A/N: I won't finish this story. Sadly, you must accept this fact. I am a student once again (along with a parent, husband, and full time employee) with original writing projects all my own to focus on, but this has been sitting on my hard drive for many months (as diversion writing) and I need to dislodge it from my psyche. Unfortunately, I don't know any exorcists, so I think this is the best I can manage to get the damn thing out permanently. If nothing else, the prologue and first chapter are dedicated to all the people who don't believe that there is enough room in DH for Harry and Hermione to get together. Au contraire, my friends, I've just dispatched R/Hr (die you sick and twisted notion!) and H/G (to a lesser degree…the vile ruthless beast!) in less than 8,000 words.
For the record, I think the prologue works well by itself as a one-shot. Chapter 1, less so, but it could if you don't mind open-ended endings. Think of it much like the ending of HBP, both really open up in a figurative sense, with Harry taking the next step and accepting whatever it holds. If you don't like open-endings, fuck off (Oops! It just slipped out, honestly!) just read the prologue and stop there, but you'll miss out on a lot of my SnarkyIntrospective!Harry that I love writing so much.
And for my last trick (I'm hard to shut up, I know) and to entice you to actually read Chapter 1, I do have a fair bit of Chapter 2 written and may work on it a bit more as time, interest, and creativity allow. But hold fast, ladies and gentlemen of the jury (a little Humbert Humbert impression for you…the tip jar is to the left), I set myself no timeline nor obligation to complete the story and it certainly won't occur before JKR finishes Deathly Hallows which would suck all the excitement out of a year seven story for me anyway. So it's here for what it worth, feel free to read and ignore, read and critique, or even read and simply review, but above just have fun with it. We (myself included) have a tendency to take ourselves way too seriously much of the time.
Justified By Reason - Prologue
"Aunt Petunia?"
The Dursleys' could no longer feign ignorance about Harry's existence; not now that he'd broken one of the unwritten rules since his return from Hogwarts by speaking in their presence. Prior to this moment, any and all occurrences that involved Harry were written off as either unexplainable or nonexistent.
Harry was perfectly fine with this; he could handle getting the necessities of life on his own and was comfortable avoiding the Dursleys' whenever possible. As a result, he found himself resuming his old habit of roaming the neighborhood at all hours of day and night, just to be out of the house once and a while. He knew Dumbledore and Hermione would not be happy with this, should they have known, but he found himself itching for a fight; the unprotected walks made him feel like he was challenging Voldemort in some small way.
Dudley would sometimes glare at him as he walked out the front door, but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia never looked away from what they were doing, though Harry found he had to sneak in more than a few times as he'd regularly return to a locked door no matter what the time of day was or if anyone was even home. He'd laugh morosely, curse the Ministry of Magic, and cast a simple Alohamora before walking in.
When Harry spoke, Aunt Petunia tensed, but adamantly refused to look up from her magazine. "What is it?"
Her voice was terse and Harry felt it best to get this nasty business over with quickly.
"The ceiling in my bedroom has a crack in it." Harry caught Dudley's jaw tensing when he said "my bedroom", but he didn't speak to it or challenge the notion in any way so Harry continued on. "I want to fix it, but I need some plaster or something. Do we have any or can you pick--"
"Just deal with it," she snapped, "we'll fix it in a couple weeks."
Harry couldn't explain why the crack had been bothering him so much, but in his mind, he connected it with his latest bout of insomnia and felt he would be able to sleep again, if he didn't have to stare at it every time he lay down.
"I don't mind fix--"
"Two weeks, boy!" Uncle Vernon raged, coming to life at last and jostling the kitchen table in the process. "Now, shut up and get out of my sight!"
Harry's face went red in a rush of anger, but he held back his temper, clenching his fists and jaw to expel the gathering fury.
"Fine," he ground out in response after glaring at Uncle Vernon for several moments. He turned and made of point of leaving the kitchen with, at least, the outward appearance of composure. Inside, he fumed and stormed at the indignity of it all.
I'm helping them out, for fuck's sake!
Back in his bedroom, he fell into bed and tossed his glasses onto his desk, rubbing his eyes to get them to adjust to the haziness that obscured his vision. After dropping his hands, his gaze mechanically drifted back to the offending crack.
That damn crack.
He'd understood with perfect clarity why the crack could wait two weeks more weeks. In two weeks, he'd be seventeen. In two weeks, he'd leave their household. In two weeks, they'd be rid of him forever. The crack would be repaired when Aunt Petunia scoured the room and purged any evidence of his existence from it.
They'll probably burn the furniture.
And still, the crack remained fixed in his mind; there was no simple way around it. In the past, he had tried rolling on his stomach and sleeping that way, but it just wasn't that comfortable. The one or two times he had managed to fall asleep that way, he woke up with a sore back. The rest of the time he just struggled to fall asleep, always ending up on his back again, staring at the crack, physically comfortable if not mentally so.
His latest tactic was to try and occupy his mind with other things. Three days ago he tried reading to forget about the crack, but found himself re-reading the same page ten times before realizing what he was doing and casting aside the book to stare at the crack some more.
More Hermione's thing, anyway, he had told himself.
He tried thinking about Quidditch, but the sport was out of season so all he had were a few letters from Ron, detailing the various trades the Cannons had made during the off-season and how they'd affect the team's performance in the upcoming season. It was kind of funny, Ron was always pretty spare in his letters except when it came to the Cannons. Despite loving Quidditch, Harry found his eyes glazing over after the first page of Ron picking apart the different strengths and weaknesses of Muirin McGee, the latest acquisition for the Cannons. He knew Ron was nervous about the horcrux hunt and was avoiding the subject by going more nuts than usual over a no-name, third string prospect for a perpetually dead-in-the-water Quidditch team.
Harry himself, was avoiding thinking about the subject, putting it off until after Bill and Fleur's wedding. That's when I'll start, he told himself numerous times. Can't do anything here, I'll only make myself nuts.
All thoughts of Ginny were strictly off limits. The separation helped him forget about her. She had been perfectly aloof on the train ride home, acting as if nothing was at all awry on the few times he passed her in corridors. She would smile at him as she always had, say hello, and continue on her way. She'd even made a point of poking fun at his few budding whiskers when everyone was going their separate ways at King's Cross Station.
Harry ran his hand across his cheek where she had touched his cheek, pointing out the little cluster of short, black hairs to Ron.
Nope. Not going down that road again.
And still, the crack tormented him. To make matters worse, he was nearly out of topics to distract himself with.
Maybe a nice Obliviate would do the trick.
He began to wonder what everyone was doing now…Ron's summer life was quite predictable, with the wedding coming up, Mrs. Weasley would be keeping him extremely busy helping prepare the house. And, of course, drooling over Fleur was a full time job in and of itself. In fact, all of the Weasleys were probably overwhelmed with the wedding about now.
Except Percy, Harry thought with a grimace and shake of his head. The bastard.
Harry's thoughts turned to Hermione, trying to imagine what she was up to. He sat up suddenly, realizing that he couldn't picture her doing anything in the muggle world. He'd never seen her there and she didn't talk about what her summers were like much…at least the times when she wasn't at the Burrow.
And with that thought, the now familiar discomfort crept into Harry's stomach. When he thought it over, she did spend a lot of her time at the Burrow…especially when everyone should be with their families.
Except you, Harry. You spend just as much time there, if not more.
"Yeah, but I'm escaping from the Dursleys'," he said aloud, challenging himself.
What's she escaping from, then?
"Or who's she escaping to?"
He swung his legs to the floor and brought his elbows to rest on his knees, kneading his scalp. Recalling the last few summers and Christmases pulled a groan from his throat…she was always where Ron was. He groaned again as he recalled her behavior over Ron last year.
"She's had it bad for a while." He stood up and began pacing the room. "They'll never work out," he sputtered, trying to convince himself. "Look how much they've fought. No one wants that in a relationship!"
He stopped at one edge of the room, before turning around to start another circuit and rest his head against the wall. "Do they?"
How the hell would you know? You can't even sort yourself out.
As he settled down and tried to get some sleep, the crack in the ceiling no longer bothered him. It was the anticipated crack in his friendship with Hermione and Ron that troubled his dreams. Over and over throughout the night, his mind replayed the image of him leaving for the horcrux hunt alone, while Hermione and Ron bickered over wedding streamers and failed to notice his absence.
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