Bridges

lorien829

Rating: PG13
Genres: Angst, Mystery
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 6
Published: 26/03/2007
Last Updated: 09/07/2008
Status: completed

After twelve years in Australia, Auror Harry Potter is called back to England for a case. Can he find justice for a little girl who was brutally assaulted? And can he come to terms with his past, and restore his shattered relationship with Hermione?

Chapters

1. Water Under the Bridge

2. Bridge Over Troubled Water

3. Burning Bridges

4. Bridging the Gap

5. To Bridge the Great Divide

6. Bridge To The Past

7. Building A Bridge

8. Suspension Bridge

9. Bridge Collapse

10. Toll Bridge

11. Drawbridge

12. Bridge Reconstruction

13. Epilogue

1. Water Under the Bridge

Bridges

Chapter One: Water Under The Bridge

Harry Potter brushed soot off his shoulders as he stepped out of the Floo into the cavernous atrium of the International Floo Headquarters, and looked around with a decidedly cool gaze.

There was no fanfare. Indeed, he hadn't expected any, seeing that it had been nearly a dozen years since he had been in England. There was a window across the way, and it showed a slate gray sky, pierced by slashing, fine-needle rain. He wasn't sure if the window were charmed or not, but he felt the sight of the weather drag his mood down further, as he thought longingly of the welcome warmth of an Australian February.

Instinctively, he felt for his wand, securely tucked into the pockets of his Auror Robes, and began to thread his way into the flow of traffic, moving with the other exiting travelers.

“Harry,” the voice was surreptitious, trying not to call attention to itself, and when the man in question turned, he saw a flash of ginger. His green eyes widened with some surprise.

“Ron!” An unreadable look flickered briefly across his face, and a smile tugged at his lips, albeit somewhat unwillingly.

There was the briefest of awkward moments, as two close friends can have when re-assessing each other after a long separation. Harry cleared his throat awkwardly, and stuck his hand out. Ron shook it heartily, adding to the gesture a comradely clap on the shoulder.

“I didn't think they'd told anyone I was coming,” Harry said, after another interlude of silence.

“They told me,” Ron said laconically. “Tonks wants us watching each other's backs on this one.”

Harry cast a sidelong look, mixing bitterness and confusion, at his erstwhile best mate. I was never going to come back.

“What's the big deal anyway?” he asked. “Not enough Aurors to go round up here?”

Ron's fair brows lifted in surprise at Harry's tone.

“You have gotten jaded, haven't you?” he asked, rhetorically, clearing not expecting an answer. “It's an assault case, little girl, about eleven years old. Parents were killed during the attack.”

“Death Eaters?” Harry's voice was low, and Ron's chin jerked downward once in an affirmative, even though it was not really a question. He had expected as much. “You'd know more about the recent activity here than I would. It still doesn't explain why they called me in. I couldn't even get McKinney to give me a straight answer about whether or not this assignment was temporary,” he added, referring to his boss in Australia. He did not say that he had fought tooth and nail against coming at all.

The two men moved toward a local Floo conduit, and stood in line for access.

“You'll understand when you see her,” Ron said softly. “It was … rather bad. Lucky she's alive, really.”

Harry's lips thinned at the thought of grown wizards who would hurt a child, and he decided to abandon the line of questioning until he had seen what had happened that was so appalling that he had been forced from his self-imposed exile on the other side of the globe.

Ron was watching him covertly, but Harry was well aware of the weight of his friend's gaze.

Don't ask, don't ask, don't ask… he pleaded inwardly.

“Are you planning on seeing Hermione?” Ron asked, oblivious to Harry's unspoken wishes. Harry opted for a withering look, instead of speech. “Harry, come on! It's been twelve years!”

Harry closed his eyes in mock weariness.

“Don't start this, Ron. Your post owls from halfway round the world were bad enough.”

“I just… you were friends - best friends - for eight years! I don't know what happened, but - but could it really be that bad?” It was a familiar litany; they shuffled forward in line, and Harry ignored him, shoving aside the pang of guilt over what Ron must be going through, incessantly caught in the middle.

“Does she ever say anything?” he finally asked.

“About you?”

Harry nodded. Ron looked almost disappointed, as if he wished he could tell Harry that Hermione ceaselessly queried him on all things Potter. Instead, the redhead shoved his hands into his pockets, and shook his head.

“Never says a word. Gets right mad if I bring it up too. I reckon I haven't mentioned you in … oh, about five years.”

The silence between them grew strained again, as the line moved once more. Harry had opened his mouth to speak… How is she? But then the party in front of them disappeared into the green flames, and it was their turn. With a sweep of his hand, Harry indicated that Ron should do the honors.

The youngest Weasley son tossed in the Floo powder.

“St. Mungo's.”

*~~~~~*

Voldemort had been dead for nearly three weeks, before Harry could actually get his mind around that fact. He, Hermione, and Ron were shunted to several awards ceremonies and lavish banquets, during which he remembered a lot of blank staring, blinking into flashbulbs, and clumsily muttered soundbites.

But mostly he remembered a feeling of panic, one that started out faint and subtle, but grew, like a cresting tidal wave, as the weeks passed. When all the debriefing and glamorizing and hobnobbing had been completed, the Trio returned to the Burrow, exhausted and at a loss. It was then that Harry grew seriously concerned that the wave was going to consume him.

He wasn't sure exactly of what he was afraid, but it was as if he'd been suddenly abandoned in a strange place, and had his map rudely snatched from his clutching hands. The future was a giant dark vacuum. He wasn't sure where to go, what to do, or even who he was… and he was very nearly paralyzed with fear that Ron and Hermione might drift away, racing with alacrity toward their individual lives, put on hold because of him for the last eleven years.

He was afraid of solitude, and more than once found himself sprinting full-tilt down the Burrow's ramshackle stairs in search of someone, anyone, so that he wouldn't have to face himself and the giant interrogative that hovered over him. Hermione and Ron seemed somewhat subdued and withdrawn, quiet, but attempting to maintain normalcy, while Harry felt nearly manic in contrast.

Must do, must move, must be, must speak…

If I stand still, I'll drown.

Sometimes, he thought he was going mad.

Inexplicably, Hermione seemed to sense this. She said nothing about it, but had suddenly come by the habit of just being around whenever he felt worst, not fixing him with undue attention, but just sitting companionably in the same room, with a book in her lap or a quill in her hand.

He had never been so grateful for her mere presence… felt foolishly enraptured, as a matter of fact, as if he ought to be groveling at her feet for just being Hermione.

Ironically, it was Ginny who set the whole impending implosion into motion in the first place.

*~~~~~*

Harry did his best to ignore the double-takes and open glances of surprise, as he and Ron strode down the bustling corridors of the premiere British wizarding hospital. He supposed that his blue Australian Auror robes were drawing additional unwanted attention - as if just being himself wasn't bad enough - and he wished he'd changed out of them before departing Down Under.

“Damn,” Ron said, noting the looks and murmured whispers. “We were hoping to keep your arrival as quiet as possible for as long as we could.”

“Then you should have Owled me some Polyjuice potion,” Harry replied sarcastically. They rounded a corner, and Harry saw two Aurors on duty, flanking either side of a closed door.

“Here we are,” Ron said, nodding in recognition to the two Aurors. Harry didn't know either of them. “Her name's Annemarie Ludlow,” he added. “She's ten. Supposed to be starting at Hogwarts in September.”

Harry nodded, trying to pull together his professionalism that seemed to be so easily dashed away when he thought about Hermione. Ten years old, he thought, and in his mind's eye saw the littered bodies of Hogwarts' students, the ones caught in the initial attack, before the younger years had been evacuated to safety. It was those deaths, more than any others, that still haunted him, even after so many years.

In response to his nod, Ron reached for the handle and swung open the door.

The room was sterile and white, appearing starkly bright, even without windows. It smelled peculiarly of that hospital-smell that seemed to permeate all places of sickness and healing, whether magical or Muggle. Several hovering monitors beeped or glowed or whirred softly above the slight form in the bed. Harry stepped closer.

The little girl lay prone, her arms pinning the sheet tightly to her sides, her right cheek turned into the pillow as she rested in a potion-induced slumber. Even before he reached the bedside, Harry could see the purple-black marbled texture of her arms, where they were bruised and swollen. Several of her fingernails were partially or totally missing, and a seared portion of skin ran down behind her ear into the neckline of her hospital gown. Her hair had been cut hastily and without precision; Harry guessed that a mediwitch had trimmed off the blackened portions. Her lower lip was split all the way through, and one eye was so badly swollen that Harry felt sure she would have lasting damage to her vision in it.

“What happened, exactly?” he asked, looking at Ron. There was a strained quality to his voice that he could not eliminate entirely.

“The family was at Diagon Alley, evidently just for a day out. Mrs. Ludlow was reportedly carrying only one small shopping bag. They had been to Fortescue's, and dropped Annemarie off at the bookshop, while they ran an errand at the apothecary. They filled an order there at about 11:30. Witnesses reported the parents exiting Flourish and Blott's, shouting her name close to half-twelve. One woman heard screams coming from Knockturn Alley at a little after twelve, and several emergency owls were dispatched to the MLE around that time. Peter Ludlow sent one himself at 12:42, before giving chase. Several people went with him, but Peter and his wife were AK'd as they reached the mouth of the alley where we found Annemarie's body.”

“So we're looking at two hours at the most? You were with the team called in?” Harry asked, sympathetically, and Ron nodded. “Any evidence left?”

“The attackers were long gone. All we had were the Ludlows' bodies at the entrance, not a mark on `em, and Annemarie further in. We'd initially thought she was dead too, but somehow, she's managed to survive. Some wandfire residue on the walls, but the - the people that frequent Knockturn Alley call that particular side street Execution Alley. No way to tell how many murders have been carried out there.”

“Why would she still be alive?” Harry wondered aloud, his eyes traveling over the girl again. “D'you reckon they panicked and left her for dead?”

“'Swhat we thought… at first,” Ron said, and Harry caught the note of hesitancy in his voice.

“What changed your mind?”

“We think she was deliberately left to send a message.”

“A message? To whom?”

Ron's face was pinched and pale, as he reached for Annemarie's chin and gently turned her head, so that the hidden side of her face was exposed.

“To you,” he replied softly, no hint of accusation in his voice. Harry found himself instinctively groping for the metal railing on the side of the bed for support.

Barely missing her eye, a Cutting charm had been cast with much raw force, proceeding in a jagged line to end near the curve of her jaw. The skin around the cut was puckered and swollen, and glowed with multiple Healing and Numbing charms. The blood had been cleaned away, but the area was still badly discolored. Even so, it was easy to tell with what the girl had been deliberately marked.

A lightning bolt.

*~~~~~*

He had not been unaware of Ginny's contemplative gaze on him, during their stay at the Burrow. He had, however, pretended that he was, and strove to avoid being left alone with her, knowing the topic that was likely to arise, and feeling unable or unwilling to deal with it. He could see her thoughts as clearly as if they were hovering over her head in living color.

He broke it off, he left me behind, but now it's over, she was thinking, he knew, Now it's over, and he's free. He's free to come back to me, like I know he wants to, like we were meant to be. I've waited so long for my happy ending, and now it's finally here.

The only problem with that was, Harry mused, that he no longer felt like himself. The Harry Potter that Ginny had been in love with had died the day Voldemort was defeated, and someone new had been left in his place. Would Ginny accept a Harry that still had nightmares, that sometimes had to take potions to cope, that had incomplete schooling, training for little, no ideas for the future, and wanted nothing more than to shun the spotlight with religious fervor?

Ginny wanted him, wanted to be Mrs. Harry Potter, and probably did love him on some level, but was it enough? Was it enough for him? Did he want to rekindle things with her?

Nothing was the same anymore. The picture appeared to be similar, but all the colors had been altered. We can't go back.

I can't go back.

Ron and Hermione had been with him at the end. Only Ron and Hermione could understand what he'd been through. Not Ginny…never Ginny.

She had finally cornered him in the Weasleys' back garden, and he knew, with a sinking feeling in his gut, that the moment had come.

“Harry?” she asked, twirling one long strand of red hair around her finger, studiously looking at her trainers. She lifted her eyes, and met his for a brief instant, before her gaze dropped again. “I - I was wondering… I've - I've tried to be patient, and … but - is - is there a chance - are we … ever -- ?” She looked at him again, her eyes pleading for him to help her out. He was struck again with how beautiful she was, the low-setting sun setting her hair afire. A beautiful stranger…

“I - I wanted there to be … someday,” Harry began feebly, watched her eyes sparkle with hope, and then dim in recognition of the past tense. “I didn't think I - it's - it's all different now. I'm different now, and I - I don't know if - I don't think it would work.”

She took three steps toward him, reached out, and enfolded one of his hands in both of hers.

“Of course it would work! I know you've been through a lot, and - and of course, you've been… affected by what's happened. But I don't intend to abandon you now. I can help you. We can get through this together.”

Halfway into her speech, Harry was shaking his head.

“You don't understand.”

“I could understand, if you'd just talk to me,” she whispered. “Harry, please. I've waited for you. I love you.”

Harry backed away from her, pulling his hand free from her grip.

“I can't do this. I'm sorry, Ginny. I didn't want this to happen, I - if it had been another time, or another place, maybe…”

Her face drooped, the muscles around her mouth going slack and her eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Tell me one thing,” she asked. “Did you love me? Did you ever?”

He opened his mouth. He was going to say, `I thought I did' - something soothing, innocuous, not exactly a lie, but not the harshness of the truth either. But Hermione floated into his mind, for some reason, and he felt the balm of her presence as if she'd physically been there in the garden with them.

Hermione understood. Hermione knew. But not Ginny, never Ginny.

Ginny gasped, and looked at him with abject horror and hurt. He realized belatedly that he had whispered one word aloud.

“Never…”

Her face suffused a bright Weasley red, and before he could explain that that was not what he'd meant, she disappeared back inside the Burrow, the panes in the window rattling with the force of her slam.

*~~~~~*

His eyes wide with horror and regret, Harry reached out, almost instinctively, to touch the cruel brand left on Annemarie Ludlow's face. Just as his fingers brushed her skin, he jerked his hand back as if he'd been burned.

“Why?” he murmured, half to himself. Ron's lips were pressed together in sympathy, but he voiced no reply.

The burden of guilt that Harry had carried for as long as he'd been aware of his wizarding heritage seemed to crash with renewed weight back onto his shoulders. It's never been gone, he corrected himself bitterly, I've just gotten handier at ignoring it. He had run from it, run from her, and thought he'd left it behind. But it had not vanished or dwindled during his absence; instead, it had merely waited, biding its time, until he returned and had to face it again.

And now this child, this little girl, who had neither been born, nor probably even thought of when he vanquished the Dark Lord … now she bore the marks of that irrational hatred that had not - unfortunately - died when Voldemort did.

“Why her?” he asked, looking at Ron this time, his voice more forceful in the nearly silent room. “Is there some kind of connection? Other than - I mean, other than - ” he broke off, and gestured despairingly at the injury on her face.

“There probably isn't one,” Ron told him quietly. “She was picked at random, because she was young and she was by herself. She was easy.” A sort of tremor washed convulsively over Harry's face. “That,” he added, referring to the lightning bolt, “tells us more about the attackers than anything else. They've got to be connected to you, a Death Eater, a family member of someone who was killed or put in Azkaban during or after the Final Battle… we've just got to figure out who.”

“What do you need me to do?” Harry's voice was hushed, but decisive. His eyes roamed over the little girl's battered body with a desperate sorrow that Ron remembered all too clearly from their years at Hogwarts.

“We're heading up the investigation,” Ron told him, gesturing from Harry to himself with both hands. “All the evidence from Execution Alley has been photographed and catalogued down at the Ministry. We'll need to review it personally. And we're going to find out everything we can about the Ludlow family, circumstances of their marriage, her birth, their neighbors, extended family - just in case someone picked her for a reason other than convenience. The Ministry wants every contingency covered; no one wants a repeat of the years between the Wars.”

Harry backed away from the bed, parting his robes in order to shove both hands in the pockets of his pants. He cleared his throat noisily, and looked at Ron with a clear, businesslike gaze, detachedly avoiding looking at Annemarie Ludlow again.

“Let's get started then.”

TBC

AN: Argh - plot bunny! This shouldn't be an overly long story, but it's been nagging at me for the last few days. Still plugging away at “Resistance” so try not to throw too many heavy objects!

Many thanks for giving it a read!

lorien

-->

2. Bridge Over Troubled Water

Bridges

Chapter Two: Bridge Over Troubled Water

“Harry!” cried a witch with magenta hair, her voice carrying clearly through the Ministry atrium, and drawing attention. She stumbled over the hems of her robes, and all but fell into Harry's outstretched arms. He winced a little at the commotion, but smiled.

“Hi, Tonks. You know, I almost didn't believe it when I heard they'd made you Head Auror.”

Tonks made a face at him.

“The Minister figured we'd all be safer if Tonks were behind a desk, instead of out in the field,” Ron teased, elbowing her in the side.

“Would it help you remember that I'm your boss, if I fired your sorry arse?”

Ron was shaking his head, a twinkle in his eyes.

“You'd miss me too much.”

“Like I'd miss one of your sister's bat-bogey hexes,” was Tonks' rejoinder.

Thinking of Ginny made Harry think of Hermione, and thinking of Hermione still hurt. Harry felt the smile freeze on his face, and knew, when Ron's face went suddenly solemn, that his best mate had also followed his train of thought.

And in the back of his mind, he couldn't help but feel a little wistful, listening to Tonks and Ron's repartee, reminders of a life that he didn't belong to anymore, a network of friends that had gone on without him. Once more, Harry Potter is the outsider, looking in.

Whose fault is that? He snidely reminded himself.

“Harry ought to fit right in round here,” Ron remarked casually. “Stubborn-arsed pride and all.”

“Ron…” Harry nearly pleaded, pinching the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. He thought he felt the beginnings of a headache stoking fires near his temples.

Tonks' eyes were moving rapidly back and forth between the two men. Harry got the feeling, her clumsiness and playful attitude notwithstanding, that she was quite accurately summing up his situation inside her head.

“I've already had the Archives unlocked for you,” she said, lifting her chin and assuming an aura of authority like a mantle. “Annemarie was born at St. Mungo's so all the records should be on file. All of the information on the case has been moved into Ron's office.”

“Terrific,” Ron muttered, rolling his eyes. “We'll be able to stand in the corridor and peer inside.”

“Actually, I'd like you both to go ahead and pay a visit to the Ludlows' house,” Tonks said, in a friendly way that made it seem almost like a suggestion rather than an order. “There's a kind of wake for Peter and Tabitha today. They're going to delay the memorial service until Annemarie recovers…” The unspoken addendum, if she recovers, made itself quite clear in the intervening silence.

Ron looked less than thrilled.

“So we're just going to barge in during this family's grief, and start asking questions?”

“You're going to barge in and observe,” Tonks corrected archly. “The Ludlows are a very old, very rich, very influential family. Peter Ludlow's mother is practically legendary. See what you can find out.” She turned to head back to the Auror department, calling over her shoulder,

“Don't forget to have your wand scanned in at the desk, Harry. That will authorize you to have access to any of the restricted areas of the investigation.”

Brooding, Harry followed Ron over to the reception area, and handed his wand over to be processed.

*~~~~~*

Harry paced outside in the back garden as twilight fell. He had raked his hands through his hair so many times that he knew it had to be standing on end. Even in the comforting disorderliness of the Weasleys' garden, he felt confined, almost frantic.

Ginny had brought him face to face with the one thing he wanted most to avoid.

What do I do now?

He hadn't a sodding clue.

“What happened?” came a soft voice from the direction of the house, and Harry jumped violently and swore. He turned to see Hermione leaning on the doorjamb, yellow light from the interior spilling out over her hair and shoulders.

“What makes you think anything happened?” Harry asked, sullenly and thoroughly unconvincingly. Hermione just cocked her head and looked at him, until Harry averted his gaze.

“Ginny is many things, but subtle has never been one of them,” she finally remarked softly.

Harry stopped walking abruptly, and turned to face Hermione with beseeching eyes.

“She wants - she wanted - I - I don't… Hermione, do you ever wonder…?” He stopped, unsure how to put into words the feeling that he might fly to pieces all at once, if he relinquished the iron hold of control in the slightest.

“… what happens after the grand finale?” she filled in for him, her eyes luminous and dark in the rapidly dwindling light.

“Yeah…” he finally said, with some surprise that she had summed it up so neatly, that she seemed to know without knowing exactly what he was thinking.

“I wish I did know,” she finally said. “I wish I knew so I could tell you, and maybe - maybe then that lost look would leave your face. Harry, you won! You - you deserve better than what you're allowing yourself.”

“I used to be nobody,” he said, more to himself than to her. “And then suddenly, I'm a hero, with this sodding great destiny to fulfill… and now, that's gone too. Everywhere I go, people are looking at me like I've done something wonderful and incredible - but I - all I did was kill people. They - they think they know who I am, and - and I don't even know who I am.” He moved closer to her, and grabbed her upper arms with both hands. “Do you ever wish you could just get away? From all of it?”

Her eyes were troubled, as she regarded him thoughtfully.

“Sure, I do, Harry. Everybody does. But you can't just - ”

He threw a regretful look in the direction of the back door.

“I can't go back in there. Ginny is either furious or devastated, and I'm not sure which is worse. And Mrs. Weasley will look at me like I just killed the family dog. And Ron…”

She had removed herself from his grip, and stood confrontationally, hands on hips.

“And just where are you going to go?”

The faintest of boyish smiles creased his face, and he ran one hand through his hair self-consciously.

“I've gotten us a flat,” he said, lifting one shoulder hesitantly, as if he were afraid that she'd object. “Three bedrooms - it's quite nice. I was going to tell you and Ron about it tomorrow.”

“Harry,” her voice was soft, washing over him like a caress with the cooling night breeze. “Running away isn't going to resolve anything.”

He looked at her bleakly.

“Maybe it will keep me from going mad,” he said bluntly, honestly, and she flinched.

“And what am I going to tell everyone else?” she asked, desperation clear in her voice, as she nodded toward the house.

He paused at the garden gate, and turned back toward her. There was a flash of mischief in his eyes, so like Harry of old that her heart somersaulted up into her throat. He extended his hand to her.

“You could just come with me.”

*~~~~~*

Ron and Harry Apparated with twin cracks just outside the gated entrance to the ancestral Ludlow home. A wide curving drive cut through the sprawling and lush lawn, but there was not a car in sight. As they crossed the threshold of the property, Harry felt a strange tingle trickle over his skin, and he knew that they had both been scanned, and were probably being watched.

“Well, at least we weren't catapulted back into the lane on our arses,” Ron remarked out of the side of his mouth, having felt the sensation as well.

“So much for being discreet,” Harry replied.

The massive front door opened for them before they'd quite reached it, and an austere man in immaculate black robes gestured for them to enter. He led them through several lavishly appointed rooms, to a large parlor with French doors that opened out onto a verandah. And here were the people, milling around, dressed in dark colors and speaking in subdued tones. A long table laden with food and drink took up one end of the verandah, and Harry thought he caught glimpses of a house-elf or two threading through the crowd.

“Auror Potter, Auror Weasley, your coming is appreciated, even under the circumstances,” came a voice at their elbows, and both of the men turned. There stood a diminutive woman who looked to be in her late sixties. She was wearing charcoal gray, which made her appear even smaller than she actually was, and caused the cloud of white hair framing her face to stand out vividly. Somberly, she held out a dainty, thin-skinned hand for them to press in greeting. “I'm Griselda Ludlow, Peter's mother.”

“Allow us to extend our sympathies for your loss, Mrs. Ludlow,” Harry said smoothly, eliciting a rather surprised look from Ron. “We aren't here to disrupt anything, but just in case there is anything or anyone here that might further the investigation.”

Mrs. Ludlow inclined her head regally.

“Certainly, Auror Potter,” she said. “If you'd like to see Peter's office , you've only to seek out Gustav, and he'll show you. I'm afraid your MLE has already confiscated most of Peter's personal papers.”

“We would like to see his office, ma'am,” Ron said, his eyes narrowing only slightly at her use of the word `confiscated'. “But later, p'raps, once the guests have gone.”

Mrs. Ludlow nodded and turned gracefully, all but gliding away from them as another small group of people arrested her attention.

“She's a right piece of work,” Ron whispered to Harry.

“Seems really broken up about what happened,” Harry concurred facetiously, trying to put his finger on what it was about Mrs. Ludlow that didn't sit properly. She had an air of decorum and propriety that suggested those were important above all else. She reminded him of… “Aunt Petunia,” he said suddenly.

“Come again?” Ron looked quizzically at him.

“She reminds me of my aunt,” Harry explained. “It doesn't matter who just died or what limb was severed or how ill you are, there are the niceties, and they must be observed.” Faint sarcasm tinged his words. “I'd wager she's the kind who wouldn't do more than sniff into an embroiderered hanky at the funeral, because it might smear her makeup. But, you see, she'd have to show some emotion, because she wouldn't want people to think her heartless.”

“Can't have any behavior unbecoming to a Ludlow, eh?” Ron clarified. “They are a very old, influential family.”

As they talked, they moved carefully through the crowd, eyes constantly roving, even as they kept their conversation low and innocuous in tone. Ron pointed out several Ministry employees from the department where Peter Ludlow worked, and there were a handful of Hogwarts graduates that Harry recognized vaguely as having been a few years ahead of them.

“Slytherin,” Ron muttered. Harry's eyebrows arched, as he looked to his partner for additional information.

“Quite a lot of these people were in Slytherin. If the family is old…”

“You think they're Pureblood?” Harry asked, and continued without waiting for an answer. “Then the attack on Annemarie makes even less sense.”

“We've got to find out more about this family,” Ron determined. “You notice that…” He looked over his shoulder to find that Harry had stopped cold in his tracks, a few paces behind him. All color had drained from his face, though his attention was raptly fixed.

Ron followed his gaze. It led to Hermione.

*~~~~~*

“Harry, this is beautiful!” Hermione exclaimed, as she stepped over the threshold of the flat he had picked out. He felt himself swell with pride at the obvious admiration in her voice.

“I thought you would like it,” he said, wondering for a moment at the slight shyness that had crept into his voice. Why on earth would he feel the need to be shy around Hermione?

“It's perfect!” she exclaimed, a lightness and animation to her that he had not had the occasion to see often. She moved down the narrow corridor to the three doors. “Which room is mine?”

“Either - any of them,” Harry stammered. “It's just that I - ”

Hermione reached the one that was situated snugly in the back corner of the flat, and flung wide the door, gaping as a fully furnished, magically enlarged suite met her gaze.

“ - I've already put my things in that one,” he finished lamely. She hesitated awkwardly on the threshold, and glanced warily back at him, as if she feared he'd fling her bodily from the room, but then stepped inside.

“It's lovely,” she said sincerely, as her eyes traveled over the expanse, a few built-in bookcases, an arrangement of particularly comfortable-looking chairs, a small wooden storage locker with a Gryffindor Quidditch pennant affixed to the front, and a rich wooden bedstead, covered in a navy spread, that dominated the center of the room.

Harry saw her gaze light on the bed, and felt a flush rise into his cheeks, unbidden.

“I - I liked the view,” he said, gesturing toward the windows, which were inset into both outer walls of the bedroom. She moved toward them, and he stepped behind her, leaning over her shoulder, as they viewed London, spread before them in a fairy-tale panorama of twinkling lights. He watched her lips part in appreciation, as she took in the city, and felt absurdly pleased at her delight.

“You - you can have this room, if you'd like. I'll - ”

But Hermione wasn't about to let him finish.

“Don't be ridiculous, Harry,” she said, waving one hand dismissively. “As if I'd kick you from your room.” Her eyes trailed over the furnishings once again, and she turned to face him fully, causing him to stumble backwards slightly at her sudden proximity. And suddenly, her gaze was on him sharply, suspicion darkening her brown irises. “You'd already furnished this room,” she said, dawning awareness blossoming onto her face. “You - you knew you were coming here, even before Ginny said anything, didn't you?”

Harry shoved his hands in his pockets, and lifted his shoulders in a shrug.

“I told you, Hermione,” he mumbled, somewhat unwillingly. “I need to get away. Ginny didn't do anything to change that.” She opened her mouth to speak, and he cut her off with a knowing look. “And, no, I didn't expect her to. Truthfully, I don't know if anyone could.”

It was his turn to look curiously at Hermione, as she seemed to wilt slightly before him.

“Would you have - if I hadn't come out in the garden, would you have left without saying anything to anyone? Without letting anyone know, letting anyone help, letting anyone in? Even Ron…or me?” She stopped, but read the truth in his face. “You really - you really would try to run away from - from all the people that… love you?” she asked softly, her eyes zig-zagging erratically across the room over the last couple of words.

Harry's eyes fastened raptly on her face, but she wouldn't look at him.

“What are you saying, Hermione?” he asked, trying to cup her chin and force her to look at him.

“What do you think I'm saying, Harry?” she snapped, knocking his arm away with irritation.

“I - I - ” he stammered, at a loss, afraid to give voice to the sudden rise of tension in the room, that threatened to suffocate him, intoxicate him, and bewilder him all at once. Hermione looked very small and almost vulnerable, framed by the window, her eyes large and dark and troubled, high color staining her cheeks. This is Hermione, for crying out loud, part of him shrieked. I'm not supposed to entertain such thoughts about her. “What about you and Ron?” he blurted, in an ungainly fashion.

Something like anger flashed in her eyes, even as her brows quirked in what might have been amusement.

“There hasn't been any `me and Ron' since last fall, Harry,” she said softly, not pretending to misunderstand him. “Honestly, I'm not sure that there ever really was.”

“But you - and - you and - the wedding…” Harry wanted to curse his sudden inability to string a subject and verb together in a coherent sentence.

She lifted a shoulder in a shrug, and leaned back against the window, half-sitting on the sill.

“We knew - after - after we started looking for the horcruxes, we knew it wasn't going to work. We figured it would be better if there was no beginning at all, rather than have it lead to a messy breakup and lots of awkward silence.”

There seemed to be plenty of the latter in the flat at the moment, Harry thought. Out loud, he said,

“Oh.”

The smothering feeling in the room had seemed to ease, but in reality, had narrowed and intensified into a single strand that connected them, trembling between them, an ethereal link that might snap at any moment, if either of them moved or spoke or breathed…

Hermione moved first, reaching out to touch his forearm with the tips of her fingers.

“Harry…” it was a shuddering exhalation.

He felt as if he were at the brink of a precipice, an undeniable surge of exhilarating fear welling up within him. Her fingers burned into his skin like a brand. He took a step toward her, where she sat, her back against the cool glass of the window, London sparkling in the ringlets of her hair.

He might not know what in the hell he was going to do with the rest of his life, but he knew one thing at that moment.

He was going to kiss Hermione Granger, and consequences be damned.

*~~~~~*

“Bloody hell,” Harry heard Ron say slowly, as if from a great distance.

“Ron,” he answered slowly, barely moving his mouth, and not removing his eyes from Hermione's profile. “Please tell me you did not know she'd be here.”

Ron rolled his eyes theatrically.

“How the hell would I know that?” he asked rhetorically. “I didn't even know we were coming here until Tonks said so, and besides - ” he broke off suddenly, and flushed red to his hairline.

“Besides what?” Harry asked suspiciously.

“I - I might have known that Hermione worked in the same department at St. Mungo's that Tabitha Ludlow did,” Ron admitted. “She introduced us once, over lunch. I swear I didn't think about it though. Never even entered my head that she might be here.”

Harry didn't respond, his face set like flint, his eyes bleak and self-recriminating. Hermione was in a slimly cut black sheath, with some kind of long, gauzy overdress, not unlike translucent robes, over it. She wore a strand of pearls around her neck, and stood in plain, dark Muggle pumps. Her hair was twisted into a chignon, from which a few wayward strands had escaped, and in her hand, she clutched an empty stemmed glass, as she nodded somberly at whatever her companion was saying.

“But say! Now that you're both here…” Ron began, in a voice that very nearly cracked with faux-cheerfulness.

Harry stepped closer to Ron, so that he could explain himself in no uncertain terms, without drawing any undue attention.

“I'll tell you what is going to happen, `now that we're both here',” Harry bit off the words with a grim and mirthless smile. “You are going to finish canvassing the wake, and I am going to leave…now. I'll be more than happy to go back to the Ministry, and start reviewing some of the files for the case. But I'll - I'll not stay here.” The anger seemed to leach slowly out of him, leaving him drained and worn. He was not angry with Ron - or even with Hermione, for that matter. He shook his head heavily. “I can't.”

Disappointment glimmered in Ron's eyes, where there had once flickered a hope for some kind of reconciliation between his two best friends.

“What in the hell happened, Harry?” It was not the first time for such a plea from Ron. “Why can't you - ?” He had never received the least inkling of an answer from Harry before, and didn't really expect one, but his best mate surprised him.

“We made a mistake, Ron. We thought - we thought - ”

Ron waited with baited breath, as Harry seemed poised on the cusp of a revelation, but he clammed up as suddenly as he'd spoken.

“And we were wrong,” he finished, and turned toward the French doors through which they'd come. When Ron looked back to Hermione, she had concluded her conversation, and was returning to the refreshment table on the verandah. Her face lit up suddenly in recognition, and she waved at him.

Ron tossed a guilty glance over his shoulder, even as he extended his hand to help Hermione up the shallow steps. There was a swirl of dark cloak and dark hair in the doorway - it could have been anyone - and then the space was empty.

“Hullo, Ron!” Hermione greeted cheerfully. “I gather you're here about the investigation?”

TBC

Thanks so much for the awesome response to the first chapter. Hope the story can continue to live up to expectations.

You may leave a review on your way out, if you like

lorien

-->

3. Burning Bridges

Bridges

Chapter Three: Burning Bridges

“What? Erm…yeah,” Ron replied to Hermione's query in a decidedly distracted way, flinching even as he tossed another precautionary look over his shoulder, and looking guilty when Hermione followed it. Her eyebrows crinkled quizzically, but she made no comment.

“Tabitha was a wonderful person,” she said quietly, her eyes seeming to look at something far away. “We - we used to joke that we had a lot in common with each other - both quiet Muggle-born bookworms. And Annemarie was the most beautiful child. I always - ” Her voice quavered slightly, and she stopped speaking, her eyes shimmering with tears.

Ron looked at her with undisguised curiosity.

“I didn't realize that the two of you were that close,” he said. Hermione pressed her lips together firmly, and tried to assume a matter-of-fact manner.

“We were friends,” was all she said in response.

They descended from the terrace and made a slow, meandering circuit around the pristine lawn. Ron made a covert log of who was attending by use of a specialized Auror spell that recorded images and stored them inside his wand core for later perusal. Harry would appreciate it, he thought ruefully, seeing as how it was not unlike Priori Incantatem.

Hermione had tucked her hand into Ron's elbow, but they walked mostly in silence, with Hermione occasionally stopping to speak to other St. Mungo's employees, obviously ones who had also known Tabitha Ludlow. From what he could see, Peter and Tabitha had both seemed to be both respected and genuinely well-liked. The general attitude of the gathering seemed to be that of commingled disbelief and sorrow.

He and Hermione had nearly arrived back at the verandah steps, when Hermione seemed to falter slightly in her stride, her fingers nearly pinching him through his robes. Without looking at her, he jerked his gaze in the direction of hers, not really realizing until an instant later that he had been expecting to see Harry himself.

Instead, he saw the formidable Ludlow matriarch, and he turned toward Hermione, without comprehension. Several emotions seemed to be warring in her face, and Ron thought for a moment that she was going to turn and bolt in the opposite direction. Then she rolled her eyes at herself, sighed slightly, and continued forward.

“Mrs. Ludlow,” she said, in a friendly way that somehow still seemed more flat that Ron was used to. “You have my heartfelt sympathies for your loss.”

“Miss Granger,” the elderly woman replied. The name rolled off her tongue regally, and yet Ron still got the impression that it had been spat into the silence between them. “I know Tabitha looked upon you as quite a good friend. Thank you for coming.” Her imperious gaze raked over Ron for an instant, and she moved on through the crowd. Ron felt Hermione all but sag against him in relief.

“What in the bloody hell was that all about?” Ron said, once Mrs. Ludlow was out of earshot.

“Isn't she awful?” Hermione murmured, out of one side of her mouth. “She never has liked me - too plebian and too Muggle for her tastes, I'd wager. She was awfully cruel to poor Tabitha too - she didn't fit the mold of who a Ludlow boy should marry.”

“Yeah, we thought that - ” Ron froze suddenly at his plural pronoun. Hermione looked at him sharply, but said only,

“Oh, is Laird here?”

“Who?” Ron asked blankly. Hermione's brows arched in amusement.

“Laird. McClanahan? Your partner?” She spoke more and more slowly at the obvious incomprehension on Ron's face.

“What? Oh no - well, I mean - he was here, but he left. He wasn't feeling well.” Ron wanted to cringe. He'd bloody well been an Auror in active service for nearly nine years, and he still couldn't lie worth a damn to Hermione's face. The glint in her eyes seemed to suggest that she knew that as well, but she said nothing.

He watched her nervously, as she spoke politely with two rather good-looking Healer blokes, watched as her lips parted around her white teeth in a subdued smile. One of them leaned down to whisper something into her ear, and her smile widened, but she shook her head apologetically.

“D'you remember Alan?” she asked him conversationally, as they began to move again.

“Alan?” he echoed stupidly. The chap hadn't even looked remotely familiar.

“I dated him for awhile back during the summer.” She looked at him oddly. “You really don't remember him at all?”

He shot her a look that meant, Hermione, why would I?

“You haven't dated anyone more than three or four times since you left Hogwarts,” he reminded her, sounding more caustic than he meant to, wanting to curse Harry for bailing out on him and leaving him to feel all guilty and flustered in front of his other best friend. This time, just one of Hermione's eyebrows arced upward - a dangerous sign.

“Yes, and you've certainly been the picture of monogamy,” she replied, acidly.

“We weren't talking about me,” he pointed out. “We were talking about you and - and Alan... or whatever his bloody name is. Why you expect me to keep up with whoever happens to be the bloody flavor of the week this go round, I have no idea.”

She withdrew her arm from his elbow, and actually took a half-step back away from him.

“Ronald Weasley,” she said, clearly furious, even as she tried to keep her voice at a discreet volume. “What on earth has gotten into you?”

“What did you do to Harry?” he blurted, and then wished he could bite off his own tongue, as his brain forced him to finish what he'd started by tacking on, “To - to make him leave, I mean?”

The look on Hermione's face was one he'd never seen before…and hoped to never see again. She looked almost apoplectic, shock and guilt in open warfare with fury and despair…and something else altogether that Ron couldn't quite pinpoint.

When she finally spoke, her voice was glacial.

“I didn't do anything to Harry,” she gritted out. “He was a grown man when he left - and he did so of his own accord.” Her shoulders and spine were rigid; her words seemed to leave an acrid taste in her mouth. “And why in God's name would you bring this up n - ” She stopped suddenly and fixed bright eyes on him, like a mongoose with a snake in its sights.

Ron felt his Adam's apple bob convulsively up and down in his throat. Oh shit….

“He's back…isn't he?” Her face went as sickly white as old milk so rapidly that Ron instinctively grabbed for her elbow. She did not wait for confirmation…or perhaps took his silence as such. “Oh, God, he is…and he was here, wasn't he? Not Laird.”

Ron felt like he had glued his jaws together with Hagrid's treacle tart.

“And he - he left when… when…” She looked at him with wide, limpid eyes, as though beseeching him to tell her some palatable lie. But he had finally recovered the power of speech, and found himself speaking only the bald and unvarnished truth.

“When he saw you.”

*~~~~~*

Harry had stood there for only a heartbeat of moments before moving close enough to Hermione to remove all doubt of his intent. Hermione looked up at him with wide, wary eyes that were nevertheless starry with desire, but said nothing. He could feel the radiant coolness from the window behind her contrasting with his skin which suddenly seemed too hot. He saw her lips part slightly.

“Hermione…” he finally almost growled, before his lips descended to claim hers. She seemed to meet him gladly, and something wonderful throbbed once in the pit of his stomach when her arms twined around his neck, as if to hold him in place, and her mouth opened beneath his to allow him entrance.

He felt as though something white-hot and luminescent was running through his veins like quicksilver; there was never anything as delectable and overwhelming as the feel of her softness against him, juxtaposed with the cool smooth glass of the window. Her hands moved from the back of his neck to his shoulders and the planes of his chest. He thought that he could die right now, plundering Hermione's mouth, and he would have considered his life complete.

But finally, she broke the kiss, moving away from him rapidly enough to cause her head to hit the window with a soft thunk.

“What's wrong?” he asked, somewhat alarmed, even as he thought, I've ruined it, haven't I? I've gone and moved where I had no right, and I've mucked everything up.

Hermione's lips were invitingly swollen, her dark eyes dilated so that they appeared even darker, and a tantalizing flush stained her cheeks. They were both breathing raggedly.

“What about - what about you and Ginny?”

Frustration threatened to lick through him, but he saw the expression on her face, the half-hopeful look of one who has received something one never expected, and thinks that it might be cruelly snatched away.

“Hermione…” he repeated her name again, this time tenderly. “There isn't - there is no `me and Ginny'. I told her so tonight… and I meant it.”

He rested both hands on her hips, and made as if to pull her back in alignment with him.

“Then - then what is this?” she asked, gesturing between them, still sounding somewhat breathless. He saw her eyes flicker over his shoulder, and knew that her gaze had been drawn again to the bed.

“I - I honestly don't know, Hermione,” he said, looking as deeply into her eyes as he could, wanting to imprint upon her the extent of his sincerity. “But I - you're one of the most important people in the world to me…and I - I - ” He couldn't finish, and looked away from her, abashed.

“You what?” she prodded gently, her breath warm on the side of his face. He wanted to tell her how long he had dreamed of doing this, of holding her this closely, but he didn't actually know. It seemed like something that had always lain dormant inside of him, and had sprung to life with the meeting of their lips. Besides, this was Hermione, and he definitely didn't want to mess up now and scare her away. Her friendship meant too much - she meant too much. He opted for the straightforward approach that she tended to favor, revealing at least that which he knew for certain to be true.

“Merlin help me, Hermione, I want you.” A blush of disbelieving delight spread over her face, and he took a moment to hate a world that had created such insecurity in someone as wonderful and singular as Hermione. Her hands lifted from her sides, and she splayed her fingers out, moving her palms over his abdomen and chest.

She looked into his fiery green eyes for a long moment, so that neither of them could mistake what she was about to say.

“I'm right here, Harry.”

*~~~~~*

When Ron found Harry, the latter was seated at Ron's desk, which had been partially excavated so that there was a place where he could prop his feet. Rolls of parchment and stacks of folders were strewn upon every conceivable flat surface, and Harry was leaned back in Ron's chair, reading one of these with apparent contentment.

Ron wanted to kill him. Or at least hex him back to the South Pacific. But then he would have to explain why, which would involve disclosing that Hermione now knew of Harry's return.

Ron was fairly certain that Harry's reaction to that would not be pleasant, even though Hermione would have probably found out in the next morning's Prophet anyway.

He didn't realize that he'd been standing in the doorway, glowering, probably for quite some time, until Harry said,

“What the hell's wrong with you?”

Ron mentally sorted through about a hundred different things he could say, finally settling on,

“I can't believe you just left me there.”

Harry rolled his eyes, and slid his feet off the desk with a noisy whump.

“Sweet Merlin, Ron, you sound seven years old.”

“It's Auror protocol to have two agents on - ”

“Ron, it was a wake, not the bust of a potions cartel.” Sarcasm dripped from Harry's words, and Ron could tell that, all appearances to the contrary, his mood was far from improved. “And now that you're back safely, and with all your parts apparently intact, perhaps we could get on with the case?”

“I'm not the one who fled the assignment all because of some bloody bird,” Ron retorted, but it fell flat. They both knew that Hermione was not and never would be just `any' woman. Harry's eyes darkened, and his expression grew shuttered.

“I'm sorry if my behavior didn't meet with the guidelines set up in the Ron Weasley Code of Ethics,” Harry responded, sounding every bit as icy as Hermione had. “I just wasn't ready to deal with that, okay?”

“Deal with what, Harry?” Ron burst out, losing all patience. “For Merlin's sake, you're both marching around like - it's been twelve years - and you're all… wrapped up in your bloody melodrama, because nobody is more stoic and despairing that the great Harry Potter, and I don't know if you want sympathy from me or what - but you know, Harry, I can't give it to you, because you won't bloody well let me in! Far be it from me to intrude on - what was it? Some bloody great epic romance? With Hermione?”

The bitter half-laugh died in Ron's throat as he saw the stricken look on Harry's face, and he wondered how on earth such a crippling liaison had happened between his two best friends without any sort of knowledge on his part at all.

*~~~~~*

Hermione's head was pillowed on Harry's bare chest, her hair fanned out behind her in snarled corkscrews. She felt the rise and fall of her resting place with his breathing gradually slow, as he came down from the heights that they had climbed together. There was a faint sheen of sweat along the length of his collarbone, and slowly, she traced her finger along it. She felt a vague sense of unease, of personal disquiet, the physical pleasure she'd experienced giving way beneath insecurity and emotional doubt. The silence seemed to yawn between them like a vast chasm, irrespective of the fact that they were lying curled together, unclothed.

His fingers played lightly against the smooth skin of her neck, where his arm had snaked around her bare shoulder, as he lightly brushed her curls out of his way. Hermione felt herself shift uncomfortably, almost reflexively, and his fingers stopped. She drew on everything she had not to move away from him, somehow knowing that he would handle that badly, but she thought that she had to speak, to say something, anything at all, or run shrieking from the room.

“Harry…” she drew the word out tentatively, stretching it out beyond its two brief syllables.

“Hmm?” he replied lazily, the hummed response vibrating beneath her head.

“That was - that was…” She unsuccessfully searched her prodigious vocabulary for words. It had been amazing, unbelievable, a feeling of completion and unity that she had never even let herself dream about, something that even her and Ron's slight foray into awkward groping had never come close to preparing her for. But she couldn't help remembering his brooding silences, his lost quality since the Battle, his own broken admission that he had no idea who he was - and she wondered how in the world they could translate that into a relationship - if that was even what he wanted at all.

“It was bloody fantastic,” he replied, jolting her from her tumultuous thoughts, as he filled in the blank she'd left behind, his voice languid with utter relaxation. She felt the tension in her shoulders relax at his words, an unbidden squirming sensation of abashed pleasure springing to life in her stomach as she realized that she had caused that, she had given him that - peace - if only for a moment.

She hummed a little laugh through her nose at his praise, and his arm tightened around her briefly. She felt the light caress of his lips in her hair, and she grew suddenly afraid that it was she who would be lost, she who would be the one to want too much, too soon, and that he would be unready - or incapable - of reciprocating.

What happens now? The air to power the words rushed from her lungs, flowed past her vocal cords, her lips and tongue and the arch of her mouth prepared to shape them… but she couldn't say them. Wasn't Ginny's pressure on him what had driven him into her arms to begin with? Wasn't he just stumbling around in the dark, looking for answers, direction, a new purpose?

I could be the one to give him that, she thought suddenly, a zealous fire awakening within her at a way to save Harry once again.

“Hermione?” This time Harry spoke, sounding as tentative and unsure as she had felt. The similarity further restored her uncertain spirit. She tilted her head toward him, her nose brushing his chin, as she moved onto his shoulder to better see his face. “I wanted to - there was something I - thank you… for this, I mean. I hope I haven't… that is, I didn't want to do anything that would - ” He sighed in frustration and half-laughed at himself. “I needed this, I think - and I appreciate it… more than you know.”

She wanted to lift her head from the crook of his shoulder and stare at him - let him see the mute horror reflect in her eyes at his words. Not `I love you', she had not expected that, not yet anyway - but a casual expression of gratitude? She had just helped him relieved the pressure - like a good wank?

“You're - you're welcome,” she finally managed to croak in a dry voice, and wanted to die from the irony. Of course, he hadn't really wanted her - hadn't really wanted anybody in particular - any warm body would have sufficed. If he didn't want Ginny, why in Merlin's name would he have wanted her? She had given herself to her best friend, to someone she had secretly desired from afar for years, and found she was of no more consequence than a receptacle for release.

But - but it helped him. It's good to help Harry, part of her continued to insist in a feeble little voice. Tears stung the backs of her eyelids, and she knew that she was going to be powerless to stop them - she didn't want Harry to see. In one fluid motion, without forethought, she sat up, and flung the covers back, reaching quickly for the first article of clothing to meet her questing hand - Harry's shirt.

“Hermione?” he asked, confusion disturbing the languor in his tone, as he retrieved his glasses from the table beside his bed.

She wouldn't look at him - couldn't look at him - afraid he would see everything she was thinking and feeling in her eyes.

“I'm thirsty,” she said, in as noncommittal a voice as she could muster. “Do you want anything?”

*~~~~~*

They made their way to the Archives in a stilted silence, both unwilling to venture near the awkward topic that Ron had broached. The basement chambers were remarkably well-kept and organized, everything neatly labeled and sorted away. Ron had been sneezing theatrically every so often, but Harry was nearly certain that there were Dust-Repelling charms in use. They had separated in the vast, dim space, and Harry found himself elbow-deep in St. Mungo's files, while Ron checked the Ministry's copies of the Hogwarts' registry for information on both Annemarie and her parents.

Harry began to grow impatient with the tedious task, as he thumbed through sheaves of parchment, periodically checking the last name on the page to see if he'd yet reached the L's of the year in question. His vision blurred behind the lenses of his glasses, and his head was beginning to throb.

Later, he would marvel that such a series of asinine occurrences would lead to his discovery.

Ron sneezed again, a veritable rafter-rattler, and Harry jumped, barking his elbow on the edge of the cabinet and grinding out a groan of pain. The stack of parchment tumbled to the floor in a disordered heap, as he swore wrathfully at his best mate.

“For the love of Merlin, Ron! Are you trying to kill me?”

Ron snuffled something that sounded like, “Allergies.” An instant later, Harry heard the sound of shuffling paper resume, and, muttering imprecations under his breath, knelt to recover the rolls of parchment that had gone flying.

He was peering at the corners of each page, and trying to restore them to some semblance of order, when Ron made a muffled exclamation from across the room.

“Oi, Harry! Check this out,” he called, and Harry heard the creaking of leather binding, as Ron made his way toward him with the heavy Hogwarts' registry. There was a thump, as Ron hefted the heavy volume onto a nearer countertop, and his voice suddenly became more distinct. “Hermio - I heard at the wake that Tabitha Ludlow was Muggle-born, and that Madam Ludlow was not very nice to her. All of the Ludlows that I've seen so far, Peter's father, grandfather, uncles, and three older brothers, were all sorted into Slytherin. Peter was in Ravenclaw. I bet it didn't go over too well with the family, when Peter started seeing a…”

But Harry was no longer listening, staring instead with blank disbelief and horror at a slightly rumpled section of parchment, clenched in his unheeding fist. He wasn't even sure what had made him look, but it had all but leapt from the page, as if someone had shouted the name.

Granger…

For a moment, it was as if the ink had been written in some kind of ancient, lost tongue, for all the sense he could make of it.

Granger, Hermione.

It could be anything, really, he thought frantically. Somehow, a file from Housing or Background Checks or somewhere had gotten mixed in with the Birth records. He blinked forcefully, and made himself look at the entry once again.

Mother: Granger, Hermione. Father: Not Given

How could this have happened, he wondered wildly. How could Ron not have told me that Hermione'd had a baby?

“Mate, are you even listening to me?” Ron asked him, peering over the edge of the heavy tome, and Harry barked a terse,

“No,” in reply, his mind wholly consumed with the concept that Hermione Granger had a life that he didn't know about, that - with another surreptitious glance in Ron's direction - maybe Ron was unknowing of as well.

“And Griselda Ludlow herself was in Slytherin as Griselda Blackthorne. Seems like I remember Mum telling me that the Blackthornes are a branch of the Black family that assimilated some hyphenated name or something - I'll bet we'd find some Malfoys back in their family tree too…. Harry? What's going on? `Dyou found something?”

Date of Birth: 04 March 1999

Harry's mind spun out into a skid again, as he frantically tried to crunch numbers in his head. March 1999 - he'd already been gone, albeit for less than a year. But it was the line bearing the child's name that knocked his entire world off of its axis.

Name of Infant: Granger, Lily Catherine

TBC

Hope everyone's enjoying this. It was really fun to write. More revelations to come!

You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.

lorien

-->

4. Bridging the Gap

Bridges

Chapter Four: Bridging the Gap

“Harry?” Ron's voice came again, nearer now, and his best mate of so many years stepped around the end of the shelving, behind which Harry still crouched, staring at the rumpled section of parchment. “You did find something on Annemarie, eh?” He didn't wait to let Harry respond. “I must say, I thought this was a random attack aimed at sending you some kind of message, but now - with Tabitha Ludlow being a Muggle-born marrying into an elite Pureblood line against their wishes, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we found out that the entire family had been targeted deliberately. What do you have?”

Slowly, Harry dragged his eyes from the incriminating paper - Granger, Lily Catherine seemed permanently seared behind his eyelids - as if his gaze weighed several tons. He looked at Ron without comprehension, without recognition, total blank nothingness in his stare.

Ron shifted his weight from foot to foot, eying Harry warily, as if he might spontaneously burst into flames.

“Harry…?” He said again, very tentatively. “You - you all right, mate?”

It can't be mine - she can't be mine, Harry's mind was reeling, pinwheeling away from the truth, refusing to see it, not for what it was itself, but for what it inherently implied. The dates were right; it might explain why Hermione had not attempted to contact him since he'd been gone. But she couldn't - she couldn't hate me like that, could she? If the baby were mine, why wouldn't she tell me? But if it weren't mine, why would she name her Lily? The pain of the emotional wound was great, as if he'd sustained a sledgehammer blow to the chest, and he sucked in a noisy gasp, as if he'd just remembered that he wasn't breathing; the sound startled both men. Vaguely, Harry registered that Ron was speaking again.

“Ron,” he interrupted, and was pleasantly surprised at how normal his voice sounded. “Did Tonks give me clearance for records duplication?”

“Sure, mate,” Ron replied slowly, cutting a sideways glance at him that assured Harry that Ron was still well aware of his bizarre behavior. “It was given when your temporary assignment here came through.” A heavy pause pulsed through the silent Archive room.

He leaned closer to Harry, who instinctively pressed the life-altering scrap of parchment to his chest. Ron gave him an odd look, and tried to laugh it off, but was clearly befuddled at the way Harry was acting.

“It's - it's not about Annemarie,” he explained, by way of defending the motion away from Ron. “It's… nothing to do with the case at all, actually. I was just wondering… about the duplication, I mean.” He gestured expansively at the messy floor with his free hand, the one that was not clutching the incriminating paper, indicating the snarled scrolls that lay scattered hither and yon. “I - I haven't found the records for Annemarie yet.”

Ron was still looking at him suspiciously, clearly not mollified by his stammered explanation, clearly wondering about the parchment Harry held, which he claimed to be innocuous.

“Right then,” he said slowly. “I'm going to start going through the Genealogy Records. I want to see how far back this Ludlow line goes, and what other elite families it connects with. The purity of the line could be enough to kill for - and you should've seen the way that Ludlow woman sneered at Herm - well, it's obvious enough that she's got no love lost for Muggle-borns.”

“Would she really take out her flesh and blood? Her own granddaughter, her son?” Harry surprised them both by speaking aloud. I have a daughter, I have a daughter - his own situation was definitively stamping its image onto the case they were currently investigating.

Ron shrugged expansively.

“I dunno,” he replied. “But you saw her, Harry. Cold-hearted harpy, if there ever was one.”

Harry made himself move again, scrabbling woodenly in the piles of paperwork with disinterested fingers. Ron ambled back to the end of the aisle, the presence of something he didn't understand in the least looming up over Harry like a tangible cloud. He chucked a thumb over his shoulder.

“I'll just be over - ” he began, when Harry blurted,

“Ron!” and stopped.

“Yeah?” the redhead asked, when no additional conversation was forthcoming. Harry appeared to be rather surprised that he'd spoken at all.

“Is - is Hermione…is she married or - or serious … with anyone, at all?” The trembling of his voice and the audible rattling of the parchment he held completely overthrew the casual air he half-heartedly attempted. Ron squinted at him, as if a spell had suddenly rendered him near-sighted.

“No, she's not. `S one of the reasons she got pissed off at me today,” he added brightly, hoping to lighten his friend's mood. “Seems she objected to my use of the phrase `flavor of the week'.” He waited for Harry to smile, to appreciate the fact that Hermione was not serious about anyone, but there was no change in his expression.

“She - she doesn't still live at the flat, does she?” he asked, in almost a monotone. The return address on Ron's post had changed at least twice in the dozen years he'd been gone. For reasons unknown even to himself, he had continued to pay rent on the flat, but he didn't really expect that Hermione still lived there.

“No…er…no, she got a smaller place - closer to St. Mungo's, after she got back from her internship on the Continent.” Ron scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. This line of questioning wasn't as random as it seemed, and it certainly hadn't started because Harry suddenly felt in the mood to discuss Hermione. His eyes flicked back to the paper Harry held.

Harry for his part sighed angrily at Ron's words. Ah, yes, he thought, that damned internship. He had soothed himself for about two years by blaming that particular opportunity for the destruction of the fledgling relationship, but knew in the deepest part of his soul that that was not the case.

“You…still see her often? Go to her place?” he continued, the words dragging out of him against their will.

“Sure…sure,” Ron said, trying to force amiability and normalcy into his voice. “She comes to the Burrow some weekends for lunch… and we get together- Fred, George, some of the old Gryffindor gang - about once a month or so for dinner and drinks, sometimes at her place or mine, or a restaurant or pub… Harry, will you please tell me what the hell you're on about?”

Harry looked at Ron with a baffled, yet wounded expression. He was trying to reconcile two seemingly incongruous facts with each other - Ron was still close to Hermione, but Ron had no idea that Hermione had a child. He couldn't fathom the possibility that Ron had withheld something like this from him, even if their best mate hadn't known of their dalliance. If Harry found out that Ron had known… well, he'd be on the next Floo back to Australia, Annemarie Ludlow or no. He tried not to think of the pale, brutalized, scarred little girl in the bed at St. Mungo's.

He swallowed hard and actually shut his eyes, as he extended his arm toward Ron, displaying the parchment to him.

The ensuing silence grew so lengthy and deafening that Harry finally risked a peek, and found Ron staring at the paper with as dumbfounded a look as Harry had ever seen on his face.

“That's - that's gotta be a mistake,” was the first thing out of Ron's mouth, even though they both knew it wasn't. “Some kind of mix-up…even - even a blatant falsification, although I dunno why anyone would do such a … she - she…” He trailed off, and looked helplessly at Harry.

“So… so you didn't know?” Harry pressed, wanting to hear it from Ron himself.

“No. Harry, no. I swear I had no idea. She never even - I don't see how she could have kept it from me - from our friends… she wasn't - ” he stopped suddenly, and scrutinized the entry more closely. Dawning awareness lit his eyes and blossomed in his cheeks.

“Sweet Merlin, Harry… is it - is she yours?”

“Looks like,” was the sullen reply.

Ron gaped at him in horrified sympathy, wanting to reach out and clap him on the shoulder, but slightly wary of doing so, wondering what else he didn't know about his two best friends, wondering how these two had morphed into apparent strangers.

“If this - 4 March… that's not very long after she came back from her internship,” Ron mused, thinking aloud. “One of her first days back was my birthday. I remember it being really awkward - probably one of the only times she asked about you. She - she could have cloaked her p - pregnancy for that long, I reckon,” Ron shook his head, as if the whole thing were too incredible to be believed.

Harry was still in his crouched position, sunken on the floor, finally having become aware of the ache in his knees. She came home to have the baby. She came home to have the baby, but still didn't tell me, didn't tell anyone. He wondered what had become of the child, but if Ron was aware of no such person, he figured Hermione had to have put her up for adoption.

The bitterness was acute and painful. Harry felt it stoke its hands in the fires of his righteous indignation and rise up like bile in his throat. With one quick, tersely spoken spell, he had duplicated the entry marking Lily Granger's birth, and stood fluidly to his feet, sloppily folding the new copy and shoving it in his pocket.

He spoke roughly to Ron, biting off the words as if they tasted foully in his mouth.

“Where does she live?”

*~~~~~*

Hermione padded into the nearly empty kitchen, her bare feet slapping smoothly against the linoleum. There was a refrigerator, charmed to stay cool, rather than powered by electricity. Opening the door revealed a full carafe of pumpkin juice, and absolutely nothing else.

Retrieving the juice, she looked askance at the array of cabinets, wondering if there were any glasses to be had. Her search yielded exactly one, and she used a simple Duplication charm to create its twin. She wasn't sure whether this evidence encouraged or further disheartened her. Harry had clearly not been planning on entertaining anyone tonight. She didn't even know when he'd managed to supply what sparse furnishings there were.

She sighed slightly, filled both glasses to the brim, and headed back to the corner bedroom.

Harry had had the growing impression, ever since Hermione had all but leapt from the bed and fled the room, that something was not quite right, and the thought filled him with dread. He had certainly not planned this, but - but maybe they could work something out. There was surely no one as precious or important to him as Hermione - though he shied skittishly away from the word `love' -- and there was obviously mutual attraction between them. He wanted her - and she had wanted him - but there was something else there as well, something deeper. His brow crinkled as he tried to determine exactly what it was.

The shrill little instinct to flee still wailed its klaxon call in his head, but now a soberer, more rational voice added that perhaps Hermione could accompany him on his search, perhaps she was the one who could help a bloke find the answers he sought. He felt his heart rate accelerate as he thought of the smoky, unfocused look in her eyes, when he had lifted her into his arms and carried her over to the bed, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath her half-open blouse.

He tucked his arms behind his head and smiled at the ceiling, thinking of deserted and exotic tropical locales, where he and Hermione might as well be the only people in the world. He had been mulling over the idea of an extended vacation for quite some time - since the battle had ended, really -- thinking that it would serve the two-fold purpose of getting him away from the slavering, obsessive wolves of the wizarding media and give him the alone time and the personal freedom that he had never had the chance to experience before. The Dursleys had certainly never taken him anywhere on holiday, and his life in the wizarding world thus far had chiefly been concerned with staying alive.

Hermione was certainly in need of time away as much as the next person; he knew that better than anybody. He rather reluctantly supposed that Ron could accompany them as well, though their other best mate had more of a support system already in place than either of them did.

A niggling fear trickled like icy water down his spine, as he thought of what had scared him so badly at the Burrow. Hermione has put her entire life on hold for me up until now; what if she wants to keep her distance, fulfill her own dreams? What if there was no place for him in this new world? But then he thought again of Hermione's warm, lithe limbs wrapped around him, the look on her face when he had advanced on her to kiss her - those weren't the actions of someone who didn't want to be involved, were they? He wanted to know, and yet, at the same time, didn't want to know - thinking that the uncertainty was preferable to knowing that she didn't want the same things he wanted.

Harry jumped as guiltily as if he'd been speaking his thoughts aloud, when Hermione reentered the room, holding two juices aloft. She proffered him one, and he took it, with thanks, watching her warily to see what she was going to do next.

She walked around the foot of the bed, and sat in the spot she'd only recently vacated, pulling the sheet up into her lap, and sipping on the drink. When she'd dispatched half the juice, she reached across him to set her cup on the table, and then curled up into his side, tucking her knees up into the oversized shirt. He finished his drink, set it aside, and wrapped both arms around her, laying his cheek atop her head, and closing his eyes in utter contentment.

Why can't it always stay this way? Part of him wondered.

Who said it has to change? Another inner voice replied. Harry felt sure that Hermione had to have heard the thundering of his heart. He opened his mouth to say something, although he wasn't really sure what.

Say, Hermione - I don't know about you, but I certainly had fun a few moments ago, and I rather think I'd like to do that again. We seem to get along well together, and we already know all of our bad habits, so what say we see where this whole thing is headed? His shoulders scrunched up in a cringe, as he mentally shook his head. He'd be lucky if he wasn't pulling his wand out of his arse after something like that - it sounded like something Ron might say.

“Harry?” Hermione interrupted his inner castigation by speaking his name in a questioning tone. He turned his head to look at her; her face was very close, and why hadn't he ever noticed how long and dark her eyelashes were?

“We should conjure up a mattress and bedding to put in the corner,” she said, and he stared at her, unable to comprehend the purpose of her non sequitur.

“What?” he finally said, stupidly.

“Well, Ron's probably going to come over in the morning, and do you really want him to know that we - we slept together?”

Why not? Part of Harry wanted to retort, some primitive side of him wanting to beat his chest and proclaim his sexual prowess from the rooftops. Instead, he said,

“Ron doesn't know where we - oh…” He stopped in mid-stream of his denial, as Hermione wiggled her fingers in front of him, and he dropped his gaze to the silver band on his right hand as well. Each of the Trio had one, a silver ring, unadorned except for a small series of runes, enabling them to locate and Apparate directly to either of the others. Hermione had fashioned them during the horcrux hunt. “All right, then,” he conceded her point, and reached for his wand, transfiguring a book into a mattress, which he directed to the floor by the desk, and his pillowcase into linens, which he tossed haphazardly in the general direction of the makeshift bed.

Hermione rolled her eyes at him fondly, and murmured a spell that pristinely made the little bed, complete with one corner of the sheet turned back. Harry felt disappointment - and something else he couldn't pinpoint - roil through his gut like a wave of nausea.

“Well,” he mumbled, swinging his legs over the side, and bracing his hands on the mattress to push himself up, “G'night then, Hermione…”

His feet had barely touched the polished wooden floor, when he felt an insistent hand on his elbow. He looked back into a pair of gently amused brown eyes.

“I just said we should conjure up a mattress - not that you should actually sleep on it,” she teased softly, as she tugged him down into the bed with her.

“You want me to stay?” he asked, sounded rather more surprised than he meant to. Uncertainty flickered in her luminous gaze.

“Only if you want to…” she hedged, tucking the edge of her bottom lip between her teeth. He could see her pulse beating in the column of her neck, and he scooted down under the covers alongside her, until his face was mere centimeters from hers.

“Do you want me to stay?” he enunciated carefully, not taking his eyes off of her face. He had to know for certain; he had to hear it from her.

Wordlessly, she nodded, as entranced with him as he seemed to be with her. One long bare thigh slid between his legs.

“Nox,” they murmured in unison, against each other's mouths.

*~~~~~*

Harry was so overwrought that he nearly fell upon Apparation onto the dead-end side street in Hermione's neighborhood to which Ron had somewhat unwillingly directed him. He had vanished practically before Ron finished speaking. Ignoring the wrench in his ankle, as he struggled to stay on his feet and then pivoted toward the main road, he used long ground-eating strides to close the distance between himself and the building where she lived.

There was a crack behind him, but he ignored it. However, he could not shrug off the firm grip that closed around his arm and shoulder, as Ron's longer-legged gait caught up to him.

“Ron, I swear to Merlin, if you don't let me go, I'll - ” he spun around, jerking his arm away from his mate, but the threat remained unspoken on his lips.

“Harry, come on! Just - just let's not go off half-cocked, all right? Have you thought about what you're going to say to her? Just going to shove that piece of paper in her face, are you? You haven't seen her in twelve years. You - you don't know what she's been through… evidently nobody does, but there - there has to be a reason...” It was Hermione, Ron seemed to be saying; she wouldn't ever do anything without a reason.

“If she had told me - if she had said one word… I'd have been there, Ron. In half a second.” Harry's voice vibrated with what seemed to be anger, but there were guilt, despair, regret, and longing all present as well.

“Harry, I know,” Ron said meaningfully. “I don't know why things went south between you two, and I certainly don't know why - or how - Hermione kept this from everybody, but the fact is that you can't change what happened. You can only decide what you're going to do now.”

Harry eyed Ron sideways with a kind of sullen admiration.

“I'd hate to think that you're the most mature of the three of us now,” he muttered, with a grudging half-smile.

“I've known it for years,” Ron replied, thumbing his robes with mock pomposity.

Harry ran his hands through his dark hair, and walked in a small circle, seemingly lost in his own turmoil. After a moment, he took a deep breath, and looked up at Ron.

“I've got to see her,” he finally said. “I can't say I really want to, and I'm not sure what I'm going to say to her, but I - I promise I'll keep control of myself, Ron. You have my word.”

Ron nodded at him, the words, Remember she's my best friend too, not even needing to be spoken.

“You want me to come with?” he asked, sounding uncharacteristically gentle.

“No - no, but thanks anyway, mate. This is something that's been a long time coming, I reckon. I need to do it on my own.” He couldn't believe that the mere thought of facing her again turned his insides into water. His palms were clammy, and he wiped his damp hands on his robes.

Ron took two or three steps backwards, and shoved his hands into his pockets, head bobbing up and down in a nod, as he strove for something meaningful to say.

“Guess I'll … head back to the Ministry, keep going over those records. We are supposed to be working a case, you know.” It was a gently thrown jab, and Harry took it in kind.

“Thanks, Ron,” he said sincerely. “I'll - I'm sure it'll be a short meeting.” His voice was flat and held no expectations. Ron found it vaguely depressing.

Harry turned away from him and strode toward Hermione's building with all the swift rigidity of someone who knows a painful event is coming and wants only to get it over with. He did not turn when Ron Disapparated.

As he entered the building and climbed to the fifth floor, it felt as if the slight weight of the parchment in his pocket had increased a hundredfold.

Granger, Lily Catherine. Granger, Lily Catherine. It seemed to throb in his brain in sync with his pulse. Where was she? Why hadn't Hermione told him? He'd thought she'd known how he felt about family. Hadn't he made his envy of the Weasleys abundantly clear?

His stomach churned uneasily as he faced the door marked 5-C. Belatedly, he realized that he had no idea if she was even home. His arm rose stiffly, as if under power other than his own, his hand closed into a fist, and rapped lightly at the door.

His hope - or maybe it was fear - that she might be out was crushed when he heard movement beyond the door; the handle rattled, and the door eased open.

And there she was, still in the black sheath she'd worn at the wake, but in her stocking feet. She was thinner than he remembered, and there were the faintest beginnings of lines at the corners of her eyes. A couple of wayward locks of hair had escaped her chignon to frame her face. She was looking at him with unadulterated alarm that did not exactly extend to surprise, though she did remember to finally force her mouth upward in a plastic smile.

“H - Harry,” she struggled to sound natural, but her voice rang high and false. He could tell that she was far from pleased to see him. “Whatever brings you here?”

“I'm back in England on temporary assignment.” He couldn't keep slight emphasis off the word `temporary'. His voice sounded much more polite than his stony face indicated. “And I think it's high time we talked.”

TBC

Wow! The response to chapter 3 was awesome. I'm so glad people are reading the story and are intrigued by it. It definitely makes it easier to churn out another chapter, when there are so many people waiting for it!

Hope you enjoy this one as well. You may leave a review on your way out, if you like!

lorien

-->

5. To Bridge the Great Divide

Bridges

Chapter Five: To Bridge the Great Divide

Harry saw Hermione's hand flex on the door handle, fingers fluttering ever so slightly, as if her muscles were already imagining what it would feel like to shove the door shut right in his face. She was debating whether or not she was even going to let him in, he realized. Her clear gaze on him faltered, and she swung the door wide, even as she said,

“I can't imagine what we'd have to talk about - after all these years.”

“We were friends for a long time, Hermione. Surely we could think of something,” Harry suggested, his tone falsely cheerful, while his eyes remained distant and remote, chips of glacial ice.

Hermione turned her back on him, and led him into the small, cozy living room of the flat. A small leather sofa was squashed into one corner, with a tall lamp on a stand behind it and a overstuffed chair opposite. Most of the rest of the space was taken up by multiple bookshelves, filled to capacity - and then some - with a variety of titles.

“Nice place,” he commented with studied indifference. He could see her shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath, as she tried to hang on to her composure. Anger battered him, and threatened to knock him from his feet like the sucking trough of a wave, as he struggled with a sudden desire to do exactly what Ron had mentioned: shove the bloody birth record into her face and demand answers.

“Thank you,” she replied, the words utterly meaningless, proceeding from her mouth mechanically and without an ounce of emotion. The silence stretched and filled every nook and cranny of the flat, seeming to gain actual mass and presence, as if there were a third party privy to the painful face-to-face meeting.

Harry felt his blood pressure rising with the extended stillness, and he simultaneously ran one hand through his hair and jammed the other in his pockets, the crackle of the parchment seeming to resound off of Hermione's walls. His hand slid against it, sweat-slick with nerves, and he finally burst out,

“Dammit, Hermione!”

She looked at him with carefully manufactured surprise, arching her brows delicately, as if she could not understand why he was making such an outburst.

“As I recall, you said that you felt we needed to talk,” she said coolly, erecting figurative barriers between them with her overly precise pronunciation. “So…talk.”

He sighed noisily, looking at a loss for words. He didn't know where to begin.

“I'm - I was called in from Australia on a case,” he said, almost disinterestedly. “The attack on Annemarie Ludlow?”

There was a sheen of emotion in Hermione's eyes, as she nodded.

“I spoke with Ron at the wake,” she offered, sounding nearly normal. “Annemarie's mother and I worked at St. Mungo's together.”

“They - they called me back because the girl was found with a - a lightning bolt carved into her face.” He darted a look at Hermione, and found the expected horrified sympathy there. He noted that it made him feel slightly better; he could always count on Hermione to understand, if nothing else - she had always been able to discern just what it felt like to be Harry Potter, trampled upon by notoriety for which he had not asked or sought.

Granger, Lily Catherine bludgeoned him behind the eyes again. If Hermione was so bloody understanding and compassionate, then how the hell was he supposed to reconcile the events of the last decade or more?

“Death Eaters, then?” she spoke with a kind of calm assurance. “Remnants of those who followed Voldemort?”

Harry shrugged a noncommittal kind of agreement with one shoulder.

“'Swhat we thought at first - but we - we were down in Archives, researching her family…” The words stuck awkwardly in his throat, and he had difficulty forcing them out. The birth record seemed to be shouting its existence from the depths of his robes. “And being as how Tabitha Ludlow was a Muggle-born who married into a elite pureblood family, Ron thinks that it mayn't have had anything to do with me at all, except because - except as - ”

“A figurehead,” Hermione filled in for him. She was sitting nervously in the plump leather chair, perched on the very edge with most of her balance still forward on her feet, as if to permit quick and easy flight, should the situation come to require it. “The most famous Half-blood to destroy everything purebloods ever stood for.” Murky and troubled emotion shadowed her dark eyes. She wiped the palms of her hands in her lap, as if she'd touched something slimy, and pursed her lips. “You didn't come here to discuss your case, Harry.”

“No, I didn't,” he said, fixing his green gaze unwaveringly on her, admitting the truth easily.

She waited for a moment, and then exhaled in frustration when she saw that he was going to make her ask the thousand-galleon question.

“Then why are you here?”

“I told you why,” he answered her, thankful that his voice remained even. Part of him rejoiced at the frustration building up in her eyes and posture, perversely enjoying her discomfort, as one who is miserable loves the companionship of others in a similar state. “We need to talk.”

Hermione actually let herself lean back in the chair, crossing her arms over her chest, and staring pointedly at Harry, her expression the very picture of defiance. He would not make her ask again.

“The first thing I thought when I saw Miss Ludlow bruised and unconscious in her hospital bed with her face disfigured like that was, `Thank Merlin I have no children',” Harry said, his voice trembling only slightly, as he tried to sound nonchalant. His heart felt like it was going to beat its way out of his chest, or perhaps merely explode. “Can you imagine,” he continued, “what Death Eaters bent on making a statement could think to do to a child of Harry Potter himself? But luckily, you were able to make it clear how you really felt about me, and we never had to worry about that, did we? I suppose, on some level, I should be grateful to you.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and stood up.

“This is all very dramatic and passive-aggressive of you, Harry. And I'm truly sorry that some little girl's terrible personal tragedy has brought our entire pathetic saga back into the forefront of your mind, but I have no inclination to listen to whatever has festered in your brain about me for the last twelve years.” She moved toward the door, clearly planning on throwing him out.

Harry felt as if his jaw would swing open on a hinge. He was sitting in her living room, all but calling her out about their baby, and she still wasn't going to admit it. Deciding to abandon subtlety altogether, he pulled the folded parchment, now slightly worse for the wear, from the confines of his pocket and waved it in her general direction.

“At one time, I would've thought that I knew Hermione Granger better than anyone else knew her, and better than I knew anyone else on this planet,” he said, and the false friendliness had fled his tone; it sounded granite-hard and sharp as whetted knives. “Imagine my surprise down in Archives, when I - completely by accident, you understand - found out that all of that was a lie.”

He watched her, half-triumphant and fearful, half-sickened with anger and regret, as her eyes moved back and forth over the inked words on the parchment. He watched the color drain away from her face. She looked at him, eyes wide with shame and sorrow, and said nothing.

“Is she mine?” he asked.

“Harry - ” she began, though her voice was the barest of squeaks.

“Is she mine?”

And he knew the answer, he knew the answer, but when she softly replied in the affirmative without looking at him, it still felt like a sucker punch that drove all the air from his lungs and sent him all but reeling to his knees. There was a little girl, somewhere, who was half him, and he didn't know her, and perhaps she was wondering why her parents hadn't wanted her, and - he had never felt such rage against Hermione - Hermione, the person who had, at one time, inspired the purest and most positive emotions in him - in his life.

*~~~~~*

“Oi!” came Ron's voice, echoing down the hallway from the large and still empty living room. “Oi, is anyone here?”

Hermione stirred sleepily in Harry's arms, and then sprang frantically from them, her eyes wide with alarm and realization.

“Harry,” she hissed, elbowing him none too gently in the ribs. “Harry, wake up! Ron's already here!”

“What?” Harry mumbled, as he struggled to come fully awake. “Why in the hell did he have to pick today to become an early riser?”

Hermione flung a frenzied glance at her watch, as she threw Harry's shirt back over her head, and looked wildly around for her knickers.

“It's not early, Harry. It's half-ten!”

There were footfalls in the corridor. Harry had thrown on his boxers, and Hermione was hurrying on bare feet, clothes hastily piled in her arms, to the small mattress on the floor.

Harry made a dissenting noise, and Hermione looked back at him questioningly.

“Ron would never believe that I'd make you sleep on the floor. Get back in the bed.”

Hermione appeared to concede his point, and they quickly switched places, tucking themselves into separate beds, as if Ron had newly roused them.

“We're in here, Ron! The room in the back - `sthe only one with furniture in it.” Harry called, hoping that his voice didn't crack mid-sentence. “'Fraid you've caught us having a bit of a lie-in.” In a softer voice, he said to Hermione, “I dunno why we can't just tell Ron the truth - don't you think he's grown up enough to handle it? It's been ages since you and he … anyway.”

“And what is the truth, Harry?” Hermione asked quietly, watching him from the bed with large, dark eyes. “What are we?” The question tumbled from her lips, unbidden, and inwardly, she winced, but Harry didn't get the chance to answer, because another voice sang out cheerily,

“A lie-in? On a day like today? Mum's sent us over with brunch, and I think she cooked everything in the house.”

Hermione and Harry exchanged glances, and Harry let his eyes slowly slide shut in ambivalent exasperation.

Ron's little sister had apparently decided to accompany him.

“Camping out together, just like the horcrux days, eh?” Ron said jovially, as he swung the door wide and then whistled low under his breath when he took in the nicely appointed room. “Only…not. This is great, Harry! Which room's mine?”

“Whichever one you want - if Hermione hasn't already claimed it, that is,” Harry replied, scrunching down under the sheets, and trying to act unconcerned at the sight of Ginny's vivid head striving to peer over her brother's shoulder.

“Well,” Hermione said briskly, Summoning her jeans from where she'd hastily draped them over a chair, and folding them neatly across her sheet-covered lap. “Now that you've properly shamed us, Ron, let us get dressed, and try to do something productive with what's left of the morning.”

“Productive…” Ron all but groaned, rolling his eyes theatrically. “Right, of course.”

Ginny took the opportunity to thrust a basket through the door beneath Ron's arm.

“Mum's sent breakfast,” she offered, as several tantalizing aromas drifted into the room. Harry's stomach gurgled audibly, and the Weasleys laughed. Hermione caught Harry's suspicious glance at Ginny, as he obviously wondered at her casual and cheery outlook, given the words they had exchanged the night before.

“See what happens when you sleep all day,” Ron teased. “You miss out on food!”

Harry and Hermione exchanged surreptitious looks, each privately thinking that it was the activity engaged in while not sleeping that had caused Harry's hunger.

“Ron's guide to a perfect day,” Ginny sighed, with long-suffering good humor. “A kip and enough food for an army.” She turned away from the door, calling back over her shoulder, “Don't be long. I'm not sure how long Ron can be put off!”

*~~~~~*

“Where is she?” Harry asked, the raw pain in his voice enough to make Hermione flinch visibly. She couldn't look at him, her gaze fixed on her interwoven fingers, suspended over the backdrop of her stockinged toes, looking for all the world like a Petrified version of herself. She didn't not immediately respond, her lips trembling and tears standing like diamonds in her eyes. “Holy hell, Hermione,” he said in utter frustration. “Did you really think you could keep her from me? Did you think I wouldn't care what you did or where she is? She's my daughter, and I - if I can't be in her life on a regular basis, I at least want to see for myself that she's well… and - and happy.”

“She's dead!” Hermione burst out suddenly, overlapping his last words, her statement overly loud in the quiet flat. The incriminating word sounded like it had propelled itself between her teeth and landed in the middle of the room with a half-sob.

“What?” Harry asked, very carefully, willing himself to have heard wrong. Hermione was wringing her hands.

“She - she died. Harry, oh God - she - she was only a few hours old… there - there was some kind of - it was a congenital heart condition - not even magic… there was nothing anyone could do.”

Stunned, Harry dropped his eyes to the wrinkled parchment again, as if to look for some newly appeared Date of Death, of which he had hitherto been unaware.

“Death Records are filed separately,” Hermione murmured distractedly, her hand lifting automatically to dash away the tears that began to overspill their bounds.

Harry didn't know what to say, as his fingers lost their grip on the birth record, and the parchment fluttered lazily to the floor. His anger had been squelched like a snuffed candle, and he felt only a gnawing emptiness in his gut, the hollow feeling that he had been irrevocably cheated of something, and hadn't even realized it until now, which somehow made it all worse.

“Why - ” he said, hoarsely, his voice all but giving out on him. He had to clear his throat and start again. “Why didn't you tell me, Hermione? For the love of Merlin, why?”

“I didn't - I didn't tell anybody, except Mum - she was with me, but I - I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone else …and then - then she died, and it - it hurt too much to tell anybody, and it - it was just so much easier to pretend she - she never… existed…at all…” Her voice dwindled to a whisper. “I shouldn't have come back - I should've known someone would find out eventually… but I wanted my mother.” More tears left slick tracks down her face, and she wiped at them with a magicked hanky that she'd procured from somewhere.

“That's not what I asked, Hermione,” Harry said, his voice rough, but no longer heated with emotion. “Why didn't you tell me? I would've come - in a heartbeat, an instant.” He reached out as if to touch her, beseeching her to believe him, but stopped abruptly, and tucked his hands behind his back.

“Does it really matter now?” Hermione asked, in a shell of a voice, looking newly ravaged by the old grief.

“Hell, yes, it matters!” Harry burst out in frustration again. “We could've - we - we might have - ” He couldn't articulate the bitterness of dreams that had trickled between his fingers like fine granules of sand, before he'd even realized they were out of reach and that it was forever.

“Your presence there wouldn't have saved her,” Hermione pointed out mechanically, beginning to recover her poise, and Harry suddenly wanted to break something, to release the acrid energy building in his soul by flinging a vase across the room and listening to it smash.

“But things might have been different afterward,” he said stubbornly, even as Hermione was shaking her head.

“If - if you wanted things to be different, then why did you leave?” Her chin wobbled, and she was on the verge of losing her iron-willed control again.

“If you wanted me to stay, why did you let me go?” he countered.

Hermione balled the handkerchief up in one fist, and flung her hands up into the air angrily.

“Good God, Harry! I'm not your mother! You are perfectly capable of making your own decisions! If you wanted to stay, you could have stayed. You didn't. It's as simple as that.”

“I came back,” he blurted quietly, and her lips parted over her teeth in surprise. “I wanted you to come with me. I wanted you to want me to stay. And I came back not an hour later, but you were already bloody well gone.”

He could tell by the blank look on her face that she'd had no idea he'd returned after their last conversation. He felt a bitter smile twist itself onto his face.

“I was too late then. And I guess it's too late to change anything now. I'm truly sorry, Hermione,” he said, and, unable to bear any more, turned on his heel, swiftly exiting her little flat.

*~~~~~*

Hermione finally ventured into their kitchen, newly showered, changed into her clothing, which had been hit with a particularly well-done Refreshing charm, and her hair twisted into a damp knot on top of her head. Ginny was bustling around, muttering about the general lack of anything useful in the kitchen, and she flicked her eyes over as Hermione entered.

“Where's Ron?” The older girl asked. Softly, toward the rear of the flat, she could hear the water running as Harry showered.

“He's gotten you hooked into the Floo network - don't worry, it's well warded,” Ginny answered, tacking on the last phrase at Hermione's look of concern. “He went back home to get some dishes and things.” She reached into the obviously charmed basket, her upper torso all but disappearing inside it, and pulled some more containers out, stacking them onto the countertop with precise thwacks.

Hermione shifted uneasily, feeling the cool linoleum under her bare feet, and absent-mindedly chewed at a fingernail. She didn't really know what to say to Ginny.

“So, how are you doing today?” she finally asked awkwardly.

Ginny slanted a cool, knowing glance at her.

“You mean, since Harry dumped me and you slept with him?”

Hermione felt the heat rise so quickly into her face that she knew she must be glowing. She clutched blindly for the countertop, afraid that she might otherwise fall into a writhing heap on the floor. Distantly, she was aware of the sound of running water from Harry's shower.

“Ex -- cuse me?” she coughed, in an unconvincing attempt at shocked denial.

Ginny's almost-smirk was sardonic enough to be worthy of a Malfoy, but this time, Hermione caught the glints of anger and jealousy in her eyes. The redhead was masking it well.

“It's written all over your face, Hermione. I could tell the moment I laid eyes on the two of you this morning - even with the `separate beds'. You don't think I mind?” Ginny's tone said that she found that mildly amusing. “Look, I know that Harry's confused. I know that he's been through a lot in the last year, and that he's never really had a normal life anyway. I know he needs time to sort himself out and - I can wait.”

Hermione was flabbergasted.

“But he's - he's not - you - ”

“If he needs an - an outlet, and you can give that to him, then - then who am I to stand in his way? But I remember the look on his face the first time he kissed me, I remember the way he smiled, and the way he held me, and we can have that again. I can be patient while he … works out his issues.” Ginny's smile was both magnanimous and condescending. Hermione suddenly understood from whence came the urge to claw someone's eyes out.

The perceived truths in Ginny's words didn't help either. Hadn't she thought of herself as a substitute for a good wank only hours ago? Hadn't Harry thanked her for what had happened between them. Inwardly, she wanted to curl into a ball and scream with humiliation.

“What if he's not working out any issues? What if he's genuinely interesting in me? Did you ever think of that?” Hermione asked, frigidly, one brow raised in inquiry. She locked her hands behind her back and hoped Ginny would not see them tremble.

Ginny looked, at first, as if she did not believe Hermione could be serious. Then her musical laugh lilted throughout the kitchen.

“With you?” she managed to sputter. “Just…like that?”

“Eight years of friendship is hardly `just like that',” Hermione snapped, revealing how much Ginny's words bothered her more than she wanted to let on.

“Did he ever tell you that the time he was with me was the only time he felt normal?” Ginny asked, amazingly managing to sound off-hand.

Hermione couldn't help but draw in a quiet gasp at the sting of the seemingly innocuous question. Harry had mentioned it more than once, during the gloomy mourning period of the horcrux hunt. Dumbledore's death had cast a lengthy pall over the mission, and Bill and Fleur's wedding was a distant and unreal memory in the gray and bleak abandoned places in which they searched.

What he wants more than anything is to have a `normal life', she admitted to herself, knowing it was true. She had been with him to the end - what if she was too much of a reminder of everything that happened, everything that he wanted to forget? What if she was his crutch, his fall-back, his `wank', something that he wanted to be free of, but couldn't quite manage on his own…an addiction?

One hand had risen to lay flat across her breastbone. Her heart still beat within her chest, but each breath had suddenly become painful. She looked up at Ginny, who was regarding her impassively, her arms folded across her chest.

Ginny's right, Hermione realized, deliberately closing her eyes to the fact that the unplanned coupling between herself and Harry meant more to her than she would've previously guessed. I'm going to have to let him go.

TBC

Some more answers for you, but this is not all I have planned, not by a long shot. Hope everyone is still enjoying the story!

You may leave a review on the way out, if you like. They are always much appreciated, even if I don't have the time to reply to all of them, as I'd like.

lorien

-->

6. Bridge To The Past

Bridges

Chapter Six: Bridge To The Past

Harry kicked at a small smattering of pebbles that littered the sidewalk, and sat down heavily on the curb with a hearty sigh. Hermione's building loomed behind him, but he paid it no attention. The street was quiet; most people were still at work, but he could distantly hear the indistinct shrieks and yells of children at play.

It was strange how even such a carefree noise could now cause him pain.

He felt lethargic, empty, and it was an utter contrast to the emotions that had been running through him earlier like white-water rapids. Hermione had had his baby, hadn't even cared enough to let him know…and the baby had died. He thought of Hermione, young and worried, bearing that kind of burden alone, coping with that kind of grief alone, and he felt a pang of sympathy in spite of himself, which he quickly tried to squelch.

She could have told me, he argued. I would have come. Surely she knows I would have come.

Maybe she does know, another part of him said. Maybe that's why she didn't tell you. He sucked in a breath, as even that hypothetical suggestion stung.

Lily Catherine Granger… he wondered what she had looked like. Would she have had his eyes or Hermione's? Dark hair? She would have been nearly eleven years old - would have been traveling to Hogwarts in September. I bet she would have been smart…like her mother. There was dampness on his cheeks, and he was annoyed and irritated to realize that his eyes had filled with tears. He wiped them away angrily, and cursed under his breath.

Damn you, Hermione, he thought. You had no right to make this decision for both of us. I had a right to know - I -

Your presence there wouldn't have saved her, he heard Hermione's words, deliberate and clinical, echo in his mind, an attempt to mask the pain she felt. Sympathy stabbed through him again, and his mood soured further.

“You have no right to make me feel sorry for you. It wasn't anything that you didn't bring on yourself. I was the one that you - ”

“Er…Harry?” Ron's uncertain voice cut through the bitter commentary that Harry was muttering to himself.

Harry looked up, and quickly stood when Ron's shadow loomed over him. He dusted off the seat of his robes with both hands.

“You've waited out here this whole time?” he asked, trying to sound unaffected by the fact that his best mate had just heard him talking to himself.

“No…er, I - I actually went back to the Ministry. Got an urgent Floo call while I was there. Annemarie Ludlow is awake.”

Ron could see the ravages of emotion begin to fade from Harry's face, as his all-business Auror mask slowly replaced them.

“Has anyone talked to her yet?” Harry asked. Ron shook his head.

“They're waiting for us.”

“Her grandmother there?”

“Not yet.”

They began to walk toward the Apparation point.

“How'd you find me?” Harry finally asked, the words coming out uncomfortably and in a rather stilted fashion.

“Flooed Hermione,” Ron said, as delicately as possible. “She said you'd just left, so I - I took a chance that you might still be around.” There was a long pause, as Ron eyed him with a slight wince. “Went badly, did it?”

Harry's shoulders slumped tellingly, as he mustered a mirthless half-laugh.

“You could say that.”

“And the … baby?”

The shadows in Harry's eyes deepened to the point that they appeared nearly black. Ron could all but see the walls slamming into place around his best friend. It was almost enough to make him take a step back.

“My daughter only lived for a few hours after she was born.” The pain in the first two words of his reply nearly robbed Ron of his breath. They crossed the street. Harry wouldn't look at him. Ron threw a glance back over his shoulder, and thought he saw a curtain twitch at the window that corresponded with the living room of Hermione's flat. He turned back toward Harry, striding with a rigid stance and bleak expression, his hands jammed fiercely into his pockets, balled into fists.

Oh, Hermione, Ron thought, with profound regret. What have you done?

*~~~~~*

The clatter and bustle that Ginny created in the sunny kitchen of the new flat had the effect of shrouding the awkward tension between the two girls, and for that, at least, Hermione was grateful. It also masked Harry's approach, and when he arrived behind her and dandled his fingers playfully at her waist where the hem of her t-shirt overlapped her jeans, she jumped, and he snickered.

The casual intimacy of the gesture made her heart soar, even as she shook her head warningly at him, tilting her head in the direction of the refrigerator, where Ginny was busily arranging things. The youngest Weasley had not seen them touch.

Harry eyed Hermione questioningly, but dropped his hand, even as Ginny extracted herself from the icebox, and chirped,

“Hi Harry,” with a merry smile.

“H'lo, Ginny.” Harry's tone was amiable, but guarded. “Where's Ron?”

Even as he spoke, there was noise and a rather large puff of green smoke from the fireplace.

“He's right here,” a slightly sooty Ron answered, as he ducked out of the Floo, dragging his Hogwarts trunk behind him. It thumped obnoxiously onto the carpet where Ron unceremoniously dropped it.

“Ron!” Ginny said in exasperation. “You were supposed to get things for the kitchen. How are we supposed to eat?”

“I did get them,” Ron replied, defensively, holding up a pillowcase, the contents of which tinkled and clanked together in a way that left Hermione fearing for their safety. “I just nicked a few of my things too.”

His too-casual air made Harry and Hermione exchange amused glances and smother grins. It appeared that Ron was rather more than eager to escape the Burrow and the smothering overindulgence of his mum.

The commiserating glance of long-suffering that Ginny tossed at Harry eloquently spoke that the obviousness of Ron's machinations was universal. Harry returned the glance with a grin that was genuine, and Hermione felt a stab of pain and longing in her gut.

Brunch was a mostly jovial affair, with neither Weasley appearing to notice that Harry and Hermione remained largely silent, each regarding the other surreptitiously, but saying only innocuous things like,

“Pass the butter, please.”

After everyone had eaten their fill, and Ron had polished off what remained, he hopped lightly to his feet and said,

“So, Hermione, fancy going to get your things as well?”

Hermione blinked at him, startled. She had almost forgotten that she had any things and that they were still at the Burrow. Involuntarily, she flashed a quick, almost questioning glance at Harry, who already had a stack of dishes Levitated halfway to the sink.

“Might as well,” Harry offered, as he opened the tap. “Today's as good a moving day as any, I reckon.”

“All right,” Hermione conceded softly, stepping toward the fireplace. “We'll be back in a bit, then.”

Harry froze slightly, as he seemed to suddenly become cognizant of who would be alone with him, but he managed to muster up a smile in Hermione's general direction. With his wand, he studiously set a sudsy cloth to scrubbing, and did not look up again, until the flare of the Floo told him that Ron and Hermione had departed.

Ginny lofted another stack of dishes to him, and they worked in silence that was companionable enough, until Harry began to feel the tension ratcheted to the breaking point between his shoulder blades, propelled by the weight of her gaze.

“So… what's going on with you and Hermione?” Ginny asked casually, tucking a loose strand of fiery hair behind one ear.

“Me and - me and Hermione?” Harry sputtered, succeeding at nonchalance about as well as Hermione had.

“Yes. Don't tell me nothing happened last night. Two close friends all alone in an empty flat, telling each other their troubles…” The insinuation in Ginny's singsong tone was undeniable, and Harry's face felt uncomfortably hot. “Besides,” she continued. “I can tell something happened by the way the two of you were acting just now.”

“Just now?” Harry echoed, feeling incapable of articulating any original or independent thought.

Ginny looked at him with pointed eloquence.

“You shagged her, didn't you?”

Harry felt as if a bomb suddenly detonating in the living room of the new flat would not startle him as much as Ginny's remark had. His mind spun like tires in mud, and he was unable to articulate any kind of intelligent response.

“Ginny, I - that is, you have to understand - that I - we - ”

Ginny crinkled her forehead at him, in what might have been taken for compassion.

“Don't think anything of it,” she said, casually, causing Harry to stare at her in unadulterated disbelief. “I know you've been through a lot. It's only natural that…”

“That what?” Harry said, some ice fringing his tone, as he detected the studiously sweet note in Ginny's voice.

“That you'd - that you'd have … needs… the survival instinct - you know, after all you've been through. It makes sense that you wouldn't want to … taint… a real relationship with something like that.” Ginny picked at a string hanging from the dishcloth, and did not look at him.

“You think what Hermione and I did - or - or what we have is - is tainted? Or not real?” There was evident distaste in his tone, and a slow flush burned its way up Ginny's cheeks.

“Of course not,” she said slowly. “But Harry, you - you can't really think you have feelings for her?”

The thump of Harry's heart suddenly became slow and painful in his chest, as he mulled over her question. Did he have feelings for Hermione? Was the slow burn of desire that wafted over him, warm and heady, indicative of something deeper? He knew that he wanted to be around Hermione, that he craved her presence, and had done so long before there were any physical activities involved, but did that stem from love or from long-standing friendship? And how was he to determine the difference?

“Would it be so wrong if I did?” he finally said, giving voice to the tentative flicker of `maybe' that had been floated in his mind ever since Hermione had come willingly into his arms the previous night.

“Harry…” Ginny looked almost pained, like a mother who had to tell her child an unpleasant truth would. “Don't you realize what she's been through?”

“Of course I do,” he replied sharply. “Don't you think that if anyone would know what she's gone through, it'd be me?”

“No, I'm not talking about what the three of you went through. I'm talking about what Hermione has gone through - what she's done for you, what she's given up, ever since your first year at Hogwarts.”

Guilt prodded insidiously at Harry. He knew Hermione had forsaken a large portion of her final year at Hogwarts, knew that she had turned down the coveted position of Head Girl, knew that she had ended her relationship with Viktor Krum so she could help him, knew that her relationship with her parents had been strained because of him, knew that she had been on the receiving end of dangerous curses as she was fighting with him. He knew all of that, and the despair over ever having caused her any type of pain or difficulty still robbed him of sleep at times. And now, here was Ginny Weasley, standing in the bright kitchen of his little flat, reminding him of exactly that.

“I - I know,” he managed to stammer. “She's done so much for me, for all of us. I wouldn't ever forget that.”

“Of course you wouldn't. But Hermione had plans, you know. She had dreams. Did she ever tell you that she wanted to be a Healer?”

Harry shook his head, though the thought did not surprise him.

“That takes intensive training, extra schooling, internships. I've heard it can eat up a lot of your time.”

“Hermione can do anything she wants.” Harry felt sullen, like he was being preached to, and he wasn't sure why.

“Hermione has done everything you've wanted for so long, I'm not sure she knows how to live differently.”

Harry drew away from her, stung.

“It wasn't ever like that.”

“I'm not saying it was ever intentional,” Ginny sounded hurt that he'd thought so. “But she's always turned everything upside down for you. Maybe - maybe now that it's all over, it's time you put her best interests first for once.”

Harry reached one damp hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, the half-washed dishes now all but forgotten. He let the guilt pour over his shoulders like warm rain, almost reveling in the discomfort.

Maybe it's time I put her best interests first. Maybe Ginny's right, he thought, and then found himself suddenly wondering why that idea hurt so badly.

*~~~~~*

The Auror on duty stood aside as Harry and Ron entered Annemarie's room for the seond time that day. The afternoon was stretching into evening, and the bustle of St. Mungo's had tempered itself somewhat. Harry was grateful for the reduced quantities of speculative eyes.

The girl was still lying prone in her bed, so unmoving that for an instant, Harry thought they'd missed their window of opportunity. Her family was still not present, and there was a neatly dressed young witch perched in the chair in the corner. Her nametag identified her as Finnuala Rafferty, and she was titled as an “Intercessor”. Harry wondered if that was some sort of wizarding equivalent to a social worker.

She stood when they came in, and, as Ron stuck his hand out to introduce them, she spoke brightly,

“Ron Weasley…and Harry Potter. No introduction is needed, I assure you.”

“And you're here in what capacity exactly?” Ron asked brusquely, leaving Harry to suppress a grin at his tone, which contrasted with the pink tint that tinged his ears as he addressed the pretty Intercessor.

“I'm here to guard Annemarie's interests,” she replied, after introducing herself to them. “Given what has happened to her parents, and the fact that her remaining family members seem… disinterested, to put it mildly, I've been assigned by St. Mungo's to watch out for her.”

It was then that the figure on the bed shifted slightly, and Harry saw that her eyes were open, and she was following the conversation with interest. Annemarie looked as forlorn and battered as she had the first time he'd seen her, with the only change being her tear-stained face and the redness of her good eye.

“Hallo, Annemarie,” he spoke up suddenly, surprising himself as he did so. “I'm Harry, and this is Ron. We're going to be working on your case. I'm sorrier than I can say that this happened to you and your parents, but we're going to find out who did it, I promise you.”

Annemarie's lips moved slightly, and Harry had to lean closer to hear what she said.

“Harry… Potter?”

“The same,” he admitted, punctuating the remark with a self-deprecating shrug.

“Can I - can I see yours?” She spoke with effort, and, at first, Harry did not know to what she was referring. But then her hand came up, slowly and feebly, to gingerly trace the new mark on the side of her face.

Harry felt his face crease in sympathy, as he lifted his dark bangs to reveal his own scar.

“They … won't let me look in a mirror. It mus' be pretty bad.”

“You're beautiful,” Harry told her, without hesitation. “It's the people who did this to you - they're the ones that have to worry about ugliness - ugliness in their soul.”

The corners of Annemarie's eyes crinkled slightly in a weak smile, and Harry was alarmed to see tears began to trickle out, trailing into her hair.

“That sounds like something…Mum would have said.” She paused, and sighed a little. “I can't believe they're gone…”

“Are you up to telling me what happened?” Harry flicked a questioning look at Rafferty, who nodded carefully, without removing her watchful eyes from Annemarie's face.

Slowly and painstakingly, Annemarie began to talk, her voice hesitating and pausing at times, and at others, giving out completely. She was descriptive, her obvious intelligence coming through in her vocabulary and syntax, which seemed to be beyond her years, and she did not give in to the surging currents of emotion that she had to have been feeling.

She had not seen her attackers initially, but had been spell-bound from behind, and practically propelled down Knockturn Alley. When she had finally laid eyes on them at the scene of the crime, they had been hooded and cloaked in heavy black robes that had left them both formless and featureless.

They had not touched her, but had used wands to abduct her and force her into Execution Alley. All the damage had been done at wandpoint. At this disclosure, Harry and Ron exchanged glances.

“You're sure that they never laid another hand on you?” Harry clarified. “They didn't hit you or … kick you once you'd fallen, anything like that?

The eye that wasn't swollen shut was glassy and distant for a moment, as if she were thinking furiously, but when Annemarie returned her gaze to Harry, it was clear and sure.

“No,” she replied. “It was all spells, hexes, some charms. They never touched me, not even once. I heard people yelling, somebody told them to stop, but most were just… watching.” Her tone was the mystified one of someone unused to cruelty for cruelty's sake. “A - an Impedimenta knocked me down, and then - then it - it hurt so much that I just … curled up to try to - to try to block some of it, and then I - ” Her chin wobbled, and she appeared to have to struggle to continue. Rafferty made sure that she was standing in Annemarie's line of vision. Harry's face was a mask of sympathy, even as his jaw line hardened at the thought of what had been done to the girl.

“Then I heard Mum and Dad; they were calling for me.” A light flashed momentarily in Annemarie's face, as she recalled the hope that must have flared within her when she heard her parents' voices. “One of the men turned,” her voice grew dull again. “I think he was the leader, and he - he - the green light - they never even - there wasn't time for them to - ”

Harry knew all too well the emotion she felt with a sudden casting of Avada Kedavra to someone about whom she cared deeply. He remembered the feeling of unreality, the impossibility - I did not just see what I thought I saw - the fist in the gut that accompanied the flash of green and the glassy, unblinking stare. He had seen it, had had a front-row seat for it… on more than one occasion.

“Was there anything familiar about the men who attacked you?” Ron broke in gently, his face as tender as Harry had ever seen it, picking up where Harry had paused, lost in his own unpleasant memories. “Their hands, their voices, the way they stood or walked?”

Annemarie's forehead crinkled in thought, and she winced slightly as the movement jostled tender and healing skin.

“They were wearing gloves,” she concluded, after a moment. “And I didn't recognize their voices, but I did think they were odd - all growly and rough, almost like they had colds.” She shifted uncomfortably on the utilitarian mattress, and looked plaintively at the intercessor. “Has Grandmother owled yet?”

Finnuala Rafferty's lips pressed into a thin compassionate line, but her eyes were hard.

“Not yet, sweetie. But she's had a lot to deal with at your house, I'm sure. The healers are making sure to keep her apprised about you.”

Harry noticed how quickly the energy seemed to have leeched from the little girl; she seemed to be creating less of an outline beneath the sheets than she had previously. He reached out to brush some hair back from her forehead, in a gesture that was as gentle as it was uncharacteristic of him.

“Try to get some rest, Annemarie,” he said, in a voice that didn't quite succeed in its attempt to be brisk and businesslike. “Ron and I will be back to visit you later, all right?”

Her eyes met his with a gleam that reminded him of deepest camaraderie and shared secrets. One corner of her mouth lifted in a lopsided half-smile.

“Wait `til I tell Gwendolyn that Harry Potter came to visit me.” Something almost impish briefly flashed in her face, and Harry realized with some surprise that she was teasing him. Admiration at her resiliency flowed through him, and he returned the smile her way, accompanied by a wink.

As he and Ron exited, he saw his best mate indicate that Finnuala Rafferty follow them into the corridor. She did so, and was launching into a quiet tirade as soon as they were out of earshot of Annemarie.

“I simply cannot fathom the cold lack of feeling from that angel's grandmother!” She said angrily. “Do you know how many times today I've had to make excuses for that woman? I can't imagine not being here…if she were my daughter or granddaughter…”

The phrase if she were my daughter stabbed painfully at Harry, but he tried desperately to ignore it.

“Do you have any other cases? If you do, can you ditch them?” he asked the Intercessor both questions in rapid-fire succession.

“I'm assigned through the Ministry,” Finnuala answered. “If the MLE requests it, then I'm sure I - ”

“What are you thinking, Harry?” Ron asked, his tone guarded enough to assure Harry that their thoughts had moved in the same direction.

“Can you stay with her round the clock? Get someone you trust to alternate with you?” Harry asked, as if Ron had not spoken.

“Certainly, if that is what's needed.” The bewilderment was evident in the Intercessor's tone. “Wouldn't the Auror guard be - ?”

“It was someone she knows, wasn't it?” Ron interrupted.

“It certainly appears that way,” Harry said. “Their voices were disguised; they wore gloves and heavy robes. If she had seen or heard them, she would have recognized them.”

“It doesn't follow why they didn't just kill her. If it was people she knew, then why was the message directed to you? Or is the lightning bolt just a red herring?”

Harry's face was troubled.

“I don't know. But it bothers me that they wouldn't touch her. Most wizards in a rage - especially ones insane enough to attack a little girl - wouldn't mind getting down and dirty like Muggles. But this is too methodical, too superior, too - ”

“Too Pureblooded?” Ron supplied, having caught on to Harry's grim train of thought.

“If they knew she was Half-blood, they might not have wanted to soil themselves with her taint.” A suspicion had begun to grow, to unfurl itself within Harry's mind. He suddenly remembered Rafferty, and turned to speak intensely to her, urgency blazing from his green eyes. “Just don't leave her alone - please.”

She was nodding, even as he spoke.

“If her grandmother should - ” But Harry didn't let her finish.

“Don't leave her side, even if her grandmother comes - especially if her grandmother comes. Make up something - say it's orders. We'll inform the Aurors stationed here.”

Once Finnuala had returned to Annemarie's room, and they had apprised the guards of the situation, Ron and Harry began the walk down to the Floo network.

“Peter Ludlow's brothers?” Ron asked Harry in a low voice out of the side of his mouth.

“The whole family was in Slytherin, except for Peter.”

“And there wasn't any love lost between the Ludlows and Tabitha, apparently,” Ron added, thinking of his conversation with Hermione. “But, if it's true, why now? Annemarie's lived in that manor house for nearly eleven years. Peter and Tabitha had been married longer than that. Why go Dark now?”

Harry's eyes were stormy. The long-ago loss of Hermione from his side, the life and death of his daughter, and Annemarie's quiet fortitude were battering at him like a relentless onslaught of waves.

“That's what we have to find out.”

TBC

I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. Some of the pieces are coming together now, as I'm sure some of you will pick up on.

I hope to have at least another update of Resistance, and maybe one update of each before our new arrival arrives, but I'm so huge and it's so hot, that I make no promises. We'll just all hope for the best, right?

You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.

lorien

-->

7. Building A Bridge

Bridges

Chapter Seven: Building A Bridge

“I just got a Floo from that Intercessor - Rafferty? - from St. Mungo's,” Ron said, as he reentered the Archives. Harry looked up from the pile of parchment he'd been immersed in, clearly interested.

“Has Annemarie's grandmother put in an appearance yet?”

“She just left. Finnuala said she wasn't there ten minutes. And seemed pretty annoyed when Finnuala wouldn't leave the room too.” Harry noticed Ron's use of the Intercessor's first name, but didn't comment. Something glinted fiercely in his eyes.

“Was she? Good. What did they talk about?”

“Nothing important,” Ron answered. “Apparently, Mrs. Ludlow came to see her granddaughter because it's what was expected.”

Just like Aunt Petunia, Harry thought with distaste.

“Anyway, it's getting late. Have you found Annemarie's birth records?” Ron asked.

“Yeah,” Harry answered, holding up the paper in question. The entry on it was as brief as Lily Catherine's had been, but one thing had jumped out at him immediately. “Hermione and Tabitha were in the hospital at the same time,” he blurted suddenly. Ron's eyebrows arched in interest.

“Really? So, so Annemarie and - and - yours…erm,” he tried to phrase carefully, “were born on the same day?”

“No, they were born just a few hours apart, but Annemarie was born on the third of March at 11:48. Lily - ” his voice quivered slightly, and he sighed. “Lily was born after midnight, at 12:17… on the fourth.”

“I wonder if Hermione knew her then. Tabitha was probably already working at St. Mungo's, but Hermione hadn't finished her Healer training yet,” Ron speculated. Harry was looking at the parchment in irritation.

“Isn't there any more information? These records don't tell you much.”

“You can expand the file with your wand, if you've got authorization,” Ron informed him. “Just tap the entry twice and access it with your password.”

Harry gave him a withering look.

“That would have been nice to know earlier,” he grumbled, and Ron spread his hands in a wide shrug of innocence.

He followed Ron's instruction, and the record on Annemarie suddenly lengthened, shoving the names above and below it out of the way. Now, Harry was not only looking at her name, parents' names, and date and time of birth, but he could also see length, weight, hair and eye color, presiding Healer, Mediwitch in charge, procedures performed and potions given. He stared at it blankly for a moment, and then dove for the adjacent pile of parchment, searching for Lily's record.

“Where's the copy you made?” Ron asked, clearly able to tell exactly what he was doing.

“Left it at Hermione's,” Harry mumbled, only halfway paying attention. He tapped his wand on the parchment, and it too expanded. “Who has access to these records?” His eyes roved eagerly to Father's Name, hoping on this more protected document, that it might be different, but it still read Not Given.

“Aurors have periodic access, like we have now,” Ron replied. “Parents have access, next of kin or guardians if the parents are gone…oh, and the presiding Healers too. What?”

Harry had started, and done a double-take, looking back and forth between the two entries that he now held, one in each hand.

“The same Healer delivered both babies,” he said.

“That makes sense,” Ron replied. “If they were born less than an hour apart, it's likely the same Healer would have been on shift for both of them.”

“Alan Callaghan,” Harry said, half to himself. “I'll bet that's hard to say five times fast.” His eyes trailed down the rest of the entry, wanting and at the same time not wanting to read how they had discovered Lily Catherine's heart defect, how they had tried first standard treatments and then aggressive treatments, only to have everything fail. A tiny notation at the end of the record read Death Indexed Separately. It was inked in a different color, and Harry felt sure that wands with password access could instantly Summon the corresponding record.

He tapped the damning phrase twice, and his muttered password caused a sudden rustling from a pile of neatly rolled and stacked scrolls on a nearby shelf. One of them unfurled itself and soared through the air like a magic carpet, skimming to a halt on the countertop in front of him.

The record was succinct, listing the baby's name, her mother's name, and cause and time of death. He tapped it, half in hope and half in dread, but the record did not provide any more information. The Healer's signature sprawled in illegible jet ink across the bottom of the page, with his name neatly printed beneath it, and a gold seal with the St. Mungo's crest affixed to the bottom corner.

“Alan Callaghan,” he read again, taking a perverse pleasure in the way it rolled off his tongue. He thought that perhaps the time difference between Australia and England was finally getting to him.

Ron had pulled a crumpled wad of parchment from the pocket of his robes, and was jotting notes on it, from time to time consulting the birth records of Annemarie Ludlow. At Harry's utterance, he snapped his head up, with an exclamation of,

“Wait - who?”

“The Healer that delivered the babies,” Harry said, eying Ron somewhat warily at the incredulity of his question. “The Healer that signed off on … on the death certificate. Alan Callaghan.”

“Alan Callaghan… why that's - I can't believe she… and I never once…” Ron spluttered, clearly at a loss. “She dated him,” he finally blurted. “He knew, and he never said a thing.” Clearly, Healer-patient confidentiality did not mean much to Ron. “I knew I never liked him. I just thought it was because he was a smarmy, cocky bastard, who thought he was better than everyone else, in that posh apartment in Galleon Court, talking down his nose at anyone who wasn't a Healer too…” Ron's rant subsided into grumbled imprecations at Hermione's ex-boyfriend.

“She dated the Healer who delivered our baby? Why would she - ? Wouldn't that just remind her - ?”

“He seems like a bloke who would horn in on emotionally vulnerable women,” Ron said sagely, with an air of distrust. Harry eyed Ron with askance, clearly wondering when Hermione had ever seemed emotionally vulnerable. She seemed about as vulnerable as a Hungarian Horntail today, he thought.

“Of course,” Ron added, “they didn't date until recently. Only about six months or so ago, as a matter of fact. Maybe she couldn't handle it - it didn't last very long… not that anybody lasts long with Hermione …” he trailed off and shot a stricken glance at Harry, who waved off the untoward comment.

Harry tried to parse how he felt about Hermione seeing other people - and more specifically, one who had been there at a time when he should have been - but found that he was too emotionally wrung out to feel anything else. He looked down at the birth and death records for his daughter, and numbly began to duplicate them again.

Ron parted his robes to shove his hands into the pockets of his pants, his face stamped with sympathy.

“Listen, Harry…” he began slowly, his voice heavy with concern. “It's past five - everyone will be leaving. We can head back to see Annemarie again tomorrow. A bunch of the old Hogwarts gang usually gets together on Fridays, down at this pub in Diagon Alley. You don't need to be holed up at the Leaky Cauldron all by yourself tonight. Come with me. Everyone will be dead set on seeing you.”

“Everyone?” Harry asked, with arched brow and unmistakable meaning in his tone.

“She hardly ever comes,” Ron answered, not even pretending that he didn't know what Harry was talking about. “You know Hermione, long hours, extra research - why spend time doing something as frivolous as hanging about with school chums and getting pissed?”

Harry thought with a pang what had happened the last time Hermione had done something frivolous. No wonder she retreated back behind her Studious Hermione armor. How did Alan Callaghan manage to pierce that?

“All right,” Harry agreed grudgingly, feeling some semblance of anticipation begin to warm his blood. He could do with a few rounds in cheery company, where he could try to forget that he'd ever fathered a child. He folded the duplicated records carefully, and tucked them into his robes; as an afterthought, he duplicated Annemarie's as well, and added it to the others. He remembered the impish gleam in her eyes, Wait til I tell Gwendolyn… and a smile came to his lips in spite of his gloomy mood. He looked at Ron with slightly lighter eyes. “Let's go.”

*~~~~~*

“So…” Harry said, drawing out the word and leaving it to dangle there awkwardly. They were both slouched companionably on the sofa, alone in the new flat, as Ron had gone to help Fred and George with a delivery. He toyed with a loose thread on the corner of the sofa cushion, and wondered what would happen if he kept pulling at it. He could not look at Hermione, who was reclined, with a book propped across her knees, against the other arm of the sofa, but might as well have been miles away.

Forty-eight hours ago she was in my arms, Harry thought, trying not to think about the way that had made him feel. It had been two days, and things had never been more stilted between them. It was as if both of them thought things should change, but neither wanted to make the first move to do so, each of them afraid of what might happen when the axis shifted.

“So…?” Hermione's echo had an interrogative lilt at the end.

“About the other night…” Harry forced the words through an unwilling throat. “I'm sorry…” he managed, and then could go no further. He wasn't really sure what he was sorry for - for the way he'd handled it afterward, for it happening at all, for it not happening sooner - or again?

And then there was his conversation with Ginny…

Hermione has done everything you've wanted for so long. I'm not sure she knows how to live differently.

Did she ever tell you that she wanted to be a Healer?

“You've done nothing to be sorry for,” Hermione chirped, her voice sounding chipper and brittle. Her eyes seemed very bright.

“I've - I'd … taken advantage…” he stammered, hating the way the words came out, clumsily formal.

“Harry Potter! Do you really think that I'd ever let you take advantage? That I'd ever do anything I didn't want to do? Even for you?” Now the tone was snippy, and Harry relaxed. This sounded more like the Hermione he was used to.

But Ginny's words still resounded in his head, the leftover shimmery noise after the striking of a gong. I'm not sure she knows how to live differently.

“It's just - I think that…you know, maybe it - maybe it's too fast and - and too soon… too soon after - you know… everything and all. And I don't - that is to say, you should…”

Hot color rushed into his face as he ground to a halt. He seized on his utter embarrassment as proof that he was doing the right thing. He'd never felt this undone just talking to Hermione before. It was further evidence that they'd come dangerously close to mucking up a beautiful companionship, further evidence that Hermione really would do anything for him, and he should release her from this self-imposed exile.

“Of course,” Hermione replied immediately, her tone sounding very natural and off-hand. “There's absolutely no reason for us to turn this into some huge…thing.”

“Right,” Harry answered, trying to sound as emphatic about it as she had. Trust Hermione to always look at a situation logically.

“I'm willing to forget about it if you are,” she teased him, rosy-cheeked, as she leaned forward and held out her hand, as if to seal the deal. He took it, not as a lover, but as a gesture of friendly camaraderie, and they shook once, twice.

“It's forgotten,” he told her in like manner, as something in the region of his stomach twisted painfully. He thought longingly of his nebulously planned holiday, where he had wistfully inserted Hermione's presence.

You're being a selfish prat, Potter, he told himself in a Malfoy voice. She wants to be a Healer; she has a chance to do that now. And knowing Hermione, she'd rather be in a difficult training program than off doing who knows what with me.

He risked a glance at her, but she had resumed her position propped against the other end of the sofa, and was intent on her book once again. She appeared to be unaware that he was even still in the room, and he watched, transfixed, as she reached up to dab at her eye with her sleeve.

“Hermione, what's wrong?” he asked, fearing - hoping? - that the easy way out of their mess was, in fact, not what she wanted.

She looked up at him, and her lips twisted into a self-deprecating half-smile, as she rolled her eyes at herself.

“Sad chapter,” she replied laconically.

*~~~~~*

The lighting in the Dragon's Snout spilled, richly yellow, from numerous lanterns, and burnished the surfaces of the worn wooden booths and counters with a warm orange patina.

“Like dragon-fire, see?” Ron explained happily, obviously thrilled that Harry had agreed to come. There were more than a few double takes at his entrance, but the sight of the tall, ginger-haired Auror at his side must have been enough to discourage approach. At the sight of a large corner booth, filled to overflowing with old friends, Harry felt his mood ease slightly, though he couldn't help but still see the clinical words, Granger, Lily Catherine, as if they'd been branded on his retinas.

The pub was noisy, in a jocular and raucous fashion, and his friends added to the din when they saw him. A chorus of remonstration went up, berating his communication skills, his woeful failure to visit, and his shameful and rude secretiveness. Harry returned the salutations in kind, freezing only slightly as he saw Ginny in the corner, sandwiched between Neville and Dean.

She seemed to go momentarily rigid, and strangely, Harry thought, something like guilt flashed in her face, before she pasted on a welcoming smile and called out,

“Welcome back, Harry!”

He nodded his thanks at her, and wondered while on earth the sight of Ginny should make him feel so uneasy. He looked anxiously toward the door, which had just disgorged another slew of merrymakers. Hermione was not among them.

She hardly ever comes, Harry reminded himself of Ron's words.

“First round is on me,” he called out.

“As it should be!” Seamus declared, and Harry made his way toward the bar. The barkeep's substantial eyebrows rose to his hairline, when he recognized Harry, but he made no comment as he took the order.

Their booth had been out of his line of sight while he got the drinks, but as it came back into view, his heart stopped for an eternal moment, and then began to slam against his chest in a slow, painful rhythm.

She had come.

She was standing at the table, with her back to him, one hand gesturing in mid-air as she spoke. Her handbag was still slung on her shoulder, and Harry felt hopeful. Maybe she would not stay. Ron was seated on the outer edge of the booth, watching him over Hermione's shoulder with wide, panicked, yet apologetic eyes. Harry took a half-step back, barely feeling the tray in his numb hands; if he could just stay at the bar, until she was gone.

“Oy, quit yer dawdling,” Seamus bellowed suddenly, waving him over. “Service is lousy tonight.”

Hermione half-turned, and Harry saw the lines of her shoulders go rigid when she realized who was behind her. She lifted her chin, and said,

“Ha - Harry,” by way of greeting, her voice trembling only slightly.

“Hello, Hermione,” he managed to say, as if they had not had a huge, emotional confrontation earlier that afternoon. He took the opportunity to spear Ron with an accusing glance.

“I - I was just about to tell everyone that I - I can't stay, but I wanted to stop by and say hello,” Hermione continued in that high, tight voice. The Weasleys seemed to notice the odd, restrained tension between the two of them, but nobody commented. Seamus said,

“Hermione, it's the bloody weekend. Can't you let up for just a bit?”

“You know me, Seamus,” Hermione laughed. It rang falsely in Harry's ears. She thumbed her purse strap more securely on her shoulder, and turned to go.

Harry maneuvered past her, and set the tray of drinks down with a hasty clunk, turning in one smooth motion while everyone else was distracted by the arrival of the alcohol, and grabbing Hermione by the elbow.

“You don't have to do this,” he said in a low voice, meant for her ears alone. “They're your friends. I've been - I'm not -“ He lifted his hands in irritation, and sighed. “I'll go.”

“You haven't seen them in ages,” Hermione said wearily. “Ginny hasn't taken her eyes off of you yet. I'm sure you'd like to - ”

“Don't do that,” he cut her off suddenly and harshly. “Don't play the martyr with me. You're the one who cut me out, who decided that you knew what I wanted, and made the decision not to tell me about…things,” he tacked on, glancing around as he pulled her further away from their booth, and lowering his voice.

“Are we going to go over this again?” she asked. Her voice sounded bored and annoyed, but her brilliant dark eyes were miserable. “I told you already how painful - ”

“Yeah, you seem like you've been in a lot of pain,” Harry said sarcastically. “So much that you went out with the Healer that - that signed her death certificate.”

Hermione's nostrils flared with surprise, but she covered it well.

“Somebody has a big mouth,” she said, cutting a glance over at Ron, who was trying to be a convincing part of their noisy party, while keeping an eye on them at the same time. “It's not as if he were the reason she died. And if it makes you feel any better, I couldn't hack it, okay? We went out for a month…and it was - it was just too much.” She cocked a sardonic eyebrow at him. “Is this what you've been doing, researching me instead of working on your case?”

“Healer Callaghan delivered Annemarie Ludlow less than an hour before you - before our…” He didn't seem to know what to say next, but was eager to defend his work ethic. “You told me you worked with Tabitha; you didn't tell me you were both in labor at the same time.”

“I didn't know her then,” Hermione said in a tired voice, as if she were weary of discussing this with him.

“Do you have a picture?” he blurted suddenly, and then looked sorry that he'd asked. “Or - or could I see - I mean, visit where she - she - ” He couldn't bring himself to say the word `buried'.

Something like compassion and empathy flitted across Hermione's face.

“Harry, I - maybe, it's better not to dredge up the past. You didn't even know about her until today - you couldn't feel that - ” She stopped; Harry's eyes were blazing with intensity.

“You don't know what I'm capable of feeling - you haven't known for 12 years, and maybe you didn't even know then. Even now, even with all you've - all that's happened, I still lo - ” He stopped abruptly, but it was plain to both of them what he had been about to say. Color was awash in Hermione's cheeks.

“Harry, what we shared was lovely, but it's been over for a long time.” That mechanical note, that studied detachment was back in her voice. “There's been too much water under the bridge for us to try - for us to get back - it's just not possible, Harry, and I'm sorry, but…”

A trilling chime interrupted her, and she stared around blankly for a moment, before scrabbling inside her purse. A moment later, she had produced a key, which was glowing luminescently and producing the musical tones. She regarded it with crinkled brows, obviously mystified, but then said,

“I've got to go.”

“What's going on?” Harry asked, as if on automatic pilot. His Auror instinct had come instantly awake, and, whatever the key was, he knew it wasn't a standard Healer summons.

Hermione looked on the verge of telling him that it was none of his business, but her concern put a hold on her issues with him.

“It's … it's Alan's key,” she said with a sigh, as if she figured that his reaction to that would be less than positive. “I'd - I'd forgotten I even had it. It was a security measure, set to his wards, so that if anyone - ” She looked worried again, and shook her head. “I would have thought he'd have removed me from the wards ages ago.”

“And that means…?” Harry prompted her.

“Something's happened to him. He was always a little paranoid, and I thought he was being rather silly, but… I guess I should go make sure everything's okay.”

Alarms were blaring inside Harry's head, and he reflexively reached inside his pocket to check his wand.

“You're certainly not going over there alone,” he said resolutely. She opened her mouth as if to argue, and then seemed to realize that it would be wasted effort.

“Come on then,” she sighed in resignation, extending her hand to him. He took it, but did not clasp it, threading his fingers between hers instead, as she Apparated them both away.

TBC

Well, this chapter got long, so hopefully, it's worth the wait. We finally got moved in, only to find the computer had been broken, and then the phone company screwed up our internet service! It's been a crazy month.

You may leave a review on your way out, if you like!

lorien

-->

8. Suspension Bridge

Bridges

Chapter Eight: Suspension Bridge

For a brief instant, Harry was conscious only of the curious sensation of Hermione's fingers twined through his. But then, they were there - in the ultra-posh lobby of Galleon Court, and all his Auror senses sang into active mode. He eyed a smartly dressed attendant, who was watching them with lofty suspicion from a high mahogany desk, and whispered to Hermione out of one side of his mouth,

“How do we go about getting to his flat?”

Hermione was still anxiously fiddling with the key that she had tucked into her other palm. At Harry's question, she visibly started and then quickly dropped his hand, as if embarrassed.

“The key grants access to the private Floo conduits - that will take us to the appropriate floor. Then we use the key again, along with a wand-print security check, to gain entry to his flat.” Harry whistled.

“He really is paranoid, isn't he? How'd he cotton on to this place?”

Hermione shrugged, and mustered a smile for the desk clerk, as they crossed the large tiled expanse toward the row of marble-hearthed fireplaces. Her low heels clicked smartly on the smooth floor.

“There are a lot of celebrities and very wealthy eccentrics living here, from what I understand. You'd fit right in,” she added dourly. Harry regarded her for a moment, trying to decide whether or not he was being insulted.

“But how does he afford something like this on a Healer's salary?” he asked, deciding to ignore her last remark.

“I always wondered about that. But he's always been sort of … flamboyantly confident, almost arrogant,” she mused. “I've always assumed that he comes from money.”

She stuck the key in a gold-plated slot to the right of the fireplace, and gave it a quarter turn, just before tossing in a handful of Floo powder.

“Fifth floor,” she enunciated clearly. Harry couldn't help but dart a glance over at the attendant, who was clearly all ears. The flames glowed green, and they stepped inside.

On the fifth floor, they made their way down a wide hallway lit by floating crystal chandeliers. The thick nap of an elaborate Oriental rug was beneath their feet, and magical works of art donned the walls in gilded frames. Here and there were polished mahogany end tables topped with crystal vases or heavy golden candela brae. It was like walking through a museum, Harry thought.

“So how'd you end up dating a bloke like Alan Callaghan?” he asked casually, thinking that nobody seemed further from Hermione's no-nonsense style. Hermione cocked an eyebrow at him, as if assessing his motivation for asking such a question; he braced himself for an onslaught of words, but she did not pursue the point.

“He seemed nice enough at work,” she said, startling him by being forthcoming. “Of course, every time I saw him, I couldn't help but think… you know. Still, he - he seemed so interested, and he - he really wouldn't take no for an answer, so I - I figured, what was the harm in trying? But then, then I just couldn't do it. I saw - I saw her little blue body, struggling to breathe properly, the curled up fingers that gripped mine, I heard her little weak, hoarse cry,” her voice faltered, and Harry instinctively slipped one arm around her. This movement seemed to bring her back to herself, and she sniffed loudly, continuing, “every time I looked at him, I thought of her, and - and plus, I think he was more of a fan of yours than of mine.” She tilted one corner of her mouth up, clumsily trying to lighten the moment.

“What?” Harry wrinkled his nose.

“He was always asking me about you, where you'd been, what you were doing now, why you were `hiding', how close we were… some of his questions got rather inappropriate; sometimes I wondered if he'd guessed it. And then there was the whole ordeal of admitting to myself - if not to anyone else - that I couldn't answer his questions, even if I wanted to, that you… you didn't care enough to even let me know how you were.”

Harry tried to protest, feeling very much on the defensive, but she continued talking.

“He tried to grill Ron too, a few times, but Ron wouldn't stand for it - Ron never did like him very much.”

Imagine that, thought Harry, but he said nothing.

They arrived at a heavy wooden door, scrolling lettering proclaiming it #575.

“Anyway, he didn't seem to hold it against me or anything - after it was over, I mean … and it was nice to have someone… around… for a change.” There seemed to be no incrimination in her words, but Harry still felt the guilt like a Bludger to the chest.

“I think we've already talked about this - and the circumstances under which I would have been `around'.” She cut her eyes at him, and then turned toward the door, without further response.

She inserted the key into the keyhole, and held her wand tip up to a glowing indicator just above it. Something whirred, the indicator turned green, and they heard the latch click as it disengaged. Hermione turned the handle and opened the door, but stopped almost immediately inside the entryway.

The light was uncertain, flickering ominously as a lone candle guttered low on a side table. And it was obvious that something was very wrong.

“Alan?” Hermione called, her voice an uncertain gasp. She took a couple of steps forward, but Harry spied a dark pool of liquid protruding from around the corner, and he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.

“Stay here,” he said roughly, withdrawing his wand, and slinking through the vestibule to the central room of the flat. The dying candle threw his looming shadow unevenly over the wall.

“Harry!” Hermione's voice was a hiss of protest and concern.

The room had been trashed. Furniture was overturned, drawers were pulled out, cabinets left open, cushions shredded; papers and debris littered the floor, and a few blackened gouges pocked the walls in a testament to a magical duel.

The pool of blood extended a couple of feet past the crumpled body of a wizard, who had been just out of line of sight of the door; he was shrouded in robes that had once been yellow, with one hand out flung, and his wand just beyond his reach.

“Hermione,” Harry said in a loud whisper, “call for an emergency Owl. We need the MLE. Send Ron one as well.”

“The Floo - ” she suggested, but he overruled her.

“Stay by the door,” he ordered, as he studied the body impassively for a moment, and then quickly searched the rest of the lavishly appointed flat to assure himself that they were alone.

When he reentered the living room, Hermione was standing there, staring in shock down at what had once been Alan Callaghan. Tears had pooled in her eyes, and were dripping silently down her cheeks. This rather annoyed Harry for some reason.

“I told you to stay back there,” he said peremptorily, trying to mask his irritation.

“I'm not some helpless witch who has to let the big strong wizard save the day,” Hermione sniffed, lowering her brows at him.

“In spite of everything that's happened today, I'd rather not see you killed, if I can possibly help it,” Harry replied, not especially nicely, as he cast a spell that Hermione did not know. Instantly splashes of various colors were seen all over the room, on the walls, the floors, and Alan himself. Harry prowled around, examining the colors and their placement from various angles.

“That's a Tracer?” Hermione asked, her fascination with seeing him in this professional role seeming to momentarily overcome her shock and worry.

“Yes,” Harry replied tersely. “They used several Locator spells first, then finally tore the place apart, using hexes and - and more mundane methods.”

“Then they were looking for something,” Hermione pointed out obviously. “Did they find it?”

“There's no way to know.” He waved his wand at the body, and it gently turned over, face up. Hermione tried to conceal a flinch; Harry knew that even all her Healer training couldn't overcome the shock of the sight of someone she had known well. “Whatever it is or was, they tortured him to find it out. Avada Kedavra is nice and clean - this wasn't.”

Hermione looked at him oddly.

“You seem … rather blasé about all this, if you don't mind my saying so.”

“I'm an Auror, Hermione. Crimes like this are part of my job.” Harry sounded weary. “We can at least try to determine what they were after. You knew him fairly well. Can you tell if anything's been taken - without touching anything?”

Hermione made a slow thoughtful circuit of the room, noticeably trying to avoid looking at Alan Callaghan's body. She ventured into the bedroom, and checked a hall closet, before returning.

“His satchel isn't here,” she informed him. “He always brought work home with him: patient files he was updating or test results or potion interactions. I don't see how that could be of any interest to anyone though - it's very esoteric. Harry?”

He appeared not to be listening to her at all, and, instead, was crouched over the body, examining Alan's other hand, which had remained tucked near his body, and was crusted with blood. He used his wand to open Alan's fingers, and gently withdrew a torn scrap of paper. He looked up at Hermione, and had a sort of déjà vu moment, involving the word pipes.

“What does it say?” Hermione asked faintly. Harry caused it to hover in midair and unfold itself, taking great care not to touch it. Four letters could clearly be seen, scrawled in dark ink.

--dlow

Without looking at it again, Harry conjured an Evidence Storage Unit, and sent the scrap soaring into it. He was swearing under his breath, as he activated Alan's private Floo and shouted into it. Hermione thought she heard Tonks' voice on the other end.

“Someone needs to get to St. Mungo's immediately, and double the guard on Annemarie Ludlow. No one is to be allowed in her room without express permission.” He withdrew from the fireplace and continued to swear and pace. “Damn it all to hell - what could they possibly have to do with each other?” The dancing green flames sank back down into embers. Harry ran both hands through his hair in a gesture born of utter frustration. “Where the hell is Ron?”

“What's going on?” Hermione asked.

“Why would Callaghan be interested in the Ludlow family? Was Mrs. Ludlow pregnant again?”

Hermione's eyebrows soared upward, in pure surprise.

“If she was, she hadn't let on about it.”

“Would he have any reason to see Annemarie?”

“I seriously doubt it,” she answered, looking thoughtful. “He was strictly obstetrics. Although… he did pick up a shift in emergency every now and then, when demand got heavy or a regular Healer was out. Tabitha did mention that Annemarie had broken her arm, a few months back. I suppose there's an outside chance he could've treated her then.”

“I need the records for that treatment - just to be sure. Can you get them for me?”

Hermione nodded abstractedly, but then just stood there, gazing at him as if she had never seen him before. With effort, Harry made himself stop his detailed survey of the flat, and cupped one hand around Hermione's shoulder.

“I know this is not easy. And I know you've lost a friend, and I'm sorry for that. But Annemarie's life could be at risk - is at risk, unless we suss this thing out. You understand?”

“Yes, of course,” Hermione murmured, and began moving toward the door, a path that took her past Alan's body. She stopped, gazing at it for a moment, and then bent forward alertly, only just restraining herself from picking something up.

“Harry, look at this,” she called quietly, and indicated some purplish fluff protruding from an almost invisible inner pocket of his robes. Harry leaned forward and edged it out carefully, using his wand.

The lavender feather belonged to a rather expensive looking quill, with a broken spine, having apparently been smashed during the struggle.

“It's his quill,” Harry said, gesturing as if to place it in storage with the other items in evidence.

“It's his Dicta-quill,” Hermione corrected him, emphasizing the important descriptor. Harry's eyes instantly blazed with interest.

“Do you think there's anything left on it?” he asked.

“There's only one way to find out.” She tapped it with her wand, and said, “Clemency.” When Harry slanted a questioning look at her, she supplied, “It's his mother's name.”

The password seemed to have done the trick, as the quill leapt up into the air and hovered there, feather furling as if in a light breeze. Alan's voice began to issue from the quill, startling them both, thought it was crackly and occasionally difficult to hear.

“—creased dosage of fertility potion, but I shouldn't like to go any higher, as the risks outweigh the benefits. Concerns were voiced to Mrs. Gladwell and her … indicated their understanding. Return appointment in 10-12….” There was a long, slightly staticky silence, and Harry made a motion of dismissal, when suddenly the Dicta-quill fluttered again. “Met with Simon Ludlow this afternoon for further negotiation. … suggestion of what I know to be … but sent him into a frenzy. He is quite willing to continue … cooperat… to keep this story from…ophet, but he is becoming quite insistent to know the true origins of… concerned for the girl… will not let things stand as they… ” A loud squeal drowned the next few words. “—Merlin that Hermione has my key. The papers are charmed …like pages from …ather's Medical Index. Hermione will know how to access them… if anything happens to me, she - ” There was another loud protest from the quill, and then they could get nothing additional from it.

“He was blackmailing the Ludlows,” Hermione's voice was tinged with faint disgust. “But why? And concerned for the girl? What girl?”

“I guess that answers how he affords this flat,” Harry remarked wryly, and then speared her with a look of chagrin. “I don't like that he is involving you in this.” His mind was filled with the image of frenzied Ludlows and bloody corpses. “Where is this Medical Index he was talking about?”

“Glimfeather's Medical Index,” Hermione said, walking toward the bookshelf, and pulling out a thick, red leather-bound volume - one of the few that had remained undisturbed on the shelf. She flipped through a few of the fine onionskin pages. “Why did he think that I - ” she began, but her eyes fell on the quill, and she quickly tapped the pages with her wand, and said, “Clemency,” again.

The index glowed briefly, and then a few pages toward the middle transformed into sheets of parchment. Hermione began to flip through them, and then froze, a look of mystified horror commingled with pain flaring onto her face.

“Hermione, what is it?” Harry said, alarm shooting through him at the look on her face. She dumped the heavy tome unceremoniously on the roll-top desk, and held up two sheaves of paper, one in each hand.

“Birth records,” she informed him. “Lily's and Annemarie's.”

~*~*~*~

When Harry entered their flat, he was instantly greeted by the sound of someone singing. It took him a moment to pinpoint the voice as Hermione's, and this struck him as somewhat out of character for her. He dropped his bag just inside the door, and began sifting through the post on the counter, as he watched her move around the kitchen, putting dishes away, hips swishing slightly as she sang.

“You seem… chipper,” he remarked absently, as his eyes fell on a cream-colored envelope from Portus Global Travel. He hefted it in his hand, but did not open it, knowing that it contained two all-expense paid passes for an extensive and exclusive Mediterranean cruise, wizarding style. He lifted the flap, getting the barest glimpse of a gilt edge inside. “Hey, Hermione…” the words poised on the edge of his tongue, want to go on holiday with me?

“That's because I am,” she lilted at him, not seeming to notice his unfinished salutation. “You'll never believe what happened today. It - ” She seemed to notice the expression on his face for the first time, part anxious trepidation and part hopeful interest. “What's the matter?”

“What? Oh, nothing,” he stammered, his eyes darting guiltily down to the travel passes, and then tucking them quickly into the anonymous remainder of the post.. “Tell me what happened.”

“I got in!” she chirped triumphantly. Harry looked at her blankly, and she tutted at him. “The internship on the Continent… working with Eugene Spurgeon… Healer training…?” She kept adding bits of information until Harry's eyes cleared, and he managed a comprehending,

“Oh!”

“It's very hard to get in. I only hope - ” she bit her lip, sounding anxious. “I hope I got in on my merits, and not on - not because … well, you know the - ”

“Not because of me,” Harry finished for her dully. “Of course you didn't. They'd be mad not to take you - you're brilliant, and it's never had anything to do with me!” He meant the words sincerely, but the bitter weight of disappointment was in his gut.

She looked at him more closely, angling her head so that she could peer into his face, and came around the counter where she could lay one hand on his arm.

“What's wrong, really?” she asked.

Harry could feel her hand searing him through the sleeve of his shirt, and his heart seemed to begin an erratic tempo within his chest. He opened his mouth to speak.

Hermione has done everything you've wanted for so long, I'm not sure she knows how to live differently. Ginny's voice rang in his mind so suddenly that he started, sure that the youngest Weasley had suddenly materialized into their midst.

“Nothing,” he lied, forcing a smile onto his face. “That's fantastic news, Hermione. They couldn't get anyone better.”

She hummed happily at him, her cheeks glowing with pleasure, and Harry wanted to believe that it came as much from his sincere compliments as it did the internship. A thought occurred to her, and she fixed him with apologetic eyes.

“I'm afraid I won't have very much more time to enjoy this lovely flat, Harry. Healer Spurgeon is rather used to having his own way. He's insistent that the new intern begin at the start of term.”

“What? When? You've had hardly any time to relax - to do something that you want - ” He trailed off when the realization hit him; this wasn't work for Hermione, this was expansion, this was opportunity. She was looking forward to it.

His shoulders slumped slightly, and she patted his arm companionably, imagining that she understood.

“it's only three years,” she said. “I've heard that third-year interns even get Christmas off. And - and you could - you could come see me in Prague - I'm sure I'd have to have a little spare time.” She sounded like she was placating a child, and it annoyed Harry. Did she really think that a visit here and there would make up for her long absence, for the delicious taste of possibility that had tantalized, but seemed never meant to happen?

Hermione must have read his expression, albeit incorrectly, because her upbeat tone faltered, and she added, “I mean, if you want to…”

“I don't know if I could get away,” he told her. “I mean, Auror training starts in October, so I'll be swamped as well.” He shrugged and smiled at her; imagine that, we're such busy and ambitious young wizarding folk! was unspoken in the timbre of his voice.

“Yes, I've heard it can be quite demanding,” Hermione said, and suddenly the stilted tone was back, as if she were speaking cordially to a perfect stranger, making pointless conversation to pass the time.

Something constricted in Harry's chest; it had not been like this - never like this - until he and Hermione had…

“Are you sure there's nothing wrong?” Hermione's crisp voice - trimmed with an edge of empathy - broke into his thoughts, and he blinked at her for only a moment before replying.

“Absolutely. Quite sure.” The sigh escaped completely against his will, and he pushed his lips upward into a smile to counteract it. He lofted the post back onto the counter, with what he hoped looked like a casual toss, and mumbled something incoherent about being knackered.

When he closed the door to the sanctum that was his room, his heart was pounding as if he'd just dueled a small squadron of Death Eaters. When he dashed the back of one hand across his forehead, he found it damp with perspiration.

I knew it, he thought desperately. I knew I was going to mess everything up, and I have. I've gone and fallen in love with Hermione Granger.

*~~~~~*

“Do doctors normally keep transfigured records hidden in charmed books?” Harry asked, his tone suggesting that he already knew the answer.

“No, it's quite irregular. I - I haven't the slightest idea why he would keep something like this… there's no reason… ” Hermione appeared fluttery and unnerved. The hand that clutched Lily's record was shaking visibly, with enough force that the parchment rattled audibly.

“But Healers are permitted to access those records…” Harry prodded, throwing out that bit of information that he'd garnered earlier that day.

“For revisions, yes, or - or to consult with a colleague, or refer to a Specialist. But to keep - to hide? - in one's home? I don't understand it at all. And why - why her?” She flicked her gaze to the body in the corner, and then looked back at the papers she held, hissing in a sudden breath of shock.

“What is it?” Harry asked, moving instantly to her elbow, one arm going around her waist without forethought, as he peered over her shoulder. He heard Hermione swallow, before she pointed.

“Look.”

Harry tore the duplicated record that he had made from his inner pocket, badly crumpling it in his haste to retrieve it. The one in his hand, and the one taken from the Index were identical in every way… except one.

Callaghan's record had a scrawled addition above Father's Name: Not Given.

Harry Potter. A small purple emblem blinked next to it.

“What's that mean?” Harry asked roughly, feeling a combination of vindication and hollow loss at actually seeing his name there.

“It's a medical stamp,” Hermione answered him faintly, staring into middle distance. “Healers use it. It means - it means that something's been authenticated. It means that - that Alan had proof… somehow.”

“Well, since he's obviously not above a little blackmail, there's no knowing who else knows about this now… to whom the information's been sold.” Hermione seemed to dwindle a little, right in front of him. Her eyes were pained.

Harry's gaze fell on the parchment in Hermione's other hand, and wordlessly, they compared it to the duplicated one in his possession. There were no anomalies there.

“I don't understand…” Hermione repeated, and she looked as lost as Harry had ever seen her. He tipped her chin up so she would meet his eyes, and his thumb left the barest of caresses along her jaw line.

“You shouldn't be here,” he said firmly. “You're a civilian. The victim was a friend of yours. You're probably going into shock. I - ”

“Harry?” called a familiar voice from the hall, and Harry dropped his hand to his side like it had been made of lead.

“Ron? In here,” he called, not without noticeable gratitude in his voice. Whatever connection had hovered between himself and Hermione was gone, whisked away like a tendril of steam on a breeze.

The ginger-haired Auror entered the flat carefully, with a contingent of the MLE just behind him. The other wizards and witches took almost no notice of Harry and Hermione, but immediately fanned out to perform their proscribed tasks. Tonks brought up the rear, and appraised the scene thoroughly before moving to speak with them.

“Wotcher, Harry,” she said by way of greeting. “It never rains but it pours, eh?”

“Is there someone here who can escort Hermione home?” he asked, jumping right to the concern foremost in his mind. Tonks and Ron exchanged the slightest of glances, but mercifully, no one asked, why can't you do it?

Hermione waved her hand in annoyance, as if batting away his worry.

“I can most certainly leave under my own power, Harry Potter. I don't need to be baby-sat by some Auror.”

“I'd feel better if - if you had - ” Harry stumbled to a stop, and Ron wondered if his best mate knew that his feelings were parading out of his green eyes.

“Out of the question,” she said. “I'm fine. But I would like to go home.” She shot a questioning look at Tonks, who nodded.

“We can take your statement in the morning,” the Head Auror replied.

“Thank you.” Her smile was clearly forced. “Ron. Harry.” The smile thinned further. Harry felt as if the wall between them was as wide as a quidditch pitch was long. He suddenly noted the parchment still in her hand, and said,

“Oh, let me take those.” He conjured another Storage Unit, and deposited them neatly therein, by wand point.

Ron harrumphed loudly, and he and Tonks moved to another corner of the flat, ostensibly to supervise a MLE technician analyzing Harry's Tracer.

Hermione absently noted that he shrank the Unit and tucked it into his robes, rather than setting it neatly by the Floo, as he had the first one.

“Look,” Harry finally said. “I'm not trying to suggest that you are anything other than perfectly capable. But - but Callaghan mentioned your name, and we - we've seen what these people can do. I'm - I just - I don't want to see you hurt.”

Another false smile pulled tautly across Hermione's face, clearly stating that the right to worry over her was no longer his.

“I'll be fine, Harry,” she said in a tone that put an end to the discussion, and deftly wound her way through the MLE members and out of the flat without a backward glance.

TBC

Sorry for the delay in updating. Christmas and three kids and (turning the big 3-0 this weekend…sssshhhh) … well, I can only hope that those following this story like it enough to forgive delays.

Working on the final chapter of “Resistance”. And I can see there being 3 or 4 more of this one, at least.

You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.

lorien

-->

9. Bridge Collapse

Bridges

Chapter Nine: Bridge Collapse

Harry's tread was heavy as he and Ron walked down the large middle aisle that threaded through the mass of cubicles that made up the MLE. The place was normally as bustling and chaotic as an anthill, but in the middle of the night, even it was mostly docile.

Without speaking, the two friends entered Ron's office. The latter flopped into the rolling chair behind his desk, and Harry found a place to light after Banishing two large cardboard containers to a storage closet. He hoped Ron would be able to find them again later. There was a beat of very dense silence.

“So, let's have `em,” Ron finally said. Harry's responding look of befuddlement was very good, but Ron was not convinced, remaining unmoving, until Harry rolled his eyes, sighed, and began fishing in his pockets. He pulled out the shrunken ESU, and tossed to Ron, who clapped it between his palms.

“I didn't not want the MLE to have these. I just - I just - ” Harry seemed at a loss, and gestured heavenward in frustration.

“Wanted a little more time before everyone found out about your little illicit shag-fest with - ” Ron stopped at the look on Harry's face.

“It was more than that, Ron,” Harry sighed, dropping his face down into his hands for a moment. “At least, I thought it was more, or - or could be more… or maybe I was just wishing…”

Ron leaned back in his chair, propped his long legs across his desk, and crossed his ankles.

“So, forgive my confusion… but why didn't you tell Hermione any of this, you know, twelve years ago?” Lazily flourishing his wand, he expanded the unit, and withdrew the pieces of parchment from its depths, unfurling them on his desk, without really looking at them. His full attention was on his best mate.

“I don't know. It was all so … unexpected, and then it - it was just there, and I hadn't ever really thought about it before, and I - I didn't know what to do with it, and … ”

“Wait, are we talking about your feelings for Hermione or your…little wand?” Ron's gesture and eyebrow lift made his innuendo quite clear.

“Ron!” Harry narrowed his eyes in a withering glare, and braced his hands against the metal arms of the chair, as if he would rise and leave. Ron held his hands palms out in an appeasing gesture.

“Easy, mate. I was just having you on. I'm sorry. You were saying?”

Harry looked as if he now doubted the wisdom of continuing his story, but did it anyway.

“I was afraid.”

“Why?” Ron's question was surprisingly serious, and he fixed his gaze on Harry, as if to compel him to answer.

“I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what she wanted. I was afraid that if I - if I asked her to, then she would… but it wouldn't really be what she wanted to do, and she would - feel trapped or something, and … ”

Ron snorted.

“You are a girl,” he said. “When has Hermione ever done anything that she didn't really want to do? Even for one of us?”

It was so like what Hermione had said to him all those years ago that Harry just stared at him.

“Well, there was something Ginny said that really - ”

“Wait one bloody minute... You talked to my sister about this? Not to me, but my sister? You know, the cheeky little one with the fixation on you? You're dumber than I thought, and Hermione thinks I'm the idiot. Does she know?”

“Know what? That I talked to Ginny? No.”

“Good, `cause she'd kill you.”

“I don't see what business it is of hers who I talk to or what about. Ginny's my friend…” Another snort from Ron, but Harry plowed over it. “And anyway, she asked. She actually bloody well guessed what had happened that night, and offered her opinion.”

“I'll bet she did,” Ron muttered under his breath.

“What are you on about?”

“For someone who's been an Auror for over a decade, and who's nearly thirty years old, you really are surprisingly naive.”

“Do go on.” Harry's voice was chilly.

“Did it never occur to you that where you are concerned, Ginny might not have the purest motives?”

Evidently, it had not, and it was plain to read on Harry's face. Ron felt sort of sorry for him; this was something that would have been patently obvious to anyone used to the machinations of siblings - or anyone who really knew Ginny at all, he thought.

“But she's a friend, and she's Hermione's friend, and - and your family - I mean, it feels like my own, and I - ”

“You thought you could trust her,” Ron supplied for him. “In most things, you probably can. But you know what they say: Sooner turn your back on a Bludger than a woman in love.”

Harry's look spoke eloquently of his doubt as to whether “they” had actually said anything of the sort.

“That's just nonsense. Ginny isn't in love with me.”

“Maybe not now, but she was devastated when you left for Australia - and even more so, when you'd made it clear you weren't interested in coming back. She tried to take it out on Hermione a time or two, but I set her right straight about that.”

Harry had straightened in the chair at Ron's last words, his eyes blazing in automatic defense of their other best friend.

“Take it out on Hermione? Why would she - ?”

“It hasn't exactly been some enormous secret, Harry. You left, and you and Hermione were no longer speaking to each other. It was obvious something had happened between the two of you - I never would have guessed it was this, but Ginny obviously had no difficulties figuring it out.” Ron's look was dour. “And then she probably appealed to your bloody nobility to step back from Hermione and let her live her own life…” He cracked a smirk at Harry's dumbfounded look. “That's what she said, isn't it? And you believed her. You ruddy great sod. Bet it chafed Ginny's knickers though, when you bloody well left the country. That couldn't have been in her plans.”

Ron seemed to find pleasure thinking of Ginny's thwarted objectives, but Harry thought that it was small comfort when one thought of a dozen wasted years. He thought of Hermione, alone, scared, laboring to give their child life, with only her Muggle mother in the waiting room. He wondered if she'd cursed him, if she'd cried out for him. His heart wrenched painfully in his chest, and he wondered if the regret would ever stop its cruel piercing. I'd have been there, Hermione, in a moment, in a heart beat… I've never stopped loving you, and I'd have been there!

Harry twitched restlessly the uncomfortable chair, and Ron took the movement as a cue to drop the subject, and return to the matter at hand. He bent his ginger head over the two pieces of parchment, occasionally tapping his wand against one or the other of them, and murmuring a variety of Revelatory Incantations that were Auror standard operating procedure.

“That box over there, by the door,” Ron said, gesturing with one hand without looking up. “It's the records we `confiscated' from the Ludlow manor. I know I saw their Gringotts ledger in there.”

Harry was already rifling through the contents, taking a second to marvel at Ron's leadership. When exactly had that happened? And what else had he missed while he'd been gone?

“Will that be just Peter's records, or the whole family's?” Harry asked.

“Oh, it's the family's,” Ron said, furrowing his brow, as he threw another spell at the stubborn parchment. “Pure-blooded all the way. Live in the same damn house; no wonder they all end up nutters. I'd bet my Cannons tickets that Mother Ludlow still holds the purse-strings, and her boys are still on her dole.”

“Does that mean Griselda Ludlow knew about the blackmail?”

“I'll wager there's not much that goes on in that house that she doesn't know about,” was Ron's sage reply. Harry hefted out the heavy book then, opening the creaky leather binding, and spreading it out in his lap.

Hermione looked mournfully at her open trunk, her belongings neatly stacked, sorted, and folded, filling it to the brim. Her room - the lovely room that Harry had picked out for her - was looking forlornly bare. She was leaving tomorrow.

She was leaving tomorrow.

She couldn't understand why she felt so bereft about it. She should feel charged, ambitious, excited. There had been a rather nasty run of things right after the Final Battle, when Harry had drifted around the Burrow looking like he'd lost instead of won, but once the three of them had moved in together… life seemed to take on a new shine somehow, freshly polished and ripe with possibility.

Here was her possibility, hovering before her like a snitch, just waiting for her to grasp it.

And yet, it smacked of triviality. The night she'd shared with Harry had skewed her worldview; she was seeing things from a different angle now, and she wanted desperately to know if Harry had experienced the same alteration.

She never could quite bring herself to ask him. And she knew the reason why. For all her vaunted Gryffindor bravery, she was afraid. She was afraid that, if she broached the subject, he would admit to her that the earth, in fact, hadn't shifted beneath his feet the way it had beneath hers. He would tell her that, no, he had not been reliving that night non-stop since it happened. She figured that, like her, he had indeed wished for it to happen again, but that was just because he was a man, and that's the way they worked.

It's better this way, Hermione, she told herself, wondering why she didn't believe it. You both said you wouldn't have this transfigure into some big `thing'. Harry had seemed relieved when she'd said that, absolved of some kind of responsibility, and somehow, that had hurt too…

He'd been getting Owls from Australia, and she knew that he'd been casually conversing with the Auror Unit Down Under, but she didn't really think he'd relocate. After all, Ron was here and the Weasleys, and - torrid night together notwithstanding - she was still his best friend, and she knew that he loved her, at least on that level.

She tried to push away the thoughts of the heavy envelope she'd found in the post, of the cheery multicolored logo that had peered from beneath the open flap. But her mind ventured there anyway, and proceeded to mercilessly examine the facts, as painfully as ripping off a scab. Harry was going on holiday. With someone else. He'd had ample time to ask her, yet he hadn't. She doubted Ron would be the recipient, or Harry would have simply bought three tickets. It couldn't be Ginny…

She couldn't bring herself to ask him, to reveal to him that she'd fallen to snooping through his post, to let him know that she was as hopelessly obsessive as the silliest teenager, and that she'd broken her vow to refuse to let that night eclipse all their years of friendship.

How could she, Hermione Granger, have plunged to such depths? Was she really going to go out with such a pitiful whimper? She stood then, suddenly, and felt determination swell within her chest, at least momentarily squelching the soul-paralyzing fear of his rejection. The resolution on her face hadn't been seen since the day they descended from the Common Room to face the fight they'd all known was coming.

She was going to have it out with Harry before she left, promises be damned. She flung open her door, and was suddenly brought up short into a wall of chest.

“Harry…” she spluttered, backing away from him, telling herself that she had only imagined the heat of him through the thin fabric of his shirt.

“Hermione,” he said in a bemused way, unsettled by her flustered reaction. “I was looking for you.” He had on a plastic smile, of the sort that he used when confronted by the press, the Ministry, or his fans. The fact that he was using it with her - with her! - was as painful as if he'd cursed or struck her.

“I'm right here.” Her voice sounded cheerful, though she had to quell the urge to vomit. “There was - there was actually something - ”

“Oy, you found her then?” Ron trumpeted down the hall. “Let's be off then. Before all the good booths are taken.”

“Be off where?” Hermione mouthed, arching one tell-me-what's-going-on-now eyebrow at Harry.

“It's a party - you know, a going-away party… for you,” Harry answered her helplessly. “Don't tell. It's supposed to be a surprise.” He was looking at her accusingly, as if she'd coerced him into giving away the secret, and she couldn't keep back the smile that twisted her lips or the muffled laugh that vibrated in her throat.

He reached for her hand then, tickling his fingers across her palm and swirling his thumb over her first two knuckles. She felt like she was caressing a live wire, and her breath came unevenly.

“What was it you wanted to tell me?” he asked, as his eyes searched her own. He seemed more than a little strained, but his gaze was hungry. She knew if she just said one word, made one gesture, she'd find herself on her bed, beneath his warm length. Her fingers twitched in his, aching to crook themselves in the direction of that bed; her lips pursed to form the syllables; her body pleaded with her to take this opportunity.

Harry's eyes had gone over her shoulder, and something in them flattened as he saw her bare walls, her brimming trunk. He straightened suddenly, blinking as if he'd just come out from under the Imperius.

One look, one word, one touch…Their eyes locked, simultaneously begging for and shying away from.

“Harry...” Her voice cracked.

“We should go,” he said.

“Right…” she agreed faintly.

Harry's eyes were crossing as he skimmed the rows and columns of the impeccably recorded family ledger. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that someone had hexed the entries to blur and wiggle in front of his bleary gaze. He'd nodded toward the pages once, and then jerked so suddenly that the book had toppled onto the floor.

“Go home, mate,” Ron said perfunctorily. “How long have you been up? Your internal clock's got to be completely wonky by now. There's nothing you can do here that can't wait until morning anyway.”

“I'm fine,” Harry replied, not at all convincingly. He met Ron's knowing stare evenly, trying to pretend that his disinclination to stop for the night had nothing to do with the fact that he didn't want to go to the flat they'd used to share.

“You can always kip on the couch at my place,” Ron offered, reading Harry perfectly.

“I'm…” Harry began to say again, but then stopped. What was the point in denying the fact that he was bone-weary, heart-weary, soul-weary, in such a profound way that a mere night of sleep couldn't hope to repair it?

“C'mon,” Ron said companionably, standing. “I'll come too. Let me try one last thing. Hermione would think it right poetic that I'm sitting here using an Editing spell, of all things, but these records haven't responded to anything else. The only alteration to - to Lily's is the addition of your name. I keep thinking that there must be some reason Callaghan had Annemarie's records as well - he'd found out Hermione's secret; the Ludlows must've had one too … perhaps Annemarie wasn't really Peter Ludlow's daughter?” He tapped the topmost document with his wand, and muttered a rather complicated incantation that Harry only vaguely recognized. “It should undo all revisions made to the document, if there were any.”

He rolled his eyes toward Harry, as if to share in the commiseration that it was indeed a long shot. But the parchment shimmered, inky letters twisted in on themselves to reform with new meaning, and Ron peered down at them.

For a long moment, he was utterly motionless, save for the helpless bobbing of his Adam's apple in his throat. He finally swallowed noisily, and looked at his best mate with blatant shock.

“Bloody hell.” Limp-wristed, he tapped Lily Catherine's record and repeated the same Editing spell. It, too, began to change. Ron's face seemed nearly the color of old cheese.

“Ron, what is it?” Harry finally said, wondering what in Merlin's name could have garnered such a response.

They were interrupted by a light knock on the jamb of Ron's open office door.

“You keeping late hours too, Weasley?” said a dark-haired Auror. He glanced dismissively at Harry, did a double-take, and said, “Holy sh - ”

“'Dyou need something, Spencer?” Ron cut in, with thinly veiled annoyance. Harry noticed that his eyes kept drifting down to the parchment, as if of their own accord.

“No,” Spencer responded, still eying Harry sideways. “Just got called in for a suspicious death, heard voices, and wondered who else was here.”

“Well, now that you've satisfied your curiosity - ”

“Whose suspicious death?” Harry's sudden question cut off whatever disparagement Ron had been about to utter. Spencer shrugged the shoulder that was not propping him in the doorway.

“Some old mediwitch,” he said, consulting the roll of parchment he held with disinterest. “Calista Hieronymus, retired from St. Mungo's. Evidently, she quaffed a whole bloody cauldron of Calming Draught. Probably suicide. What the hell?”

Harry had all but dived across the desk to look at the birth records Ron still had, and Ron was desperately trying to cover them with his large hands.

“Harry - Harry, wait a second, mate, it's not - you should - ” Ron spluttered, but Harry had not been a Seeker for nothing, and soon held the parchment, which looked slightly worse for the struggle.

“What - what did you say her name was?” Harry panted, slinging the question at Spencer, with burning eyes.

“C - Calista Hieronymus,” Spencer repeated slowly, still watching both of them with a wide, wary gaze.

“See that?” Harry shoved the document under Ron's long nose. “Both the presiding Healer and the Mediwitch in charge dying on the exact same night? Suicide, my arse.”

“Yeah… yeah, Harry, but…”

For an instant, Harry wondered why in the world Ron looked so…destroyed, and then he glanced at the record again, this time taking in all of it, not just the line whereupon the Mediwitch's name had been neatly inscribed.

The color went out of Harry's face so quickly that Ron Accioed the chair.

“She's - she's…” he stammered initially, and then his mouth continued to open and close soundlessly.

“Yeah, mate. It's her.”

“Oh God.” The silence was throbbing and heavy. Spencer shifted uneasily in the doorway, as if he didn't want to leave without saying something, but didn't want to interrupt the other two Aurors either.

“This is why Callaghan was blackmailing the Ludlows? Why would he blackmail them? If - if he brokered the deal, then he - he would be implicating himself.” Harry's words sounded good, analytical and Auror-ish, but his voice was a whispery shadow of its normal self.

“To him, it was probably a good idea. There was a young, single, teenaged mother, obviously distraught - ”

Harry groaned, and sank his head into his hands.

“ - and a young married couple who - whose baby wasn't going to survive - even a Muggle-born couldn't save all that damned Pureblood inbreeding - he just - he probably thought he was doing Hermione a favor.”

Doing her a favor… Harry tried to dredge up some righteous anger, but it was crushed beneath a swamping helping of guilt. If Ron's suppositions were correct, then none of this would have happened if he'd just sodding been there.

“So why did he suddenly change his mind? How could he be sure that the Ludlows wouldn't go trumpeting to the Prophet about illegal Knockturn-alley adoptions?”

“Maybe he started it when he found out it was you…” Ron suggested, tapping on the blinking emblem next to the scrawled addition of Harry Potter, which looked faded and feeble above the Not Given written in the official St. Mungo's script.

Harry lifted the forgotten ledger from the floor, and flipped over to the last page he'd been looking at.

“He started blackmailing Peter Ludlow six months ago. Hermione said that Callaghan occasionally picked up shifts in Emergency, and that Annemarie - ” Lily Catherine! - “had broken her arm. If he - if he - ”

Sometimes I wondered if he'd guessed it, Hermione's voice rang in his mind. Had Callaghan guessed it? Had he seized the opportunity of Annemarie's accident to gather evidence?

“If he suspected - then I reckon my - my files would provide him all the confirmation he needed,” he finished. Paternity. His hands were trembling, and he tried to lock them over the ends of the armrests. Scarcely twelve hours ago, he had realized that he'd had a daughter, and now…

“The Ludlows definitely have a motive,” Ron pointed out. “Offing Callaghan gets rid of the blackmailer, and by eliminating Peter and Tabitha - and that nurse - ” He nodded toward Spencer; Harry looked startled, as if he'd forgotten the other Auror's existence. “They're covering their tracks quite nicely,” Ron added. “There's not even anyone left who was there that night, except - except the baby - Harry?” Harry was backing toward the door, shaking his head. He had to swallow twice before he could speak again.

“No,” he said. “Not everyone. Not everyone… holy hell, Callaghan even mentioned Hermione on his Dicta-quill. Who knows what he may have said while he was being tortured? If - if the Ludlows don't know that she had no idea…”

And then he was gone, knocking Spencer unceremoniously aside, headed for the Apparation point as though a Hungarian Horntail were after him.

Ron was right on his heels.

TBC

-->

10. Toll Bridge

Bridges

Chapter Ten: Toll Bridge

A crack split the night as Harry Apparated into the alley just across the way from Hermione's building. Ron followed so closely behind that the sound of his Apparation was almost an echo. Harry saw a light come on in one window, and he hoped that he wouldn't have to deal with Muggle police on top of everything else.

Feeling a heavy dread squeezing at his lungs, he began to sprint unevenly toward the building.

“Harry! Mate - Harry, wait!” He turned in annoyance at Ron's call.

“What?”

“I'm - if you'll hold on half a second - I'm on Hermione's wards. We can Apparate straight up. I'll Side-Along you.”

“I'm not on her wards?”

Ron gave him a Seriously, Harry, what do you think? look.

“Reckon she's never been keen on surprises,” he said, somewhat diplomatically. He stepped alongside Harry, and wrapped one long-fingered hand firmly around Harry's bicep. Harry unconsciously held his breath, waiting for the rubber-tube sensation, and they were gone as quickly as they'd come.

When they reappeared, they weren't actually in the cozy living area that Harry had seen earlier, but out in the dimly lit hallway, which, Harry noticed with some distant portion of his brain, had a sort of shabby chic look to it. Ron put a finger to his lips and drew his wand; Harry's was already out.

Hermione's door was ajar. The hair on the back of Harry's neck prickled. He balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, and then lunged - but without warning, the soles of his shoes left the worn carpeting, and there was an arm around his neck, firm enough to impede, without cutting off his air supply.

“I know you know better,” came a low voice in his ear. And the arm removed itself.

“Ron, what the hell?” Harry said in a disgruntled hiss, straightening his robes with an air of affront.

“Merlin only knows how much Hermione means to you,” Ron said heavily, looking thoroughly unapologetic for his assault. “But she happens to mean rather a lot to me too, and we're still going to go about this by the book. There are reasons procedures are to be followed.”

“Bloody hell, you even sound like her,” Harry muttered, but made no further attempts to enter the apartment, wand blazing. Instead, they edged up to the door, flanking either side of it, and when Harry nodded that he had Ron covered, Ron sent a surreptitious Detector charm beneath the door.

It zipped back into the tip of his wand with a white gleam, only a millisecond later.

“Clear,” Ron mouthed. Harry swung the door open silently, and stepped inside, his stomach clenched into knots of terror. It did not soothe him much that no one was inside the flat, because, while it meant no threat was present, it also meant that no Hermione was present either.

It meant that neither of them had the faintest idea where Hermione was.

The flat was dim, lit only by a small electric table lamp on a hallway stand, clearly used just to keep the darkness from being absolute. Even the faint lighting could not hide the fact that the flat was an utter disaster. Hermione's desk had been apparently emptied of every conceivable thing it contained, and those contents now seemed strewn from pillar to post. The bookshelves had been haphazardly rooted through, and many books littered the floor in scattered clumps, bindings creased and pages bent. Her bedding had been torn apart, and drawers had been pulled out and left hanging. Harry tried not to notice the white lacy something that dangled from one.

Harry cast the same charm he'd used at Callaghan's place, and the room was instantly lit in a variety of glowing colors.

“Whoever it was hasn't been gone long,” he observed, visibly just managing to strangle the urge to tear off down the street in the hopes of catching the culprit.

“Maybe your Thor-the-God-of-Apparation act scared him off,” Ron observed dryly.

“Do you think he - they have her?” Harry ignored his comment, phrasing his question with an astonishing amount of calm. Our daughter is alive, Hermione, alive! The back of his throat stung with repressed tears.

Ron poked his ginger head into the tiny front closet before replying,

“I don't think she ever was here. Her cloak's not in here, nor her handbag. And you know the first thing Hermione would do is put away her things. She could've been surprised at the door, maybe, but I doubt it.”

Harry was scanning the front entryway, and grunted in agreement with his friend.

“No, there's no sign of hex-work at the door, just an Unlocking spell. Good one too - smashed right through her wards.”

“I told her to revamp those last winter,” Ron griped, and Harry smiled. Even while the regret sliced through him like a whetted knife, he was glad that she had had someone here - glad that Ron had looked after her, even though Hermione would be the first to loudly sniff that she didn't need looking after. She did that night, almost eleven years ago, a voice inside him reminded, and you weren't there.

He rubbed one hand absently over the vague ache in his chest, and thought of Annemarie - Lily Catherine - in that hospital bed. Show me yours, she'd asked, and suddenly he felt something fierce and primally protective well up inside him.

My daughter, he thought, mine! Mine and Hermione's…dear God…

“Do you have any idea where she might go?” Harry asked, hating that he had to rely on Ron for this, when it had been he who had once known Hermione so well.

“Actually I think I might,” Ron remarked, slanting a knowing look at Harry, apparently cottoning on to where Harry's thoughts lay. “She's never gone back that I know of before, but these aren't exactly normal circumstances, are they?”

And even as Ron spoke, Harry knew. She'd gone back to the flat they had all briefly shared; she'd gone home.

“I'll get the MLE on this one too - only a break-in, but since it looks to be related…” Ron shrugged. “I'm afraid your little secret isn't likely to be one much longer.”

Harry felt a strange apathy about the disclosure, which rode on a wave of fatigue.

“'Sokay,” he said. “Make sure Tonks knows about the mediwitch - that it wasn't suicide…”

“Absolutely,” Ron answered. “We'll need Hermione to look and see if anything's been taken too…” He looked up, but Harry was already gone.

Harry paused for only a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and then resumed his uneasy prowl around his spacious room. His hands were driven deep into his pockets; his rangy shoulders were rigid triangles. It was that frantic feeling again, the one he'd felt at the Burrow, the panicked smothering sensation that life was moving on and he'd missed the boat.

If I stand still, I'll drown.

Just go ask her. Is it so hard?

I can't. She's leaving today.

She'd stay if you asked her.

I know she would. I don't want to do that to her. I don't want her to stay.

Don't you?

The party had been nice, and Harry would have enjoyed it, had it not been for the entire reason for having the party in the first place. Hermione was leaving - Hermione wanted to leave. It was unthinkable, unbearable -

ASK HER.

“Hermione, I want you to go on holiday with me.” He actually said the words aloud, rushing them together in a manner reminiscent of the Yule Ball invitation that he'd extended to Cho. He shook his head in frustration at the inanity, the inadequacy of the words. Go on holiday? It was so much more than that --

“Go on holiday?” He imagined Hermione arching her delicate brows, her forehead crinkled in confusion. “But Harry, don't you know I'm leaving? The internship starts next week. I've got to go.”

She's got to go, he told himself dully. Of course she does. Her life has been put on hold long enough.

What about your life?

He recognized the absurdity of feeling defensive in response to an internal question.

My life is just fine. I've got money - and time before training begins. There are plenty of people my age who would adore the position I'm in.

It means nothing without her, and you know it.

The voice would not be dissuaded.

He heaved a sigh of what might have been surrender, and walked toward her room, preparing to knock, but pausing when he saw the door was open slightly. Hermione was hovering over her trunk, as if assessing the contents. His movement outside her door must have caught her eye, for she looked up and smiled, waving him in.

“Hi, Harry,” she said brightly, and something uncomfortable shifted in his stomach. He couldn't do this.

“Hi…” he forced out, plastering a smile across his face. There was a beat of silence that sloshed awkwardly around the room.

“Can you believe it? Only two hours until my Portkey activates!” She sounded chipper and excited. She closed her trunk with a snap and used her wand to fasten the latches. “Harry, are you okay? You look ill.”

“I don't want you to go.” The words tumbled from him in an ungainly rush, and he felt himself go crimson. Something leapt in her eyes so briefly that he thought he must have imagined it, and her forehead furrowed in confusion, before she smoothed it out and pasted on a smile that was probably similar to - and as sincere as - his.

“I know that everything's changing, and that's never easy, but…”

“It's not about that! I - I just don't want you to leave like this.”

“Leave like what, Harry?” Her tone had the slightest edge of ice. “I'm hardly sneaking off in the middle of the night.”

“I don't know what I'll do without you.” He thought he'd finally gotten a sentiment out without sounding like an idiot, but she was still misinterpreting him.

“Look, I wouldn't be able to help you with your coursework in Auror training anyway, now would I? I know - I know you think you need me around, but - but you're just - you're used to me, Harry, and everything is different now, so you're … clinging to what you know, and - ”

Harry felt his irritation rising. She was talking to him like he was an errant child.

“Clinging?” He arched his brows sarcastically. “Is that what they're calling it these days?”

Hermione flushed to her hairline, and she turned away from him, her fingers idly playing with one hasp of her trunk. Click, click, click.

“We agreed that we weren't going to let that be an issue between us,” she said in her precise voice - Prefect Hermione.

“Well, guess what, Hermione? It is! It is an issue between us. Can you honestly sit there and pretend that everything is normal, that everything can go back to the way it was? It's not going to go back to the way it was. We've messed up everything. Don't you see?” Harry was almost shouting now, his voice fringed with hysteria.

“I'm sorry you feel that way,” she replied dully, sinking down onto the bed like he'd pulled a Lockhart and removed her bones. “Maybe we made a mistake, but I can't - I can't regret it, Harry. I - ”

“I never said - ”

“I only ever wanted to help you, Harry. I'd like to think I have. But I can't be this crutch you are always leaning on when it suits you - or when you can't find anyone else. Had you ever even thought about me in a romantic way before that night? Maybe it was just sex, Harry, but … I can't be someone you settle for because you don't like change.”

“It wouldn't be like that,” he protested, wondering what exactly had happened, and feeling as if she were slipping away before his eyes.

“Wouldn't it?” She seemed to be waiting for something, and he felt the lead weight in his stomach increase.

Just say it.

Why? Because she's responded so favorably to everything else I've said?

If you told her, she might take this more seriously.

I … can't.

“What about Australia?” she asked, when it appeared he wasn't going to say anything else.

“What about it?” It came out much more rudely than he'd intended.

“Have you decided what you're going to do?”

“Hadn't yet,” he answered her laconically. “But there doesn't seem to be much reason for me to stay now, does there?”

“Harry…” her voice broke in the middle of the word. “Don't do this, please.”

“Don't do this? Don't do what, Hermione? Upset your well-ordered little world? I'm sorry - Harry's temper tantrum wasn't on your daily planner, was it?”

Hermione flinched as if he'd struck her, and he felt guilt leap atop the mountain formed by his fear and anger and pain and love.

“I think you should go to Australia,” she said, not petulantly.

“England isn't far enough away from Prague?” His voice was bitter. “Don't worry, Hermione. You've done more than enough on my account for seven years. I'll let you get on with your life. You'll not have to worry yourself over me anymore.”

“Harry - ” But before the word could completely escape her lips, he had Apparated away with a thunderous crack that rattled the pictures in the hall.

Without consciously intending to, he ended up just outside the grounds at Hogwarts, on the far side of the Lake. In that utter solitude, he was able to pace and curse and shout and cry and rail against Hermione's stubbornness and his own cowardice, and wonder what in the hell he was supposed to do next.

After an hour or so of that, he had come to the conclusion that he was totally and besottedly in love with her, and that there was nothing to be done for it, but to swallow his pride, go back to London, apologize profusely, and explain that he would do whatever she wanted, if it just meant that they could have a chance. He knew her desire that night was not feigned - surely it could not be just physical. Surely the affection that she felt for him could grow into something stronger…

As he Apparated back to their flat, he thought that perhaps he should have stopped somewhere and gotten her flowers or something…

But Ron was sprawled out on the sofa, eating from a large bowl of crisps, and listening to a Quidditch game on the Wireless.

“Where's Hermione?” he asked stupidly, hearing no other sounds emanating from elsewhere in the flat.

“She left early. Didn't you say good-bye? She said you had.”

She said you had.

And with those four words, his hope had turned to ash in his mouth.

“Right…” he said to Ron, whose attention had already gone back to the game. After a moment's hesitation, he strode down to his room, studiously refusing to even glance in the direction of Hermione's room, knowing that its emptiness would only serve to further crush him.

He opened Hedwig's cage, and fed her owl treats with his left hand, while he scrawled a brief letter with his right. He rolled up the parchment, almost crumpling it in his haste, and tucked it safely inside the small leather pouch for Hedwig to deliver.

“Take this to the MLE office in Sydney.”

There was a barrage of emotions for Harry as he arrived at the flat that he had not seen for almost twelve years. It looked nothing like he remembered - Ron had taken most of the furniture for his new flat, with Harry's permission - and what remained had been generously swathed in charmed dust covers. The kitchen and living area were shrouded in darkness, but at the end of the hall, a light glowed from under a door.

The door to his old room, the room they'd shared once - not hers.

Harry tried to dredge up some faint surprise at this, but could not. Had he really expected anything else? He felt like this was something inevitable - something deferred, but, at the same time, a long time coming.

“Hermione?” he called out, as he made his way down the short corridor. There was a rustle of movement as he opened the door, and he caught Hermione, straightening from her position at the window, obviously trying to compose her features.

“Checking up on me?” she asked, without looking at him.

“Someone broke into your flat,” he said. “We were worried when we couldn't find you. But Ron seemed to think you'd be here.” He spread his hands wide in an and here you are gesture.

“Someone broke - is everything all right? Why would - how did you know?” She had come upright from her position propped in the windowsill, and was headed for the door, when Harry grabbed her elbow.

“We knew… because it had to do with the attack on Annemarie Ludlow - and the murder of Alan Callaghan.” He was surprised that his voice sounded normal; his tongue felt thick and unwieldy in his mouth.

“What does that have to do with me?” She asked faintly, groping behind her for the edge of the sill, and leaning back against it.

“They also killed Calista Hieronymus. They were going after everyone who was there that night - the night she was born.”

“They?”

“The Ludlows, we think. I wouldn't be surprised if the MLE ends up raiding the manor before dawn.”

“That's horrible,” Hermione murmured. “How could they kill their own family -their brother? And what they did to Annemarie… how could they? Why would they? What do I have to do with any of this?”

Harry took a deep breath before replying.

“We think they put their plan into motion when they found out I was her father.”

He gripped her arms above both elbows, forcing her to face him, and his gaze bored mercilessly into hers. He did not trust himself to say anything else without breaking down completely, and so he waited - waited for her to understand it.

It did not take long.

Her knees gave way beneath her, and she would have fallen, if he had not been holding on to her arms. Her mouth trembled soundlessly around words that were never spoken.

“She - she's - Lily Catherine?” Hermione finally managed, almost incoherently. Harry released her arms, and wrapped his own arms around her trembling form, pulling her to him. She did not resist. He pressed a kiss to her hairline, near her temple, before saying,

“Our daughter is alive.” The last word broke and came out only as a whisper, nearly lost in Hermione's sob.

“It was Alan?” There was a note of betrayal in her voice.

“He probably thought he was doing you a favor,” Harry conceded. “He took advantage of the fact that you were young and alone. Who knows why he started blackmailing Peter? Maybe he was having money trouble. But when he found out that I was involved - he upped the ante. And the Ludlows found out.”

“Is she safe? Will they try - ?”

“She's got round-the-clock guard,” Harry said flatly. “And we just doubled it.” There was something in his eyes that faintly chilled Hermione, as if he really would have liked to have seen the Ludlows attempt something.

There was a long silence, in which both of them thought of the myriads of things that could be said, and wondered if it had been too long to say them. She realized he wasn't letting go of her, and he realized that she wasn't moving away.

“Do you think I'll have any trouble getting her - getting her back?” Hermione finally asked unevenly, sniffing loudly.

“If it turns out that the Ludlows are responsible - then we're all she has. You were a victim in this, Hermione - a pawn. None of this was your fault.”

Hermione did not miss his use of the plural pronoun.

“It is my fault,” she insisted. “If I had told you - if you had been there… you would have been there?” There was a faint note of uncertainty in her quasi-question.

“I would have been there, Hermione,” he said in a low voice, infusing as much meaning as he could into the simple promise. “It's as much my fault as anything else. If I hadn't left so suddenly that last day - we didn't have a chance to resolve anything. I loved you so much that it scared me, and I didn't know how to handle it. When I - when I came back, you were gone - left early, Ron said.”

“I just couldn't take being in that flat any longer. Without you. I though you despised me - saw me as some sort of cavalier slag, when I was just … compartmentalizing everything, so I didn't have to face how being with you made me feel, how you made me feel. I Flooed to Diagon Alley, and prowled around the bookshops until my Portkey was ready.”

“And when you - when you found out you were… why didn't you tell me?” Harry's voice was tender and gentle, as if recognizing that the time for hurling angry accusations had passed.

“I was so shocked when I found out,” she said quietly, her gaze distant, as she recalled the past. “I didn't see how - it was just once, and I'd cast the spell, but - I didn't want to believe it at first. And - and you - Ron told me you'd accepted the Australian offer, and you were gone without so much as an Owl. When I hadn't heard from you at all, I - I - I thought you didn't even deserve to know, and I - I didn't tell you… it was childish of me, Harry… I'm - I'm sorry.”

“I was still so angry at you - and at myself… Everything just ended so badly, and I was terrified that most of it had been my fault, and… I was sure you'd write, and everything would be friendly and normal, and when that didn't happen, I just - I just couldn't put quill to parchment yet … but your letters never came. I knew from Ron that you were regularly writing to him, so… I figured it really was over, that I'd ruined everything. It just became easier to not write than to explain why I hadn't written in so long - or to risk actually writing, and then never receive a reply.”

“I did write you,” Hermione whispered, in a barely audible voice. “I - I just couldn't send them. And then, after she di - after I thought she was dead, I figured I'd dodged a hex, that she was gone, that her existence had been so brief that it wouldn't matter to you, and you need never know.”

The silence between them was poignant and regretful, as they thought of all the ways it could have been different, if they had been honest, if they hadn't been afraid, if they hadn't let themselves be manipulated - the taste of twelve lost years with Hermione and their daughter -his family - was bitter in Harry's mouth. Yet he had grown up while in Australia, and this time, he realized, he had the chance to say something, to seize the chance while it was before him, instead of assuming and wondering and misunderstanding until it was gone. Slowly, he became aware of their proximity and of the clean smell of Hermione's hair.

“We've been fools, Hermione,” he said heavily. “We've been at cross purposes for nearly twelve years. It was so easy to love you…”

“And do you still?”

“You know I do. If only I hadn't - ”

She didn't know with what words he'd intended to complete the sentence, but she could see from his face that the time wasted between the two of them was difficult for him to come to terms with.

Heart pounding so loudly that she felt sure he could hear it, she pressed her index finger to his lips in a wordless command for him to hush.

“I think we've had enough of `what if' and `if only' to last us the rest of our lives,” she said, feeling the air rush wheezily from her lungs as his lips contracted slightly against her fingertip in a kiss. “Don't you?”

He didn't answer her question, saying only,

“I love you,” with a heartfelt directness that made her grateful for the strength of his chest and arms beneath her hands. “And I promise you'll never have to wonder about the way I feel again.”

“I love you too,” she inserted. “And I promise to worry about what's best for you only in context of how much I love you.”

He leaned closer, and his eyes flickered from her eyes to her mouth, and then over her shoulder. When she twisted her head to peer in the same direction, out the window overlooking the city, he laughed softly, an unexpected and rather un-Harry-like sound that did flip-floppy things to her stomach.

“This is where I first kissed you, remember?”

Her mouth curled gently, but her eyes remained solemn, all too cognizant of what they had nearly lost again.

“I remember,” she whispered. The lights of London twinkled in her hair and in her eyes - before she closed them - and he kissed her again. And his mouth was on hers, warm and more experienced and yet delightfully familiar, and somehow richer with the long absence and the bittersweet tang of regret.

Harry felt his soul soar as her mouth moved in tandem with his, and he knew that this time he was not going to make the same mistakes, the same assumptions, the same thinking with his head instead of his heart. No one is going to decide what is best for Hermione and me, except for Hermione and me.

Almost immediately on the heels of that thought came another, The two of you aren't the extent of this family anymore.

They broke apart almost simultaneously, breathing heavily, pressing foreheads together.

“Harry?” Hermione's voice was tremulous, questioning, and utterly unlike herself. He smothered a smile in her hair, but had to wonder if she was reading his mind as she added, “Can we go see our daughter?”

TBC

Here is the next installment…. I hope everyone enjoys it. I had some trouble with the final confrontation between Harry and Hermione twelve years ago, but there you go…

About one more chapter to go, I think. You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.

lorien

-->

11. Drawbridge

Bridges

Chapter Eleven: Drawbridge

The further Harry and Hermione proceeded down the tiled corridor of St. Mungo's, the shorter Hermione's strides became, and the closer she drew to Harry. By the time, they'd climbed the stairs to the appropriate floor, she was walking just behind his left elbow.

“Hey, are you okay?” he finally turned to ask, his voice solicitous and concerned. He seemed to quickly assess the reasoning behind the uncharacteristic uncertainty. “She's almost eleven, Hermione. She's not going to shoot flames out of her eyes or rip your head off.”

“How is she?” she asked suddenly, almost breathily, as though the words escaped without permission.

“Physically, she's rather frail right now. She looks pretty rough, Hermione.” His tone was meant in warning, to prepare her. “Emotionally, she's lost, bewildered, grieving… Her personality though - ” A small grin twisted his lips as he thought of his conversation with Annemarie. “She's very smart, sounds a lot older than she actually is… kinda ballsy. She actually reminded me a bit of you - even though I didn't really realize it before...” He cocked his head thoughtfully at her.

Hermione staggered a couple of steps backward, as if he'd struck her full in the face, but managed to recover, and turn smoothly on one heel.

“I - I can't do this…” she stammered, beginning to walk briskly back in the direction from which they'd come.

Harry grabbed her by the elbow.

“Nobody said we had to go in there and spill the whole sorry tale tonight.” His voice was even, but there was a take-charge note in it that Hermione was having trouble adjusting to. “It's after three, and she's probably sleeping. I just figured we'd … peek in, let you see her.” Suddenly, he peered closely at her. “You do want to see her?” His forehead was puckered with doubt.

“Of course I do,” Hermione moaned, scrubbing her hands over her face and making her voice sound muffled and uncertain. “I used to see her at work with Tabitha quite a bit, but - it seems so different now, knowing that… It's just - I'm not sure I can look at her, and - and not be completely overwhelmed…”

“By what?”

“By the ramifications, Harry! She's alive! She's been alive this whole time. If it hadn't been for - we could have - she … what if she can't forgive us? What if she'd be better off…?”

“We're going to have to tell her at some point,” Harry said, infusing more confidence than he actually felt into his tone.

“I - I understand that, Harry. I know she deserves to know. It's just - it's just… Peter and Tabitha were her parents, her real parents, and they're - they were good people. We can't - we're not going to be able to replace them, Harry.”

There was an odd note in her voice, and Harry looked down to see her small hand cupping his shoulder; she looked as serious as one would trying to convey something very important to a small child.

“I'm not trying to replace anybody, Hermione.” Exasperation tiptoed in on the fringes of his voice.

“I know you just found out about her today, and I know how you get when you decide to be terribly ferocious and protective, but - ”

“I don't think either of us can presume to know how the other `gets' after all this time, do you?” He meant it as somewhat of a jest, but Hermione's face blossomed into slow flame, marred with more than just slight worry. He hastened to assuage it, all too aware, more than ever, of what happened when things went unsaid. “That doesn't mean I don't love you. I've loved you for so long that I don't think I'd know how to feel things differently. It does mean that we're going to have to get reacquainted… at least a little…”

A look of nostalgia washed briefly across his face. Has anyone seen a toad? A boy named Neville's lost one. But he straightened his shoulders, and returned to the task at hand: their daughter, Annemarie.

“Leaving her with any of that family is not an option. Her parents were obviously an aberration. And I think she'll be okay - with the concept of us, anyway - after a while. Kids are adaptable. And she does come from very open-minded stock…”

He meant his last words to be light-hearted, but the second reminder of Annemarie's true origins only caused Hermione to groan and move the wrong way down the hall once again.

He grabbed her around the upper arms, and pulled her a few shuffling steps nearer, bending his knees so that he could peer into her face.

“Hey,” he said, shaking her gently, his voice very soft, even in the wee-hours-quiet of the hospital. “What is all this really about?”

“I don't have legitimate reason to be upset?” She wiped at her damp cheeks with the backs of her hands, sounding slightly miffed.

“Is it Annemarie you're afraid to face, or what she represents?”

Her face was blank, though there was tension evident in her shoulders.

“I didn't know pop psychology was part of Auror training.” Her voice was blandly sardonic, and, Harry realized with an unpleasant start, reminded him vaguely of Draco Malfoy.

“Personal failure,” Harry pushed on with his prior point.

She laughed at him, and he took a half-step back. He had not been expecting that particular reaction.

“You and Ron used to always place me up on this pedestal as a paragon of intellect and virtue. Ron finally stopped doing it seven or eight years ago. I do hope it doesn't take you quite that long.”

He stammered something inarticulate, trying to figure out what he was supposed to say to that.

“You've just said that you've loved me for so long… I hope you aren't still just… carrying a torch for Hermione Granger, that shining pillar of humanity.” She splayed one hand across her breastbone, and sarcastic tears were in her voice. “Because she has feet of clay, Harry. She made hash out of her life twelve years ago, and she has regretted it every second ever since.”

“You didn't make the hash by yourself,” Harry said, roughly and unevenly. There was a beat of heavy silence. “We are going to have to let go of all this regret eventually.” He unfurled his fingers outward, as if releasing a Snitch.

“The millstone around our necks.” Again, she sounded as if she did not know whether to laugh or cry. Harry was reminded once more of how tired he was, as the weariness seemed to leach through muscle, sinew, and bone. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his robes, and exhaled a sigh that seemed to rattle through him.

“We can't… go back,” he said slowly, choosing his words with care - or perhaps finding them with difficulty. “We can't reclaim what we had once - whatever it was. And we've got to accept that it's lost. We can only … start over again. You know?”

“Yeah.” The word was the barest of whispers. He crooked his arm toward her, with an unasked question: Can you do that? With me? And she tucked her hand into his elbow in unspoken assent.

The air was thick and sticky in the tiny windowless bathroom of Hermione's walk-up flat in the heart of wizarding Prague. She could feel her hair sticking to the back of her neck, and the walls and closed door seemed to press in on her - or was that just the utter panic swelling up and spreading out?

Part of her wanted to fling the door open and go out to the miniscule balcony for a breath of fresh air, but another part of her was afraid that if she flung open that door, she'd take off running and wouldn't stop - as if she could flee this.

The white plastic stick was gripped woodenly between numb and unfeeling fingers. The double lines were accusing slashes. The crumbly tile seemed to spin around her, and her other hand groped blindly for the edge of the sink to ward off a fall.

She was pregnant.

She wondered why the little display just didn't say, Look what you've done! Or maybe, for brevity's sake, just, You idiot.

She thought she had done what was best. Harry hardly seemed certain of his feelings, and she had no desire to manipulate him into something that was not heartfelt or sincere. So, she had removed herself from the equation, thinking that this would enable him to decide, without the guilt that her presence would be likely to induce, how he really felt and what he really wanted to do about it.

Deep down, a tiny voice admitted - I thought he'd come.

She'd seen it - flashes of it - the warmth in his eyes when he looked at her, kissed her, touched her. She'd felt it - the way his smile made her stomach flip, the strength of his arms around her, like she'd come home.

But she was Hermione Granger - unable to really believe anything she hadn't seen in print, failing to find the logic in suddenly falling in love with someone who'd been only a friend for years. She had doubted its plausibility.

And he hadn't come.

She'd been in Prague for more than a month, and he hadn't come.

She and Ron had Owled back and forth a few times - Ron's missives being all too short, lacking in details, and generally haphazardly spelled - and he had even Apparated in for a quick lunch once on his way to Rome for some Ministry photo op.

She had heard exactly nothing from Harry.

When Ron's third letter came, bearing this terrible and perfunctory shred of fact: “Harry left today,” she had felt the bile rise up in her throat, the nausea coming on so suddenly that she had nearly not made it to the toilet.

And now, three days later, she had discovered that the nausea was Harry's fault in more ways than one. Harry's fault… her fault…

She dropped the test into the small bin, where it landed with a soft noise among used tissues, and walked unseeingly into her living area. Still feeling like a marionette - or someone under Imperius - she sat gingerly at her desk, and picked up her quill.

She sat that way, quill poised over empty parchment, for a very long time.

Dear Harry, she finally wrote, I have something very important to tell you. She scratched that out. Better to start out with a salutation of some kind. I hope you are doing well. Things are splendid here in Prague. She groaned. Lies! And she sounded like Lavender Brown. A quick spell obliterated all of the ink from the scroll.

Dear Harry, she started again. I hope you will forgive my long silence. Another pause. Did she hope he would? He hasn't exactly been Mr. Correspondence himself, part of her sniped. She waved her wand, and the fresh parchment beckoned her.

Dear Harry, I've never written a letter like this before. Why did people always start letters like that? She scratched through it so heavily that she tore holes in the parchment, and swore under her breath as she used Reparo.

Dear Harry, I miss you so much, and I was an utter little fool to let you leave the way you did. I was scared and I panicked, and if you'll only come home, I promise that… She was hardly building a case for herself as a viable love interest here. She sounded like one of those desperate little fan-girls that he was so loath to confront. She obliterated the parchment again, and it was beginning to look shiny and worn at the top. She chewed on the end of her quill in agitation.

He's Harry, a small, but clear voice reminded her. He's your friend, and surely he'll at least listen to what you have to say. Just tell him the truth.

He'll feel tied down. He'll feel obligated. You know he will, she argued back. He's too noble for anything else. I don't want him this way.

He still deserves to know that he is going to be a father.

Dear Harry, she began again with a heavy sigh. I know this letter is long overdue, and I cannot apologize enough. If it helps, I've thought of you every day that I've been gone, and have hoped that you are doing well. I miss you. I hope I did not leave things too irreparably damaged between us. I've some very important news, and would rather not relay it by Owl post. I hate to ask you, but if you had a weekend free, could you come up to Prague? There is much to be said. I would appreciate a prompt reply, as it really is very important. Love, Hermione

She eyed the letter critically. It really sounded very stilted and formal, but she wasn't sure she could improve upon it, without completely losing her composure. She supposed that it was plain enough what she wanted to tell him, but she was hoping that the sort of genial obtuseness that he had always possessed might keep him clueless until he arrived.

She stood and moved over to the window, her palms slick with sweat, her stomach roiling and uneasy. She felt guilty, as if someone would burst into her flat at any moment, and catch her in the act of - of what? Sending someone an Owl? Being pregnant? She felt ridiculous. The mounting nausea was striving to capture her full attention, and she knew a trip back to the bathroom was inevitable, though she was trying to forestall it.

Her tawny owl soared down to perch on the balcony railing, as she opened the window sash. A heavy whump startled her, and she realized that he had delivered the day's issue of the Daily Prophet. Idly, her gaze drifted down to the headline, and her hand clenched the rolled letter so hard that it was crushed in the middle.

Love Down Under?

She scanned it quickly, over the rising protests of her stomach, and her head pronounced it rubbish. The picture was of Harry Potter and a young woman, obviously in conversation. Harry was smiling. There was nothing romantic or possessive in either of their postures, and they appeared to be in some kind of crowded corridor. The article merely identified her as a colleague at the Ministry offices in Sydney, and alluded to a couple of `working lunches'.

She knew it was probably nothing; she could recognize the filler phrases that the Prophet was in the habit of using to enhance a story when there wasn't really one at all.

And, it still jabbed her just a little, like a pointy stone in her shoe. It still sent a frisson of worry and fear up her spine. What if it was true? If Harry really loved her, why wasn't he… moping or something?

You are ridiculous.

She rolled her eyes, but was shredding up his letter, even as she castigated herself for doing it.

I can't handle this today, she told herself. I need to think about it. I need to figure out exactly what I'm going to do, what I'm going to say or not say. She knew her pregnancy would be news, no matter who the father was. She would have to suss out how to mask it, for how long, and to whom. She needed to have a plan - she was good at those - how to explain things to Healer Spurgeon, to her fellow interns, to her parents, to Ron… and to Harry.

If he ever speaks to you again, part of her added snippily.

She threw the scraps in the waste basket by the desk, and used Incendio on them for good measure.

The guards on Annemarie's room moved aside for Harry and Hermione, but did not relax. The Auror in Charge performed a quick scan to prove their identities, while almost apologizing to Harry as he did so. Harry waved off the apology and escorted Hermione into the dimly lit room. The Intercessor, Finnuala Rafferty, slept in a chair that she had elongated into a chaise.

Annemarie slept, cocked slightly off-center, as if she was accustomed to sleeping on her side, but could not manage it in her state. Her hair had been washed and brushed, and Harry could now see the glints of red among the chestnut. Lily Catherine. He almost could not believe it.

Hermione's breath had caught when they entered the room. She was feasting her eyes on her daughter, but Harry could tell when she'd begun to process the injuries, welling with tears.

“Her face…” she said, in scarcely more than a whisper, careful not to disturb those who slumbered.

Harry's brow was lowered, and his eyes were stormy.

“We've been so busy casting blame, but it's not hard to see whose fault it is.” He gestured toward the livid lightning bolt slashed across Annemarie's cheek. “If we'd had her with us all this time, perhaps they'd have only targeted her sooner. The second the Ludlows found out she was mine….”

Hermione almost relaxed. This was Harry-carrying-the-weight-of-the-world. She knew this Harry.

“It's just like Voldemort, Harry. He still had choices. The Ludlows had choices. The fact that you are you didn't drive them to do something they couldn't control. They'd known Annemarie since she was born - they thought she was their niece. Most adoptive families love the children as if they did share genes, but they chose to revoke that love. You didn't make them do that, anymore than you made Voldemort take on a vendetta against you.”

“I know, Hermione. I know,” he conceded. “It's just…” he moved away from her to the bedside, and softly smoothed his daughter's hair with one open palm. “God, I'm so tired.”

“How long has it been since you've slept?” Hermione was speaking to him, but still looking at Annemarie.

“I dunno.” His voice was apathetic. “Thirty hours? Give or take.”

“You need to sleep.” Hermione leaned into him as she spoke, laying her hand carefully atop Annemarie's, not wanting to wake her. “Especially if you're going to be arresting people tomorrow.”

“I got a room at the Cauldron.” He met her gaze meaningfully.

“I think we should go home,” she said simply, and he knew she didn't mean her ransacked flat.

Even as they turned to go, the noise from outside reached their ears: the hiss of spellfire, the sound of running feet, shouts of alarm. Something hit the door to Annemarie's hospital room with enough force to cause the door to rattle loudly within its frame.

“They've come,” Harry said hoarsely. Annemarie stirred. Someone outside screamed, and they could hear one of the Aurors yelling for backup. “I should go out there…”

Hermione was already in motion, dashing across the room to roughly shake the Intercessor awake. Harry eased toward the door, hoping to gain some inkling of information as to where the hostiles were and what they were doing. He was already fairly certain as to their objective.

He addressed the two women, without fully removing his attention from the door. There was a loud bang, and light flickered beneath the door like distant lightning.

“Get Annemarie as far away from the door as you can. Ward up her bed. They'll not get to her, if I have anything to say about it, but…” He met Hermione's eyes briefly, and they exchanged a look of understanding. “If anything happens…”

“Healer Granger?” came Annemarie's voice, bewildered and sleepy. “Harry Potter?” A faint smile flickered over her face, even as she sounded more confused. “What's going on?”

Harry was at the door, his back flush against it, and one hand on the door handle. Annemarie's eyes moved from his readied wand, to the tense and alert postures of the other two.

“Did they come back?” She was tremulous with fear, her mind fastening unerringly on the most frightening thing she could think of.

Hermione nodded once, carefully, not wanting to lie to the girl.

“But they won't get past Harry,” she said, with confidence. She cocked her head toward the most distant corner, the place in the room most shrouded in shadows. “Let's get her over here,” she said to Rafferty, and with their wands, they smoothly directed Annemarie's bed in that direction. The girl did not take her eyes off of Harry, as he eased the door open, and the sounds of altercation became louder.

Harry would have preferred it if the door had opened outward, so he could better use it for cover, but he was going to have to pull it toward him. The majority of the Auror guard had attempted to draw the assailants further down the corridor, away from Annemarie's room. There was a crumpled body at Harry's feet, across the very threshold of the door, but other than that, Harry was completely exposed. For all practical purposes, he was as trapped in the room as Annemarie was.

Spellfire whisked past him in a myriad of colors, but nothing hit the door, leaving Harry hopeful that no one had spotted him yet. He carefully eased the door shut again, and leaned back against it.

Hermione, briskly erecting wards around the bed, could tell that he was thinking fiercely, and she was not surprised when he Disillusioned himself, and the trickling effect of the spell all but blotted him from sight.

There was a gasp of amazement from Annemarie.

“That's a Disillusionment charm?” she said, and Hermione almost laughed, though it had a bittersweet note in it.

She actually reminded me a bit of you, Harry's words rang in her mind, and Hermione couldn't help but see the truth in them. Who else could take time to appreciate the intellectual or magical skill inherent in doing a particular thing, even when the act was being performed because of a life-threatening situation?

“It sure is,” Hermione replied out loud, keeping her voice calm and upbeat, without sounding like she was talking to a little child. She saw Annemarie's throat quiver nervously, her eyes still fixed on Harry's pale edges, as he crouched down low, and silently opened the door again.

“Will he be all right?” Annemarie asked suddenly, for the first time sounding her age.

“He's going to be fine,” Hermione heard herself say, and marveled at her composure. She could not let herself think about the danger, of Harry going out to face opponents who would maim a little girl without the least remorse. She could not let herself think of losing Harry - and her daughter - again, after they had so recently been regained.

She swished her wand smoothly through the air, and the bedside table began to swell and elongate until it was an exact replica of her hospital bed, down to the silver railing and wheels. The cushion from the chair that the Intercessor had been resting in became the lumpy shape of a sleeping human form, and Hermione tucked it neatly beneath the transfigured sheets.

“Nice work,” Intercessor Rafferty said appreciatively, and she and Hermione cast Disillusionments on each other, and then on Annemarie and the bed.

The sounds of the fight sounded simultaneously far away and all too near, but in Annemarie's room, Hermione found that her heart was pounding so loudly that she could hear the pulse beat throbbing in he r ears. She and the Intercessor wordlessly took positions in between Annemarie and the door.

“Now, sweetheart,” she said in a low whisper. “You be very still and very quiet.”

TBC

Okay, so this is not the end. There is going to be (I hope just) one more chapter, and then maybe an epilogue, if y'all haven't been totally soured on epilogues, that is!

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for being patient with the gaps in between! You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.

lorien

-->

12. Bridge Reconstruction

Bridges

Chapter Twelve: Bridge Reconstruction

Harry managed to make it out of the door without being noticed, although that meant that he had to crouch uncomfortably close to the fallen body of a colleague. Keeping wary eyes trained down the hall, he reached to feel for a pulse, and was grateful to find one, steadily vibrating beneath his fingers.

Not dead then, he thought, wondering what that meant. He slunk over to the second Auror to find that he was dead, wearing that all too familiar blank stare. Why did they AK one, but not the other? He wondered briefly, but decided to follow the sounds of the battle down the corridor, where, evidently, the Auror in Charge still fought.

He didn't really want to let Annemarie's door out of her sight. He still didn't know who had attacked, and how many of them there were. There were two older Ludlow brothers, and Annemarie had had two attackers. Harry still thought it a possibility that they had recruited others to the mission, but he also knew that the Auror in Charge was outnumbered, and probably needed help.

There was a loud crash and a muffled shout from a doorway about halfway down the corridor. Something moved, and Harry leapt up, balancing on the balls of his feet, until he saw several very frightened Healers peering from the door that led to the stairwell. Waving at them with his hand in an effort to signal them to get back, he began to make his way down the hall.

When he reached the doorway, he peered in to a sort of a laboratory, all smooth, clean surfaces, and glinting decanters of multicolored potions. Or at least, it had been that way before a duel began there. The Auror in Charge was pinned in a corner, but had a large, well-placed, square column for a shield. Harry watched him fend off the two men who were determined to destroy him, and paranoia made him dart a glance back to the corridor, suddenly terrified that someone had breached Annemarie's room.

The hallway remained dark and still.

It was then that Harry realized what was going on. They had hoped to incapacitate the Aurors, and abduct or kill Annemarie. Whether their reason for this was the fear that she could identify them somehow or that she was a half-Blood pretender who deserved to die, Harry did not know. But somehow, their plan had gone awry, and they'd been seen. And with the panicked desperation of criminals who would rather die than be caught, they had shifted their strategy to murdering everyone who stood in their way.

He took a bead on the one nearest to the other agent, and neatly Stunned and Bound him, felling him with nary a sound. The second attacker turned so quickly that his hood fell, and Harry stood squarely face to face with Augustus Ludlow, whom he recognized from reviewing Ron's case files.

The man's face was guarded, as he tried pinpoint Harry's uncertain outline, and, with swift, successive motions as he swung his wand around, he blasted a long, thick gouge across the ceiling, and narrowly missed Harry with a hastily fired Avada Kedavra that was very nearly a lucky shot.

Harry threw himself to the ground, his own hex knocked wide by the sudden movement, and muttered a profanity under his breath. He looked up in time to see the ceiling begin to buckle and collapse, trapping the unfortunate Auror in Charge - and the fallen Ludlow brother - beneath large chunks of plaster and cabinetry. He fired another curse from his prostrate position, which barely missed Ludlow, but did cause him to lose his wand. It clattered noisily away into the debris.

Harry slowly stood, preparing to restrain Ludlow, when the man suddenly lunged for him, grabbing at his wand arm and forcing it down as they fell. Whether he could actually see Harry or was hazarding a guess that someone stood in the doorway, Harry was unsure, but in any case, he was thrown to the ground with a much larger man on top of him. All of the air left his lungs with a rushing wheeze, and he heard a bone crack, as he landed with his right arm twisted beneath him.

Harry let out a grunt of pain, as he tried to stealthily maneuver his wand out from under him, using fingers that no longer wanted to work properly. He lashed out with his feet, kicking at his attacker, hoping to give himself some kind of leverage.

Ludlow raised a massive fist above his head.

“You killed my brother,” he breathed heavily, and for the first time, Harry was afraid, as he noted the mad glint in his attacker's eyes.

“No, you did that by caving in the ceiling. In fact, you're two for two in killing brothers, aren't you?”

Lights bloomed behind Harry's eyes as the punch landed. He felt something warm and wet begin to trickle down his face. There was a look of disgust on Ludlow's face, and Harry took a stab at the reason behind it.

“Look at you,” Harry made a tsk-tsk noise. “Fighting like a Muggle.” He fought down a wave of nausea, as the bones ground together in his arm. His fingers struggled to shove the wand toward his other hand, which was occupied, for the present, with defending himself. “Your mother would be appalled.”

Augustus Ludlow let out an inarticulate roar, and lifted Harry from the cold tile floor, evidently intent on hurling him into a heavy metal rolling cart that was parked nearby. As he did so, the wand rolled free, and Harry snatched his chance.

There was such power in the hex that Ludlow was lifted off of his feet, before being thrown down in a heap with great force. He did not move again. Harry tumbled unceremoniously to the floor, and blinked in astonishment at the magnitude of the spell, until he looked up to see Ron, standing behind Ludlow, with a squad of Aurors at the ready.

“Finite Incantatem. I always knew… we made a good team,” Harry quipped, ending the Disillusionment and daubing blood off of his cheek with his left hand, as he shimmered back to normal. Ron offered him a hand up.

“You all right, mate?”

“Nothing a visit… with Madam Pomfrey couldn't cure,” he answered back, gingerly favoring his injured arm, and tenderly touching his face.

“So it was the Ludlows, eh?”

“Apparently so,” Harry replied, still somewhat out of breath. “The Auror in Charge is under there,” he pointed toward the destroyed laboratory. “So is Edmund Ludlow, I'd wager. The Auror by the door is alive, just Stunned, but the other one is dead.”

Ron's face flickered with sadness. “Holloway,” he stated dully. The other Aurors fanned out. “Did they get to Annemarie?”

“No… no they never made it inside the door,” Harry was confident, but then trepidation crossed his face. “Hermione must be worried sick. Hold this.” He handed Ron his wand, and carefully opened the door, proceeding in hands first.

“It's over,” he said, swinging the door wide, to reveal Hermione, wand sagging in relief from where she'd had it trained on the door. He nodded out to the team of Aurors in the corridor, swarming over everything, delving into the debris, and restraining the unconscious Augustus Ludlow.

“Thank Merlin,” she breathed, and cast Finite on the contents of the hospital room. She looked at Harry as if she'd like to throttle him with a bear hug, but wasn't sure how it would be received.

Harry heard someone cry that they needed a couple of Healers, and was glad that the Auror in Charge was still alive.

“Uncle Augustus?” Annemarie's voice broke into the silence between them, and Harry looked up to see two Aurors Levitate him, unconscious, with wrists and ankles magically manacled, past her door. Her fingers trailed up to trace the scar on her cheek. “He - he did this - ? He … killed Mum and Dad? Why - ?”

“None of it is your fault,” Harry reassured her, “It's very late, and it is a very long story.”

Annemarie gave him a piercing look that made her seem far older than her years.

“I'm awake now.”

Harry exchanged looks with Hermione, and she nodded toward Annemarie, as if to say, go ahead, I'm right here.

“Almost eleven years ago, the - the night you were born… there - there was an accident at the hospital, a - a mistake.” He didn't suppose there was any point in ruining her illusions about the only father she'd ever known by spilling that he'd paid for a black-market adoption without the birth mother's knowledge. Another uncertain glance flickered toward Hermione, who stepped toward him, and twined her hand through his.

“Herm - Healer Granger and your mum were both in the hospital having babies… only a few minutes apart. And the - the babies… they were switched.” He seemed to be having difficulty. Hermione's hand tightened in his. “Healer Granger thought her baby had died, and - and your mum and dad took you home. And for ten years, hardly anybody even knew.”

Annemarie stared at Hermione as if they'd never met before.

“Then you're… you're my mother?”

Hermione couldn't speak, but smiled and nodded, as tears sparkled in her eyes.

“Why did - why did my uncles kill my parents?”

“I suppose they were angry; they probably thought they'd been tricked… deceived into raising a Half-blood as a member of a noble family.”

“Grandmother always hated Mum. She sometimes pretended like she didn't, but she did,” Annemarie said in a very small voice, and Hermione wondered what her home life had actually been like, wondered why on earth Peter and Tabitha had remained under the thumb of that wretched woman.

Annemarie caught Harry with another swift, penetrating glance. “If you're my father, then why weren't you there?” The question was clinical, without accusation, accepting the obvious without bothering to ask. She'd obviously not missed his singular possessive, when referring to Hermione, her baby, not ours.

“I didn't know about you. I didn't know that there was a baby at all, even one who died, until today - yesterday.” He corrected himself absently.

“We did a lot of things wrong, Annemarie, and never dreamed there would be such ripple effects,” Hermione finally spoke, sounding more like her normal self. “But we're working things out, and …” Annemarie's gaze dropped to their joined hands, and lifted back to Hermione. “When everything… with your situation… has been put to rest, we - we want you to know that… that you aren't alone. That you don't have to be alone.”

A sheen of tears filmed over Annemarie's eyes, while she said, simply,

“Thank you.”

Really, the emotional maturity of this girl was amazing, Harry reflected, as he felt that he was only seconds from losing it altogether. He did manage to betray only a hint of uncontrolled emotion when he said,

“I'm so sorry.”

“For what?” The answers were apparent and plentiful, but she evidently wanted to hear which one he would select as most worthy of regret. His hand came down gently to smooth her hair, and his thumb gently grazed her marred cheek with the barest touch.

“Because when they found out who I was, they did this to you.”

She looked up at him for a long moment, clear-eyed, as if assessing him, and he could see hints of Hermione around her mouth and jaw line. Her lips trembled slightly, as she felt his light touch over her scar, which, even if it physically faded, would always be present in her soul.

“If my uncles did this to me because I'm your daughter, then - then I guess it's a badge of honor, isn't it? Like yours.”

Show me yours.

Harry laughed then, a sudden, disbelieving laugh that was more than half sob, and he turned away so that Hermione and Annemarie would not see him cry.

Harry shouldered the duffle bag, as he glanced around his empty room one last time. He didn't know why he should be so undone over leaving. She'd been gone for nearly a month. She'd Owled Ron a few times, but hadn't sent anything to him. She had made it more than clear how she felt.

And yet somehow, the fact that his room - their room - was now as barren as the one she'd occupied for such a short time made it seem that much more final.

He sighed, and wondered what the point of his move was, when he wouldn't be able to escape himself. Perhaps once he had settled down in Sydney and cleared his head, he could hash things out with Hermione.

He heard faint voices from the living area, and then Ron shouted down the hallway,

“Harry! You're going to miss your Portkey to the International Floo Station.” Harry moved through his door; his fingers lingered briefly on the door handle, but he did not look back again, as he headed in the direction of Ron's voice.

“Can you believe I'd end up being the one reminding people they're going to be late?” Ron was joking to someone as Harry rounded the corner, and froze.

Ginny was standing there, a hesitant smile on her face, as if she was unsure of her reception.

“Hi Ginny,” Harry said, in a voice that was more weary than anything else.

“I - I just wanted to say good-bye,” she offered.

“Yeah…” He lifted his lips half-heartedly, as he reached for the small medallion that would take him to the Ministry for the Sydney Floo.

“Harry, wait…” she blurted suddenly, and he saw Ron slinking into the kitchen in his peripheral vision.

“Haven't we been through all this, Ginny?” He struggled to tamp down the rising impatience in his tone. She had been a constant visitor to their flat after Hermione had left, trying everything she could to restore her relationship with Harry, no matter how politely he conveyed his disinterest. “Do you really want to do it again?”

She flinched a little, stung by his words.

“I just - I hoped you'd stay.”

“For what?” he asked quickly, brutally. She took a half-step backwards.

“She left, Harry! I don't know what happened, but she's gone. You don't have to face her or anything. Why do you have to leave too?”

“I can't stay here.” If I stand still, I'll drown. Hermione had understood, but not Ginny… never Ginny. “Not when she - not when I thought - ” He closed his eyes, and swore. “Damn it, Ginny. Can't you leave well enough alone? Must you insist on tormenting me?”

“Tormenting…?” She seemed taken aback, hurt by the word he'd chosen, but growing awareness dawned in her eyes. “Merlin's Beard, you are in love with her, aren't you?”

He averted his eyes, unwilling for her to read the truth in his face. He heard Ron clattering happily in the kitchen, humming a snatch of a tune that sounded vaguely like “Weasley is Our King.”

“I thought it was just a fling,” Ginny said, more to herself than to him. “Harry, I-”

He waved off her pleading, irritated by her mere presence, and thoroughly uninterested in whatever she had to sell him.

“It doesn't matter what you thought, or didn't think, does it? Or what I think. She's left no room for doubt. And I'm not going to sit around here mooning after her, while you moon after me.” Ginny flushed crimson, but Harry plowed on. “I'm going to Sydney, and I don't know when I'll be back, or if I'll be back.” He stepped toward her, and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, as if obligated. “As long as you understand that what was between you and me is in the past - that it will never happen - you're welcome to Owl me. I do mean that.” He seemed to be trying to belatedly soften his abrasive words.

Ginny nodded noncommittally; now she was refusing to look at him. Harry checked his watch.

“Later, Ron!” he called out. Ron peeked out from the kitchen, with a half-eaten sandwich in one hand and a mouth full of food.

“O revore, mate,” he returned cheekily. “Have fun in Oz.”

The hook caught behind his navel as he closed his hand around the small, gold disc, and he was whisked away, trying to pretend he didn't care and trying to blot her out of his mind… and failing miserably.

Harry awakened with a jolt to full sunlight streaming in the corner windows in the flat the Trio had once shared. His arm ached only slightly at the site of the healed break. He and Hermione had come there in the wee hours of the morning, conjured separate beds in their old rooms, and gotten straight into them without much conversation. He had slept so deeply that it seemed more like a coma, but, as he roused, the memories hit him with all the force of the Hogwarts Express.

Annemarie. The attack. The Ludlows. Where's Hermione?

He took a hasty shower, and cast a Refreshing charm on his clothes before putting them back on. When he left his room, he found Hermione leaning on the kitchen counter, nursing a steaming cup of coffee.

“Morning,” he greeted her in a growly voice. She responded by sending a second cup sliding down the counter top toward him, with one wand-stroke. He inhaled the strong aroma, and felt his nerve endings begin firing a little more efficiently.

The silence stretched out, and seemed weighted with all their worried musings on the sudden ways their lives had changed in the last twenty-four hours. Harry wasn't sure what to say, and his mind was occupied in racing through the events of the night before.

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, at the same time that they heard the familiar sound of rushing flames in the grate.

“Harry, you here?” Harry heard Ron's voice, and came fully into the living room, greeting his oldest friend's floating head, by lifting his coffee mug in a kind of salute. Ron smiled in reply, but his eyes looked very somber.

“Something's come up,” he informed Harry. “You probably ought to come on down to the Ministry.”

“Is something wrong with Annemarie?” he asked quickly, and saw Hermione pop around the corner, radiating worry.

“She's fine. Ate breakfast this morning, and is still under guard as a precaution.”

“Then what's wrong?”

Ron looked uncertain and worried.

“Just come down here, and let's talk.” Harry acquiesced and rose, tossing back the last bit of his coffee.

“I've got to go,” he said, half-apologetically.

“I'll be at St. Mungo's,” she informed him, and he was struck by the casual intimacy of the act of letting someone know where you were going to be.

“We're really going to do this?” he wondered aloud, as if amazed that it was coming to pass at all. She seemed to follow his line of thought, and met his gaze with large, luminous eyes.

“I hope so.”

He kissed her gently, and, even as he looked in askance at the empty mantel, she was pressing a small packet of Floo powder into his hand. With a smile and a small, surprised shake of his head, he called out for the Ministry, and stepped into the flames.

He staggered only slightly as he exited the Floo, and met a waiting Ron, who began back in mid-conversation, without missing a stride.

“We've got Augustus dead to rights. Examination of his wand nails him as one of her attackers.” Harry concentrated momentarily on squelching the urge for vengeance, and missed the next part of what Ron said. “ - thing at all.”

“I'm sorry, what was that?”

“We've dissected Edmund's wand as well, and there's nothing on it - at least, not anything that would be an Azkaban-worthy offense. Stunner on that Auror last night, and that's all. He's the right build for it, and we've got the circumstantial evidence, but - but we can't place him at the scene of Annemarie's attack. We talked to him at St. Mungo's this morning, but he's not saying anything.”

Harry's mind was racing, as he crouched before the fireplace. It didn't make any sense. Why would the brothers have attempted to attack Annemarie the second time, but not the first? If Edmund wasn't involved, then who was?

They arrived in Ron's office, and each took seats. Ron shuffled the wand paperwork, as Harry slid the box of evidence out of his way with one foot. The leather bound ledger fell out, as he did so, landing on the floor with a dusty thwack. He picked it up, and placed it back atop a red volume entitled, Ritual Blood Ceremony, without paying much attention. Ron was handing him the results on Edmund's wand.

“Nobody can sanitize a wand that completely,” Harry said, wanting to doubt what his own eyes were reading. “There are always traces.”

“Then maybe he wasn't involved,” Ron offered. “He'll be charged with unlawful entry and assault for what happened at St. Mungo's, but he won't do much time.”

“If he didn't do it, then that means we have no idea who else participated in the initial attack.” Harry's eyes flashed, by way of saying that the situation was unacceptable. “What about the other brother? What does he say?”

“Well, Augustus Ludlow is completely nutters, to begin with. Been screeching all night long about a New Era, and some kind of rebirth. I think Spencer'd AK him, if we asked. He's had to listen to it for hours.”

Puzzle pieces began to slowly assemble themselves in Harry's mind, but a complete picture eluded him.

“Where's the grandmother?” he asked

“I reckon she's at the manor,” Ron answered slowly. “But there's no way it was her. She's seventy-five, if she's a day, and it was definitely a man down in Knockturn Alley…”

“Not her,” Harry returned with impatience. “Not her, her wand. Has anyone examined her wand?”

“You think - ”

Harry grabbed the ledger and threw it aside, drawing out the book that he'd only halfway taken notice of earlier. Ritual Blood Ceremony. He waved it in Ron's general direction. It didn't take the red-haired Auror long to cotton on.

“The mark on her face - ?”

“I'd stake my life on it. They might have been angry at the deception - that might have been part of the reason Peter and Tabitha Ludlow were killed - but they weren't upset about Annemarie's true origins. It was like a belated Christmas present. My daughter, my blood.”

“What do you think they intend to do with it?”

“Nothing good,” was Harry's grim response. “We'd better get over there.”

~*~

Ludlow Manor was eerily lifeless, when a dozen Aurors broke down the wards, and Apparated in all over the house. Muffled voices rang in over Harry's earpiece securing various exits and rooms, and there was still no sign of the Ludlow matriarch.

“Do you think she went back to - ” Harry asked worriedly.

“I just checked,” Ron replied, meeting him in the large, grandly appointed parlor. “Annemarie is fine. Hermione is with her, Tonks is there, and we've doubled the guard.”

“Then we must have - ” Harry began, but stopped suddenly, walking over to a wall, and fingering an imperfection in the wallpaper. He slid one finger down the ridged surface, until he hit a notch and pushed. A segment of the wall, fronted by a large and ornate grandfather clock, slid to one side.

“Well done, mate,” Ron congratulated, as he checked for wards, and wordlessly signaled two more Aurors to accompany them.

Rickety wooden stairs spiraled downward into darkness, but Harry could see fresh footprints outlined clearly in the fine layer of dust. As they neared the bottom, a dim green glow began to overtake some of the utter blackness, and they could hear a voice, rising and falling in a sing-song chant, words still indistinct.

They moved silently onto worn flagstone, when they reached the end of the staircase. The voice was louder now, and clearly female. Sizzle of flame and bubble of cauldron could also be heard.

The Aurors peered through an archway into a small antechamber. Griselda Ludlow stood there, her small form seeming even more diminutive as she stood before a hulking cauldron, wreathed in smoke and green vapor. Harry couldn't make out any of the words she sang, but would have sworn that the temperature in the small room had suddenly dropped several degrees. The chant built to a crescendo, and stopped abruptly. Mrs. Ludlow extended her arms over the cauldron, and flourished her wand. Something red and viscous welled up from the tip.

“Stop!” Harry yelled, without thinking, even as the substance fell. The single cool plop it made somehow overwhelmed the boiling sound of the potion, and echoed among the stones.

Griselda Ludlow looked up at them then, and laughed.

“You're too late.” A wind whipped up from nowhere, streaming in their robes and in their hair, and it seemed to Ron that a discordant chorus of fell voices cried out within it.

“What have you done?” Harry cried.

Something shadow-shrouded, wraithlike and insubstantial began to rise from the cauldron. Harry's scar began to burn.

“Powerful bloodlines, opposing bloodlines… and I will be chosen to wield them as One.”

“Two bloodlines?” Ron asked. Harry felt his vision darkening. The thing in the cauldron rotated toward him; what passed for its head seemed to be looking in his direction.

“I was Griselda Blackthorne,” she stated proudly, drawing herself up to her full height. “But my mother was Marivella Gaunt, lost younger daughter to Marvolo, last of the Slytherin line and long thought dead.”

Harry hissed in his breath, and Griselda smiled, a long, sharp dagger of a smile.

“Yes, Mr. Potter. Your blood - from that creature who dared pass herself off as a Pureblood, as a Ludlow, and mine - descended from Salazar Slytherin himself. Edmund should have killed her, of course, but he was unaccustomed to my wand - the Slytherin wand that he needed to use…”

A strangled growl burst from Harry's throat, and he raised his wand, but the thing surged toward him, with shadowy limbs and the hint of a gaping maw. He lifted his wand, but the spell passed through it harmlessly and shattered a small wardrobe on the other side of the damp room.

And then it was upon him, colder than death, sinewy and strong, though somehow it seemed to sift through his fingers, even while it wrapped around his neck and inserted a long projecting tendril of itself into his mouth.

Screams rang in his ears from a thousand lost souls, and there was cold and fear and he couldn't breathe, but wanted to gag. He felt pressure building in his face, and black points danced before his eyes.

Annemarie! He thought, Hermione.

Not Harry, something cried out. Not Harry. There was green light flashing everywhere, and lightning bolts struck behind his eyes. He saw his mother fall, he saw Tom Marvolo Riddle sketching his name in the air from letters of fire, he saw that which Voldemort had become rising from a dark cauldron in a graveyard, he felt the knife point of old stroke like acid down his arm. He wanted to cry out, but could not.

Somewhere far away, there was a distant clamor, shouts, and something that rang and vibrated like a struck gong. He could hear spellfire and shrieking; something was lifting him, and then - like morning mist burning away in the sunrise, the wraith was gone.

He sucked in a noisy gasp of air, and collapsed onto the flagstones.

“Harry!” He heard Ron's cry close by, and struggled to open his eyes. “Come on, Harry! Sweet Merlin, Hermione's going to kill me.”

At this, Harry wheezed out a weak laugh, and Ron's image began to swim before his bleary gaze. He tried to sit up, while Ron cautioned him to move slowly, and began to make out the blurry movements of the two other Aurors, securely binding Griselda Ludlow, who was cackling like an escapee from Bedlam.

“What… the hell…?” He gasped. His throat was burning, and his neck felt like someone had tried to wrench off his head - which he supposed wasn't too far off the truth.

“The - the - whatever that was - it was still drawing itself out of the potion in the cauldron. The old lady's attention was fairly well fixed on you, so I - I tipped it over.” He made a representative gesture with his wand, motioning toward the upturned vessel and the viscous substance now leeching into the cellar floor. “By the time she realized what had happened, we had her. And when Kenilworth snapped her wand, that thing - it let you go.”

“What happened to it?” Harry wondered, eying the dark corners of the ceiling with trepidation.

“Split apart and vanished,” Ron said, flicking his fingers outward. “We ought to get you to St. Mungo's,” he observed, as Harry absently rubbed his fingers across his neck. “Whatever that was, it was corporeal enough to bruise you.”

Harry was drained enough to succumb without an argument. As they began to climb the stairs, he heard Ron give Kenilworth orders.

“Clear this entire place out,” he barked. “List Annemarie Ludlow as the beneficiary.” Harry looked quizzically at him.

“That kind of Dark Magic?” Ron responded. “They'll not see this side of Azkaban Island again.”

“Then it's over?” There was unadulterated relief in Harry's tone. Ron clapped him on the shoulder.

“I'll make sure of it,” he said. They re-entered the parlor, and Ron lifted the lid of a porcelain box on the mantel, and tossed Floo powder into the flames. “St. Mungo's,” he called out clearly. Then to Harry, “Go see your family.”

Harry's eyes were fatigued, but his grin was broad, as he stepped into the emerald flames.

Epilogue to come…. Just a little something, probably fluffish, to establish what happens to Harry and his family!

Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. The last scene especially was fun to write.

I've got the first couple chapters to the Shadow Walks sequel done, so after I post this epilogue, I'll probably start posting it.

Thanks for reading. You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.

lorien

-->

13. Epilogue

Bridges

Epilogue:

The low rush of noise crested and crashed over them like a wave when the doors into the Ministry Atrium swung open. Harry held up one hand, reflexively shielding his eyes from the cavalcade of starbursts that were multiple camera flashes.

“Mr. Potter! Harry! Harry!” He could pick his name from the shouts coming from the roiling mass of reporters, but little else was distinguishable in the cacophony.

He looked back over his shoulder in resigned irritation. He had known that this was inevitable. He angled himself toward the general direction of the fireplaces, but knew that their progress would be hindered and impeded until he said something.

“Who let all of them in here, anyway? Don't they have anything better to do?” He groused, mentally promising to send a Howler or three to the Minister's secretary or whoever headed up the Department of Internal Security.

“Don't flatter yourself, Harry,” came Hermione's amused voice, as she reached the threshold through which he'd just crossed. “The Ludlow verdict was issued this morning too.”

“Red-letter day in the Potter house,” he said gruffly, though with much less annoyance.

When the two people with him came into the media's field of vision, the noise increased to a deafening peak. Harry reached out behind him, and drew Annemarie up next to him with his left hand, almost pressing her into his cloak, as if he wished to hide her from them, to shield her from their prying eyes and intrusive questions.

But his movement to protect Annemarie attracted another brand of attention.

“Mr. Potter!” One voice sailed toward him, clearly audible above all the din. “Are you wearing a wedding band?”

He exchanged a brief here it comes glance with Hermione, who had come through the door last, and now flanked Annemarie on her other side.

“I am.”

The din was thunderous. Several women reporters seemed to be wiping away tears, and everywhere he looked, the feathery tufts of Quick Quotes Quills were moving in frenzied blurs. It seemed that purple-blue spots would be permanently imprinted on his retinas.

“— to Miss Granger? When did - ? - will become of the young Ludlow heiress?” Fragments of questions flew at them like shrapnel, until Harry finally held his hand up again, signaling for quiet, which blanketed the room so quickly that it was almost amusing.

“I - we - ” Another flick of a glance - almost shy - at Hermione. “We have a short statement to make that - ahem, hopefully - will answer most of the - and - at least, prevent rumors from - that is, about my…” Harry sighed. How he hated talking to utter strangers about the intimate details of his life. He felt Hermione's arm go around Annemarie's back and squeeze his elbow encouragingly. Annemarie herself seemed to lean into his side, as if to comfort him by her very presence. He gave up trying to be eloquent, and dropped his eyes to the scrap of parchment he'd drawn from his pocket. He took another deep breath, and ran through the words in a too-quick recitation.

“As you already know, the verdict in the Ludlow case came through today, resulting in three life-sentences to Azkaban. Hermione and I have…rekindled a relationship that began many years ago.” He blushed faintly. “And we were married by the Ministry officiant two hours ago. We have also petitioned to have Annemarie Ludlow's name changed to Potter - she will be coming home to live with us.”

He darted another look at Hermione, as the reporters' quills scribbled furiously. They had decided not to mention the fact that Annemarie actually was their daughter, noting that it was none of anybody's business what they had or had not done twelve years ago, and not wanting to cast any further shadow on those who had raised and loved Annemarie. It was to be hoped that no one picked up on the nuances of Harry's wording - that the word adopt had never actually come out of his mouth.

Surprisingly - or perhaps not - Annemarie had been all for the name change, feeling some regret for abandoning her father's name, but no longer desiring to claim the heritage of her grandmother and uncles. In remembrance of her parents, they had settled on using Tabitha's maiden name - Easton - as her middle name .

He could hear Hermione's voice, as soothing as balm to his ears, though he had no idea what she had been asked. Then another question, indistinct, but Hermione's voice took on a sharper edge.

“—will be held in trust for Annemarie, of course, every last cent. It will be hers to do with as she wishes, when she comes of age.”

Harry felt himself begin to get riled up again. Now they were asking about the Ludlow estate: the holdings, the money, the land. Only wizarding media could take something as lovely as a marriage, a new family, and repaint him and Hermione as conniving money-grubbers, using only insinuations as their medium of choice. Annemarie shifted uncomfortably next to him, and he knew that she was also thinking of the conversation they'd had regarding the Ludlow fortune.

“I don't want it. Not any of it.” Annemarie's chin jutted mutinously, and her slight resemblance to Hermione became more pronounced. Tears sparkled in her hazel eyes. Harry could sympathize; he had felt the same way about the Black estate: property acquired through death, property with long and Dark associations, tainted and unseemly.

“You don't have to ever use it, if you don't want to. But let's keep it in trust for now, and when you're of age, if you still don't want it, if you don't need it, then perhaps you can give it away. It could do a lot of people good, regardless of its origins,” Hermione had said decisively, smoothing Annemarie's hair back.

Their daughter sat quietly for a moment, clearly thinking over the ramifications of a deferred decision.

“And if I used it to help Muggles or something,” she finally said, “wouldn't that just chafe that old bat's knickers?”

“Annemarie!” Hermione admonished, while Harry roared with laughter.

“Is it always like that?” Annemarie asked, as they made their way to the Floo, with questions peppering them all the way through the Atrium. Tonks had finally come, and used the authority of her office to clear their path. They could still hear her strident commands echoing in the cavernous lobby.

“Worse than usual this time, perhaps,” Hermione mused. “Lots of fodder for them today.” She absently traced Harry's wedding band with her fingers. He seemed distant and out of sorts, and their daughter was apparently as attuned to it as her mother.

“Maybe we - maybe we should just go home,” Annemarie offered tentatively. At this, Harry seemed to collect his thoughts, and turned to chuck her chin.

“As much as I love the sound of that, there is only one week left before you go off to Hogwarts - so we might as well go on to Diagon Alley.” He watched her carefully, but her eyes, though contemplative, were not fearful.

“We could just Owl-order your supplies,” Hermione offered.

Annemarie deliberately lifted her chin.

“There's nobody there who wants to hurt me,” she declared. “Besides, nobody would dare to take on the two of you.”

“That's my girl,” Harry pronounced, squeezing her in a one-armed hug, even as he vowed to himself not to stray more than a meter from her side. Hermione tossed in the Floo powder. “Gryffindor for sure.”

Annemarie was released from the hospital nine days after the attempted attack and the subsequent arrests of her erstwhile family. With as little fanfare as possible, they returned to the flat, and settled her into Ron's old room. Hermione showed her where everything was, as Harry Levitated a couple of shoebox-sized trunks into the room, and Enlarged them back to proper size.

Annemarie quietly listened and responded to the comments and queries, but seemed withdrawn, evidencing almost none of the impishness Harry had seen upon their first meeting. Harry and Hermione exchanged glances, with the latter softly saying,

“We'll leave you to unpack your things and settle in, then.”

As they backed out of the room and Hermione closed the door, Harry spoke in a low voice,

“Should we be leaving her alone?

“I think…” Hermione began slowly. “I think she may need a little time alone. So much has happened - for awhile, she was in pain and maybe her parents' death seemed a little unreal - then there was the attack at St. Mungo's, and then two people out of nowhere say, `Look, we're actually your real parents. Isn't that lovely and convenient?' She couldn't even process that properly while she was trying to recover, and now we just whisk her here, and expect - expect her to…” Hermione spread her arms out, palms up, at a loss.

“Nobody's expecting more than she's ready to give,” Harry returned evenly. “I've had some training in dealing with victims, but I also remember what it feels like to be grieving the sudden and violent loss of someone. I remember what it feels like to be left utterly alone while doing it too.” His gaze was distant, and Hermione knew that he was thinking about a long, lonely summer reliving what happened to Cedric in that graveyard, about discovering Sirius only to lose him again almost as quickly.

“She seemed to take to you right away,” Hermione observed, a little wistfully. “Maybe if you let her know that you're here - that we're here - if she needs us… maybe that would suffice.”

Harry nodded, and made a move as if he would go back through Annemarie's door, but he arrested it, and looked quizzically at Hermione.

“So, what about us?”

“What about us?” Hermione asked in a high echo, feigning innocence, but refusing to look at him. “Isn't it settled? We're … seeing each other…”

“Are you going to stay here? Live here? Are you going to use your bed or mine?”

“Well, let's get right down to the heart of the matter, shall we?” Hermione asked wryly. Harry colored; he had meant to say `room', but he supposed that it all came down to the same thing anyway, no matter which term he'd chosen. He gave a shrug, as if to say, you know what I mean, and refused to drop the subject.

“Well?” He prodded.

“Harry, you've been back for a week!”

“Ten days.”

“Hardly the point.” He was moving closer, and she was getting flustered. Her heart was doing a nervous tap dance inside her chest, as he pressed a light kiss near her ear, and promised to do the same along the line of her jaw.

“Twelve years didn't change how I feel about you. I don't see how ten days would even stand a chance.” His lips scraped her skin lightly as he spoke.

“Harry - ” Her voice was somewhere between a complaint and a plea. She was leaning into his warmth, even as her stance went rigid. He sensed her conflict, and drew back.

“I thought we'd hashed all this out already,” he said carefully, his thinned lips the only thing betraying his irritation.

“I know - I know, but this is - this is … real.” Her hands fluttered in a myriad of directions, toward Annemarie's room, toward his room, between the two of them.

Harry brushed a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear, and regarded her solemnly for a moment, before pulling her into his arms and kissing her, gently but thoroughly.

“It is real,” he agreed, after a moment. “We have a daughter, and I love you. Those two things are constant, at least.”

“There's so much to regret,” she mused. “So many small things that could've been done differently…”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, his voice reflective. “I was fool enough to listen to Ginny, when she - ”

“Ginny?” Hermione interrupted, startled, and Harry wondered briefly if he hadn't just made a grave error. “What did she do to you?”

“She gave voice to my worst fears about you - about us. And God help me, I listened to her.” He paused a moment, and seemed to belatedly recognize the emphasis in Hermione's question. “Wha - did she say something to you too?”

At her nod, Harry felt anger well up within him, and his hand went instinctively to the handle of his wand, but he froze at a dissenting noise from Hermione.

“It wasn't - it wasn't really anything that wasn't true,” she said. “She was careful, I think - or maybe didn't realize the implications and consequences of what she was doing…”

“Oh, she realized,” Harry muttered, recalling his conversation with Ron.

“The thing is,” Hermione continued, “we both let her get to us. It's not that we believed what she said, as much as she gave voice to our own fears and doubts, and we - we clung to that, instead of to each other. We each thought we knew what was best for the other one - and never even asked the other what they really wanted. Though I can guess what Ginny really wanted.”

“I'd like to hex her into next month,” Harry growled.

“Would it make any difference? We wouldn't get these lost years back,” Hermione pointed out pragmatically. “She even lost in all this too.” She smiled sardonically, but her eyes swam. “She didn't get you either - you fled halfway around the world! -- though judging from the look on her face at the pub that night, she'd take you back in a second.”

“Marry me,” Harry said, so quickly that Hermione thought she must have misheard.

“Excuse me?”

“It's the easiest way I can think of to get you to realize that I meant every declaration I've made since I got back.”

“I'd like to hope you didn't mean all of them,” Hermione mumbled, recalling their first heated conversation.

“Likewise,” he nodded, quirking a grin at her. “How about all the ones involving loving you and never leaving you then?” He was punctuating the words with kisses.

“Marrying you would be a firm message to Ginny, wouldn't it?” She mused, as if that would be the only reason to do so.

He embraced her again, and smiled into her hair.

“Ginny would just be a bonus.” He moved away from her slightly to fumble in the inside pocket of his jacket. He produced a small, dark blue, velvet drawstring pouch, loosened the gold cord at its neck, turned it upside down, and shook it. A diamond engagement band tumbled into his waiting palm.

Hermione's gasp got stuck in her throat.

“You didn't answer my question,” he reminded her.

“When did you get that?”

Sadness flitted across his face for an instant before he replied.

“I bought it in a jewelry shop in Hogsmeade, three days before I left for Sydney. Been carrying it around ever since. Stupid, huh?”

“You were stupid,” she conceded thickly. “But so was I.” She looked down at the ring, and sniffed loudly. “I don't know whether to kiss you, or hex you within an inch of your life.”

“Would my opinion on that make any difference?” he grinned. “You still haven't answered my question.”

She held out her left hand, fingers splayed, in lieu of a reply.

Ron met them at the brick wall in the back of the Leaky Cauldron, one eyebrow cocked upward in amusement.

“Uncle Ron!” Annemarie cried out joyously, having grown rather more quickly attached to the red-head than made Hermione comfortable. She and Ron had already had a very long and detailed discussion about Wheezes and their presence in the flat.

“Sprout!” Ron said, in like manner, calling out one of the five or six nicknames he'd already bestowed upon her. He squeezed her in a hearty bear hug, lifting her feet off the ground.

“Prophet's putting out a bonus issue this afternoon - special full-color section and everything,” was all he said to Harry and Hermione, clearly enjoying himself as Harry bracketed his forehead with one hand and let out a weary groan. “Shame on you,” Ron grinned, as he tapped the pattern in the bricks. “Do you know how many women you made cry today?”

“Ron, please stop,” Harry pleaded. “I didn't want any special treatment. I didn't want this to be a big deal. I just - ”

“You better watch saying that your wedding isn't a big deal - in front of your wife,” Ron observed sagely, whispering the last word as though Hermione were not aware of her status. “Even I know better than to say something like that.” Light spilled in through the archway as they stepped into Diagon Alley. “If you don't want anything special, does that mean we should cancel the party? Be a pity, since we rented out Fortescue's.”

Harry tried to keep his jaw from swinging open on its hinge, as he took in the festive scene. Everywhere he looked, he saw one familiar, smiling face or another - a great number of them Weasleys. Fred and George had already started the celebration off with a bang - so to speak - as their famous Catherine wheels soared above the striped awnings of the shops.

“We took every precaution,” Ron explained to him, clearly unsure as to his reaction. “Pulled every official string we could - Tonks and I. Shopkeepers are cooperating, and the media is strictly persona non grata.”

“Ron, this really - ” Harry was unable to finish his sentence, as he was smothered beneath the enthusiastic hug of the only mother-figure he'd really ever known. “Hallo, Mrs. Weasley.”

“It is unspeakably good to have you back, Harry dear,” Molly said, her eyes bright with tears. “And this must be Annemarie. It is so good to meet you, dear.”

“This - ” Harry began, but his voice was rough, and he had to clear his throat and start again. “Annemarie, this is your - your grandmother.” He could see her comparing this sonsy, smiling woman who had greeted her with heartfelt emotion to the cold, thin-lipped austerity of Griselda Ludlow. Molly was blinking furiously at the honorific Harry had given her.

“What - what shall I call you?” Annemarie asked, in a rather more uncertain voice than they'd previously heard her use.

“Well, you can call me whatever you like, my dear. Bill's twins call me Grandma Molly. Why don't I introduce you to them - your new cousins, I suppose? They'll be taking their first trip on the Express next week too. And I reckon you need a nice big dish of Florean's best, don't you?” Talking a mile a minute to the little girl, who had a look of delighted bewilderment on her face, Molly steered her toward the doors of the ice cream shop.

Hermione moved as if to follow them, and then stopped when Harry did not proceed.

“Harry?” she looked back questioningly, as his eyes roved through the crowd, picking out the friendly smiles of family and friends, including almost every Gryffindor he'd ever known.

“Ron, this really was too much,” Harry protested.

“Well, it is several different occasions rolled up in one party - your return, big case solved, marriage, sprog… Let it never be said that you ever did anything halfway.”

“You know me,” Harry joked. “Always looking for a way to be the center of attention. You can go ahead,” he told Hermione. “I've got one errand to see to first.”

He heard the tinkly peal of bells playing a sprightly tune as she entered the shop, and turned to make his way down Diagon Alley. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flowing banner of red hair making its way toward him.

“Ron,” he said in a low voice, “neither Hermione nor I want to hold a grudge against Ginny - seems to me that there's plenty of blame to go round for everything that's happened - but I just don't feel up to dealing with her today. I really do have something that I want to do. Can you intercept for me?”

“Say no more, mate,” Ron replied affably, and moved between Harry and his approaching youngest sibling, as Harry slipped into the throngs of shoppers.

He returned to Florean's after he had made his purchase - his money bag quite a few Galleons lighter - to see the party going on full swing, having spilled even more extensively into the Alley itself.

He spotted Annemarie and Hermione inside at a little pastel table, surrounded by those he could call his nearest and dearest. He noted with a start that Ron had even contacted Hermione's parents. There was a large shopping bag next to Hermione, and he noticed her shrinking and depositing various congratulatory cards and gifts therein.

He threaded his way through the crowd, and pulled an unoccupied chair to the other side of the table.

“And here I thought that I was being original by getting a gift,” he spoke to his daughter, in a mock-plaintive tone. “Maybe you don't need another one.”

“Oh, please?” Annemarie said hopefully, taking one last spoonful of mostly melted ice cream, and pushing the bowl aside, indicating her readiness.

“This was the first gift I ever received when I entered the wizarding world. Our circumstances are not exactly the same, but I couldn't think of anything better to get a new Hogwarts student.”

Hermione, of course, knew to what Harry was referring, and had folded her arms on the table, watching with an expectant twinkle in her eyes. Harry reached inside his cloak, and pulled out a small White-Faced Scops owl, his ear tufts standing out starkly in contrast to his white-masked yellow eyes. The owl fluffed his feathers and trilled slightly, looking thoroughly unimpressed with his surroundings.

“Oh,” Annemarie breathed, looking enraptured. She held out one hand, palm down, and the owl casually stepped across onto her wrist. It looked her over, and snuffed its beak lightly into her hair, by way of greeting. “Oh… Dad…”

Harry had expected surprise and delight - though not this exact reaction - and he had not expected his reflexive response to it either. His eyes stung with tears that had appeared so rapidly that his nose burned. It was like accidentally breathing in the carbon dioxide vapor over a newly opened bottle of sparkling butterbeer. He let out a wheezy half-laugh, hoping that he wouldn't burst into sobs in front of everyone he knew, and managed to say, in an almost-normal voice,

“I - I like the way that sounds.”

Annemarie smiled at him, and something in her calm, though obviously affectionate, regard for him, reminded him again of Hermione. He felt his new wife's hand reach across the table and twine itself with his.

“I've been - I've been wanting to say it - but I thought… maybe it was too soon - maybe people would think - ”

“Everybody's different, sweetheart,” Hermione said softly. “Everyone grieves in their own way, on their own timetable. The right time is when you're ready, not when we - or anyone else - think that you are.”

“We love you - and we know that you loved Peter and Tabitha,” Harry added.

“They would be glad, wouldn't they, that you found each other, and you found me?”

Hermione and Harry exchanged a long glance.

“Ecstatic,” Hermione managed mistily.

“Annemarie? Is that an Owl? To take to Hogwarts? Let's see it, then,” called out one of Bill's twins, Catrine, rather peremptorily.

“I'm going to call him Hildebrandt,” she announced happily over her shoulder, as she followed Catrine over to her brother, Alexander, where the three of them proceeded to happily fuss over the beleaguered little owl.

“God, what a day,” Harry said tiredly, sliding Hermione's bowl of ice cream toward him, and digging into the remnants with Annemarie's discarded spoon.

“You make it sound like you've endured a particularly trying string of hardships,” Hermione observed dryly. “And I was still eating that.”

“Not trying,” Harry disputed the word choice. He took an impudently large spoonful of ice cream before relinquishing her bowl. “Not hardship, just… different.” He assessed Hermione warily, before adding, “A good kind of different - the best, really.”

“Really?” Hermione asked, her brown eyes twinkling again.

“Tell me that I'm not glowing like you are,” he teased, but cupped her jaw line with serious eyes.

“Harry, you've smiled at least twice. For you, that's positively drunk with joy.” The edge of her sarcasm was tempered by her grin.

“I am drunk with joy,” he admitted quietly, and the look on his face made her blush. “I feel like I could take on the world. In fact, right now, there's only one thing that I'm not sure how to handle.”

“And what's that?”

His gaze angled over her shoulder, somehow hardening and softening at the same time, into such a fierce, instinctual love that Hermione had never seen before.

“I don't know how I'm going to let her get on that train next week.”

Hermione's warm look was pure sympathy.

“It does seem cruel - getting her back, only to send her off straightaway. Still, Christmas will be here before you know it - and she does have Hildebrandt now! Trust you to get her an owl; I'm actually surprised you didn't get her a broom.”

“I thought about it. Went in Quality Quidditch Supplies. But I knew what you'd say if I came back with a broom…”

“First years aren't allowed their own brooms.” They both finished in unison, Harry's last word slurring into a laugh.

The easily recovered camaraderie struck a chord in him - a wistful and reflective note that the joy of the day made all the more poignant… a reminder of the twelve years that they'd let trickle through the hourglass while they were hiding behind fear and hurt and disillusionment and pride.

He reached for her hand and planted several kisses across her knuckles, lingering at the shiny band that newly adorned her left hand.

“So, Mrs. Potter,” he emphasized her new name with a smile. “Shall we collect our daughter and go acquire some school supplies.”

Hermione's eyes lit up in a way that was almost comical. He could see her doing a mental inventory of her own books, and felt sure that Annemarie would board the Express with her mother's own well-loved copy of Hogwarts: A History stowed in her trunk. They had missed much, it was true, but there was much still to experience together. Harry remembered the thrill of finally finding the wand that had chosen him, the one tucked even now in the pocket of his robes.

“Let's go to Ollivander's first.”

THE END

AN: There we go. Sorry for the delay - I was held up by a fried CPU. Have a few more ideas percolating in the back of my mind. Working on the companion-piece to “Shadow Walks”. I'll hopefully have the first chapter posted fairly soon.

Hope you enjoyed this story.

You may leave a review on your way out, if you like.

lorien

-->