Harry Potter sighed as he stared at the large tomb in front of him.
He was hunched over the book, the candle burning softly in the corner of the room. Slowly exhaling, Harry rubbed his face as he continued to stare down at the book. He reached out with one hand and slowly traced the outline of the book's dirty, cracked pages. Cocking his head, he flipped a page and stared solemnly at the images that were conjured onto the pages of the all-powerful book.
"Harry?"
Harry shut the book with a snap of his wrist, the dust of the book floating idly in the stale air of the lower dungeons of Hogwarts. He turned his head to find a slightly disheveled Hermione standing in the archway of the door.
"I've been looking all over for you," she said as she slowly approached him, eyeing the book warily.
"I just needed to think about some things," Harry offered with a half-smile. Hermione looked at him skeptically but did not push the subject. Without speaking, she stepped towards him and took his hand off the book.
"I really wish you would tell me what is in that thing," Hermione held his hand as she questioned Harry with her eyes.
"It's between me and him."
Harry had given everyone this answer repeatedly over the course of the past week. Wanting to protect the potentially fragile futures of his friends, Harry refused to disclose the secrets of the book with anyone. As the week had worn on however, Harry found it more difficult to fend off Hermione's relentless investigation of the worn-out tomb. There were several times that Harry had almost spilled the contents of the book to Hermione but not because of her constant questions. Harry did not know how much of a burden the future would weigh on his shoulders.
With yet another sigh, Harry eased his hand out of Hermione's and tucked the book underneath his arm. With a slight cock of his head, he indicated that they should leave. Hermione bit her lip as if to say something but thought better of it and lead the way out of the dungeon.
"You really shouldn't be leaving on a whim like that. Even if you do need time to…think…you should at least tell one of us. I thought by now that you would know that," Hermione scolded.
"I don't need to be babysat Hermione," Harry murmured as their feet pattered noisily along the silent corridors of Hogwarts.
"No you don't, but after…what happened to you, it's a good idea to let everyone know your whereabouts," Hermione reasoned.
"I guess so," Harry said indifferently.
"Harry. I'm being serious," Hermione exasperated, "Just tell me…at least."
Harry stopped in his tracks and surveyed her face quietly. Her eyes looked a little bloodshot and there were dark circles underneath her eyes. While she stood straight and looked him in the eye, Harry could see out of the corner of his eye that her hands were noticeably shaking.
"Why were you crying?" his voice echoed.
Hermione pursed her lips and looked up at Harry's strangely curious eyes. There was still a certain innocence in his demeanor that should have been eradicated long before this time. She gave him a half-smile and touched his elbow.
"We're all just worried about you is all."
Harry continued to stare at her for a moment before nodding and walking past Hermione into the Great Hall. Hermione dropped her shoulders as he walked past her blew an idle strand out of her eye before turning around and following Harry into the Great Hall.
"Harry, over here," Ron was sitting with McGonagall at one of the tables in the middle of the Great Hall. Harry sat down across from Ron while Hermione took a seat next to him. On the table lay a mess of different parchments scattered haphazardly around issues of the Daily Prophet.
"I've been looking into some leads we've had with your supposed attacks on London recently. There's one lead that keeps popping up," Ron shuffled a couple of parchments around until he found the one he had been looking for.
"Now, I'm fairly positive that this is supposed to mean something. When this parchment was first sent in as a tip, we thought nothing of it. It was just an inordinately long ramble about the discussions between the use of goat blood or pig blood in a certain type of potion but take a closer look at it."
They all leaned over the paper apprehensively. For a moment, they just stared silently at the parchment, as if they expected the explanation to pop out.
"Erm, Ron, I don't see anything," said Harry.
"Neither do I…" said a befuddled Hermione, unable to grasp that Ronald Weasley knew something she did not.
"The ingredients!" Ron exclaimed as he pointed to the row of ingredients on the right margin of the parchment.
"Wow, you're right," Hermione murmured.
Ron scoffed, "Not Head Auror because I suck at it."
"Debatable," Hermione said again.
Ron opened his mouth to speak but not before Harry cut him off.
"Sorry, you two, but I don't quite get it," Harry squinted through his glasses at the column of ingredients.
"Look at the peculiar way the ingredients are arranged. Now, it's not the actual ingredients themselves that are troubling, it's the number of ingredients!" Ron finished with a clap. Hermione rolled her eyes and leaned over Harry's shoulder to point out the numbers.
"Six feet of Python skin, three drops of Dragon blood, twenty-three lemon seeds and on and on," Hermione explained, "Those numbers are back, Harry."
Harry did not speak for a moment as he digested the information. In the meanwhile, Hermione was acutely aware that her breasts were pressed against Harry's rather formed bicep and that her breath was practically tickling his ear. Slowly, she disengaged herself from him, no matter how good it felt to lean against him. Harry seemed oblivious to all those facts.
"But what does it mean?"
Ron scratched his head this time around.
"Er, well, this is the time where we turn it over to her you reckon?" Ron asked.
"Well, isn't it obvious?" Hermione looked back and forth between Ron and Harry. They both shook their heads.
"Whoever wrote this lead gave us the key ingredients to a potion. All we have to do is look up what kind of potion uses these ingredients and we're set," Hermione went in full lecture mode. Harry and Ron exchanged a glance and Harry gave a rare smile.
"Some things never change do they?" McGonagall interrupted the Trio with a bemused expression on her face.
"Oh, I'm sorry Professor, we didn't mean to exclude you," said Hermione.
"That's quite alright. I rather enjoyed watching the three of you for old time's sake. There comes an age where you appreciate history," she said.
"Well, now that it seems you have found a lead, you are welcome to use Hogwarts at any expense that pleases you. If you excuse me, there are some more trivial but necessary matters that I must attend to," the Professor excused herself and swept out of the Great Hall towards the Headmistresses chambers.
"Well, let's get started shall we. To the library!" Hermione looked at both of them with a gleeful smile. Ron just shook his head while Harry gave a light chuckle as they followed her to the Library.
-------------_____________-------------
"Break, break, break, break," Ron kept chanting as Harry and Hermione toiled over a pile of books.
They had been combing through the Library for nearly three hours trying to find a potion that matched the ingredients found on the curious parchment. While Harry and Hermione had thrown themselves into the books, Ron had given up nearly an hour ago as research was never really his forte.
Nonetheless, he continued to sift through book after book, if not at a slower pace than his best friends. Since both of them were too involved in finding an answer in the books to notice anything else, Ron had taken the time to observe the pair as they hunched over the mountain of leather-covered books.
Hermione had barely changed. It seems as if the return of Harry had awoken the younger Hermione that resided within her. For so long, she had been obsessed on finding Harry that she had lost any semblance of personality. Ron could easily recount the sleepless nights she endured as she continued to fight for an answer. While he liked to think that he had fought to find an answer to Harry's disappearance as well, he would be a fool to think that he threw in nearly as much effort as Hermione did.
Ronald Weasley had come to terms that he could not have her so long as Harry was not there with them long ago. What he did not realize until just recently, however, was that he could not have her even when the Trio was reunited. No matter what kind of effort he could possibly put in, he could not deny the unstoppable connection that held Harry and Hermione together. Even now, as he handed her a book he had finished and she proceeded to skim over it just in case he missed anything, they moved as one force.
He had come to terms with the eventual failure in his relationship with Hermione. She had unknowingly broken up with him the day Harry disappeared. Although they had never discussed it, their relationship was suspended indefinitely until Harry was found. Amusingly enough, Ron knew that she had spared not one thought to their relationship even though the Trio was reunited once again.
"Not the youngest Head Auror in three decades for nothing," Ron said to himself.
"Found something Ronald?" Hermione asked without raising her eyes from the book she was currently reading.
"Yeah, I've found the desire to eat again. I'll go grab some food while you two play researchers," Ron sat up and stretched.
"Research is a very important job in any aspect of life Ron and the sooner we find the potion, the sooner we can chase that lead down," Hermione quickly chastised him.
"Oh brave Captain, do not fear, I shall come back with the apple of truth to find our answers," he answered with a mock salute and a roll of his eyes. He turned around and headed to the door. Hermione was about to fire a number of well thought out insults before she was interrupted.
"Let him go," Harry said, "He needs a break."
Hermione didn't say anything but acquiesced nonetheless. She knew Harry was right.
"From what I remember, you weren't really much of a reader during your school days," Hermione teased, probing Harry's boundaries.
Harry smiled for just a second before his face fell to impassiveness once more, "You learn to appreciate books when you have no…one to talk to."
"Ah, welcome to my world…a decade and a half ago," Hermione smiled at him. He looked up at her and couldn't help a smile from forming on his own face.
"Hey, now, your world saved my neck more than one time," Harry commented.
"Ah, but intelligence is nothing without action," she countered with her own compliment.
"So that's how it is? You're the brain and I'm the muscle?"
"I see you as a good balance of brains and muscles. If anything, Ron would be the one with all muscle," she pointed out.
Harry chuckled, his laughter, no matter how soft it was, bringing a wide grin to Hermione's face.
"Well, it kind of looks like he turned out pretty well for himself."
"I always did underestimate him didn't I?" Hermione asked rhetorically.
"Ron was never lacking in talent, just in conviction," Harry mused.
"I suppose," Hermione said with a grin.
Harry smiled at her for a moment before his face became serious again. Hermione was disappointed she could only hold his happiness for a few moments.
"What happened between you two?"
She was caught by surprised and as such a bevy of emotions flittered across her face, Harry reading every one of them.
"Um…I guess we were just too worried about you to carry on with any sort of relationship. Both of our goals were to find you so…we kind of just put our relationship on hold," Hermione explained, "It's not something we ever really talked about."
"I see," Harry lowered his eyes.
"No. No, Harry, please don't think of it like that. You know that you had no impact on it whatsoever…I mean…sure you had some impact but it was going to happen eventually anyways," Hermione tried not to lose Harry to self-loathing again.
"What do you mean?"
"Six years is a long time, Harry, I think you know that as well. We had every opportunity to fix things between us and for whatever reason we didn't even try. Even when you came back, we haven't really talked about it as well," she reasoned.
"Still…" Harry muttered.
"Come of it Harry," Ron said as he approached the table with a tray filled with food.
"Self-deprecation is a complete unattractive trait," Ron said to him.
"The day I worry about your attraction to me is day I hope never comes up," Harry said unamused.
Hermione and Ron both laughed at his statement regardless and Harry eventually let himself have a small chuckle over the situation.
"Harry, what we're trying to say is…or at least what I'm trying to say is…I don't think we were meant to be anyways," Hermione stared at Ron to gauge his reaction.
Ron nodded at her and she sighed in relief. Although she was fairly confident she had assessed both of their feelings towards their relationships correctly, Hermione would have been mortified if Ron had felt like there was still something between them.
"So…both of you are okay then?" Harry asked.
"Completely fine if not famished mate," Ron said with a smile. Harry returned his smile with one of his own and reached over to get a sandwich from the tray.
Before Harry could take a bite out of his food, however, he caught movement from behind Hermione and Ron. Petrified, he watched as Ron and Hermione continued a conversation without knowing there was a presence behind them.
The same dull scraping sound was etched into his ears once more. Once again, Ginny Weasley's mangled body approached him from behind Ron and Hermione. Her empty eye sockets, more than anything, gripped him with fear.
"Harry, is something wrong? You're awfully pale," Hermione commented.
"Can't you see her? Behind you?" Harry asked bewilderedly. Hermione and Ron whirled around but neither of them could see anything but a seemingly endless row of books.
"Harry…we don't see anything," Ron said slowly.
Harry did not respond as he watched Ginny turn around and walk away a few paces before turning her head without moving her body. His jaw dropped as he watched the inhuman feat. He could hear Hermione and Ron calling to him as if they were miles away but he was mesmerized. Her eyeless eyes gazed upon his form once more before her head turned around and she began walking again.
Follow her.
No, she's danger.
Follow.
The voices in his head erupted in a war against each other and Harry's head pounded as the fight for his sanity continued. Making his decision quickly, he abruptly stood up, causing his chair to fall over. Brushing by a pleading Hermione, he followed the inhuman creature.
"Harry, what's going on?" Hermione cried as she chased after him for he now was breaking into a jog.
"Harry, wait up!" Ron yelled.
Although Harry was now jogging, Ginny continued to walk. It was as if Harry were destined to never catch up to her. Nonetheless, he continued to jog after her, unaware of his destination.
"Where's he going?" Ron asked.
"He's headed to the Astronomy tower," Hermione said, realization dawning upon her.
"But why?"
Ron and Hermione followed Harry up several flights of stairs and ascended the winding staircases of the tallest tower in all of Hogwarts castle before coming to a stop at the peak of the tower.
"Harry, please, tell us what's going on!" Hermione shouted as Harry could not seem to register her normal voice.
"She led me here…" Harry murmured.
"Who? Who led you here Harry?" Hermione implored.
Harry did not answer but continued to stare at a fixed point on the wall. Hermione took a step towards him but Harry shushed her and held out one hand, asking her to stop. Hermione looked back at Ron but he just shrugged his shoulders.
"Hermione, give me your wand," Harry asked after a couple of minutes. Hermione handed Harry her wand and squeezed his hand softly at the same time. Harry gave her a glance before he stared at the spot on the wall again.
Harry approached the wall and held out her wand before he tapped a serious of bricks in quick succession. Hermione gasped as the wall started to twist and form, the bricks revolving and losing depth as they revealed a medium-sized box sitting on a ledge entrenched in the wall.
"Harry, how'd you know to do that?" Ron asked.
Harry still did not reply but instead approached the box. A moment later, Harry opened the box and gasped. He did not move and stood riveted at the spot, his eyes transfixed at the contents of the box.
Finally unable to stand not knowing, Hermione approached Harry cautiously and peered inside the box. Inside were Harry's invisibility cloak, his wand, a small corked vial, and a letter.
"Harry, can you explain?" Hermione implored softly.
Harry only shook his head, still shocked that he had his wand again. She gave a glance at Harry before reaching for the letter. Harry's eyes followed her hand so Hermione took that as implied consent to read the letter aloud. Its contents surprised everyone in the tower.
I don't have much time. They have found me. I can only wish that someone find this before it is all too late. I shall kill myself after I have finished hiding this letter to escape the terror I have endured in the past three days.
Harry, if you ever find this letter. I love you so much. I know you are still alive, that much I have gathered from my captors. Enclosed in the box are your Invisibility Cloak, your wand, and my memories.
I did as you said, Harry, I went down fighting, but I cannot survive much longer. I hope my efforts have not been in vain.
Love,
Ginny
P.S. It's okay
P.P.S. Kill the bastards
Hermione finished reading the letter aloud.
------____________________------
Yes! Yes! An Update! It's a miracle! I have not abandoned you all yet!
- Ginny's story shall be revealed in the next chapter
- There are more to the ingredients than their coincidental numbers
- I, like God, do not believe in coincidences. Ten Harry points if you can name that quote.
- There are other things that will come into play soon, including the return of Riddle.