Disclaimer: The Potterverse is the creation and property of J.K. Rowling.
Warning: I'm afraid this is one of those difficult chapters (see previous warnings ... this is fiction, it's dark and it deals with sensitive issues ... if you're not comfortable reading it, please read something else etc.). For the first time Hermione confronts Harry about what happened, and the missing hour. It's not as bad as Chapter 5, but you might want to skip the flashback in italics.
CHAPTER NINE:
Hermione emerged from Harry's room looking pale and troubled. She told Ron about the pensieve, but not that she had used it to enter Harry's dreams. Aside from sheer embarrassment, Ron would be livid if he knew just how graphic those dreams were.
And yet that wasn't what caused Hermione to hurry to her room, lock the door and run a long, nervous shower. It was only when she was shakily dressing again that she realized the wetness on her cheeks wasn't water but tears. She sat up on her bed, hugging her knees, and stared out into space.
I was unconscious for over an hour.
Back in Harry's room, the realization had sent her heart thrumming with fear. An hour! Insensible and alone with a boy who's every hormonal impulse had been boosted by not just one, but two magical artifacts. Had he ... did he after all?
Aside from checking herself, Hermione had cast every spell she could think of to make sure. As far as she and magic could tell, she was ... intact.
It didn't make sense. Harry had gone through all that trouble. Why would he stop right when she was defenseless? He had every opportunity right there.
Before touching the pensieve, Hermione had braced herself for the slew of rape fantasies she was sure she was about to witness. But however disturbing Harry's dreams were, she was forced to admit that they weren't exactly that. In those dreams, Harry eventually gained the dream witch's tacit or even active consent. In one fantasy, Harry had even had her take the initiative.
In my dreams you always gave me a chance.
When Harry had said that, she had dismissed it as bitterly and easily as his sudden protestations of love. Now it was starting to sink in that maybe he'd been telling the truth.
Which meant that Lupin was right. Somewhere in there, fighting the potion with every breath in his body, was the boy she had always cared for deeply.
Out of nowhere came a memory - the three of them, younger, standing side by side. They were at Hogwarts for what was nearly the last day of school, watching the Beauxbaxton and Durmstrang students depart. They were standing over a stone balustrade just high enough for their hands to rest on.
She had taken the boys' hands - she had felt inexplicably sad and apprehensive that day - Harry's in her right and Ron's in her left. To her surprise Ron hadn't shied away, hadn't even glanced at her. But Harry had looked down when he felt her hand, smiled at her briefly in that sweet way he sometimes had, and grasped her fingers firmly in his before turning his attention back to the flying coach and the underwater ship.
It was that boy Hermione fretted over and wanted the best for, and for any of that to happen he had to live. In the solitude of her room, she could admit that what Lupin had hinted at was true - she had never allowed herself to think of what she felt as being in love with Harry, certainly not in the same prickly, maddening way she associated with Ron - but she did love the sad youth with his raven locks and emerald eyes. She wasn't even twelve when she'd vowed to do everything she could to keep Harry safe and alive. She would stand between him and Voldemort any day.
But she had never once thought it would be like this! Life-threatening danger she was ready for, but this - this filth the Dark Lord had thrown their way wasn't something she was sure she could deal with.
What do I do now?
================
"Harry."
The young wizard stirred. Befuddled and groggy, he opened his eyes and automatically groped for his glasses. "Yeah?" he asked sleepily. For a second he couldn't remember where he was. Had he been knocked out by a bludger? Or is it time to go somewhere? He'd lost count of the number of times he'd woken up to Hermione's voice ...
Then it all came rushing back. His eyes shot open and he scrambled back from the figure sitting by his bed so quickly that he almost fell off. "Hermione!" he croaked in shock.
Whatever trepidation the girl had been feeling at talking to Harry vanished. His funny awkward panic was so much a part of the person she'd grown up with that it made her relax her guard. For the tiniest bit. "Tonks is just outside," she informed him warningly. "We need to talk."
Her face was serious and puzzled, and so utterly familiar at that moment that Harry could almost believe that the last few days hadn't happened. "O - okay."
"That night, what happened while I was out?"
Harry turned pale at her words.
"I was unconscious for a long time, wasn't I?" she probed. "Just tell me, Harry."
He obviously didn't want to. He'd been relieved when he first realized that no one had figured out how much time he had spent with Hermione before Lupin and Tonks had found them. He had hoped that it would stay that way. Hermione hated him enough as it was.
But the witch's expression was intractable. "I carried you upstairs. I ... kissed you," the boy confessed in a shaky voice. He had trouble meeting her hard hazel gaze. "I - I touched you. I ... made you touch me."
She stiffened. "What did you do?"
Finally, haltingly, he told her. And because she wouldn't let him, this time he kept nothing back.
-------- Last chance to turn back. You can always skip this part and resume later ------------
Harry carried his unconscious burden carefully up the stairs. When he reached his bedroom he laid her down gently on the bed. His heart beat furiously the whole time. He was sure that at any moment Hermione would wake and hex him senseless, but through it all she didn't stir. Only her steady breathing assured him that she was alright.
He sat on the edge of the bed and for several minutes he just watched her as he had done many times before. The difference between then and now lay in how hungrily his eyes roved over her.
The young wizard didn't know how long he stayed that way, fighting the urge to touch her. He felt that it was different, more dishonest somehow, to touch her now than when they'd been on the couch. He couldn't say why. It wasn't trepidation; Hermione would already be blazingly angry with him for what he'd done so far.
She's going to be furious when she wakes. He grinned at the thought but it quickly faltered. The step he had taken tonight, even if he stopped right now, changed everything.
"What am I doing?" he mused as he reached out to brush a stray lock of hair from her face.
Once there his fingers could not resist straying and curling against her cheek. He traced the familiar lines of her face until he was running his thumb over the curve of her lips. I've never touched her lips before, he marveled. I've held her hand, hugged her, taken her arm, patted her shoulder. Touched her in the little ways allowed between a boy and a girl who were best friends.
Suddenly it wasn't enough. "Wake up, Hermione," he whispered as he bent down to taste her again.
He couldn't believe how impossibly soft her lips felt. The kisses he had stolen downstairs had been fast and awkward. This time he could savor the sensation and marvel at how sweetly her breath mingled with his. He'd imagined kissing her for so long. Mostly he squelched the idea as soon as he could, but the first time it had taken him unawares. They were alone in the woods and thirteen, and he was suddenly absurdly conscious of the fact that he was a boy and she a girl and there was no one around but a distracted hippogriff. He had gripped his hands tightly to keep himself from moving. Then they had started to talk, and after that they were simply friends again.
This time he felt like nothing could keep him away from her. He pressed his lips to hers again, more firmly this time. Before he knew it he was lying down beside her. One hand buried itself in her hair and tilted her face up to meet his kisses. The other snaked its way down the smooth column of her neck.
He didn't know how long he spent like this, but eventually the one-sided kisses weren't enough. He wanted to know the body he'd been dreaming of for days.
His lips trailed down her neck while his hands traced each intriguing curve through her clothes. He flattened his palms when they met the bare bits of skin revealed by her disarrayed clothing.
He wondered what it would be like if she touched him. The thought was irresistible. With trembling hands he grabbed her left hand and brought it to his aching groin. If he closed his eyes it was easy, so easy, to pretend that she was awake and moving her hand over his length.
"Oh yeah, like that," he groaned, as his right hand tightened over hers and her fingers rubbed harder against him through the cloth of his trousers. Soon the rhythm of their entwined hands was driving him mad ...
Until Hermione made a sound and stirred. Startled, Harry scrambled off the bed. While he stood there, breathing hard and watching her wake, he realized that the door to his room was still open.
The young wizard walked over and closed it. And that was it, the point when Harry knew he couldn't hold back. He wanted her and this was his only chance. Tonight, he would wrest her from Ron. To the devil with the consequences!
By the time he finished, Hermione had her arms unconsciously wrapped around herself protectively. In some ways what Harry had told her was both better and worse than the images she'd been torturing herself with.
"How could you do that to me?" she finally managed. There was a world of hurt and shock in her words.
"I'm sorry. I would give anything to take it back," Harry answered in self-loathing. As remorseful as he was, he couldn't deny the stirring in his blood. His fingers tightened on the sheets as they tingled with the memory of what it felt like to touch her, the pliant softness of her skin. "If I'd known what those dreams would lead to, what I'd do to you ..." he trailed off miserably. What sort of monster am I turning into?!
He struggled to clear his head. "Lupin told me about the drug in my system." For the first time since Hermione had entered the room, Harry looked directly at her. She was astonished at the fury pouring from his sharp green eyes. "I will find Snape, and when I do he'll PAY! I'll do whatever it takes," he snarled through gritted teeth. "I'll take both him and Voldemort down, and I don't care if I have to die to do it!"
Hermione had seen her friend in this kind of rage only a few times before. Despite everything that had happened, the glittering hate in his eyes disturbed her. Only, this time she was angry too. "For what they did to you, they deserve it."
"For what they made me do to you." The raven-haired boy shook his head. "It doesn't matter so much if it's me, do you understand? They've been after me from the first and I guess after all these years I'm used to it. But this, this happened only because you and Ron are the people I care about most. And Snape knows it, damn him."
And there it was, the opening Hermione had been looking for. "What does Snape know, Harry?" she asked slowly, knowing he couldn't refuse to answer her, not now.
His gaze dropped again. "It was when he was supposed to be training me in Occlumency. Snape kept darting in and out of my head, daring me to stop him. He found some memories of you and suddenly he stopped. He did that sneer of his and said he wondered how 'Ms. Granger would feel if she knew.' I was indignant. I thought of course a friendless git like him wouldn't understand our friendship."
"What memories?" she pressed.
"Just memories." When she stared at him, waiting, he continued reluctantly, "Us running away from Lupin when he turned werewolf, watching you dance at the Yule Ball, that night when you patiently and tirelessly made sure I learned the Accio spell, the time we argued because you insisted I teach Defense Against the Dark Arts since I knew what it was like to face Voldemort ..." Stop hedging, Potter. She deserves the whole truth.
"Other times. When you hugged me or took my arm while we were walking, or squeezed my hand. Those were some of the first times anyone touched me like that ... I mean, affectionately," he explained quickly as her eyes widened. "With the Dursleys it was always ..." he trailed off as a feeling rose in him. And suddenly he was certain that he wanted that from her again. That, and if possible, more.
He tried to fight the emotion down but it was so much harder now. Like trying to cage a lion that had tasted freedom. "I'm sorry," he repeated.
"It was Voldemort and Snape," Hermione spat. But she sounded too much like she was trying to convince herself too.
"It was me." Harry swallowed as her eyes snapped up to meet his. "In the end, it was me. I've wondered and I ... I wanted ..."
"This is the Solvamus talking." There was a cold warning in her voice.
"Please don't think I would've ever hurt you if those things hadn't been in me," he pleaded. "But Lupin explained how the potion works. I'm responsible because in the end it was my feelings that -"
"STOP." Hermione got to her feet so fast that her chair scraped back. Tears glimmered in her eyes, but there was fury also.
"You should've told me!" she finally burst out. "All this time I thought we were just friends and I was safe with you. I would've - I should've been more careful!" she cried.
Her last words caught Harry's attention. "You should've been more ...? Hermione, don't tell me that you think this is somehow your fault!" He was absolutely incredulous.
"Maybe. I mean, I'm a girl, aren't I?" she asked caustically. In her head she was hearing all the loose talk and the insinuations that had hounded her uncommon friendship with Harry and Ron over the years. "I'm supposed to watch myself around blokes. I'm not supposed to go around hugging them and hanging around them alone ..."
"That's just plain idiotic!" Harry cut in, sounding argumentative for the first time in days. "You never acted that way around other blokes. Just us and that's because we were your friends, your best mates! We've known each other since we were kids and we'd been through so much. You treated us like we were your brothers! If we started feeling different, then that was our lookout wasn't it?" He sounded genuinely indignant and even mad.
Hermione was so surprised at his outburst that for a second she couldn't think of anything to say.
The boy raked a hand through his hair. "Look, I know I should've told you, but I honestly thought I had it under control. I didn't want things to get awkward between us and I didn't want to lose your friendship just because of some stupid impulse. Then it got obvious that you and Ron ... then Ginny came along and I really liked her, and I thought I was past it ..." He took a deep breath. "So it's not your bloody fault! Dammit, Hermione, you're smart enough to know better! Don't ever let me hear you talk crap like that again! Don't even THINK it."
The girl stared at him. Now that Harry had mentioned Ginny, she couldn't resist asking, "And Cho? I'm not trying to pry," she added quickly, "but it is hard to understand."
"I liked her," he confessed, a red tinge in his cheeks. "Maybe not as much as Ginny because it never got that far, but it just didn't work out. With Cedric hanging over us we should've known that it wouldn't," he said matter-of-factly. "A lot later I realized that I kept getting thrown off because I was unconsciously expecting her to act more like you. I mean, I've seen you cry and get scared, but in the end you pulled yourself together and did what you thought needed doing. I was young. I couldn't understand why, if she liked me, she'd break into tears over Cedric even when she was with me."
"Oh Harry, that's not fair," Hermione broke in with a touch of reproach. "It must've been unimaginably hard to deal with. If it had been Cedric who'd returned alive with your body, I would've ..." She shuddered.
"So you do care for me a little." Harry couldn't help sounding pleased.
She looked at him steadily, and for a second he thought he'd gone too far. Finally she responded, "I always have. Don't pretend you don't know that." She raised a hand and covered her eyes. "What are we going to do with you?"
It was as if they were back to being friends, discussing their next move in the face of another crisis. With his throat tight, Harry fought the surge of feelings inside him as he struggled to answer. "There's nothing you can do. Just go," he forced himself to say.
"What?"
"It's not safe for you here. The potion's still in me. I can feel it working." He gave a humorless laugh. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but I'm clutching the sheets, trying to stop myself from grabbing you."
Hermione nodded and stepped away. She did not miss the way Harry twitched as she made to leave the room, but in the end he stayed where he was.
She did not look back.
=============
After a restless night mulling things over and over, a drawn-looking Hermione met with Lupin and Tonks in the library. She scanned the room. "Ron?" she asked.
"I asked him to keep watch," the former professor replied. "Harry's asleep now, but seeing how easily he's been slipping past our binding spells, it's probably better to have someone on guard. So long as Ron doesn't try to kill him again, Harry should be in good hands."
Despite his attempt at levity, Lupin was shooting her an odd look. Being more familiar with the trio than most, he knew how unusual it was for one of them to be deliberately kept in the dark. He did not understand why Hermione had sent an owl in the middle of the night asking him to keep Ron occupied while the three of them met.
As if she'd heard his unspoken question, the young witch said, "I need to talk this over first. If I'm wrong then Ron doesn't need to know about this. Ever," she declared, her eyes flashing.
Lupin and Tonks exchanged glances and waited.
Hermione sank down into a chair across from them and fiddled with a quill nervously. "Professor, Tonks told me the two of you got here at ten?"
The lycanthrope considered briefly. "Around that time, yes."
"Harry fed me a drug that rendered me unconscious," she stated flatly. This came as no surprise, because they had called in Madame Pomfrey to check her that night. The next part, though, was something only she and Harry knew. "I only woke up a few minutes before you arrived."
The girl's earlier request to speak to Harry alone suddenly made horrific sense to Tonks. "Are you telling us that Harry ...? Hermione got here a lot earlier, Remus," she explained to the confused man. "She could've been out for a long time before we arrived."
The former professor looked alarmed as everything clicked into place. Dear Merlin, with the Solvamus and the augmenter both working on him, the half-crazed teenager must have -- "Hermione," he choked, "I'm so sorry."
"No, no!" the focus of his sympathies cut in hastily. "He didn't - I'm not, I wasn't," she stammered. Oh brilliant, Granger. She took a deep breath and continued more steadily, "Harry had me completely at his mercy ... but he didn't do anything ... much until I woke up." That wasn't quite true, but Hermione didn't want to be the one to tell them that Harry had groped her for the better part of an hour before she regained consciousness.
"I think," she tried again, "that I may have found a flaw. There might be a way to save Harry. But I don't know if I ... if it's possible."
She could see that they didn't understand what she was talking about. "This plan, it was ruthless, and low ... and fiendishly clever. Harry hurts me and kills himself, or one of us does it for him. Or he goes mad trying to resist the Solvamus. Any which way it happens, Voldemort wins." She laid it out as objectively as if she were speaking about a particularly vexing problem in Arithmancy. "It almost worked; it still might. But it's possible that they made a mistake."
The two adults leaned forward with bright relief etched on their faces. At that moment, Hermione knew that what she'd been right in her suspicions. The Order had not found a way to save the boy who might be their only hope against Voldemort.
"The plan is founded on Harry ... forcing himself on me," she started again. She shied away from the word rape. She raised her face towards them, and they were alarmed to see that her eyes were brimming with tears. "If you take that element out ... if - if I were willing ..."
Strangely, it was Lupin who immediately rejected the idea. "NO." Such sacrifices should not be necessary, he thought, not from children. What kind of victory would it be if it was founded on sacrifices like these?
Tonks was shaking her head. "Hermione -"
"Wait." The young witch held up a hand that barely trembled. "Think it through. It doesn't make sense. You were the ones who said that no one's ever resisted the Solvamus. You add the augmenter to that and you can see why the Death Eaters thought Harry would break down in hours."
She turned to Lupin. "Professor, you say that he was able to fight it for so long because he has uncommon self-control. That may be, but I can't believe Harry's that different from those wizards who were targeted so long ago. Take it from me, he does get angry and he can get pretty impulsive."
During the few times that she and Harry had argued (like over the Half-Blood Prince's book), he had returned her sallies right back. Some people thought Harry was a saint. She knew better. He was usually quiet, and compared to Ron he was the soul of sensitivity, but she had also seen him lose it a number of times. She still remembered how Harry had screamed at her and Ron the first time he'd set foot in Sirius' house after a particularly trying summer at the Dursleys. It didn't mean that Harry wasn't a good person. But he could be stubborn and impetuous, and he was no more gracious at being crossed than the next man.
"I've been mulling it over for days and there's just one logical explanation. The augmenter boosted the Solvamus, yes, but I think it hindered it, too."
"Explain that." Despite her shock, Tonks found herself leaning forward curiously.
"Historically, we've been told that the augmenter works on love and lust. I was unconscious and helpless for at least an hour. If all Harry wanted was THAT, why wait for me to wake?"
The Auror considered the question for a moment. "You mean Harry really cares for you, and the augmenter boosted that, too?"
Unlike before, Hermione didn't try to deny it. "He does," she answered with a certainty that hadn't been there before. "The three of us have been through too much for us not to. So Harry hid what he felt because he chose our friendship over his feelings. For much the same reason, Ron and I stuck to his side despite the danger to ourselves and our families. Harry didn't ask us to. He never had to."
She pressed on. She wanted to make her point while they were still listening. "That's where they miscalculated. Maybe Pro - Snape," she corrected herself. After everything he'd done, the potions master had lost all right to the honorific. "Maybe he did sense that Harry was on some level attracted to me. Harry told me Snape had access to his mind when he was being trained in Occlumency," she informed them. "But that attraction didn't cancel out the fact that we genuinely care for each other, too."
"Harry's been able to fight the Solvamus because the feelings he has for me weren't canceled by the attraction. Harry loves me. Which means that the way to save him," Hermione steeled herself but her voice still shook, "is to give him what he wants. It won't be r-rape, and Harry won't kill himself when the potion wears off."
"Absolutely not!" Lupin exclaimed.
"Professor, when we first spoke, you told me we had seven days. By tomorrow there will only be five! Does anybody even know for sure that there is an antidote?" Her hunch that the Order was facing a blank wall in their search for Harry's cure was confirmed by the stricken look on their faces.
Tonks regarded the young witch uneasily. She had the feeling that the girl hadn't come up with this idea on impulse. "You've really thought about this, haven't you?"
Hermione lowered her gaze. "I sensed the flaw soon after what Professor Lupin told me, but rejected the idea. It was unthinkable. But when I saw Harry's dreams ..."
How to explain this? "Look, there's no right and wrong in dreams, no need to hold back," she said. "You can give in to every secret impulse because it's not real. Most of the time you don't even have a choice because the dream will bring you where it thinks you need to be or want to go. But Harry's dreams weren't ... As disturbing as they were, they weren't what I feared or expected. I saw want, I saw desire, jealousy and anger, but not force." She flushed at the memory of what she'd seen.
"That's why Harry had to wait for me to wake up," she concluded. "Because he was telling the truth. He was gambling that his dreams could come true. It's not enough that he gets his way. Harry ... Harry wants to win me."
Lupin was shaking his head. "Even if you're right, do you realize what you're suggesting? I remember how scared you were when we broke into that room."
"Remus," Tonks said reproachfully.
"But she has to understand --"
"I think she already does," the pink-haired Auror answered shortly. "Give us a few minutes alone? Please."
The wizard pushed his chair back. "Hermione," he tried one last time, "I know you're worried about Harry, but please think this over very carefully."
Once the library door shut behind him, Tonks didn't waste any time. "I think your plan's brilliant and very brave, but Remus has a point. Do you have any idea what you're proposing?"
The younger witch bit her lip. "If I do this, the potion will wear off. It won't kill him and ... Ron won't because it's my decision. That leaves Harry. So long as he's convinced that it wasn't," she hesitated over the word to use, "non-consensual --"
"Which means," Tonks interrupted softly, "that it can't be." She let her words linger. "You said it yourself, Hermione, but do you understand what it means? The key to your plan is for you to be willing. Not pretending to be," she stressed, "but truly willing. There's a huge difference."
Hermione's eyes went wide. "You mean ...?"
The Auror nodded, her expression uncharacteristically grim. "I have a feeling that when that potion wears off all that boy will see is how he drugged one of his best friends and pawed her until she was in tears, and how he tried to steal her away from the bloke who might as well be his brother. Unless you can show him otherwise, it won't be Ron we'll have to worry about," she continued bleakly. "Whether it's right then or days or months after, Harry won't be able to live with himself."
A/N: You really didn't think it was going to be that simple, did you? `Course not. >:) The aim's to have them fall in love, not just shag (though there will be that too). Which brings me to the recurring question, is this really an H/Hr fic? The answer's still yes, and like I've said a few times (see reviews) that's been the plan all along. The original summary of the plot I wrote out says so. I may write an alternate ending in the future (which will probably be posted elsewhere), but first I want to finish this as it was originally conceived. The funny thing is, even if I do write an alternate ending, it's not going to be R/Hr either. That pairing just isn't that interesting to me (no offense meant). So ... please review, and I'll try to respond to any questions you might have. Portkey's got this great system where the author's reply is sent directly to your email. Should work even if you're "anonymous" so long as you leave an email address.