~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Eight~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
`Did the girl ever breathe?' Harry wondered absently to himself.
The two of them were walking side-by-side down the ancient stone corridor after just having exited the statue that lead up to the headmaster's office. Ever since being dismissed the old man's presence, the bushy-headed girl had been yapping nonstop about all sorts of nonsensical things. He had thought that she would eventually slowdown, but against all odds, she had sped up until there was almost a continuous stream of gibberish coming from her mouth.
The boy briefly debated throwing caution to the wind and making a run for it, but after a moments deliberation he decided against it. That professor guy had told him in no uncertain terms to pretty much stick with the girl no matter what and Harry had never really been one for disobedience.
She was fairly attractive, for a girl, he thought (he'd never really bought into the whole `cooties' thing at school). At first glance, she seemed like the bossy, know-it-all type. However, despite the rather bushy hair and her rapid fire manner of speaking, she actually appeared to be a rather pleasant sort of person. At least she wouldn't be screaming at him or locking him in a cupboard anytime soon. Or so Harry hoped at any rate. The girl just didn't seem to be the type.
In the short time since he met Hermin...Hermoin…since he had met "`Nee" he had already pegged her as the worrywart-clingy-fretful type. From the way she was going on about `that dreadful monster' `magical resonance solutions' `atrocities beyond belief' and other rather large words while at the same time worrying her bottom lip and wringing her hands together anxiously, Harry knew his assessment was spot on. Especially since she kept glancing down at him with that odd look in her eyes that said she was barely restraining herself from picking the boy up, squeezing the life out of him and smothering him against her modest bosom.
As if hearing his thoughts, Hermione glanced down at the young wizard.
There! That was the look again!
Harry timidly backed away from the witch, inconspicuously putting an additional seven inches into the comfort zone he'd established. Seven inches was good for an extra split second of reaction time, should he decide to make a break for it.
They came to a halt at the same open air stairwell that Harry had passed through earlier. He looked on in astonishment. There were dozens of people traveling along the veritable maze of staircases. Some were simply making their way to different levels while others seemed to be meandering about while chatting away with friends. All in all, the place was infinitely livelier than it was during his midnight romp. How could he have gotten through here without meeting anyone?
The young witch turned to face Harry fully, interrupting his internal dialog. She had finally (read mercifully) stopped her endless tirade. She looked at him thoughtfully.
"Harry, are you hungry? Breakfast was at least an hour ago, but we could make a quick stop by the kitchens if you want. Or do you want to go up to the dormitories for some rest? Oh, we have so much to talk about! I scarcely know where to begin…" she trailed off uncertainly and watched Harry expectantly. Personally, he thought she did enough talking for the both of them, but he couldn't very well say that aloud. Besides, it was nice having someone ask for his opinion instead of simply giving him one.
He cleared his throat. "Uhm…I am a little hungry. The professor said I could have some breakfast earlier. But, if you need to go somewhere that's okay too. I don't mind, really."
Hermione smiled down warmly at her oldest (and youngest) friend. Dumbledore said he was only five years old, but he looked so much smaller and younger! The same mop of unruly black hair topped his head, and those gorgeous green eyes appeared even more vivid without those awful glasses obstructing them.
Why, he looked cuter than a sack full of puppies!
. It was obvious that the young boy was definitely Harry. There was no mistaking it, especially with that distinctive scar adorning his forehead. Hermione still had trouble adjusting to the fact that this was the same young man she had last seen going to Hogsmeade yesterday morning.
Harry watched with growing alarm as the warm smile morphed into a slight frown, slightly marring her pretty features. She sniffed abruptly before reaching out to rest her hand on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Harry." She began. "I know you don't remember it, but we argued yesterday, shortly before you went missing." Harry was confused but nodded and waited for her to continue. The last thing he remembered was being shoved up under the stairs all day yesterday. But, she obviously had something she wanted to get off her mind and he wasn't going to interrupt. She went on, though somewhat haltingly at first.
"I was so scared when we couldn't find you. I was worried that my last memory of you would be the image of your back retreating while walking off in anger. And I know you were, though you didn't show it on the outside. You didn't yell or anything, but then you've never really taken your temper out on me before.
"But…then you were just gone. I couldn't stand the thought you know. I was so scared last night I could hardly think. I felt so sick knowing that you might have been taken from me forever and it was the worst thing imaginable. I just…I wanted you to know that you are my best friend, Harry. I'll do my absolute best to take care of you and work nonstop to find a way to get you back to normal." She halted and Harry didn't know whether to be insulted or not. His uncle had always called him a freak, but he'd thought himself as pretty normal up until now.
Hermione looked down the stairway, seemingly lost in indecision before turning back a moment later, looking directly in Harry's emerald green eyes. The expression on her face softened noticeably as chocolate brown met the younger, innocent orbs. Something stirred deep within those sorrowful pools that tugged painfully at the girl's heart strings. There was no question left in her mind anymore once she had made up her mind. No more hesitation.
"Harry," she began again, though her voice was hardly a whisper. "I promise…I swear to you…" There was an unexpected build up…a pressure that began forming around them, both pressing in and tugging at something behind his navel. Time began to slow and the hustle and bustle in the background receded into nothingness.
"…that I will never…" It condensed, and began squeezing him until he could hardly breathe. He began to get frightened and his eyes widened with the fear.
"…ever let anything or anyone…" The air began to grow hot, almost stifling so. His lungs were constricting even tighter until it felt his chest could be crushed. He was going to suffocate. Why didn't she notice how scared he was?
"…come between us ever again."
There was a sudden release followed by a resounding crack as time sped up and resumed its normal pace. The two were started out of their trance by the sudden arrival of a mass of robes and pink hair collapsing on the top stair next to the shocked pair. The new arrival was the apparent source of the `crack' as she stumbled and ungracefully landed.
"Tonks!" Hermione greeted cheerfully, despite her watery eyes, while Harry stood behind her and shook his head trying to clear it. Hermione seemed oblivious to his dazed expression. He didn't know what had just happened, but he felt as if something deep inside him had changed. Something significant. Whatever it was had shifted around inside him and anchored itself to his very soul. Hermione herself did not seem to be nearly as affected by it as he did. He shook his head again and glanced up towards the person who had tripped up the stairs. How someone manages to trip up the stairs, he couldn't really fathom.
Immediately, his own eyes began watering from the intensely pink hair. Blinking the afterimage from his eyes, he focused his gaze lower as the person gingerly stood up and massaged her much abused knee.
"Wotcher, Hermione!" Tonks greeted cheerfully, despite the grimace of pain evident on her face.
"Have a good trip?" the younger witch asked with a grin.
Tonks snorted and stood up, tentatively climbing the final step to the upper hall. She was obviously relieved to be on flat, solid ground once more and Harry took a brief moment to study the newcomer. She was nearly twice his height, dressed in the same flowing style of dress as everyone else was around here, those these were a deep maroon. Her heart shaped face was rather pretty, striking in a way, even taking the vivid shade of pink her hair was sporting. The woman was young-ish for an adult, but she seemed to just radiate this air of childlike joy and mischievousness.
The woman's perpetual cheerfulness was absolutely, positively contagious.
Harry peeked out from behind Hermione and grinned up and the Auror. Tonks' mouth dropped open in disbelief as she finally caught sight of Harry. "Cor, Dumbledore wasn't joking was he?" she asked in wonder before grinning down. "C'mere kiddo. Let me see you."
Harry trotted around Hermione's still form and stood in front of Tonks, gazing up at her with no small amount of trepidation. Unexpectedly, she reached out and lifted a surprised Harry up by the back of his shirt until he was directly eye level with the rookie Auror. Harry, much to his own embarrassment, squeaked.
Tonks whistled lowly. "Wow, you're even scrawnier now than when you were a pup, pup! That's kinda hard to believe. You don't weigh much more than a feather." She hefted him up even higher and gave his stomach, which was left exposed as he dangled, a once over. "I can count all of your ribs. What are they feeding you anyway?" Harry, who was in shocked about being so rudely lifted finally snapped out of it.
"And how much do you weigh then?" he groused.
Tonks grinned widely as she sat him gently back on the ground. "Rule number two pup: never how much a woman weighs."
Harry adjusted his shirt with as much dignity as his five year-old self was capable of. It was still extreme crooked. "What's rule number one, then?"
"Don't ask a woman her age," was the succinct reply.
"Why?" he asked. Hermione rolled her eyes and bent down to adjust his shirt properly, only paying half attention to the bantering pair of five-year olds. Harry fidgeted at her close proximity, but she quietly told him to keep still. He froze instantly. Seconds later, she was finished.
Harry mentally added `perfectionist' to his list of attributes he had made for `Nee.
"Because it's rude," Tonks answered smugly.
Harry stared up at her fearlessly. "So's picking up people who are smaller than you," he pointed out just as smugly. The look on Tonks' face was priceless. She quickly wiped she smirk off her face as she bent down to eye level.
"My my, such cheek. And from a kid who just got done squeaking when he was picked up by a little `ol girl like me."
Harry's witty retort was cut off as a gentle hand touched his shoulder. "Stop teasing Harry, Tonks," Hermione chided gently as she stepped between the two. "I realize that he's the closest to you in terms of wit, but please try and restrain yourself. After all, you are the older more mature one here."
"I thin' she's got ah'bout tha right of it," a new voice, dripping with sarcasm, replied from behind the young Auror.
Tonks turned towards the newcomer, her face aflame as he stomped up the last few steps. "Sir," she said in greeting as she straightened up to attention.
The man stopped and leaned nonchalantly against the railing as he eyed his subordinate critically. He was dressed impeccably in the standard black and gold scaled robes of ministry Aurors. The silvery insignia on his shoulders and chest identified him as a senior captain. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, although Hermione knew with wizards that one's appearance was very deceptive.
He stood perhaps six foot; no where near as tall as Ron but still a hand taller than Harry…or rather, than Harry used to stand. His hair was dark and wavy and rather long for a ministry official. It was held in place by a leathery band of blue dragon scales. Weathered would be the best way to describe his face as it was obvious that the Scotsman had spent a good deal of time around the sea.
One corner of his mouth crinkled northwards. "Ah ne'vr thought ye'd be one fer bully'un thare Tonks," He commented dryly in a thick Scottish brogue. "'Specially remembering how tha oth'a lads used to treat yer clumsy self." The aforementioned woman sputtered indignantly, but his attention had already shifted towards the young witch and her even younger charge.
"Keir MacLeod," he introduced himself politely, and extended his hand towards Hermione. She grasped it and smiled up at the wizard.
"MacLeod…" she murmured. "As in…?"
"Clan MacLeod." The Auror snorted derisively. "Yes yes, believe me ah've heard it all before." He waved the question away with a dismissive flourish of his hand. "But believe me, ye'll naught find a long blade on this wizard nor any spare heads." Grinning wryly in apology, Hermione turned back to Tonks.
"So Tonks, what's going on outside? I'm assuming you're here on official business instead of looking to pick fights with kids smaller than you are."
The Auror's expression turned grim. "Yes, its official today though I'm afraid that I can't go into any specific details. This stuff is so bad it's been classified and even the minister felt the need to inform Dumbledore."
"An oddly intelligent move for him," the grizzled MacLeod interjected. "Albus has enough on his plate at the moment with such a violent attack so close to his school and involving no small number of his students." His gaze swiveled to focus on the young Potter. "Not to mention the small problem of our resident boy wonder here. You ought to be proud boy. The amount of uproar you're causing in the Ministry is rather impressive."
Harry beamed happily up at the Auror.
"It's not like it's his fault," Hermione rushed to defend her best friend. "That madman targets Harry for reasons only known to himself. We're only doing the best we can in order to stay alive."
"And on that subject, my sources tell me that you handled yourself extremely well Miss Granger. Your friend Ronald Weasley, too. One might become extremely interested in exactly how you obtained your apparently formidable fighting abilities." Hermione blushed under the praise. "Also, rumor has it that Bellatrix Lestrange is livid about…something that occurred during the skirmish. Wouldn't happen to know anything about that now would you?"
Hermione grinned weakly, an icy ball of dread growing in the pit of her stomach. Oh, Ron was not going to be happy about hearing that. She was going to have to pull him out from under his bed later.
"Tell me Miss Granger," MacLeod sat up and casually stepped away from the railing, a serious look crossing his features. "He-who-must-not-be-named has been nipping at you and your friends heels for years now. Doesn't it strike you as strange that after keeping silent for nearly a year after the fiasco in the Ministry atrium that he suddenly delivers an attack in broad daylight? What does your infamous intellect think about yesterday's events?"
Hermione looked over to Tonks briefly. She was once again engaged in playful banter with Harry, the two of them in their own little world. A chorus of `Nuh-uh's! and Are too's!' accompanied the sight. She briefly wondered who was winning. Glancing back to MacLeod, she weighed her words carefully. Auror he might be, but a friend he wasn't. At least not yet. One did not trust indiscriminately in the wizarding world if one wanted to live to a ripe old age.
"One would have to wonder," she enunciated carefully, one elegant eyebrow arched in question, "why a senior Auror would care one whit about the conjecture from a sixth year Hogwarts student." Her brown eyes observed him with a piercing intensity that the older man found quite remarkable. She didn't miss much, this one. At least if the reports he had read about her contained the slightest grain of truth to them.
"Aye, true that might be usually at any rate," he enunciated just as carefully back. "However, situations such as this are far from ordinary and somehow you kids always seem to find your way directly in the eye of such storms." He grinned at her. "You've proven yourselves to be remarkably weatherproof as of yet."
Hermione grimaced as she thought of Sirius' fate and Harry's current misadventure. "One might put it that way," she replied seriously. "There have been casualties on both sides so far and nothing can survive a hurricane indefinitely. And make no mistake about it Mr. MacLeod…there is one coming. We may even only be in the eye looking out at the waters raging around us."
MacLeod grinned humorously at the young witch as he abruptly continued on passed her towards the Headmaster's office. "Pretty analogies aside little miss," he called back towards her. "Fancy words are little comfort to the dead and dying and they are even more worthless when trying to win a war. This isn't just your fight. Should you think of anything you wish to tell me or think I should be made aware of, speak to your Headmaster and he will relay the message on to me." Hermione's frown deepened as the aged veteran paused at the corner. "I, for one, plan on riding this storm out and emerging from other side with my swim trunks and water wings on ready to get back to swimming."
And with that, he vanished around the bend, his footsteps echoing loudly as they faded away. Hermione was more disturbed about the brief conversation than she let show on her face as she turned back towards her friend. MacLeod's words weighed heavily on her mind. Of course he was right. While it might not just be Harry's fight…and her's by proxy…it still felt that way sometimes. It was merely an illusion though. The entire world, wizards foremost and muggleborns especially, were standing on the cusp of a conflict that had the potential to change everything as they knew it.
Voldemort was not just some lone terrorist struggling to enforce his ideals and beliefs on the world despite appearing that way to most at first glance. In the wizarding world, a single man with enormous power was a power to be reckoned with.
If Voldemort was anything, then he was a person to be reckoned with.
She shook those thoughts from her mind, bushy hair bouncing, as she gently laid a hand on her charge. Harry craned his neck straight up and back, a cheeky grin on his face.
"Are you two behaving yourselves?" Hermione asked.
"Yup!" Harry chirped. "Tonks said she would take me out for ice cream if I just…consee…consie…."
"Conceded…" muttered the embarrassed witch.
"Yeah! Conceded and let her win the argument." Harry's green eyes sparkled with mischief.
Hermione could not help but smile down at the youngster. "And what was the argument about?"
"Who is prettier…her or yo…"
"Whoops! Time to go…" the sheepish Auror clamped her hand over Harry's mouth, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Heh, kids say the darndest things, don't they?"
An indignant Harry let loose with a string of muffled opinions on Tonks and her manners. Hermione just rolled her eyes at their antics. Harry finally had enough and lightly nipped Tonks' fingers.
"Ow! You brat!"
Harry scooted over and hid behind Hermione. "Witch!" he replied, sticking his tongue out. Tonks had no retort for that.
"Children…" Hermione sighed.
"Hmph," Tonks grunted, straightening her robes primly as if she had been greatly insulted. "Well, I'm off then. I have several reports to file after I meet with the mighty bearded one. I suppose I'll see you all later then."
"Are you sure? We were just about to catch a late breakfast. You're more than welcome to join us," offered Hermione politely.
"Nah," Tonks replied, waving her off. "If I'm any later I'm going to catch hell for it. It's Shaklebolt's time of the month if you get my meaning. Catch you two later!" She called cheerfully. Moments later she was gone.
"'Nee…"
Hermione looked down at Harry's confused look. "What did she mean? Is it a bad time of the month?"
The witch gave a surprised wince. Great Oz's balls, she did not want to have to explain something like that. Especially not to Harry. She replied in a carefully neutral voice. "No Harry. That just means that Mr. Shaklebolt is having a bad day."
"Or month?"
Hermione considered. "Or month," she agreed.
"Food?" asked Harry, after a mulling that over a moment.
"Food." Hermione readily agreed. And they continued on their way.
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