Disclaimer: Not mine. If it were, Harmony shippers would be celebrating.
A/N: My response to the "Hermione's sister" challenge by Strawberry Nerd. You can find it here: http://talk.portkey.org/index.php?showtopic=26786 . I hope you'll like the story, it will start from HBP, during sixth year, but hopefully this new character will help change things, uh? ;)
Thanks to my beta Gingercat!
A Sister's Influence
Chapter Seven: Training and a Revelation
News, at Hogwarts, fly fast, so it was no surprise to Harry that half the school already knew of his break-up with Ginny the next morning. He still didn't know how gossip could spread so fast, but there wans't anything he could do about it.
Hermione had looked worriedly at him while they were eating breakfast, but he smiled warmly at her.
"It's for the best" he said. "We weren't on the same page about what is truly important right now and a healthy relationship doesn't work that way" he shrugged, taking a sip of his pumpkin juice.
The brunette on his left side looked at him a bit longer before gently sighing and filling her own plate with food.
The quiet was broken about fifteen minutes later, when Ron entered in the Great Hall, carelessly plopped down in front of them, and started filling his plate and mouth with huge amounts of food.
"You know, Harry" he said between mouthfuls of sausages, "I'm not mad about you and Ginny breaking up. I'm her brother, sure, but I know she can be a royal pain in the ass when she wants to be" he said, which earned him a glare from Hermione.
"Ron! You shouldn't say such things about your sister!" she reprimanded him. Ron just rolled his eyes.
"However, it's a shame that it happened now. There's an Hogsmeade trip this weekend and I was already thinking about double dating with you and Ginny, but that won't do now"
Harry felt Hermione stiffen the littlest bit beside him, and glared at the redhead. "What about Hermione? Were you planning to leave her alone all day?" the raven haired boy asked.
"Oh" Ron said, genuinely surprised. He hadn't thought of that. "No, well, of course not…" he stammered, but the damage was done. "Well, but that's not a problem now, I mean, you two broke up so there's no way we can double date…"
Harry sighed at his best mate's lack of tact. "Let's go, Mione. We need to finish those plans for tonight's meeting" he announced, and the two of them quickly made their way out of the Hall and up the stairs to the library. Had they stayed a couple minutes longer, they would have seen Ginny trudge into the room on Seamus' arm, obviously trying to make Harry jealous.
--
Harry and Hermione worked for half an hour on those plans before heading to the DADA classroom. Harry had found that his best subject of the previous years, excluding maybe fifth with Umbitch, was much less fascinating when taught by Snape. But he guessed Dumbledore must have had a reason to finally give the spot to the slimy git.
As they walked, Hermione gently touched his arm. "Thanks for what you said at breakfast. It was nice to see there was someone who was considerate enough to think about what I would be doing during your double date"
He smiled at her. "Ron can be a bit tactless at times, we both know that" he winked at her, and Hermione felt herself blush. She found she did that a lot around Harry lately, just like she often felt her stomach fluttering when he smiled at her that way.
She had started wondering if maybe, their renewed closeness wasn't stirring something much greater in her, something she refused to think about.
They continued silently on their way to the third floor, both wrapped up in their private thoughts, revolving around the other.
--
That night, during the first official session of the renewed DA, Harry found that the dark times ahead had pushed many more students to think carefully about their future and their chances to survive the upcoming war. He realized that the Great Hall would barley have enough space for all of them to comfortably train, but Dumbledore, who had decided to be the first chaperone, quickly resolved that problem with a few enlargement charms and he also changed the furniture to what they would need.
That night, Harry had them start over with what they had covered the last year, considering that many new members had never cast a Stunner, or a Reductor, or a Patronus.
He showed them the enhanced shield charm Dumbledore had taught the Trio, telling them it would be part of the following lesson, along with a couple other spells he and Hermione had found in the library and which they had asked the headmaster about.
Dumbledore, for his part, just surveyed the progress of the students, and offered advice when someone had particular problems with a spell. He had suggested that the assigned chaperone for the night would always give pointers on how to use their particular subject in a fight, so the fact the next meeting would have McGonagall as chaperone was particularly favourable, considering that the spells Harry and Hermione planned to teach were incorporated the use of Transfiguration on the battlefield.
Ron commented on that on their way up to the common room.
"I would have never thought that other subjects could be useful in a fight too" he said.
"Well, Ron, think about this. If you can turn a pebble into a solid wall, that will be a good spot to hide behind to protect yourself, and from there you can fire at your opponent without having to leave your cover" Harry reasoned.
"That's not all, you could always conjure a dangerous plant to attack your opponent. That's a combined use of Charms and Herbology, but if you don't know the plants, you can't choose the best one for the situation you're in, and if you're not good at Charms, knowing the plants won't be useful because you won't be able to conjure it" Hermione explained.
Ron nodded. "I know. Makes you wish we had studied this way sooner, it would have been much more interesting" he commented, earning a chuckle from both his companions just as they stepped through the portrait hole and then trudged up to their dorms, all of them knackered by the long day.
"Hi Ginny" Harry distractedly greeted the redhead girl, sitting in the corner on Seamus' lap. Ron was too tired to notice though, which saved them all from a scene, although Harry's completely unfazed greeting pissed Ginny off to no end. Seamus was a nice bloke but she only needed him to make Harry jealous, but if he wasn't affected by it at all, her plan might backfire.
--
It was a couple days later that Harry entered the common room to find a shouting match going on there.
"…and I quote, "They're still stuck at least two centuries behind the rest of the world. They don't have an ounce of logic and there's hardly any innovation". Ha! Like a Muggle could ever understand!" that was clearly Ginny's voice.
"Yeah, right, what does she know of the Wizarding World to tell us we are stuck behind? We can do things they can't even dream of!" that was Parvati.
Harry took in the scene in front of his eyes, Hermione sitting on a couch, clearly upset by what her housemates were saying, Ginny holding a sheet of paper in her hand, now and then reading from it and rudely commenting, belittling what Harry knew to be Ophelia's letter to her younger sister.
He felt a rush of rage going through him, and he clutched his wand tightly.
"Accio letter!" he bellowed, making everyone jump at the absolutely furious tone of his voice.
The piece of paper zoomed out of Ginny's hand and into Harry's. He didn't even look at it, he just closed it and gave it back to Hermione, before turning to glare at all the girls assembled around the couch to taunt her.
"You know what, that letter is right. The Wizarding World is centuries behind the Muggles, when it comes to certain matters. The Muggles did away with slavery centuries ago, we still use the house Elves as slaves, and while they may be well treated in certain families, they are still essentially slaves, bound to the family they work for.
We still leave all the power in the hands of one, the Minister, and if he's corrupt, then we are handed straight into the hands of our enemies without even knowing it. Don't you think this is what has been going on in the Ministry for years? We've had to follow Fudge, when he was clearly paid by Death Eaters like Lucius Malfoy to do their bidding.
We still have race prejudices against Muggle-borns, like the Muggle had them for centuries, but the difference is, they have worked hard and now only small groups remain anchored to those beliefs, while in the Wizarding World the mighty pureblood view still runs free. Not to talk about the racism against werewolves, giants, and the other magical beings.
We may be more efficient in our healing, we may live longer and do fancy things with a stick, but on the matters that count, really count, to show how advanced a society is, we truly are a bigoted bunch of fools. Let me hear once more that you taunt Hermione, or any Muggle-born, telling him, or her, that they don't understand our world, and I can guarantee you that the consequences won't be pretty.
I'm ashamed of my fellow housemates, this is the kind of behaviour I might expect from Slytherins, but to think that the house of Gryffindor is full of this "Magic is Might" bullshit too, it makes me nauseous"
No one talked for a long time, scared of his sudden outburst, his green eyes almost pulsating so intense was his stare.
Finally, Ginny spoke again. "Harry, why do you defend Hermione now? You didn't when I called her on her lack of Quidditch knowledge, after all" she said with a smirk toward the brunette.
He glared at her, before responding.
"I was a fool then, blinded by my own stupidity, searching for a distraction when I should have paid attention to what really matters. But to answer your question, Ginny, she's my best friend" he said. Then, after a dramatic pause, he continued.
"And I'm in love with her"
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