~A/N> Sorry, sorry. I left you all with that nasty cliffy and took a long time updating. I had an epidural
injection in my back last month, and between that and my husband now being home 24/7 I don't have much free time
anymore. I was inspired to finish this chapter last night, and of course the angst is back full force, as is my
favorite original character :) Again, sorry for the delay in updates, and I'll try to post the next chapter as soon
as I can get it finished.
"How could you let this happen?"
"Let it happen? What do you mean? I couldn't bloody well stop her now, could I? I had no idea what she was doing..."
"She saved Luna's life. You heard the Healer, she would be dead right now if Hermione hadn't done whatever it was she did..."
"You don't understand! What she did has irreversible consequences, ones that will be with her the rest of her life. She foolishly put her life in jeopardy, and for what? To save a friend? She needs to save her power for when she needs it most, not use it whenever she feels she can!"
"If you three can't stop arguing, I'll have to ask you to leave!" Madame Pomfrey said shortly, cutting short their angry exchange.
Harry and Ron stood glaring at Firenze, who still wore his usual look of calm. How he could do that, Harry would never know...
"Are you going to tell us what it was exactly that she did?" Harry asked.
"No, I am not," Firenze replied. "She needs to explain what it is that she's done, not me. And she needs to explain it to Luna as well, since it may have lasting effects on her."
"Why don't we go to the sitting room and let Madame Pomfrey work?" Remus asked, entering the room. Harry looked at him closely for the first time since their return from Diagon Alley and he noticed that Remus looked worse for wear.
"Alright there, Remus?" Harry asked as Firenze and Ron left the room. Noticing out of the corner of his eye that Pomfrey was glaring at him, he turned to her and said, "Oh, I won't be going anywhere. I'm staying with her, and that's final." Hearing Remus noisily clear his throat, he turned his attention back to him.
"I'm fine, Harry," Remus answered, trying not to smile at Madame Pomfrey's anger at Harry's indignance. "I was just on the wrong end of another one of Snape's curses. I swear, he seeks me out in battle, and he's been getting very creative with the curses he's using lately"
"Damn him!" Harry cursed, then remembering that the nurse was still in the room with them he turned to her and said,"I'm sorry, Madame Pomfrey."
"You should be, using that kind of language!" she huffed.
Rolling his eyes at her admonishment, he asked Remus, "Did you happen to harm him in any way, or maybe an Auror happened to detain him and take him to Azkaban?"
"Unfortunately, no," Remus replied, sighing tiredly. "I'm going to lie down for a bit. Let me know if she wakes up, will you?"
Agreeing, Harry watched his parent's oldest friend limp from the room and wondered what it was that made Snape seek him out whenever there was a Death Eater attack. Shrugging it off, he turned and made his way to Luna's bed that sat opposite where Hermione now lay, and sat down. Watching the nurse work on her, he asked, "Do you happen to know what it was that she used?"
"No I don't...not that I would tell you if I did," she replied, as she continued to wave her wand over Hermione's still-unconscious form.
Sighing at her no-nonsense attitude, Harry suddenly felt very tired and decided that it wouldn't hurt to lay down for a bit, maybe have a kip. Closing his eyes he asked, "Will you please wake me up if she wakes?."
"We'll see," Madame Pomfrey replied, relenting a little on her formal attitude. Looking over at Harry she muttered, "It's not fair that we have children fighting this war for us...not fair at all."
~*~
"Mister Potter...Mister Potter, Miss Granger is waking up."
Harry felt someone shaking him, but feeling very tired decided to ignore whoever it was, hoping they would go away and leave him alone. He had no such luck...
"Mister Potter, you asked to be awakened, now please get up!"
"All right, all right, I'm up," he grumbled, forcing himself to sit up on the bed. Opening his eyes, he noticed that everything looked blurry, and realizing he had fallen asleep with his glasses on he righted them and brought everything into focus. As his gaze settled on Hermione, he was happily surprised to find her staring back at him. "You're awake," he said, moving so that he was kneeling next to her bed, face-to-face with her.
"Yeah," she replied, her voice sounding hoarse and tired.
"You had me worried," Harry said, combing his fingers lightly through her hair.
"To tell you the truth, I kind of scared myself," she whispered shakily as what she had done in Diagon Alley played through her mind once again.
"Are you okay? I mean...do you feel okay now?" he asked, his concern showing on his face. "No negative lingering effects?"
"I'm just really tired, and my entire body is sore," she replied, the look on his face causing her heart to beat just a bit faster.
After a pregnant pause Harry asked, "Will you please explain what you did to bring Luna back?" Staring at her intently, he noticed the fear that had crept into her eyes at his question.
Sighing, Hermione moved just enough so that she could stretch her arm out and closed her eyes, and the next thing Harry knew her family's Guardian Notebook was floating off of the desk in the corner of her room. As it made it's way to her outstretched hand, he could see how hard she was having to concentrate and wasn't all that surprised when it dropped halfway to it's destination. Getting up, he walked over to where it had fallen onto the floor and picked it up, bringing it the rest of the way to her. Handing it over, he watched as she flipped through pages, obviously intent on finding something specific. When she found it, she marked the place with her finger and handed it to Harry, making sure he knew what part of the page to read.
"Emotional Magic and Channeling," he read. "A Soul Guardian may inadvertantly use this form of magic during an emotionally troubling time or in a time where 'fight-or-flight' instint kicks in, causing the Guardian to perform a form of magic that they had never learned before. These forms of magic are very powerful and can not only effect the Guardian, but could also cause damage to whoever the magic is used on." Harry became quiet once he finished reading the entry, mulling over everything he had just read and trying to comprehend exactly what Hermione was trying to tell him. Completely confused by the passage he asked, "Hermione, what does this mean? What exactly did you do?"
"I panicked," she replied, not meeting his eyes. "I had read up on channeling before, so I forced my way into her soul, which was wrong because I am not her Guardian, and I...I called upon her mother to come save her because I knew that I couldn't."
"You what?" Harry asked in a hushed voice, his eyes wide.
"You heard me," she replied a bit testily. "I didn't know what else to do, and she was dying, Harry."
"But...But how is that possible?" he asked, trying to completely understand what she had done to their friend. "How can you just 'channel' her mother, and then use her to save her daughter when she's been dead for years?"
"It's...complicated," she replied slowly. "When I tried everything else that I knew to use to bring her back, and nothing helped, I remembered something I had read in the notebook. It's a way to call forth a spirit from the spiritual realm, and basically her mother gave a piece of herself to save her daughter. When we die, it's our soul that ascends, not our bodies so I knew it would be possible." Hermoine became quiet for a minute and then while staring at her fidgeting hands explained, "There is a major risk to using this method of soul revival...in bringing her mother from the spiritual realm I-I might have also brought over what's called a superpersonality, or a negative spirit. So even though her mother's spirit, albeit weakened, left her body...the superpersonality may have stayed. We won't know if that happened until she's awake, and by then, it'll be too late. The superpersonality will have taken over her mind and soul, and Luna will be lost to us...possibly forever."
Harry was speechless. The fact that Hermione used Luna's mum to save her was unthinkable, but the possibility that Luna might not even be Luna when she gained consciousness again was just something he wouldn't even consider.
"It was a very foolish thing to do," came Firenze's voice from the doorway. As the two teens turned to look at him, he walked up to Hermione's bed and said, "I don't think you realize the full consequence of what you have done, Hermione. You have not only risked the possibilty of scarring Luna emotionally by bringing forth her deceased mother, but you have also put her mortal soul in jeopardy if a malicious spirit came forth as well and now inhabits her body."
"It was the only thing I knew to do to save her," she replied quietly. "What was I supposed to do, let her die?"
"There are always those that give their lives during war, Guardian," Firenze stated. "It is obvious that she was not going to die if you were able to bring her back with that spell. And what if she were meant to die? You would have risked your life and hers for nothing. What you did was not only foolish, but irresponsible." With that, Firenze left the room, looking very disappointed.
After he had gone, Harry turned to her and asked, "My God Hermoine, what have you done?"
"I don't know," she answered as a tear escaped from her eye. "I just...don't know." After a few minutes of silence, Hermione looked at Harry with sadness and fear in her expression and in a voice barely above a whisper asked, "Harry, would you please...hold me?"
Unable to bear the look on her face and realizing that he wanted to give her the comfort she needed, he lay down next to her and wrapped his arms around her as she lay her head on his chest. He placed a kiss on the top of her head as she snuggled against him more, both of their thoughts lingering on Luna, their friend that may already be lost to everyone that loved her.
~*~
The Christmas celebration that they held the next day at Grimmauld Place was nothing like the previous night's dinner had been. There was no cheerful banter, no laughter, only somberness and silence. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sat on the sofa speaking in hushed tones to one another while Ginny sat by the tree they had hurriedly put up that morning. Ron was at the hospital with Luna's dad, waiting for her to wake. With a lot of prodding from him, Hermione opened her gift from Harry, and he explained why he needed to be the one to put it on her. He then opened her gift to him, and as he slid it on his finger, she explained exactly what power it held.
"Seems that we think alike," Harry muttered quietly as he looked at the detail of the ring. Looking up at her, he noticed that she was fingering the pendant while also holding his mother's necklace between her fingers.
When she looked up and met his eyes she said, "Doubly protected, but I doubt that's going to help against Damien."
"We can hope," he replied, a bit angry that she sounded so defeated already.
"Just as I thought, sitting around wallowing in your guilt and misery," came a sharp voice from the doorway. When they all turned to see who it was that had spoken, they saw Sorcha standing there in her signature black clothes and cloak, her violet eyes flashing violently. "Granger...Potter, come. We're going to train."
"Now?" Harry asked incredulously, looking from Hermione back to Sorcha. "But it's Christmas!"
"You don't think after the mess you made in Diagon Alley yesterday that you need to practice?" she answered in a deathly calm voice.
Just as Harry was about to retaliate to her nasty response, Hermione put a calming hand on his forearm and replied, "We do need to train. We'll be right there."
As Sorcha made her way to their training room, Harry turned his anger on Hermione and asked, "What the hell was that about?"
Not meeting his eyes, she replied in a whisper, "I don't recall you being able to defend us yesterday Harry, and as the one prophesized to defeat Voldemort, you have a long way to go until you're ready."
When he didn't respond, she chanced a glance at him and cringed as she noticed the look on his face. He looked as if she'd slapped him pretty damn hard across the face, when in reality she had cut him to the core with her words. Without saying anything, he shook her hand off of his arm and stormed out of the room, not once looking back to see if she was following.
~*~
"Petrificus totalis!"
"Protego! Engorgio!"
"Immobulus!"
"Protego! Stupefy!"
"Fuck me! Can either of you get one spell on target? It's no wonder you got your arses kicked last night!" Sorcha yelled angrily, glaring from first Hermione then Harry, who were out of breath and glaring back.
"Happy Christmas to you too," Hermione mumbled.
"Christmas, indeed. Your friend...what's her name? Lucy? She's not having a very Happy Christmas now, is she? Laying unconscious in St. Mungo's with lingering memories of her mum swimming through her subconscious mind. Happy, indeed," Sorcha fired back, angrily pacing back and forth now.
"It's Luna, and back off!" Harry yelled, still angry at Hermione but he'd be damned if he'd let her get verbally attacked like that.
"Back off, you say? That's certainly what you did last night, isn't it Potter? What would you have done had Voldemort decided to confront you last night? Wet yourself and run away like a little girl, hoping that Granger here would take care of the big, evil baddy?"
"Fuck off!" Harry spat, breathing even more heavily now.
"Great comeback, Potter. But what should I expect when that's the way you duel as well, saying the first thing that comes to mind instead of taking a moment to think it through?" Sorcha asked, turning her back on him.
It all happened so fast that none of the three would really remember exactly how it happened. From Hermione's view (which was most important) Harry raised his wand just as Sorcha had turned her back and the moment the spell left his lips Sorcha had turned, pointed her wand, and fired one right back at him. Hermione, on pure instinct alone, flung one hand toward Sorcha and another toward Harry. When all movement had stopped, Sorcha was pinned against the wall directly behind her, Harry was surrounded in a blue ball of light, and the two spells met between them in a shower of sparks. Looking angrily from Sorcha to Harry, Hermione lowered both of her hands, causing Harry to stumble back a few steps while Sorcha fell to the floor, landing directly on her bum. Turning on her heel, Hermione quickly made her way out of the training room, swearing to herself that she'd never train with Sorcha or Harry ever again.