definite feel that Scrimgeour’s going to make a precedent out of Potter to set the tone for the post-Voldemort era. He’s had his aides poking round St. Mungo’s talking to all sorts of people in different specialties. Must think we’re complete idiots and that we never talk to each other, because as soon as you do it’s clear as day what they’re after.”

“What?” I asked eagerly, but he’d started in on has lamb again, and it was several minutes more before he could drag himself away to answer.

“He’s a wily old fox, Scrimgeour. A notch above Fudge for sure. The problem is he’s old, like me. Wizards live too long, we think we’re wise because we’ve seen so much, but wisdom only counts if you keep thinking clearly enough to apply it to the future. He’d like his legacy to be an end to the rising of dark lords based on fear of magical power rather than politics, but he’s not the sort who’d try to legislate individual limits the way Fudge would have done. He believes that a show of force is the only thing that keeps the other wolves in the pack in line, and that’s what he wants a clear shot to Potter for.”

“What to do you mean?” I asked him, puzzled. “How can what happened to Harry serve as anything but a lesson that the Ministry doesn’t support those who seek to keep dark wizards with from controlling the rest of us? I’d think the next one in line would see it as an incentive, the way he’s been treated. Who else would take on his role now?”

Eskabold nodded. “Too true, my dear. Too true! But what I meant was that I believe Scrimgeour is seeking to gain control of Potter to place severe limits on his magic. Irreversible limits that will leave him weaker still than you or I, to serve as a living reminder that the Ministry will act quickly to debilitate any who might wish to attempt to take Voldemort’s place.”

I shook my head disbelievingly. “But how would he do that? There’s no good method to do it short of locking him up in Azkaban, and even then with him you could never be positive. I don’t think Azkaban would have slowed down Voldemort for a minute.”

“That’s why he’s been having his poke round St. Mungo’s. He’s looking for a potion, spell or charmed object that will effectively neuter Potter magically but keep him around free for all to see as a lesson that power on the magnitude he possesses will be snuffed by this Ministry.”

“But is there really anything like that?” I asked him, repulsed by the very idea.

“No. At least not out in the open. No, the only other wizard I’ve ever known to ask the same questions as Scrimgeour,” Uncle Boldie said, choosing a sprout, “was Voldemort himself.”

“And did he find anything?” I wondered.

Eskabold smiled. “You are perhaps better situated to answer that question than most, my dear.”

I was? However he managed that connection amazed me, to say the least.

“How d’you figure that?”

“To whom do you think that Voldemort turned when he sought something of this nature? Something not openly thought of throughout magical history, an enormous challenge requiring a keen mind and warped moral fiber?”

Well, when you put it that way…

“Severus Snape,” I concluded.

Eskabold nodded enthusiastically, stabbing a potato with his fork. “Exactly. Now I’m not saying he did know anything about it, but who would have a better chance? I’d ask him if I were you. That, and how the boy could have stumbled onto the you-know-what business… you do know about the you-know-what’s?”

“The horc…” I started, but he cut me off, eyes flashing.

“I never subscribed to that nonsense of not speaking his name,” he told me, “but there is surely some knowledge best left unspoken and hopefully forgotten. It takes a deeply damaged soul to seek to rip itself apart, to accept the cost of murder to ensure immortality. A wizard has reached the point of no return with his magic then. No hope is left.”

He set down his fork then, clearly meaning to continue but actually put off his favorite meal by whatever he was about to tell me.

“We healers can’t view or assess the damage done to a soul. Even someone as truly gifted as you are in sensing the presence of magic gone wrong in another can not but guess at its effect upon their soul. As much as we know as wizards, that understanding is still beyond us, and it’s one reason magic can still surprise us. We know how intent affects magic, but our true intentions, while hopefully governed by reason, spring from our souls.”

A valid point.

He continued, “I had the closest look I’ve ever had at the heart of magic trying to heal Potter. To have born something as malevolent as Voldemort’s own horcrux within his scar those many years and to remain unaffected by it is a wonder. Even sealed as they are, powerful wizards have always been able to sense the raw darkness of such things, if not their purpose. To have lived with it as he did, day in and day out as a child, and not be taken over… simply amazing.. And removing it as he did, desperate as I’m sure he was to eliminate Voldemort’s every avenue of escape, was a horrible thing. You’ve seen the results of the kiss, Elspeth. How easily that could have gone wrong. Once finished with the horcrux, he had to fight off the very dementor he’d created before it turned to his own soul. That boy’s body is indeed riddled with magic, conflicting magics, and the imprint of it all is certainly physical. There is no wonder he can’t contain it, and yet he is healing. I should never have sent him home if he were not. I myself have great faith he will come to be able to control it all every bit as well as Dumbledore, for example. He can be that sort of wizard if just allowed the time to grow into it.”

And there was the continued evidence of balance in the Universe. The reason most of us kept slogging on. For every potential evil there was a potential good, for every Voldemort a Harry Potter. And for every Scrimgeour an Uncle Boldie. It was just up to the rest of us to keep trying to play our parts.

I smiled, and he took up his meal with returned gusto.

“Scrimgeour’s fears are not unfounded, Elspeth. They’re simply unfounded in this case because he hasn’t bothered to know Potter. You have your work cut out for you, though, and alas, you may not be wrong if you feel you were set up for a fall. Of course, if you manage to fall without toppling the Ministry itself, I’m sure there’s always a job for you at St. Mungo’s.”

It didn’t seem quite the time to broach my intended career change.

“Actually, there was one interesting possible breakthrough this morning. Did you hear from the first floor yet?”

“Creature Induced Injuries? Good lord, what’s the boy done now?”

“Just a doxie bite, but it turns out he had a reaction to the anti-venom. While they were looking for causes they think they’ve found that he’s been having a reaction to the yew ash and that’s been the problem with his hands, not a curse at all.”

I could see his brain ticking away with the information, filling and cross-filing and comparing notes. He’s aces at pulling obscure connections out of things, that’s what makes him such a good healer. I was hopeful that once it had time to percolate through his brain he’d come up with a solid next step.

If we could resolve the issue of the very visible evidence of Harry’s encounter with Voldemort that his hands represented it would be an excellent start. Without the bandages as a reminder there was one less reason for the general magical populace to believe there were any lasting effects from his confrontation. And just perhaps, if the events of last night served to chip away at the trigger that I believed lay in his unresolved feelings for Hermione, we might be left with simply helping him learn how to cope with the level of his own magic.

So why did my spidey-sense still tingle when it came to him? None of this appeared to be deliberate or intentional spell damage, yet I still had the most distinct feeling that there was destructive magic of intent at work within him. It was a mystery. One I was quite determined to solve.

“Port?” asked Uncle Boldie.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 10

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Hermione reflected that she’d just had one of the best days of her entire life.

She’d always thought that if Harry ever defeated Voldemort and lived to tell the tale; that would be the best day of her life. She’d imagined that everything would be perfect then. She and Ron would be free to really explore whatever was between them with some sense of a future. Harry would be free to go back to Ginny. Everyone she loved would be safe, the world would right itself and order be restored.

Nothing had turned out that way. She could admit to herself that she’d known even before the night of the final confrontation that things with Ron had the steep potential to go south. She’d become rather aware during that interminable year hunting down the horcruxes that the little frisson fighting with him produced wasn’t much next to the way that her heart had begin to cramp painfully for Harry whenever things got particularly scary. Or, to be honest; how that other, equally attention-grabbing little contraction quite a bit lower than her heart had started to be set off by the simple sight of him stretching sleepily, the hem of his tee shirt rising steadily higher along with the thrum of her pulse. Even once, she was almost ashamed to admit, in the adrenalin-charged aftermath of a close confrontation with Death Eaters lying in wait for them outside the back door of Borgin and Burkes. The subtle shift he did from just-Harry to full-battle-Harry then, the way his whole body seemed to catch itself up as though sucking the magic from everything around him in readiness had struck her as amazing. The feeling of it, a sort of pulling strong as the draw of the ocean in between waves, hadn’t been half bad, either. There was really no use just trying to ignore things after that.

That had been it, really. She realized that her feelings for Harry were both as complex as she was and as simple as hunger, and had grown with her all that last year. There had been less and less room within her heart and mind for anything else, slowly throttling the teenaged attraction she had felt for Ron and leaving just her love for him as her friend in its wake.

The night she’d admitted her feelings to Harry and found them returned had brought that last into painfully sharp focus. She did love Ron, she just recognized that the symptoms of their attraction, the banter and bickering, the jealousy that had come to such a head sixth year, were all just training wheels for the real thing. She couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life feeling the burn of envy when he looked at other girls with that look and she got ‘good old Hermione, you’re a girl, aren’t you?’ She couldn’t imagine it arguing about every little thing, every book, every Quidditch match, what to have for dinner. But she couldn’t imagine it without him in it, either.

There was so much good, so much genuine unwavering loyalty in Ron. She admired that, and she understood too that deep down him there were depths of affection that could well last Harry and herself a lifetime without ever nearing bottom. It was just that affection couldn’t compensate for love; telling herself that it was only lack of compatibility and expression between them couldn’t make her change her growing certainty that trying to salvage things with Ron romantically would estrange her from all she did love about him more surely than breaking up with him would.

Of course, it was also hard to reassure herself that she was making a reasoned and dispassionate choice for the best for Ron when the last twenty-four hours had brought to an inescapable head that all she had been sensing about her feelings for Harry was true, and then some.

He was surprising her, and she hadn’t thought it possible after all this time.

She should have. As much as she’d shared with him over the years she’d never come even close to pushing him in the direction they were moving together now, and she was fairly certain Ginny hadn’t found the way there either. The path to this portion of his heart appeared tender and un-trodden. Harry was clearly in the process of discovering what he thought and felt about the whole thing and it was amazing to watch, and even more amazing to be on the receiving end of it. It was not just that he seemed to be uncovering what if felt like to be allowed a whole different view of her; he seemed to be – she certainly hoped she was right about this – ever so slowly even taking a fledgling peck or two at the impenetrable shell that had held him together for so long. It was as if he had begun to realize much as he might want to, he could not truly reach out and touch her without breaking through the careful barriers, conscious and unconscious, that he had erected between them first.

Yesterday had been pretty much a write-off; it had taken him the better part of the afternoon to come down from his potion-induced and painless euphoria and she had basically shut him in his room for most of it, because the temptation to give in to this inhibition-free version of him was really, really enticing. Thankfully the effects had mostly worn off with sleep; she didn’t have to cope with hung-over Harry. He’d awoken achy and dehydrated but otherwise himself again; he seemed to have only the vaguest of memories of the entire thing and no real desire to explore them.

She smiled at the memory.

He’d appeared in the kitchen this morning bleary-eyed and wearing only the jeans he’d had on the day before, obviously on a mindless, instinctual quest for coffee. He’d started at the sight of her sipping her tea at their table and reading their Daily Prophet, and it had clearly taken him a moment or two to reconstruct things. Thankfully, the moment or two must have contained some of what she at least believed to be the finer points, because she was pretty sure she’d never seen the… she could only really describe it as bashful …look that overcame him and caused his eyes to drop in the most endearing way. He seemed to waver between further pursuing the coffee and turning tail and running for cover, or at very least more clothing.

Probably because she was staring. He and Ron were so different; it was odd to think of fancying both of them. It might have made more sense if she had been physically drawn to one and emotionally moved by the other. Harry had matured more slowly then Ron (Hermione privately thought having lived on scraps in a cupboard under the Dursley’s stairs for most of the first eleven years of his life might just have had something to do with it, but it didn’t seem polite to say.) He’d slogged on, pretending not to notice and to a degree yearly distracted by the more immediate need to stay a step ahead of his enemy. He truly hadn’t noticed around sixth year when things had started to pick up, had shrugged it off when Hermione had called him fanciable.

And then seventh year Harry had… what was is that good looking boys did? Girls bloomed, but you could hardly have said Harry blossomed that year. It was as if his own body had sensed what was coming, or perhaps it had been prodded on out of necessity by the surge in his magic when he was on his own following Dumbledore’s death. Either way Harry had grown; he was still shorter than Ron and leaner of frame, but there was something about the way he’d begun to move and use himself that signaled unmistakably the shift. All the latent intensity that had begun to show itself as his quest had changed from waiting like a good schoolboy for Voldemort’s next move to actively hunting his immortality down and destroying it shred by shred, abruptly suffused him physically as well.

Hermione was fairly certain a good bit of his attraction to those who didn’t know him was truly not knowing him; they romanticized the very facts of his life that had been most painful to him. They seemed to admire what they saw as the shadows of his past as if they were an attitude deliberately adopted rather than a pieced together defense. Her eyes saw him so differently. As undeniably physically attractive as she’d found his maturing sense of self, she felt also a sort of pride, almost a partnership in the fact that against all odds he was still there. The scars weren’t rakish or cool, they were the hard won proof of his determination, his successes and mistakes, lessons painfully learned but now a part of who he was, and she had helped get him there. She knew the story of each one; knew his body both intimately and not at all, and that particular counterpoint was…well, frustrating sometimes.

“It’s alright Harry,” she told him, then realized she was using the same voice she might adopt to lure a reluctant kneezle, and blushed. “Come in and sit,” she said more briskly. “I can make coffee for you if like.”

“Erm, thanks. I’m just going to…” his eyes flickered around the room desperately.

“Use the loo?” she offered.

“That’s it!” he said, and fled.

He was back by the time she’d managed the coffee, something she seldom drank but knew exactly how he liked, anyway. He’d found clean blue jeans and a tee shirt and looked considerably more at ease.

They’d passed a companionable breakfast, comfortable silences interspersed with bouts of easy and general conversation, and Harry had visibly relaxed. Hermione allowed herself to enjoy it thoroughly until the dishes were scrubbing themselves in the sink and Crookshanks was happily at work on the leftovers. They were due to meet with Elspeth an hour before noon; it was time to clear the air.

“Come and sit a moment, Harry, will you? We need to talk.”

His eyes took on a look first of puzzlement – they’d been talking all through breakfast, hadn’t they? – then dawning discomfort when he realized what she meant.

He sat on the far end of the sofa, unconsciously adopting almost the exact position she’d been in the last time they talked; shoved into the corner, arms crossed defensively over his chest.

“What do you think I’m going to say to you, Harry?” she asked, as gently as she could.

“We’re both of us rubbish at divination,” he countered unsteadily. “Just say it.”

So this was how it was going to be, then. Not for long, if she had anything to do with it. This wasn’t Hermione’s forte either; and just because she was a girl didn’t mean he could make her act like one. All the time, anyway.

She moved to the edge of the sofa and gently grasped his bandaged hands, forcing herself not to give in to her sudden curiosity to check on their healing. She made to unwind them, sensing first his slight resistance followed almost immediately by acquiescence. He’d never fight her, not over something like this, and she knew it. It was one of the things she loved about him; Ron would have made the most of it, sulking and trying to make her beg to change his mood. She sat quite close to him, deliberately invading his comfort zone and effectively blocking out any convenient distractions, before re-wrapping his arms around her waist. They tightened almost reflexively as soon as she let go, drawing her comfortably close, needing only to be shown what to do and given permission to do it. And betraying, of course, that he wanted her, but thought she was going to tell him it had all been a big mistake.

“We need to talk about us.”

His eyes regarded her gravely, waiting.

“Were you serious that night?” she asked, thinking it best to keep things uncomplicated.

He nodded once, cleared his throat froggily and nodded again. “Of course I was, Hermione.”

Her heart leapt but she regarded him calmly, allowing her eyes to meet his and remaining still. They stared at each other in silence for some endless amount of time until his brain caught up with what she was doing.

“Oh… umm. Were you? I mean, I think you were, you always say what you mean. It’s one of the best things about… I mean, umm, I really like that about you,” he blurted.

He was so sweet, really. It was another of the things she liked best about him; that fact that he could be so gentle with her when she knew so well now how fierce he could be in her defense. Ron would defend her to the death from anyone else, then turn around and treat her like …

It was past time to stop that now for good. She needed to stop comparing them. She’d fairly well made her choice and it was going to be hard enough finding a way to salvage Ron’s friendship without any more of that. Ron was Ron; Harry was Harry. She didn’t want either of them to change; it was she who had changed, or perhaps simply opened her eyes now that school was behind them and real life ahead.

“Thank you,” she said, allowing herself to lay her hand gently on his leg. The muscle twitched sharply beneath her fingers. “And yes, I was.”

There was another silence as he processed this.

“Hermione, I don’t know how to do this right,” he started falteringly. “I… You mean the world to me, you always have. I’m honored, I feel incredibly lucky that you would even think that you could feel this way about me. Half of me just wants to wallow in it and do whatever it takes to make you the happiest girl, erm, woman, unh, ever. The other half wants to warn you off me like a rabid werewolf. Both of them truly care for you, and I’m not entirely sure which one I should be listening to.”

“The first one, of course. I’ve known you far too long to be warned off, Harry. And I wanted us to talk it through a bit before going to see Elspeth, because, well… she knows.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “You said that the other night…”

She shook her head, making sure she had his attention. “It’s different now. She suspected what I told you then, it’s what finally made me think about us clearly, but you told her yourself yesterday. You were a little, well, influenced, by the potion they gave you for the reaction…”

He groaned softly and buried his head in his hands.

“It’s just that she’s very nice, Harry, and I know she’d never say a word to you about it unless you did yourself first. I thought you should know.”

“What exactly did I say?” he asked from behind his hands.

“I believe your exact words were ‘don’t tell Ron, but Merhione loves me.’”

He winced; she could tell even from behind his hands because it was sort of a thorough, full-body shudder. “Merhione?”

She nodded and allowed herself the smallest of grins. “You also called me Mrs. Grouchy Knickers, but I’m not going to hold it against you. Honest.”

The hands dropped down again and he stared at her wonderingly. “Thanks. You ought to, really. Sorry about that.”

“It’s not the end of the world, Harry; I just thought you ought to know before we go to see her. I’m coming with you, because we’re going to talk about your little fading incident the other night as well. You really scared me that time and if we’re going to be together that’s something I need to understand. Something you need to be able to control. I couldn’t bear it if it ever happened for real.”

He nodded acceptingly; she was fairly certain he’d rather face the Hungarian horntail from fourth year naked and with his hands tied behind his back than discuss his magical impulse to disappear with Elspeth Hawktalon, but that was really just too damn bad. There were probably always sacrifices to be made in the name of love, and she was fairly certain she could make it worth his while. She was enjoying that part as well, so far at least, and was intrigued to move it along.

It was incredibly empowering to feel the roiling surge of Harry’s overcharged magic just beneath the surface of his responses to her touch. Oddly enough, imagining all that coming to a point where he could be brought willingly (or helplessly) to relinquishing control wasn’t frightening her in the least; mental images of him doing so had filled her dreams the night before. She wondered briefly what that said about her. If he could almost vanish himself in desolation, what might he be able to do in a particularly…. happy moment?

The thought of the exploding ice sculptures and gushing pumpkin soup from the Order incident wasn’t helping anything, either.

She took hold of his hands and guided them back around her, allowing herself to slide forward against him hesitantly. To give credit where credit was due, he might need a nudge in the right direction but once there he seemed to have all the right instincts. There was something in the way he held her just before he kissed her that brought home all the things she had sensed were there over the last year. She felt admired, respected and cherished all at once, precious. It was a lovely, lovely feeling and she let it wrap around her as closely and warmly as his arms.

That someone who had probably never known comfort like that from another could convey it so clearly moved her deeply. As much as she sensed he was taking pleasure in touching her, he was clearly seeking to please her as well. What started out as a kiss had slipped easily into a wordless conversation of sorts; every new touch a question, every answer leading to another attempt to draw closer still. He was very quiet himself, but she soon found that her slightest sound was quickly interpreted and resulted in a furthering or backing off of his lips or fingers.

Being Hermione that just wouldn’t do; she was determined that he would participate equally. Moan, groan, hiss… hell, she wouldn’t mind if he squeaked at this point, but he was going to use that mouth for more than just … Wait, was she out of her mind? Only if he could do it while not stopping that for a second, then. He was exploring the join of her neck and her shoulder; the combination of gentle nudging from his nose and the warm slide of his lips setting off the most incredible and vivid urges in the fingers she’d buried in his hair to guide him lower, elsewhere. She wasn’t even exactly sure what she wanted him to do, except to never stop feeling this way for her. She was pretty sure she could easily settle for a lifetime of those kisses exploring every inch of her and never look back.

Except that he was distracting her from her goal; and time was running out. He was being a perfect gentleman; his fingers curling ever so slowly and gently along her sides but never slipping lower than the hem of her shirt, so using hers anywhere immediately obvious was out. Gently lipping his ear, so conveniently close, unfortunately proved ticklish and while it did elicit a sound, surprised laughter wasn’t exactly what she was going for. It did bring them back face to face though, and Hermione always had a plan b. Today’s was called “wing it.”

She brushed his lips with her own, just barely. When he came slightly forward to respond she pulled back. He backed off, surprised, and she moved forward softly again, only just connecting. The slight touch was clearly enough to move him; his lips were already parting as he came toward her again. Again she leaned slightly back. He held steady this time, observing her, and she observed the unevenness of his breathing through those still-parted lips. It was like teasing a cat with a bit of paper on a string, she could almost see his tail twitching and it was only a matter of time until he pounced. She deliberately allowed the very tip of her tongue to moisten her upper lip and found herself suddenly and pleasantly on her back, his elbows propping him just above her. The strain of holding himself there was making lovely things happen in the subtle shifting of his shoulder muscles beneath her hands and she couldn’t help but smile.

“What?” he asked, with a slow answering grin that shook her confidence that she was even at all in control of the situation.

“It’s, um, almost time to leave to meet Elspeth,” she told him.

He groaned then. It was just a soft little sound of disappointment; perfectly appropriate as a response to having to turn from what they were doing to something else that was hardly on his top-ten list of enjoyable ways to spend time. The thing of it was it still vibrated through his chest just the way she’d hoped, the same chest that was now partially flush against her lower half and weighting her down into the sofa cushions. And there she was; victim of her own success, left suddenly fighting for her own breath.

“Bloody hell, Harry,” she whispered, and pushed up into him for one last kiss, “promise me you’ll remember exactly where we were for next time. I need to hear that again.”

“What again?” he managed, confused but eager still to please. “I didn’t say anything.”

“That little sound you made right before I did this,” she reminded him, trying that one last kiss one more time. They improved with practice, both of them. And it had been more than good enough to start with.

“Do that again,” he panted when their lips finally parted; “and I guarantee you will.”

A really, really good day. And it hadn’t even reached noon then.

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Then there had been their meeting with Elspeth.

It hadn’t started off all that well. When they’d arrived at the Ministry to collect her and head to the coffee shop it was to find her waiting for them with something that looked suspiciously like fury in her hazel eyes. Hermione noticed that when she was angry they took on more of Harry’s sort of green.

“We need to meet here today,” she said, tight lipped “in the conference room. With our little friend Leonard the Auror, although I can still send him away out to the hall and bloody trust me, I will. I’ve just had my chain yanked a bit.”

Hermione saw a large young man lurking several doorways away down the hall, looking every inch the Auror and thus, as Tonks would surely say, not a very good one.

She saw Harry’s mouth open and she knew with the certainty of long time friendship that his next word would be ‘sorry’. She was surprised; however, that having been acquainted with him such a relatively short time that Elspeth obviously knew it too.

She cut him off. “And don’t even go there, Harry. You’ve got far more to worry about than I do. Come.”

She led the way to the conference room upstairs and opened the door, indicating they should enter before her. Harry led the way and Hermione moved close behind him. When the looming Auror made to cut her off Hermione saw Elspeth raise her hand.

“Stop. Heel. Sit. Outside. No arguments either, you know I can tell you to do that.”

“If my presence appears to be inhibiting your investigation and you have it under control,” the Auror grumbled. “You don’t know either yet. And what’s she doing here?”

“Your presence inhibited my investigation with this subject once before, and you were there when he assured us both I was in no danger.” Elspeth told him. “Case closed. Like the door.” She closed it, shutting him off from view, and held her finger to her lips.

Hermione was treated then to some of the most singular magic she had ever seen. Elspeth’s wand arced through the air and several detection charms displayed the magic already at play in the room. She seemed to spend a moment identifying them and soaking in their counter play. Apparently satisfied, she began to weave a complex web of spells and charms the scope of which reminded Hermione more of what she knew of muggle computer programming (if spell one equals an activated listening charm, then go to charm eight, simulated false alarm) than magic. It was nothing so simple, but it was based entirely on anticipating and fooling or deactivating each of the many spells within the room without letting their casters or monitors know that anything was amiss, and it was a work of art when completed. It was cat burglar magic, but quite amazingly stealthy in its approach and Hermione and Harry, who had done a bit of the same while hunting horcruxes, were floored.

“That should do it,” she said at last, and collapsed into one of the chairs around the scarred wooden table. “Have a seat.”

“You,” Harry told her as he pulled out a chair for Hermione, “are really, really good. Scary good, as a matter of fact. Why is it you work here again?”

Elspeth laughed. “Because it’s legal?”

Hermione was amazed at the rapid change in her mood. She seemed to have utter faith in her magic foiling the many spells that had awaited them and was now visibly relaxing.

“What happened?” she asked.

Elspeth smiled ruefully. “Well, it was really only a matter of time, wasn’t it? I tried to be honest with Harry at the outset. I figured they’d only picked me to do this because they thought me incompetent to succeed, so I felt fairly confident about treating him just like anyone else. And I don’t think they’ve twigged anything specific, actually, I think things may have just progressed to the next inevitable step.”

“Which is?” Harry seemed calm enough, but Hermione found herself undergoing the stomach flutters of premonition. Infinitely less fun than the kind she’d been enjoying earlier and so all the more obvious clamoring for her attention.

“Scrimgeour’s office received word of your visit to St. Mungo’s. The subtleties between your body’s negative reaction to the burning yew wood of Voldemort’s wand and ‘Potter still reportedly bears evidence of open curse wounds as a direct and continuing result of magic applied by You Know Who’ obviously escape them. Or at least, that was Percy Weasley’s translation of what your healers told him.”

“Percy Weasley outlived his usefulness as a human being sometime around his third year at Hogwarts. Choosing him for prefect was one of the biggest mistakes Dumbledore ever made; he’s been an insufferable git ever since.” Harry told her. “Ron despises just being related to him.”

“Unfortunately, he’s got Scrimgeour’s ear. Not that I don’t think the Minister doesn’t peg him for the git he is, but an easily impressed self-important git can be a very useful weapon in the hands of a ruthless leader,” Elspeth said. “Scrimgeour really wants you… regulated.”

“Exactly how regulated are we talking?” Harry wondered.

Elspeth seemed to weigh her response carefully.

“Harry, my job is supposed to be to determine the presence of destructive or negatively applied spells on you and to reverse them. It’s going well beyond my scope to tell you what I’m about to, so I feel compelled to let you know that my sources are all unofficial, and quite a lot of what they had to say was bought with meals at a traveling Wizard’s pub.”

She eyed him carefully and he nodded his acknowledgment of her warning.

“Oh, and one of them just might have been, erm, Severus Snape.”

Hermione’d felt it right away then; but it was different than before. At the house when the windows blew, or even earlier at the Order of Merlin ceremony, his magic had just let loose. Exploded. There’d been no warning, at least none that anyone other than Harry could have determined. This time it was more like the full adrenalin situations where she’d felt him sort of suck the energy out of his surroundings before he let fly. The distinction seemed small but she knew it wasn’t; this was what his righteous anger felt like when it got away from him.

She’d felt it coming, but she’d just sat there, too stunned yet to act. Elspeth, on the other hand, seemed to have foreseen the possibility. Of course, she’d known she was going to bring up Snape as well.

Hermione saw her cast a webby blue shield over the three of them; Harry’s loosed flare of raw magic ricocheted around the room bouncing off the charms she’d so carefully wrought, perhaps for this very purpose. Harry himself cursed and extended his hand. His fingers first splayed and then contracted and twisted sharply. The flare of energy shattered into thousands of tiny black bats that shimmered and squeaked until they winked out of view like the spent ashes from Ginny’s note.

Harry could say the name himself, carefully, of course and in a joking manner, but she’d always seen that trouble was coming from that direction by his reaction when it was brought up by anyone else.

“Effing marvelous,” he raged as soon as the bats were gone and Elspeth had lowered the shield, watching him avidly. “I can not believe you would discuss me with Snape over food. You must have a bloody good stomach and very little taste.”

Elspeth face remained neutral, but Hermione got the sense she was working hard to keep it so and Harry might just get his own chain yanked if he wasn’t careful. She was pretty sure Elspeth was one of those who’d know just how to yank for maximum effect, too.

“As a matter of fact it took the pleasure right out of my dinner,” she said evenly. “I left it to him. But not, I think for the reasons you suggest. It was Snape who finally clued me in to what happened the night you killed Voldemort. I thought if I waited for you to trust me enough to tell me, my hearing aid and senile dementia might get in the way.” She leveled her gaze on him in a manner that recalled part of her surname. “Tell me Harry, if you hate him so, why did he tell me it was your testimony that kept him out of Azkaban?”

“Because it was,” Harry snarled. Hermione hadn’t heard him make a sound like that since… well, since the last time he’d seen Snape, probably. “Because he didn’t deserve Azkaban, not the way the laws are worded or what they do to you there, although I’ve always thought even a Dementor would spit out his soul in distaste. He’ll get what’s coming to him some day, I’m sure of it. Can we just forget him and move on?”

Their eyes met and held; Harry’s and Elspeth’s, and Hermione recognized that something passed between them then, something perhaps neither fully understood. They both seemed uncomfortable, defensive and equally sure that they were right and the other wrong, but there was a current of respect on both sides that appeared to make them equally unwilling to outright defy each other. One thing stood out to her, however; Elspeth didn’t like Snape any more than Harry did. She’d just had longer to cope with it, or learned to hide it better.

“Fine,” said Elspeth crisply.

“Fine,” Harry echoed, still with a shadow of a growl to his voice.

“Oh for Merlin’s sake,” Hermione told him. “Grow up. This is serious. We need to know what’s on the Minister’s mind, Harry, and Elspeth needs to know about your little fade out the other night. Let’s get on with it. I believe we were at ‘exactly how regulated’?”

Elspeth rearranged her expression from affronted friend to professional Spell Damage witch. “Scrimgeour’s office has been nosing around St. Mungo’s and apparently elsewhere as well, looking for a non-reversible way to limit someone’s magic,” she told him. “There’s even word floating around about it in Knockturn Alley. He wants what he wants, no matter where it comes from, and apparently the scuttlebutt is that the Ministry is willing to fund it.”

“And guess who’s magic that would be,” Harry said tiredly, pushing up his glasses and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Well I suppose I knew it was coming…”

Hermione had been outraged and upset when they had taken Harry’s wand; she was infuriated now. All of the moral anger she’d felt for the plight of the house elves suddenly discovered its new home and suffused her. She wished her magic was strong enough to blow the top off her frustration.

Witches and Wizards were sheep. Idiots. Their entire history was full of ridiculous squabbles over power. She should know; she’d actually stayed awake for most of it, unlike the rest of them. Maybe it was time to make some history even Binns couldn’t make boring.

“It’s NOT coming. Over my dead body it’s coming! You gave up your entire childhood to some bigoted Muggles and a stupid prophecy just to free them from something they were too scared to name. Well, Voldemort’s reign of fear is over and you paid the price for it. It’s about time the average witch and wizard on the street said their ‘thank you’ by booting scheming old men like Scrimgeour and anyone that will listen to him out of office.”

“It’s not as easy as that, Hermione,” Harry began soothingly, but she was on a roll.

“Nothing worthwhile is easy! Defeating Voldemort was hardly easy. But what you did, all you are now, it has to count for something. Harry, what if we were to have children some day and one of them inherited the type of magic you have, would you let anyone interfere with them?”

Hermione watched realization dawn slowly on Harry’s face. She could see it had never occurred to him, even for a moment, and she almost forgot how angry she was as she saw him struggle and cautiously accept the possibility of children in his life. She could tell almost to the moment when he got past their potential likelihood to grasp the reality of them, and then to the thought of anyone affecting their magic in any way. His whole body stiffened and she wondered, desperately, what he saw in his mind’s eye.

Elspeth looked extremely curious as well, but more than just a little nervous about Harry’s reaction. Hermione realized she had a point; it was a perfect opportunity for Harry’s magic to blow yet again.

It didn’t.

“No,” said Harry, in a voice she barely recognized as his own. “No,” he said again, stronger and more himself. “I couldn’t let that happen.”

His eyes rose from their blind examination of the table’s worn wood grain to hers and she was fairly certain he’d forgotten for the moment Elspeth was even in the room. “I would never let that happen, Hermione.”

“Then don’t,” she begged. “It’s not right if they do it to you either, Harry. You’ve done nothing to deserve it and if you let them the precedent will be set and then where will it end? No witch or wizard should ever be forced into using or losing their connection to their own magic against their will. It’s just plain wrong, and no amount of rhetoric and fear mongering will ever make it right. Fighting a thousand Voldemorts would be better than what we’d all become if Wizards accept that idea.”

“The problem,” interjected Elspeth gently, “is that until Scrimgeour makes his move there’s little enough you can actually do, and by then it may be too late. You can’t publicly accuse him of something he hasn’t done yet, and even if you try to galvanize support quietly he’ll hear of it. You need to know exactly what he’s pursuing as a solution, or if he even has one already. That’s where erm, sorry Harry, but Snape comes in again. It was your own healer who suggested he was more likely than anyone alive today to have some inkling if it already exists, or how to do what Scrimgeour wants. We both know that it’s only too true.”

Harry’s face revealed both his displeasure and reluctant agreement.

“There are things we can be doing in the meantime, too,” Hermione pointed out. “There are still ways of making a preemptive strike, or at least making him think twice about the cost of what he’s doing. We can petition the Wizengamot to legislate against what he’s doing before he even does it without naming names at all. I know they’re slow and they take forever to get to things, but we can still start. And we can get the press to look at the issue too…”

“Because we know the Daily Prophet isn’t in his pocket or anything, and they dearly love me,” Harry said bitterly.

“You’re forgetting someone who does dearly love you, Harry. Luna. Luna would get her father to back you in anything you do, you know that. And the Quibbler has come a long way since fifth year; lots of norm… regular people read it now.” Hermione reminded him.

“You know the publisher of the Quibbler?” Elspeth questioned.

“His daughter. Luna Lovegood was a year behind us at Hogwarts. She grew up in Ottery St. Catchpole near the Weasley’s.” Hermione explained. You never knew how people were going to take that, so many saw the Lovegoods as a family of loons. Luna had proved herself every bit the Ravenclaw and yet still true of heart more than once in Harry’s eyes, and that was good enough for Hermione.

“That sounds to have more practical application than the Wizengamot then, although you, Hermione, are perhaps the one person I wouldn’t put it past to get them to move their ancient and most venerable bums. I warn you though, if the Quibbler starts banging a drum over magical rights without direct provocation there’s only one place Scrimgeour’s office is going to look and he’s sitting between us. Well, maybe me as well, but that’s no big deal.”

“We don’t want to get you into trouble,” Harry mumbled. “You’ve done enough for me as it is.”

Elspeth laughed then, a warm and reassuring sound. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Harry. I was literally on my way to Clement Bagnold’s office to hand in my resignation when they dropped you into my lap. Well, your paper work, anyway,” she said, laughing again at Harry’s blush at the first image. “I stayed on for one reason. I wanted to meet the boy who lived and see what makes him tick. Well, I’ve met you, but I’m hardly sure what makes you tick and I’m still ninety eight percent sure you’ve got a bad spell on you somewhere. I’m not giving up on you, not yet. Now tell me,” she turned to Hermione, “what you meant about Harry fading out.”

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Elspeth had clearly been intrigued by Harry’s halting admission of wanting to simply disappear and almost achieving it. Hermione credited her with mostly hiding it behind a very professional and reassuring demeanor. She questioned him gently but at some length, pursing avenues Hermione realized she herself would never have thought of. He’d never told her of the other voice he’d heard, for example, and that pointed things in some very specific directions. He’d said he wanted to just disappear, not to die. He’d not been overtly ill when she’d called him back, his heart had never stopped. He’d been cold, though, and she could remember keenly the feeling of his body almost re-assembling itself, bones and muscle, blood and skin around her hands. Had he been undergoing a form of apparition then, to somewhere else here, or slipping between the streams of time and space somewhere else beyond what they knew?

“With Harry anything seems possible,” Elspeth admitted, “but in my experience it’s always worth ruling out the most probable and obvious before heading off into the unknown. You just never know where that’s going to land you.”

“That’s the problem, though,” Harry said. “I’ve no idea where I was going to land. I didn’t want to go anywhere, I just sort of wanted to be nowhere.”

“Would it be asking too much to know why?” she prodded gently. “You can just say so if it is.”

Harry appeared distinctly uncomfortable but seemed to reach a decision. “Well, as Snape would be no help to you this time,” he started off falteringly, “I was thinking…”

“He certainly wouldn’t then,” Elspeth told him with a grin. “He appears to believe you haven’t had a complete thought yet.”

It had been a clever little trick and bore galvanizing results.

“Hermione’d just kissed me, actually,” he said, his voice stronger this time. “And it wasn’t a bit like the ‘good luck with the Muggles and keep your chin up’ one in King’s Cross after fifth year, either. It kind of shocked me. In a really nice way,” he said with a sidelong glance at Hermione, “but I… surprised myself. With how much I’d wanted it, actually. And then it was like reality came flooding back and I realized I’d erm, done something you really aren’t supposed to do with your best mate’s girl, even if you’ve been friends with her for every bit as long. And I thought she’d been taking pity on me and I’d taken it wrong…”

“And it seemed like one more tragedy in the life of Harry Potter,” Elspeth said. “Don’t take this personally, you two, but it’s just an old, old story with a twist. Ever heard of Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot? Stuff happens, people change; life goes on. It’s only tragedy if you let it be, and look what happened to them! We’re all still reeling from their bloody overdeveloped sense of chivalry. Neither of you two are exactly cut out for vows of celibacy from the look of you. And quite frankly the merest idea of Hermione in a nunnery just makes me want to break out in mad laughter even the charms I just put on this place wouldn’t hold. Take my advice and tell Ron now, the moment he comes home, both of you. Let him get as mad as he wants to, just don’t let him feel for a moment he’s been betrayed because he hasn’t. You guys are so young, you only feel old because last year might as well have been twenty for all you went through. You’ll get through this in one piece if you’re just honest with each other and realize life is a journey, not a destination.”

It was too late to turn back; they’d already been glancing each others’ way. Harry and Hermione both dissolved into laughter.

“Merlin, Elspeth, why don’t you tell us what you really think?” Harry gasped out.

“Well, since you’ve asked…”

“He can silence you without a wand,” Hermione warned her, “look out for his hands.”

“I think that would be your problem, missy. And before this descends into even deeper juvenility, can I just say I think you two make a very lovely couple, really, and move on? The angst is killing me; I’m too old for all of this.”

“On the plus side,” Harry told her, “I don’t feel like disappearing anymore.”

He’d run his hands on up through his fringe trying to wipe the laughter from his face; his hair was even more on end that usual and his cheeks were faintly flushed. Hermione thought he looked happier and healthier in that moment than she remembered seeing in him months, certainly since Voldemort’s defeat, anyway. Bloody Scrimgeour could get stuffed.

“Hold that thought then,” Elspeth said, “and I’ll keep looking into the other. I’ll let you know what I find out next time.”

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So here they were; back at the boys’ flat and waiting for Ron. He’d owled Harry to say he’d be back around ten in the evening and it was almost eleven now, but then he’d had never exactly been punctual and she wasn’t really worried.

Harry was sitting beside her at the kitchen table worrying the label off a muggle beer and feeding Hedwig leftover sausage bits from the Toad in the Hole he’d managed to make them for dinner. Hermione had tried not to enjoy his domestic side too much because she knew its roots lay with the Dursley’s, but it was hard not to like a guy who could put dinner on the table without whinging about it and still look good bending over the oven door as well.

A sharp crack! announced Ron’s arrival. In typical Ron style, however, he’d ended up facing the wall instead of into the room and it was hard to tell who jumped more; Harry at the sound; or Ron at the sight of both of them waiting for him when he turned around.

“Well there’s a welcome,” he said. “I thought the two of you would be in bed.”

Harry snorted beer out his nose and Hedwig fled, hooting shrilly.

“Tastes better going down than coming up mate.” Ron said with a laugh, dumping his Quidditch gear to the floor and kicking it aside. “Got another of those around?”

Harry gestured to counter where a bottle already awaited him, still coughing.

“How did it go?” Hermione asked to fill in the gap. “Have you heard?”

“It was brilliant!” Ron enthused. “Loads of great players, not a seeker in sight who could have touched our Harry here, but there was some brilliant scrimmaging and practices with B&I league keepers and everything. Great fun. We’re not supposed to find out if we’re going to get offers from any of the teams until after we get back home, but a chaser from Durmstrang got an Owl on his way out the door! He was wicked good though, could have skipped his last year of school entirely.”

“Because there’s absolutely no chance of getting hurt playing Quidditch and having to fall back on something as insignificant as an education,” said Hermione, before she could stop herself.

“Play long enough and you can fall back on just having played,” Ron pointed out comfortably.

“Yes, Ludo Bagman’s career is an inspiration to us all,” she retorted. “Being such an idiot you don’t even realize who you’re passing information on to is something more of us should aspire to. He almost ended up in Azkaban, Ron.”

“But he didn’t, did he? And you can’t tell me playing for the Wasps the way he did didn’t have something to do with it. Brilliant beater he was, never missed a bludger and kept his chasers in the clear.”

“So selling us all out to Voldemort through Augustus Rookwood for a Ministry job after his Quidditch days were over was justified, was it? Bagman was so dim he didn’t even…”

Harry’d been periodically coughing all along but the cough that cut her off this time was different because his foot followed up beneath the table. Oh, right. The talk.

“Ron…” she started.

“Hermione,” he grinned back. “You’re lovely when you’re mad, you know. Not angry, mind you, but truly mad.”

“Right,” she said. What the hell was she supposed to say to that? Thanks, but listen, I think we should see other people?

“So what did you two get up to while I was gone?” he asked. “Harry mind his manners?”

Harry set down his beer; it was clear there were going to be no safe opportunities in which to drink it anytime soon.

“Place looks alright. How many thing’s did you have to repair for him? I had to do the toilet just before I left.”

“It’s been fine, actually,” she said, glad his only incident in the flat had burnt itself out without leaving a scrap of evidence. Except for the reason for this whole bloody conversation, anyway.

“Ron, we need to talk,” she finally managed.

“Bloody hell,” he complained, turning to Harry, “that’s her relationship voice. Can’t it wait until tomorrow, Hermione? I’ve just this minute got back in the flat.”

“No,” she said firmly. “It can’t. It’s because I love you that I have to tell you I don’t think that I love you right now, before it goes any further and someone gets hurt.”

“Erm, said Ron. “What?”

This was the perfect time to cry; to be a total girl and dissolve into tears and make Harry take care of the rest of it. Except Hermione didn’t think that was what being a girl was all about, and she’d always thought the sort of girl who’d do that kind of thing was weak and dim. The temptation to become weak and dim at the moment was astounding; unfortunately it was beyond her to do either.

“Ron, what Hermione’s trying to say is…” Harry started; his eyes full of sympathy.

Buck up, Hermione Granger.

“What I’m trying to say is I had time to think about a lot of things while I was here that I never quite get round to at my parents’ house. Since you were gone, and I missed you being here, a good bit of it was about you, Ron. We’ve been friends forever and I love you very, very much. I love that you’ve always been so loyal to Harry and I. I love what a wonderful brother and son you are, how tight and strong your family is. I love how you always make us laugh, how you could do it even when we were scared sometimes last year. I love the way your mind works when you’re playing chess and it’s all so clear to you and you can see every possibility on the board. I love you enough to realize that it’s not fair to you that I’ve fallen in love with Harry in another way entirely, and I wanted you to know that. Because I love you.”

“Bloody hell,” said Ron again, and looked at Harry. “You’re in love with Harry? Since when?”

“We only just figured it out, actually. Day before yesterday,” she admitted.

“We? We? Are you in on this too?” Ron’s eyes had never left him but it had only taken them the space of a moment for their expression to change completely.

“No, Ron, of course he isn’t,” Hermione snapped. “I thought I’d just ruin your day with an admission of entirely unreciprocated love for your best friend.”

“I asked him,” Ron snarled, in a most un-Ronly way.

“Yeah,” Harry said, albeit reluctantly. “I’m in on it too. And while you’ve got every right to be pissed off with the both of us, I do have one thought for you. Look at us, Ron. We’re not happy either; but we’re not sneaking behind your back or trying to hurt you or anything. We’re staking our friendship on the hope that you’ll realize the last thing either of us wants is for you to hate us over something stupid.”

“Stupid. Is that what we were?” Ron turned on Hermione. “Did you tell him we were stupid together?”

A comeback was still forming on Hermione’s lips when Harry cut in again.

“No. No, Ron, you did. The morning you left? In the bathtub? You did. I know you love her. You love her like you own her. But you want her to be different, you want her to be what you want her to be, what you need, not what she is. And you were actually thinking that…”

“Shut up, Harry.” Ron warned him.

Harry nodded. “Fine. I’ll shut up. But it still doesn’t change what you already feel, does it?”

“Oh, so you just want her now because I don’t?” Ron’s eyes grew heavy with what he’d admitted before the words had fully escaped his lips. “Shit. Shit, Harry, that was low.”

Harry said nothing at first and Hermione saw their eyes meet again. It ought to have hurt, what Ron said, but it felt like a memory already, a wound endured long before.

“No, Ron.” Harry said softly. “That was. I put her off limits the moment I saw you were starting to look at her as more than a friend. I put up with the two of you through the Yule ball nonsense and the Won Won incident and the attack of the killer canaries because you were my friends and I wanted you to be happy. Nothing mattered as long as nothing came between the three of us. I loved Hermione for who she was before my bloody voice even changed. Everything’s changed since then except that. It’s not about …”

“Yeah, right,” Ron broke in. “You’ve got my blessing there, Harry. Love her all you want, and see how long you last with out shagging her. Go on. Bloody liar. It is too about sex.”

“What do you care? I’m not passionate enough for you, anyway!” Hermione sneered, and then her heart dropped like a stone. Oh yeah, but I’m smart. Because that was pure genius.

“You bloody arsehole! You told her! What was all that ‘fine, I’ll shut up’ crap about? You told her! Is that how you got her to do it?”

Harry’s eyes searched hers in surprise and she saw the doubt start to grow in his own.

“I never did,” he said.

“Bloody liar. What a bloody pathetic way to start something…”

“He didn’t, Ron,” she admitted. “I already knew. I apparated in with the doughnuts that morning and went looking for the two of you. You were in the lav then, both of you. I meant to knock and tell you I was there, but you were just explaining to Harry how you felt like you had a leash on, how I was a bit lacking in the passion department and you just couldn’t get me revved up enough to get past it. How getting me jealous moved things along. Ringing any bells yet?”

Ron’s face was almost as red as his hair before; it abruptly went white then. It was make it or break it time now, and she knew it. The problem was she was torn between the two of them, wanting to reconcile with Ron but aching to reassure Harry, who seemed now from his shuttered look to be trying to fend off the thought that she’d turned to him in response to the hurt of Ron’s words that morning.

“Ron,” she said despairingly, “We’ve hurt each other, the two of us, because we both needed more. Or less, or something just different then we were able to be. I know I disappointed you, I probably deserved what you said, but it still hurt when you said it. Can’t we just admit that we’re better off as friends?”

She saw the stubborn streak that was so strong in him fighting her every word.

“Why him? Why Harry? D’you know what everyone will say? I’ve never been more than his sidekick anyway, and now he’s got you, too.”

Harry twitched then, and one of the cabinet doors dropped off its hinges. Another followed, then two more. He stretched his neck, clearly trying to relax. One more dropped.

“That’s not bloody fair,” he said. “I never saw you that way; I never treated you that way. I bloody envied you, Ron, you were just too sorry for yourself to see it. I relied on you, I trusted you with my life, with her life. I would have died for you. Say what you want about me, then, but don’t drag Hermione down to your level if all you can care about is what someone else might think. She’s way ahead of us, either of us. We’re not in school anymore. We only get one life and we all know that it’s a crap shot at best we’ll be here a year from now. Or that I will, anyway. Why waste a moment of it on what anyone else thinks?”

Ron blinked. His mouth opened and closed, and he blinked again. His gaze dropped to the beer bottle in front of him, and Hermione’s heart contracted to see the gleam of unshed tears as he did.

“Ron, please,” she begged. Oh yes, she could beg. She’d do more than that if she had to, but she thought he might be softening.

“You don’t need my blessing,” he said, but it came out soft and choked. “Do what you want.”

“We may not need it,” Harry told him gently, “But we want it Ron. I know it’s a lot to ask, but it’s nothing we wouldn’t give you, either of us, if things were different.”

“You’re already talking for each other, do you hear it? We, we, we. Is she going to live here too? Or are you moving out on me.”

“We never even talked about it Ron. I don’t know what you think I’ve done, but I think we’ve kissed three times so far. It always came back to you before it ever went anywhere. Neither of us wanted to hurt you,” Harry said.

“So you’re basing all of this on three kisses? What if you shag each other and hate each other in the morning? What then?” Ron pointed out.

“Then we go on. We’re not going to hate each other, and we’re never going to hate you. We promised each other to be friends first no matter what and I think you should be in on it too. It’s why we waited. Ron, please, think about it.” Hermione asked him.

His head literally sagged on his neck as the stubbornness at last gave way.

“You promise you’re not going to go all weird on me?” He said tiredly, his eyes shifting from one to the other.

“What, weirder than exploding the loo or smashing the china?” Harry asked. “You’ve taken far and away too much crap from me already, Ron, and I promise not to sprawl all over the sofa sucking on her like a plunger for hours on end and calling her Herm Herm or anything.”

“Merlin, you’ll never let me live down sixth year will you,” Ron groaned, but there was the ghost of a smile somewhere in his voice. “Lavender Brown be damned.”

Hermione refrained from pointing out that she probably was if she was still pursing Justin Finch Fletchley.

“Besides,” she said softly, “Herm Herm sounds like a dreadful reminder of Dolores Umbridge. If I lacked passion before that would fix it for good.”

Ron turned to her and held out his arms; she stumbled gratefully into them, knocking over the chair between on the way. She heard him say sorry more than once, and held him with both regret and certainty in her choice. When she pulled back at last it was to find with relief that Harry was still there, eyes ducked, fingers working a sort of sculpture out of the shreds of his beer label. She’d half feared that either the plumbing would be gushing or he’d have disappeared; he seemed to be holding on, if by a thread.

Ron looked up too, and gently disentangled himself. “I’m dead tired,” he said gruffly. “I’m going to hit it. We can work it all out in the morning, yeah? About, well everything. After you two have, erm… you know, talked and everything.”

They agreed and watched him slog his Quidditch gear off toward his bedroom. Hermione’d left her bag and Crookshanks carrier in the hall; they heard him run into it and curse.

“I don’t like having her here already, Harry,” he called from the hall.

“Kick it in my room,” Harry called back, his eyes never leaving hers as she made her way toward him. “It’ll never be in the hall again, I promise.”

“I promise,” he said again before he kissed her, and the solemn weight of his words settled like a blanket over her, sheltering her at last from everything but each other.

Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 11

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Subject: Harry James Potter

Interview Meeting Date: Monday July 21, 1998

Interview #: N/A

Observations: N/A

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All things Harry are starting to come to a less than pretty head at the moment, at least in my neck of the woods.

Let me rephrase that. Forces seem to be converging about him now. And the downright interesting thing is exactly what those forces are. Most I can observe; I'm perfectly positioned to see at least one layer of the flurry of memos flapping and zooming their way through the halls of the Ministry bearing his name in the subject line. Others aren't quite so clear, but I'm starting to get a bead on them, and to be honest those are the ones spooking me out a bit. Just when I think I understand what's going on where he's concerned, the ground shifts and I see that there is yet another facet to consider.

For example, this morning brought a meeting of the Unimind in Scrimgeour's conference room. I stuck out like a salmon in a lemming parade in that crowd; definitely swimming upstream against the inevitable. My invitation was unambiguous enough that there was precious little I could do about it, and the fact that I was requested on my own without Clement to hide behind made me suspect I was being handed the rope for my own noose. I may have tied the knot today but I am useful to them yet; no one's managed that final shove off the edge of the Hangman's platform so far. I wouldn't put it past them to be drawing lots for the privilege right now though.

Percy Weasley, our first speaker, was obsessed with the thought that Harry was possessed. I think I was thorough and yet professional in debunking the theory that even the infamous Dark Lord could possess someone from beyond the grave, because a) HE'S DEAD and b) although we don't like to talk about his little immortality plan because it scares the pants off the lot of us, given the number of “objects” he made and the flawed nature of what he started out with, what was left to be doing the possessing with, hmm? Possession was right out; you needed an actual soul for that. His one apparent goal was not to die, ever, there was no evidence yet he'd bothered with a contingency plan. Haunt, maybe. And there wasn't any sign of Harry being haunted, thank goodness. Except by these ghouls.

Artemis Grollinghard, Scrimgeour's personal secretary, revealed both that she thinks he's cursed, and I'm completely incompetent because I haven't identified or reversed it yet. (Upon asking innocently for her supposition of what ails him so that I can jump right on it, she smiled venomously and replied `I believe that's your job Hawktalon. And Morgause knows with the things you've played around with you'd think you could spot a dark curse when you see one. Even if it wasn't your own for a change.' Nice, hunh? Like I'd need anything as complicated as a dark arts curse to fix her superior arse. Wait `til she sees what comes out in her hairbrush tonight. There can't be a wig around as bad as that weird sort of still-cone-shaped-from-her-hat look, anyway.)

Dolores Umbridge (yes, she still has an advisory position in the Minister's office as well as her thinly covered job as merciless Centaur harasser) believes he was a nasty little liar at school and nothing's changed since. “Give that boy the slightest bit of attention and there's nothing he won't do to keep it,” she said primly. “I know him very well; I spent a great deal of time with him at Hogwarts. I think you'll find he's completely delusional. He's faking it; he's not even that powerful.”

I ached to point out that it was a very pretty delusion she'd managed to apply to his wand hand, but thankfully leaving some stuff unsaid becomes slightly easier as you get older and more mature. I've got a much wider range of self-applicable muffling and silencing charms than I did when I was Harry's age, ones even I can't gag an insult through. I just don't use them enough. She was the one I really would have liked to have a go at, too. He'd been a kid when she'd done that to him. A stubborn kid, who probably could have gotten out of the worst of it if he told someone or asked for help; but a kid none the less. She was just a cold-hearted evil hag who got a sick thrill off of dominating people and playing games. There's one in every office regardless of occupation, but the last place you should ever find one is a school.

Tobias Smeggall, Scrimgeour's long-time right-hand man, was the one that struck me cold, piqued my interest and set my something's-more-off-than-usual radar spinning all in one. He's a right toad, Tobias, and well named - although as always one is simply forced to wonder whether he is living up to the inevitable childhood taunts of Smeghead or if he was indeed born that way and oblivious. My vote in this particular case would be the latter. He's the perfect foil for Scrimgeour, obsequious on the one hand and brutally efficient with the other one that the rest of us got the business end of.

In my humble opinion, he spoke far too convincingly of Harry's instability for it not to be an unhealthy obsession of his own, and I began to wonder exactly how much of Scrimgeour's reservation about Harry was his, and how much Smeggall's influence. Harry's supposed immaturity, both physically and mentally, to deal with his own purported level of magic had led Smeggall to the “natural” conclusion that he was harboring some of You-Know-Who's as well. This apparently gave him carte blanche to dissect what little the Ministry knew about him at some length. Some simply incredible length for such scant information, and so much of it was wrong. Eyes were glazing over around Scrimgeour's conference table left and right. They might be unified in their dislike of Harry, but they were all way more interested in their own opinions why he was a menace than Smeggall's.

He was endlessly fascinated with Harry's ability to speak and understand parseltongue for some reason, and was certain that it had enabled Voldemort to curse Harry to carry on with his own evil power and without our awareness. `Cause when you've hated someone for years and you're facing them for what all indications point to as the final time, your first instinct is always to hand over all your own abilities. I had to believe (given Snape's description of what was going on; and he was at least there) Voldemort never had a single smidgeon of a thought he was going to lose that night.

I tried not to raise my hand, really I did.

“Um, excuse me, but a curse is a curse, regardless of the language it's applied in.” I refrained from pointing out the magic 101 fact that incantations were simply applied focusers, and not entirely dependent on language. Eons of experience have probably brought us down to the most evocative and efficient languages for different spells, and they do range, but that's what makes wandless magic like Albus Dumbledore's and Harry's so very cool; they're both proof that magic has no cultural or language barriers because it can function and exist without either.

Smeggall's irritation was immediately obvious. “And is parseltongue amongst your many…talents, Mrs. Hawktalon?”

“No,” I said. “But I once removed one of Vold…”

“Hnnnnng!”

“You-Know-Who's curses from Rothgart Beagler, and he swore that Vol, hmm, the unh, Dark Guy hissed it at him when he made his wand movement so that Rothgart wouldn't have time to recognize it and counter it. Once we figured out what it was, it came off just like it would have if it had been incanted in the usual way. It only makes sense, if you think about it, and that would be a parselmouth's only real advantage in using it in battle, other than actually enlisting the aid of a snake, like Nag….”

“Haaaaah!”

Oh, come on. It was bad enough to be sitting around in the office of the Minister with a bunch of chicken wizards still too superstitious to say a dead man's name, but his pet? That was just silly.

“Nagini.” I finished. Rothgart Beagler had been a good Auror back in the day and worked for Scrimgeour until one of Voldemort's Death Eaters had finished the job he'd started. I was hoping the Minister would remember the incident and tell old Smeghead to move on.

He did indeed remember the incident, and his eyes bored into me thoughtfully while he hand-motioned Tobias on to the next order of business. They were uncomfortable to be the focus of; those eyes. They furthered the lion impression of his tawny hair, and made me feel very squirrelly. Or whatever it was lions hunted. Wildebeastie, then.

The next order of business, it turned out, was the main point of the meeting. Having aired their various opinions and fears about Harry, they were now ready to discuss What To Do about him.

“Carry on with what we're doing,” I said confidently. “There have been no major incidents with his magic, and his hands are starting to heal now that the effect of the burning yew of Vol… Know Who's wand has been identified and dealt with. He's healing and getting stronger every day.”

Oops. Step too far there, Elspeth. They aren't really concerned with his health and well-being, are they?

“Exactly,” pointed out Smeggall smarmily.

“The stronger Harry is physically, the more successfully he can cope with controlling the magic he had to develop to fight Vol, him, in the first place. It just makes sense.”

“And the better he can control it, the better he can make use of it as well. This is surely an indicator that it is time to act, Minister,” the Smegster prevailed upon Scrimgeour. “Before he does.”

“Harry has done nothing to warrant the Ministry's removal of his wand, let alone additional steps,” I declared, as evenly as I could. I was hoping that a reminder of the wand, along with no demand for it back, would be seen as a sort of compromise.

“It is our duty to use our position to protect the people, Mrs. Hawktalon. It is not the Ministry of Magic's way to say “sorry” after the fact when disaster is avoidable,” spouted our Minister.

“That would be a recent development,” I said, before I could shut my big flapping yap.

Scrimgeour's yellow eyes flashed. “You're right there. There will never be another Voldemort as long as I am Minister.”

“You're jousting a windmill then, Minister,” I told him. “Harry Potter has no interest whatsoever in becoming another Voldemort. Of that much I can unequivocally assure you.”

“We have all seen the results of Mr. Potter's magic run amok…”

“A little spilt pumpkin soup never really hurt anyone. There's no question he has a lot to keep under control, but my recent observations have all been quite…” I thought of the fireworks that had erupted at Snape's name. Uneventful didn't fit, and interesting was too ambiguous. “positive.”

I was positive he was trying, anyway.

“But don't you admit, Ms. Hawktalon,” Smeggall suggested insidiously, “that Mr. Potter himself might in fact be more comfortable without the uncertain burden of all that? It was developed, as you say, in response to his need to conquer the Dark Lord. His enemy is most certainly bodiless once more; the autopsy was quite conclusive on at least that point anyway, so the power is no longer needed. He could be… cut back to average magical levels and never have need of it again.”

“First of all, he wasn't just Harry's enemy. He was the enemy of anyone with a heart or soul themselves, be it Wizard or Muggle. And secondly, what exactly, Mr. Smeggall, are average magical levels? How are they determined? Who determines them? And average for whom?”

“Really, Elspeth, that's hardly your area of expertise, is it?” asked Artemis sweetly. “Why don't you just leave that to the Minister and his Advisors.”

How about because I wouldn't trust the Minister and his Advisors with regulating the magic of a flesh eating slug?

“Because it sounds like you are intent on violating the basic human right of a Wizard to not have his magic experimented on without his consent when he's done nothing wrong to warrant it. Exactly how would you relieve Harry of his excess magic once you decided just how much that was, Mr. Smeggall?” I asked as calmly as I could. “There's no known safe spell for limiting a wizard's magic that I know of.”

“New discoveries are being made every day,” Smeggall pointed out, “And old methods are made new and improved. I am sure we can find the right one for Mr. Potter.”

“It should be easily monitored, lasting and complete,” Artemis offered.

“We should look into it's efficacy on offspring,” Umbridge reflected, “although Potter's a half blood after all. He's unlikely to produce anything worth worrying about. He's a freak of nature himself.”

Until this point Percy had been mercifully quiet. My head was still spinning from Umbridge's beastly take on things so it took me a moment after he began speaking to realize she had perhaps gone a step too far even for him.

“That erm, seems… Really… I can back properly limiting the abuse of power by Wizards like Potter to avoid another You Know Who problem, but I have to say that attempting to engineer the degree of magic in future generations is… dangerous. What if there hadn't been a Potter to take on You know Who? It's the personality that is deficient in his case, not the extent of magic itself.”

“That's completely illogical,” Smeggall snapped at him, and he visibly recoiled. “Now that Potter has removed You Know Who, we can start fresh. Neuter Potter and monitor all newborns. Resolve the problem completely for once and there will be peace at last. Grindelwald, Dumbledore, the Dark Lord… Potter is the last one left. Too long have we been wasting the resources of our community with these magical anomalies. Limit their range of magic to the average wizards' and there will be an end to wars and the murder of innocents. Perhaps wizards might even at long last rebuild their numbers and regain the place in this world we lost to separation!”

It was completely mad. He was completely mad. And I saw Scrimgeour's eyes assessing him. Did he agree? That was an awfully complete speech for what started out as a retort; it smacked of practiced campaigning. Did he think Smeggall was considering challenging him? It was exactly the sort of speech that would have once upon a time had me on my feet, shrieking out my opinion of it. I sat now, sick to my stomach but going nowhere, because it was Harry they were talking about, and it could just as well be Emily, or my grandchild one day. They were blithely discussing playing with a power themselves far greater than Voldemort's had ever been. The balance of magic has existed as long as magic itself. For every Grindelwald there has been a Dumbledore. We have lacked for nothing if we only use our magic for what it was intended.

They had to be stopped, but to be stopped we had to know what they were up to first, and that meant shutting my mouth and soaking in every word until I was cast out for the spy I would proudly be.

But I'd need a long, hot shower when this meeting was through.

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Harry was at that point having a significantly better day than Elspeth. This was in great part due to the fact that it was ten o'clock in the morning and he was still happily sprawled across a bed he wasn't sure he ever wanted to leave. Happily sprawled, as in content, pleased, satiated to the point of utter bonelessness. Hermione curled neatly as a cat beside him, fast asleep; deliciously delicate and soft and every bit as buck naked beneath the sheets as he was, and Ron's `So you're basing all of this on three kisses? What if you shag each other and hate each other in the morning? What then?' was now reduced to the punch line of a private joke they repeated constantly in soft, heated voices.

“Twelve hundred odd kisses and four shags later, and I still don't hate you yet,” she'd told him earlier this morning. “You'll just have to keep trying.”

And so he had. Kept trying, that was. And here he lay, staring at the ceiling and wishing all the magic that still pulsed so restlessly in him was enough to stop the earth from turning and time from passing and change from happening because he'd never, ever in all his life known happiness remotely close to this. Now, at this moment, he wouldn't change any of it (well, except obviously the Voldemort bit, that went without saying.) This was all his missing Christmases, all his ignored birthdays wrapped up in one lovely package that didn't require a bow (not that she wouldn't look lovely with one) and kept on asking to be unwrapped again and again. Brilliant. There was just no other word for it.

For the first time in ages Harry didn't feel like sinking behind his eyelids and looking for oblivion the moment he wasn't actively involved in doing something. It had been forever since he'd known any kind of peace, especially the kind that stretches like a cat in the sun on your chest and warms you without asking for anything in return. It felt good, and he tried to soak it up and enjoy it without worrying if it would last or if it was at anyone else's expense. Ron had accepted them with rare grace and he and Hermione were in consequence doing their very best to be circumspect and completely normal in the common areas of the flat.

Or they had been, until yesterday, when they'd been just sitting innocently on opposite ends of the sofa not even looking at one another (much) and Ron had abruptly hurled his Quidditch magazine at Harry. “Oh for crying out loud will you just snog her already? You've more than likely shagged her at least twice by my reckoning, that's further in two days then we went in a year. Just do it. I'm over it. It feels weirder to have you not touching her now than the other way round.”

Hermione had crawled across the sofa and into his lap with a wide and victorious grin and the happiness that had been so tentatively making its way from his heart to his head had surged forward and reached its destination at last. They'd snogged then, with elaborate (and quite fun) slurping and plunging sound effects, and called each other Herm Herm and Har Har until all three of them were laughing so hard it hurt and Hedwig flew off to the other room, ashamed to be seen with them.

Harry wasn't a complete idiot; he knew that all three of them had an uphill road to travel. Ron would get sick of them again or go over all lonely and morose. Harry would likely continue with his fair share of prickly leave-me-alone moments with less space than ever in which to be left alone, and he and Ron together were a lot to ask any girl to cope with, especially one as structured as Hermione. Still, it felt possible, at least, and he felt hopeful.

The one real stumbling point was his sense of living in limbo; each time he and Hermione tried to plan anything beyond the next day or two the whole thing seemed to get hopelessly muddled. There were too many `what ifs'. Like, what if Scrimgeour decided to follow up on one of his threats of protective custody or what Elspeth had been talking about, some sort of limitation on his magic? What would he do then? Harry'd thought he'd just do a runner for the Muggle world before, try and leave magic behind. But now there was her to consider as well, and he'd not been able to get the idea of anyone stripping children of their magic out of his head either. Once the thought of children had come into it at all the only thought that followed in Harry's mind was to try and undo all that had been wrong with his own childhood. He yearned to make a safe haven, to banish fear entirely and feather it with all the things he'd never really known; love, acceptance, belonging somewhere. It was a pipe dream and he knew each child was different; but he couldn't help the feeling of wanting to fix some wrong, make something whole again. If his kid's worst nightmare was having Harry Potter for a father, he'd consider it all a whopping success.

Hermione had made excuses to avoid returning home to her parents and was doing her level best to keep them from turning into lies; she was exploring her options for employment or further education (or both if she could manage it) in the magical world now. There was only so long she could do that before having to make a decision, however, and Harry felt strangely anxious to do the right thing by her. It was one of those times he desperately wished for a father figure in his life, and one of the few issues for which Remus Lupin wouldn't do as substitute. Remus and Tonks had been “seeing each other” for over a year now, and seemed unable (at least on Lupin's part) to take the final step. They were teased mercilessly and more than just a little sensitive about it by now; if Harry went to Lupin for advice over this he'd likely get his head bitten off.

He rolled toward her now and felt his own motion start her arm, weighted with the relaxation of sleep, slide across him. He loved it, couldn't get over how bloody marvelous it felt to be held, touched, and stroked. Even fast asleep the slip of her fingers over his skin moved him. There seemed to be some enormous, under-stimulated nerve center in his brain that had suddenly burst to life, neurons firing on all cylinders. He watched her do nothing more than breathe the steady, even breath of slumber with the absolute raptness he'd heretofore reserved for the snitch once spotted in a Quidditch game.

He'd been such an idiot; what was Quidditch compared to this?

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Subject: Harry James Potter

Interview Date: Monday July 21, 1998

Interview #: 5

Observations: Subject Can't Seem to Wipe the Grin Off His Face - Methinks This is A
Excellent Sign that Well, You Know, Yes, Anyway. Good for Him.
Because the rest of Being Harry Potter is shite about now.

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The afternoon proved marginally better than the start of the day. I had convinced Clement to convince Percy Weasley to let me take Harry out of the confines of the Ministry again (under the guise that I was testing his ability to control his magic amongst the general public.) I was given an annoying and insulting list of conditions, one of which was that I was not to take him into predominantly Muggle areas due to the complications of cleanup. Clearly he had no faith in either of us, but as he had nothing concrete to base his refusal on either, we were free.

It was a pleasure to be able to take him away from the gray confines of the Ministry today; he was walking on air, a far cry from the limping wizard with the permanent storm cloud hovering over his head he'd been when I'd first met him not so long ago. Happy Harry is a joy to behold, really. I don't think he'd had much practice at it, and he seemed completely incapable of shielding his exuberance from anyone. It was sort of like walking an excited puppy down the halls of the Ministry.

We decided on Diagon Alley as being a decidedly not `predominantly Muggle area'. I thought a spot of window shopping first would hopefully serve to wear him down a bit, and wandering would make eavesdropping more unlikely. We could save the heavy stuff for the end. I asked Tom at the Leaky Cauldron if we couldn't have one of the back rooms to ourselves for twenty minute or so on the way back and he readily agreed. The Ministry was an excellent tipper.

Hogwarts book lists being out for the first years at least, there were a fair number of children among the shoppers thronging the walks. There was no hiding Harry today. His good mood translated itself into actual conversation and the occasional smile, which while greatly unlike him recently, certainly left him wide open to recognition. That; and the odd buckled bandages still on his hands, easily recognizable even from a distance. He assured me they were healing; just as well, because they were a dead give away. At least his only covert observers for this outing so far seemed to be over-awed kids, either pointing and whispering or standing frozen while he passed, cheerfully oblivious.

“I take it Ron took it okay?” I asked him.

I could almost see the entire flow of the conversation in those eyes of his; flecks of regret, anger, relief and depthless fondness momentarily colored the green like a stirred potion, and were gone.

“I never want to have to do anything like that again,” he said.

“Play your cards right,” I told him, “and you never will.”

“How can you say that?” he asked, and a deaf person could have heard the empathy in his voice; Harry's saving people thing obviously translated to happiness as well. “Haven't you ever… I mean have you ever thought about… Don't you need anyone anymore?”

It was deeply felt and gracelessly asked, and almost unbearably sweet under the circumstances.

“I don't have an answer for you, Harry. That bit's still unwritten. If there's another out there, wizard or muggle, who can make me feel the way Almerick did, I haven't met him. Yet.”

“I know it won't be the same,” he said. “But I hope you do. You deserve it.”

I'd hardly given him much to go on in that department, but you could tell his wish was sincere.

“Thanks,” I told him. “So you and Hermione broke it up and you're on the market, then?”

He grinned shyly and shoulder-butted me; he was such a funny creature, half boy still and half gorgeous young man. He was utterly unaware of the effect. Happiness suited him. Hermione was a lucky witch. Or not - it couldn't be easy after all. But it I'd been twenty years younger I'd have risked it.

We stopped at the Magical Menagerie and Harry bought owl treats and a small cloth gnome stuffed with kneezle-knip for Hermione's cat (he informed me they'd found him sleeping in a corner of the ceiling once after playing with it; apparently it made him so excited he floated.) I gave their selection of owls a once-over preparatory to Emily's pre-Hogwart's visit for a familiar. She'd informed me she wanted a snowy owl like Harry's, but they weren't common or commonly cheap. There were some very pretty tawnys and Scops and an imposing Great Horned that gave the impression that we were all of us beneath his notice. There was a sweet little Burrowing I considered (although they were hardly the best messengers) until it made its disconcerting imitation of a rattle snake. Thank you, no. Harry told me that Hagrid had bought him Hedwig for a birthday gift at Eeylops Owl Emporium, so we wandered off in that general direction.

It was halfway there we came across a most curious young woman making her way up the street toward us whilst simultaneously reading a book and catching and releasing a small, roundish object on a string.

“Luna?”

Harry seemed to notice her as she passed, and she raised her eyes from the book before her at the sound of his voice and broke into a dreamy grin. The round object; a muggle yo-yo, was caught and stilled.

“Hullo, Harry. I haven't seen you in ages, although I knew I wouldn't and patience would win out in the end. How are you? Ginny said you were a right miserable sod but you look wonderful to me.” And she kissed him in a very friendly - but strictly friendly - way, on the cheek.

Harry introduced her as Luna Lovegood, and I remembered Hermione mentioning that she was the daughter of the publisher of the Quibbler. Fortune smiled again; it certainly couldn't hurt for Harry to renew his acquaintance with her now.

I wondered if he would mention anything about Hermione to her in relation to the Ginny comment but he did not. I was proud of him, or hoped that I would be, and that he would cope with that issue as head-on and honestly as he had her with her brother. They chatted briefly; it appeared that Luna was in London for the next week or so with her father while he tracked down some information for a very important Quibbler exclusive. I wondered what exotic magical creature had invaded the London Zoo without the Muggles' notice. Harry invited her to visit them at the flat anytime, which struck me as something of a mistake, Luna seemed exactly the sort to do just that, and while I could tell he was fond of her and she seemed quite nice in a blunt, idiot savant sort of way, given his new living circumstances that might not have been the best decision.

Live and learn, my young friend.

“She's always had a bit of a thing for Ron,” he said as we moved on in opposite directions. He explained about a Slytherin psych-out song that backfired after a match or two, and how Luna was often to be heard walking the halls of Hogwarts humming, whistling or outright singing “Weasley is My King.”

Sounded promising to me.

Eeylops proved indeed to have one Snowy owl, a young male but old enough to be almost entirely white, with fewer markings than Hedwig. He had large, perfectly round amber eyes that took us in calmly, and he fluttered to Harry's shoulder without even being coaxed.

“She'd love him,” I said ruefully, eyeing his price tag.

“You only go to Hogwarts once,” he pointed out. “For the first time anyway. Nothing says `I love you and I want to hear all about your room mate issues and what a snitch that Mrs. Norris is' like an owl.”

“For that much I should get her an Eagle owl or something.”

“Nah,” he scoffed. “Nasty, superior things. I knew one once. Belonged to a Malfoy,” he added almost nonchalantly, but staring directly at me in a very meaningful way.

“An owl to suit its owner then,” I said. “Look! It's time for our beer.”

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The back rooms of the Leaky Cauldron are many - there always seems to be one; or one more, when you need one. Magic does have its uses.

Tom brought us our drinks. He nodded and grinned with enthusiasm at Harry, offered us both a wide variety of things we didn't want and then left without offense. A rare man, Tom.

“So, Harry. Magically speaking, how're things?”

“Erm,” said Harry. “Okay.”

“Feeling well… in control?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

“Because Scrimgeour has an aide, named Smeggall.”

He looked at me disbelievingly.

“And he wants you neutered.”

There was a moment's less-than-shocked silence.

“Bloody hell,” said Harry. “I've only just really figured out what they're for.”

He was joking; we both knew it. If he hadn't been so happy to begin with, I never would have shot him down quite that way. That's what friends are for. And I definitely liked him more than the description “investigation subject” allowed.

“Never mind,” I told him. “I think Hermione would have something to say about that now, and I doubt ten Scrimgeours could put her off. But I thought you ought to know. There was a meeting of the Minister's Aides this morning. It wasn't pretty, and that was how they were leaning. I don't think they know what exactly it is they're doing, and I'm fairly certain that they're not entirely sure how to do it, but the time to begin your counter offensive is now.”

“Right,” he said. “Well, at least I know where to find Luna. The question is how do we say it? No one will care if it's just me, how can we suggest that it's their own children they need to look out for?”

His happiness was definitely deflating some, but nothing compared to the spiral of despair such a confirmation would have made a week ago. He seemed resolved to fight now, and not afraid.

“They will care if it's you, Harry. Honestly. And I think you and Hermione should talk to Mr. Lovegood and see just how far he's willing to go. The Quibbler'll just seem weirder than ever if he starts rattling swords over an issue Scrimgeour hasn't made a move on either way, but there are probably subtle ways to start insinuating the idea into people's minds so when the Minister does makes his move you can respond quickly.”

“Right,” said Harry reluctantly, and sighed.

There was so much more I wanted to say about how I felt about this happening at all, let alone to him, and yet none of it would change anything. My mind landed on a question that had been forming on a totally other front, in the hope of making headway somewhere.

“Harry? When you started to disappear that time, what made you want to go, and what held you back? Do you remember it enough to say?”

He switched gears with me and looked thoughtful, stroking the neck of his butterbeer bottle.

“I felt this… sort of rush of shame, and sadness, when the thought came to me that Hermione was just pitying me when she kissed me. I got cold and then dizzy, I remember thinking how much stupider I'd feel passing out on her. Then I just sort of started to fade. I heard a voice calling me, but it was more than just calling.” He struggled a moment. “It was like a portkey, if a voice could be a portkey. It wasn't just me wanting; it wanted me as well. It wanted me enough to make me go. But,” he stopped again, looked at me and blushed. “Hermione want me too. I could hear it in her voice. They were both calling, but hers was a bit panicked and real and afraid. The other was… I don't know how to say it.”

Don't fail me, now Harry!

“Try. It could be important.”

He eyed me dubiously. “Do you think it was real somehow? I thought it was just my imagination.”

“Perhaps it was. I'd still like to know more about how it sounded.”

Because your imagination can't really take you anyplace, but your magic could. Or anothers'. There were spells like that, and a very old one was rising from the depths of my own memory, told in my mother's voice.

There was once a jealous witch who placed a spell of her own devising on her husband the day that they were married. The parameters were simple; if he were ever to know true happiness with another, he would be drawn through space and time to her presence to answer to her. Years past and always he remained faithful. They had a large family, six boys and the seventh child a girl. The girl was the joy of her fathers' heart and they were very close. Eventually the children grew and married and went off to start families of their own. At last it was the daughters' chance and she duly married in her turn, a young wizard with whom she was deeply in love. Several months after the daughters' wedding, the witch was busy in her greenhouse tending to her magical plants when her husband suddenly appeared through thin air and dropped to her feet. All the jealousy long buried from the time when they were first wed rushed back to her, and she plunged a garden stake through his heart, feeling her own heart pierced that he had betrayed her. Returning to the house she found her daughter sobbing in the hall, afraid because her father had disappeared in thin air. She couldn't understand it, she told her mother. She'd come to tell them that she and her beloved were to be parents in the spring and upon hearing the news her father had simply faded away.

It had all the hallmarks of an old wives tale, but then witches were old wives. And there were variations reported on the same spell; two enemies who had used something like it in battle. What if Harry were being drawn somewhere? But where? And by whom? And if his despair were the trigger, who might know him well enough to sense what would drive him there? Questions were flooding me now.

“It sounded…” Harry seemed to be thinking fiercely, forcing himself to remember. “Cold. Wanting. I remember it really wanting me to come to where it was. Unhappy, I think. I got the sense of something waiting. Not for me, so much as just…waiting. But Hermione… when she called me she seemed so afraid. The voice wanted me, but she sounded like she needed me to stay.”

Interesting. It could be coincidence, or imagination. I could be entirely wrong. Only it wasn't impossible, and I still felt sure that he harbored a curse. It bore more looking into at the very least.

Another converging force… or a red herring? Only time would tell, but I wanted to be there at least one step ahead of time, just in case.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 12

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Hermione surveyed Harry's bedroom with an assessing eye. The boys' flat wasn't bad, really, so much as inadequate. If she was going to stay here clearly at least a couple of things would have to change.

Harry himself was asleep behind her, spooned against her back. One arm had snaked around over her side and she curled her own fingers through his and brought his hand up beneath her chin. She could feel the swell and fall of his ribs against her back and the gentle tickle of his breathing along the nape of her neck. All was safe and sound for the moment; and when Hermione was safe and sound she liked to plan.

First off, they probably needed to decide exactly what they were to each other now. Because it was highly unlikely no one was going to notice the change, and the sooner the people they actually cared about knowing got used to it the less weird it would be for Ron.

Not that she herself had any real complaints about the undefined version, mind you, but if they were going to go through the expected public dance of courtship, either the apartment needed to be enlarged by at least one room or she needed to find a flat on her own nearby.

Hermione personally thought the latter route rather hypocritical now. She didn't need to get to know him; how could she know him any better? She didn't want to step back from what she'd found and put on some act of rediscovering it just to make others happy.

She understood acknowledging the moral sensibilities of those they loved and those that loved them, but they seemed in truth too varied to know exactly which ones to try and honor. Harry had no family, or at least none that mattered. From the sound of it the Dursleys wouldn't accept her any more than they had him, and she'd likely feel compelled to curse their sorry arses from one end of Britain to the next if she was forced to observe any of their behavior first hand. The issue there, at least, was moot.

Her own parents had seemed over the years to come to accept that she would ultimately make her life in the magical world. They'd enjoyed having her home over the summer but made it clear they understood Ron's reluctance to consider a muggle-based existence and wouldn't stand in the way of her happiness with him. She doubted it would be any different with Harry, in fact when she'd first told her mother that she was seeing Ron her mum just smiled and said she'd always known it would be one of them.

“I thought it would be Harry, to be honest, sweetheart. There always seemed to be a little something extra in your eyes when you talked about him,” she had told her daughter with a smile. “We just want you to be happy, no matter what you chose.”

Perhaps mothers did know best sometimes; hers had certainly called that one. Hermione didn't honestly see her parents as having any real problem with her living arrangements once she'd made up her mind to them. Her Dad would make a show of calling Harry aside and doing the Father thing at some point, although since he didn't really understand Harry's issues in the magical sense and Hermione had been highly selective in what she had told them about the whole Voldemort affair he wouldn't have much to object to. Harry was… well, who could not like Harry in the end? Most of his fierceness and moodiness was directly tied either to his heretofore miserable fate or his magic. Taken on the level her father would meet, Harry was polite, unassuming and extremely chivalrous where she was concerned. The seemingly untamable hair and the general scruffiness of most of his wardrobe were external, and thank goodness her parents were the kind who'd look beyond that.

Having a witch for a daughter had been good for their outlook on life in many ways as well. They knew her to be intelligent and respected her ability to make her own decisions as she made her way in a world entirely beyond their comprehension. Living with Harry might not have been their first choice for her, but they wouldn't argue with her about it either.

So why should she and Harry play at anyone else's game? Ron had basically accepted them and she knew that once he had, whatever Mr. and Mrs. Weasley thought they'd keep to themselves and let their son and his friends get on with it. Mrs. Weasley genuinely loved Harry; Hermione felt fairly confident that as long as Ron was okay with it Molly would accept them together with open arms. She'd never really known anything had occurred between Harry and Ginny as Harry had broken it off with her before there'd ever been time for it to become an issue at home. Ginny wouldn't be happy, but Hermione had a hard time believing she was dateless and pining at Hogwarts; she'd turned into quite the social butterfly forth year and never looked back. Once she revealed those new robes at the Yule Ball she'd be beating them off with a bludger bat, anyway.

There was nothing and no one that Hermione respected enough to take into consideration that might stop them from just getting on with their lives the way they were now, and as she felt him stir and shift and settle more securely against her she couldn't help but smile at the thought.

“Are you awake?” she asked softly, and a semi--conscious “unh hmm” answered her.

This should be interesting.

“Harry, what are we going to tell everyone about us?”

“Bugger off and leave us alone?” he mumbled, more awake than she'd imagined. That was fast. Had he actually been thinking about it as well? How un-Harry of him.

“Seriously. You aren't going to tell the Weasleys that.”

He groaned, the sound reverberating through her. “No, I suppose not. Well, I thought… um, that we'd just tell them the truth.”

She closed her own hand and brushed her cheek against the one of his she was holding. “What's that?”

“I said I thought we'd just…”

“No Harry, the truth… I just don't know exactly what that is.”

He moved from behind her so that she dropped onto her back. His hand gently but firmly disentangled itself from hers so he could prop himself on his elbows above and beside her.

“That's an interesting statement coming from you. You've always known what the truth was.” he told her warily. His eyes seemed to be studying her, enormous and deeply green without the barrier of his glasses.

“I think I'm just having a hard time applying it at the moment,” she said honestly. “This is very…sudden. Wonderfully sudden, I wouldn't turn back the clock for a moment, but it's confusing. I don't feel like I'm starting off on something new, I feel like I'm….” she struggled.

“Where you should be? The way it should have been?” he finished for her. “Because that's what I think. I think we messed up somewhere, sometime around sixth year, and it's just taken us this long to realize and put it right.”

He had a point. Quite a good one actually.

Hermione had grown willing to accept over the last few days that she must have become adept at blocking her feelings for him at somewhere along the line, because what she was experiencing was far more fully formed than it should have been. It was one of the few times in her life when she truly cursed the workings of her own brain.

It wasn't smart to fall for the Boy-Who-Might-Very-Well-Die. It wasn't clever to let yourself become attached to someone whose fate was so uncertain. It would hardly be the behavior of the brightest witch of her age to allow oneself to become emotionally entangled with someone whose every emotion was caught up in a brutal fight for survival. And so, it seemed, her brain had stepped in at some point and simply over-ruled her heart.

How else could all of this come about so swiftly? She ought to have felt uncertain, protective of herself after undergoing the painful realization that she was not actually in love with Ron, nor he with her. She should crave time alone to regroup, be stern about putting Harry through his paces to prove himself. She ought to care about all those things, but she didn't. A certain portion of her behavior could indeed be written off to physical drives - she found herself literally fascinated by him on a visceral level she had never remotely known with Ron. But where did it come from? It had to have been there lying under the surface of their thoughts and feelings, just waiting to be released.

So much had seemed to go wrong sixth year, he was right about it tracing back there somehow. She'd lost herself that year… why? Fifth year had been both horrible, with Umbridge closing in on Harry, and amazing, when she'd actually been able to organize kids from three different houses into an band of willing students for him to teach the defense Umbridge refused them. Dumbledore's Army. They'd managed so much; a viable notification system, a safe spot to practice, some really sophisticated spells for their age. They'd been a real resistance, the only truly useful subversive force when the Ministry had driven Dumbledore from the school.

Where had all of that gone sixth year? She'd been almost another person altogether, more worried about Ron making the Quidditch team (she cringed at the thought of what she had done to ensure that,) Ron and Lavender Brown, Ron's jealousy over the Slug Club fiasco. It was as if she had fallen backwards in time and maturity like the babyheaded Death Eater in the Department of Mysteries.

The Department of Mysteries. She had fallen there, struck down by Dolohov, and Harry had had to go on without her. She hadn't been there with him when Sirius fell through the veil, hadn't been there when Voldemort forced his way inside of him and taunted Dumbledore to kill him. She'd failed him then; was she afraid to fail him again? Afraid to let him too close, to let him rely on her too much in case she couldn't manage to be what he needed? Perhaps that might finally begin to explain her strange behavior… Perhaps Dolohov's silent spell had done more damaged to her heart than Madam Pomfrey had ever known.

Had she subconsciously chosen Ron to keep herself from choosing Harry, or Harry from choosing her? With Ron she could still be friends with both, still fight beside him, still try to protect him, but he would not rely on her or fear for her the way he had.

Harry was right; they had messed up somehow, somewhere along that line, and she had never even seen it. Because it did feel like they were supposed to be this way. Together they were comfortable, familiar, just right somehow.

“Yes,” she admitted. “That's what I think too. If this were happening with anyone else it would be too fast to be talking about what we were going to tell our friends, or where we were going to live. With you it's just… not.”

“Will you stay here with us?” Harry asked slowly. “Is that it? Do you not like the flat, or is it not having a room?”

“I could live here for awhile,” she said as honestly as she could. “But I think it would make us all crazy before long. I do need my own space, and so do you.”

“Hermione, I…” he struggled for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. “I'm rubbish at this sort of stuff, you already know that because you're the one I'd have come to for help, only now you're the one I'm talking about, so that'd be sort of awkward. So if this is totally a bad idea or anything, it's only because I didn't talk it over with you first. You see, I did try to talk to Lupin about us, sort of let him know and ask his advice, but before I could say anything he started telling me that he was leaving Grimmauld Place and moving into Tonks', because he finally worked up the nerve to ask her to marry him and of course she said yes…”

“I'm sure what she really said was `about time.'” Hermione said with a laugh, “but that's wonderful news. Good for them.”

“We're meant to be going to the Weasley's on the week end; they're going to tell everyone there. But the thing of it is, Grimmauld Place will be empty. And grim as it is, it's loads bigger than this. There's a whole library there, and once we got rid of the books that bite, scream and have nothing but illegal spells, there'd be plenty of room for yours. And no Mrs. Black.”

“I thought you didn't want to live there…” she reminded him, but her mind was already probing the possibilities.

“I didn't want to live there alone,” he said. “Not with all the memories. But there's nothing wrong with the house really, nothing a couple hours of Bill Weasley's services couldn't cure. And I was thinking that if things really got bad with the Ministry, well… it housed the Order didn't it? It works great for secret meetings. And it's unplottable and all, all kinds of wards already there to build on. It might just suit the three of us.”

“Have you spoken to Ron about it?”

He shook his head. “I wanted to ask you first to see what you thought.”

“Do you think he'll agree?”

“That'll be the real test of whether he's okay with us, I suppose. If he agrees we'll know for sure.”

“So if I move into Grimmauld Place with you,” Hermione asked, “will it be into my old room?”

“If you move into Grimmauld Place with me,” he told her, his expression serious and eyes watchful for her response, “you can have any room you like.”

“And I'll be your… what exactly?”

She saw the light finally dawn for him. “Erm, okay. I'm not going to get away with `whatever you want to be' this time, am I?” he asked hesitantly.

She shook her head. “I need to know what you want, Harry.”

She watched as he thought it over, her heart full. She knew he didn't really know what to say, could hear so clearly the conversation they'd be having if it were anyone else but her he was thinking of. She knew his intentions were good; why was she putting him through this? In part she guessed it was because she was finding herself confounded by being in such physical thrall to him; even while she waited for his answer she found herself admiring the way his shoulders took his weight as he held himself up on them beside her and the urge to stop him from agonizing over what to say to her and just snog him until he couldn't stop himself was almost overwhelming.

Her brain was vulnerable with lust; she wanted him to take care of her while she was incapacitated by wanting him. How utterly, instinctually Neanderthal was that?

Harry lifted his head and those mesmerizing eyes took over her thoughts completely.

“I want you to be my best friend forever,” he fumbled out. “I wish that there was some way I could prove to you how grateful I am for that. I want to be your boyfriend or um…” he blushed and his cheeks stained pink as he sought the right word; she abruptly realized he was struggling for some less obvious equivalent for `lover'. “Your um, well, whatever you're supposed to call it when you know you don't want anyone else. Someday when all this stuff with the Ministry is decided and done with and I hopefully have something like a future, I think what I really want is to ask you to marry me and make a family with me.”

She kissed him then, because that was a pretty darn impressive effort for Harry. She had to sort of crawl up his arms at first, but he got the message pretty quick and shifted to where she could reach him. She had to say that the kiss was nothing to sneeze at either; she might have started it, but he took over quickly enough and seemed to be trying to convince her of every word he'd said. He finally slowed and then stopped, leaving her breathless.

And then he took her breath away.

“More than all of that, if anything happens to me now I just want to know for sure that you know I loved you. More than I ever thought I could manage for anyone, actually,” his voice shook slightly but he didn't falter now he'd made his mind up to tell her. “You made me love you when I didn't want to love anyone. Sometimes your voice inside my head was the only thing I knew for sure wasn't coming from Voldemort and it was all that kept me sane. I can't imagine my life without you, Hermione, and it feels so damn good to finally be able to say that out loud without having to think how it would sound to anyone else but us.”

There was an intimacy to that last that finished it for her. She wanted to be an “us” with him more than anything else she could imagine. In his own halting way he'd told her exactly what he wanted, and it was exactly what she wanted to hear. She could let both her heart and her head go on their mission to defend him against the ignorance of the Ministry's position knowing he saw an end to it, too. He wanted to fight, he wanted to live; he wanted to be with her and have a family someday.

And he wanted her right now. She could tell.

“Good answer, Potter. You get an “O” for that one. And all on your own, too. I always told you you could do it,” she said as lightly as she could to diffuse it all a bit for him. She didn't doubt for a minute he knew what it meant to her to hear what he'd said; there was no reason not to release him from his discomfort.

He grinned, both shy and wolfish at once and a really delightful combination to behold. “Brilliant. If I get an “O” do I get to say what goes with it? Because your “O Harry” is my personal favorite.”

She grinned back, feeling so happy she could float. He was as good as kneazle knip. “Go on,” she told him. “Make me.”

Because it happened to be her personal favorite as well.

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Harry had owled Luna, asking if she could stop by and giving her the address of the flat. It was late afternoon when she came and the two of them had been hiding from the heat of the day in the front room, shades drawn and three cooling charms combined. She'd obviously been outside and moved happily through the green flames of the floo into the cool of the room with a blissful sigh.

She was dressed in her usual odd collection of garments neither entirely muggle nor magical. She wore a thin Indian cotton skirt with little bells on a tie at her waist that tinkled when she moved. A sleeveless t shirt and an odd, gauzy hooded robe over top of it completed the outfit. Her long blondish hair was wound up and skewered in place with a sketching pencil (Hermione was amazed and relieved at once she hadn't used her wand for the purpose, it was still behind her ear) and her dangling earrings today were small charmed replicas of dragons. They hung by their tails and occasionally flapped their wings or snorted steam; the problem seemed to be she'd chosen a mismatched set and occasionally the Norwegian Ridgeback felt compelled to try and attack the Chinese Fireball, completely ignoring the inconvenient fact of her head between them.

Harry seemed entirely mesmerized and she had to nudge him into motion.

“Hey Luna. Thanks for coming,” he said, struggling up from the depths of the sofa and setting aside the book Elspeth had sent over for him about powerful wizards through the ages. (`Look what you have to look forward to!' was written on the flyleaf inside.) It had come via a very handsome snowy owl; Hermione had noted that the message from Elspeth that accompanied it had given his name as Arcturus and said simply “thanks.” There had been an envelope from Emily as well, but Harry hadn't left that one around. She reckoned Emily had been rather more than pleased with the owl and Harry was embarrassed by whatever accolades she'd heaped on him.

“Oh no,” she said. “No trouble. It's lovely and cool in here compare to the Quibbler. Where's Ron?”

Hermione called for him and Ron made his way in from the kitchen where he'd been working over some sort of specialized half potion-half fruit juice sort of concoction that was meant to improve your keeper reflexes by twenty-five percent. Fred and George had convinced him that certain additions and substitutions from their shop might bring it closer to fifty and he'd been experimenting ever since. He and Harry had spent the morning transfiguring two crickets they'd caught on the roof into guinea pigs, but as guinea pigs had no keeper skills to speak of, Hermione was at a loss as to how he'd know he'd got it right. And how he'd convince the Department of Magical Games and Sports it was even legal once he had. They were cute, however, and Luna squealed in rapture and rushed to him when he appeared with one in hand. It took Ron a moment to realize it was the guinea pig she'd meant when she squeaked “how adorable!” Hermione thought his furious blush most becoming.

“I've named one after Harry and the other for Hermione,” he told her, eyeing his roommates with a grin. “So far Hermione's far and away the better keeper.”

“He's rolling ping pong balls along the floor at them. Hermione's nose is bigger. It's not fair,” Harry protested, laughing. “Harry'd be the better flyer.”

“Now that,” Hermione said, “I'd like to see. And I think you might be getting just a little carried away with your protégé there. If I see any little brooms I'm calling the Misuse of Transfigured Guinea Pigs Squad.”

“Gilbert Gumboil runs that,” Luna told her, scratching `Hermione's' truly rather sizable soft chocolate brown nose. The guinea pig nudged back delightedly. She did make a cute pig if she said so herself, a lovely brown with gold highlights. `Harry' was shiny black with a white streak down his forehead - or what would have been his forehead, were he not a guinea pig. It had actually been a botch in the spell before Ron had declared it beyond funny and kept it. Their names had been decided immediately then.

“He's got cages and cages of them.” Luna confirmed.

“You don't say,” Hermione replied. It wasn't possible for the Ministry to sink any lower in her estimation; she wasn't a bit surprised to hear that they actually had a Misuse of Transfigured Guinea Pig Department or that it was in fact run by someone named Gilbert Gumboil. “Luna, Harry's got a question for you.”

Hermione was fairly certain Harry had been dreading and preparing himself for this moment most of the afternoon as he pretended to read. He hated to ask for help, and this wasn't the easiest request to even know how to voice. Carried out less than extremely carefully it could easily place both Luna and Mr. Lovegood in an potentially uncomfortable, even dangerous position.

“I was wondering if you know if your Dad, well, if he might have said… because he hears so much investigating stuff, if he might have heard anything about the Ministry looking for a way to limit or control someone's magic?”

It had started slow and halting but by the time he'd finished he was at a full gallop; she doubted he could have spouted his invitation to the ball to Cho in fourth year any faster, no matter what he'd said about it.

Luna leveled her slightly protuberant and misty blue eyes on him kindly, and Hermione saw no surprise there at all.

“It's just wrong what they're doing, Harry, Daddy's all over it, in fact that's what he's doing right now; you're the mystery story he's working on. He just can't print anything about you until they make their move; he doesn't want to get you in any deeper than you are. He's going to run a story this week on how bad it makes the Ministry look to be trolling its requests in Knockturn Alley without saying exactly what they are looking for. He's got a lovely photograph of Dolores Umbridge trying to look inconspicuous while talking to that old hag Urquestra Moleheart in the back doorway of Borgin and Burkes. I didn't like to say anything in front of your Spell Damage Specialist just in case she was in on it.”

Harry was clearly floored, and Hermione not far behind him. She felt a sort of unknotting around her heart where Luna was concerned. What did it matter at all that someone could be completely unintelligible when their heart was so evidently in the right place? For all her apparent spacey-ness she'd picked up on the issue immediately and obviously still cared for Harry's well being even now Voldemort was gone, because he was a human being and a friend to her, not a savior.

“Thanks, Luna. I… I didn't expect anyone else knew what was going on. And Elspeth's alright, she's actually been cluing me in.”

“Good. You need a friend on the inside. This is bigger than the Rotfang conspiracy if you ask me. It isn't far from you to the rest of us, is it Harry? You're too powerful to suit them because of your magic, but also because you actually did what they couldn't and they know we know that. Still, it wouldn't be long until it trickled down to everyone else. Hermione will be too smart or Ron too brilliant at inventing things - I think you'll find you're quite good at it Ron, true procrastination is often the mother of great creativity. Then they'll be after me for seeing things, and where will it end?”

“What has your father actually heard about it, do you know? Does he know how far they've actually gotten in finding what they're looking for?” Hermione asked.

Luna looked thoughtful and she took the guinea pig from Ron and sat down crossed legged on the floor right where she'd stood. She set the creature on her lap and stroked it absently as she collected her thoughts; Hermione reflected that if there was a guinea pig heaven that one was close. It sat motionless, its eyes slowly closing in bliss. Ron looked at his empty hands and then to Harry as if to say `what do I do now?' When she turned to Harry she found him already dropped to the floor and leaning against the doorframe across from Luna, waiting.

Really, because furniture was so inconvenient…. She heaved a mental sigh as she settled down beside him. Ron had the presence of mind to use his wand to draw himself a chair from across the kitchen.

“From what Daddy uncovered they had a couple of options when they started, but none of them were exactly what they were looking for. They seem to know just what they want, and the odd thing is it isn't just efficiency they're going for according to the Quibbler's informant. It's almost as if the whole point is to make a point of you, an example, but Daddy still thinks there's something more and that Smeggall's behind it.”

“Smeggall?” Hermione asked, confused.

“Elspeth said something about him. He's one of Scrimgeour's inner circle, isn't he?” Harry questioned Luna.

“Tobias Smeggall. And yes he is, Harry. Daddy says he's worked with Scrimgeour for years; they got together back when Scrimgeour was first starting as an Auror and Smeggall worked for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as a clerk in the Misuse of Magic office.”

Luna could be remarkable lucid when it came to her conversations with her father. Hermione got the impression they were very close and Luna enjoyed being his sounding board. It was almost unsettling to see this other side of her.

“So what's this Smeggall got to do with it, then?” Ron asked. “What's he want with Harry?”

“The Quibbler's informant said Smeggall's the one who's been so specific about what they're looking for. There are artifacts out there, very expensive ones that have been designed in the past to control or limit a witch or wizard's use of magic. They were weapons, really, meant to humiliate and dominate a captive or hostage, they had to be worn to work, and if you took them off the person's magic was restored. They're all dark objects, obviously. Scrimgeour himself was looking for an irreversible potion or spell; it's Smeggall that's combing the nooks and crannies of Knockturn Alley for the other stuff. So far the word is the one thing he's found is outrageously expensive and Scrimgeour won't okay the galleons for it because he doesn't want the Ministry to be seen buying from that particular seller.”

“Not that I'd let either one of them near me with a twenty foot wand, but I sort of like the idea of Smeggall's to be honest. At least it's only temporary,” Harry said, but Hermione noticed his fingers worrying a hole in the knee of his jeans and she'd swear it was twice as big already as it had been that morning when he put them on.

Luna shook her head and the little dragons roared furiously, sounding for all the world like angry mice. “Don't be fooled, Harry. Since Scrimgeour won't buy Smeggall what he wants, he's advertising to have his own made. The specifics request a clearly visible restraining object that would mark the wearer as a threat and permanently incapacitate their use of magic. It's not a short order, but for every good witch there's a bad one somewhere, and I'm sure someone will figure it out before long.”

She smiled then, completely incongruously with the news she'd just delivered, and said, “On the bright side, I haven't seen a thing about it yet and I've been thinking about you three quite a bit the last few days. Ever since I came up to London, actually. I think it's really lovely the way you've worked everything out between you. I haven't told a soul, of course, but you're awfully lucky to be such good friends. That sort of thing always got so nasty in Ravenclaw, all those brains working overtime on revenge. Gryffindors are much nicer in the end.”

All three of them looked at her warily; Ron blushed again and Hermione feared that in complimenting him Luna might well have set him off.

“Especially you, Ron,” she continued, blissfully unaware. “I honestly think your unselfishness is going to free up your spirit for good things.”

“Erm,” said Ron. It was hard to argue with that. “Would anyone else like a drink?”

They ended up remaining on the floor where they were, drinking butterbeer and talking about less tender subjects as the light slowly faded from behind the shades and the room cooled further with the onset of evening. Hermione couldn't remember which of them realized they were hungry first, but the boys decided on take away Chinese and apparated away to collect it.

Luna wandered into the kitchen after her to collect dishes and silverware onto a tray that they sent floating ahead to the front room. Hermione was reaching for glasses in the cupboard over the sink when Luna said, “So how is he really? Ginny always said she thought Harry'd be fantastic if he got rid of the whole shadow of You Know Who thing.”

Like Luna, her question was worded vaguely enough to be taken in a variety of ways; Hermione chose the safest option, and gripped the glasses carefully.

“He's doing much better now, I think. The thing with his hands was really bothering him even though he didn't talk about it much. They're healing well now; he gets to have the bandages off for good on Monday. And Elspeth's helped quite a lot actually, just talking to her.”

“Good,” Luna replied, sounding really pleased. “I expect that'll be a relief for you as well.”

Rather. She was quite looking forward to the bandages being gone, and she was acutely aware of Luna's potential double meaning.

“Are you looking forward to your last year of Hogwarts?” she asked, changing the topic entirely. “I really sort of regret missing that. I've been thinking about sitting my N.E.W.T.s anyway; they're so important if you want a good apprenticeship. Are you thinking of working for your father?”

“I'm not sure about Hogwarts, truthfully,” Luna began. Now that the dishes and silverware had gone on and Hermione was handling the glasses she was unoccupied and began to spin slowly around on her heel, watching the flare of her skirt around her. “I feel like I've sort of outgrown it already in a way. Now that the Voldemort threat is over with, everyone I've seen over the summer talks about nothing but Balls and boys and dress robes. I'm afraid they take so much for granted now. It can't just go from mortal peril for half bloods and muggle-borns to everything fine and dandy, can it? They act as if Voldemort acted alone, but it wasn't even his Death Eaters that were so scary, it was what all of us ultimately would have had to have chosen if it came down to it. There were a fair number of us who would have sacrificed all sorts of things to stay alive, but all the Ministry bothers to try and regulate is Harry.”

Her thoughts were so remarkably close to Hermione's own that she wondered if the other girl wasn't an unconscious legilimens as well as whatever else she was. Luna stopped and changed direction, slowly rotating the other way. The bells on her belt tinkled like wind chimes.

“I suppose I'm no better than anyone else, though, because I'd secretly like to work there. At the Ministry, much as I despise it. I've always wondered about the Department of Mysteries and I haven't been able to stop thinking about some of it since we were there. I think I'd like to be an Unspeakable.”

Again her thoughts were so close to Hermione's own that it goggled her imagination. And different as the two of them were, Hermione could indeed see how Luna might make an excellent Unspeakable as well.

“I've actually just applied there myself,” she confessed. “They haven't taken an apprentice in a while, so there's a list. They do it by interview rather than sequential order though, so there's always hope. If by any chance I get in, I'll give you a good word next year.”

Luna ceased spinning and fixed her in that disconcerting gaze. “Thanks. You don't have to; I know you think I'm a bit strange.”

“In a good way,” Hermione admitted, realizing that denying it would be a lie. “We just approach things differently. Harry thinks the world of you and vehement as he can be about people, he isn't often wrong.”

“No,” Luna agreed. “And people tend to be very vehement about Harry in the first place. Is he going to tell Ginny about you at the Weasley's this week end?”

“I don't know for certain, but I think so. I'm a bit worried about that to be honest, I don't want her to be so unhappy that it spoils um....” she paused, wondering if she was spilling the beans about Tonks and Lupin, then realized who it was she was spilling them to; Luna probably already knew somehow. “… spoils Tonks and Lupin's announcement for her. You've spent a bit of time with her this summer, haven't you? Do you think…. I mean she asked me if I thought she should invite Harry back for the Yule Ball when I went robe shopping with her before the two of us got together. I didn't get the feeling she thought things were quite over between them, but I know, erm, well Harry certainly does.”

“Harry would have hated that wouldn't he?” Luna said wisely. “Going back for the ball, I mean. I think he'd like seeing things gone back to normal at Hogwarts and visiting Hagrid and Professor McGonagall, but Ginny'd want to show him off a bit and that's the last thing he'd enjoy. I do see what you mean and you're right, about her not entirely believing he was over her. That's exactly the sort of thing I meant about this year at Hogwarts. If it weren't for taking N.E.W.T.s I think I'd do a Fred and George.”

The boys arrived back then with their meal and conversation drifted naturally to dishing up the food and settling in to it. They ate on cushions on the floor in the front room around the low sofa table, half listening to the wizarding wireless in the background. Hermione surprised herself by enjoying Luna's presence the rest of the night immensely. She said exactly what she thought or nothing at all if she had nothing to say. Admittedly, some of her thoughts were a tad off the wall, but she never seemed to take offense if you said so. Some that Hermione felt she could easily disprove only lead her to discover for herself half way into her proof that there was wiggle room in many of the ideas she'd learned and accepted as fact.

Harry was as relaxed as she had seen him lately even despite Luna's confirmation of Elspeth's fears. and Ron appeared positively cheerful under their guest's heady approval of his every contribution to the conversation. She seemed to find his jokes hilarious and Ron too relaxed and unwound to her infectious laughter. It felt nice and normal and a bit like being back in the common room at school, and Hermione knew if she tried she could fool herself into believing that the worst thing she had to worry about was potions the following morning.

On the other hand, if she'd been at school, she wouldn't get to retire to Harry's bed, and as she found herself getting sleepy the thought appealed to her more and more. They had been careful and circumspect the entire evening, and she felt that some of Ron's relaxation could be chalked up to that as well. He seemed to be accepting they were no less a trio, and the two of them weren't intent on changing what they had all liked best about their friendship.

Finally Luna announced that she had to return to her Father's rooms at the Leaky Cauldron before he worried about her and Ron chivalrously announced he'd floo over with her and made sure she got upstairs safely.

Harry banished the dishes and silverware to the kitchen to clean themselves and fed the scant remainders of their meal to the appreciative rubbish bin while Hermione floated the cushions back on the sofa and then made sure the guinea pigs had water and food in their makeshift cage. Crookshanks appeared and twined round her ankles eying them jealously. Harry filled his bowl with leftover egg drop soup and he left off noticing the guinea pigs even existed.

It had taken her the entire length of time that brushing her teeth and changing into pajamas required to give shape to the half-formed thought bouncing aimlessly around her brain.

Why would this Smeggall be so interested in a method of blocking Harry's magic that spoke of submission and defeat? Much as she disagreed with it she thought she understood Scrimgeour's fear of Harry either usurping his position or threatening the Ministry with his own ideas; it didn't surprise her that he just wanted something fast acting and irreversible to end the threat. But why would his assistant be so interested in another method entirely, one designed more with entrapment and humiliation in mind than permanence?

Harry had said of the two he liked it better because it wasn't permanent. Why would you let someone who threatened you have the potential to gain his power back unless you wanted him to? Only one reason sprang to mind. You had to be planning to need that force for something. You had to be planning to utterly demoralize and goad the bearer of it like a caged and taunted lion and then at the height of his frustration turn him on your target like a loaded cannon. She loved Harry very dearly, but she could also clearly see him as the perfect target for such a plan.

She was suddenly very glad they'd be seeing Tonks and Lupin soon; they were exactly the two who could be most help figuring this bit out.

She heard Harry and Ron coming down the hall together and their muttered `g'nite mate,' and `night Ron,' were friendly and relatively normal and music to her ears.

Harry must have gone to scrub his teeth; she'd started to drift and the sound of him creeping into the semi-darkened room roused her. He paused at the end of the bed and pulled his tee shirt over his head in one smooth movement, tossing it into the laundry bin just inside the closet door. She watched through her lashes as he leaned on the doorframe to toe off his trainers and toss his socks into the bin after his shirt. How could something as everyday and unconscious and mundane be so damn hot just because he was the one doing it?

She called out his name softly from the bed and he came over to her and sat on the edge beside her, reaching out to stroke her hair.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I thought you were asleep. I didn't mean to wake you.”

He was so lovely in the dim light, his pale skin luminous and hair and eyes so dark they almost disappeared. The hand smoothing her own hair was tender and gentle and he radiated a warmth that was still infinitely desirable despite the heat of the night; another kind of heat altogether.

“I just wanted to help,” she whispered back, and her fingers drifted to the button of his jeans, undoing and unzipping and tugging them free of his hips. He shimmied out of them and crawled up onto the bed.

“You've always been helpful, but I like this even better than checking my assignments,” he said happily. She heard his glasses clatter against the nightstand and felt his mouth locate hers blindly, a little to the left first time but true the second. She hadn't kissed all that many men, but she couldn't imagine how anyone could improve on Harry as far as she was concerned. He somehow managed exactly the right balance of tenderness and want; politely waiting for her lips to part and then devouring her whole and leaving her breathless when they did.

“I still like checking your assignments,” she teased him gently when she'd got her breath back, then slid her palms down his boxered bum and pulled him closer to prove it.

“Hermione, that was…” she heard the grin in his voice even though she was too intently nuzzling into his neck to see it, “actually faintly umm, off color for you.”

She felt herself smile and gently kissed the boney knob of one of his collar bones and pushed the very tip of her tongue into the small pulsing hollow between them. “It was, wasn't it? You must be a bad influence on me. I never told off-color jokes when I was with Ron.”

He'd rolled his hips against her in response to the dip of her tongue and she could feel him stiffening exactly where she most liked him to be stiff.

He pushed up and propped himself on his arms above her, his ribcage still meeting hers with each shuddering breath and causing her own to quicken. She could feel him even more clearly with the shift in his weight, was only too aware of the heat seeping through her in response.

“Thank you for tonight,” he whispered. “It's been so long since we've done anything like that, just sat around and had a meal together and laughed. It always ended up with me skulking away from the two of you bickering about something or Ron sick of the two of us talking horcruxes and spells. It felt like we were all just normal for once. I know Luna makes you a little crazy sometimes…”

“I actually quite liked Luna tonight,” she told him. “And that was above and beyond the fact that she and her father were already all over what the Ministry's been up to. We talked a bit while you and Ron were at Wizard Wong's and I learned a lot about her I didn't know. I enjoyed it tonight as well, and I know that she and Ron both did too. So you're more than welcome, Harry. It was lovely to see you just enjoying yourself. You deserve more of that now.”

“Okay,” he agreed, and nudged himself slightly more insinuatingly against her again. It was such a lovely sensation, so full of promise of the all ways she was intimately aware he could move when aroused that her breath caught with it.

“Make these gone,” she begged quietly, pulling at the elastic around his waist. She saw the gleam of the white of his eyes and they disappeared with a small tingling flare of magic. His hands clutched at the fabric of her tank and that was gone as well. He settled against her, skin to skin for a single too-brief moment, then slid to her side with legs still intertwined and spanned her hipbones using both his hands. Her knickers and pajama bottoms evaporated coolly against her skin, the pulse of magic strong enough to make things… twitch, for both of them.

She heard herself let loose a sound she'd never known she could make, and probably couldn't reproduce without him. She ached for him then; mere wanting didn't come close to the intensity of it. Barely breathing she guided his hands where she needed them; she realized then he'd taken the bandages off and only worn skin met her in her most unworn places. The subtle assault of uncontained magic from his fingertips was like bubbles bursting from a freshly poured muggle soft drink, building with the strength of his own arousal. It coursed within her and met with her own; she knew she was sensing only a small fraction of what lived in him but it was more than she could possibly hope to hang on to and she felt herself seize up helplessly with the raw intensity of it. He seemed to sense what she was experiencing, watching and holding her until just when she thought another moment would send her over the edge from pleasure into madness his mouth found hers and somehow drew it all back.

She could feel her own magic begin to follow along with it, seemingly small and helpless against the tide of his and she almost began to panic although even her anxiety was dulled by the heavy satiety that was settling on her now. She broke the kiss and with it the connection; felt all that was magical within her surge against her skin and settle back like a wave of its own, rushing like oxygenated blood to her heart. She had never felt as weak and yet powerful at once; she knew he had changed something within her forever, and for the better. He held himself up over her again, panting softly, both aware and not yet conscious of what he had actually given her; what he had done.

“Harry,” she breathed.

“I wanted to please you, to give you something special, I didn't know,” he told her, the tremble in his voice betraying his nervousness. “I didn't know it would be like that. I never meant to frighten you, Hermione, you know I wouldn't for the world.”

Her arms felt languid and heavy but she wrapped them around him, stroking him reassuringly, the fingers of one hand caressing his spine and the other moving up and down his ribs. All that magic, and such a fragile, human host. How was it possible he kept contained all that he did?

And then she felt it and began to laugh, utterly losing her awe.

“All that and you're still…” He head-butted her and then kissed her to shut her up; she could sense his sheepish grin in the curve of his lips when they parted hers.

“Never mind,” he said.

The languid feeling was receding; she felt renewed and newly powerful. Out of sheer curiosity she extended her hand toward the dresser and murmured, “Accio wand.”

Its flight was erratic and it dropped before reaching the edge of the bed, but it responded. She had done her first wandless magic ever.

“Bloody Hell,” Harry breathed. “You just…”

“Can you reach it for me?” she asked him, smiling ear-to-ear. “I have some spells I want to do, and I want to make sure they're right. That was the single most incredible thing anyone's ever done for me, and even if it's gone by tomorrow I will never, ever forget that feeling. Prepare to be thanked within an inch of your life, Harry. Make sure you do the silencing one, because I might just have to thank you until you scream.”

He hastened to obey, scrabbling over the side of the bed. “You never do anything half way do you? Straight from the jokes about my assignments to making me scream. Who are you, and what did you do with Hermione?”

“Meet the new and improved Hermione,” she told him, feeling it.

“There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old one,” he said, reappearing over the side again, wand in hand. “But I love the new one already.”

“And she loves you back,” she told him, and proceeded to make it true.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 13

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Subject: Harry James Potter

Interview Date: Thursday July 30, 1998

Interview #: n/a

Observations: Today was not Harry Potter's Day

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The moment I'd been awaiting with such trepidation chose today to come to life. Why is it, the things you hope for are never that quick? Dread is a potent accelerant.

It had all been going so well overall I should have known it was coming sooner rather than later. He'd been healing nicely, keeping his nose clean and his famous scar well out of sight. He'd been cooperative, if reluctant, about turning in his wand and coming to see me. I'd known Scrimgeour wanted to make an example of him, but Harry'd been so careful about making it difficult for him, until now.

It smells of a set up, and it pisses me off so much that I didn't see it coming … or who pulled it off, which might have explained so much. I thought I was watching all the right people and I didn't see a thing. I can make assumptions, but you know the old saying about those who assume; and in this case being wrong could make far more than an ass of me.

He was in Diagon Alley. No big deal, right? He'd been there before, recently, with me. I hadn't actually realized at the time that it had been his first trip out and about the streets without the sole purpose of getting somewhere specific since the night of Voldemort's demise. I'd been too distracted by his happy-Harry-ness the last time, his obvious joy in the progression of his relationship with Hermione. I'd been purposely distracted by him in his kindness so that he could arrange to buy Arcturus and have him sent to Em when I wasn't looking. I'd been just plain distracted by not wanting any of the darkness hovering over him to be real.

Ron and Hermione were with him this time, of course. Whoever engineered the whole thing - and it was planned, I'm sure of it - knew those two essential pieces. It was a two-pronged effort, as far as I can tell. The first stab to the cautious balance of his reserve was none other than Draco Malfoy.

Ron's voice dripped with rage when he told me about it afterwards; whatever animosity Harry and Draco share, clearly Ron is in on it. It isn't really any great surprise. That the Malfoys are still around with their wands intact is more a testament to the “slither” in Slytherin than anything else. But then they always have done; history is full of Malfoys known to embrace the less-than-legal and get away with it. Take a single step back from the heart of the family and you'll find not a few cousins in the ranks of Ravenclaw. They aren't stupid, and that's what makes them scary, and in my opinion makes them all the more unforgivable when they fall dark.

According to Ron, Harry and Draco have been sworn enemies almost since the moment they met, and Draco and his menacing band of Slyths dogged them all of their days at Hogwarts. He told me about Harry's apparent conviction Draco was up to something sixth year, and how none of them took it seriously because of their history with each other. Ron's regret at this was all too obvious; much as he himself seemed not to like Draco, clearly something else had been drawing his attention another way that year as well.

Draco, too, did not show up for his seventh year at Hogwarts - I know this because I checked, and he isn't listed as a graduate. Unlike the trio of Gryffindors, however, there was no honorary degree for him. He did apparently redeem himself somewhat by fighting on the right side in Hogsmeade that night. Chances were excellent he was simply running like hell from his father's old compatriots, got caught in the middle and figured his chances were better with the Aurors (at least he'd get a trial) then the Death Eaters (not known for their judicial fairness or temperance when it came to those who failed their master.) Whatever happened, he was somehow cleared in the end when it came to light that he wasn't the one who'd actually killed Dumbledore and he did not, in fact, bear the dark mark. My personal opinion was that the fact he didn't have one was only a technicality meant to shield him from Dumbledore while he did Voldemort's work within the castle rather than any moral choice of his own, but there you are. It's neither here nor there now. It does make me wonder where he hid that year, though. Or who hid him.

Ron said he told them he'd got an apprenticeship and taunted Harry for being useless and still living on his laurels as the Boy Who Lived Again. Words were exchanged about the Order of Merlin affair (Draco and Narcissa had apparently been in the line of fire of one of the exploding pumpkin soup tureens.) Ron said Harry had finally had enough and decided to join Hermione, whom they were due to meet in Flourish and Blots. He moved to turn away from Draco, cutting short their exchange with something roughly equivalent to “whatever - have a nice life, I've got better things to do.” Malfoy had then stepped forward and grabbed his arm to deliver the last word and got repulsed by what could only have been a surge of Harry's self-protective magic. Ron told me Draco was thrown back against a lamp pole and launched himself toward Harry in a fury. Ron tripped him en route, and a scuffle ensued.

The fact that it was Diagon Alley clues you in that it wasn't muggle-style, either. Hexes flew, shapes were shifted; substances were spewed. A crowd gathered to watch as Malfoy informed Harry (during one of the portions when he had a mouth capable of forming words) exactly what his apprenticeship was doing.

“I'm going to help make the choke collar for your so-called magic, Potter, and when I do you can bloody guarantee it will work. What will you be then, you pathetic little muggle-minded half blood? What will you be without your freakish magic then?”

If you ask me, they were the words of a scared, inadequate little boy. The ones you have to worry about don't make threats like that; they leave those to the playground bullies and just get on with it. Doesn't make it right, but put what happens next into a different light, for me at least.

Someone in the outskirts of the crowd that had gathered around the boys suddenly shouted that Flourish and Blots was on fire and there were hooded wizards inside.

Note the wording there… Who in their right mind shouts “Hooded Wizards in Flourish and Blotts!” You scream “Death Eaters! Get `em!” (or “Death Eaters, run for your life!” depending on your history with them.) But Hooded Wizards? Sounds like you already know they aren't D.E.s and are stupidly implicating yourself, or you're a Death Eater yourself and trying to implicate someone else. Not much neutrality involved.

Ron said there was smoke coming out of a second story window over the street. Harry struggled to his feet. He'd apparently still had a set of some sort of bedraggled wings, halfway through throwing off a curse of Malfoy's. Not useful ones, Ron informed me, more like he'd been about to be a Diricawl; such a Malfoy-like choice. He didn't have a wand, I'm not even entirely sure he had hands then, but no one there disputes that he was the one that blew the front of the store right off clear to the roof in his blind anxiety to get inside.

There had to have been something like a hundred people in the vicinity; there were students, couples and families, some with little kids, all up and down the street. Not a single witch or wizard was hurt. Glass and doors and books and bookshelves everywhere, and not a single soul injured.

Except one.

Harry's relief in finding Hermione alive and well inside had been short-lived when the Aurors had arrived and in short order accused him of the willful killing of one Sophismata Cullen. Sophis was well known in Diagon Alley, though better still in the Knockturn environs. She was one hundred and fifty if she was a day, deaf as a post and twice as thick. She was a notorious pick-pocket and malcontent, and it was entirely believable that she would have come to work the crowd that had formed around the boys.

It was impossible for me to believe, though, that she was actually shopping in Flourish and Blotts where they found her under a bookshelf. She probably hadn't read a book in over a hundred years; first assuming of course she could read. And she was in the household magic section, just the place you might plant an innocent old grandmother selecting a book of housekeeping spells for an errant daughter in law, but Sophis? She lived in a hovel, and she liked it that way. I`m willing to bet anything an unbiased autopsy would show she was killed by something else and someone planted her there. I'm also willing to bet she won't get one. She had an enormous bruise on the middle of her forehead, for example, that was already hours old as far as I could tell when I saw her body. I'll be interested if that fact gets glossed over. Her body was very quickly removed; and she was not the only one.

They'd taken a stunned (literally and figuratively) and bound Harry away then, and there were mixed feelings left on the street behind him. I listened carefully while I pretended to be taking notes and observing the scene. Some were outraged at the way he'd been manhandled and thought it unjust and unfitting to treat Harry Potter that way after all he'd done for them. It had been an accident, hadn't it? Who'd expect anything less from him if there were Death Eaters around?

No excuse! argued the predictable opposition, although it was minimal and they might well have been plants. They insisted there was no excuse for such outsized magical force on the streets of Diagon Alley, no excuse for such destruction of property and the loss of a life. That's why they wanted shut of You Know Who - how was Potter any different? No one like that should be allowed to walk free amongst regular wizards, even if there were Death Eaters around.

But were there? others had muttered, undecided. None had been found, and the fire seemed to have been started by spontaneous combustion brought on by shelving “Magical Firestarters; Charms for Fires When Incendio Just Won't Do” too close to “The Book of Ignition - Make All Your Spells Spark!”

Archibald Blott had been at the store and furious at the accusation; he assured the Aurors that even the lowliest clerk there knew better than that and the books had to have been moved very deliberately by an adult patron capable of undoing the alarm spells on them to ensure against incidents like this. He showed no interest in pressing charges against Harry for the damages, despite repeated offers to do so by the Ministry in the guise of Percy Weasley.

Oh yeah, Ron and his most despised brother came face to face, and the resulting collision of wills couldn't have been much prettier than the one that preceded it. This part I actually witnessed; and I have to say Ron gained major points in my estimation. The impressions I'd mostly garnered of him so far had all been with Harry present; it became clear to me then that on his own Ron was completely capable of taking things up a notch. It was as if when Harry was around Ron had become used to the fact that Harry would be the one officially on watch, his natural intensity allowed Ron the luxury of his own more easygoing nature. Without him Ron appeared more than ready to step up to the bat and take care of things his own way, and while Percy might be Ron's brother by blood, the bond between Ron and Harry after all they had gone through together was a hundred times stronger and more complex.

Percy left white-faced and furious, more, I think, because their argument had been witnessed by a good number of bystanders and their support had begun to shift toward Harry as some of the facts began to be bantered about between the two of them. His retreat was designed to shut Ron up, and I was sure we hadn't seen the last of him.

Well, that, and he just might have been fleeing the all-too-evident fact that where Harry's well-being was concerned, Hermione lost every possible trace of potential Ravenclaw, and it became abundantly clear that the sorting hat knew exactly what it was about with that one. She was one pissed-off Gryffindor lioness, and she lost none of her ability to put together a razor-sharp argument on the fly just because her protective instincts had kicked in and she was going for someone, anyone's jugular at the same time. She could clearly take you down and convince you it was really all your own fault without breaking much of a sweat, and only the fact that bureaucracy breeds the boldest and blindest of indifference saved every Ministry employee there from breaking down in sobs and personally apologizing.

I know I wanted to.

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They weren't letting anyone in to see him when Ron and Hermione were finally allowed to leave the scene by the investigating Aurors and arrived at the Ministry. It was times like this that you had to miss Mad Eye, because no one ever said `no' to him - or at least he'd never noticed when they had. Hermione had the potential to become an excellent replacement however; she was apparently so merciless in her resolve that at least two aides in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were hiding in the witches' lavs. Unfortunately, it had got them nowhere so far.

It was time. They'd given it their best shot and no one had seen Harry in better than two hours. They could be doing anything to him. I took a deep breath and put myself in the middle.

“No one gets in,” my close personal friend Auror Flargemore was telling Hermione. “N-O, er, one.”

“Perfect,” I told him, stepping up to join them, “because there are three of us. So there's not a problem at all, and since you're already aware of the fact that I'm his Ministry Assigned Spell Damage worker, there's no need to keep us waiting either. I know the spell to get in and everything. Thanks Leonard.”

I pushed past him, daring him with my eyes to lay so much as a finger on me. Of course he didn't, like all endlessly wand-fiddling, under-endowed compensators he squealed to one of his superiors instead. I'd managed to get us inside the first door, though, so there was one barrier down. I quickly did the spell for the second that let out into the corridor where the holding rooms were. It opened up on the disproving gaze of whomever it was Flargemore had squealed to; discouraging, but not yet impossible. Before I could begin my assault on him, however, someone else came up from behind us to join the skirmish.

Bloody smegging hell. Artemis Grollinghard.

“Let them in,” she said. “Minister has okayed it if I escort them.” And winked at me. A distinct but subtle wink. Eww! I'm not on winking terms with Artemis Grollinghard! What's up with that?

The Auror stepped aside and Artemis moved confidently down the corridor to a room at the very end, whipped out her wand and undid the locking and security charms in a trice. Only I knew Artemis' wand better than I wanted to, having been on the cursing end of it more times than I could name. And that wasn't it. So was someone else helping us get to Harry, or were we helping someone who meant him harm to get in to him? I did a quick foot-sticking charm so she couldn't push open the door and stuck my wand discreetly into the small of her back while eying the Auror down the hall. Ron caught on quickly and moved to block his view; all Hermione wanted was THROUGH THAT DOOR. She looked at me as if I was raving. If Harry was in there what the hell was I playing around for?

“Who are you? Because you're not Artemis Grollinghard.” I whispered as menacingly as I could manage.

She stared directly at Hermione and said in a low voice, “Nymphadora Tonks. I'm an Auror. I'm a friend of Harry's. Ron and Hermione will vouch for me. Can we move now please?”

Ron nodded at me; Hermione took a long, hard look and added her agreement with another almost imperceptible one. I lifted the charm and lowered my wand and she opened the door impatiently, as if it had jammed. We all slipped through and closed it behind us, and at first we had eyes for no one but Harry.

It appeared they hadn't enervated him. That would have been one reason to keep us out; that was very plainly against International Magical Law for prisoners, especially because they had secured him as well. His hands and feet were bound and he'd been dumped summarily on the floor it what looked like a really uncomfortable position. I found it particularly petty and unnerving that his glasses were missing; he looked somehow naked and vulnerable without them. He wasn't petrified, because he was way too limp for that, but it didn't look like a regular stupefy to me, either.

Hermione let out an almost unearthly sound and dropped down beside him, attempting to rearrange his limbs. Ron crouched down behind her, swearing.

Artemis morphed in to quite a striking young woman with a pale heart-shaped face and black hair that had deep lavender streaks in a cool spikey, tropical-bird sort of style. The sudden contrast to Artemis' conservative, matronly robes was highly comical. Her eyes were very dark, almost black, and both anxious and angry over the sight before her. They shifted sideways toward me and she nudged Hermione unsubtly with her foot and stared at me pointedly once she got her reluctant attention.

“Oh, no, Tonks, she's okay,” Hermione said at once. “Elspeth Hawktalon, Nymphadora Tonks. Elspeth's Harry Spell Damage specialist, Tonks, but she wants to help. Honestly.”

Interesting juxtaposition there. When I made Spell Damage my career, it was specifically because I wanted to help. Now I seem to have to do it despite my calling instead. Bloody bureaucracy.

I crouched beside Hermione and drew a quick scanning spell over Harry. He wasn't truly petrified, that must be how they were justifying the legality of it all. He was under a stasis spell only Level One Aurors are allowed to use. Tonks recognized it from the scan and her face grew hard. She turned to Ron, her voice low and urgent.

“We need to get him out of here. Even Remus and your Dad think it's the only way now. Once they get hold of him they won't let go.”

“Where and how?” asked Ron tersely. “Anywhere we take him is going to mean trouble.”

“The erm, Place,” Tonks told him still apparently not trusting me. I didn't blame her, actually. “And we've got to bust him out of here so you can apparate somewhere neutral first and then on to um, there.”

“Any plans on how exactly we're going to do that?” he questioned her hopefully.

“Nope. I was kind of hoping the Chess Master would have a brilliant idea.”

He groaned, never a good sign. Hermione glanced over to me. “Do you know how to enervate him from this?”

“I do. The question is, do you want him to have a say in this conversation or do you want to wait and just tell him where you're taking him and go?”

Hermione got my point; none of us doubted Harry'd have something to say about his current situation. It would be nice to distract him with the comfort of a plan, however.

“How do they normally get prisoners out of here?” Ron asked, suddenly thoughtful. “Come to think of it, I've never seen anyone under guard in the elevators or anything whenever I visited Dad.”

“No,” I told him, quickly gaining an idea; then stopped and nodded at Tonks. She was the Auror after all.

She blushed. “I do more surveillance and undercover stuff; I haven't worked with a prisoner since my first year… Oh!”

I grinned at her. She'd realized it too.

“If we can get out there, there's a special door right out the back where you can apparate prisoners directly to the boat landing for Azkaban,” she said excitedly. “It's set up so that it's far away from the main entrance of the building and there's no access back to the rest of the Ministry so if anyone ever got lose they couldn't get in to look for revenge for their sentencing. It's completely blocked from the muggle side of things as well. And it's not far from here.”

“How many Aurors or Department workers are we likely to come across on our way?” asked Hermione, all business now though her hand remained on Harry's chest. It was motionless; you don't breathe during a stasis charm, which is why they aren't meant to be left on for long. It's very disconcerting to watch.

“That's the best bit,” I told them. “If you go that way there's just the one. No one uses it for any other reason because once you step into the field you're automatically limited to the Azkaban boat landing as your destination - and no one goes there if they can avoid it. There'll be no one expecting you, so you guys can hit the ground running and clear the landing - there's an anti-out ward on it - and just reverse back quick to wherever you're going.”

“How're we going to get past even the one, though?” Ron asked. “Who is it?”

“They're on shifts, it's a position in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,” Tonks informed him. “They just check prisoners in and out, a clerical thing. No telling who's on duty, but it shouldn't matter.”

“You're going to get there by Harry using me as a hostage,” I explained to him. “I need to maintain my position here as long as I can to see what's going on from the inside. So far all I've been is overzealous in trying to see my subject. Harry's already in so deep it won't change anything for him. If he pretends to hold me hostage and you and Hermione keep moving you can all three get to the apparition point and I'll have an alibi - Harry made me do it.”

Ron looked distinctly uncomfortable with the idea, but several moments of silence proved a better one wasn't popping in to his mind fully realized anytime soon.

“It's the best we've got,” Hermione told him. Tonks nodded.

I broke the stasis spell on Harry and he surged against his restraints, gasping. Clearly he'd gone down fighting.

“…son of a bit… Tonks?” he choked out, and froze, then blinked. His eyes traveled from Tonks to Ron and then Hermione.

Merlin, but I'd love for someone to look at me that way again. My own heart seemed to skip a beat with the raw relief and longing of it; I remembered so well seeing the same look in Almerick's eyes after a separation. They were really lovely together, the two of them.

“Come on, Mate,” Ron told him, hauling him forward and helping him to his knees so that we could get at his restraints. Hermione got his other side and Tonks managed to rid him of the one round his ankles but none of us got anywhere with the handcuff-like bindings holding his wrists behind his back. We explained our plan to him as we took turns trying different spells. I just want to say for the record here that it was Tonks that set the back of his jeans on fire, not me.

“I can still run,” Harry tried to persuade us. “I think,” he elaborated with a pointed look at Tonks. “We can cope with it later. I haven't got a wand to hold anyway.'

“Erm, nope. You need your arms,” I told him. “You've got to be the one to take me hostage. You're already in big trouble. You don't want them bringing a serious charge like that against Ron or Hermione.”

“None of them think I need my arms to do that,” he pointed out. And he was right, but I still thought he'd find them awfully handy at some point in the proceedings.

Hermione at last managed to slightly elongate the odd, almost lifelike cording they had used to connect the cuffs that bound his hands with a stretching charm, so that he could scoot back over them and force his legs through the circle of his linked arms. It seemed to heal itself against the most damaging spells and it didn't stay stretched out very long even under her fairly potent charm; I hoped against hope it wasn't something that would leave much trace magic to track until they could manage to get them off. He had a split lip and one eye was beginning to blacken and swell closed rather quickly now that the stasis charm was removed, but his injuries were far from fatal and aided well in making him look the part of potential desperate hostage-taker. And now he was ready to roll.

“Right then,” said Tonks. “I'm going to disappear back up to the Auror Department and see what I can gather about what's going on. Remus will meet you where you're going and let you in, and I'll be there later. Don't trust anyone and don't stop for anything. You don't have to know where you're going for the Azkaban leg of it, and as soon as you touch solid ground there, get off the landing and head right off again. Right?”

They nodded; the three of them together. It struck me anew that they didn't look nearly as young and frightened as they ought to; there was no sense of disbelief to them. They'd accepted the plan calmly enough and were prepared to just get on with it and get it over with. Most young wizards and witches I'd known their age would either be spoiling their robes about now, or else they would have left Harry to fend for himself. He had some truly loyal friends.

Hermione slipped the door open a crack, and eyed the hall. “All clear for the moment,” she said calmly. “Let's go.”

Ron moved behind her. Harry eyed me cautiously. “Hermione?” he called softly, “Can I borrow your wand?” She tossed it to him without question and he caught it in his still-linked hands. “It's weird enough to be holding you hostage,” he apologized. “I just don't think it looks quite as much a threat if I point my finger at you.”

I refrained from pointing out he'd taken down the whole front of Flourish and Blots with little more than an inconvenient blink. He lowered his arms over my head and the tip of Hermione's wand brushed my chin; much as I knew him as a nice kid, he could in fact pull off potentially menacing quite convincingly. A restless field of magic roiled against my own at my back. Tonks gave us a thumbs up.

We traveled down the end of the hall and came to the door. It had a plain glass panel; through it you could see the exterior door for prisoners at the end of another corridor heading off to our right. There was a transaction counter-type desk opening into the hall where papers were typically checked for prisoners coming or going, and a sign indicated the rest of the corridor going left lead off through the depths of the Ministry to the old Wizengamot courtrooms on level ten. A bored witch stood at the counter reading what appeared to be the Daily Prophet. No one else was in sight.

“There's no fudging this; but you're so close you don't have to. Go straight through the door and keep on for the exit. When you get out there stun me and go,” I told them. Hermione and Ron nodded, their eyes determined, and each took one of Harry's sides. Harry bent forward and gave me a brief, sweetly awkward hug from behind.

“I'm really sorry you got dragged into all this,” he said sincerely.

“I'm not,” I told him without trying to turn. It was easier, not seeing him. “It's not going to be politics and parlor games any more, Harry. They'll truly want to get you now, and I truly believe that it's wrong, what they want to do. I don't want to be a part of a society that calls itself civilized and lets its leaders do that to one of their own. I hope you'll let me help you when you get where you're going. For now just keep your wand on me and I'll look suitably terrified.”

He didn't say anything then, we all four burst through the door and ran full speed down the hall toward the exit. For future reference, it's hard work trying to run as fast as you can and making it look like you're being dragged at the same time. Who knew?

The witch looked up from her paper and her face turned to panic as we passed. She clearly recognized Harry and I mouthed something to make it look like I was screaming for help and had a silencing charm on. I sure hope she couldn't lip read. It seemed not, because she sounded an alarm charm, then let fire a couple of stunners.

They were like clockworks the way they came together, unthinking and efficient. Ron shielded Hermione, Hermione turned around and shielded Harry and I as she backed to the door, and Harry dropped the witch at the counter, firing backwards across my shoulder with the wand in both hands. I could feel the pulse of magic as it passed through, and it wasn't even his wand - he had to take a hand off to keep from overloading it. It still boggled me how he did that, where it all came from. The sound of pounding feet was already echoing down the corridor as we reached the door; Ron started with a complex unlocking charm but quickly realized we lacked for time and changed tack with a curse. He cast a Reducto instead. The doors blasted out and we followed them so fast we were on the platform before the last piece landed.

“Stun me!” I hissed, turning in the circle of his arms and looking back over his shoulder to see the first wave of would-be apprehenders closing in down the hall.

He looked me dead in the eyes as he pulled his bound hands over my head and whispered a quick charm I'd never heard before, in a language I'd only read about. Surely those lyrical hisses were parselmouth.

“Close your eyes,” he warned me.

I thought he couldn't bring himself to stun me with them open, but when I shut them, there were words seemingly written in burning light across the inside of my eyelids.

“The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix” appeared etched across my left inner eyelid. “Can be found at #12 Grimmauld Place, London,” followed across my right.

My eyes flew open in surprise and he smiled, wistfully.

“Stupefy.”

And I knew no more.

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They were gone when I awoke, enervated by none other than Rufus Scrimgeour himself. Several other witches and wizards milled about the platform but it was clear most had gone after Harry, Hermione and Ron.

His first words to me were, “They'll get him; there's no where to go from here but Azkaban.”

`An interesting perspective on the Ministry, Minister,' is what I wanted to say. What I said was, “That's true, Minister. And what will we do with him once we've got him back?”

“Oh, they shall take him on ahead,” Scrimgeour told me with a shake of his lion-like mane. “This proves there's no holding him safely here. No, you'll be doing your case visits in Azkaban, Ms. Hawktalon, should you choose not to quit the case.”

“I'll not quit the case,” I told him. “It's too fascinating, quite frankly, from a spell damage perspective.”

“It must be,” he said with a trace of amusement. “Being held hostage is not usually described as `fascinating' by your co-workers. Are you quite sure your professional perspective has not been… compromised?”

Here at last was the fine line I had to walk so carefully, laid out in black and white before me. When lying, it's always best to start out with as much of the truth as you can manage.

“Regardless of my personal and professional beliefs about the containment of his magic, he'll not be eighteen until tomorrow. He's looking at one hell of a birthday, isn't he? He's only a young man, he's been hounded by a terrible evil he never fully understood since he was a small child, he's just been through a long bloody battle with it and now he's frightened of being held captive, by anyone. Can you honestly blame him, Minister?”

It was rash, perhaps, to appeal to Scrimgeour that way, but I still felt like there was a normal wizard with human feelings under all those many years and layers of wariness. His predatory yellow eyes did soften a bit, and he looked off into the distance where muggle London plodded on, oblivious, when he replied.

“Indeed. He is perhaps too young to understand how much we all mean to help him. He will never truly be free as long as the magic from Voldemort's defeat is with him. Even if he manages to contain it physically there will always be those who seek to use him, and we can not allow that. He speaks with pride of being Dumbledore's man; I wonder how that would have changed if Dumbledore had lived to guide his steps against the Dark Lord. I am quite sure he hates me now, but what I am proposing is probably far kinder than any plan Dumbledore would have had. No, I would not change places with the boy for all the galleons in Gringotts.”

I was with him up until the Dumbledore part. If we were all putting our cards on the table, I thought their biggest fear, Scrimgeour and Smeggall both (though it was unlikely they'd admitted it to each other) was the Harry would turn out to be another Dumbledore; a wizard canny as he was potent. Dumbledore had been immensely powerful and yet subtle with it. He'd learned to play their game. He'd developed his barmy personality over time to mask rather than hide the raw range of both his intellect and magic. He'd loomed large over Harry's development as a wizard, and they knew it. If Harry could manage to pull a Dumbledore and utterly defuse public fears of his magic, he'd be beyond their grasp.

We needed Ms. Lovegood and her father's publication, and we needed to prove Harry was being framed and harassed into running rather than ducking responsibility for anything. And we need to do it quick.

“With your permission, Minister,” I said, indicating I was ready to leave.

“And what is your next step in your investigation, Ms. Hawktalon?” he asked me thoughtfully.

“I'll continue my research, of course, trying to identify the source of the problem. I'd like to visit Harry in Azkaban as soon as possible.”

Like when Hell froze over, because I was so hoping against hope they'd managed to get away. What I really wanted was to follow up on the address he'd flashed inside my eyelids and I'd been enormously relieved to discover still resident in my memory when I was enervated.

“Do you still believe it might be possible that spell damage is contributing to these outbursts?” he asked me, point blank.

That was a toughie. I believed with all my heart there was a dark spell at work on Harry that needed removing… but to be honest, I no longer believed it had anything to do with his losses of magical control.

“I'm quite sure there is a spell affecting him, yes,” I told him carefully.

He nodded, but I had little doubt he'd sensed my half truth.

“You'd best get to it, then” he replied. “We'll have to hold him until the wizards in development have finished their work else, and they don't seem to have anything but ideas at the moment. Actual production is proving problematic. It could be weeks, and we both know what weeks in Azkaban can do.”

There are plenty of wizards who don't survive days in Azkaban without losing their wits. I hoped desperately again that they'd completed their secondary apparitions safely.

“Yes, Minister, I said, and fled.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 14

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They came out of their apparitions at the foot of an old wooden dock jutting like an accusing finger into the heaving sea. It was thankfully deserted; no one was awaiting a new arrival. The air was heavy with fog, sea-spray and despair. Harry knew that somewhere out there in the impenetrable gray was the one place he never, ever wanted to be. Azkaban Prison.

He quickly checked side to side to make sure Ron and Hermione had both made it unscathed. Hermione was already turning away, looking for the way off the platform that led to the dock and out of the anti-apparition wards. Ron was staring out to sea just as Harry had, and as Harry watched he let out a reflexive shudder. It struck him like lightening that what he dreaded even more than Azkaban itself would be either Ron or Hermione facing it also. This was as far as he was willing to let them go defending him this time round.

Hermione reached for his hand and pointed to a series of stairs climbing up the cliff face; if they got up there they could most likely apparate out. He prodded Ron to life and pointed and they ran, wordlessly, and began climbing. He could feel his body still protesting whatever spell they had used on him; his lungs refused to fill the way they ought to and the upward progress was torture. He could feel Ron behind him pushing him onward from time to time as his feet grew heavier and heavier.

“Almost there,” Hermione gasped encouragingly, and he could tell she'd noticed his weakness as well. He redoubled his efforts with a last glance back; a figure popped into existence on the platform below them. Eights steps, five steps, three steps more… There was a shout from below, more figures popped in after the first. They threw themselves over the cover of the cliff face just as a spell split the air behind them.

“Carefully, both of you,” Hermione admonished them as they crawled and struggled to their feet well back from the edge, readying to apparate. Harry would have given anything to have side-alonged both of them. He could do it, but they would never allow him to. He hated the not knowing, the act of faith it took to submit himself to the process only hoping they would both appear beside him at the end of it. He envisioned the square outside Grimmauld Place, felt the sucking vortex of apparition, stepped into it and was gone.

If he never saw that dock again it would still be too soon.

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They stumbled into the square that fronted Grimmauld Place with three cracks that echoed through the late afternoon air like muggle gunfire. Harry noticed with some regret that the process that had begun only last year when they had occasionally used the house as a refuge while horcrux-hunting had continued; the neighborhood was slowly gentrifying. Gunfire was increasingly unlikely now; he hoped the expensive new cars beginning to dot the streets still backfired occasionally. They'd always flooed in before; they'd have to figure out how to bypass some of Dumbledore's carefully wrought wards before long.

He had nothing against the changes in the neighborhood either way; it was just that it was now more than ever likely to become unwelcoming to the presence of witches and wizards. It was sad how the circle continued; magical people avoiding discomfiting muggle sensibilities by staying to abandoned and crime riddled areas and then taking the unfair blame for being the cause of those very things. Vernon Dursley's spittle-driven accusation of `freak' echoed still in Harry's ears, along with the Dursley horror of anything different.

Of course, that wasn't fair either. Generations of the Black family's dark presence could have easily encouraged the neighborhood in its previous downslide, hidden or not. And for all the new muggle neighbor's evident concerns for property values, they were still equally unlikely to actually see what was right under their noses.

A quick look around revealed the way clear as far as they could see. The cost of rejuvenation was evidently a lot of hours spent in distant offices, and at this hour the neighborhood was still mostly deserted. They walked swiftly toward numbers eleven and thirteen and the battered door of number twelve seemed to shoulder its way out between the other two as if to greet them. Its black paint was considerably more worn then when Harry had first glimpsed it the summer before fifth year, and the silver serpent knocker was tarnished to a grotty green. Hermione grasped it firmly behind the head to knock; just because it was tarnished didn't mean it couldn't still bite.

“We should have gone somewhere and flooed in,” Ron said nervously, echoing Harry's earlier thoughts and keeping a wary eye out behind them.

“They would have traced us through the floo network, Ron,” Harry pointed out wearily. “We couldn't do that to anyone else. Even if they ultimately trace the apparition here to the square, they still can't find us in the house.”

Lupin pulled open the door and ushered them hurriedly in, quickly closing it behind them. There came the rattle and clink of numerous locks and chains snicking home; an all-too-familiar sound to Harry. He knew it was as if they and the house had literally disappeared from view, and no one who hadn't been specifically given the location could find them. It was to keep him safe, not trap him. Breathe, Harry.

Lupin's eyes took them in with a clear mixture of worry and welcome. Harry felt himself so relieved to be free that he actually felt suddenly faint and braced himself against the welcome solidity of the hall wall, noticing as he did that he was not alone and Ron had claimed the other one. Hermione moved against him and hugged him fiercely, and he felt in her tensed shoulders the struggle not to give in to the adrenalin let-down equalizer of a good cry.

“I think the situation calls out for stiff drink,” Lupin decided. “Thank Merlin you're all finally old enough I shan't feel guilty offering you one.”

They choose the kitchen for its sense of security and the fact that Ron's post-stress reaction was always starvation. Lupin sent his patronus off to Tonks to assure her they had arrived safely, and assured Ron that she would tell his father as well. He poured them each a measure of Ogden's; Hermione made herself tea and honey and added hers to it. Ron raided the near-empty larder while attacking his. Harry slumped into a chair at the table.

“You and Tonks eat like fairies,” Ron accused Lupin. “You've hardly any bloody food at all!”

“It was meant to be a surprise for this week end at the Burrow,” Lupin told him with a sigh, “but I've moved out to live with Tonks. I asked her to marry me, actually, and believe it or not she's said yes.”

Ron laughed. “I bet what she actually said was `about time, wolf man'. Congratulations.”

Lupin's eyes rolled. Clearly he'd been getting rather a lot of that.

Hermione's eyes sought out Harry's over the rim of her mug. Harry knew what she was asking but he felt so tired it seemed an almost insurmountable conversation to begin. And something of a moot point as well now - what other choice did they have?

“Ron, I wanted to ask you before all of this…. I mean Remus told me he was moving out and all, but I was going to wait until after week end not to spoil the surprise. Now it just seems like the only safe thing to do, but I was going to ask before any of this happened if you'd consider living here with Hermione and me. There's more room than the flat and it would just go vacant otherwise. It seemed like a good way to give everyone some space and still stay together. If anything happens to me, it'll belong to the two of you anyway.”

It had been going well enough until that last bit. He heard Hermione give a soft splutter into her tea and Ron's blue eyes went wintry as the North Sea.

“Nothing's going to happen to you, Mate. This whole thing stinks to high heaven of a set-up. Bloody Malfoy. I bet he paid off some old Death Eater debt of his Dad's with that performance today, either that or that's how he got his ruddy apprenticeship.”

“It doesn't make sense that the Ministry would have been behind it at all,” Harry pointed out. “They've already staked out their position; they want me visible and muzzled as a warning. If anyone did set up what happened this morning, it seems more that they wanted me kissed or put away for good. I apparently killed someone, Ron.”

The enormity of it hit him for the first time. He'd killed Voldemort, but he'd always known he was going to have to do that and it had had a sense of foregone justice to it. Today he'd actually killed someone, snuffed a life for no reason other than his own carelessness and lack of control.

“I just don't understand how it happened,” he heard himself continue shakily. “I… I would have sworn there wasn't anyone alive in the middle of it. I can feel that, I could have shielded just one person, there would have been time. I just wanted to get in the door and get to Hermione; I didn't want to hurt anyone. Even when the magic gets away from you it's not totally random on its own. I'm sure I could have saved her if I'd just felt anything at all...”

Despair swept over him then like a rogue wave from an otherwise flat sea, knocking him flat and drawing him back in its cold embrace. Everything he most feared about himself was washed loose from his deepest, darkest burying places in a roiling flood and floated like poison to the surface. He was death itself, a killer, murderer, he despoiled everything, brought nothing but conflict and pain and suffering wherever he went. How could he even think of loving anyone, a normal life, a future, a family, when all he'd done his whole life was draw people to their deaths? So many had died, if not at his hand then because of him. How could he think it was over? It would never be over …

There came a loud, rushing sound like water in his ears and his vision dimmed and blurred. Hands suddenly clutched at him, cold and claw-like, icy lips pushed at his ear whispering encouragements. Give in… let go… come to me now…

This time he was increasingly certain he didn't want to go. He was suffering from guilt rather than the sense of loss he'd felt when he'd thought Hermione had only kissed him out of pity, and guilt was a complex and layered emotion. He knew he'd killed someone, but he'd never wanted to, never meant to, it was an accident and oh, but he didn't want to be wherever this was. His heart ached here and the desolation was so thick it pervaded his skin and numbed and burned at the same time. He felt as if he were the rope in some terrible game of tug of war, seesawing back and forth through time and space. The freezing fingers were scrabbling for purchase now, tearing at his skin while other warmer, gentler ones held tight.

There were sounds then through the pounding of his heart and the rush of blood in his ears. Screams. He recognized one; his mum crying `Harry!' The same scream he heard whenever there were Dementors around, the one they extracted from somewhere within him. Another voice he almost recognized but didn't, cursing and pleading at once, and a voice he knew well that spoke to everything within him saying almost the same things.

`Stay with me Harry. Don't go. Stay here with me, Harry! Please…' Hermione. And Lupin, and Ron as well, calling him. Then who was…

`… Give in. You want this, you made it happen. This is where you belong. Let go. Let go damn you! Come to me!'

`Please, no,' he thought, and it was as if he had quite suddenly hit the end of his leash on life and it held strong. The cold fingers were ripped away and he landed hard on the floor of Grimmauld Place, soaked in sweat and shaking, gasping desperately for breath. He opened his eyes, slowly.

Hermione and Lupin each had hold of one of his arms; Ron held down his legs. They were breathing almost as hard as he was. Even Lupin appeared stunned.

“What the bloody hell was that, Harry?” Ron quaked out. “That was the scariest damn thing I've every seen, you almost… you were almost gone… ”

Harry rolled his head to toward Hermione. He'd knocked his glasses askew, but he could see the grasping claw like hands had actually left their marks on his skin. Wherever he'd almost been had been as real as here was now, and everything he'd felt had somehow happened. His eyes strayed on to hers, so worried but still so warm. For all he was sweating, he felt profoundly cold; he wished he could crawl inside their depths, curl up in her loving gaze and sleep for twenty years. He tried to reach toward her but his limbs were heavy and leaden.

He heard Remus' voice, as if from a long way away. “I've never seen anything quite like it, but it reeks of dark magic. Do either of you know if this has this ever happened before?”

Hermione told him about the first time. She described it as a pale shadow of what had just happened, and Harry thought she couldn't have been more right. The sound of her voice was mesmerizing; where would he be now if it were not for her strength to call him back? Where had he been headed?

He began to struggle upright then, beginning to feel both frightened and terribly pissed off. It was on the tip of his tongue, on the very edge of his consciousness who it was that was doing this. He knew somehow, but could not put the thought together or formulate the words. He felt certain that was part of the spell, and it made him feel violated and furious, as if he'd been gagged in plain sight and no one even noticed.

“I know who it is; I just can't… think it. Or say it. I'm sure of it, but it won't… there's always something in the way!” he snarled, frustrated almost beyond words. Ron quickly let go of his legs and Remus helped him sit up.

“That's not an uncommon component of dark magic, Harry. What good is a truly wretched curse if the person you're hexing can say what it is or who did it?” Remus told him.

“Elspeth's scanned me so many bloody times…”

“But does she think there's something there? She hasn't given up, has she? So she must. Spell damage often isn't a science so much as an art, Harry. There's a lot of guesswork and intuition involved. New spells are created every day, and variations on spells, and plain old spells with odd effects because of the way they were cast, or because they combined with other spells. It takes time. This new episode was obviously stronger than the last. Perhaps it will give her more to go on. I've truly never seen anything quite like it. You literally almost disappeared. My hands sunk right through you like… sand.”

Lupin had been Harry's best Dark Arts Professor ever. To see him stumped and rattled was disturbing to say the least.

“We need to find a way to tell Elspeth it happened again. And I wish we could get her to look at these cuts as well. Unless your body psychosomatically produced them itself someone actually had hold of you somehow,” Hermione said thoughtfully. “It all depends on how the curse works, I guess.”

“I showed her how to find us,” Harry admitted, more than a little defensively because they'd never discussed it and he knew he probably shouldn't have without their permission. “Before we apparated from the Ministry. I trust her, and if her ruse didn't work she might need a safe place for herself and Emily as well. She's put an awful lot on the line for me.”

He was relieved when Hermione and Ron both nodded approvingly; if Lupin was discomfited he hid it well.

Hermione stood up and took his hand in her own. “Come and get cleaned up. I'll try and heal those cuts and if they aren't too bad we'll leave one bandaged in case we can get Elspeth to look at it. I want to do a little research in the Black family book collection. They seem to have something on every creepy curse around; it's just a matter of thickening your skin up enough that you don't feel the desperate need to wash after every single page you look at.”

He allowed himself to be led toward the stairs quite gratefully. The thought of getting cleaned and warm and into a bed was beyond enticing. The thought of doing it all with her was the only thing that made him remotely glad to be alive.

Well, okay. He did get at least a little pleasure out of walking past the scorch marks that were once Walburga Black.

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The shower both faintly revived and pained him; he felt more aware but he was also more aware of the stinging of the new wounds that marked his skin. He examined his hands closely as the water streamed over the rest of him. They were as good as healed now, the long thin line of scar tissue that ran from the callous at the base of his middle finger down the center of both palms was entirely closed, no longer angry or even raised but beginning to blur softly into the rest of his skin.

One set of wounds healing, another opened. Would it ever just stop? He had the distinct sense that the threats closing in on him now were unrelated to each other but that all were exploiting the same weakness in his defenses. If he was so ruddy powerful, why was he letting everyone push him around? He'd been too strung out just trying to get through it all… it was time to take the dragon by the tail. If he could actually control all this instead of it controlling him, they'd bloody well have to leave him alone then… Even Scrimgeour. Harry had a brief, fulfilling fantasy of blowing the walls of Scrimgeour's office in the Ministry out over Muggle London and Percy Weasley clinging to one like a magic carpet, sailing through the air and squealing like the rat he was.

The water abruptly turned off and a towel was thrust in at him.

“You've gone from the getting clean part to the getting revenge part,” Hermione told him wisely.

He shook his head like a dog, unwittingly dousing her, then buried his face in the towel. “How did you know that?” he asked from its folds. “That's not fair.”

“You were in there long enough,” she said. He felt another towel beginning to dry him elsewhere and realized with a jolt that just because his face was covered didn't mean hers was. How strange was it that he was both stirred and yet still so hesitant about his nakedness in front of her after what they'd done together? Old habits died hard; for all she was the only one he could imagine sharing his life with that way, there was still an instinctual twelve-year-old in his response to her. He lowered the towel and met her eyes and felt yet another treacherous response, the results of which had to be clearly evident to her even through the towel she was drying his stomach with.

“You know, you're really quite nice when you're all cleaned up, Harry,” she said, and her lips curled at the corners in such an utterly familiar Hermione-ish way that he was overcome. He reached without thought to touch those small curves that hid so much of the humor behind her seriousness. The gentle swell of them beneath his fingers drove him relentlessly on to the need to feel them for himself with his own lips. And as so often happens, one thing led to another; the little curl disappeared but he didn't mind because it sort of had to for her to be able to kiss him back like that. Her arms slipped round his waist and made their way up his back, drawing him closer, and he became acutely aware of the wetness of his skin soaking her clothes.

Their lips parted and she took a step back, the dark wet patches of her tee shirt clinging now to her skin. He heard himself let slip a small, wanting sound, watching her. Her eyes strayed down him like a caress and he almost stopped breathing, he was so aware of her now that he literally ached with it. Harry knew himself not to be hugely concerned with who started things; his whole life felt like nothing but a reaction to events beyond his control sometimes, and he was used to responding rather than initiating. All he knew was at this moment he was almost overcome with the heady rush of being free and able still to feel her and touch her, and he was more than ever convinced he would do anything to keep it that way. That he could see in her eyes that very same resolve translated itself throughout his nervous system into a kind of desire more intense than anything he had ever experienced before.

He'd have picked her up if he'd thought he could have gotten her back to his room without knocking her out cold on the doorframe; he might be deep in the throes of wanting her but he wasn't completely stupid yet, or at least not under any illusions about his natural abilities in that scenario. If he was going to sweep her off her feet she'd likely have to be lying down first.

“Mine's closer,” she said, just the right bit breathlessly, as if sharing his exact thought. They careened down the hall, knocking shoulders and laughing and slamming the door like they could shut the world away. He did the locking and silencing spells while she climbed on the bed and perched, awaiting him. Her second bit of wandless magic ever claimed the towel he'd wrapped round his waist halfway to the bed.

“Oh, right, Miss `we're supposed to use our magic responsibly, not for pranks and stunts,'” he teased, but when he reached the bed her eyes were serious and the touch of her fingers trembling on his arms as she urged him on in his climb up.

“I never understood,” she told him softly. “I never thought that I could feel like this. I thought it was for other people, not ones who lost themselves in books and proved themselves by memorizing instead of doing. You changed that about me in everything else; I ended up doing more magic with you last year than most witches my age will read about in a lifetime. I just never understood that you could change the way I feel about everything else as well.”

He wished, desperately, that he could do even half the things for her she evidently gave him credit for.

She pulled her tee shirt up over her head, shrugging to loosen the wet spots. He met her lips when they reappeared through the neck of it and started in on the button of her jeans. It didn't take them long to equalize the clothing imbalance between them and then she was sliding down and urging him over her and his senses were reeling with the lovely silken warmth of her beneath him. He was taken by the contrast on the involuntary natures of their movements (her legs parting beneath him, his own helpless urge to thrust in response) and the specifics of their endearments to each other, the sounds and words that made this coupling theirs alone. Neither of them were particularly vocal, but her soft `hmm's and `oh's and `Harry's were all the encouragement he needed and he loved the way her fingers stroked and explored him in a gentle blending of her own enjoyment and his.

He slowed the pace of their relentless progress toward undoing each other as much as he could, fighting himself every inch of the way. Her hands stroked up his sides and over his shoulders then to frame his face, guiding his eyes to hers.

“I want to see you,” she whispered and he smiled at her, puzzled but obedient.

“When you're there,” she explained with a slow, blushing grin. “I love the way you, um, let go.”

Oh. Oh. He felt his own answering flush and nodded his understanding, shifting his weight from his forearms up onto his elbows so that he could touch her as well, stroking through her hair. She turned her face into his hand and he thought he'd never get tired of watching her lovely seriousness swept aside by the tide of her feelings; he just couldn't quite shift the concept to himself. She was beautiful, he was more often than not sweating and dripping and biting back some utterly animal howl.

“You first, then,” he prompted her.

His movements were nothing more than long, slow undulations; she began to meet each one with an exquisite little shimmy at his deepest point and he began in turn to hold himself just there an extra moment for her each time before backing off and rocking in again. Their breathing deepened as one and her spine curled up hard beneath him, arching her deeper. She bit her lower lip in concentration, still watching him fiercely. He couldn't help but groan in response and joined his lips to hers, working her lip free again and offering his own instead. She bit it gently, playfully, and released him, pushing his head back up. He was close now, but she felt close as well, the shimmy more determined and far less controlled. He knew his own command of the situation was beginning to slip and his movements sped up, still slower than the frantic heaving of his ribs as he fought to control his breathing but much more like the acceleration of a rivers' currant toward a waterfall; irreversible.

“Hermione,” he heard himself beg, but for what he couldn't have said; she'd given him everything. But then she gave him one thing more; her hands still holding his eyes level to hers she quavered, “Oh, Harry.” Her pupils widened slightly as she moved up harder against him, soft and warm and curved in all the right places as if she were made to fit only him in that moment. Her eyelids fluttered with the determined effort not to close, while all the rest of her closed around him in unspeakably lovely ways.

He knew that determination so well, that fiercely unstoppable will. It was as if she were proving to him in her own way that if only they could manage this, to bring each other to this most naked and vulnerable point and not lose themselves in themselves but share it together, they would stay that way always. He knew she believed it, even if he could not. It was her way of coping; Harry had learned her bargains well over the last year, he'd watched her push herself harder at her books and deeper into her magic to convince herself they'd all survive. She'd pushed him as well, and he was fairly certain that without her and Ron he'd be dead at this very moment he now felt most alive… so maybe she was right.

Whether or not he believed it, he'd made her a promise and he'd die before he didn't keep it. Fighting every instinct to cry out, to close his eyes, to bury his face in the soft oblivion her neck, he managed by the very end of his nerves to hold on to her gaze and let her see everything she could make him feel in his own eyes even as the evidence of it wracked them both. Her gaze of wholly satiated hunger was burnt into his mind; he knew that he'd never forget it as long as he lived.

They rode it out together, skin to skin and chests heaving, still joined. Her fingers combed absently through his shaggy hair, stroking tenderly behind his ears. Happy.

“Harry,” she whispered, “did you… hear anything, towards the end there?”

He'd actually thought he'd heard something louder than the thundering of his own heart, but he wasn't entirely sure it could have even been possible.

“Way to go, you two,” Ron's voice came cheerfully from the hall. “Never mind, Harry, Lupin says Number Thirteen's been needing a new back roof for ages. Now they'll have no excuse not to fix up. Mind holding off a bit while I have a shower though? The plumbing here's wonky enough on its own.”

Harry could feel Hermione begin to shake with helpless laughter beneath him.

Bloody double hell with a backwards twist.

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The Daily Prophet, July 31, 1998

Boy-Who-Lived Loses Control of Magic during Street Brawl: Damages Flourish and Blotts Diagon Alley Store and Kills Witch (143)!

“Notice their priorities,” Hermione pointed out. “Harry, brawl, bookstore, and oh yes, a dead witch.”

Hermione, Lupin, Tonks and Ron had gathered for breakfast and a bit of strategizing.

Harry was still asleep; exhausted and dead to the world. She was rather proud of herself for that. It was his birthday after all; he deserved a good lie in even if she'd had to wear him out to achieve it. She brought a cushion in for her chair from the front room and dared any one of them to mention it with her eyes. No one had said a word so far.

“Maybe she was the one behind it all,” Ron said slowly. “Maybe she was working with Draco.”

“Sophismata Cullen was never the most innocent of bystanders,” Remus agreed. “I can't see her spending much time in a book store unless she was paid to, or there to steal something. But she was hardly the sort to mastermind anything like this. And why would she?”

“They don't even mention Malfoy by name. I can't believe it! They've got me and Harry `engaging in a disgraceful display of public hex-slinging with a fellow Hogwarts graduate.' He didn't bloody graduate, he was hiding from his own shadow most of seventh year!” Ron protested, reading over Hermione's shoulder now.

“The entire front page is nothing but lies,” Hermione said calmly. “Why should the bit about Malfoy be any different? What I'd like to see is what Luna's father put in the Quibbler. We should make a list of people we need to contact safely and figure out how to do it. I'd like Elspeth to look at Harry…”

“He said he told her how to find us,” Ron pointed out.

“True, but I'd bet she's following up on what happened and covering her tracks, She may not try and make contact for awhile yet, but I'd really like her to know what happened to him yesterday. And we need to get in touch with Luna,” she continued.

She noticed Ron carefully trying not to look too eager in his agreement.

“They don't mention Harry's done a runner,” Tonks said, munching her toast, her elbows crunching in crumbs. “I wonder how they're going to hide the fact they've lost him?”

The fireplace flared to life and Mrs. Weasley's head appeared in the flames.

“Remus,” she said pleasantly, carefully ignoring her own son and Hermione. “And Tonks! I've got a whole basket of fresh hen eggs for you. Do you have a moment? Can Arthur and I come through?”

“Of course, Molly, of course,” Remus said heartily, entirely unlike himself.

The thought of Umbridge's hand in the flames at Hogwarts, groping for Sirius, rose unbidden from Hermione's memory. `How are we going to live like this?' she wondered. `Jumping at every shadow. This can't go on. We're right back to where we started.'

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley stepped easily through the swirling flames and Lupin rose to greet them, moving to close the flue and the floo connection with it behind them when Ginny abruptly burst through after them.

“I'm tired of being treated like a little kid and left behind!” she turned round and flared at her parents. “I'm almost as old as they were when you let them go off with Harry last year!” Her outstretched and accusing finger was pointing at Ron and Hermione when she saw Tonks. “Oh, hello, Tonks,” she said brightly. “Professor Lupin! I thought you'd moved?”

Lupin banged shut the flue with a glare as Tonks waved helplessly.

Molly turned on her daughter.

“Ginny, you know very well the reasons behind all that. And it's meant to be a secret they're here, not broadcast over the entire floo network! Oh, Ron! Thank goodness you're alright. Have you eaten? And Hermione, dear…”

Mrs. Weasley enveloped her in a hug and she realized with a sinking feeling that despite the fact she felt as if she'd been with Harry for ages it was really a matter of days. None of the Weasleys knew yet that things had changed between the three of them, nor were they likely to be particularly thrilled when they found out.

“Where's Harry?” asked Ginny. “I want to wish him a happy birthday.”

“He's still asleep,” Hermione said hurriedly. Naked as the day he was born and in my room… What was it he'd said last night after they'd blown that bit of next doors' roof off? That again, times two.

Ginny's eyes gleamed. “Time to wake up the birthday boy, then.”

“He's really tired,” Ron told her hurriedly. “Sound asleep.”

Hermione knew Ron had no idea of Harry's exact condition, but she rather imagined he'd guessed. She could tell that he wasn't in any rush for Ginny to find out because that would mean he'd have to know as well.

“They used a stasis spell on him,” she said, feeling rather guilty for pulling out a valid physical excuse for his exhaustion she'd chosen to ignore altogether herself. “They just left him lying on the floor of the interview room, they hadn't even got round to finding someone willing to risk coping with him when we got there.”

“However did you get that off and get him out of there?” Arthur asked anxiously.

“His spell damage witch was with us. She took it off, and then Harry umm, totally pretended to take her hostage and we snuck out the back to the platform where they apparate you to Azkaban,” Ron admitted.

“You went to Azkaban!” Molly all but shrieked.

“Just the boat dock, Mum. We turned right around and ran up the cliff to get clear of the anti-apparition field and came straight here. Honest.”

“Have you heard any word, Arthur, about the official Ministry take on things? The paper doesn't even mention that they've lost him.” Remus pointed out. “I'm sure they're looking, it would just be beneficial to know where they plan to start.”

“There's been a meeting called for the Muggle Relations Sector this morning at ten,” Mr. Weasley told him. “I'm sure that will be top of the agenda somehow. I just hope they don't blow things completely out of proportion and get the Muggles involved, the way they did with Sirius.”

“They're two peas from the same pod, Harry and Sirius. He's not likely to be any happier chained to this house than Snuffles was, and he's not even got a dog form to go for walkies,” Tonks said glumly.

“Well, I think there's been enough doom and gloom,” Ginny protested. “They're safe now, and it's Harry's birthday after all. We should do something to mark it.”

“Ginny!” Hermione had a stroke of genius, inspired entirely by her devout wish not to have to explain either Harry's present location or the reason for his boneless state. “You know what we really need to do that would be a huge help to Harry? We want to get in touch with Luna and her father and see how much of the truth the Quibbler's willing to put out there and how quickly they can do it. She told us they were already working on a story when she came by Ron and Harry's flat. You're great friends with Luna; it'd be perfectly natural for you to visit her. Nobody would suspect a thing. Do you think you could arrange a meeting with them?”

Ginny's smile blossomed at the suggestion. “Of course I can…”

“We'll both go,” Mrs. Weasley said. “I don't want you wandering about Diagon Alley and the Leaky Cauldron by yourself, not today. I'm sure we can set something up, but…”

She was interrupted by a determined pounding at the front door. A deadly quiet stole over the kitchen as they all looked from one to the other uncertainly. They all knew well the safeguards of the house, how could it be possible? Remus and Tonks led the way to the entrance hall, wands drawn.

Hermione saw Harry halfway down the stairs. He'd managed to find jeans and what appeared to be clean socks and a t shirt, but his hair still flopped into his eyes in front and stuck up defiantly in back. “It's Elspeth,” he rasped out, his voice still heavy with sleep.

The remains of the black eye did nothing to dispel what she hoped was only her guilty conscience noticing his very… well-used appearance. He must surely have been awake already and in the midst of getting dressed when the knocking began to have come this quickly. Why he seemed so certain it was Elspeth she couldn't be sure, but he clearly was.

Tonks waved her wand across the door, temporarily rendering it murkily transparent in what Hermione trusted to be a one-way effect. There wasn't a sign of anyone about, but the knocking eerily resumed.

“Disillusioned,” Harry insisted from the stairs.

Tonks, Lupin and Mr. Weasley fanned out reluctantly around the door, wands drawn, and Lupin unlocked, unbolted and unchained it. A gust of wind seemed to blow in when he finally managed to open it, and swirled round to blow it shut again. Hermione saw an Elspeth sized-shape remain hesitantly chameleon-like against it as she took in the number of people in the hallway.

“It's alright, Elspeth” she reassured quickly. “These are Ron's Mum and Dad, and his sister Ginny. All clear.”

The shape filled in with Elspeth's chestnut hair and worried hazel eyes. She wore a long non-descript grayish cloak with a hood despite the July heat.

“I'd meant to wait until next week to contact you,” she said, her eyes ranging around the hall until they found Harry's. She seemed relieved at the sight of him and relaxed slightly. “Things are more complex than we'd thought when I last spoke with you, and I thought you should know.”

“Elspeth Hawktalon,” she said, almost as an afterthought but warmly none the less, and extended her hand to the Weasleys. Arthur and Molly both shook it with pleased smiles; Ginny was not quite ready to make up her mind about a new interloper that seemed already to know Harry, and settled on a half smile.

Harry made his way down the rest of the stairs and smiled and nodded almost shyly to the Weasleys. Mrs. Weasley engulfed him in a motherly hug, pushed him back to get a good look at him and smothered him again almost tearfully. “How can they possibly think you'd do such a thing?” she asked.

“Because it seems like I did,” he said, a trace of yesterday's misery rising in his voice again, and all Hermione's protective hackles rose as well.

Elspeth reminded Hermione then why she'd liked her straight away.

“Don't be stupid,” she said sharply, drawing his attention back. “Of course you didn't. First of all, you wouldn't. Second of all, I saw her body, Harry. She had a bruise that looked like she'd seen the business end of a bludger bat right between the eyes, and it was way too far along to have just happened in the accident. She was more than likely dead before you let loose, that's why you didn't sense her there.”

“Really?” Harry asked; hope clearly dawning in his eyes as he drifted gently away from Mrs. Weasley's embrace.

“Really?” Lupin asked thoughtfully. “That puts rather a new light on things. There's no surprise there was no sign of anything like that in the Prophet's coverage, the question will be if it shows up in the Ministry reports.”

“Department of Magical Mortality,” Mr. Weasley said excitedly. “My cousin Barnabus works in there. Not very high up the pecking order, but he might well hear something.”

“Really,” affirmed Elspeth. “And much as I'm not thrilled with what's going on in the Ministry of Magic at the moment, I'm starting to get a feeling that there's someone else altogether that wants Harry out of the way somewhere in particular. Someone who's using the fear Voldemort built up in the current administration against Harry and the Minister both. I had a talk with Draco Malfoy this morning…”

Ron made a sound like an unfriendly dog in the back of his throat.

Elspeth grinned at him. “My sentiments exactly, but he does have some bright points other Malfoys have been known to lack entirely. Like an actual functioning self-preservation instinct. Very handy when you're extorting information. It didn't take much to get him to give me a name I hadn't heard in a long time as the one who first contacted him. Caradoc Bulstrode.

Caradoc was apparently fast friends with Draco's grandfather back in the day. His whole generation got shouldered aside as too old and too set in their own ways to suit Voldemort. Voldemort wasn't the sort to respect his elders no matter how dark or powerful they were, but that's something of a mistake when your elders can live on for two hundred years. He killed off a good few and others fled, but some very dark wizards occasionally cooperated with Scrimgeour when he was an Auror under Fudge. They were the ones who truly believed the blood prejudice Voldemort more or less mouthed for his own purposes and Voldemort himself was an abomination to them - the uber powerful half-blood. Harry's no different, they truly don't care if you are honest as the day or dark as the night; if you're not a pure blood you have no business wielding magic. Your very existence kills their argument, Harry, and they know it.

Draco says he was in Diagon Alley to meet with Caradoc and his granddaughter Millicent that day, but that they never spoke directly of you and he had no instructions to meet you, talk to you or fight with you. According to him the fight is all your fault and he was just as surprised as anyone else when Flourish and Blotts blew up. Which according to him means not really surprised at all, because after all, you were there. He's not your biggest fan, by the way.”

“Tell me something I don't know,” Harry groaned. This time Hermione noticed he was drifting rather less than gently away from Ginny. In fact he had the look of one who'd just been…felt up!

Keep your hands off him, Ginny Weasley. You may not know it yet, but that arse is mine!

“Mrs. Weasley,” Hermione said sweetly. “Harry hasn't eaten breakfast yet.”

<o><o><o><o>

The change of venue to the kitchen improved things immeasurably from Hermione's perspective. Harry sat next to Elspeth to continue their conversation. Tonks and Lupin sat across from them, and Hermione swiftly outmaneuvered Ginny for the seat on his other side. Mr. Weasley left for his meeting and Mrs. Weasley settled in happily to cooking the eggs. Ron settled to Hermione's left and Ginny sat across the table with a face like thunder.

Lupin seemed to take to Elspeth right away, and apparently agreed that several different forces might well be at work in Harry's situation. He knew a little of Bulstrode's past and reported that Caradoc had likely long outlived most of his friends. “He'd be an easy target for the right person to put into motion,” Remus informed them. “He's old, lonely and very bitter. I can easily see his problem with Harry, but he's more the type to blather on about it in an old wizard's club than go after Harry himself.”

Elspeth seemed to think Draco believed that Caradoc had manipulated him without his knowledge and was in turn probably being manipulated by someone else, but he had no idea who that was, or had refused to reveal it to her. Yet.

“So who am I really supposed to be looking out for?” Harry asked. “Because everyone's starting to tick me off now.”

“I'm beginning to think that's the point, Harry,” Elspeth told him with a worried frown. “It's as if someone wants you to blow. Every threat here has to do with the issue of your magical ability, but the reasons are all over the map. I truly disagree with Scrimgeour's position but I think he's concerned for a reason, and all those reasons are being engineered by others. Some hate you for being half blood, some resent you for being powerful or not playing their games, some of them - like Umbridge, for example - have grudges. The only bit that's missing is someone actually trying to avenge Voldemort. And if you ask me, in a situation like this it's what's missing you have to worry about.”

The logic of that blossomed in Hermione's consciousness and took root. There had to be a way through this. It was exactly like a chess game; she needed to lay out the board by identifying all the pieces, and then maybe the pattern would come clear to Ron. They needed to play to their strengths now, because Hermione had a feeling that Harry was just about to give in to his.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 15

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Subject: Harry James Potter

Interview Date: Friday July 31, 1998

Interview #: Interview? I don't remember any interview. Did someone say obliviate?

Observations: Erm…

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So that was the Most Ancient House of Black.

Kind of makes me glad not to be one, I can tell you that. Not a terribly welcoming place, even without the screaming blood snob portrait they'd told me had always greeted them. That was one impressive scorch mark though.

It wasn't such a bad house, really, as much as just… creepy. It could be fine with some serious cleaning and redecorating charms; it just had the air of a place that had been used as a haven or shelter for quite a while rather than actually lived in. Harry had told me that Sirius Black was his Godfather and that he'd left the house to Harry in his will. Last I knew he'd gone missing after twelve years Azkaban, which would certainly account for the unlived-in air.

Now that's another fascinating connection to me - Harry and the infamous Blacks.

I remember Sirius with a healthy dose of prepubescent adulation. I was only eleven, but to us ickle firsties (no matter what I told Snape) the Sevenths were glamour itself. James Potter and Sirius were inseparable, always together, and now that I thought of it I had seen Remus Lupin before. He had often been in their company as well, although I don't remember him making quite as indelible an impression. He'd been quieter somehow, almost deliberately not as noticeable. And way younger. Something had aged Lupin a good bit harder than most; he was still quite a handsome man, but worn down from apparently fighting it.

James had been already smitten by Lily then, the classic romance for first year girls to swoon over and pick apart, envious in the semi-dark of our early-to-bed dorms. Lovely Head Girl and dashing Quidditch Seeker. Sirius was darker stuff and more my own cup of tea, quite honestly. He had that little edge of danger, that feeling that he was never going to be anyone's tame lion. He was quicksilver and restless, and had a sense of humor so sharp it was just as much a weapon as his wand could be. His most favored victim as I remember it seemed to be Snape, who'd for some reason always rubbed his fur the wrong way. But then, Snape had a talent for that.

I only saw Sirius in a wand fight once and he seemed to enjoy it thoroughly, more for the sheer ecitement of it than the resultant disarming of his challenger. (It was a quick impression, however, as they'd both had to hightail it after to avoid discovery and detention by Filch. Fortunately for the both of them, following that strange code of honor amongst school children, none of us twenty-odd witnesses had seen a thing.)

The long and short of it was that I had quite enjoyed romanticizing Sirius that year. His younger brother Regulus was closer to me in age, but he was a Slytherin blood snob, his heart as apparently dark as his surname, one of those quietly noted as Most Likely To Become A Death Eater by the rest of his year. Sirius' sorting into Gryffindor had been a tragedy previously unheard of amongst the solidly Slytherin Blacks.

Harry struck me as sort of a combination of James and Sirius both, with what was probably a healthy dash of his mother for seasoning. He had James' seemingly easygoing nature but Lily's Head Girl compassion to broaden it, all topped off with Sirius' dark, restless need to do something to right the world. Their fates had rendered him both more lost and yet more powerful then they ever were. I couldn't imagine any of them not being proud of all he had finally achieved, wherever it was they were now.

Today, however, he was eating scrambled eggs and toast and listening to the general conversation round the table, his eyes occasionally shifting to the speaker but saying nothing himself. His eyes linger longer on Hermione when she's the one who's talking, and they soften perceptibly now if you know what you're looking for. I find myself wondering how far that particular minefield has been negotiated with this present company. Ron seems to have accepted the two of them with extraordinary grace, if you ask me.

The number in the kitchen slowly dwindled as we tried to puzzle out way through what had really happened at Flourish and Blotts. Ron's mother took his sister (who seemed for no reason I could actually fathom to dislike me on sight) to collect Luna Lovegood. Tonks and Arthur Weasley headed for the Ministry to see which way the wind was blowing today, and Lupin headed off to do whatever it is that Lupin did.

“What does Remus do for a living?” I asked Harry.

“He's a werewolf,” he said matter-of-factly, the way anyone else might say `he's a musician,' “so he can't really get a decent Wizarding job. He's the best Defense teacher I ever had, but word got out before the year was even up and he resigned. It was Snape who outed him, if you want to know the truth. He ends up doing all sorts of odd jobs now. He's done a good bit of research lately for someone writing a book on obscure spells developed during the time before Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald. While we're changing the Ministry one small mind at a time we ought to pin that on our agenda as well.”

“Piece of cake,” I told him, and he grinned at me then, that heartbreaking grin he has that says he doesn't believe it for a minute, but he'd fight to the death to help make it happen anyway.

“So how are you really, Harry?” I asked him, since it was just the four of us then. “Any after effects from the stasis spell or anything else new I should know about?”

“I'm okay,” he started, but Ron broke in, his expression suddenly both fierce and determined.

“Oh right, you're perfect, aren't you. Brilliant. He almost bloody dissolved! Right here in the kitchen. Something was pulling on him, and Professor Lupin and Hermione and I had to hang on to him, only you couldn't, really, because he sort of came apart in your hands at the end. It was bloody terrifying and Lupin thought it had to be something really Dark doing it.”

“Show her the marks, Harry,” Hermione urged him. “That was the really odd part. He was right here in front of us, only he wasn't, not fully. Wherever else he was someone was trying to keep him there, too. Look.”

She eased the collar of his t shirt over his shoulder, revealing a fairly deep gouge surrounded now by moderate to heavy bruising, about the length and breadth of a finger. Whoever or whatever had made it hadn't thought twice about holding on for dear life and clearly hadn't cared if it hurt.

“Just the one?” I asked her.

“No, they were just on one side, but all up and down his arm, as if whoever or whatever it was had been trying to get a good grasp. The odd thing was that except for this one they were in pairs of two on top and one beneath, like talons or claws, not fingers at all. I healed the others as best I could, but I'm not Madam Pomfrey. You can still see them.”

Now that she extended his arm and pointed them out I could see the faint stripes of paler new skin against the rest.

Now that narrowed things down considerably. We were no longer dealing with the mysterious beyond or issues of afterlife or walking into the light, for sure. Something at least originally human or controlled by one had to have made those marks, and that I could deal with.

I'd learned my lesson about pulling a wand on Harry Potter. “May I?” I asked first, indicating my wand and his shoulder. At his nod I cast several revealing charms. This time, the answers were very different than before.

It had been someone magical, for there were trace elements fundamental to magic. One of the advantages of Harry's own magic was that for all it was more than he could contain right now, it sort of had its own gravitational pull as well. On anyone else there might not have been anything left to show up, for they were physical marks, caused by physical contact rather then a spell to tear the skin. Alas it was still only a trace, not enough to really reveal anything detailed, though I stored what there was for future reference. There was still no sign of a latent or active curse, charm, hex or spell, light or dark, anywhere actually on him. His own magic played havoc to some extent with that determination but I was kind of getting to know it now, and more able to predict the skewing effects it caused.

“What happened?” I asked him. “Everything you remember.”

“I realized I'd killed someone. Really realized it, once I was finally safe in the house with a shot of firewhiskey in me as well. Almost the moment it hit me I could feel it happening again. It was different this time. I knew what was happening faster, I suppose, and I was sure that I didn't want to be wherever it was. It was cold there and it…” Harry closed his eyes, visibly straining to recall all he had felt in detail and I saw Hermione's hand slip into his lap and take hold of his tightly, hanging on. Her fear alone gave what had happened this time more weight; she didn't strike me as the sort to panic too readily.

“It stunk,” Harry continued. His fingers closed over hers tenderly. He seemed perfectly in control of himself to me, just remembering. “Really badly. And there was another smell, not bad but distinctive.” His eyes opened again and fixed on mine. “So much of it is sort of right there but just beyond me, as if I keep reaching for it and it keeps moving just past where I can reach it. Remus said something about that not being unlikely for a dark spell.”

“It's not,” I agreed. “Avoiding detection is a huge component of that, because you're attempting to circumvent what magic is really all about. Dark spells are usually more complex and take longer to come to fruition because of it, so you have to confound or confuse your victim long enough to get it to work.”

“There's that,” Hermione said slowly, “Or it could be someone who just knows Harry. Sooner or later he'll have to let go of here to find out where there is and who's doing it because that's just the way he's made. He just… will.”

It was said with such finality it was clear she'd accepted that part of him long before now. Ron was nodding absently; I could see he thought it true as well. Harry's eyes dropped to their entwined hands on his lap.

“Who knows Harry that well? Someone that either has a serious grudge or wants Harry out of the way and would think the Ministry isn't going about it fast enough? Because whatever this is, I think it's a separate issue altogether from what Scrimgeour's working on,” I asked slowly, my mind turning over the possibilities like stones. It was like a child's matching game; I too was fairly certain I had seen part of the answer to this question before, but which stone held the right clue?

It was Ron's eyes that leapt then, something I hadn't expected. “Snape,” he said triumphantly. “Snape's known him for forever, but he's also actually been in Harry's mind. He was meant to teach him Occlumency Fifth year but it ended up being nothing but an excuse to get his jollies jerking Harry around and calling it remedial potions.”

One look at Harry confirmed all that Ron said and so much more. And come to think of it Snape himself had said something along those lines. The idea of Snape teaching anyone Occlumency was laughable; he'd probably been born locking people out of that scary thing he called a mind. There was no way he could possibly teach anyone else that level of paranoia. He'd hardly be gentle about it, either.

Hermione was clearly intrigued by the idea, though, and Harry utterly repulsed.

“It's a woman's voice I hear, though,” he protested. “And least I think it's a woman. It's not Snape himself, anyway. I'd never miss that voice.”

He would if Snape wanted him too, but that was hardly the point. The thing didn't exactly scream Snape to me, but that wasn't a real reason to rule him out, either. One thing I was fairly certain of was that if Snape were behind it the plan was his own and had nothing to do with Scrimgeour's. Snape would never willingly answer to anyone else ever again.

The only positive thing about Snape as a suspect was that we could actually question him, check out his reaction first hand. There was always Uncle Boldie's assertion to follow up as well; his `To whom do you think that Voldemort turned when he sought something of this nature... an enormous challenge requiring a keen mind and warped moral fiber?' had not left my thoughts. Even if Snape was uninvolved with Scrimgeour's ultimate answer, he more than likely knew what it was and now there was no time to waste. If the Ministry caught Harry again, they would undoubtedly be prepared to act quickly if they at all could. We could kill two big nosed, greasy-haired ugly birds with one stone.

“Would you consider Hogwarts a neutral enough ground to meet Snape on?” I asked him. “It's empty for the summer and warded to the teeth, you both know it well. If I can get Professor McGonagall to agree, would you come and face him? All of you?”

Harry had his snarly cat face on. “Will he? I can hardly imagine him agreeing to that.”

“I guarantee I can get him there,” I promised. “I can't guarantee he won't be a surly great git, but I can make him at least show up.”

Ron appeared less than thrilled, but accepting. Hermione was nodding at him encouragingly. Harry turned to me and exhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Okay,” he said. “But I have to warn you, he's always brought out the worst in me. We might want to do it out on the Quidditch pitch or something right about now.”

“Done,” I told him. “I'll get right on it. McGonagall would never turn you in to the Ministry and I'll have Snape hexed to hell if he tries, but we still don't want them getting into trouble over it either, so we'll have to be careful getting there. I'll let you know what I can work out.”

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Ginny Weasley returned with Luna Lovegood just before I left Grimmauld Place. Ginny's mood had obviously mellowed somewhat and I had been demoted from actual dislike to inconvenience. She barely noticed me as I made ready to go.

They had brought two traveling baskets with them, and produced Crookshanks for Hermione and Ron's Guinea Pigs for him from the boys' flat.

“The very idea of allowing Fred and George to be responsible for anything is disastrous,” Ginny scolded him. “You transfigured them, you gave them questionable potions and now it's up to you to make sure they're okay.”

“Besides,” said Luna dreamily, handing the second basket to Hermione after she'd released a happy Crookshanks, “I think Harry might have gotten Hermione in the family way.”

Harry had been raising his coffee to take a sip; I noticed he put it down carefully without doing so and looked very proud of himself. It was Ron who spewed tea half way across the kitchen this time.

“Bloody hell!” he managed.

“They're guinea pigs, Ron,” Ginny said with a worldly roll of her eyes and a dazzling smile Harry's way. “It's what they do.”

`Right. Guinea pigs,” he said, looking quite relieved. “Should have known that about them. I wonder if their improved reaction time will be passed on to the piglets?”

“Considering they started life as crickets,” Hermione pointed out, “should there actually be any offspring? I was impressed you actually managed to make the transfiguration permanent.”

“Well that would have been Harry, actually,” said Ron. “I had the idea, we caught the crickets, he did the transfiguration. Only Harry could make a transfigured guinea pig pregnant.”

“There's the endorsement that will get me out of Azkaban.” Harry banged his forehead slowly on the tabletop, the words `hell,' `wrong,' `life,' and `rubbish' released on the upstroke.

“Speaking of Azkaban, we were wondering, Luna, what the Quibblers position on all this might be. Thanks for coming so quickly,” Hermione said, clearly trying to ignore the whole guinea pig issue now. She had one eye firmly on Ginny, however.

“Daddy wants to interview Harry himself,” Luna replied, moving to the table and settling happily down beside Ron. “He thinks it will be most effective if people hear things directly from him, just the way they happened, and then he'll run a background story bringing out all the rest of what he's learned about what the Ministry's been up to. Did you really take hostages and destroy the administrative hallway to the Wizengamot, Harry?”

“I had to basically hold the wand to my own head,” I told her, “And Ron was the one who blew the back doors out. There was hardly any damage to the hall.”

Her slightly protuberant blue eyes widened and she patted Ron's arm, suitably impressed. Ginny finally noticed me again. And not in a good way, exactly.

“Oh that was brilliant,” she said, moving across the kitchen to stand by Harry's chair and glare daggers at me. “I thought you were supposed to be helping him, not get him in even deeper. They've added attempted witchnapping to the charges now, according the wireless report we heard at the Quibbler.”

Harry's left eye twitched, and somewhere in the house a door slammed. “Leave off Gin. It actually was a brilliant idea. Without Elspeth I'd probably already be locked up in Azkaban right now.”

“They'd never send you to Azkaban,” she insisted. “You're Harry Potter. If you'd just sat tight they would have sorted the whole thing out. Now there's going to be a trial, whether you're there or not, mind you. The wireless said they'd try you in absentia because of the danger to the public having you in a courtroom. They're looking for Ron and Hermione too, for helping you.”

Harry swore softly and turned to Hermione and Ron.

“Don't, mate,” Ron told him, and Hermione nodded. “We knew before we found you what we were willing to do if we had to. We'd do it again, and you know it. Who knew Voldemort actually had eight horcruxes and the one that wouldn't die was the bloody Ministry?”

“Well she's part of it, Ron,” Ginny said accusingly. “Don't you think you ought to…”

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Harry beat me to it. Even more interesting, though, was who beat him.

“Oh, no, Ginny,” Luna Lovegood said positively. “Mrs. Hawktalon would never hurt Harry. She has to find his curse to lift her own.”

To borrow a phrase from Ron, what the bloody hell?

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I told her. “Only I'm not cursed, it's just I happen to disagree the teensiest bit with my current employer about believing Harry is, and that he's innocent and being set up over the rest of it.”

“Paracelsus said, `All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes that a thing is not poison,'” Luna proclaimed calmly. “Spells can be the same as potions. A seemingly good spell can go bad if it's applied too strongly, or too often. Or by two different people. Perhaps you need to look at it all another way round.”

I was floored. Totally floored. Because if truth be told, she had a point. About the spells anyway; the bit about me being cursed was utter rubbish. There really were many ways to achieve fairly wicked results with otherwise innocent spells, though. I'd seen it done before. The matching game stones suddenly reshuffled themselves; I'd have to start over. Bugger.

“I've got to run,” I said.

`About time,' said Ginny Weasley's eyes.

“Mum's going to make you a birthday cake this afternoon, Harry,” she told him then. “And since your present is back at the Burrow I thought maybe I could just… make it up to you. Like we used to.”

Ginny clearly hadn't gotten the memo from the tone of that offer. Harry looked like any birthday cake that came his way today was going to get the same forehead bashing the table'd just enjoyed. Hermione locked eyes on her in much the same way the otters at the zoo had stared at Harry and me.

Erm, oblivious human? It's about to rain on your outing.

I left them to it then, never having been a big fan of blood sports. Still, no matter what happened, the conversation was obvious productive. The Quibbler's report that day had merely covered events with a healthy dose of understatement, balancing The Prophet's overblown coverage. The next morning things had galvanized quite a bit.

HARRY POTTER ON THE LOOSE! TAKES MINISTRY SPELL DAMAGE WORKER HOSTAGE AT WAND POINT AND ESCAPES! screamed the Daily Prophet's headline.

WIZARD HERO STUNNED AND MISHANDLED BY MINISTRY OF MAGIC! countered the Quibbler. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH HARRY POTTER.

The lines were drawn.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 16

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Elspeth had managed to set up the arrangements to meet at Hogwarts within a matter of days; two, to be exact. Hermione knew Professor McGonagall had agreed immediately, because she got a rather cryptic message to acknowledge the fact.

A seemingly ordinary London sparrow thrust itself through the front door the next evening when it opened to admit Tonks, who'd come to check on them. Clearly it had been waiting for just such opportunity outside; once inside it busied itself dodging their flying stunning spells and transfiguring into a tawny owl clutching a… flower? A yellow rose. Tonks cautiously took it from him, although the owl didn't seem pleased with that and continued to swoop agitatedly around their heads. She tried several spells on it carefully, her expression troubled.

“It's definitely magical, but the spell doesn't seem threatening as far as I can tell. Not that that's any guarantee. Any idea who'd send you a spelled rose?”

“Maybe it's for Harry? Someone who's read the Quibbler and thinks he's getting a raw deal?” suggested Ron.

“Who knew how to find us in an unplottable house and how to transfigure an owl into a sparrow that would somehow magically transfigure back at this address, which doesn't even exist?” Hermione pointed out impatiently. “I think it's got to be either Elspeth or Professor McGonagall. May I see it?”

Tonks gave it to her like handing off a bomb, slowly, and with a good deal of relief when it left her fingertips. The sudden idea of Tonks and anything explosive was so terrifying Hermione had a momentary feeling of light headedness. Once she'd regained her equilibrium she did a simple revealing charm and in her own hand it cooperated immediately, transfiguring itself back into a letter. The envelope did not bear Hogwarts crest but it might as well; Professor McGonagall's handwriting was distinctive enough to be recognized by anyone who'd taken Transfiguration there.

She heard herself let out a gusty sigh of relief. The owl was relieved also, and fluttered down to perch on the back of a chair with a noise remarkable similar to the one Hermione had made.

“McGonagall.” Tonks stated, taking in the precise script. “Well that's a relief then. Still. I'm casting anti-bird and animal wards on the way out. Not just anyone could do that, but most who could aren't as friendly as the Professor. Where's the boy wonder?”

Ron grinned. “He's down in Moony's old room trying to control himself. It was getting a bit destructive up here.”

Tonks smiled grimly back. “He's read the papers, then. Maybe I'll just go down and see if I can't help cheer him up.”

“Whatever he says, don't “practice” anything with him. He was all sure he'd got himself under control yesterday, but I've got the bruises to prove otherwise,” he told her feelingly. They wandered off in the direction of the dungeon-like space deep under the house behind the kitchen. Hermione moved from the hall into the front room and pulled the dustcover off an old wing chair to sit in the feeble light of a grimed window, extracting the missive from its envelope. They never used this room; it was too stiff and formal and too exposed somehow, being so close to the door.

Dearest Hermione,

If Elspeth has not been able to reach you yet, you should know that Professor Snape has agreed to meet with you and the boys here at Hogwarts 2 August.

As terrible as it was to read the Prophet this morning (both for the news of what has befallen Harry and their cavalier and biased reporting of it) I was still enormously proud and happy to make note of your continued friendship with both Ron and Harry. You three went through so much together that I was fairly certain the bonds would remain strong if all possible after Voldemort's demise, but they have obviously survived yet more difficult times for Harry as well. So often when students grow older and become romantically linked the quality if their other friendships naturally dwindle or change. I am glad that the three of you have weathered that step so admirably.

Hermione sighed tiredly. Yet more explaining herself lay ahead. She yearned for the day when that particular phase was over and everyone in her life knew and accepted that she and Harry were together.

I must make a confession. During your years here, as the three of you matured and advanced through your schooling, I felt almost certain at times it would be Harry you chose of the two. I know it seems silly now, but there it is. You two always appeared so connected in times of trouble, almost as if you each could sense what the other must be thinking. I thought that perhaps to be a heavier load at times for you than Harry; watching him do what he was meant to and knowing there was only so much any of us could really provide in the way of assistance was a very difficult thing. The earnest, bookish little witch I met the day you came to Hogwarts bore no resemblance to the brave and clever one who sacrificed her own best chances of advancement and academic glory and risked her very life to help save her friends'.

Harry's continued willingness to remain close to you both and act the fulcrum when you and Ron disagree suggests great affection and restraint on his part as well; qualities most people would not even distantly connect with Harry Potter but that both you and I know to be there in untapped loads. How like this life, though, that what seems outwardly to be the warfare of diametrically opposed minds can in fact be masking, or perhaps even paving the road to deeper feelings! I admit myself to have been both proud and thrilled when I learned that you and Ron were with Harry when he escaped.

I mention this, Hermione, only to remind you how truly blessed you are in both these boys, and to encourage you to keep a clear head in the days to come. I know you are only too aware the power the scrutiny of the press can bear to distort every facet of ones' life.

Hermione let out a single snort of laughter. Wasn't that the sorry truth. It had been a painful lesson for `it must be true! It's been printed!' Hermione Granger to learn Fourth year that books and newspapers could be not only fallible but in fact deliberately misleading.

I was relieved to see The Quibbler step in and take up Harry's side of things. Looked at simply, the very idea of the charges against Harry are ludicrous, and the solution of attempting to interfere with his magic both morally wrong and idealistically flawed. Examined through the skewed lens the Daily Prophet provides, however, it could take on a kind of warped sense to families that have not been able to recover from their losses to Voldemort, or even as far back as Grindelwald. I find myself growing more afraid of this Ministry than ever I was Voldemort himself; evil is far more subtle and difficult to detect when institutionalized.

Leave it to her favorite Professor to sum up her own fears so succinctly.

I know only too well how this would have enflamed Albus' temper and sensibilities, and I have been guilty of keeping most of what has been going on from his portrait. Portraits by their very nature know they can never truly affect the future again, and that their one strength lies in advising the living. Perhaps it might help them both if Harry and Albus were able to spend some time together while you were here. Dumbledore dealt again and again with some of the same issues Harry faces in terms of the fear, the jealousy and the need to be wary of manipulation that comes with possession of deeper magic.

I am looking very much forward to seeing you again so soon, Hermione. My only wish was that it could have been under far more pleasant circumstances.

Minerva McGonagall

That made two of them, then.

Hermione sighed and hoisted herself from her chair and went off in search of the others, her sense of foreboding heightened rather than abated as she'd hoped.

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Despite Ron's warning to Tonks, the three of them were -of course! - mock dueling, although the `mock' part was being stretched to the very limits of its true meaning. Ron and Tonks had teamed up, and if Hermione wasn't very much mistaken Tonks was not only thoroughly enjoying the proceedings, she was looking a more than a little intrigued with Harry's present form. Given her occupation, Hermione felt that wasn't really a good thing. Tonks' major strength as an Auror might be her metamorphmagus ability to adopt almost instant camouflage, and she might be more than just a little unlucky (or just plain clumsy) at times, but she was still a professional and no slouch when it came to wand play.

Harry really ought not to be able to manage what he was doing with her there. There was still a difference between an overload of raw magic and extensive training, something he'd never really had a chance at.

Hermione watched them from the relative safety of the short flight of steps that lead down from the kitchen, perched on the bottom and peering round the dividing wall. Ron kept a steady stream of constantly changing but relatively harmless jinxes and hexes flying Harry's way from as many directions as he could, while Tonks was timing her more serious ones, trying to slip one through his defenses while he was busy handling Ron's.

It wasn't working. Hermione could see that Harry was hyper-focused; he'd shifted from conscious thought into a mental zone of simple awareness and instant reaction to what was coming at him. She'd seen him like that before, his eyes empty but his body responding; it was his natural inclination to leap first and worry later taken past instinct on to a deliberate extreme. It had been that way with Voldemort that last time. As things had gone from bad to worse he'd retreated inside himself and managed just to endure it all, the repeated Crucios and Voldemort's other petty retributions, the wand combusting in his hands, the boggart dementor sucking the horcrux from his scar.

Yet when that final moment came and his single chance made its split-second opportunity known, he'd been able to grab hold and make use of it. She'd always been fairly sure the shield he had cast to deflect the spell meant to mark him as Voldemort's own had been an instinctive response If he had thought it through he might have hesitated, and any hesitation then would have meant his own end. It had been that close a thing.

When she'd asked him about it afterwards he'd known right away what she'd meant, but struggled in vain to find the words to describe what had happened. “I realized last year that there's just something there inside me, waiting all the time,” he said finally. “I have to give in to it entirely for it to help, sort of get into this zone where it takes over and I just do stuff. Stuff I didn't think I knew how to do. I never wanted to at first, I thought it was the horcrux or something, but as it turned out it wasn't. I don't know what it is, really. It's me, but… not. I don't even know whether to hope it's gone now or not.”

Clearly it wasn't gone. The question was why a simple mock duel with Ron and Tonks would bring it to the forefront now? Or was there more to it? She watched Tonks redouble her efforts and become sneaky with it, casting spells that rode right behind Ron's and forcing Harry to read and respond to both at once. He seemed to do so fairly easily; his body feinting and dodging and spinning away, his hands a confident blur of shields and spells. There was more clearly now then ever a faint foreshadowing of Dumbledore in Harry.

Ron's next jelly-legs arrived with a jelly-stinger behind it, a spell with the stinging effect of being hit with a flying jellyfish. It was a mild and relatively innocuous shocking spell in the hands of a Hogwarts First or Second year, but could be quite effectively painful when issued with deliberation by someone like Tonks.

Harry nimbly managed both spells, using a shield that deflected the jelly legs back toward Ron and a different one to harmlessly absorb the magic of Tonks'. Ron swore and wobbled toward the wall to prop himself up, but Harry let fly the counter curse before he ever reached it, restoring his opponent.

Hermione thought it was very much Harry to throw back a jelly legs and take out of play the more dangerous spell, and even more so to perform a counter curse for Ron, whom she truly believed him to be incapable of harming. Obviously he was not so far away within himself that he was not aware of his friends, though she noted that he moved with a disarming, sinuous grace that was not his own; predatory and controlled. The lightening quality of his defenses seemed at distinct odds with the overcharged but deliberately mild spells he himself was lobbing back at them, and she felt a little shiver run down her spine. A dichotomy like that could only ever last until…

Tonks got him with her fourth try, another jelly-stinger, succeeding at last by sneaking it even closer in sync behind Ron's deflected Petrificus. It barely struck him, but he wasn't expecting it and Hermione saw the shock run through him like an electric current. He was entirely without control for a moment, his whole body seemed to seize up as the spell jolted through his limbs.

It was only because her train of thought had been already headed in that direction that she could shout “Duck!” to Ron and Tonks and “Harry, no!”

Ron and Tonks did duck, but Harry probably couldn't have stopped what coursed through him if he tried; and given the sudden shock of the pain and the timing, Hermione wasn't altogether certain he did. The answering spell appeared ripped from his hands out of sheer reaction. Hermione felt her hair crackle with something akin to static electricity and there was a brief, implosive, whoosh; as if the energy of the spell simply displaced the air around it as it traveled. A flare of brilliant blue lit the very edge of it as it careened off the stone of the corner of the basement wall above Ron and Tonks. It generated a high whining sound like angry bees as it made for the wall directly across from Hermione and ricocheted off again, for all the world as if it were seeking something and grew more and more intense with frustration as it failed to find it.

And it was heading now for her. Harry swore in sudden recognition and heaved himself in front of it. Hermione watched him, her breath held, as the visible energy of the spell bent in its path to his command and swirled around him like planets to a dying sun, disappearing with a flare into his very skin. It broke his stride to absorb it all and he staggered, still moving toward her. It was only when his next step brought him to his knees she realized what the spell had been. Something crimson bloomed in a long, rapid stain up one arm and across his shoulder, following the path of the spell. She crossed the distance between them in what felt like a single bounding leap of her heart into her throat.

Ron began climbing back to his feet almost at once, helping Tonks to hers without taking his unblinking eyes from Harry.

“You weren't kidding,” Hermione heard Tonks say, whistling between her teeth. “What was… oh. Oh, bugger.”

Harry was staring at his own dripping arm with what seemed to be resignation and faint regret.

Hermione had only once before in her life seen so much blood, and then she'd been oddly satisfied. She hadn't been surprised Voldemort's blood was as red and staining as anyone else's - it had been formed from Harry's, after all - but she had been amazed how every fatal, spurting drop held felt thrillingly right and good as it relieved the knot of fear she'd lived with for so long. She hadn't thought she had it in her to be vindictive, to take such pleasure in the death of another, but after all he had done to Harry, after every vile, cruel thing he had gloried in himself that evening Hermione had found she could and did. It was only when they'd pulled Harry off him that she'd seen how much of it had in fact come from Harry; the first side of the `V' he'd been carving had bled copiously. She was struck cold by the thought now as she reached Harry and she looked desperately around the room for anything to staunch the flow.

`Not again,' she thought.

Ron caught her look and swiftly aimed his wand toward the stairs shouting “Accio towels. Accio sheets.”

“You need to Accio Madam Pomfrey, is what you need to do,” Tonks said, and Hermione heard the tremor in her voice. Ron nodded and ran without a word of argument up the stairs to the kitchen fire. “Either that or we'll bloody well have to take him in to St. Mungo's and turn him in,” she continued to Hermione. “That's a right nasty piece of work. None of us is fit to heal something like that. What the hell was it?”

“Sectumsempra,” Harry said dully. “It's Snape's own spell; he made it up at Hogwarts. It's what Voldemort used that night to try and make his mark on me. And look, he wins…”

Hermione felt her own blood run cold. The slash did run up across the opposite shoulder from the one that bore the scar Voldemort had given him, completing the “V” shape.

“Stop it,” she heard herself say steadily; and if Harry had been in some sort of `zone' as he dueled before, Hermione had found one for herself now. She pushed aside everything in her mind but for three simple thoughts.

He would not die, he would not despair; he would not disappear. She would not allow any of it.

“You know it's nothing to do with him,” she said, snatching one of the bath towels that had heeded the call of Ron's spell from the air and pressing it hard against his chest. He hissed between his teeth, or else he swore in parseltongue. Either way he wasn't happy. “Lie down,” she ordered, as sheets and towels of every description began raining down on them from every corner of the house. Ron had been very thorough.

“Can't,” he shot back, his jaw clenched tightly. She tipped up on her knees and peered over his shoulder. There was blood soaking his shirt and running down his back as well. She remembered him recalling the spell to himself as he'd stepped in front of it; how it had bent around him.

“Why didn't you just let it go!” she cried out in mix of fear and frustration, grabbing another threadbare bath towel with its embroidered “B”. Somewhere Mrs. Black was having a gigantic hissy fit over the quality of the blood about to stain her family linens. She lay it over the wound and tried to wrap the two against him with a sheet around his chest. It was awkward and ineffective, and the front towel had almost bled through already.

His eyes opened then and found hers; much as she tried she could not look away.

“Right,” he said woozily. “I forgot. It was your turn to get the scary wound, and my turn to panic about it. You were Fifth year, Ron was poisoned Sixth year and I was Voldemort's plaything Seventh. It's back to you, is it?”

“We ought to slow it down with a tourniquet around your neck, you bloody idiot,” she said, and despite her resolutions she could hear the sob of fear playing around the edge of her anger.

Tonks turned out to be quite a help then, which was just as well, because Harry was beginning to drift. He slumped backwards against Tonks and they bunched fresh towels beneath him and let him go down. She taught Hermione a spell that tore sheets into strips and rolled them, making useful wrappings for keeping bandages on. She showed her two spells, one to help hold the edges of the towel together on his arm while they wound bandages tightly round it and another that acted as an extra finger to tie the knot at the ends.

She'd always known there had to be one of those.

“Love you,” Harry said suddenly and dreamily, and she almost threw up. Not the response she wanted to remember to his final words at all.

“Shut up!” she said fiercely, and Tonks looked up at her, stunned.

“Don't you tell me you love me because you think you're dying, Harry Potter. Don't you bloody do it. This is not how someone who bloody defeats bloody Voldemort dies, not in a bloody little mock duel. What were you thinking using that spell ever again? You're going to live and I'm going to bloody Obliviate your bloody arse when it comes to that one for good.” This swearing thing was most helpful, it was really making her feel better. Perhaps Ron was on to something.

“Didn't mean to,” he murmured sleepily. She noticed he'd gone quite pale; his fringe appeared very black against the pallor of his forehead. “I wouldn't hurt them, you know I wouldn't. It… I think it's… afraid.”

It's afraid? Tonks looked at her and raised one eyebrow questioningly.

“What's afraid, Harry,” she asked, apprehension making her voice sharper even than she'd meant it to be.

“The magic,” he said slowly, his eyes still closed, though he was beginning to sound almost drunk instead of tired. She got the sense he was drifting further.

“I'm going for blood replenishing potions,” Tonks whispered suddenly in her ear, rising quickly to her feet. “Buy us some time just in case Ron can't find Madam Pomfrey. He's scaring me. Are you okay to watch him by yourself?”

Hermione nodded, because she knew Tonks would hear the truth in her voice if she spoke aloud. She was bloody terrified.

“I'll bring Lupin back with me,” Tonks said soothingly. “He's good with healing charms. It's going to be alright.”

She nodded again, and Tonks rose and ran up the stairs without stumbling once.

See? She told herself. A good sign. She took Harry's uninjured hand and held it in her own, stroking his wrist. It felt cold, but the throb of his pulse was familiar and comforting all the same. She'd almost started taking for granted somehow that no matter what unpleasantness he had to deal with in relation to the Ministry and his magic he would still be here, still be Harry. She didn't care if he had a lick of magic or not, although she'd fight the Ministry tooth and nail if they tried to touch him. It was just that once he'd lived through the worst that Voldemort could dish out she'd thought that was the end to her fear of losing him.

And she hadn't even had him then. Now the thought was… unbearable. Truly beyond bearing.

She thought of casting a warming charm over him, but realized the drop in body temperature was probably a natural response to cope with the bleeding. She was a witch, a supposedly brilliant one, and still she felt powerless in the face of what was happening to him. She couldn't save him; she hadn't been able to protect him after all. Grief welled in her like a sob aching to come out; she felt utterly useless and utterly alone. Merlin, tell her this was not what he felt when he began to disappear… It was wretched.

Wait a minute. She couldn't protect him? From what? Himself, the spell, the Ministry? What was she thinking?

Something in Hermione was stirring, something unfamiliar; recent and yet dormant.

`I found last year that there's just something there inside me… I have to give in to it for it to help…get into this zone where it takes over and I just do stuff. Stuff I didn't think I knew how to do.'

She thought back to the night he had let her see what his magic felt like, remembered how when he'd let it all flow back to him her own had felt small and helpless in the tide of it, but how later she'd managed her first bit of wandless magic ever. She'd felt he'd changed her then somehow, left something inside her, gifting her with magic not her own.

What if he really had? She tried for a moment to slow her thoughts and empty her mind.

I can't protect him any longer, I need to let go, made its way through her mind.

She didn't want to protect him; it was too late. She wanted to heal him. Why did she keep thinking of protecting him? Exhaustion filled her, a profound tiredness, unlike anything she had ever known. She had a distinct perception of him as vulnerable that was also at odds with her own thoughts; Hermione understood Harry to be too powerful for his own good, and `vulnerable' wasn't even close to what she'd been focusing on in him of late. Her own thoughts of him as desirable, the lovely way he moved and smiled and the look in those clear green eyes when he became aware she wanted him as well, all were met with a sudden confusion of conflicting ones; a very different sense of him as entirely innocent, of trusting and unquestioning reliance, and warm, heavy, unbearably sweet green eyes with feather dark lashes, heavy with sleep but struggling to hold on to hers anyway.

They were a child's eyes, but still somehow his; and Hermione had a sudden flash of insight.

`He's everything to me,' she thought desperately. She wasn't entirely certain she was right, but felt sure somehow that there was help to be had. `Please I only want to help him. Please. You'd know what to do.' She fought again to empty her mind, allowing herself only to keep the awareness of his shallow breathing through her hand on his chest.

Words began to chase through her awareness, over and over, building in their urgency.

Cesso, Eluo, Purgo, Renovo, Quiesco, Sano.

Her mind began puzzling them out; they were simple Latin for the most part. Her hands twitched restlessly against his chest as she got them one by one. Cease, wash away, cleanse, renew, ease, heal. They were all steps in healing… and she was suddenly certain the urge within her hands to move were wand movements she'd never once studied or been taught.

Hermione might until now have been a bit of a pessimist, insisted on the superiority of the written word to other forms of learning, scoffed at Loony Luna. Until now. Now she would throw her heart into anything if only it would help him.

She set down her wand and unwound the bandage, peeling back the blood soaked towel from his arm… and completely lost her nerve. It was too deep, there was too much blood; it swelled and filled with each beat of his heart.

Cesso, Eluo, Purgo, Renovo, Quiesco, Sano.

`I can't!'

Cesso, Eluo, Purgo, Renovo, Quiesco , Sano!

`What if I make it worse?'

Cesso, Eluo, Purgo, Renovo, Quiesco, Sano...

`Forgive me, Harry,' she thought, and took up her wand.

“Cesso” The long wand movement parallel to the wound, against the flow of the heart and then back. She visualized the bleeding slowing, the brutal cut drying up.

“Eluo, Purgo.” On `Eluo' the wound seemed to resume bleeding and her confidence shook, but `Purgo' in this context, (the wand movement a series of flicks rather than the more usual wave she was used to performing) caused the excess bleeding to bubble and fizz and then disappear cleanly back into the wound.

“Renovo” seemed to cause the tissue deep within the cut to begin to knit together and grow anew; obviously a less than comfortable process, because his arm jerked in her hand and he let out a low groan of discomfort quite soon after she incanted the word, before her wand had even finished guiding the process.

She knew that `quiescent' meant quiet or at rest; she hoped `Quiesco' might involve easing the pain or resting after `Renovo'. But could she do it while the cut was healing, or did she need to wait until it had somehow closed? If she did it too soon would it stop the healing bit? Sectumsempra ripped into its victims more than cut them; there was a good way to go before the wound closed. She seemed to know the steps in order, but lacked the all important why of them. She was anxious to move on and stop the bleeding on his chest and back as well, but did she need to finish the entire series and before going on or could she sort of triage the whole of him and then complete the steps?

Lacking precise knowledge she was forced back again on her instincts. She cast the `Quiesco' portion of the spell on his arm and was enormous relieved when his unconscious agitation eased. It seemed to keep healing, if more slowly. She moved on and tore further open the rip in his shirt to remove the towels over the cut on his chest. She refused herself permission to dwell on the fact he had been right, the new injury did in fact intersect with the fading scar on his chest to form a V shape.

Cesso first. She rather liked that one, she felt enormously powerful to be able to stop the relentless bleeding. Eluo and Purgo; washing out and cleansing. Renovo once again brought out a strong reaction; the muscles surrounding the cut quivered beneath her hands and he cried out and fought it this time, the sound tearing at her heart. She flubbed the first `Quiesco' in her anxiousness to ease his pain and the second missed as he writhed desperately against the rapid working of his own body to close the cut. The third one seemed to take hold and she could actually see the healing tissue begin soften and come together more easily as it did. His resistance eased then as well; it was obviously an important step for both the patient and healing process. Not to mention the healer.

She eased him onto his side, shocked anew and frightened by his unresisting limpness. It took several of the `Cesso' spells to finish the bleeding in the slice that ran over his shoulder and down his shoulder blade. For the first time she saw things in the cut that looked suspiciously like tendons and the white of bone. She felt faint, and shook her head desperately.

“Eluo, Purgo,” she mumbled, performing the rinsing and cleaning charms.

“Miss Granger!” came a voice from behind her, and Hermione let herself finally succumb to a shaky sob of relief.

“Madam Pomfrey! Oh, thank you. Thank you for coming; I couldn't have done that spell one more time, not again.”

She saw that Poppy Pomfrey appeared both stricken by Harry's appearance and baffled by Hermione's own babbling. Having already seen Harry, Ron just seemed baffled. What was she talking about, anyway?

“Goodness,” Madam Pomfrey said, taking in the wound and the warning flashings and flarings of her wand as she began to assess Harry's condition. “Whatever happened here?”

“They were practice dueling,” Hermione explained. “Harry got hit with something that shocked him and fired off a really strong spell without thinking it through. Ron and Tonks ducked it, but it rebounded on him. Actually, he put himself in front of it and sort of called it back to him to protect me.”

“And the spell?” Madam Pomfrey asked, tracing the cut over top of Harry's shoulder and looking with dawning recognition at the one that ran down his chest. “I recognize the look of it. It's what he used on the Malfoy boy just before Dumbledore was killed. He had it later as well, on the cheek I believe. From Professor Snape.”

“Yes,” Hermione admitted. “That's the one.”

“Nasty, vicious spell. I never saw the like. It's like anger itself ruptures the skin. What was he thinking, playing with that,” she fussed. She retrieved several potion bottles from her satchel and handed all but one of them to Hermione. “In exactly the order I ask for them, and quickly, if you please. He's just about drained himself, the silly boy.”

One by one the potions were forced down Harry's throat, his head tipped back and neck stroked. By the forth Madam Pomfrey had to do a swallowing spell to force it down; his eyes were moving beneath his eyelids and he was starting, however unconsciously, to rebel.

“Down it goes,” she said firmly with the fifth, though her eyes betrayed both her worry and her long fondness for the boy she'd spent so much time putting back together. He lay quite still after the last of them, but seemed to be breathing steadily and the wound Hermione had not finished on his back no longer bled at all.

“Tell me, Miss Granger, where did you learn the healing spells you used? Did you really remember all that from a book? I'd always hoped you might choose the healing arts, but you'd gone already by your Seventh year.”

Hermione felt herself begin to sag with sheer exhaustion, as if Madam Pomfrey's reassuring presence made it alright to finally fall apart. “I honestly don't know. I don't think I ever read them, but they came back from somewhere. I was horribly afraid of not doing them right, but even more afraid to just wait while he was losing so much blood.”

“You did well, my dear,” Madam Pomfrey said more gently, as if suddenly realizing how frightened Hermione had truly been. “I asked because you chose exactly the right spells for the situation you were in. We tend to use potions wherever we can because they are commonly easier on the body, slower to act and more organic than forcing things with a spell. I know just what you mean about the Renovo, it's hard to cast it knowing the patient will find it painful, it's more commonly used in surgery, but you quite probably saved his life with it.”

She turned to Ron. “Mr. Weasley, perhaps you would help me move him somewhere more comfortable. I always like to have two Mobil Corpus spells on a patient in this shape, better safe than sorry. Have you been staying here again? Is there a bedroom available to put him in?”

Hermione watched anxiously as they levitated him up the stairs, gathered up Madam Pomfrey's satchel and began to follow. Her eye caught the mess left behind on the floor and knew that she could never even dream of using one of those towels again, no matter how many scourgifying spells she did.

“Incendio,” she incanted. She flicked her wand at each in turn until they were nothing but ashes drying in the congealing puddle of Harry's blood. Someone else was going to have to clean that up.

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She awoke sometime later stiff and sore and feeling very disorientated, though she recognized Harry's room at Grimmauld Place. The first person she saw was Harry, who, though sleeping soundly enough next to her, was oh-so-clearly going to be far stiffer and sorer than she when he finally awoke. Madam Pomfrey had finished coping with the damage the spell had wrought and secured the healing edges with the wizard version of butterfly bandages, making him appear to her bleary eyes like a worn and poorly stitched child's toy who been dragged once too often by the arm and almost lost it.

The second person was Elspeth, sitting over near the window. She smiled when she recognized Hermione was awake, and rose from the chair to cautiously approach the bed.

“Hello there. It was my turn to sit the two of you. It's been more than twelve hours now; I thought I might be the lucky one,” she said softly, twisting her long hair up into it's clip. “How do you feel? Do you want me to call Madam Pomfrey?”

“I'm fine. I mean, nothing happened to me. I don't know why I slept like that,” Hermione said slowly, peering more closely at Harry. He was still pale but not deathly so, and his breathing appeared deep and regular. She had a momentary flash of what might have been, waking up to the knowledge that he was forever gone, and couldn't help but reach out to touch him then. She let her fingers ruffle gently through his unruly hair and rest on the tender skin behind his ear, beyond caring if Elspeth were watching her or not.

“Don't sell yourself short, Hermione,” Elspeth told her, her tone serious. “That was a terrifying thing to have to get through. It hurts just to look at now; I can only imagine the shock of watching it happen and then having to cope with it. The fear and stress and adrenalin just from taking care of someone with an injury like that are enough to take their toll on you, and you only feel it all when it's over. Trust me.”

“I do,” Hermione said, but tiredness and aftershock combined to make her bold. “But tell me why though. How do you know?”

Elspeth smiled in understanding, Hermione didn't get the feeling she was offended at all. “I could tell you it was the Healer training I had to do to get into spell damage reversal, but I don't think that's what you mean, is it?”

“No,” Hermione said, “it's not.”

“Tell me something first. I've been puzzling and puzzling; how did you know what spells to use? Madam Pomfrey said you never did the Healing course or anything at Hogwarts. Had you ever had to do it before?”

“No,” she admitted. She let her eyes meet Elspeth's steady hazel gaze. “Do you want to know what I think happened?”

“Of course I do,” Elspeth said. She came and sat on the edge of the bed at Harry's feet, and Hermione drew herself up to sit as well. Harry stirred with her movement and almost woke but didn't, evidently poised on the edge of a dream - or not quite ready to cope with what he had to wake to. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like `Merhione' and the two exchanged matching slow smiles.

“I think I might have figured something out,” Hermione told her. “That; or I've gone entirely mad. Perhaps both.”

“Go on,” Elspeth told her, settling back against the footboard. “Fear not. I speak mad fluently.”

Hermione reckoned she did, too. “You've heard about the spell he cast, then?”

Elspeth nodded her affirmation.

“Well, after he called it back and it hit him and he was bleeding everywhere, Ron went to get Madam Pomfrey and Tonks went for Lupin. I was all alone with him and he was pretty well out of it, and I was scared out of my wits that I was going to lose him after all. All of a sudden I started feeling very strange; there was this awful, swelling sort of regret like nothing I'd ever known in my life. It was like I was feeling someone else's memories or emotions, someone who'd known and done things I haven't yet. I kept feeling like I'd failed somehow to protect him… only I hadn't even been trying to protect him or anything, I'd just been watching, and what I really wanted to do was help him.

I think I realized it at that point. Harry had told me that sometimes he'd felt something in him that wasn't him, and he'd found if he gave in to it completely it helped him. He was afraid at first it was the horcrux, but over time he came to see it was something else, and it was still part of him after the horcruxes were destroyed and Voldemort was gone.”

Elspeth nodded knowingly. “There is something. It's what I've felt on him as well, only I can't pin it down because I've never come across whatever it is before.”

Hermione hesitated, then decided that if she honestly expected Elspeth to help her she needed to tell her everything as honestly as she could as well. “Well, erm, Harry and I were sort of fooling around one night just after we'd got together. I asked him to do something magically to, umm, speed things along, and when he did it sort of… well, you know. Harry's magic has that sort of undercurrent of power and you can really feel it. We sort of started playing around a bit and then he… well, he sort of… oh, damn, every way I try and say it just sounds wrong!”

Elspeth flashed a sympathetic smile. “Hermione, we're both big girls. I'm not your mum, I'm not going to judge you for anything you've done or are likely to do. And he's lovely, Harry, isn't he? I mean really, what's not to like; he's only too easy to look at, you could lose yourself in those eyes for days, and he's got a heart the size of a bloody lions'. It would have been a criminal waste not to have enjoyed all that. Life's too bloody short not to make the most of it while you can; you've just had a crash lesson in that and I know you've made him very, very happy. Given how long the world's been around with men and women in it, it's hardly likely the two of you came up with anything that's never been done before, if you don't mind me saying so. You've nothing to be ashamed of.”

Put that way, it was a good bit easier. “He let me feel his magic,” she said. “And trust me, that's not a euphemism. We were together and he just let it go so I would know what it was like. It felt…it was incredible, but it was too much for me. I don't know how he does it, how he manages it all, but I couldn't. It made my nerves feel raw. When he called it back it was so strong I felt like it was going to draw my own magic back with it and I sort of panicked. He could sense how I felt then and slowed it all down, but when it was done he'd left me with something. Erm, more than just the usual. I was stronger magically, not by much but I could feel it. I did my first bit of wandless magic that night, and while I can't do it like he does I've been practicing and I just know my magic is still different because of that one time.”

“Wow,” Elspeth said, and gave a low whistle, impressed. “How cool is that?”

Hermione felt herself break into a shy smile. “Very. But here's the thing. I think whatever happened on that night might have helped me out tonight. All of a sudden tonight I felt different. I wasn't seeing him the way I usually do, like… well like a friend, or a girlfriend, I suppose. If we'd played a word association game then I wouldn't have said desirable or snoggable or anything like that. I felt as if I would have come up with precious; or innocent or mine. In the sense of `mine to protect' rather than `mine to enjoy' or `mine not Ginny's.' I don't know what it feels like to have a child, but that's what it seemed like to me. I felt like his mum might have.”

“Harry once told me that Dumbledore told him it was his mums' sacrifice that helped save him the night Voldemort first came for him,” Elspeth said slowly. “That would be a clash of very old and very powerful magic, what Harry was in the midst of. A mother willing to give up her own life to protect her child, and an evil, twisted man willing to commit murder to shred his own soul. They weren't random participants, either; they were on opposite sides of what might as well have been a war of sorts even then. They knew what each other was about.

What if Harry's mum recognized in those last seconds that even her life might not be enough? What if she realized Voldemort's spell might go wrong and make a horcrux of Harry instead of out of his death? Could she have done something similar? Her actions turned a killing curse back on its caster, she'd made a deliberate choice with them to kill or risk killing. Could she have torn her own soul or essence somehow? Or done something like Harry did with you, and thrown off a bit of her own magic in him?”

“That's exactly what I was thinking!” Hermione told her excitedly. “I think she was trying to use her magic to protect him somehow, anyhow, until he could grow into his own. Maybe that's why Harry's magic has always sort of flared at times when he's been threatened or miserable. And I think it's still protecting him, it doesn't realize that Voldemort being gone should have marked the end of it.”

They shared another glance, minds working feverishly.

Harry hadn't even known he was a wizard until he was eleven; he'd been catching up ever since. Lily couldn't have known for sure Dumbledore would give Harry to her sister; the protection she would have sought to instill in Harry would be as unconditional as love itself. It hadn't died with Voldemort; why should it? Harry was still Harry. The magic inside him that she'd given up was still growing with him; still protecting him, still trying to face this new threat. Only now it was the magic itself that was unknowingly driving his undoing.

Hermione knew that deeper inside than Harry would ever care to admit he was deeply hurt and frightened by his rejection now by what should have been his own kind, the very ones he'd risked his life to save. He'd spent a miserable childhood being reminded he was a freak by the Dursleys; now wizards and witches were starting to say the same things to him. What if the more they tried to control him and rein in his magic, the more whatever magic Lily had called on to protect her son would grow to protect him?

“Bloody hell!” they said in almost perfect unison, reaching the same destination together. Neither of them much cared for the view from their new precipice. No wonder Harry wanted to disappear sometimes.

“It's an immensely powerful thing, the love you have for your children,” Elspeth told Hermione. “No matter what you think you'll feel, you stare into those eyes for the very first time and the magic is already there. Real magic, not just the sort witches and wizard sling around. No matter how powerful we are, the only way to create new life is the one that was given us. One man, one woman, one act that's meant to join us together by making us vulnerable and trusting of each other; binding us to each other and the child. Voldemort was too twisted to embrace that; he couldn't ever bring himself to need or love another human being, so he tried to shred himself instead. He and Lily were at exact opposite ends of the spectrum of life when they did what they did.”

“What I felt, that sense I had… the words to the healing spells worked their way into my mind and wouldn't stop,” Hermione remembered. “I unwrapped his arm to try them and it started bleeding again and I thought I couldn't do it. It was just like arguing with another person, someone insisting that I could if I only tried. If what I felt could respond like that, couldn't it still be convinced that Voldemort is dead and that Harry didn't need to be any more powerful?”

“Wait a minute. What were you just saying?” It was Harry's voice from between them, hoarse and cracked, his eyes still closed.

“That you're a magical idiot savant with all the survival instincts of a demented lemming,” Elspeth told him smoothly. “How are you feeling?”

One eye opened then, glaring green. “Nice bedside manner, Hawktalon. Which leads me to wonder, what are you doing at my bedside, anyway?”

“You're having a very strange erotic dream?”

Harry's other eye opened and wheeled around rather desperately until it located Hermione. He let out a rather flattering sigh of relief and let his eyes fall closed again, shifting with a wince against the bed.

“Funny, that sort of dream never hurt quite like this before you appeared.” The corners of his lips bent gently, and Hermione watched in pure pleasure as his hand shifted under the blanket in her direction. She slid her own into it, reveling in its returning warmth.

“I'd say you`ve got to stop fantasizing about Madam Pomfrey, then,” Elspeth told him, “only that's taking the joke just that bit too far. You never answered, Harry. Are you going to live?”

“I think that all depends on whether or not I really understood what the two of you were on about during the last bit there while I was waking up. Because if my mum's magic kicking in every time it thinks I'm threatened really makes mine sort of take it up another notch, I'd say that under the present administration I've got the life expectancy of that demented lemming you mentioned earlier.”

“I'll take that as a `yes, thanks, I'm fine,' for the purpose of Madam Pomfrey getting back to Hogwarts, and a `jury's still out' for the rest of us. Although you know she's going to have to have a good old fuss over you before she goes.”

“Urgh. Those potions are particularly foul. I kept waking up and tasting them and then drifting back off in self defense,” Harry told them. “I think my sense of taste may have been permanently damaged.”

“Considering that might be the only sense you had before, tragedy has truly struck,” Hermione informed him. It was bloody exhausting; being both thrilled someone was alive and furious with them at the same time.

“I'd say sorry a thousand times and it still wouldn't be enough Hermione, I know that.” he said uncertainly, the joking tone noticeably absent from his voice now. “I don't know what else I could have done. I never meant to use that spell, it just flew out when the other one shocked me, and then I couldn't just let it go when it was heading right for you. I know I'm meant to think you're a clever independent witch who'd duck or counter it or throw up a shield, but I just see you and all I think is I can't bear to see you hurt again. You were amazing, you worked it all out and here I am. If anything had happened to you I'd be bloody useless, because I know I'd go over all despairing and disappear before I could do anything practical to help.”

His fingers tightened around hers, his eyes held hers equally inescapably. “You were right when you said sooner or later I'd have to go just to find out where there is. I probably will. And I might just have to turn myself in to the Ministry sooner or later too, if we can't find a way of turning whatever this is off. How can I ask you guys to waste your lives in hiding with me when at any moment I could let loose on one of you like that?”

“Harry, do you remember when your friend Luna quoted Paracelsus the other day? About how anything, no matter how helpful, can be poison in the wrong dosage? Well she's right, and I'd missed that entirely,” Elspeth interjected. Hermione watched his eyes shift to hers hopefully.

“When you're a bit stronger, I have two spells in particular I'd like to try on you. One of them isn't exactly legal, but it could answer the question about whether what's happening to your magic is related to what's called primal or fundamental magic, forces that human witches and wizards can't usually make use of. That could well be what your mum tapped into.”

“Okay,” Harry said, with what Hermione thought of as his typical jump-first-ask-after approach. Much as she liked and trusted Elspeth there was a lot more she wanted to know about that particular subject before she'd be comfortable playing around with it. Somehow the consequences sounded a bit worse than being, oh, expelled, for example.

“What's the other one for?” Harry asked curiously.

“It's a tracking spell. So we have a chance at finding you just in case you feel the need to give in to your disappearing act. Although I highly recommend you don't even considered it. Blah, blah, blah, lips moving, not hearing, I know. But I think you might be on to something; if the Ministry's actually found something that can null your magic, there's no real reason we can't figure out how to use it to just put a sort of safety brake on you until we sort it all out. So do me a favor, Potter, and stick around. I've grown rather fond of you. Both of you.”

Elspeth rose from the bed and moved to the door, but turned as she made her way out.

“Oh and I heard about the roof, you two,” she said with a grin. “Keep it under control. `MINISTRY CAPTURES RUNAWAY HARRY POTTER BY TRACING POST SHAG DEBRIS PATTERN' isn't a headline I want to read in the Daily Prophet any time soon. Ever actually, if you want to know the truth. So behave, and I'll tell Madam Pomfrey you're awake.”

The door shut. Hermione allowed her anger to wrestle with her fear. While they were both otherwise occupied, lust won out and she kissed him. His answering kiss was all that she loved about him; responsive to the nuances of her touch but alive with his own fierce intensity and seeking need to be loved despite himself. It fanned the flames of her fear of losing him even as she lost herself to him, and she was more aware then ever of times' eternal progress.

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A/N: I got to write while my husband cooked and cleaned up tonight - so voila! Happy Mothers Day I could get very used to that… Sorry this one took so long - real life in all it's many permutations took hold. I have the next chapter almost finished though, and hope to get that up mid week. After that one, things begin to proceed quite quickly in this story.

I feel awful that I haven't gotten to answering reviews in a bit, but quite a few people asked about how I work on this. I am utterly ashamed to admit that I am one of those undisciplined people who just sit down and write away. I don't have notebooks full of notes or plot outlines; I just have a head full of ideas and characters making their opinions known about them. I have a general idea where the story is going when I first begin it and specific themes and destinations in mind, but the writing is a journey full of detours for me. For this specific story I know exactly what is going on and where it's going to end up, but details have ways of popping up or being explored according to their own logic along the way. For example, I have a whole six page scene between Draco Malfoy and Elspeth that was written and meant to be included earlier that now has to show up somewhere else…. And for all those who asked: yes, Emily Hawktalon will make a reappearance.

I know that's not how you're supposed to do it, and I hope someday I have time to do it right, but for now the answer is nope, no plot outline. I could guesstimate for you where events will flow and how many chapters remain (my prediction: 23 total) and I can tell you what the major action sequences are and how they will resolve, but that's about it. Hope that answers the question! *blushes*

I only work in the office two days a week in summer when my kids are out of school, so things will pick back up. Thanks for sticking with it.

~Lynney

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 17

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Madam Pomfrey dosed Harry thoroughly with another range of potions before she left, but while she was quite firm in admonishing him not to get out of bed for another twelve hours at least and to keep his arm as still as possible for another twelve after that, she admitted privately to Ron and Hermione in the hallway that he was healing remarkably quickly.

“The spells you used would accelerate the process somewhat over the more natural course of potions, Miss Granger, but even taking those into account I'm quite pleased. There'll likely be very little scarring with healing like that. Do remind him to go easily, though. Very often such deep wounds may appear healed before the body really has a chance to adjust. He'll still feel it in his muscles and ligaments a good while even after the skin has seemed completely returned to normal.”

They agreed to do so, or at very least to try, and escorted her to the kitchen fireplace asking politely after her travels earlier in the summer to visit her niece in Wales. Hermione informed her they were due to meet with the Headmistress the following day and promised to bring Harry up to the Hospital Wing for a check up.

Hermione was surprised to find Mrs. Weasley bustling about in the kitchen making soup with a clearly bored Ginny's assistance. She brightened perceptibly with Madam Pomfrey's appearance.

“Is Harry awake? Can I go see him now?” she asked, dropping the carrots she'd been washing onto the worktop and grabbing a towel to dry her hands.

“He's sleeping at the moment,” Madam Pomfrey said. “I've just given him his potions. I'd leave it for a bit; he'll be much better company towards dinnertime.”

Ginny's expression grew set and she turned reluctantly back to her task. Hermione couldn't help but wince at the decidedly expressive whack of the knife and was exceedingly happy not to be a carrot at that particular point.

“He'll be up and around again tomorrow without a doubt,” Madam Pomfrey told her. She sniffed over Mrs. Weasley's shoulder and nodded approvingly. “Soup's just the thing for the boy, Molly, and yours is as good as any nourishing potion I've ever used.”

“Tastes a whole lot better, too,” Ron agreed. “Actually makes you want to live.”

Mrs. Weasley flicked her wand to keep the spoon stirring and accompanied Madam Pomfrey to the fire. “You're quite certain they can care for him on their own? I'd stay, only Arthur's been working overtime at the Ministry trying not to find Harry and Fleur's home a bit under the weather and I promised Bill I'd look in on her.”

Ginny caught Ron's eye and mouthed, `Preggers' while simulating being sick. Ron paled. Hermione, who would previously have thought very little of the news found herself getting a little gooey-hearted at the prospect. A new little generation of Weasley's! Now that she wasn't meant to produce one it was an endearing thought. She wondered if it might not be a side effect of her brush with Lily's enduring mother-magic as well. She'd never thought of herself as having even the smallest of maternal instincts.

“He'll be quite alright Molly, honestly. He's healing nicely, just needs to keep quiet for a bit and keep at the blood replenishing potions. Hermione did a very creditable job stopping the bleeding, I feel confident leaving him in her care.”

Ginny's eyes shifted toward Hermione appraisingly. She seemed to be determining whether to thank her or warn her off, and Hermione let her eyes drift quickly back to Ron.

Madam Pomfrey departed through the floo and Mrs. Weasley turned her attention once more to Hermione, Ron and Ginny. “Ginny dear, I'll drop you off with Luna on the way to Bill and Fleurs' flat. You're to floo to the twin's shop in the morning and I'll meet you there at ten o'clock sharp. Ron, I'm trusting you to make sure Harry has a nice big bowl of soup when he wakes up, and I've left cold chicken and a pie as well for you and Hermione. There's enough for Tonks and Lupin if they stop in. Do make sure Lupin eats, the poor man.”

Hermione hid a smile at that; there was nothing particularly poor about Lupin any longer; Tonks appeared to be taking quite good care of him. Gone were the days of patched and seedy robes, and while Tonks wasn't exactly renowned for her cooking skills, with her he at least ate regular meals. He was as healthy as anyone forced to become a werewolf once a month could be, and his research job seemed to have panned out into fairly steady work lately.

“Yes, Mum,” said Ron dutifully. “What's the Sprout doing with Luna?”

“I'm not a sprout,” said Ginny wrathfully. “And I'm keeping Luna company tonight. She's been stuck at The Leaky Cauldron all this time while her dad's been working the summer away.”

“Have fun, then. Tell Luna Harry and Hermione miss her scratching behind their ears. The guinea pigs, that is.”

“Oh, that was a necessary clarification,” Hermione grumbled. She felt as if Mrs. Weasley were watching the two of them too closely for comfort now as well. “We'll take good care of Harry,” she promised. “Thank you so much for cooking for us. I know how busy things are just now.”

“Just stay safe and in the house until we can get this business with the Ministry sorted out,” Mrs. Weasley requested, handing Ginny a pinch of floo powder.

“Yes, Mum,” Ron repeated. “Bye, Sprout.”

It was a good thing Mrs. Weasley went first. Hermione didn't think Ginny's parting gesture fell under the category of either friendly or waving.

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What little was left of the day proved uneventful. Hermione even played a game of Wizard's chess with Ron to pass the time, although it wasn't the same without Harry with them. The words were on her lips to speak more than once and she was certain she saw Ron bite them back as well. She was reminded again how grateful she should be that they were still sharing that thought.

It must have shown on her face this time, because Ron rather ruthlessly claimed her Bishop and warned, `Don't go all mushy-brained on me, Hermione. I can handle you shagging Harry a lot easier than losing my best bet for a decent game of chess.”

“I think you ought to ask Luna for a game. I bet she's completely unpredictable. In fact she might even beat you.”

Ron grinned at the prospect. “Harry needs to cope with Ginny first. Ginny and Luna have been friends for a long time. I don't want her to feel like she's walked into the middle of something and then asked to take sides.”

“Luna probably already knows how it all ends up. I don't get the sense she's overly concerned about it either way. She certainly knows Harry and I are together, and either she kept it to herself or she was no more successful in getting Ginny to believe it than Harry's been convincing her they're over.”

“Ginny's always been determined to do things her own way. She had to be, it can't have been easy being the youngest of us, and the only girl. In Harry's defense I always thought she'd be terrifying for some bloke and lead anyone she chose around by the ba…nose with a firm hand, but in Ginny's she's been nothing if not faithful. She made up her mind the moment she set her eyes on him.”

“I'm not sure dating Neville, Michael Corner and Dean is exactly what I'd call faithful, even though I'm the one who told her she ought to get on with her life,” Hermione said. “Still, that's not love, Ron. That's obsession.”

“Only when someone else does it. Didn't seem to take you a second look.”

“It took a second look at a troll,” she pointed out. “And suddenly the two of you seemed brilliant company in comparison.”

Hermione had gone back upstairs after dinner and taken a nice long bath, soaking and attempting to think of nothing in particular until her skin pruned. She was only semi-successful; she continually felt as if she was on the verge of some vital discovery but never quite got there.

She wrapped her hair in a towel, tied her robe around her waist and padded down the hall to the room where Harry lay still sleeping. She settled in the same chair by the window Elspeth had chosen and began to comb out her hair. This was a somewhat complicated process only partially speeded on by magic. Hermione had found that drying and styling charms were every bit as time consuming and complicated as their muggle counterparts; too strong a charm and her hair ended up dry but looking like sheep's wool, too light a one and the damp bit underneath caused the straight part to bush out violently. Combing it through by hand and applying several mild drying charms throughout the process instead of one overall stronger one seemed the best method to achieve results she could live with. She was long past the days when she'd bothered envying Parvati her heavy hair that dried so straight and shiny, or Lavender the results of her careful routine of curling and styling spells.

Somehow the whole process now seemed a bit more worth it. It was almost funny, how Harry's perception of her softened her own. Things had been far more complicated with Ron. She had never truly felt like his first choice; she knew he'd had to work his nerve up for her and other girls had been easier, but there it was. Harry had always been kinder - or perhaps just less openly opinionated - than Ron, but nothing in his previous choices (Cho would have been a tough act of follow if she hadn't turned out to be such a cow, and Ginny really was lovely when she wasn't possessed or obsessed) had left Hermione feeling she was in any way his epitome of womanhood. And yet he managed to make her feel that way now; as much as the draw between them was based on the comfort of long familiarity, getting to know him on a more intimate level proved there was still quite a lot to be discovered on both sides.

The feel of his fingers running through her hair, the unthinking gentleness with which he could tuck a lock behind her ear to make way for a kiss, the way he sometimes buried his face in it over her shoulder afterwards, all of them made her feel desirable, womanly, pretty even. Plain old bushy-haired Hermione. Imagine.

She was almost finished, mindlessly eying the evening sky as her fingers methodically worked to comb through the thick tangle of curls in the final bit when she heard the soft sound of the sheets rustling behind her and turned to find Harry had awoken and was watching her from the bed. The rustling might have been him reaching for his glasses, for they were already in place.

She smiled with pleasure to find him awake, though it faded slightly when no answering smile met her in return. His gaze was owlish and intent.

“Hermione, you're… you're just… you're gorgeous, sitting there,” he whispered thickly. His struggle to find the words and the ultimate simplicity of his choice lent them a sincerity that eloquence could never match.

“It's much more complementary if you don't sound surprised when you say it, you know,” she managed after a moment, once her heart resumed beating and she'd got her breath back. Her cheeks and chest felt as if they were on fire. She'd lain with him without a stitch between them, done things with him that should have rendered her impervious to embarrassment. He'd probably touched every inch of her now, how could he leave her on the verge of tears with one stupid word?

Because he truly believed it, and she knew he did; she'd just been thinking about it, hadn't she? Because he was surprised. Because he'd known her for ages through good times and bad, he'd seen her with her head buried in a book, seen her turned into Millicent Bulstrode's cat, seen her struggle to admit she loved him, but he'd never actually seen her sit and comb out her wet hair before and for some reason it had truthfully struck something in him. Hogwarts might have had broom closets and empty classrooms for couples inclined to plumb the mysteries of life, but it hadn't exactly provided opportunities for simple intimacies like this. And they'd almost missed their chance.

She rose from the chair, leaving her hairbrush behind, and climbed up on to the bed, laying down beside him.

“I didn't mean it to sound that way,” he told her, reaching for her tentatively with his uninjured arm. She shifted closer, settling down against the length of him, slipping her arm over his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. She had the sense again of fitting him, or of him fitting her, as they moved together.

“It's alright,” she reassured him, nestling closer to reinforce her words. “I was… you surprised me, too. You actually made me feel sort of gorgeous for a moment there.”

He made no response other than stroking her still slightly damp hair, but she felt his lips press gently against her forehead. They lay in silence for some time and Hermione felt herself go comfortably drowsy, warm and clean and utterly content to be beside him. Despite all that awaited them beyond these four walls she had the sense of being quite safe entwined with him, as if nothing could harm them as long as they stayed together. Just as she'd begun drifting off she heard him finally attempt to put in words what had obviously been occupying his own semi- somnolent conscience.

“What use is all of this magic,” he asked softly, “if I can't make you see how amazing you are to me? You saved my life, Hermione. You call me back and make me glad I came. You were like the stained glass mermaid in the Prefects' bathroom, combing your hair just then, only a thousand times more beautiful because you were you and I could only imagine what you were thinking. I'm pretty certain that mermaid couldn't have worked out anything in Ancient Runes in her head.”

She wondered how firmly the roof on Number Eleven was attached. It appeared they'd have to find out.

“I have a confession,” she told him, lifting her eyes to meet his and trying hard not to lose her train of thought as they fixed on her steadily with their almost magnetic pull. “I wasn't doing Runes, or even working out how the Ministry might manage find you and succeed in putting limits on your magic, the way I should have been. If I looked deep in thought, it's because I was thinking of you beside me just like this. How lovely you feel to me, and how glad I am that we've worked out this way. You make me daydream, Harry, in the most distractingly physical way, and if we'd done this in school it's distinctly possible I might have trolled every one of my N.E.W.T.s.”

“I find that disturbingly hot,” he told her, the wicked little grin that spelled trouble overtaking his earlier seriousness. “It'd take more magic than offing Voldemort for you to troll anything. Maybe I am the next dark lord.”

“Shut up,” she said firmly, “and kiss me already.”

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Hermione awoke some time later to find their door cracked and light from the hallway spilling inside. She blinked until her eyes made out Ron's silhouette at the foot of the bed, as far away from them both as possible, shaking one of her feet gingerly through the blankets.

She bolted straight up, fear rising in her chest, and then realized through the dim light that his expression had become at once both panicked and almost helplessly intrigued. Almost as soon as she did, he did as well, and his eyes bolted for the ceiling. She snatched the sheet up and closer around her and Harry stirred fitfully in his sleep, reaching for her.

“What's wrong?” she asked as softly as she could through her annoyance.

“I think you'd better come downstairs. Both of you, if he can manage it,” Ron told her, swallowing. His eyes roved around the room, anywhere but the bed. “Ginny and Luna are here. They stumbled onto a meeting at The Leaky Cauldron that sort of changes everything.”

“Why?” she asked, casting her own eyes around for her nightgown and robe.

“That aide of Scrimgeour's, Smeggall, was there, and Umbridge,” he said. “But the really bad news is so were Snape and Elspeth.”

That didn't sound right. Or good, at the very least.

“My robe is, erm, right behind you. Over there,” she indicated. It had quite clearly been flung where it lay; he picked it up and tossed it back to her.

“Ginny thinks Elspeth's been betraying Harry right along,” he said anxiously. “And now she knows about this house. We're going to have to move, and fast.”

“To be honest, Ron, right now I trust Elspeth's judgment a lot more than Ginny's. Elspeth helped Harry escape the Ministry by letting him take her hostage at wand point, for goodness sake. Would you actually let him hold a wand to your throat about now? And you know as well as I do that Ginny'd be the one taking Harry hostage now if she thought it might get them back together. There must be more to this than meets the eye.”

“She may be a little obsessed but I told you before, she was obsessing about Harry back when you couldn't tear your eyes from Viktor Krum,” Ron said defensively. “You're not the only one who's ever cared about him, you know.”

“But she's the one I actually want to care about me,” Harry interjected, still sleepy but sure of his position on that issue at least. “She's the one I want to care for. There's a difference. And why are we arguing about this in the middle of the night?”

“It's only just past eleven, actually. Luna and Ginny are downstairs. Ron says they stumbled across a secret meeting at The Leaky Cauldron between Smeggall, Umbridge, Snape and Elspeth.”

“Elspeth will tell us about it in the morning, then,” Harry said confidently.

“You can't tell me that particular combination doesn't give you at least a mild case of the willies, Harry. Nothing good can come of it. Snape, Harry. With Umbridge. Talking about you.”

“There's no love lost there,” Harry pointed out. “At least you can always count on Snape to hate everyone else almost as much as he hates me.” He sighed and began heaving himself up and out of bed. “I don't suppose you'd be a friend and throw me those?” he asked Ron, eyes fixed on a pair of jeans folded over the footboard.

Hermione watched the two eye each other steadily for a moment. Ron picked them up at last and threw them with perhaps a bit more force than necessary Harry's way.

“Thanks,” Harry said, and rose with deliberate carelessness from between the sheets to pull them on. She felt Ron watch her watching him and refused to look away. Harry toed his way into unlaced trainers and pulled a clean t shirt from his pack on the floor, turning hopefully toward her. She understood at once he needed her help to put it on and moved to do it, but before she could reach him Ron took it from his hands and bunched it up, holding the sleeve open for his wonky arm. Harry slid it in trustingly if gingerly, and Ron helped stretch the neck over his friends' head, eyes meeting Hermione's quite deliberately before it poked through. The message was quite clear. You're not the only one who's ever cared about him, you know.

“Go easy on her, you two,” he said gruffly, stepping back from Harry and clearly including Hermione in his plea. “It's no one's fault, is it, how it's all turning out, and once she had a taste of things year before last she's not been the same about it since. She's not going to like the two of you together a bit and you well know she's got a temper, but she genuinely thinks she loves you, Harry. I think she thought you loved her too.”

The nominal topic of discussion downstairs might be the meeting that Ginny and Luna had observed, but it was obvious to all three of them that the time had come to live up to their decisions.

Harry ran his fingers through his hair, succeeding only in making it appear more disheveled. “I'll do anything I can, Ron, but I've tried a hundred ways to be gentle about it and they've all come back to haunt me. She can yell and scream if she wants but it's not going to change anything this time round. It was a mistake. I'll always be sorry it happened because she was the last person I should have let it happen with. I do know that, and I don't know what the hell I was thinking. It's entirely my fault it did, but I love Hermione. I just…” his eyes dropped and then shifted to hers with the same mix of shyness and undisguised discovery that had taken her breath away earlier that evening. “I just do. Wanting not to hurt Ginny's feelings isn't the same thing at all.”

Ron sighed. “Trust me, I've figured out over the last few days what you're on to in each other. I wish you'd done us all a favor and figured it out a bit earlier, but I reckon you're not going to change your minds now. Half the time, I couldn't be happier for either of you and the other half I want to wring both your bloody necks.”

Ron headed downstairs, Harry went to the loo and Hermione found Crookshanks curled up possessively on her nightgown. She gave up and was about to head to her old room to grub through her bag for clothes when a thought occurred. It was terribly juvenile, but nothing spelled possession like a boy's favorite shirt. She found a clean pair of boxers and his Kenmare Kestrals shirt; she'd had to drag it out of the laundry, but it had been on top and wasn't obviously dirty or stained. Best of all it still smelled faintly of Harry when she'd poked her head through the neck. She felt invincible.

She met Harry coming out of the lav as she started downstairs, and his soft “Holy hell, Hermione,” didn't hurt matters either.

“For someone who's not a Quidditch fan, you wear that really, really well,” he told her, “I haven't got much in the way of clothes but they're all yours if I get to be around when you try them on.”

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Ginny and Luna were waiting in the kitchen comparing stories between the Quibbler and the Daily Prophet. Both looked up with what appeared to be genuine pleasure to see him when Harry made his way to the table. Ron hunted down five bottles of butterbeer while Harry ignored Ginny's indication of the chair beside her and sat down across from her with the table safely between them.

“Ron said you two came across a meeting between Smeggall and Snape and Umbridge?” Harry asked. “Why is that I never get invited to I Hate Harry night at the Cauldron?”

“We weren't exactly invited,” Ginny told him excitedly, “but most of their generation hasn't picked up on Fred and George's stuff yet, and the extendable ears worked out great.”

“I would have like to have seen them though,” Luna said thoughtfully. “Extendable eyes would be really useful. You can tell so much more about someone's true intentions when you can see the expression that goes along with the words.”

A very valid point, if a bit surprising coming from her. Although he reckoned if she really was a seer it might be twice as frustrating as anyone else. He wondered if she had visions or just sort of knew things, and how it came to her. She seemed so vague; who was to say she hadn't foreseen important stuff and just not been paying attention? Harry had found himself wondering lately that if Trelawney had only laid off the sherry there might not have been an extra verse to his own prophecy. Something along the lines of:

And the Ministry will claim his wand and neuter the one's magic by forcing him to turn to the dark lord's traitorous potion master to beg for help… because it wasn't humiliating enough to be unable to control the magic required to defeat the dark lord in the first place. And the one will live on in misery as an example to future dark lord slayers that it might be better to die in infancy than live to save future soulless Ministry wonks' miserable arses just so they can be betrayed, too… the one with the power to vanquish the dark lord will be born as the seventh month dies, and his eighteenth birthday will be the most miserable yet… and that's saying something….

“Harry? Are you even listening to me?” Ginny's voice broke through his reverie and he realized there'd be no faking this one. He hadn't had a clue she'd even been talking.

“Erm, sorry,” he said. Hermione came and sat down beside him and he felt a little better. More focused somehow. “What were you saying?”

“Their little get-together was called by this Smeggall person. He's been dealing with Snape all along about finding a way to limit your magic. Snape's been trying to sell him on the idea that the only real way to do it was to keep you on steady doses of a potion and just use an artifact like wrist bands or a collar or something for show - like a visible symbol. He insisted that was the only foolproof way there was. Umbridge cut him off and said he was wrong, that she'd found exactly what the Minister wanted.”

“Vicious toad. It would be her,” Hermione said angrily.

“You'll be wearing one of her dopey hair bands before you know it, mate,” Ron added.

“She was one twisted piece of work,” Harry admitted, “but I'm not exactly frightened of anything she'd come up with. She wasn't powerful as a witch in her own right at all; she was just good at manipulating situations to her own sick purposes.”

Luna shook her head. “You don't understand, Harry. It seemed serious. She didn't create it or come up with the spell herself. She's found something and worked out a deal for it. We couldn't tell what she'd done, but even Professor Snape was really surprised by whatever it was. He seemed to believe it would work, but that it would leave you a squib. Elspeth Hawktalon said that wasn't what Scrimgeour wanted and he wouldn't stand for it, because the backlash from regular witches and wizards would be too strong. They might buy you being held to average magical abilities, but never having your magic actually taken from you.”

“How nice,” said Harry faintly.

“Umbridge insisted that your level of magic now was even higher that it had been when you were released from St. Mungo's and that whatever it was wouldn't go far enough to leave you a squib,” Ginny said.

“How would she know that? She's nothing to base that on,” Hermione protested.

“Unless they measured it somehow while I was out of it before you and Ron and Tonks and Elspeth came for me after I blew out the front of Flourish and Blotts. I wouldn't have had a clue what they were doing to me, and I couldn't have stopped it even if I had,” Harry pointed out. “What difference does it make, though? They still haven't proved I'm a threat or I'll turn dark, either. They don't seem to need to prove anything, it's down to me to disprove it all and no one will believe me.”

“Here's the part you need to worry about though. Whatever it is, it's visible and permanent. From what they were saying it goes under your skin but can still be easily seen. They want Snape to make up the ingredients for applying it, but they have someone else who'll do the actual deed when it comes to you. Elspeth's job is going to be to put the Ministry's seal on it by doing the verifying spell.”

“They all agreed it would work, Harry,” Ginny told him, her eyes hard. Your `friend' Elspeth sat there and said that the Department of Spell Damage Reversal could monitor enforcement for the first year or two to make sure there was no way for your magic to compensate for it. Snape pointed out that they actually needed to catch you first if they were going to do it, and Smeggall said they knew where you were and it was just a matter of getting to you. He said, `I'm sure he'll come out for his friend Ms. Hawktalon, won't he? And she agreed, Harry.”

“Fuck,” Harry said, his blood running cold. He felt suddenly nauseous. `Please let me not have ruined someone else's life, not now.'

“Why did you ever let her come here?” Ginny asked angrily. “What were you thinking?”

“You've got it wrong, as usual,” he snarled, utterly unable to stop himself. “I revealed it to her so she'd have a safe place to run and I'm glad that I did. It looks like she's going to need it. I only hope she'll come before it's too late.”

“It's already too late, Harry! She's sold you out.” Ginny raged back. “You can never see what's right in front of your face!”

“And just what,” said Harry, his voice suddenly dangerously quiet, “is that supposed to mean?”

“Just exactly what it sounds like. You take for granted what's right in front of you and never appreciate what you already have. You keep looking for something else when you already have everything you need. She never helped you a bit, never reversed a single curse and now she's told them where you are!”

Harry shut his eyes then; Hermione saw a muscle in his jaw clench. The magical fire in the hearth, charmed not to give off heat during the summer months, suddenly flared and she felt an abrupt change of pressure in her ears. Crookshanks yowled and shot out from under the table where he'd settled at her feet, his tail treble its usual size; and the guinea pigs shrieked in their cage and bolted for their hutches.

“You're right. I have done. I've been an idiot,” Harry admitted. “But I've learned my lesson. It won't happen again.”

Luna cocked her head at him quizzically, like an exotic bird. Hermione realized her earrings today were made of long scarlet feathers.

Ginny's face lit up with an enormous smile. “Oh, Harry, I knew it…”

Hermione saw him wince, as if anticipating what was to come. She could not tell if Ginny knew and was deliberately misunderstanding him on the chance he might not have the nerve to follow through, or if she truly had remained oblivious to all that had changed in him since he broke it off with her. She felt her hackles rise in his defense. Their sixth year had been a painful one in so many ways, strange and alien and the beginning of the end. It was time to move on.

“Ginny, no,” he said miserably. “I'm sorry if I ever gave you the impression that things between us would change if I lived through the prophecy, but they won't. I never should have let us happen in the first place. It was weak and selfish and there's really no defense except to say I never knowingly meant to hurt you. It was all closing in around me, traveling in the pensieve was making Voldemort more and more real and I was starting to understand just what I was actually up against and how small my chances really were of beating him. Everything was changing. I wanted to love someone, I wanted to be loved, and you'd always… wanted to. I cared about you as Ron's sister and as a friend, but I always knew I didn't love you the way you wanted. I just never knew why until now.”

“But that's what I mean, Harry. You don't need to be sorry. You don't need to regret it or be lonely anymore. I forgive you for pushing me away then, I didn't like it but I understand you needed to carry out the prophecy and you were protecting me in case you didn't make it. I love you enough for both of us, and now that things are going to get back to normal, you'll learn to love me too. I bet you could get a job or an apprenticeship at Hogwarts while I finish up. Goodness knows you could be the DADA teacher, you defeated Voldemort after all. And we could go to the Yule Ball together and after I graduate we could…”

Harry's fingers began rubbing at his forehead almost exactly the way they had in the days when the horcrux in his scar called home to Voldemort, only now it looked more like he was trying to erase a brain tumor from the outside. They slid up through his hair and he held his head. “Ginny…” he began, then abruptly dropped them to the table with enough force to rattle the butterbeer bottles.

He remembered too late about his healing arm and pain joined frustration in the pounding dance between his eyes.

“I can't teach at Hogwarts, I'm eighteen, entirely without qualifications and a wanted Ministry escapee. They tend to frown on that. If I never attend another Yule Ball as long as I live it will still be several lifetimes too soon. I'm not noble, I'm not a hero, I'm not even nice, and as you already learned tonight a whole lot of people want to take my magic and essentially shove it up my arse about now. And just to make a final point, I can't learn to love you, because I already love someone else. Hermione, Ginny. I'm in love with Hermione.”

Ginny stared at him a second and then side to side at Luna and Ron. Hermione noticed both of them discretely shift further away in their chairs.

And then she shook her head. “We can work that all the Ministry stuff out later, Harry, but since you've still got both your eyebrows and Ron hasn't lunged over the table the whole Hermione thing is just silly. Why would…”

“Hermione and I broke it off a while ago, Gin, in part because she told me she was in love with Harry. They aren't kidding. It's time to just let it go,” Ron said, with what Hermione thought was remarkable fortitude. He'd really matured since they'd broken up. Did that mean she'd been a bad influence on him?

Ginny's brown eyes darkened then, and her jaw set. She turned back to Hermione, who suddenly realized that her wand was upstairs. There was a brilliant move for a supposedly smart witch!

“You were supposed to be my friend. I told you how I felt about Harry from the very beginning…” she started.

“He was my friend first. I never deceived you,” Hermione said steadily. “I told you from the beginning that he was overwhelmed just discovering the magical world and the truth about his parents, and that you'd do better to just be yourself and let it happen if it would in time. I knew as soon as you got together you weren't going to last or be happy. I suspected it was for the reasons Harry just gave you, but I did my best to hope I was wrong, stay well out of it and let you both find out for yourselves. If you and Harry actually had anything going on I wouldn't be here, but I'm not going to turn away from an even deeper relationship with someone I already care about just because you had a crush on him once upon a time.”

“Once upon a time? Try right here; right now. And it's not a crush. You've never understood us; you never understand anything that isn't printed in one of your precious books. You think you know so much about Harry, but you don't.” Ginny's eyes had narrowed and one hand slipped beneath the table. Spots of red lighting her cheeks were all the more obvious in the set, pale shade her face had become.

“Actually,” Harry told her, trying to draw her attention back to himself, “she really does. And please don't make me need to stun you, because my magic is really unstable right now and I don't want to hurt you.”

“You wouldn't,” Ginny said confidently. “How long has this been going on, then? Have you even kissed her yet? Do you have any idea what you're letting yourself in for?”

“Ginny,” Harry said patiently, “she's wearing my shorts.”

Ginny rounded on Hermione in a real fury now, her wand making its appearance. “I thought I recognized that shirt! You bloody little…”

Hermione finally lost her patience and performed a supremely confident wandless Silencio, swiftly followed by an only semi-successful Expelliarmus. Ginny's wand jerked from her hand but dropped to the table and rolled.

Ginny's narrowed eyes went wide and she dived for her wand at the same time as Hermione did. Harry's stronger silent spell snatched it away, but he made a show of handing it off respectfully to Hermione. Something had to get through. He wondered if a healthy snog would be out of place, but really, he didn't want to piss Ginny off utterly or hurt her feelings; he just wanted her to get the bloody point already. Optimism was fine, blind denial was turning out to be a major pain in his arse.

Ron turned and stared at Hermione, stunned. “What the bloody hell…”

Luna clapped her hands together in sudden delight. “Hermione! That's wonderful! Not silencing Ginny; sorry Gin, but the sheer wandlessness of it! Is that from being with Harry? Did he teach you or did it just happen? Did you know that Zenobian Iris bees can actually transfer magic by stinging one another, and they don't die afterward? That's how they make their queens; once they've chosen one all the other bees sting her with a bit of their own magical life force until she's as powerful as they can make her so she can defend them from the other colonies.”

“Don't get any ideas,” Hermione warned Harry just before the helpless laughter made speech momentarily impossible for both of them.

“All I can say is I'm glad I didn't know you could do that Fourth year,” Ron said when he'd stopped laughing as well. He grinned at Harry. “Jealous as I was of you then, if I'd known it was catching I'd probably have kissed you myself.”

“If I could get rid of it easily as that, I'd be kissing my way through the Ministry. Trust me, you really don't want to know how that happened,” Harry told him, catching his breath. “Can I say something that actually matters now? I really am worried about Elspeth. I honestly don't think she wouldn't tell us if she'd known she was going to be meeting with Smeggall and Umbridge, and I don't like the way he was suggesting she could draw me out. She might be playing a Snape, but they could just as well be on to her and planning to try to use her to get to me.”

Ginny snorted and shook her head furiously. A foot stamped beneath the table.

“Elspeth wouldn't want you to do anything rash Harry,” Hermione said, pointedly ignoring her. “Remember what she did that day in the Conference room, the way she played with those security spells? She knows what she's doing. She can handle herself. We should wait for her to ask for help before we do anything that might interfere with what she's doing.”

“I just have a really bad feeling about it. About Emily, actually. Elspeth doesn't seem too worried about losing her job there, and you're right, I don't think she's afraid of anything for herself. All that leaves for them to work with that she cares about is her daughter,” Harry said slowly.

“Look, they've been right wankers to you lately, but it's still the Ministry of Magic,” Ron reasoned. “They're not Death Eaters or anything. They're playing fast and loose with the laws, but they still seem to care about at least being seen to uphold them. I don't think you need to worry about them taking employee's children hostage just yet.”

Harry forced a smile. “Good point. And we're due to meet her in the morning anyway. I'm just being paranoid.”

“Having bad feelings about that sort of thing isn't necessarily paranoid. Actually, I'm not sure it's even possible for you to be paranoid at this point Harry; your paranoias always seem to come true,” Hermione told him. “What I think we need to do first, though, is find a way to resolve this situation in a mature, responsible manner so Luna and Ginny can get back to the Leaky Cauldron before midnight.”

All eyes swiveled to the artificially silent Ginny.

Harry harkened wishfully back to his previous notion of snogging Hermione to convince Ginny of both the honesty of his words and the futility of her cause, quite frankly because it would be a lot more fun than anything else he could come up with.

Kissing Ginny had been a matter of holding on for dear life while she made the most of him. It had been exciting, enlightening, and a whole hell of a lot better than his experience with Cho. To be honest he'd learned a lot from her; a good bit of which he'd ended up jettisoning the first time he'd kissed Hermione and discovered it could be something of an art form instead of an athletic event in which the competition rivaled opposing Quidditch teams. It seemed much nicer somehow when both snogging participants were actually aiming for the same goal.

Ginny's first energetic and decidedly eager grab for Harry below the belt had been something of an eyewateringly painful experience for him (she was far too used to handling a broomstick and the Felix had clearly warn off by then.) The rest of their first encounter had thusly been more focused on her than a definitely head shy Harry. Their brief relationship had carried on being somewhat one-sided in the gratification department, as being able please her had utterly fulfilled Harry's damaged expectations of himself that year and suited perfectly Ginny's desire to be treated as older and deeply desirable by the Chosen One.

It had struck Harry already that Hermione genuinely seemed to enjoy bringing about his physical gratification in much the same way he did hers, while Ginny had been far more interested in the power she'd exerted over Harry's need to please. He did not exactly regret Ginny, but felt infinitely healthier and more himself somehow now with Hermione. He'd reckoned that was because his own motives were purer this time; he'd been a willing participant in Ginny's games even when he sensed they might have been feeding the worst in each other instead of the best.

He wanted that for her, he realized, whether for his own absolution or her own good. He suspected if anyone ever made her feel the way he did about Hermione now she'd forget him forever.

“Gin,” he said slowly. “We just weren't meant to be together, you and I. I've kept on trying to tell you, and I understand you thought you could convince me I was wrong. But there's someone else involved now, and that changes everything. If I manage to stay out of Azkaban everyone's going to end up knowing Hermione and I are together, because I want them too. I'm proud of her and I don't want to have to hide anything else about my life.

So listen up. It would mean a lot to me if we could all stay friends wherever life takes us, but I need you to know my bat bogey hex beats your bogey hex any day of the week. So no more pretending we're anything but friends; and let's be perfectly clear that nothing will make me feel more like hexing you than blaming or being unkind to Hermione in any way. Try it once and you will know what if felt like to fly against that Horntail, and what it feels like to birth a whole family of them out of your nose. Is that enough like one of the twins to totally turn you off yet? Green hair, blue teeth, uncontrollable gas-passing, all this can be yours. Don't get me started. Because if you don't start treating me like plain old boring Harry, I'm going to become the seventh brother of your worst nightmares.”

From the look of things Ginny might have been shocked silent had she not already been under Hermione's silencing spell. Several thoughts apparently flitted across her mind but they were as opaque to Harry as Hermione's seemed clear.

And then she… smiled. And gave a soundless snort, and burst into soundless laughter.

Infectious soundless laughter. Luna and Ron broke into enormous grins of evident relief. Hermione ended the spell and somewhat cautiously handed her wand back with a hesitant smile. Only Harry seemed to be waiting anxiously for her actual words.

“Plain old boring Harry it is, then,” Ginny chortled. “Remind me again, what is he like? I don't think I've ever met him.”

She had a point, really. Boring as he was inside, stuff had a way of happening to him.

Ginny sobered herself long enough to meet his gaze.

“I don't need another brother, Harry, and the thought of the twins becoming triplets would be enough to put anyone off. Ron still thinks you're worth fighting the ministry over, Dad would put his job on the line for you and Mum makes you soup like one of us. I guess we should be friends, if only because of that.”

“Thanks, I think,” Harry told her. “Let's.”

“Oh, good!” Luna approved. “I was so hoping you would. Now Ronald won't feel like he was asking me to take sides if he invites me to come and play chess with him sometimes. And I'd love to.”

It was a complete non sequitor to Harry, but it seemed to mean something to both Hermione and Ron, who exchanged slightly shaken looks.

“To staying friends, then,” Ron said, raising his butterbeer.

They drank to friendship and Harry felt a wave of relief, like a capsizing ship righting itself once again. Dumbledore had told him his ability to care for people and make friends had set him apart from Voldemort; his parents' fast friendship with the Marauders was protecting him still to this day in Remus Lupin. His best friend was sharing herself with him in a way that made him want to stay alive.

He might be down again, but he wasn't out of it just yet.

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Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.

Fixing Harry

Chapter 18

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They apparated to a point midway between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade and cautiously approached their former school. Sure enough there were two bored Aurors just outside the gates, sitting beneath one of the larger trees and reading. One had a newspaper; the other's reading material required tilting the magazine to one side and unfolding pages. Harry doubted somehow it was a Quibbler quiz.

“What's our plan for getting past them?” Ron asked.

“Other than walking right on by while he's ogling his centerfold?” Hermione replied pointedly. “Do we really need a plan?”

“I think we do,” Harry sighed. “It's my good friend Leonard, and I'm sure than in his tiny excuse for a mind it's my fault he's stuck sitting in front of a school on guard duty. I thought it was meant to be difficult to become an Auror.”

Hermione had made sure Harry's healing arm was well secured in a tightly knotted sling according to Madam Pomfrey's instructions. She'd anticipated something like this and actually had several possible options in mind for getting round guards or observers. She'd just begun considering them when the faint noise down the lane behind them began to get considerably louder and they faded back into the stand of trees they'd chosen as cover for their apparition in.

After a moment Hagrid hove into view around the bend, walking beside a creaking, well loaded cart being pulled by a creature that looked like a very large, very cross mule, though it had the horns of an ox, the wide flat paws of a lion and the feathery tail of something resembling a turkey vulture.

Ron looked at Harry, who shrugged helplessly. Hermione squinted and diagnosed the creature as Humbata “although those are meant to have the talons of a vulture, not the tail.”

“Hagrid's always liked the more unusual specimens of a species,” Harry whispered. “But since the three headed dog's tied up Fluffy, you just know this one has to sharpen its claws and neigh to `Beauty'. Right before it runs you through with those horns.”

Harry shifted slightly between the trees so that Hagrid's eyes, used to the movement of all sorts of creatures in the Forbidden Forest, might spot them. Hagrid nodded ever so slightly their way and then rather deliberately tipped a crate of some strange, football-sized yellow fruit so that several rolled off the cart and into the verge.

“Whoa there, Beauty,” he growled, and Ron and Harry both just managed to cover their barks of laughter. He made a great show of collecting the fruit one by one, edging ever closer to the trees.

“'Lo there `Arry. And `ermione and Ron, too. Good. McGonagall said twas to be the three of yeh. `aven't see yeh in dog's years, bout time it is, too,” he whispered.

“Can you help us get past those Aurors, Hagrid?” Hermione asked. “We can't fit all three of us under Harry's cloak any longer. If you tell Professor McGonagall we've come, can she call them off?”

“They put `em up there in pairs almost soon as it `appened, `ermione, an' they won't be budged for love nor money. No, the three of yeh'll have ta hunker down in the cart for a bit `til Beauty an' I can get yer through the gates. Been stockin' up for ter last few days so's they'd get used to us comin' an' going, like. In yeh get. Oh, an' Madam Pomfrey says ter watch yer arm there, `arry.”

The three of them slunk behind the cart under the invisibility cloak. There was small hollow running down the middle where the crates had been shoved against the sides of cart; clearly Hagrid meant for them to fit themselves in and to throw the invisibility cloak over them.

Clearly Hagrid had also forgotten they weren't twelve any longer.

“In yer get, hop to it,” Hagrid ordered nervously, making a show of repacking the recovered fruit. “Don' want `em getting surspicious.”

Ron looked at Harry and Hermione. “Even the two of you'd have a hard time fitting in there, and I've seen how, erm, compressed you can manage. Where the hell will I go?”

Harry climbed one-handedly into the wagon, ducking low and squeezing against the very front side behind Beauty's less than handsome hind end. He held out his hand to Hermione and she followed him, turning and flattening her back to his chest, settling between his legs. They both drew up their knees, leaving as much of the back space as they could for Ron.

“Stretch the blanket there over us,” Harry whispered, “and you take the cloak. You can stretch out a bit more under that.”

“Right. Thanks you two.” Ron whispered back, and the blanket descended over their heads, scratchy and pierced here and there by bits of straw. It smelled strongly of Buckbeak.

“Just how I wanted to meet up with Snape again,” Harry said quietly. “Covered in straw and reeking of Hippogriff.”

“There's no good way to meet up with Snape again,” Hermione pointed out softly. “You do realize one of the reasons he resents you so is he's always been a greasy-haired git, and you're… well, not that at all. It can't be easy for him after feeling the same about your Dad. It just feeds the resentment that's already there. You could go in there entirely covered in stinksap and still be more … erm, physically approachable than he ever was or will be, and he knows it.”

“Your faith in me is heartening, even if your judgment seems to have become a small bit compromised since we started … being us,” Harry muttered into her ear, shifting his useful arm more closely around her. “I was probably the scrawniest, most pathetic and clueless first year ever to cross the Black Lake, never mind the hair issue and the perpetually broken glasses. He didn't even feel pity for me then, and Merlin knows I was a pitiful enough creature. It's not like all that much has changed as far as he's concerned; I'm just bigger now and there's more of me to hate. He seems perfectly well up to the job. Thanks for trying, though.”

Hermione gave a muted laugh. “Come on, Harry, even you have to admit you're preferable to Snape. You ought to be far more worried what Elspeth will think.”

Whether or not Harry did or would admit it became moot as they heard raised voices over the creak of the cart wheels.

“'Just `nother load o' serplies,” Hagrid was saying. “Same's ter last one.”

“Fine, go on,” said one of the Aurors, Leonard from the sound of it.

“We're supposed to check everything today,” the other one said. “You know what the intelligence said.”

Intelligence? Damn. Who was betraying them now?

And before Hagrid could make any excuses or Ron could even move the second Auror poked into the back of the cart to pull aside the blanket. His hand struck Ron where no Ron should be, and the cloak was pulled aside instead.

“Weasley!” he said triumphantly.

Hermione could feel Harry surging forward behind her and gripped his knee, hard. “Wait. Let Ron handle it.”

They could hear the sounds of Ron being dragged from the cart rather roughly; there was a brief tussle and a shouted Expelliarmus over Hagrid's protests.

“'e's don nothin' wrong; `e's just `ere teh see ther `eadmistress. Givin' `im a ride is all. Git off `im!” Hagrid bellowed.

“Under an invisibility cloak? He's a wanted accomplice to Harry Potter. We've been looking for you, Weasley, you do know that? Where's Potter?” the second Auror asked.

“Somewhere you'll never find him,” Ron informed him, sounding utterly cocksure and unafraid. And bravely stupid. Hermione thought there were definitely times he would have benefited from having more of a Slytherin side as well.

“He's done nothing wrong, either,” he continued, “he's only in hiding because the Ministry's trying to illegally suppress his magic now that's he's defeated Voldemort for them. They're the criminals; it's all a setup.”

Hermione's heart swelled for him even as she willed him some basic survival instincts. The boys had prepared to do battle with the Death Eaters; it would have been a perfect speech to Lucius Malfoy, for example. A good bit more subtly was necessary to survive the turning of your own side.

“Yeah, sure. The Ministry's acting illegally. They make the laws. You're the one breaking them. You and your snotty mate. Using an unforgivable doesn't make you a hero; it makes you a criminal like everyone else.” Leonard's voice carried clearly and Hermione felt herself put firmly aside even as the other Auror said “Flargemore!” quite sharply.

Perhaps it was time for Hogwarts to start running a separate government class; too many people trolled History of Magic to include it all there. The Ministry didn't make the laws, the Wizengamot did that, and there was no law to support what…although on second thought perhaps it was time to be terrified for Harry first, because he'd just slid out from under the blanket.

“No matter what they told you, I haven't used one yet.” Harry said, drawing himself up on the edge of the cart. Hermione struggled free of the blanket in time to see the triumph in Flargemore's eyes. She saw that he'd known it was a lie, but that what he was saying would bring Harry out if he was there. He apparently wasn't half as stupid as he seemed.

Both Aurors quickly fired off a wordless spell his way. Harry managed to leap up and over it from the edge of the cart, landing near Ron. Hermione ducked quickly and felt the faint tingle of magic as the combined spell sped over her head. She heard a single surprised honking bray as it struck Beauty instead. Turning behind her she saw it had brought the enormous beast down between the shafts; it laid twitching, eyes open and drooling, not fully paralyzed but clearly incapacitated. They weren't fooling around if they'd meant to hit Harry with that.

Her eyes swiveled in a panic to where he'd landed, but he'd had the presence of mind to play to their expectations. His own spell was wandless, of course, but hissed as well in parseltongue. Both Aurors' reactions slowed as their brains attempted to process these two facts. They keeled over one after the other, petrified. Harry slunk forward and reclaimed Ron's wand, tossing it to him, and she watched in fascination as he crouched down over them and began to modify their memories.

It wasn't the sort of magic they could have done a year or two ago, and even though she knew the technicalities of it, it wasn't the sort she'd be comfortable doing now. It frightened her that he had become hard - or scared - enough to do it without hesitation. She had a sneaking suspicion then that much as Lily's magic might be still striving to protect her son, Harry's own magic or will was shifting now as well; that perhaps he'd begun feeling responsible himself in a different way. For her. Things were changing quickly now. They weren't children, weren't students, weren't anything they knew how to be any longer. If he was feeling anything like she was, she would be his one constant in a sea of uncertainty.

Voldemort had been at least superficially right in his assumption that love made you weak; it certainly made you feel vulnerable in whole new ways. She suspected, however, that it could also drive you to lengths you might never else have gone to for yourself. Whether that was good or not seemed up for grabs. Harry would always have done his best to protect her and Ron, but she understood only too well after the day before how the involuntary reflexes of his heart where she was concerned might have changed, even in the short time they had been together. Hers certainly had.

“They're Aurors, Harry. They'll know you've obliviated them and break it,” she warned.

“No they won't,” he said grimly, and she shivered at the sound of him. His eyes found to hers, then Hagrid's and Ron's. “Sorry about that,” he told them, “but you should know that now they think they were attacked by left over Death Eaters on the prowl. It'll seem real enough; I gave them some of my own memories. And they think that you three were here, and you saved them. They'll testify to that if asked. I'm pretty confident no one short of Snape could break them. It might help things if they catch any of us again.”

“Yeh'd best get in the gates quick-like then,” Hagrid told them from where he crouched beside Beauty. “There'll be tothers comin'. I'll wait for `em ter explain.” Ron helped Hermione down from the back of the cart while Harry went and dropped down beside Hagrid.

“Will it, erm, she be okay, Hagrid? I'm sorry they hurt her.”

“Don' rightly know what they hit `er with,” Hagrid said regretfully, stroking the creatures neck. “D'yer mind, Harry? I didn't like ter carry my… embrella wi' me, wi' so many of `em around lately.”

Harry realized then as he cast the Finite to end the spell that Hagrid had had his magic stolen as well. He had no wandless magic to fall back on and deserved far more than the pieces of his broken wand hidden in an old umbrella. Voldemort had framed him, surely as he had Harry. He found himself hugging the old giant fiercely, sorely angry with himself for not realizing until now that Hagrid should have been one of first among those he'd meant to champion at the Order of Merlin affair. Not that he'd managed to do anything for anyone, mind, but still. He'd been Harry's very first friend in a strange new world, how had he lost touch with that?

Hagrid's responding hug was redoubled when Beauty struggled to its paws, snorting dazedly, and Harry's arm began to feel nearly severed again. He couldn't find it in him to mind.

“Off yeh go, off yeh go,” Hagrid told them, releasing Harry with an enormous sniff and pointing to the gates. “There'll be more of `em any moment now.”

The gates parted at Hermione's touch, clearly expecting them, and with a last, quick wave to Hagrid they set off for the castle at a run.

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

Harry was thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly disgusted at his own weakness by the time they reached the doors. He felt shaky and worn through, not at all ready for what he was meant to hear inside. Although what should yet more bad news really mean in this bad joke of a life? Alas, the doors were not inclined to provide him any excuses. They, too, opened at Hermione's touch and closed again behind them with fortress-like finality, echoing in the almost empty hallway. The school was even quieter in summer than it had been all those years over Christmas.

Professor McGonagall swept down the stairs toward them, her characteristically stern expression softening ever so slightly round the edges into a fond smile as she did. Hermione quickly related what had occurred at the gates as they made their way in to the Great Hall and her relaxed visage grew stormy and forbidding again. Ron and Harry exchanged glances, both glad they weren't still in a position to be entirely on the receiving end of that. Although perhaps one of them had been premature…

“And just where did you learn memory modification, Harry Potter?” she asked him. “The last time I checked that wasn't offered here at Hogwarts.”

“It's been a while since I've been here at Hogwarts,” Harry said defensively. “And none of the stuff I had to do last year was exactly curriculum-worthy, anyway.”

“No,” she said. “But Voldemort has fallen, Harry, by your own hand. Take care where your magic leads you. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.”

Harry's flare of anger burnt out quickly. She was his Head of House and always would be; he knew she worried about him and only meant him well.

Elspeth and Snape were already in the Great Hall and awaiting them; Elspeth sitting unusually demurely at the table usually reserved for teaching staff and Snape hovering huffily over near the empty Slytherin side. They did not exactly exude friendliness towards each other, and Harry found himself feeling remarkably more cheerful about things, seeing that. He really didn't want to believe she'd betray him.

She stood up as they approached the table but he couldn't read her expression except to think that she seemed rather quiet and guarded. Hermione greeted her quite normally to Harry's eyes, Ron a bit more coolly. When it was his turn she extended her hand and he took it hesitantly, worried at once about her unusual formality until he felt her other hand close his between them and she leaned forward, touching her cheek to his. Her long hair was loosed from its usual knot and swung forward like a convenient curtain.

“Cast a Legilimens on me, or whatever it is you do,” she whispered swiftly in his ear, “there's something you need to know now, and I was afraid to try it the other way round.” She moved back smoothly and smiled, saying “I was glad to hear from Madam Pomfrey you were healing so well,” loud enough for all to hear.

His heart leapt; with any luck she meant to show him the meeting Ginny and Luna had observed. But why couldn't she wait until later and just tell him? He hated Legilimency even when he had permission to try it. It just seemed so personal, traipsing around in someone else's head, always having to be prepared for the ever present danger of taking a wrong turn and ending up in a horrific nightmare or their first time, or their most embarrassing moment. Or all three.

“Potter,” came the silky voice of his own second-to-worst nightmares, and he turned from Elspeth with a snarl to greet… “Snape.”

Piercing black eyes met his, only now for some reason he could actually feel the cold fingers probing at the edges of his consciousness quite clearly, something he had barely sensed before. He struggled with and mastered the urge to shock that plundering force with something that would send Snape to his knees. “Get out,” he said instead, softly as he could, surprised at the amount of menace he could generate now if he tried. “And stay out. If I feel you again, I'll…”

“You'll what?” Snape said aloud with his customary derision, but he had, in fact, taken a step back. Harry had never really succeeded in making Snape back off before. “I am doing you the favor of wasting precious time attending this ill-conceived gathering.”

“Because I've never done you any favors? What a short memory you have, Snape. But then I knew you would,” Harry said, loud enough for the others to hear as well. If that was the way he wanted to play it, so be it.

“Let us all sit down,” Professor McGonagall interjected quickly and firmly, “and conduct our business here with civility.”

Harry cast the Legilimens while they were seating themselves at the teacher's usual table; neutral territory, he supposed. Elspeth's mind was wide open to him, but he got the distinct impression that was not the usual case and he would likely have had quite a battle getting in if she hadn't wanted him to. He tried to feel his way gently toward the memory she wanted him to see, looking for an open mental door. He could feel by her unconscious urgency when he'd reached the right spot.

It was difficult - not to mention surreal - to attempt to monitor what was going on around him and still immerse himself in Elspeth's thoughts. He hated to admit it but Snape's mastery became all the more impressive as he tried.

He found himself with impressions of a dimly lit back room at the Leaky Cauldron, just as he'd hoped and expected. Smeggall was there, and Umbridge and Snape, as Ginny and Luna had indicated. There was a fifth person, though, someone he did not recognize and that they hadn't mentioned. Whoever it was wore dark robes and a hooded cloak quite heavy for summertime, although they did not appear to notice or mind the feeble cooling charms of the Cauldron. He or she seemed almost outside the little group, as unacknowledged as Harry's own non-presence, and Harry found himself wondering why. He realized Ginny (and Luna, although with her you could never be sure) likely wouldn't have recognized the voice anyway, and so far whoever it was had remained quite silent. Snape's eyes flickered repeatedly in the newcomer's direction, although whether it was with recognition or attempts at legilemency Harry could not be sure.

The memory ran quite closely to Ginny and Luna's recollection of it, although through Elspeth's eyes Harry had the benefit of seeing their faces and reading expressions as well. It was a chilling experience when it came to Umbridge; not that she'd been exactly fond of him before, but she evidently truly hated him now. It was fear rather than dislike or disdain that drove her; Harry realized she was probably quite frightened of him. As well she might be, the bloody hag. Snape was a tough read, but Harry got the distinct impression that Snape's need to push him into defending himself had not finished with Voldemort. This was a most intriguing concept, as Harry had always credited it to Snape's own reluctant self-preservation. What more could Snape want with him now?

He could vaguely hear the sound of Professor McGonagall saying something with more vigor than usual and knew he needed to hurry and pay attention to what was happening at the table. He searched desperately for the reason Elspeth seemed to think he needed the details sooner rather than later. Was it the fifth person? Some other threat? Or just the meeting itself… she had no way of knowing Ginny and Luna had already told him after all…

Harry saw the dark figure suddenly cast a wordless spell. His wand looked especially gnarled and twisted, more like an old stick simply plucked up from the ground for the purpose than a wand. Harry realized he was recognizing the spell through Elspeth's senses rather than his own, and marveled at the differences. The impression was far, far fainter for her, more of a tickle or a twitch than the Snape-style head-thumping technique his own magic employed, but the diagnostic depth of Elspeth's mind and the speed with which she pinpointed the spell staggered him. She knew a lot of stuff.

“Two witches listen to us,” the unknown one said in a faint, whispered aside to Umbridge. They were the first words spoken, and the voice was unfamiliar and yet still menacing despite its softness.

“I assure you, the full range of Ministry developed counter-listening spells have been cast,” Umbridge replied confidently in equally private tones. “We're quite protected.”

Harry rationally knew that Ginny and Luna had not been caught; they'd come immediately to Grimmauld Place to tell what they had heard. Even forearmed with that knowledge, however, he felt himself anxious for them then and wanted desperately to move round or through the memory to alert them somehow. He reckoned he must be sensing Elspeth's emotions there, but then found himself wondering just what Elspeth had done to hear the subtle whispers so clearly, whether she had managed it at the time or gone back and enhanced the memory somehow to find out later. If it was her panic he was feeling, she must have been listening in as it happened, but how had she without betraying herself as well?

“You are a fool! They use a device, not a spell,” the hooded man - for it seemed to Harry now he must be a man - hissed at Umbridge. “And one of them has known the touch of the Dark Lord.”

Harry felt another pulse of panic and then realized that he meant Ginny. Harry had never sensed any lingering aura of Voldemort's possession of her himself, but then again having been through the worst of it with her he'd hardly have noticed what he already knew, would he?

Umbridge rose frantically, as if to make for the door, and Smeggall turned to her curiously.

“What is it?”

“My... Mr. erm. Nothing. Nothing at all.” Umbridge said, and sat down quickly again, looking distinctly flustered.

The connection between Elspeth and himself abruptly cut off and Harry found himself being nudged under the table by Hermione. He looked up to see them all staring at him and knew his usual flare of shame and anger to be caught not paying attention once more. At least they ought to expect in from him now. No one else had quite as much to worry about, did they? No wonder he was always the one bloody left out.

“I'm sorry,” he said, meeting Elspeth's anxious eyes. “I was… I have no idea what you were saying.” Or what I'm supposed to understand… was she trying to warn him that they somehow knew that it was Ginny and Luna who had overheard the conversation? Were the two in danger now? He'd have to ask after. He made to send her his own memories of the two at Grimmauld Place so she'd now they were okay, but…

“Slaying the Dark Lord has changed you little then,” Snape intoned, scattering his thoughts. “Unless you actually wish to spend what's left of your life as a squib, you might care to join us as we while away our time worrying about what you so obviously do not.”

Harry brain provided several swift responses to sling Snape's way, but he bit his lip and inclined his head as politely as he could, almost shaking with the effort of it.

“The Minister's aides have been actively looking for a reliable method to control another's magic since very shortly after Voldemort's demise was publicly announced,” Snape went on after a moment. “They approached me along with many other leaders in their fields…”

“And backdoor potion brewers and illegal artifact handlers and any other number of other `reputable' sources,” Elspeth added. Snape's eyes flashed. Harry was fascinated to see the look he'd so long believed to be reserved just for him turned on another.

“…with offers for development of such a method,” Snape continued. “I encouraged them to believe it could be done, although the Dark Lord too sought such a thing and was never satisfied with what he uncovered.”

“Why would Voldemort have cared about anything like that? He just killed anyone powerful enough to get in his way,” Harry said. “He wasn't exactly much of a negotiator. It doesn't make sense.”

“For you, Potter. He wanted it for you. After your abrupt departure from what was meant to be a decisively one-sided duel in the graveyard once he got his body back, Voldemort became convinced there was something more to you than met the eye, more than just your mother's protection or your brother wand. He wished for some time to find a way to claim whatever magic you had that he did not. He never, as you will remember, managed to learn the balance of the prophecy you shared. Had he heard that `either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives' he would surely have abandoned his interest in keeping you alive.”

“Surely,” Harry agreed bitterly. McGonagall pinned him with one of her more wintry expressions but he turned stubbornly away. Propriety be damned; he hated the way Snape so coldly dissected his very life, as if he were no more than a mildly interesting but annoying species of pest that happened to have stumbled into his web of lies.

“It mattered not in the slightest to me, I assure you, but it might have been what kept you alive. It was the reason the Death Eaters were instructed that no one but the Dark Lord himself might keep you or kill you. You may as well know now it occurred to the brighter ones; those less personally impressed by the Dark Lord himself or those who'd grown impatient with his obsessions, that if you somehow survived the conflict you would make a potent spoil of war. The Order simply thought the odds too slim to agonize over…”

“Severus!” McGonagall cut him off.

“Oh, and you alone thought the boy might survive? Even Dumbledore himself did not truly believe so. There is one reason and one reason only he did, and you know it well as I!”

Harry felt Hermione and Ron's eyes assessing how he was taking Snape's assertion about Dumbledore and the Order. He found that it did not bother him greatly. It was easy to re-write history now; at the time he could hardly have blamed them. He'd hoped, but never entirely believed in his own chances for survival.

“What does any of this have to do with what the Ministry wants to do with Harry now?” Hermione asked sharply, attempting to refocus them on the task at hand.

“Only everything, Miss Granger. But it takes deductive powers to get there rather than rote memorization, so you'll have to listen especially closely,” Snape sniped her way.

One of the enormous flaming sconces, thankfully unlit under the dappled August sunlight of the enchanted ceiling, abruptly flew from the mouth of its supporting gargoyle and dropped with a echoing clang inches from Snape's seat at the table, raising fine chips of stone dust from the floor. He jumped, and then seemed to go into the same corrective action a cat will when embarrassed or caught out, moving with great nonchalance to pretend he meant to do that because…well, just because.

“Oops,” said Harry. “Bad magic. Shame on you, I think you scared the… nice professor.”

Elspeth and Ron both started to snicker and attempted to cover it by coughing at the same time in sharp staccato bursts.

“You think you are amusing, and yet you are only offering up further proof of what an uncontrolled and ill-mannered little menace you are,” Snape said coolly.

“Only if you really think it's all uncontrolled,” Harry told him. “Otherwise I'm just an ill-mannered menace who thinks that was over the top and uncalled for. I think you can drop the little though. I'm not your student any longer. Nor is Hermione, and I won't stand for you talking to her like that.”

He met Snape glare for glare, saw the flare of triumph there when Snape thought he'd discovered something and saw it burn itself out when Harry reached for her hand and acknowledged it candidly. He pushed thoughts of himself recently with Hermione at his former Professor; nothing explicit, just enough that it became clear there was no secret or shame to be found there.

“Once a Gryffindor, always a Gryffindor,” Professor McGonagall told him, interrupting their stare down with the raise of a regal eyebrow. He saw she'd noticed their entwined grip now as well and seemed slightly puzzled. “And in the name of Gryffindor, Mr. Potter, you will clean up your … accident and comport yourself in a manner becoming a graduate of Hogwarts.”

“She means next time out, Harry, uphold your house honor and don't miss,” Elspeth gave a little grin as she took out her wand, carefully returning the heavy metal brazier to its anxious gargoyle for him.

“I meant that we do not act like snakes in the grass even when they are all around us, insinuating perfectly ridiculous things just because they find the fact that Gryffindors can use their superior intellects without the need to resort to doublespeak and base trickery to be threatening to their… househood.” McGonagall clarified, glaring at Elspeth.

The urge to stick her tongue out at Snape was almost overwhelming; Hermione only just managed not to. She was quite sure Professor McGonagall was thinking of an altogether different kind of `hood'. “You were saying, Professor Snape?” she inquired instead, adding with utmost sincerity, “I promise to do my very best to follow your… logic.”

Snape stopped trying to burn holes right through Harry's glasses and glared at her instead. He seemed to be about to take particular pleasure in revealing the next bit.

“The Minister had requested a visible element or symbol of the magical reduction he seeks, as a constant reminder to others of the Ministry's position on the enforcement of magical limitation for those who threatened Wizarding society,” Snape told them silkily. “I had thought to provide them with a potion developed during the Dark Lord's… administration, I suppose, that they could have used in conjunction with a placebo device. A collar or wrist cuffs, or some such nonsense.”

Or some such nonsense… right. Fine. YOU wear them, you slimy bat dropping. Because hell will freeze over with you in it before I do! Harry thought furiously.

His flat black eyes shifted to Harry, almost as if he could hear. Oh yeah, he could! Harry pictured Snape in the brightest, reddest dog collar he could imagine, with a little tag spelling out `Severus' dangling from it, and grinned.

“The potion would have reduced your ability to utilize naturally-occurring magic long enough for them to be satisfied by their tests,” he continued with a glare, “and then worn off gradually over the period of a month or so. It could, of course, be reapplied as needed. The danger in such a plan was, as it has always been, you. I sincerely doubted your ability to stay out of trouble and not use your retained magic in public situations. There was also the troubling little fact that you still have not managed to get a sufficient rein on it, and it has a way of emanating around you in a painfully obvious way to even the most magically oblivious. I deemed that you were in no way ready yet for such a plan and attempted to hold them off with details of the development of the potion. Clearly I was correct in my assessment, and that same coddled immaturity has now cost you your one chance.”

“What you're telling us,” Ron said furiously, “is you're bloody doing it again. How much were they going to pay you to make a squib of him? And what makes you think we'd believe that for a sickle extra you wouldn't have made it permanent if you could have?”

He seemed to realize after he was done what he had just said, and to whom. Hermione saw a flash of panic chase over his face, but when it had completed its rounds he drew himself up straighter in his chair and fixed Snape in a wintry blue glare that she had never seen him use before. Except maybe once on Harry their fourth year… Yikes.

“Here's the question, though,” Harry said, meeting him glare for glare. “Were you going to tell me before hand, or just let me go on believing you were doing what they asked? Or would you offer to cure me later, to indebt me to you as well? Do you ever actually pick a side?”

“Such a potion might as well also be classified as a form of poison. It should be unquestionably illegal under any circumstances. How can it be that the Minister for Magic could have the authority to allow its administration to a young wizard never convicted of the slightest wrongdoing, not to mention one who saved the Ministry and the Wizengamot from the chaos and venom that was Voldemort? It's unconscionable!” Professor McGonagall declared firmly.

“What it is now is moot,” Snape intoned. “They have found another way. A far more painful and permanent method. I believe it to be in Potter's best interest to stop running immediately and negotiate.” He turned back on Harry. “You might still manage to get them to accept the potion idea if you turn yourself in sooner rather than later. If you do not and you are caught, you will be receiving a magical tattoo that marks you for the rest of your life as an identified dark wizard, while its toxic ink makes you poisonous to naturally occurring magic. You will feel it surging just as you do now, only it will be away from you as it desperately flees your presence. Not only will you be a squib, but strong as you are to begin with your effect will most likely be to render the magic of those around you unpredictable or negligible as well. You will be thoroughly shunned by magical folk and creatures of all kinds, and make those you … love into squibs with you if they remain by your side. Still feeling clever with your `bad magic' now, Potter?”

But Harry was utterly unconcerned with Snape then, because at that moment Snape was by far the least of his problems. His rush of terror at Snape's words had called into play all the feelings of despair that prefaced his previous brushes with disappearing and Harry was desperately trying to find his way through the terrible maze of his thoughts without fading out again. It was his worst nightmare all too succinctly brought to life. Not only would he be punished, but Hermione and Ron as well if they tried to remain with him. It was worse than dying; he would have chosen death first because while he might convince Ron to stay away, if only in the name of helping him, he knew now that Hermione would never go. He could not catch his breath. The enchanted sky grew suddenly dark above them. Lightening flashed, and thunder rumbled.

Elspeth's head snapped up suddenly, eyes wide, and turned to McGonagall. “It only does that in the presence of a dark spell, doesn't it? It changed too fast for it to be mirroring the real sky now.”

“But what could have…” Professor McGonagall asked, providing the answer in the way she scanned the room beyond Harry, wand drawn.

Hermione's hands fumbled their way back into his. “Breathe, Harry,” she coached him, starting with the most evident worry. He heard her and managed a deep, shuddering breath.

“I can't take anymore,” he told her on the tail of it, gasping. “I can't. Not one more bloody thing. I gave everything I had to killing Voldemort and it wasn't enough. It'll never be enough.”

It was Ron, surprisingly enough, that took the response to that.

“Stop it, mate. Think. You don't have to take it. Of course Snape wants you to sell them on the potion idea for him, ask him how much he's getting for that. You know Hermione and I would never let them do something like that. It's time for us sit down at the board and put together a strategy that'll cut them right off at the knees. We've just been reacting so far. It's time to take control of this game.”

“I think it's too late for that…”

They all saw it then. It was different than the last time, and even more frightening. It was as if a wave hit him and simple drew part of him away with it, going from solid substance and color to grainy semitransparency. What was left seized up in convulsions, wracking himself off the chair and on to the floor. Hermione clung for dear life; she could feel the whirling, sucking sensation through him although it was having absolutely no effect on her and she knew he would be wrestled from her grasp rather than taking her with him.

“Please, Harry, don't let this turn into something it's not. Focus on us. Listen to us. Ron's right, you know he is,” Hermione begged him. “We've gotten through worse than this before. Just stay with us, help us to help you.”

Elspeth dropped down beside her, wand extended. She cast some sort of diagnostic charm that caused her wand tip to dive for the area of Harry's chest roughly above his heart even as she snarled at Snape.

“Do it!”

He glared at her and Hermione heard herself howl, “Just do it! Whatever she wants you to do just bloody do it for once, you pitiful excuse for a man!”

She saw Snape's affronted eyes shift to Elspeth. “His mum would be best,” she hissed. “You knew her. Go on.”

“I can not. I believe I know what you wish me to do, and I… can not. He has to initiate the contact. I have broken into his mind in the past, but I can not give him my own memories. I never managed to master that, with anyone.”

“Well, shit! Now's a great time to admit that little truth,” Elspeth moaned. She cast a legilmency spell herself and Hermione watched in with bated breath as she seemed to try and connect with Harry.

“There's not enough of him here! I can't find him. Merlin, he's almost gone, he's got to be aware of where he is this time…”

“This time?” Professor McGonagall repeated. “Surely this hasn't happened before!”

Harry was gray now, his physical presence left among them was bucking violently; for the first time since Hermione had seen it begin to happen his clothes were starting to bag and sag, not entirely enough a part of him to be taken. The thought of being left holding his empty robes struck straight to Hermione's heart. She reached one hand into his deflating clothing, tearing his t shirt free of the top of his jeans and thrusting beneath it. She didn't expect the smooth, warm skin she'd come to know, but the feeling was more akin to burying her hand in freezing cold sand. Still she moved it through him, wincing, until she found the faint warmth that should have been his heart, directly beneath Elspeth's wand.

`Oh, merciful Merlin…. I've got my hand inside Harry's chest,' she thought, and then she resolutely called on the magic he'd left her, the bit strong enough to do that first wandless magic, and tried rather desperately to do back what he had done to her. She willed it with all her might to flow back to him, hoping the feeling of it would either help him to realize they were still clinging to him or give him whatever extra strength he might need to fight off whoever or whatever was drawing him away.

`There's the joke,' she thought. `I'm trying to give Harry more magic.'

For the briefest of moments she felt bitter cold, smelled the stench he had spoken of, had a distinct vision of something wild-haired and filthy and barely human, a hag with bird-like claws clinging to him and cawing victoriously, `Mine this time! Mine! I will have him!'

And then, as if Harry had suddenly been empowered either by the magic she had sent him or somehow realized she was there seeing and feeling what he did, he managed to jerk up and free of the creature's grasp. He was thrust back across space and time into the shadow of himself left at Hogwarts like water poured back into a balloon, rapidly filling out his deflated clothing. Hermione's hand was pushed through his chest to the surface once more; she had the distinctly horrifying impression of muscle, blood and bone forcing it out, and though his skin closed around her expelled hand, her fingers ran red with blood. Right before she passed out cold.

He gasped beneath her and began coughing violently; they hauled him to sit upright to try and ease his struggle for breath and Hermione fell limply into his lap.

“It's Bellatrix!” he hacked out. “In Azkaban. Bellatrix was trying to get us into Azkaban with her.”

He saw Hermione and reached for her, seemingly trying to reassure himself she was solid and breathing before his eyes rolled back and he slumped against Ron.

Solid once more. But for how long?

`That whole passing out thing,' thought Ron, `is starting to look really, really good.'

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Hermione knew how heartily sick Harry must be of waking up in the Hogwarts hospital wing, but there was a strange kind of comfort there for her. She felt safe again somehow. Madam Pomfrey had never failed her; Harry had always been alright after a stay in one of those beds. It wasn't the same without Professor Dumbledore's arrival to check on him and pilfer a sweet or two, but there were several visitors who had arrived bearing good news she could not wait for him to see.

Luna had come waving the next edition of the Quibbler. Though she had promptly wondered off somewhere with Ron, she'd left the paper behind. Evidently her father had been sufficiently convinced by what she and Ginny had overheard to go out on a limb. The headline read: “Ministry Position on Magical Limitation Now Conclusive, Methods Determined. Harry Potter Likely Only First of Many!”

The article was a masterpiece. Its message was abundantly clear without ever quite crossing the line into revealing exactly what they knew. It painted a distinct picture of a Ministry more concerned with trying to control Harry than chasing down known Death Eaters or the Dark Lord's rivals; those who had a far greater chance of (and might actually be interested in) gathering his followers into a force following his death. It named names; wizards and witches Mr. Lovegood believed to be among those Ministry officials had actually dealt with looking for usable methods of limitation, who were wanted criminals or known consorts of Voldemort at one time or another. It even reported the little known fact that his wand had been confiscated.

Best of all, it asked the question loud and clear. How much magic was too much? How did they decide? Were they playing with the balance of nature and magic itself in ways that guaranteed another Dark Lord rather than staving one off? What right did they have to interfere with Harry's magic after what he had gone through for them? Mr. Lovegood replayed the history of Harry's years at Hogwarts, reminding his readers that Harry had ultimately developed his magic in response to the Dark Lord's repeated attempts to kill him. If any of their children had survived the Tri Wizard Tournament and the night in the Little Hangleton graveyard that Harry had, would they ever approve any limitation of their magic whatsoever? Harry had survived to warn them all that Voldemort was back. They had failed to listen at the time and look what had come of it! They could not fail to take heed of the impending disaster (however well meaning) the Ministry was about to embark on.

Compared to the Daily Prophet's canned Harry Potter Still Sought!, it was an arresting read. There was no word of any occurrence outside Hogwarts' gates in the Prophet. Harry's modification of the Auror's memories must have worked, for the article implied that while Ron and Hermione too were being sought for questioning, the fact that they had not been located yet was probably due to their own concurrent search for their friend.

Equally hopeful in Hermione's eyes was the presence of Griselda Marchbanks at Hogwarts. Marchbanks was an Elder of the Wizengamot (though she had briefly resigned in protest of Umbridge's appointment as Hogwarts' High Inquisitor) and an old and dear friend of Albus Dumbledore's. She was there nominally to visit with Dumbledore's portrait, but she had spent almost an hour sitting by Harry's bedside and talking to Elspeth and Hermione about his situation. Despite her tiny, stooped stature and deeply lined skin her eyes were bright and occasionally snapped with impatience and irritation while she listened. Hermione remembered then that she was (or simply appeared to be for her own reasons) rather hard of hearing.

Her voice, when she spoke, was overloud, although it appeared not to rouse Harry in the slightest.

“How like Rufus to believe that he can control the future. Ridiculous! There have always been Dark Wizards, and always will be. Life is not without risks, nor is it ever without opportunities to prove oneself worthy of the privilege of living it! If there were no deep decisions to be made in this world, where would we be? Bored as nifflers in a sand pit. No one has ever successfully promised their child a safe and uneventful life. Great love, great deeds, great magic and great wizards only come from great challenges.”

Her eyes grew a little misty, then, looking over Harry. “I remember giving this one some of his O.W.L. exams. Absolute rubbish at Divination, told me I was going to meet a round, dark soggy stranger. Hah! But he pulled out a lovely corporeal patronus for an extra point with Tofty for his Defense Practical as I recall. Had his priorities straight then. Lovely boy. Lots of promise, but not a bit of what's in him now. Doesn't take an idiot to sense he's powerful, but what's wrong with that? Dumbledore thought the world of him, and that ought to be good enough for anyone.”

“Exactly what the Wizengamot needs to hear, Professor Marchbanks,” Elspeth said loudly and clearly. “Are they aware of what the Ministry is trying to do there? Can't anything be done to legislate against that kind of violation of a fully qualified wizard's freedom?

“The problem is that there's been nothing to rule against,” the elderly witch said, shaking her head at the memory. “Rufus hasn't had to come to us for this at all, there's nothing specific to actually stop him from doing what he intends. Nothing of the kind. I believe he had something of a problem getting the galleons to pay for it approved from the budget, but that wasn't up to us in the end.”

“Just because there's nothing in Wizarding Law to stop it now doesn't mean it should be permitted with out a chance for ordinary wizards to oppose,” Hermione said. “Isn't there some way for us to request a special hearing?”

“Of course you can, dearie,” Professor Marchbanks said. “Usually only takes a year or two to get on the Order of Business.”

“I meant a special hearing, an emergency session of the court, since he's in immediate danger.”

“So do I,” Professor Marchbanks said ruefully. “Things just haven't been the same since Dumbledore stepped down as Chief Mugwump. Bunch of old fools.”

“But we haven't got a year or two,” Hermione told her, and she guessed something of her urgency must have transcended the sound barrier, for the older witch's eyes bored into her formidably. She was expecting a rebuke on the impatience of the young, not at all what she received.

“If magic has seen fit to assist him to survive so far, it seems unlikely to abandon him now. Nor should we. Albus often spoke of young Potter in terms of trying to provide him what he needed to make his way through the maze that lay before him. What he meant was knowledge, friendship, compassion. Never once was he more concerned with teaching him a specific spell than in keeping him with his classmates and amongst his peers. Dumbledore was a wise wizard, my dear, and gave his life to this very cause. Why rethink his course?”

“But what does that mean?” said Hermione, for once not at all concerned with appearing smart or puzzling it out for herself. “What can we do?”

“Just what you are doing. Only do not neglect your friends. You, I think, have found a place by Potter's side that can not be easily filled. Yet surely you know someone else who has the time and skills to advance your case to the Wizengamot, someone young enough and brash enough to catch their attention. And you are forgetting the Order. Albus created it to fight Voldemort, but in it you have witches and wizards young and old, all or most of whom would surely recommit themselves to assist Potter if you but asked. They are all war weary, but the battle has not ended and they will find what it takes to see you through. You three have made a start with finding someone inside the Ministry to assist you.” She nodded knowingly at Elspeth. “And from the look of the papers this morning, you have found a friend in the press as well. Now call on your other friends to step forward and speak out in all their walks of life. Each may be but one voice, but together they'll be too loud for the Ministry to ignore.”

Professor Marchbanks levered herself up out of her chair and took her leave, wishing Hermione and Elspeth both well and promising to pass their regards along to Dumbledore's portrait.

Hermione settled back against her pillows. It sounded so straight forward and logical when the old witch put it that way. Harry knew Dumbledore far better than Hermione, but it certainly sounded like what he would have told them. She knew that she found the idea that her place at Harry's side couldn't be easily filled flattering, but it was also true that she didn't feel she could leave him to try and tackle the next Wizengamot session while he was in this frame of mind.

“Can it really be Belatrix?” she asked Elspeth. “She is in Azkaban, isn't she? Or did they get the wrong witch?”

“You saw what he saw,” Elspeth told her quietly. “What do you think?”

“I saw something that barely looked human. It did have black hair, but I couldn't tell you much more that. It was cold there, and it smelled horrible, just like he told us. Grim and gloomy.”

“Azkaban could do that to you. And that sounds a lot like Azkaban.”

Hermione realized the second voice that Harry had heard, the one that confused him, could well have been Lily's. Exposure to the Dementors had long had the effect of jarring loose those memories from the depths of his consciousness; he simply hadn't had any reason to believe there would have been Dementors where he was being drawn.

“The sort of spell she's using doesn't show up on the person it's used on. It's dark, nasty stuff you do with magical and physical essences instead of the person themselves. When we first met that day, Ron told me how Bellatrix attacked Harry after Voldemort's corpse shriveled, using her `fingers, teeth, anything she could use.' He said she was covered in blood when they hauled her off him and that she still had a handful of his hair. She didn't have a trial; none of those that were caught with him did. She was shipped straight to Azkaban. It's not like a muggle prison; the Dementors wouldn't have cared if she was covered in blood and clutching a clump of hair. They're blind, you know. I didn't take it seriously until now, but it's… possible that she could be behind it. But Hermione, we'll never get anyone to believe us. It's so out there… if you hadn't seen and felt Harry starting to insubstantiate you'd never believe it either. I get out to Azkaban occasionally for work, but even I just can't go there until they call me, and they wouldn't let me see her while I was there, anyway.”

“How else would we break the spell? Can we just work it backwards, assume the spell is hers and try to break it that way?” Hermione asked hopefully.

Elspeth shook her head. “No. For whatever reason, the spell is only set off by Harry's mental or emotional state. We don't know if that lowers his resistance to it, or in fact triggers an occurrence of it. It's too risky to try and work backwards through him. We could probably do some really serious damage to him that way. Erm… more damage. What we need to do is destroy her occulto phasmatis. If it is Bellatrix, she has the physical material she's using to hold the spell together hidden somewhere in her cell in Azkaban. We need to get that away from her.”

“It seems so simple. He's the good guy, the innocent one who killed a dark wizard who threatened us all. We should be able to go to the authorities and explain and be rushed to Azkaban where we could find and destroy the spell and live happily ever after. Instead he's wanted by the Ministry and she's got more rights and protection in prison than he does! If he tries to defend himself against her and gets caught, he'll end up with something worse than the dark mark ever was, and we'll both end up as squibs. It's just so stupid, so frustrating, so…”

“Wrong,” Elspeth finished for her. “Professor Marchbanks was right. You get started on that. Call on your friends from the Order, from school, anywhere you can think of. The time for secrecy is over. Spread the word. I'll take care of finding out everything I can about Bellatrix and her sentence, and try and get myself in to Azkaban to see if I can find any evidence she's the one pulling on Harry. I swore I'd fix his bad spell, and I keep on missing it. I'd still have sworn it was something else. It's the least I can do.”

tbc…

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A/N: Well, it was a long time coming, but it wasn't a short one! Sorry about the wait. Real life, yadda, yadda, yadda. Just FYI, for those of you who are enjoying Elspeth, what should be the next chapter up will also be a longish one, because it delves (finally) into her past and answers most of those unanswered questions. For those of you that don't, this is just a heads up for what's coming. The chapter after that reverts back to a more integrated story line, with Harry, Hermione and Ron taking on the Ministry. Thanks so much for your patience, for reading, and for all your awesome reviews. You guys are the best! ~Lynney

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