It was a dreary evening and he was surrounded by the opulence of the dark-green and silver furnishings. There was no fire lit; the ashes cold in the grate. He didn't need light for he could see clearly.
He sat in an elegant throne-like chair. The arms were crafted to resemble silver snakes, baring fangs before a deadly strike. His hand curled around one of the hissing snakes in relish. A movement from the corner of the room attracted his attention.
§Nagini,§ he hissed in welcome, pleased at his familiar's arrival.
Silver flashed off scales as she slithered toward him eagerly. §Master, I have news.§
§News, my dear?§ he asked, his red eyes watching the last of her approach.
She glided confidently up the raised dais and bowed her head slightly, pleasing him, before curling up around his chair. He stroked the crown of her head, marveling at the silky texture. She closed her eyes in pleasure, her forked tongue flickering between her jaws. Her eyes snapped open.
§All homes were hit. Your warning is prominent even from a great distance.§
A malicious smile curled on his lips. §That is good news.§
She dipped her head in agreement. §Malfoy is on his way now to report.§
§Good. Is there anything else you wish to inform me of?§
§He is currently plotting on how to alert you to Quigley's capture by the Auror contingent that showed up near
the Grangers, presenting it so that he does not get blamed.§
§Quigley is expendable. He knows nothing, but I will have to remind Lucius of who he is dealing
with.§
§Can I eat him, Master?§
He waved his hand dismissively. §He still has his uses, but when they run out my dear, he is all yours.§
She laughed sinisterly, and he reveled in the sound of her evil hissing. §What shall we do next, Master?§
§Now, dear Nagini, we can move forward on our plans to destroy the Potter brat.§
§Yes, Master.§
He was pleased. Very pleased.
His scar was burning. It was the first clear thought that came to Harry as he awoke screaming. Disoriented, he felt soft frantic hands shaking him as he yelled his throat raw. He fought against the hands, batting them away as he lurched upright gasping for breath.
"Harry!"
Another spike of pain sizzled through him. Wheezing loudly, Harry doubled up in pain and clutched at his scar. Voldemort was feeling exceptionally cheerful and it hurt like hell. He bit his lip to keep from cursing.
"Harry!"
The hands were back, trying to pull him upright. Harry blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to dash away all the vision spots dancing before him. His spectacles were askew, dangling off the edge of his nose. He could barely make out the pale oval of Hermione's face as he struggled to sit up.
"Harry, are you okay? What's going on?"
Harry winced at her decibel level. Holding a hand to his head to soothe the pounding in his temples, he motioned for her to be quiet. As he struggled to get his bearings, Harry resituated his glasses and watched Hermione come into better focus.
"Hey," he said hoarsely, his throat on fire.
"What happened Harry?" Hermione asked concerned, her hand on his shoulder squeezing hard.
"A nightmare," Harry muttered vaguely, slowly moving his head to look around the common room.
There was nobody else in the circular room, so it appeared that only Hermione heard his screaming. The sun hadn't risen yet, which meant that Hedwig couldn't possibly be back. The last vestiges of the fire still glowed in the grate on their left. He swallowed thickly trying to moisten his throat.
"Water?" he begged quietly.
Hermione reached for her wand and quickly transfigured the inkwell on the small coffee table into a glass. She banished the ink, cleaned the inside, and cast a low powered aguamenti spell to fill it with water. Taking the cup she pressed it gently into his hands.
Harry drank the water greedily until it was gone. She cast another aguamenti charm refilling the cup. He drank this one slower, finishing the glass with a sigh.
"Thanks," he said handing it back to her to cancel the enchantments on it.
He watched as she did and couldn't help but think: why after the raids had happened, was his scar flaring up? Where were the warning tingles and spikes of pain? Why after two months of silence had he gotten a vision of Voldemort? Why now and not the night before the raids? Had something stopped the apparitions, the pains, the connection between them?
"That was some nightmare," Hermione said, breaking into his thoughts. She set the inkwell aside, soothingly smoothing her fingertips across his brow.
"Yeah, it was," Harry replied, closing his eyes as her fingers continued stroking his hair back from his face.
"You were screaming and thrashing, Harry," she stated matter-of-factly, giving him a hard glare. "What was it about?"
"Voldemort," Harry answered as he scrubbed at his face, missing the color wash from her own. When he looked up he saw her pallor, "What's wrong, Hermione?"
Tears spilled silently from her eyes. "Vol-Voldemort… he killed my parents, didn't he?"
Harry frowned, gathering her into his arms as she cried weakly onto his shoulder. "No," Harry said firmly. "No, he didn't. Hedwig took the letter, Hermione. She hasn't returned yet. Your parents must be alive somewhere."
"What does that got to do with anything?" Hermione whispered, pressing her hot forehead against his neck.
"Owls are very smart familiars, Hermione," Harry murmured, cradling her head in his hand and running his fingers through her messy tresses. "They are the best animal to entrust with your letters and your secrets. They are magical in a way most magical species can never be."
"What do you mean?"
"Owls rarely ever take correspondence to persons in prison, or who have purposefully disappeared, or have died. Hedwig is even smarter than other owls. If she took it, and we were wrong about your parents' survival, she would have been back almost immediately."
Hermione shifted in his arms. Her body lying sideways against his chest and she was looking up into his eyes. "How do they know? I mean, how can they be so sure? How do they deliver letters in the first place?"
"Usually we give them addresses," Harry said with a smirk, "...or general whereabouts."
"No, silly!" Hermione reprimanded lightly, studying the underside of his shadowy jaw, "I mean when we don't know where people are."
Harry rubbed the leg Hermione had curled around his lap as he lectured. "Aura signatures mostly, though finding a magical person is easier because of our magic signatures are more distinctive."
Hermione digested the information as she stared out the window on their right. "You said Hedwig was cleverer than other owls. How?"
Harry beamed with pride. "She can get past spells that are meant to hide, disrupt, or block magical signatures."
"But my parents aren't magical, Harry. What if she can't find them? You said it yourself, muggles' auras are less distinctive than magical signatures."
"Stop fretting, Hermione," Harry counseled. "Hedwig can also find an aura no matter how feeble."
She frowned, looking down at her knees, before glancing back up at him. "How would you know?"
"I used her to find the Dursleys once," Harry said, then seeing her confusion he explained, "They're my relations on my mother's side, I wanted to meet them when I was twelve. Hedwig refused to drop another letter off to them after the first one because Aunt Petunia chased her out with a broom. I was picking the twigs out from her feathers for a week."
"And how would you know the state of their auras?"
"Auras depend on a person's level of acceptance and interest in magic or the unexplained. My relations emphatically do not believe in such hodgepodge as magic, so their auras are basically nonexistent."
"So the Dursleys are as muggle as they get?"
Harry nodded glancing out the window to check for Hedwig. "Pretty much."
Hermione looked as well, gnawing on her lower lip to keep it from trembling. Harry pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, and she clung to his arm, snuggling it against her breasts. She sighed closing her eyes before wrenching them open again.
"Harry, is that Hedwig?"
Harry jerked his head to the right and squinted through his glasses at the dark spec just past the snowcapped mountains. As it came closer Harry gently dumped Hermione from his lap and walked over to the window. She followed closely behind him, peering up and over his shoulder. As the spec moved closer it became whiter, and soon the strong white wings of Hedwig were visible in the distance.
"Is she carrying anything, Harry?" Hermione demanded and leaned fully against him so that he bore most of her weight.
"I think so. We'll find out shortly." He yanked open the window and flung the glass wide, banging it against the gray stone outside.
Hedwig flew in gracefully a moment later and dropped a hefty letter into Hermione's outstretched hand. She caught it with a sob and ripped the rubber-band off. Harry raised his arm to his snowy familiar as she flew over and landed daintily. He stroked her feathers, patting down the ones ruffled around her neck.
"You did good girl," Harry said, caressing Hedwig's beak. "Were they hard to find?"
Hedwig hooted a negative and Harry smiled. He thanked her for such a speedy return before glancing back at Hermione. Tears flowed down her face as she read the letter her parents wrote to her. As he watched Hermione, she sniffed a few times, her nose becoming very pink.
Hermione must have sensed his gaze, because she lifted her head and smiled widely, swiping at the wetness on her cheeks. She threw her arms around them both and squealed, "They're okay, Harry! Mum says they'd gone to London for a show."
"That's great, Hermione," Harry said as she let go and returned to reading the letter.
While she did that Harry took care of Hedwig. He summoned owl treats from his dormitory with a casual flick of his wand and deftly caught them in one hand as they flew into the common room. Harry offered several to his tired owl who gave a feeble hoot in thanks. He ran a few diagnostic spells on her to check for any manipulation. Finding none he placed his wand in his back pocket.
"If you can't make it to the Owlery, sleep on top of the bedpost in the room," Harry offered to Hedwig, whose eyes were making long, slow blinks, before she flew off to do so.
Relief and happiness were obvious in Hermione's voice and posture as she folded up the letter. "Remind me to buy Hedwig deluxe owl treats from Eeylops Owl Emporium… or anything she wants, really."
"I'll be sure to tell her the next time I see her. I just hope that barn owl has enough sense to leave her
alone after her long flight. It won't be pretty if he gets in the way of her well deserved rest."
Hermione broke into giggles at his insightful prediction. He stared at her incredulously as she clutched her stomach and laughed deliriously. She crouched and fell back on her arse, hard, as she continued giggling like Barnabas the Barmy must have at seeing trolls in tutus. She was laughing so hard tears were rolling down her face.
Harry crouched down on his haunches and tried uncurling her arms from around her waist. He tried stilling her, but she fell backwards on the floor rolling this way and that. She would have looked adorable in any other given situation. As it was, she looked totally insane.
Harry did the only thing he could think of at the time: he swept down and kissed her hard on the mouth. Then gently, he slipped his tongue between her lips and reached out for hers. She hiccupped into his mouth and stilled under him. He grinned against her lips and tangled his tongue around hers as he slid his hand up the back of her neck and into her hair.
"They're alive and safe," he murmured, nipping at her bottom lip and catching it with his teeth and tugging.
"They're alive," she whispered disbelievingly, her eyes calming as the tension slipped away from her body.
"Yes, they are, and safe," Harry answered, punctuating his sentence with a lingering glide of his tongue against hers. She responded hesitantly and then more boldly, her hands coming up to rest at his sides, just below his armpits.
Several kisses were exchanged until Harry backed off a bit. Rubbing their noses together, he asked, "Feeling better?"
"That tickles," she commented, wriggling her nose against his.
Harry smirked, moving his mouth to just below her ear and blew. "How about now?"
She tilted her head to the side a little. "Not so much," she answered, raking her nails on either side of him down to his waist. "How about you?"
"Not a bit," he said, coming back to her lips.
She mewled against him, fingernails digging tighter into his hips. He groaned as she kissed him harder, opening wide for him. She broke it off, panting loudly as she repeated, "They're safe."
"Yes."
Hermione rested her forehead against his shoulder and laughed weakly. "I don't know what I would have done without you, Harry."
He sat up, smoothing down the sleeves of her robes as he did so. "Anytime, Hermione."
She followed him up, bringing a hand to his cheek. "Don't make light of it, Harry."
"I'm not," Harry said, standing up and pulling Hermione up after him.
"What do you think is going to happen today with classes?" Hermione asked, angling her face towards the sun as it crept over the Forbidden Forest.
"10 galleons says Dumbledore cancelled them," Harry betted, as several students came down both staircases.
"Sucker betting me, Mr. Potter?" she asked, grabbing her wand and casting several tidying charms on her person, then at his, to fix their clothes and hair.
"I won't deny it, Miss Granger. It's an easy call. We missed his speech last night, you know."
"I figured as much, this morning, right before you dumped me onto the floor and kicked me in the stomach," Hermione said, straightened her Headgirl badge as a warbling yarl sounded from the top of the stairs.
Crookshanks leapt down the steps in fours, running straight for them. The orange, mangy, half-kneazle yowled at Hermione, as if scolding her for forgetting him while she was grieving. He sat down on his plump bottom, waving his tail angrily.
"I'm so sorry, Crookshanks!" Hermione exclaimed, bending over and picking up the flat-faced cat. "I didn't mean to leave you locked up in the girl's toilet!"
Harry peered down at the glowering animal. "You had him in the toilets?"
"The other girls voted on his containment when I'm not around because he shreds their things in boredom. He must have come down after one of them, although I didn't notice any of them…" Hermione lifted her face out of Crookshanks' fur, towards the empty staircase.
Harry straightened up, reaching to give Crookshanks a scratch behind the ears. The half-kneazle hissed menacingly, and Harry jerked his hand away. "Friendly beast, too."
Hermione jostled Crookshanks, gently reprimanding him. "He's just being territorial."
Harry gave the cat a wry look. "Figures I would have competition."
She laughed, letting the orange fluff-ball drop from her arms so that he landed on his feet. "Really, Harry, the things you say. Let's head downstairs and see if Headmaster Dumbledore and Deputy Headmistress McGonagall require any assistance."
He muttered something unpleasant, but followed her out the portrait in spite of his misgivings. Students loitered in the halls. Friends comforting each other and whispering about what Dumbledore had said at the speech last night. Hermione got called into several conversations on their way to the Great Hall. Each time she calm ragged nerves and answer questions. The latter she did remarkably well, considering she didn't have nearly the same amount of information as they did, having not heard Dumbledore's speech.
On the second floor, just outside the Transfiguration classroom, Malfoy stepped out of the shadows. In their usual manner, Crabbe and Goyle stood on either side of him trying to use their bulk and unfortunate looks to appear intimidating.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Granger, the upstart mudblood."
"Watch your mouth, Malfoy," Harry said mildly, letting go of Hermione's hand and facing the trio.
Draco slipped his wand from his robes and held it loosely by his side. "Hello, Potty. Oh--excuse me, you're the insignificant Potter twin."
"Big word, Dray," Harry murmured, keeping his tone as placid as before, wholly unconcerned with the appearance of the Slytherin's wand.
The Slytherin grimaced in annoyance at the nickname, before recovering and sneering in presumed triumph, "I thought you'd be smarter than to hang around muggle-loving fools."
"And I thought you'd be smarter than to hang around psychotic Dark Lords," Harry replied. "But I guess we're both just these huge letdowns in the end. Shame really, we could have been best mates if it weren't for that."
"In your dreams, Nerdbird."
"Very clever, come up with it yourself, Dray? What do you want?"
An expectant gleam shone feverishly in Malfoy's eyes as he peered at Hermione. Licking his lips, he asked, "Did you like the Dark Lord's warning?"
Hermione paled, and then flushed in turn. "You cowardly maggot! Can't you call Voldemort by his real name?"
"You calling me a maggot, mudblood?"
"Really, Dray, stop being so vile," Harry countered, stopping Hermione from responding in haste to the
Slytherin's comment. "I know you can't really help it, but by now, I would have thought your mother
would've taught you some manners."
"Oh I have manners, I just don't bother to waste them on the likes of you two," the Slytherin raised his left hand and soothed it against his slicked back hair.
"How utterly charming you are, Dray," Hermione replied, not bothering to hide her disgust and grabbed Harry's arm. "Come on, let's go, Harry."
"I'll be seeing you around Scarhead," Draco called as they turned around.
"Be seeing you, Dray."
"Next time you write, send your parents my love Granger," Draco called as they started to go around the corner.
Harry grabbed Hermione's arm to keep her from hexing the little ferret. He forced her around the corner and pushed her down the hallway. "Keep moving Hermione, don't let him know he got to you."
"I hate him! I hate him! I hate him! To think he knew--he knew, about the attacks and didn't say anything!" Hermione screeched, her hands trembling and shaking violently.
"Dray's a little death eater in training, takes after his father. And even though I agree with you, there's no way to prove it."
"I should have hexed him! I should have taken points--assigned detention--something!"
Harry snatched her hands and held them firmly, pushing her back against the stone wall. "It's done. You handled him remarkably well. He gets under everybody's skin at sometime or another."
"Usually your brother's." Hermione took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
Harry grinned, remembering the huge row from last year's leaving feast. "Yes, he does get under Daniel's skin rather well."
Hermione pushed past him, and he let her go. "I noticed Draco used the same nicknames on you as he does on
Daniel," she said, glancing at him over her shoulder.
"What can I say? He's just not very original," he said with a smirk.
º«««º»»»ºEnd Chapter 13º«««º»»»º