Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them. Nothing worth suing about. Put down the pen, nice and slow.
Leaving Privet Drive
Chapter 2 of 3
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
He realized he must have slept deeply and dreamlessly, a real rarity for him. He awoke utterly disorientated and very stiff and sore, blinking in the sunlight pouring in the window beside him. The angle was low and Ron slept on in the next bed so it couldn't be all that late. Harry realized he had become accustomed to waking in time to make the Dursley's breakfasts and his brain hadn't remarked that the change of venue meant he was relieved of that particular chore, at least for today. He allowed himself a soft sigh, eased back into the comfort of his pillow and stretched.
And almost let out a growl of pain that would have plastered his sleeping friend to the ceiling if it had come loose. He bit his lip, curling on to his side and breathing hard through his nose. Holy hell, but that hurt. Bloody Vernon Dursley. For the first time Harry felt anger poke its head through his usual forced acceptance and take a good long sniff round. And after its' little reconnoiter, anger seemed to find it kind of liked what it saw from this vantage point, thank you very much. Why yes, it would stick around.
Harry was well and truly tired of cowering around Vernon and Dudley. He remembered his cousin watching him last night as he lay on the floor and what had followed. Hermione was right, there wasn't any excuse for it, and he was a bloody idiot to keep on walking back through that locked and cat flapped door as if he didn't really mind so much the way they treated him as long as they kept him sheltered. He wasn't eleven any more, and Voldemort had stolen his blood to make his new body and touched him and everything, so how was the shelter of his mother's blood relation any real protection anymore?
There had to be another answer. He wasn't going back there, ever again. Voldemort could go suck an egg. As could Dumbledore for that matter, although he had been watching the wards and sent Bill… And Vernon Dursley; well, Harry'd opt for a Hungarian Horntail egg for him, with its Mum nice and close and thoroughly brassed off nearby. That would give him a taste of magic he'd never forget. Don't worry Uncle Vernon! They don't really exist! Much.
Harry's stomach rumbled and he realized that he hadn't eaten since his meager Petunia-provided lunch of a half sandwich and half-rotten apple at noon the day before. He'd exploded at Vernon before eating his dinner last night, another thought to file away for future reference. Eat first, argue later. Except it didn't really matter, because he wasn't ever going back there. He pushed himself cautiously into an upright position, turning to find the floor with his feet. He felt vaguely dizzy, from hunger, he decided, and his vision was obstructed by the still obviously somewhat swollen eye. "Wash up, Harry," he told himself, sternly, but his recalcitrant self was thinking longingly of just laying back down on the nice soft bed. Just for a minute. Or two…
He heard a door along the hall open and close, and footsteps descend the stairs toward the kitchen. He knew those footsteps. Sure, even, purposeful. Hermione. Getting up abruptly won the battle.
He found his jeans with no trouble, but his shirt was an unattractive blood-stained ball on the floor where he had left in the night before. He helped himself to an old one of Ron's from the bottom of his drawer and made his way gingerly to the loo. It was a brief interlude before he was heading down the stairs as well, thankful that no one else had been around to hear the Weasley's bathroom mirror's comments on his appearance. Like he didn't know he looked like something a dragon wouldn't stoop to eating. Thanks ever so. Save it for Percy.
He made his way into the kitchen to find Mrs. Weasley, Hermione and Tonks of all people. Another wave of guilt hit Harry and the pain of it became real when he found even mental squirming translated into a flinch that did nasty things to his side. Tonks had come out of the Department of Mysteries skirmish rather badly and been in St. Mungo's for awhile; she was wearing her auror robes but must have only been newly returned to the job because she looked a pale, wan version of her usual colorful self. Her hair was brown for goodness sake. Mousy brown, at that. And it was all his fault she'd been hurt, his fault that Sirius was gone.
"There's the one and only. Wotcher, Harry. You look like something…"
"I know, the mirror clued me in, thanks," he snapped, far from angry with her for noticing his misery but pinched and miserable from picking up on hers. They exchanged wary glances. He really liked Tonks, but he wasn't going back, even for her.
"Don't take anything that old mirror tells you seriously, Harry," Mrs. Weasley told him, bustling about the stove. "There's only so much one mirror can take over the years from six boys without getting slightly hasty in its opinions. That one is long past due to be replaced. It's gotten so Arthur can't find a tie that pleases it in the morning at all anymore; he was almost late for work two days ago. Come and get some food into you and you won't feel so snappish."
"Not snappish," Harry mumbled, dropping into a chair and hating himself; because he was too snappish and he knew it, but he despaired of feeling any different.
Hermione brought him over a plate of still-warm pancakes running with butter and set a small pitcher of syrup on the table near his elbow. His stomach rumbled again.
"Goodness, Harry," she said. "Mrs. Weasley's likely right. When did you eat last?"
He admitted it was lunch the day before, though not what he'd eaten or the reason he'd missed dinner. It didn't seem to matter; Mrs. Weasley banged a pan rather unnecessarily loudly on the cooker and told Tonks in no uncertain terms that the Dursleys had no business being responsible for a child of any sort, magical or not.
"And he's not just magical, is he; he'd been orphaned and exposed to an unforgivable. He'd got a curse scar, for magic's sake, any number of excellent, experienced witches would have taken him in and loved him like their own. There was little Ron, only nineteen months old at the time, it would have been nothing to have another one then. Ginny was still in her swaddles, it would have kept him out from underfoot. But no, Albus wouldn't hear it, not even from Minerva McGonagall. She said she watched that house for hours before Dumbledore and Hagrid showed up; she knew what they were like."
Harry squirmed again at the thought of Ron as a toddler and Ginny in her blankets, and snorted when the sharp bite of pain re-attacked his side. How different could his life have been if he'd grown up here? Normal, or relatively at least, and understanding magic and magical things… And quite probably getting the family he loved killed. There was no way the Weasley's could have had a normal life with him around; he'd have spoiled just what he loved most about them.
Hermione's dark eyes leveled on him assessingly over her pumpkin juice. She was soaking in every word as if there'd be a bloody test or something, and he was uncomfortably sure she knew what he was thinking.
"We've always been told he had to stay there because it was safe," Tonks admitted, stirring her half-empty tea listlessly as she spoke. "But none of us ever could figure out what was so safe about it. No offense, Harry, but they never seemed a bit pleased to have you around."
Harry raised his head and looked at her incredulously; could she not actually see him or something? She'd just told him what he looked like, or tried to. What did she THINK had happened? "Erm, no," he said. "They weren't. Ever. And I'm not going back again, so if you've come to take me you can just pi… um, forget it."
Mrs. Weasley's face clearly reflected a battle between sympathy and taking a strip off him herself. Harry knew he was out of line, but he was finding it hard to rein his anger back in now that it had found its head.
"Of course you aren't," Hermione said, as if the conclusion of the matter were forgone.
"We'll see what the Headmaster has to say, I've invited him for breakfast and he should be here shortly. Hermione, be a love and tell Ron and Ginny and Luna it's past time to rouse themselves, will you?" Mrs. Weasley said.
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
Harry was just finished his pancakes and pumpkin juice and not contemplating the thought of anything more strenuous then digestion when Professor Dumbledore stepped surprisingly lightly through the Weasley's kitchen hearth and into the room. Bill Weasley followed shortly behind him.
Harry noticed Dumbledore's eyes looked far from twinkley this morning and his face was lined and grave. And that was before he'd locked gazes with Harry. Harry sensed the Headmaster wasn't looking forward to a repeat performance of the scene in his office, but Harry wasn't in any hurry to reveal he was in no shape to pull it off, either. Let him sweat it a bit first
He greeted Mrs. Weasley and accepted her offer of a cup of tea, but asked if there were someplace he could meet privately with Harry before partaking of his pancakes. Harry was half-hoping there wasn't, but she led him to the door to the little room that was nominally Mr. Weasley's study, but in reality little more than a cache of cast-off of Muggle items that had captured his curiosity. Dumbledore indicated that Harry should follow him, and disappeared inside.
Harry pulled himself stiffly to his feet and prepared to follow; Hermione's hand brushed his reassuringly as he passed her, and squeezed his fingers. The single touch warmed his hand like a open flame. It was July, and hot enough in the Burrow already even though still quite early in the morning. How did she manage to make it feel even warmer still? He tried to grin back, but his eye was still swollen and sore and he was afraid it probably came off as more of a grimace.
Way to go there, Harry.
Dumbledore had seated himself in Arthur's chair and was sipping his tea with evident enjoyment. Harry took the chair he was fairly certain the Weasley boys were sat in when they were about to get a talking to, only he reckoned Dumbledore could stay on topic and maintain his anger a bit longer than Mr. Weasley probably could. Of the two of them, he'd have chosen Mr. Weasley, anyway. He could feel something within him stiffen even further with resolve not to go back, but much like everything else today he found that his resolve ached too.
"Harry," said Dumbledore, inclining his head.
Harry stayed quite motionless and only swallowed, still angry, but when Dumbledore raised his craggy face again to meet Harry's he could see that there wasn't any anger there to sustain his own. Dumbledore looked… regretful. Not pitying, or impatient that Harry hadn't been able to keep his temper and handle things as he had been expected to, but as if Dumbledore were truly regretting something that was beyond the control of even the most powerful of wizards.
It was the last thing Harry had expected, and so it was his undoing. He suddenly felt everything he'd kept locked away for so long about the Dursleys come bubbling up through him like an uncapped spring. Why? Why were they so mean to him, why couldn't they love him, what was wrong with him, why had life chosen him for this? It took his breath away and gagged him with a single un-issued sob; his nose prickled. Please, oh please let him not actually cry.
He heard his own voice inside his head issuing the words of challenge to Vernon that had led to his present condition: My name's not boy; my father wasn't a drunk… my parents were NOT killed in a car crash…. I've seen people killed, watched my friends suffer just for knowing me…if you want to hide here in Surrey with your head in the sand and pretend that nothing exists that you can't see… I'm not cutting my hair… I'll pierce anything I bloody want if I want to…I'm sick to death of listening to this tired old line of crap from you!
Everything he had felt vibrated again through his anger and resistance as if his own body and mind were at war with each other and oh, but it really, really did hurt, both his recent injuries and in deeper and darker places within him. And then Dumbledore seemed to break their gaze and the legilimency with it.
Seemed to, because it took Harry a moment to realize that wasn't the case. The surprise dawned in Dumbledore's eyes around the same moment it came to Harry that the Headmaster hadn't intentionally broken anything off. He had. Harry had. He'd occluded his mind against Dumbledore.
"Whoa," said Harry.
"Indeed," said Albus Dumbledore, cleaning his already sparkling glasses with the sleeve of his robes and slightly shaking hands. "Most impressive."
"I'm sorry, Sir, I don't know…" Harry began, but Dumbledore shook his head and replaced his glasses.
"You are not truly sorry, Harry. Nor should I expect you to be. Do not start apologizing for your strengths, or you will never stop. Just remember that with increasing power comes the increased potential for misuse, and be wary."
Like skipping around blithely in other people's minds and playing God with your decisions, Harry thought, vowing that that would be one thing he never learned to do. Harry'd grown up in a cupboard with nothing; the sanctity of his thoughts was the only thing he'd truly owned and something he'd never violate in anyone else. The raw feeling of being forced and intruded on by Snape was with him still. Just because Dumbledore was more subtle and painless about it didn't make it right.
"Exactly," said Dumbledore wryly, "but then, you never told me any of this, did you?"
He'd obviously gotten right back in, smart arse. So much for newly powerful Harry.
"Don't do that," Harry told him, shaking.
Dumbledore smiled gently. "I didn't. You may have grown a great deal in your mental magic, Harry, but your face is still something of an open book."
Figures.
"It is I who should be sorry, Harry," the Headmaster told him. "I always knew things were not going to be pleasant with the Dursleys, and I confess to being surprised to learn the extent to which they had hidden your true self from you when you joined us at Hogwarts five years ago. Surprised, but not dismayed, because you were still all, indeed perhaps more, than I had hoped for when I laid your basket on their doorstep."
"What, you'd hoped for less that an entirely clueless cupboard-stunted little runt who was just desperately grateful to escape?" Harry asked, truthfully if rudely. "You knew how I lived; those letters were even addressed to the exact cupboard."
"A most charming, strong-willed and resilient cupboard-stunted runt," Dumbledore countered, "who'd managed to make two indelible friends by the time he stepped off the train to school, and many more after that. Not a spoiled, pampered princeling who for all his privileges still twists like a fish on a hook, like certain of your classmates."
It took Harry more than just a moment to associate those images with himself and Malfoy.
Dumbledore continued on into his stunned silence. "None of this is what I would have wished for you, Harry. I am sure I will have much to answer for if ever I see your parents again. But never think for a moment that I have been unthinking in my choices. If I have made mistakes, I am truly sorry, but there were reasons to believe better could have come from each one."
Harry gave in to the mental shrug he employed more and more now, when there was nothing to be gained from fighting the past and everything to be said for getting on with the future. "I'm not going back there," he said.
"Clearly," Dumbledore agreed. "Although in deciding so, you are forfeiting the protection I told you of last time we discussed the matter."
"I know I'm still a year from being able to make that decision myself," Harry admitted, eyeing him.
"Harry, none of us would send you back now against your will. To ask a young wizard to risk living in an abusive situation without benefit of his magic to protect himself profits no one. There is that possible option, though. What if we were able to win you a dispensation from the Ministry to be able to use your magic in the Dursley's home for reasons of self protection alone? Could you handle it? You are not twelve any longer, or thirteen. You are both more mature, and conversely, more capable of wreaking far more havoc than blowing up your aunt."
"She's not my aunt," Harry said poisonously. "She's Vernon's sister."
"Proving my point," Dumbledore agreed. "They are none of them close to you, nor do you bear the slightest fondness for them. If I let you go back there with magic to even the playing field you have suffered such injustice on, could you manage to use it wisely?"
It didn't take much to come to that conclusion. Harry didn't know if it was Voldemort's return, losing Sirius, shifting magical abilities or teenage hormones, but he didn't exactly feel very responsible at the moment.
"No, Sir," he admitted. "Probably not."
Dumbledore nodded. "I should have to agree. Still, keep in mind Harry, that it is no small thing to speak the truth or truly know yourself that well. Both are signs that maturity is close on the horizon if not yet within reach."
"Great," said Harry tiredly. "Brilliant. Only what does that mean for me now?"
"First things first, I suppose. Madam Pomfrey is visiting with her niece and unavailable at the moment, and I do not wish the more public spectacle and resultant questions of a visit to St. Mungo's for you. I should like this whole incident to go as unnoticed as possible by both the Ministry and Voldemort's supporters, not to mention those special few who are members of both categories."
That made two of them. Look, they agreed on something!
"I'm fine," Harry said.
"You are, as I said before, resilient. They are not one and the same. In any case it would behoove us to have documented proof of your injuries if questions were to arise. I only meant it would Evening before Madam Pomfrey will arrive, and I was hoping you would allow me to assist you until then. I believe I can add a little to Mrs. Weasley's good-hearted efforts if you will permit me."
"Are you going to make me better, or just make me feel that way?" Harry asked suspiciously.
"I believe I can do quite a bit of actual repair to the most grievous wound that is keeping your eye closed. Even if you fail to feel better, which I do not believe will be the case; it will certainly not fail to relieve the rest of us. It's actually quite difficult to speak with you at the moment without…" Dumbledore allowed his own eye to shut in a small grimace and reopen. "Simple human empathy, Harry. Do us all the favor, if not for yourself."
Put that way, it was hard to refuse. Hermione had been looking at him rather avidly; he hardly wanted to walk around making people either wince or itch to heal him.
"Okay," he agreed, and Dumbledore rose from Mr. Weasley's desk chair and moved around the desk to his side. Harry removed his glasses and Dumbledore gently cupped his aged but still surprisingly strong fingers over his eye, and murmured several charms Harry recognized from years of repetition over one bit if him or another. The difference between Madam Pomfrey's wand and Dumbledore's fingers was striking though. He could feel his own magic rising up to meet Dumbledore's, circling it like a cautious dog and finally allowing it through. The sense of healing was far more extensive and immediate; where Madam's Pomfrey's bone-mending sort of tickle-itched, Dumbledore's snicked the bits firmly and somehow irreversibly in place; his eyes watered with it, but he was quite sure that particular bit would never break off again. The anti swelling charm actually seemed likely to suck his eye out; Dumbledore clucked once thoughtfully and readjusted it. Harry just hoped he still had an eye when he was done. It simply drove home, however, that Dumbledore's power was no myth, and Harry was not entirely unsure that wasn't more the message than the healing.
At last the Headmaster seemed satisfied with his results and stepped back appraisingly.
"Much better," he said. "With all the bleeding within the eye itself, you almost seemed to have had one of Lord Voldemort's revolting red ones. Most disconcerting with the other being green. Stop and go at once, you know. I think you'll find this an improvement. And now, breakfast!"
Harry put on his glasses again, and followed him reluctantly back to the kitchen.
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
It was decided that Harry should be allowed to stay with the Weasley's for the rest of the summer, as Grimmauld place was busier than ever as a center for piecing together the slow trickle of sightings and events that made up the Order's meager knowledge of Voldemort's movements. And Merlin forbid he know anything about the movements of the man who was sworn to kill him! Tonks and Bill were to help with reinforcing and adding additional wards to the Burrow.
"It's only four weeks, really, just August left and you're off to school again," Mrs. Weasley fussed. "It seems you lot only just got home; there are robes to let down and trunks to air out and books to buy…" Her eyes grew suddenly round. "Harry, it's your birthday tomorrow, isn't it?"
He did some quick mental calculations on the date. So it was. He nodded, but hastened to follow it with, "Please, don't feel you have to make anything out of it, they never would have back there and I won't notice the difference. The best part every year was the cards from all of you, being with you is even better. Really," he added hastily, when he saw her determined look.
Ron just laughed. "Give over, Harry. You won't stop her. Sit back and enjoy the cake."
He supposed he could do that.
They were sent outside while the adults talked again, but since it was a gorgeous scorching late July day it was hard to mind. They weren't allowed far ('and don't even think of getting on a broom Harry Potter!' Mrs. Wesley had reminded him, quite unnecessarily for once) so they made for the nearest and deepest patch of shade they could find.
Hermione had brought their Newt Potions text to read ahead; Ron had a newly-arrived Quidditch magazine. Luna was happily braiding some particular weed into a long, apparently meaningful chain. Harry settled gingerly down beside Hermione and tried to find a comfortable position in which to become oblivious while Ginny skittered around like some corporeal form of Ron's patronus from one to the next of them, restless and bored. Harry, apparently unoccupied, became her focus of interest.
"We could play Gob Stones," she suggested. "I could go and get mine."
The thought of being spat at was even less appetizing than usual. "No thinks, Gin."
"Exploding Snap, then."
Not with reflexes as frayed as his were now, he wasn't. "Nope. No thanks."
"Wizard's Chess. We don't have to use that cheating set of Ron's, Bill has his home."
He supposed Wizard's chess was safe enough, although all he really wanted to do was take a nap in peace. He was just about to agree reluctantly to a game when Hermione came to his rescue. Without looking up from her own book she said mildly, "He's meant to be resting, Ginny. Your Mum's new Witch Weekly came with the Owl post this morning."
Ginny bounced off to retrieve the magazine and Harry managed to get himself reasonably comfortable, although the holey black denim St. Brutus' cast offs were sticking to him even in the shade. Thank goodness the shirt he'd borrowed from Ron was overlarge and moved even with the occasional feeble breeze.
He dozed and woke; drifted, woke and dozed again. He felt something creeping along his knee and shook it carefully; both were still bruised where he'd fallen on them. At least it wasn't a spider, he reassured himself, or Ron would have surely noticed and tore off screaming by now.
Whatever it was moved to his thigh and began climbing upward, light and skittery. He slapped it away, but his eyes flew open when he realized they were fingers. Ginny grinned cheekily at him.
"I'm bored," she reiterated, as if it were Harry's fault somehow. Which he guessed it was; technically, since it was his fault the half the Order was now in the Burrow discussing things. But what was he supposed to do about it? He let his eyelids droop closed again.
"You could try sleeping," he suggested. "It wasn't boring me at all a moment ago."
"Okay," she said, and plopped herself down next to him. Right next to him. Almost on top of him next to him. And started to hum.
Harry opened his eyes again to find hers disconcertingly close but thankfully closed. He glared beyond them to Ron for a moment until he was sure he was about to ignite his best friends' ear. Ron rubbed at it absently and suddenly saw Harry's predicament.
Harry mouthed him a question that included the words "what's" "up" "with" "your" "bloody" (more than once) and "sister."
Ron shrugged helplessly, torn between amusement and sympathy.
Harry shifted away as subtly as he could, considering movement was still not his first choice of activities at the moment. This direction, however, brought a whole new set of concerns with it; namely Hermione, who was sitting cross-legged and reading her book. She grinned at him and shifted position, straightening her legs out before her to give him more room. He shifted gratefully closer and still further away from Ginny's absent minded droning.
He closed his eyes again and felt himself begin to relax into the heat like melting candlewax, the stiffness of his injuries growing slowly more pliant and his mood gradually improving as they did.
Luna announced to no one in particular that she needed more Lugewort and wandered happily off to go and find some. He heard a soft snore some moments later and opened one eye to find Ron effortlessly asleep under his magazine. Lucky bugger never had the slightest trouble falling asleep.
Hermione was still reading on his other side, twisting several strands of her hair mindlessly around her finger as she did. She was so peaceable, Hermione, you could certainly count on her….
Not to be doing that! Bugger him if that wasn't Ginny Weasley's hand under his shirt. Ron's shirt. Her brother's shirt; his best friend's chest. Harry's chest. There were so many things wrong with that it wasn't even funny.
Harry lay absolutely still and took stock of the situation while Ginny's fingers explored bits of him that while harmless enough he had no interest in sharing with her. Or did he? Nope. But how would he know? Well, he'd have to be a bloody idiot not to know the answer to that, wouldn't he? She was Ron's little sister, Mrs. Weasley's only daughter. She was moody and mercurial, and to be honest bore a strong association with Voldemort for him; the cold, wet taint of the Chamber where she'd lay dieing and thrust him into the role of basilisk-bait. It wasn't him she liked; it was that jumble of hero worship and gratitude. And he wasn't feeling anything he oughtn't to, which he ought to if he actually wanted her to be doing it, right? Now if those fingers inching their way steadily down toward the button of his jeans were Hermione's, say….
Oh, no, no, no, no. Don't say it, then. Don't think it. Holy hell, stop that!
He was certainly feeling something he ought not to be feeling now, something that until right this particular minute he had never consciously associated with Hermione, either. His eyes flew open as he brushed Ginny's hand from his stomach, and settled not on her but across from her on Hermione, deep in her book and entirely unaware of the mind-bending revelation exploding through Harry beside her.
He watched, mesmerized, as the slight breeze lifted her hair slightly and his bookish best friend changed into a something more before his very eyes. Her face was entirely the same, and yet he suddenly noticed keenly the composition of her features within it; it was as if he was seeing her for the very first time all over again, but at sixteen rather than eleven. He'd panicked helplessly when he thought she was dead in the Department of Mysteries, agonized over what that meant about her as his friend earlier this summer, about what he meant to anyone who loved him. He killed his friends, he couldn't possibly love her. And now some very irrefutable physical evidence was telling him that not only did he love her for all that she'd always been for him, he might actually, erm… love her, because he'd sure as hell wished it had been her touching him in place of Ginny.
Holy bloody hell.
Not to mention he was having a now fairly obvious physical reaction in front of not-quite-fifteen-year-old Ginny Weasley, who was quite evidently not unaware of it. She smiled beguiling at him and he sat up abruptly, every Dursley-ized muscle screaming at him to stop while the last coherent portion of his brain urgently told the rest of him to shut up and sit down. Now!
Hermione turned from her book to find him obviously agitated and shaking slightly, glaring at Ginny. Ginny seemed rather flushed and extremely pleased with herself at the moment and Hermione wondered what she had managed to prank Harry with. She'd had the feeling all morning that Harry was unhappy and on edge, perhaps for more than the obvious reasons, though there was certainly enough in the obvious department to save one the trouble of really having to look any further.
She guessed that he was tired and sore and just not in the mood to be played with. Hermione had thought Ginny's childish obsession with Harry had quite thankfully moved on to fondness (with a residual propensity to tease for the purely satisfying physicality of it) when the reality that he didn't return her feelings had finally set in. God only knew, Harry didn't seem fully capable of really recognizing or returning anyone's feelings, and given what they were finding out now, who could blame him?
"Leave him alone, Ginny. You'll only make him crankier. Let him sleep. Look, I'll even play Gob Stones if you like," she offered.
"Never mind," Ginny grinned impishly. "I think I'll go find Luna for a chat. She must have found loads of Lugewort by now." She moved off, all but skipping.
Harry groaned inwardly; there was no comfortable and yet truly obscuring position open to him. Ron snored away blissfully beside him, and once again Harry reckoned he had no idea how good he really had it. On the plus side, Hermione had an open book on her own lap and had never been one to notice anything like that before when reading material was available (or to comment if she did. For all he knew she noticed it all, she'd been for all intents and purposes living with two best friends who were boys since the age of eleven, hadn't she?) Her eyes met his, and he did his best for a change to keep them there.
"Are you alright? What did Ginny get you with?"
Her hand making a beeline for my zipper, but I'm only hard 'cause I wish it was you. Harry thanked every remotely concerned Saint and Wizard both that she had never shown the slightest interest in legilmency herself. Yet.
"It's my own fault, I let her get to me," he mumbled, neatly avoiding the issue of how. "I never like to just tell her to piss off because of the whole Chamber thing I guess, but she really is a…. tease. It sounds awful to say, her being only a year younger than us, but I can't wait until she grows up a bit."
And moves on to some other oh-so-lucky boy who can deal with the manic moods swings and six older brothers.
"She will," Hermione said confidently. "She only teases you because she likes you Harry, and it's the only way she knows to get a rise out of you."
Brilliant. Double meaning, or completely innocent? How the hell were you supposed to tell?
"Well, I wish she'd quit liking me then," Harry said, shifting his arms over his lap and trying to drag things back into the open where he could hopefully understand what was being said. "I like her well enough as Ron's little sister, but that's the end of it for me."
Hermione nodded, seeming to understand, and he was just starting to relax (although not enough, and he suspected that had something to do with the fact it was still her he was talking to) when she said "You've just got to be consistent with her then, because Ginny does get her hopes up. You two are exactly opposite that way. She's very open, she's been adored all her life and she loves very easily. You… don't."
Well, that was the painful truth, wasn't it?
"No," was all Harry could think to say. It was certainly helping in the deflation department, anyway, to realize she thought of him as distant and unloving. "Sorry."
Her eyes softened appreciably, even to him. "No, I am. That wasn't very tactfully put, Harry. I'm not very good at this sort of thing, really. I just know that when Ginny talks about you, I don't recognize the person she's talking about… and I like to think I know you better than that. You aren't exactly ideal boyfriend material for her sort of girl, but you are a great boy for a friend."
'What about your sort of girl?' buzzed around in his head; unsaid. She'd seemed to have a bit of a thing for Ron for awhile there, while Harry had always appeared to be more or less a project, something to try and keep safe but not get too attached to. He didn't know if she still thought about Ron differently, but he hadn't seen her with anyone else since Viktor Krum, either. Actually, Viktor seemed to have been what mostly put the stopper on the whole Ron thing; she hadn't like living with Ron's jealousy any better that Harry had.
"Thanks," he said, but something of what he was thinking must have seeped through the single word, because she continued to stare at him thoughtfully.
"Do you know, Harry, I know you aren't feeling a bit of it at the moment thanks to those awful people, but you've grown up a lot this summer. Sort of come into yourself or something. You look different than when we left you at King's Cross. Sort of…" Hermione seemed to struggle a bit to find the right words. Hermione stumped for words! He never thought he'd see the day. And she was sort of blushing too; a most becoming flush of pink colored her cheeks and made her dark eyes darker still. Harry found himself entranced. "I expect you'll find yourself getting all sorts of attention from the girls next year," she finished, evidently giving up on ways to describe his newfound … whatever it was. "Maybe if you find someone you like, Ginny will accept that you just aren't interested."
"'Look, if you find me in the least bit fanciable perhaps Ginny Weasley won't.' Now there's a line sure to bring them running," Harry laughed, but he felt a small irrational flicker of hope somewhere inside him that he'd do anything to keep flickering. She thought he'd grown up. In a good way. Him.
If he could just lose the red-eyed evil sidekick, he might actually have a chance.