Beginning To Understand
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own any of this whatsoever.
Spoilers: Books 1-4.
Pairing (if any): H/Hr, D/G
Author's Notes: Do you ever get the feeling that no matter how much you write it always seems like garbage? I've read and re-read all my chapters over and over again and can't find one that I am completely, 100 % in love with. Thanks to all my reviewers who've stuck with me all the way through from the start.
Summary: Some monologue, nothing really special except some finding out about stuff. I like the thoughts in this chapter, I really do.
~*~
She awoke to the sound of gentle crying. Gentle crying that sounded vaguely familiar. She contemplated for a moment whether she should get up. He'd only turn his back on her again, he'd only say he was fine and he didn't need any help. He'd only try and shut her out of his life again and she didn't need that. But a compelling part of her was saying that she should go. If she did, it'd show that someone did care about him, sitting in the Common room alone, night after night, crying alone. Crying without a shoulder to shed his tears upon.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she made her way down the stairs of the Head Girl's stairwell and into the Gryffindor common room. He was there, crying on the sofa again, staring into the brightly-lit fire that was burning away at invisible embers.
She moved closer to him and he sensed her near him. Whipping round. He faced her and for a moment she felt warm inside. All over, she felt his warmth…then a steady release back into nothingness as he turned his gaze away from her, back to solitary loneliness of the fireplace.
"I'm fine," he muttered under a tear filled voice. "Really, I'm fine. Just needed to get
something out."
She sat down next to him and carefully reached out her trembling hand to his trembling hand. Stroking the back of his hand carefully, she kissed his cold cheek and grasped onto his hand, lacing her fingers with his. When he looked back at her, it felt like eternity had swallowed her whole. Something from inside was shouting at her to move but she was rooted to the spot. A pair of emerald green eyes were holding her in place.
With a careful glance at her, his lips hovered over hers then slowly…he kissed her. And it wasn't a simple kiss, it wasn't a movie kiss…it was a lover's kiss. Something about that kiss was melting into her, imbedding itself on her memory. If she could smile, she would've. If she seemed too weak, if she seemed too needy she didn't care. She needed him. She needed him just as he needs her. She needs him.
The boy with the raven hair…
Hermione lurched forward; grasping at the night's air like it was strangling her. She gasped for her breath as if it was the last air she was ever going to have and her lungs ached. Her lips trembled and for some unknown reason, she felt the need to kiss the air in front of her. She resisted but instead lifted her hand to her lips and touched them only barely, only enough to feel the contact of her fingertips.
The dream had felt so real. It had felt so real that it didn't feel like a dream, it felt like a memory again. It was so strange to sit in bed and contemplate whether your dream was a dream or not. It wasn't as if she'd dreamt of making a sandwich and taking it to bed with her to find lettuce in her sheets the next morning.
She'd dreamt of sharing a very intimate kiss with a raven-haired boy who looked uncannily like Harry Black. Hermione shook her head. She was going about this all wrong. The raven-haired boy couldn't be Harry; it was next to impossible. Harry hadn't attended Hogwarts, he hadn't been near the castle in his life, he hadn't even thought he was a Wizard until he was Sirius and Remus, who Hermione presumed were his uncles, or Sirius was his uncle and Remus was his partner.
She closed her eyes for a moment and just surveyed the situation. She couldn't think of anything to do except ask herself a series of questions repeatedly. She'd devised a list now and tested it out with Ginny. She'd told Ginny about the dreams and Ginny had simply raised an eyebrow and giggled like a school girl, saying that Hermione obviously experiencing affection for the newest occupant of their home.
But, did she like Harry Black in a more than friendly way? Was that even possible for Hermione Granger? She'd never even met him before yet she'd been dreaming the same dreams over and over again for the past two years, new ones only coming to light more recently.
Maybe something involving Harry was going to happen soon, something involving her too. Was he going to kill her in an act of terrorism? No, that couldn't possibly be it. Harry was in hospital because someone had tried to kill him. Thinking that he was going to kill her was just stupid.
Unless it was a Ministry spy that was trying to kill him.
Unless it was an assassin.
Breathing out heavily, Hermione crashed back down onto her pillow and fell asleep, thinking that she just going mad.
~*~
Draco Malfoy had been up all night, downing several cups of really strong coffee just to keep his eyelids open and, just by chance, he'd found what he was looking for. Going over the forms again, he concluded that these were indeed his father's sentences. It was quite weird to be holding the pieces of paper that were keeping his father locked up in Azkaban. It was quite eerie to know that if he destroyed them now, Lucius Malfoy would be out of Azkaban.
For a fleeting second, Draco wanted to burn the paper. Maybe it was his father's evil instinct that was still deep within him or maybe he just wanted to see the consequences of his actions. Nevertheless, Draco put the paper into his folder and switched off the torch, Apparating himself back to his apartment.
~*~
Back in St Mungo's, Harry was having a restless night. He'd woken up several times and could no longer find it within himself to try and get some sleep. Terry Blanchett in the next bed was an old guy who'd been admitted because of a very bad leg injury. Harry had spent most of the afternoon talking to him about nothing really, just the odd conversation. He'd found it interesting to talk to someone apart from his own mind for a change, although the wall would have made a far more interesting conversationalist. All Terry wanted to talk about was the increase in Wizarding Taxes this season.
The world outside of his hospital window looked frightfully familiar. Harry had concluded that this was the same bed slept in when he'd been admitted in the last year of his service in the Phoenix Squadron. The same bed meant the same window, which meant the same view from the same window. The trees outside were rustling in the October wind and Harry thought for a moment what date it was. He hadn't a clue.
He was still in love with Hermione Granger.
Even after these two years, she'd been the only person he'd been able to think about. She'd been on his mind constantly. He couldn't go to bed at night without remembering the night they'd spent together. He couldn't help remembering how she'd curled up beside him offering him everything she had even though she knew he was going to leave, he was going to leave and leave everything behind. She promised him that she'd remember, that she wouldn't forget and a slight bit of him wanted to believe that.
He'd wrote a letter to the Ministry once, outlining everything that he thought was unfair and memory charms were at the top of the list. House Elves were second but memory charms took priority. Harry had never actually sent off the letter but it just made him think about what he was missing, being cooped up in a stupid regiment surrounded by mindless Aurors.
He grinned at the letter still typed up and ready to send on his typewriter at Lloyds. For some unknown reason, Harry had always imagined that Lloyds would be the perfect place to raise a family one-day and thinking about it, he could still lift the charm. After the case was over and the Ministry weren't trying to arrest him at every quirk and turn.
Just to make sure that no Aurors turned up at the hospital, Harry had gone down as Ben Robing. Not Harry's choice of name but a good name to be under. A good alias as Draco had put it.
Harry lay back down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe it wasn't too late to rekindle what he had with Hermione or maybe she'd shoot him down again, he'd had enough heartache from her. He was left to toy with a decision that he didn't think he'd ever have to make ever again.
Should he leave?
~*~
Draco didn't think the situation could get any better before it got worse. He'd gone over the plan with Harry and although it sounded excellent, how they were going to get the information was another story altogether. It was doable, it was great and to pull it off, it would work. Draco had his doubts though. Lucius still had another six life sentences to serve before he could be let out and even under extreme circumstances, Dumbledore had ensured that Lucius Malfoy would never be released. In his own words, Lucius Malfoy would sooner die than be let back into the Wizarding World.
Dumbledore hadn't been contacted strangely enough. Draco thought that an owl or even a visit might have sufficed, to warn Dumbledore of their situation and hopefully procure him onto their case but nothing. Dumbledore hadn't even contacted them. Surely he'd read the papers, surely he'd heard about the case one way or another and surely he wouldn't let Harry do this alone.
But then again, Harry wasn't alone. This could be his test of tests so to speak.
Draco sighed and poured the remaining hot water into the mug. Carefully carrying it so it wouldn't spill, he knocked on Hermione's bedroom door.
"Come in!" was the faint reply from beyond the doorway.
Draco opened the door and walked inside. Hermione was sitting up in bed with her journals open and all over her bed. Draco looked at her confused for a moment and sat down on the edge, passing her the mug that was in his hand.
"Everything alright?" He asked, confused. Picking up one of the diaries, he flicked through revealing page after page of Hermione's handwriting from their school days. Her handwriting was always neat and it made Draco wonder if she had learnt to write and not come out of her mother's womb with a quill in her hand, having already wrote a diary of the first nine months of her life.
Hermione looked at Draco for a second then picked up a leather-bound journal, handing it to him at a page where her thumb was inserted. "Read that."
Draco did, skimming a few lines and paragraphs for something important. On the bottom of the page was the date.
September 1st, 1991.
Draco shuddered. A cold tingle shot down his spine. The date they'd started Hogwarts, the day they'd met harry Potter for the first time. The day everything had started on that train.
He skimmed through the page dedicated to the date again and there, underneath paragraphs 6 and 6.5 was the fatal paragraph 7. But, the fateful paragraph 7 was missing along with paragraphs 8, 10 and 12. The story that was now being shown to Draco didn't make sense. There were numerous references to 'he', 'him' and 'his' but nothing about Harry Potter.
"What?" Draco asked handing the book back to Hermione.
Hermione took it and looked at the pages. "I have paragraphs missing from all of my journals. Sometimes entire entries! I write an entry every single day and I have done for the past twelve years. All these books are filled but have paragraphs of my life missing!"
Draco shrugged. "Maybe you forgot to count for the day."
Hermione stared at him coldly. "No. I have a major part of my life missing. And it has something to do with
Harry."
The cold shiver was back down Draco's spine. "What do you mean? How could it have something do with him?"
"I don't know!" Hermione replied and flung the diary across the room so it hit the wall. Her temper was rising to the boiling point. "I keep having strange dreams that aren't dreams! I keep seeing him when he was younger, how he would've looked! I've kissed him in one of my dreams for crying out loud!"
Draco stood up and picked up the diary that lay on the bedroom floor. "I don't know what to tell you
Hermione."
Hermione sighed and buried her face in her hands. "I want you to tell me the truth, Draco. I want you to tell
me that I'm not going mad and that I am having flashbacks from a time I can't remember. Please tell me Harry
isn't who he says he is, because I know he's not."
Draco sat down on the edge of the bed and clasped Hermione's hands in his. "I'm not usually like this, Hermione. I don't like helping people; it's nothing like the real me. I'm not caring and I'm not very sensitive but ever since I…I met Harry something changed. I wasn't like this in school was I?"
Hermione shook her head. "No, you weren't."
"I know," Draco replied. "I can't explain it Hermione any better than Harry could. He changes people; he can do things that take years of practice to do, and he's special. And to answer you're question, you'd better talk to him about that. Though, don't expect something grand and spectacular to happen. He's just one man, he can't change the world."
"So, what do you think my dreams are then?" Hermione asked, picking up her journals and placing them beside her bed.
Draco shrugged and stood up. "Personally, I think you've fallen out of your tree but…Harry might think something totally different."
"He might think I've blasted off planet Earth," Hermione said, climbing off her bed and opening her
cupboard. "Go on, while I get dressed. Oh yeah, what did you come in for anyway?"
"Fancy a trip to Lloyds today?" Draco asked, opening the door. "I have to pick up some stuff from
Harry's."
Hermione nodded then shooed Draco out of the room while she dressed.
~*~
"Okay, I didn't think it was this big," Hermione said as they trudged up the stairs to the apartment.
"What did you expect?" Draco asked, digging in his pocket to find his key. "He's a Wizard who
needs to be out of the way all the time. What better place than up in a tower?"
Hermione sat down on the top step to catch her breath. "See, when you said tower, I was imagining a tower of
flats, not an actual tower."
"Then you should take what I say seriously," Draco joked, opening the door and walking in. "Ha! We're in!"
The two ventured into the surprisingly tidy apartment. Undoubtedly, the place was being watched even as they were in there. Everything that was in there was categorised by the Ministry by now and was hiding in some file cabinet. The apartment was well kept and clean, not a spec of dust anywhere though Hermione suspected that Harry must have a cleaner to keep it this clean.
"We are now entering the inner sanctum of a Mr Harry James Black," Draco said, impersonating the voice of
those annoying people who talk you through documentaries. "His natural habitat looks clean and tidy and apart from
the odd pair of underwear, it looks entirely liveable."
Hermione chuckled to herself as Draco looked around the apartment for something. The apartment had a distinct feel to it, like she'd felt that feeling before. A 'Harry' feel you could call it. It felt strange, odd and peculiar. She felt oddly at home in the small apartment.
Something on the desk caught her eye. Sitting on top of a large stack on books on his desk, was a small and slight crystal ball. The crystal ball looked familiar as she picked it up, even the texture felt familiar. Inside was swirling purple mist that grasped her attention and after a moment, golden words began to string together.
'HE'S HOME'
Hermione looked at the object and was just about to put it back when the words strung together again.
'BUT NOT FOR GOOD, IF YOU DON'T STOP HIM'
Hermione shook her head and replaced it on the stack of books. Another thing in the room, an Eagle Quill that was balanced in a stationary mug on Harry's desk. That appeared to be familiar, as did most of the books in the bookshelf. She glanced over them, reading the spines and running her finger along the covers of the intricately designed books. Most of them were books about Charms, Potions, old school books from Hogwarts. From Hogwarts!
They were the same books they'd used at Hogwarts!
She grabbed the Potions book and flicked it open. All of the pages were filled with notes in a scruffy scrawl that looked familiar. The ink used was dark green, the dark green she remembered from somewhere. She remembered picking up a bottle of dark green writing ink from Diagon Ally and giving it to someone as a birthday present. She remembered giving him the Eagle Quill as well.
Flicking through the Potions book in the hopes of finding something useful, she reached the end of the book. Nothing was after that, only some notes and a few lines of 'I'm bored, this is boring.'
She went to return the book to the stack though when a slip of paper fell out of the book and onto the floor. The parchment was deep in its brown colour, the colour that she remembered someone using quite often to finish essays off. It went nicely with the dark green if she remembered correctly. Picking up the slip of parchment, she opened it and read the lines that were inside.
'I'm bored, how about you?
'I'm bored too, got nothing to do…hey that rhymes!'
'Err, Ron?'
'Hmm?'
'Snape's not staring is he?'
'Nope. Err…actually…nope.'
'As long as we keep writing we'll be all right. No playing hangman again.'
'Damn.'
'Hermione's not here. Where is she?'
'No idea. She's never not here for a lesson. She must be ill or something.'
'Or speaking to a Professor?'
'Could be. Or she could be being eaten by a Troll or something.'
'Did you finish off you're transfiguration homework?'
'We had transfiguration homework?'
'Do I take that as a no, then?'
'Hmm. Harry?'
'Yeah?'
'Don't be an Auror.'
'Okay.'
'You're going to do it anyway aren't you?'
'No.'
'So you've changed your mind then?'
'Yes. I'm going to Uni now.'
'Cool. So long as you don't leave. I want you to be my best man.'
'I am your best man, unless you've got a better best man which I highly doubt.'
'Shut it, prat.'
Hermione nearly dropped the piece of paper. Somebody called Harry was at school with her and Ron, somebody called Harry knew her and Ron, somebody called Harry was good friends with her and Ron and somebody called Harry was going to get his arse kicked when Hermione found out who he was. She held onto the piece of paper like it was going to disappear. This was the only link she had with them, with the past them, with the Harry from in the past, the past Harry. Merlin this was confusing.
Draco came back into the room whistling and holding a folder under his arm. When he saw Hermione's expression, he rushed over and took the slip of paper from her hand.
"What's wrong?" He asked, skimming the paper. Then the same look dawned on him. "Looks…looks like you were right."
Hermione nodded. "Looks that way."
"Looks like we need to have a chat with Harry."
"Looks like it."
Draco swore to himself that he'd never, ever, ever take Hermione to Harry's apartment ever again. Something's just weren't worth the hassle. Everything looked like it was going to come out but how could it without the Ministry's spell being lifted? Draco shook his head. Sometimes there were ways around that kind of thing. Obviously the Ministry didn't clear up as good as they said they had.
~*~
Harry had barely a minute to sit up and relax before Draco burst through the door.
"You should take that up as a profession," Harry joked pointing at the door. "You must spend more money on doors than Hogwarts."
Draco made a laughing sound but it was clear to see that this young man wasn't laughing…in the least. A temper was growing on his brow and he looked moderately ill. His features were slopped and his mouth didn't even crack a smile when Harry had made his small joke. Something was awfully wrong.
"Who died?" Harry asked jokingly.
Draco still kept the solemn look, which made Harry get worried.
"Oh no," Harry said. "Who died?"
"No one," Draco said slowly.
He coughed and repeated the no one again. "Sorry, just a bit up in the clouds today."
"What's going on?" Harry asked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "You don't
usually barge in somewhere without a damn good reason."
Draco shook his head. "There isn't a reason."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"There isn't a reason," Draco repeated.
"Then wh…"
Harry couldn't finish the last of his sentence because he was slumped over the bed. There was a zap, a flash of light from somewhere and Harry could taste something in his mouth. The taste wasn't unfamiliar and he felt more than slightly ill.
It was the taste of blood.
He was bleeding in his mouth. He tried to open his eyes but he couldn't see in front of him. Everything was blurred, his vision was horrid and the only thing he could make out were the white sheets beneath him slowly growing thick in red blood; his red blood that was seeping from his open mouth.