Author's note: Hey Guys…I'm really sorry about the wait but my chapter got lost in the mail and I had trouble reaching my beat reader….so I am sorry about the wait.
Thank you all for your replies---they make me smile and challenge me to write and improve. For the purposes of this story I have changed Hermione's birthday to October 31st..(31/10/79) to fit in with the story…….
Norman: If you still want to check for spelling errors as you've said in you last reply…please let me know as I am having trouble contacting you….so please pm me…
This chapter is dedicated to Katie….an awesome beta reader who is having an injection next month…so….even though chapters may be slow in the next couple of weeks …I hope she feels better soon.
Questions and queries are welcome …however…..in regards to Harry's powers…..it shall be answered in the following chapter…. Quand je dis <<non>> C'est non…lol….What I mean is that this story wouldn't be Harry potter without his magic so its obvious of the outcome….but the question is when…how and why…..
Merci Beaucoup mes amis
Rachel
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter…….
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Chapter Six
If the seasons were people then fall would be the sinister-looking creature hiding in the shadows. Unlike summer and her warm rose-pink body its cold colorless hands would sink into the ground, drying from the roots up, turning jade leaves into brown, red and mustard. Trees gaped in the air, their vine trunks naked and stiff in the grey sky. Pools of multi-colored leaves littered the ground and made horrible crunching noises as children leapt and sprung along the muddy footpaths.
Fall never announces itself before sweeping underneath one's feet. In fact, Harry never noticed the change until one Saturday morning he walked outside to feel a cold chill slither down his spine, reminding him that it had been a month since he returned and an even longer month without Hermione.
Ever since his childish outburst she kept her word and never spoke. She walked alone or with Ginny. She often made morning trips to the library for some tall-tale book and spend the next three hours devouring its pages, her quill became an extension of her hand and he wasn't surprised to see ink fingerprints on desks as he went to class.
She never said hello, never breathed a word and it was pure agony. When Hermione had died, in what Harry liked to call, a previous existence, it was horrible but looking back, at least he had a sense of closure, physical evidence that his Hermione wasn't coming back. This Hermione that graced the great hall with her head held high was worse then death.
Her cinnamon eyes would glaze over his without a flicker of emotion, as he was just another face in the crowd and it killed him every time.
So, Harry started having breakfast in the elves' kitchen. He found himself walking a few steps behind her bushy hair, watching every breath she took until he knew that her favorite past time was reading in the library, her favorite drink was not pumpkin juice but apple juice and that her least favorite subject was Hagrid's as her feet slowed and arched slowly down the cobble steps. He was a shadow, as Mahir would put it, he was her shadow and ever time she turned he would be three-steps behind but never seen. This was one of the skills Mahir taught him. He taught him to be a stranger in the crowd, to act dumb so others would foolishly reveal secrets to him. He would follow people and learn their habits, their likes, their dislikes and relationships, and then….
Harry never liked the next part….
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It was nearing the end of October and so was the infamous Hogesmead visit, which meant that if he waited a little bit longer Fred and George would give him his father's map and then he could get to work and explore the castle for Peter Pettigrew. (Peter had the nasty habit of disappearing lately and Harry knew that if he ran away Lord Voldemort would rise again, and that was something Harry never wants to experience again)
A small paper crane fluttered onto a small cement bench in which Harry perched for the past hour. He picked up the small paper crane, looked up to find Malfoy and his goons hovering by the moss-covered stone archways.
Draco Malfoy, always the joker and the one to piss him off. Harry opened the paper crane to find a crude drawing of him being cut in two by a dementors (which is incorrect as Dementors suck out souls, not cut bodies) and he heard Malfoy snigger.
Harry lifted up the crane in a thank you gesture before marveling at the fine creases Draco had made. What puzzled Harry is that no one wondered how a muggle-hating pureblood knew how to make a perfect muggle paper crane? He even used special paper-crane paper.
Of course, Harry knew the answer to that question. He remembered that particular night in war-zone London, sitting inside a cement pipe drain underneath ruins, drinking vodka as Malfoy made paper cranes to past time.
He hated the taste of vodka. He despised how it burned his mouth and made his stomach feel uneasy. Still, Harry found himself swinging hefty gulps as he sat on the edge of the pipe, gazing up at the black sky, hearing loud buzzing engines whiz past, followed by a thunder of explosion. It was the blitz all over again.
Smoking, another bad muggle habit that Harry picked up from Mahir. It started with Harry watching Mahir have a cigarette with his morning coffee before they went and "practiced". Weeks past until every time Harry felt hot coffee-bean liquid in his throat the smell of cigarettes would consume him until he felt the need to have one with his coffee.
"It would kill you, make no illusions about that," Mahir said to him before handing him a packet of 8's. Harry had no illusions about death and now he smoked. It killed his lungs but it calmed his nerves and passed time as they waited for the daily bomb-raids to stop. Food was scare and often they would spend days without food. Harry never complained for he had already experienced days on end without food from the Dursleys so he passed his techniques to Malfoy. He told him to take up a hobby, Maloy replied. "I already have one" and spent the next couple of days making tiny white paper cranes with slender necks.
Flickering out the bud of his cigarette into a small tin can a few meters away Harry placed the half-full vodka to his side and watched in drunken-amusement Malfoy gingerly making his thirtieth paper crane.
"Paper cranes," Harry chuckled at that word. Paper cranes.
"That's enough vodka for you," Malfoy held out his hand and the bottle floated to his hand. Harry crossed his arms.
"Don't do that," he said. He hated magic sometimes. His hands burned with desire to perform a spell, any spell but he was no longer a wizard, nor a squib. He was nothing. A person who belonged nowhere and anywhere.
"Paper cranes," Draco continued, ignoring Harry's sour expression. "It's from a muggle story called Sadako and a thousand paper cranes…I think that's the title." He smiled. "I was seven years old and my father bought me a new pair of grey robes when I scared a mud-- a first year," His grey eyes, often silver in the moonlight seemed to be staring at something, a memory perhaps, was he remembering what it felt like to be a child…Harry didn't know…his mind was already scatted with vodka and his hands were itching. He needed another cigarette to calm down.
"She dropped a book ya know." Draco whispered, holding up his child size paper crane. "I didn't tell father but I kept it and it was a story about a young Japanese girl called Sadako. Set in post World War 2… Sadako was diagnosed. ."Draco paused and placed his crane next to the neat pile of other paper cranes that spilled from his velvet bag, he turned to his side and sat opposite Harry, leaning against the cold cement he continued, crossing his arms "What muggles say as cancer…she was very sick and was going to die…her friend said that if you made a thousand paper cranes the gods would grant you one wish." He bit his lower lip, Draco had trouble expressing himself. Draco was taught from day one to be never open but remain closed and obedient. Harry tried his best to stay alert but rather scowled at Draco for picking the moment where he was drunk to express himself.
"Sadako wished to be well....so she made them….hundreds of them…but she never finished…she made tiny ones too…until she was too weak to move…her friends and family and people in the village finished the remaining ones and buried it with her,"
Harry pulled out a cigarette lit it and handed it to Draco. He smiled and took a drag, watching smoke waft from his mouth before handing it back to Harry so he could take a drag. It was a great way to save fags when they were stranded. "….my mother was sick," his eyes flicked from Harry to the destruction outside. Outside was a pile of cement rubble and blood stains, scatted organs and loose gravel. There was nothing left but bones and blood and still…muggles bombed the wizards. The muggles were at war with the wizarding world and it was his fault.
"….very sick…"Draco added, waiting for the bombs to drop, make their big sounds before continuing. Harry handed the cigarette back to Draco and waited for him to take a few puffs before urging him on with a nod. "She couldn't walk me to the park or…or…even, " Draco chuckled, his cigarette jiggled between his lips before taking it out and holding it, allowing ash to build up. " …yell at me for not cleaning my room…or not putting away my potions set."
Harry didn't know what to say but felt Draco's love for his mother. Draco loved his parents and that was one of his problems he faced every day. He loved them and yet was working for the light. His father never gave him praise or even showed affection. His mother was beaten into submission and killed wizards to protect her son but hated mudbloods. Even though Draco puts on a brilliant façade Harry could hear him cry every night and hear his wish to be a child again. Harry often felt like this until he was numbed from the feeling. He never brought up the issue but accepted it and that was apart of their friendship. Both Draco and Harry craved love and family. That was something neither Hermione nor Ron could understand. To understand that the one person who raised you, the one you looked up to, loved and worshiped never loved you in return or doted upon you. To have someone in your life taken from you… Harry missed Sirius….he was his father. Draco understood and that is all Harry needed to know.
"So…" Draco arched his eyebrows to gain his attention. "I looked at the illustrations and after a few attempts...and ordering the house elves to find out how to make them…I wished for my mother to be well….I made tiny ones at first and hid them from my father….I sometimes used parchment my godfather, Professor Snape, bought for me to write down complex potion solutions…day and night each and every one I made with care and with the one wish for curing my mother's mysterious illness. I made over a thousand paper cranes and….my mother….she," Harry could see tears rolling down his pale face and hear the faint hitches in his voice but made no qualms about it. Draco never did when Harry cried and usually afterwards they would drink themselves asleep…or dead….he wasn't too sure but they both had no one left except each other. Snape was with the death eaters and Harry never made contact with the Weasley's since Ron's death. Ron and death were two words he never thought would be together so close after...Hermione. Ron loved life. People often thought he and Luna were going to end up together and get married. Luna did. Harry knew otherwise. No one knew how Hermione died except Harry and Ron. Ron couldn't handle it, that's what Harry wanted…no…..told himself to believe. Ron, his best friend, just died with a gun in his hand….a complete mishap…
He needed another drink.
"….My mother…was cured…I was ecstatic …overwhelmed at the power of these cranes that I presented them to her in her dressing room."
Harry could see that. He could picture the thousand paper cranes, red, blue, white and yellow with slender necks and triangle wings perched on Narissa's dress table like some ivory tea set.
Draco was always articulate and conscious on presentation. Even though his robs were moth eaten they still shone as new. His hair wasn't dread-locked like Harry's. It was fine and wheat-like, silk even, that matched his ivory skin. He clung to his ideals to keep him sane. Harry lost those naive notions months ago and didn't care whether he woke up the next day. Malfoy did. He was a bit of a git really but a brother none the less. Family, his annoying yet comforting older brother.
"Father found out…mother was furious and father…he locked me up without light for a month….my paper cranes were burned and my mother became weak again…that was the last day of my childhood…"
Harry raised his hand in the air, toasting him and whispering, "Amen, brother,"
Looking down at the white paper crane in his hands, the same white paper Draco would cut every morning into small squares brought a tear to his eye. He used his hand to ruffle his hair in order to swipe his tears from his cheeks.
He looked up again to find Draco making faces, taunting him like an older brother and he smiled. He didn't care. Even in this confusion and loneliness he could always count on Malfoy to drag him up from the gutter.
*
Every day Hermione woke up and headed to the library. She woke up, ate, went to work, and slept. Her life became repetitive, predictable and agonizing. She missed her best friend. She missed his colorful jade eyes that shone even brighter without his owl-shaped glasses. His messy-black hair that screamed "brush me" and taunted her hands to bury themselves in his thick ebony locks.
She was determined to keep her promise and stay away from him. He didn't want her help, he said so himself. He didn't want anyone to know, thus included her.
Still, she wanted to find a way to prove him wrong. He had magic. She could feel it ebbing from him every time she saw him or was near enough to smell his earthly scent. The librarian knew her by name and she didn't know whether that was a good or a bad thing but Madam Pince never complained if Hermione suddenly found herself in the restricted section.
She pilled books upon books and struggled to find information about Shahs and how to find a cure for Harry.
It was another dreary day in the library; the smells of oak and parchment seem to numb her senses when she realized that she would be turning fourteen at the end of October. She bit the end of her quill in thought. Hogsmeade was the weekend of her birthday. Which meant that She, Ron, and Harry would be going to Hogsmeade, which meant that she could corner Harry and beg forgiveness…no….she wouldn't do that. She wouldn't give in and allow him to wallow in self pity. She was going to help him, whether he liked it or not.
That is what she was doing at this moment. She sat, legs crossed, surrounded by dusty yellowing books with ink stained hands, trying to find a cure.
"Good morning Miss Granger,"
Her ink bottle splattered over her parchment, running down the table and splashing onto her robes. She looked up to find Professor Dumbledore, wearing deep magenta robes, making his white bead seem brighter against the vibrant purple. His half-moon glassed perched on his nose as his eyes winked at her.
"Oh dear," he whispered, pulling out his wand the ink stain was removed with a simple swish and flick. As he placed his wand back beneath his robes Professor Dumbledore said, "I would expect a studious student such as yourself to be enjoying a nice relaxing Saturday morning outside."
Hermione bit her lower lip, her eyes flicked from her pile of notes to Dumbledore before discreetly pulling her notes underneath a lone herbology text she used as a cover.
"I guess you're like me and prefer this wonderful place of knowledge then the hard grassy earth," he teased, his smiled and revealed a small page-torn book from his left pocket.
"I'm catching up on some light reading from the muggle section myself. Why, I've just finished a wonderful story about two hobbits and the journey to destroy a ring. Fascinating and I might add that Gandalf is one of my old time favorites….I---," He stopped midway when he suddenly picked up a small leather bound journal on the study of Shas,
"But I see you've been reading about Shas. A Terrible mental disorder…worse than schizophrenia and depression." He looked up her and then held up the book. "But why would you be reading about Shahs when I know for a fact that none of your extra circular actives require knowledge about mental disorders?"
Her answer almost came spiraling out of her. Harry's gone back through time, she wanted to say it…but she knew that Harry would never forgive her if she confessed his secret.
As much as she thought that by telling Dumbledore a lot of Harry's problems and anxieties would cease but…
"I was just checking to see if it would be…"
"I know Hermione," He replied.
He knows! How could he? He's the most brilliant wizard of course…of course he would know…her eyes brightened and she felt a heavy weight leave her shoulders.
"I've already tested Harry when he was eleven and he showed no signs of Shas…however…considering his past two years and…with the affect the dementors are having…yes…." He seemed to be speaking out loud rather then speaking to Hermione for Dumbledore left muttering to himself.
"Professor," She began but he was already leaving her table with the leather bound book still in his hands, leaving Hermione to wonder what Dumbledore was on about? And how would it help Harry?
Hogsmead, Hermione reasoned.
The day of her birthday, the 31st of October she would drag Harry into hogsmeade and
…..Hermione sighed, picking up her books.
She had no idea what to say but she wanted…no…she needed her friend back and even though he's changed….he's still Harry and she would be there for him regardless….plus…she needed to see those pair of amazing green eyes that always enthralled her.