2. Living In A World I

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I do not own any of this whatsoever.

Spoilers: Books 1-4.

Pairing (if any): H/Hr, R/LV, and D/G

Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to my fic "If You Love Me; You’ll Understand Me".

Summary: This is the first chapter. It takes place a few years after the events of "If You Love Me; You’ll Understand Me". Harry has changed his name to Harry Black and has many memories to reflect on. Sirius never died.

Living In A World I’d Rather Forget

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"Black! I’m giving you a direct order, get out of the…" the communicator cut. Orders be damned, Harry would sacrifice his own life before anyone was put in unnecessary danger.

He’d already sent his squad back to the rendezvous point; he was going ahead…alone. Zabini had handed over his communicator ordering Harry to call him if he needed help. It was dangerous and it was damn stupid.

The Phoenix squad was dependent on Harry, their loyalty lay with him and their path lay parallel with his. Whatever the mission, whatever the danger they’d stick by him, but on this particular mission, Harry felt the need to do it alone.

It was too dangerous to involve his crew. Zabini had a son on the way; Harrel was a bride-to-be, Stewarts had a promotion coming and Harry had nothing. He couldn’t ask them to risk everything for this…a one-wizard hostage situation.

Deathly silent, Harry crept up behind the broken down underground train. The underground was the crime scene, one mad wizard was the culprit with two or three hostages. They couldn’t be sure, but the Phoenix base had reported that one of the hostages was the culprit’s own daughter, kidnapped a few days ago.

He climbed up the back of the train and lay on top looking out onto the lit platform. Looking from the stairs leading up to West London, Harry managed to get a decent view of the two main escape routes. One was the exit leading up to the subway entrance, unfortunately surrounded by Muggle police. The second was the fire exit that went deep into the underground, eventually coming up somewhere in the West End.

But there was the wizard entrance. The large poster of the new Stephen King novel was the portal back to BrookHolme, a wizarding town in the middle of London, like the Diagon district. The culprit would have to have a good know how of the underground to know about it.

Thankfully, the wizard hadn’t used magic although he was clearly armed with ‘a dark looking stick, probably using it as a weapon’ as the Muggle police radio (tapped by the Phoenix base) had reported.

Harry moved forward a bit, crawling with his arms and hoisted himself to the front of the train, still covered in the invisibility charm. From his new position, he had a clear view of the whole platform.

The culprit was standing by a pair of hostages who were bound, gagged and tied together in the middle of the platform, quite close to the edge of the tracks. If his true intention was to push them off when another train came, the Muggles dashed the idea by shutting down the underground network across the West End.

He was dressed in bright red robes, not very disguising, and other Muggle clothing like jeans and a sweatshirt. His hair was cut short and he was indeed a young man, looked fresh out of Merlin’s Academy. Gripped firmly in his hand was a wand that was emitting a low light, the only light present on the platform and was currently pointed at the two hostages…one a young woman, the other a small girl about four or five years old.

Carefully, Harry lowered himself down by the side of the train, pressing himself firmly against the wall and slid over to the other side of the tracks, staying as low as possible. He never knew when the charm would wear out.

Taking out his own wand and removing the charm quickly, Harry jumped up onto the platform and pointed his wand at the culprit menacingly.

"Drop the weapon," Harry demanded walking closer to the culprit.

The culprit looked up and seemed startled at first and it was apparent that he had been crying, bloodshot eyes and red cheeks. Slowly, the culprit stood up and his wand dropped out of his hand as if he wasn’t gripping it at all.

"Turn around," Harry said taking a quick glance at the hostages trembling on the platform.

The culprit turned around slowly and held his hands up in surrender. Harry stepped forward and picked the culprit’s wand up off the floor and pocketed it, it would be used as evidence later on.

"I’m sorry," the culprit whimpered looking towards the woman and young girl. "I only wanted you to accept me."

Then it hit Harry like a million bricks at once. The young man had only wanted to be accepted; to be loved by what appeared to be his Muggle wife and daughter. The woman hostage let out a sort of whimper from behind her gag.

"They’re Muggles," Harry said, not as a question more like a statement.

The culprit nodded grimly as a few tears rolled down his cheek. "That’s my daughter. Isn’t she beautiful? My little Mally…"

Suddenly, the lights of the platform beamed on, flickering first then emitting a low hum. The culprit looked at Harry then at the tracks behind him, clearly indicating the track’s importance.

Electricity, Harry thought. The tracks would be pulsing with electricity, enough to fry a human easily. The culprit was edging towards the platform edge, hands still held up above his head.

"Don’t," Harry said sharply, looking down at the tracks. "You’ll be out of Azkaban in a month, maybe a few days. You haven’t committed anything major."

The culprit seemed to smile sadly and looked at his wife and daughter. "I told them, a few days ago, you know. I wouldn’t…we wouldn’t be here now if they’d just accepted me for who I am."

The sadness was glazing over the culprit’s eyes and he choked back a sob. "It wasn’t supposed to be this way. My world…"

He looked over at Harry. "Our world, the magical world is…it’s…"

"Come out with your hands above your head!" Shouted a police officer from the top of the underground stairs.

The woman hostage began to scream from behind her gag, indicated to the police officer that she was there. The young girl hadn’t moved yet or cried.

"I’m sorry," the culprit whispered.

Harry lunged for the man as he jumped backwards, off the platform’s edge and landed in an angel position on the tracks. His body was electrocuted. Harry had to look away, his stomach was wrenching at the God awful smell. He covered his mouth to prevent vomiting and managed to stumble over to the woman hostage.

She’d passed out, from shock probably. The child was sleeping, probably a sleeping charm.

"For the last time, come out with your hands above your head!" shouted the police officer.

Harry rushed to the Stephen King poster and pushed in a few bricks around it with his wand. Instantly, a passage was revealed and Harry jumped inside quickly, sealing the gateway behind him.

~)*(~

"How could you endanger yourself so recklessly?"

General Jacobi Garner, a nice guy every so often but a prick at others. He had shouted at Harry, demoted him so many times now he didn’t think that there was anything below Flobberworm.

"You caused a major catastrophe in that station," he shouted, his moustache flaring, reminding him very much of Uncle Vernon. "That man was the son of one of our Ministry Officials!"

"What the bloody hell did you expect me to do?" Harry leapt to his feet defending himself. "All I’d been told was that the man had kidnapped his own daughter and was holding her hostage in the underground! That was it!"

"I told you, I gave you a direct order to pull out of the vicinity!" Garner said ferociously. "We could’ve…assessed the situation, made some light of it."

Harry sighed. "The Muggle police would’ve been down in minutes! We couldn’t afford for him to be found with a wand!"

At the word, Garner thrust out his hand. "Give me the wand."

Harry opened his robes and pulled out the culprit’s wand, handing it over to his CO.

"The last spell was Lumos," Harry said. "It hasn’t got a protective charm on it. None that I could distinguish."

Garner looked at Harry, assessing the wand. "You think he was a Hogwarts boy?"

Harry shook his head. "Looked older. Said the girl was his kid."

"I’ll have this sent down to the morgue," Garner said. "They’re trying to…piece together what’s left of him."

"The best way to love is to love like you’ve never been hurt."

It’s what they say, the Earth keeps spinning no matter how much you wish it wouldn’t. No matter how much you cry, no matter how much you’re hurting, the world will keep going because, in the end, you’re just one man. Why would the world stop for one man?

Harry shook his head at the thought. Nothing was ever certain, nothing could ever be certain. He couldn’t be sure of their safety, he couldn’t guarantee them their lives up to twenty. What he did was for the best and he knew it, deep down inside he knew he’d done the right thing.

Then why did it hurt so damn much? Why did he feel guilty for it all?

"We are never so helplessly unhappy as when we lose love."

Sirius, holding a bottle of butterbeer in his hand came striding out onto the veranda. The party inside, the noise and the dancing, was to celebrate Harry’s last day on the Phoenix squad, and the last day as an Auror. Tomorrow, he’d be just plain Harry again. Harry James Black.

"What does that mean, oh profound one?" Harry asked, laughing a little at Sirius’ presumption.

Sirius leaned against the balcony railings swigging his butterbeer. "That was a wonderful quote from Sigmund Freud."

"The sex God of them all," Harry chuckled. "What does he have to do with today?"

Sirius turned to look at Harry, watching his twenty-two year old godson. "You still miss them don’t you?"

This made Harry uneasy. He felt unsettled still at the loss of his best friends. Yes, he missed them. Yes, he still thought about them. Yes, he still longed for Hermione. But everything, every emotion had to be surpressed. Once you become an Auror, you have to act without emotion and without hesitation. It becomes natural after a while, like riding a broom. You fully detach yourself from…yourself, from your emotions. You learn once and never forget how.

"I guess so," Harry replied slumping down into the veranda deck chair.

"It was a good service though, wasn’t it?" Sirius asked flopping himself down into a deck chair opposite Harry.

Harry gave a small laugh, remembering Ron’s wedding to Lavender. "Yeah, it was. Never thought I’d see Gred and Forge in tuxedos."

"I don’t think anyone was anticipating that," Sirius laughed heartily.

Harry was silent for a second before continuing. "Did you see Percy’s little girl?"

Sirius nodded. "Looks a perfect little lady."

"Five years old," Harry mused. "Five. I waited in the lounge room at the hospital with Bill and Ron while she was being born. I held her when she was six minutes old."

"And now she’s five," Sirius finished leaning back in the chair. "Time flies."

~Flashback~

Bill fumbled with the rings at the altar, finally handing them over to a well-dressed Ron.

"I Ronald Alan Weasley, take thee, Lavender Grace Brown, to be my lawful wedded wife," Ron recited slipping the ring onto lavender’s finger. "I shall shoulder your burdens as you shoulder mine. I will love you and cherish you. I will safe guard you and protect you from all that would harm you."

Harry watched from the back with Sirius. They had finally been allowed in, insisting that they were friends of the bride and groom. Mrs Weasley had acted strangely towards Harry, as if she knew him, as if she recognised him but couldn’t place where she’d seen him. That was the look he got from everyone.

Hermione was sat next to Ginny who was holding a handkerchief to her eyes and snivelling muffled sobs. They both looked gorgeous, dressed in burgundy silk gowns. Harry couldn’t stop staring at Hermione, her hair done up perfectly, tied at the back in a bun whilst permitting strands fall down beside her cheeks. In that moment, Harry would’ve given anything to be standing beside her, squeezing her hand as they watched Ron’s union in matrimony.

"And I, Lavender Grace Brown, take thee, Ronald Alan Weasley, to be lawful wedded husband," Lavender slipped the wedding band onto Ron’s finger. "I shall shoulder your burdens as you shoulder mine. I will love you and cherish you. I will safe guard you and protect you from all that would harm you."

Sobs were heard from the pews, both men and women. Harry looked around to see most of Ron’s Quidditch team in formal robe attire including Cho Chang on the arm of the young Puddlemere United manager. Fred and George were sitting with Mr Weasley and Bill was standing next to Ron. Parvati Patil was the maid of honour, dressed in a burgundy dress similar to Hermione and Ginny’s.

"By the power vested in me," Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled brightly as he raised his hands up into the air. "I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Ron leant forward and kissed Lavender, he was smiling, she was smiling and the crowds were bursting into sobs and cheers, claps and whistles. Dumbledore grinned and waved his hands. Suddenly, the room was covered in confetti and balloons. Ron and Lavender walked down the aisle again, this time husband and wife.

Dumbledore caught Harry’s eyes and smiled graciously. He walked down the aisle along with the crowds when they all began to disperse outside to congratulate the couple.

"Terrific ceremony, Professor," Harry grinned shaking Dumbledore’s hand. "They couldn’t have asked for a better one."

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled. "Perhaps. Perhaps they might’ve wanted a special someone to be here, Harry."

Harry smiled happily. "I am here, Professor. I’ll be around for a while yet."

"I’d like to think so, Harry," Dumbledore grinned whilst shaking Sirius’s hand. "Come now. There’s a piece of Victoria sponge cake with my name on it."

~End of Flashback~

"I’m glad I saw it," Harry grinned remembering the ceremony. "Everything was just perfect for them."

"Oh, to be in love again," Sirius said happily. "You never truly appreciate something until it’s gone, do you?"

Harry coughed a little. "No. No, I guess you don’t."

Sirius swigged the last of his butterbeer. "Coming inside? Everyone wants to see your jive bug get to work."

3. Glimpse Of A Stranger

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: Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside and I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, I’ll tell you how he became a guy…called…Harry…Black. Doesn’t really rhyme does it? Anyway, I’m so sorry for the delay in this chapter but my computer, poor soul, had been hit with the MS Blaster virus. Little bugger made me wipe my C drive. It’s good all my stuffs in D, isn’t it? I’ve tried to get this chapter up for ages but my Internet connection was down. Stupid broadband. So, here it is.

Summary: We see the first glimpse of D/G interaction and Hermione’s reaction to a stranger. Read and fine out.

Glimpse Of A Stranger

Hermione sighed as she clicked open her front door, dropping her bag instantly onto the carpet and removing her shoes. The front door clicked shut and Hermione slumped onto the large sofa, feet up and lying still.

"Busy day?" Draco asked, walking in from the kitchen. He had a huge grin on his face. He still looked more or less the same he did at Hogwarts, just taller with broader shoulders. He was drying a mug with a tea towel.

Hermione nodded and made a grunting noise. Draco took that as a ‘Yes, make me a cup of tea.’ He chuckled before retreating back into the kitchen; the kitchen was safe.

The front door clicked again. "I’m home!"

It was Ginny. She shut the door and dropped her bag next to Hermione’s. The first thing she saw in the front room was Hermione on the sofa then Draco walking into the front room carrying a cup of tea. Ginny walked into the front room; pecked Draco then slumped down into the big comfy chair.

"Busy day, Herm?" Ginny asked, sipping Hermione’s tea.

"Yep," Hermione said in a whisper almost as she sat up, and took the tea from Ginny. "Hectic."

Hermione coughed for a second. "We must’ve had at least several hundred witches in today for the new Zelsky Benevar cook book, which I did get a copy of for you so don’t worry."

Ginny sighed in relief. "Thank Merlin. I thought I was going to have to queue in that disaster. I saw the line from my office window."

"Long?" Draco asked, entering the front room again with two cups of tea for himself and Ginny.

"I’ll say," Hermione replied. "I’ve been run off my feet all morning. I’ll be getting triple time today. Nina and Greg were on the sick again."

"Bastards," Ginny said. "The worst day of the year and they have to owl in sick. Typical for those two."

Nina and Greg were a couple who worked together with Hermione at Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley. They were well known for taking multiple sick days but no one could fire them because Nina’s father owned the company…Nina Flourish.

Ginny and Draco had met Greg and Nina at F&B’s Christmas party the year before. Ginny had disliked them instantly but Draco had tried to maintain a pleasant conversation, however hard that might have been. Hermione had eventually told him to just give up, to submit to the inevitable that those two were just awful people.

"Alright," Draco said after a minute. He checked his watch then headed for the cloak rack and donned his cloak. "Dinner’s in the oven, tea’s in the kettle, coffee’s in the pot and the cat’s in the furnace. See you tonight."

He kissed Ginny again before leaving for work. He worked at the Ministry of Magic and because of his full time shift, he had to pull one late night a week, five to twelve. Tonight, he’d be stopping at his friend’s for a drink. The late nights didn’t bother him in the least. A suitable bedtime for himself and Ginny would be four in the morning. They were night owls.

"Wanna go out for a drink?" Ginny asked, slipping her shoes on. "Lavender and Parvati are going down tonight."

"Haven’t we got any butterbeer left in the fridge?" Hermione asked standing up.

Ginny shook her head. "Ran out last night."

Hermione already had her cloak on and shoes, keys in hand and wand in pocket before Ginny could finish her sentence.

"Move yourself woman!" Hermione commanded, ushering Ginny out of the door.

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"Congratulations Harry!" Draco grinned widely as he stepped through Harry’s doorway. Harry shook hands with his old friend and hugged what could only be described as a ‘manly’ hug.

"Cheers Draco," Harry smiled taking Draco’s coat and hanging it on the coat rack. "We picked a right night to have the party, didn’t we?"

Draco raised an eyebrow. "You couldn’t mean the absolutely boiling temperatures outside of this homestead could you?"

Harry laughed as they walked into the living room. "Something like that. There’s about thirty fans on the go in the house."

The guests inside the Black residence greeted Draco as he entered, receiving him warmly. Within moments, Draco had a bottle in hand and had made his way back into Harry’s company.

"How’s everything with Ginny?" Harry asked, gulping from his bottle of CherryGloss.

"Great," Draco replied, taking the cap off the bottle. "She’s being as much of a female Weasley as possible lately. She’s got the PMT hands down."

Sirius laughed. "That’s not the Weasley gene. That’s a Puddlethwayt for you."

"Puddlethwayt?" Draco asked, cocking his eyebrow. "What in the world’s one of them?"

"Molly Weasley’s wonderful family," Sirius grinned and then sighed, lost in memory. "Ah, the days when my mother used to curse the lot of them for their fiery tempers during the ‘women’s monthly curse’."

They all laughed heartily, finding something new about their friends and family every day.

"So, any closer to tying the knot with Ginny?" Harry asked, taking a swig from his bottle then placing it on the coffee table.

Draco shook his head disdainfully. "It’s not for lack of trying. I’ve asked and asked and asked…and each time she keeps saying no. I don’t know what she’s waiting for."

"Well," Sirius began, cleaning out his left ear with his pinkie finger. "Molly was pregnant with Bill when she got married to Arthur. Molly’s mum, Bertha was pregnant with Peter, Molly’s eldest brother, when she married Zachary. Maybe…"

Draco’s eyes went wide in horror. "She’s not waiting for a baby is she?"

"Could be," Harry shrugged. "How often do you…you know?"

"We’re at it like hormonally imbalanced bunnies, " he replied, running a hand through his slick blond hair, making it stand on end at the front. "I can’t have a kid right now."

"Why not?" Sirius smiled happily at the prospect. "You’ve got a booming business and a loving home life. What’s there to lose?"

Sirius dispersed into the crowd as Draco sighed. "Some sanity perhaps."

Harry laughed and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "She’s probably just waiting for the right time, or mood, or present. She’ll accept eventually."

A moment of silence followed the comment. Not a really awkward silence but a knowing one at least. Before Harry could say a word, Draco had turned back to him and asked the question he was expecting but not longing for.

"When are you going to remove the charm?"

Harry sighed exasperated. "I don’t know."

"Don’t you think you should?" He asked, standing up a little more and brushing some grit of his shoulder. "You’re both wasting away without each other."

By both, he meant Harry and Hermione. Ever since the memory charm was cast, Harry had been wasting away to nothing. His life was barely active anymore and when it was, it was consumed by work and work alone. He spent long nights in his office at the Ministry filing paperwork and whatever else needed doing. He’d become like a permanent fixture in the Ministry’s sleeping quarters. The House Elves had found out that by cleaning around him, they could get all the work done without having to face Harry’s Potter’s wrath.

"She misses you, you know," Draco said, drinking down the rest of his drink and putting the empty bottle on the carpet. "You can see it, she knows something’s missing even though she can’t put her finger on it. She’s a clever witch, the cleverest the both of us know."

Harry remembered bumping into Hermione on the London underground a few weeks ago. They said pardon to each other, even exchanged flirtatious glances as they tried to manoeuvre around each other in the funny way they do in the movies. She moved to the right, so did he…etc. He’d seen it then, her change in the way she walked, the way she carried herself…like the world was weighing her down and she had no support anymore.

"One day she’ll figure it out," Draco stated. "And then…"

Snap.

He clicked his fingers in front of Harry’s face, awakening him back to loud reality from his quiet little world.

"Everything will come spilling out," he ended. "You’re better off getting it over and done with now."

Harry waved his hand dismissing the conversation he’d just had with the young Malfoy. "It won’t happen, but I’ll think about it.

"It must be nice to live in your world, Harry," Draco laughed standing fully and walking towards the beer fridge on the other side of the room.

Maybe Draco was right, Harry thought. Maybe it was time it all ended. The charade has gone on long enough. It was time to reveal the truth to the world. But what if they didn’t accept him? What if they no longer wanted anything to do with him?

"Oh, Harry’s back," they would say. "Did you go somewhere? No matter, go and hide in a corner or something."

Harry Potter was an insecurity and a ticking emotional bomb waiting to explode.

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Draco turned up on his home doorstep in a drunken stupor. He managed to fit the right key inside the lock and push the door open. Unable to take the alcohol and fishes swimming on the inside of his eyeballs, he crashed down onto the carpet of the entrance hall, his tongue lolling out of his mouth stupidly.

The girls turned up about five minutes later. By now, they were used to Draco turning up home drunk. They managed to get him through to his bedroom and Ginny undressed him while Hermione brewed up a nice cup of tea for the lot of them.

Kicking her shoes off her feet, Hermione lay back on the couch, letting her legs flatten out against the soft cushions of the green couch. For a moment, she was able to just breathe, letting her mind relax from the night of drinking with her old school friends. It was then that she noticed the colour of the couch. Green. She always had an affinity for the colour green. Forest green was her lustful side, but usually she stuck with emerald green.

The green reminded her of a pair of eyes she only ever saw in her dreams. They weren’t real; they didn’t belong to anyone in particular. A pair of green eyes staring at her through black bangs and slightly rectangular glasses. It was odd that she had the vision of the eyes, because she’d never known anyone with those colour eyes or anyone with black hair who wore glasses except for Rod Thompson…and nobody wanted to hear that name again.

Slowly, Hermione closed her eyes and let herself drift off quietly in the living room, her mug of tea slowly going cold on the coffee table.

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"Has there been any morning orders?" Maria asked, holding the quill between her forefinger and thumb, twirling it around the inkpot.

Hermione shook her head. "No, but there has been a few for this afternoon. The list should be…"

She reached down under the counter and retrieved a small slip of parchment. Hermione slid the parchment across the counter to Maria, who smiled in thanks then proceeded to write down the orders on the parchment.

The bookshop had been bustling with the Hogwarts students arriving for their supplies. Hermione remembered her first trip to Diagon Alley all them years ago, how excited she’d been just walking into Flourish & Blotts to collect her books. One day, she thought, she’d be taking her child to Diagon Alley to buy their Hogwarts supplies for their first year at the castle, hopefully under the tutelage of Professor Dumbledore.

But there would be no chance in the world that any child of Hermione Granger’s would take Divination. It was the most imprecise branch of magic, so said Professor McGonagall.

Hermione smiled at the thought just as the bell above the doorway rang, alerting the staff to a customer’s presence within the bookstore.

"Hello, how may I help you?" Maria’s voice sounded from the other side of the shop.

"Hi, I was just looking for any books you have on Beauxbatons," a familiar voice said.

"The school in France?" Maria asked. Then there was the unmistakable sound of the catalogue being dropped onto the desk and the flicking of pages as Maria searched through the index.

Hermione walked around the front of Flourish & Blotts. The sight before her nearly knocked her for six.

Stood at the counter with Maria was the dark haired, green-eyed guy she’d dreamed about. The same nose, the same glasses, the same jaw…it was him all over. The way his shoulders were firm not slouched, his posture was an exact match…but there was no way a guy out her dreams could be at all real. No chance in the world.

"I’m sorry," Maria said flicking through the index again. "We don’t have any in stock right now but I could put an order down for one if you want."

The man smiled and Hermione’s knees buckled.

"Yeah, that’d be great," he replied, placing a hand down on the counter casually. On his middle finger was a golden lion’s head, it’s mane encrusted with diamonds. She recognised the ring, how could she forget that ring? Yet another thing that belonged to her dream guy.

Maria brought out a quill and paper. "Can I have your name and owling address?"

"Harry Black," the man said.

Finally! She had a name for him. Harry…Harry Black…Harry suited him, but not Black. Black seemed…tagged onto his name somehow, like it didn’t really belong there.

"44 Lloyds, Diagon Alley," Harry stated, fiddling with the ring on his finger, twisting it around with his thumb. "Could you send me anything on the schooling there? Subjects and maybe a course list?""

Maria chuckled. "Bit old to enrol aren’t you?"

Harry laughed a little before replying, "It’s for a friend of mine actually. He’s been offered a job there."

"I’d heard they were taking on new staff," Maria said, closing the index catalogue and putting it under the counter. "Well, Mr Black, we’ll owl post you as soon as any new books come through."

Harry smiled warmly, "Thank you," he said before leaving through the front door, making the bell above the door ring.

Hermione nearly ran to the closed door and watched Harry cross the street, nod at a few pedestrians and walk into the Quidditch Supply shop across the road. She turned away from the door and walked back to the shop counter, letting her eyes linger over the register.

‘Harry Black, 44 Lloyds, Diagon Alley,’ Maria had written down under a ‘Mr T. Shurkot, 12 Burker, BrookHolme.’

Hermione returned to her book categorising as Maria passed carrying a stack of the new cookbook. She placed them down on the nearest shelf and pulled out her wand, making the books stand up and dazzle.

"So," Maria started. "That Harry was a bit of alright, wasn’t he?"

Hermione shrugged. "Seen it all before."

Maria made a small laugh. "No tall, dark, handsome strangers in your near future?"

"None that I’m aware of," Hermione smiled.

Maria put her wand back in her uniform robe pocket and leaned on the counter, watching Hermione write down the book names in the catalogue ticking them off one by one. "Didn’t you take the fortune-teller quiz at Nina’s hen bash?"

"Oh please," Hermione scoffed. "Divination is the most imprecise branch of magic on the planet. Did you get any dark, handsome strangers?"

"No," Maria replied, shaking her head. "I got a small balding man who owns a dog called Puffy. Which, is strange, because my neighbour owns a dog called Puffy but she’s an old lady who’s balding."

Hermione rolled her eyes, stacking some more new books together. The History of Snitches book kept trying to fly off the top so Hermione put the Angles of Anvils book on top of it. "It’s Follicle regression."

"And denial’s a river in Egypt," the older blond laughed, walking into the back of the shop.

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4. Foe

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, and so not mine.

Spoilers: Books 1-4

Pairing (if any): Not in this chapter

Author’s Notes: ----

Summary: This is basically a story chapter. Things happen, story stuff, the story progresses. I needed to put this one in so the next chapter will be able to follow on, hopefully picking up a bit of H/Hr interaction for all you shippy ship shippers.

Foe

Harry managed to get onto the train just as the doors closed behind him.

"Phew!" he sighed. "Made it."

Noticing that there was no chance in heck that he’d be able to get a seat on the busy underground at 5pm, Harry settled for standing against the metal pole in the centre aisle. A heavily pregnant woman was sat on his left and a young man listening to a personal stereo was sat to the right. Neither made a move to smile or acknowledge his presence even though he was staring right at them.

"Londoners," Harry muttered under breath barely escaping his lips. He was still panting from the run…the run from Kings Cross station to the London underground, using the Ministry of Magic’s brand spanking new scheme of ‘flitting’. ‘Flitting’ was like running only you were faster than a muggle could spot. Really handy, wizards and witches everywhere were using the new form of travel. Overseas travel wasn’t advised though.

Smiling absently to himself as he remembered a song he’d heard on the Wizarding Wireless that morning, he closed his eyes and leant his head against the metal pole. Relaxation came in short bursts for Harry Potter. He had been under a gigantic pile of paperwork at the office. Considering he had left the Phoenix Squad, the Ministry had given him a quaint office job to tide him over while the final papers could be sorted. His hand and brain ached from thinking and writing much too quickly for his usual steady mind.

Without warning, the train lurched forward, knocking Harry’s head into the metal pole. The lights were shut out and all Harry could hear was the screaming and shouting of many people as he rubbed the sore spot on his head. There would definitely be a bruise there tomorrow.

Using the pole, Harry got to his unsteady feet and tried his best to see into the thick blackness. The only lights were very tiny flickering lamps from inside the tunnel. With a few more short bursts of movement, the train came to complete halt, sending everybody forward and knocking Harry into the metal pole once again.

Feeling more than slightly dizzy from the knocks to his head, Harry stood up and tried to no avail to see. He thought about using his wand but around so many people, it’d be a risk. He thought of apparating out like he’d heard some other wizards do moments ago, but he couldn’t leave all these people.

He edged forward bit by bit until he came to the control box at the front of the dark train. He pushed it open and heard it clang against the metal chairs.

"Hello?" he asked into the darkness.

There was no one in the control box. How could there be no one in the control box? Someone had to have been driving the train. Unless they’d fled the train to fetch help or to get to higher ground to use their radios to contact help for the train.

He believed that until he heard the unmistakable sounds of deathly screaming from the train’s carriages.

@@@@@@

"Come out, come out wherever you are," a thick, slimy voice drawled out from the carriages. "Here Blacky, Blacky!"

The voice, the sounds…they were all linked. Some alarm belles started to ring inside Harry’s head before he realised his predicament.

"Lucius," Harry stated, walking into the carriage filled with terrified passengers.

Sure enough, standing in the centre of the carriage with a circle of space around him, stood Lucius Malfoy, walking cane and all. His hair was still slick and straight but was now white, strikingly white. His face looked no more aged than Harry did, but his aura was fragmented. His thick winter cloak clung to his body like a leech, sucking the very soul from his body. Black, it seemed, was Lucius’ favourite colour.

"Ah!" Lucius smirked. "My favourite playmate has arrived at last!"

Harry leaned nervously against the metal bar. He’d been trained for something like this, his emotions were kept in check, and they had to be. If you react with an emotional decision, it could cost you your life. It hadn’t failed him yet; he’d always relied on logic to see him through to the final curtain call.

"What brings you to this neck of the woods, Goldilocks?" Harry said smoothly.

Lucius smirked and added a small, courteous laugh. "He has developed a sense of humour, I see. Such a shame, the world’s most professional Auror reduced to a witless monkey at the first sign of Lucius Malfoy."

Harry stepped a few steps forward. "When did they let you out, Malfoy?"

"I believe it was the day Miss Granger was having a beverage with the young Weasley," the blonde man said. His face twisted into disgust as he remembered whom Draco had chosen for a life partner.

"Hermione?" Harry said aloud, the thought of her mulling over in his head. "What do you know about her?"

Lucius laughed and shook his finger at Harry’s rash behaviour. "Temper, temper, Mr…Black is it? Clever, I would have chosen something a little more discreet. I guess we all can’t be marvelled for their strategic genius can we? We’re not all Hermione Granger."

This time, Harry’s temper got the better of him and he reached for his wand. Before he could pull it out of the holster, Lucius had shouted "Expelliarmus!" and disarmed Harry’s attempt at retrieving his weapon.

Lucius pointed his wand at Harry but made no move to come closer. Instead, he shook head disapprovingly.

"I’ll share something with you, Mr Black," Lucius said, sitting down next to a cowering woman. "Something I have been mulling over in Azkaban all these years.

"Muggles are weak a feeble creatures themselves. Their tools, trains, cars, guns, telephones…they all protect and connect each other to the world around themselves. But…"

Lucius twirled his wand around his hand before looking back up at Harry.

"But without these possessions, these defences…they have nothing. Without technology, the Muggles are at the bottom of the food chain. And yet, we, the Wizarding population are made to hide ourselves from these lower beings, these Muggles, because we are different. We can protect ourselves without the need for guns or an armoured tank. We have the knowledge; we have the History…

"We have the power."

Harry cocked an eyebrow. "And in the end, it’s a power game?"

Lucius gave a curt nod before grasping his wand at the handle. "That it is, Mr Black. It is a game based on and competing for power. Those who have it will live. Those who don’t will die."

"And you really think it’s that simple?" Harry tried to go for his wand again but was stopped. "The Ministry will be coming after you any second, I’m surprised they’re not here now. You’ll go back to Azkaban for this."

"Do not threaten me, boy," Lucius growled, raising his wand and standing. "You do not have the power to threaten me."

Something fell at the back of the carriage, making the noise of a gunshot. This momentarily startled Lucius, as he turned to find the source of the noise. Harry used this time to pick up his wand. Now they were even, now the match was on.

"Who has the power here, Malfoy?" Harry asked, trying to think desperately of a good stunning curse.

Lucius smirked, "Why, me of course."

It took barely a second for Lucius to extend his wand at one of the male passengers. With a blood-curdling scream, the man twisted into deformity and had most assuredly died in the process.

"You see," Lucius stated. "If we didn’t have the power, we’d be nothing more than Muggles ourselves. Let’s use the power we have to the full potential. What do you say Mr Black?"

Harry looked at the crumpled corpse lying in the growing pool of blood at his feet. The man’s face was nearly unrecognisable but blood was still seeping through fresh wounds somewhere. Harry quickly shook himself out of nausea; he’d seen a lot in his time as an Auror. This was no different. He couldn’t let this feel any different.

"What do you intend to do?" Harry asked, trying to blink back the sick feeling that was developing in the pit of his stomach.

"Show the world what Voldemort can do without trying!" Lucius shouted.

Just as he screamed, the carriage lit up with blinding green light. The glass in the windows shattered and screams could still be heard over the shattering and screeches. Harry tried to move but was held stationary, by what he didn’t know but he couldn’t move. He just couldn’t move. His arm was locked by his side, his wand still clenched firmly in his grasp but his body was ridged and out of his control.

Suddenly, the control box door flew open with a gust of powerful wind. Harry felt something hit him squarely in the chest and he was flung backwards, out of the control box door and onto the metal rail tracks. His glasses shattered somewhere behind him when they’d fallen off and his back was murdering him slowly. He writhed on the floor trying to get some control back into his aching body. When he finally could sit up, the carriage was still surrounded by a green light, much brighter from outside than in.

Harry grabbed his wand and tried to re enter the carriage only to be flung back again onto the tracks, hitting his elbow on the joint, shattering the bone. He cringed in pain and it his lip, so hard that he thought he might’ve touched his own teeth. He could feel the stinging of his lip and taste the blood as it flowed into his mouth.

With a loud crack, the carriage exploded, sending pieces of metal flying everywhere. Harry quickly conjured a shield to protect himself from the flying debris and was successful. The debris bounced off his shield as he lay there, breathing in, trying to get some feeling back into his body and brain. What had happened here? Why was Voldemort attacking now and with Lucius Malfoy? How did he get released?

Once the scattering debris had settled, Harry clawed his way up through the mountains of metal and slumped down against the brick wall. Muggles had died here tonight, Muggles that he hadn’t been able to protect. How could he explain that?

He tried to perform a healing spell on his elbow but it was ineffective. He could barely lift his wand nevertheless bend his arm. He couldn’t cast with his left hand so his only option was to try and signal for help, or at least get out of the tunnel.

Staggering to his feet, he moved down the tunnel towards the nearest platform.

@@@@@@

Hermione hadn’t been up for more than ten minutes before she had a cup of coffee in front of her and the morning newspaper. Ginny was standing beside her; a tea towel slung over her shoulder and the widest grin on her face that Hermione had ever seen. She rolled her eyes and took a sip of her coffee before leaning back in her kitchen table seat and looking at her friend.

"This is about the Leaky Cauldron isn’t it?" she asked.

Ginny nodded, still with the grin on her face. "I’ve already made it clear how sorry I am that I totally and completely forgot about our weekly meeting this week. But…"

The red head whipped around the kitchen until she found the plate she was looking for and proudly placed it in front of Hermione. "I made breakfast!"

Hermione really felt too stunned to respond. There were eggs, bacon, sausages, waffles, French toast, normal toast, fried tomatoes, plum tomatoes, mushrooms, potato cakes and pancakes. Considering Ginny didn’t even know how to work the toaster, making breakfast was like climbing Ben Nevis with paper shoes.

"I can’t believe you did all this," Hermione stated, digging into the best breakfast she’d ever had. "But really Gin…you didn’t have to do all this just to say sorry."

Ginny shrugged as she sat down to her own breakfast. "Maybe, maybe not, but I enjoyed doing it. I got a few handy hints from Draco and mum. Maybe I’m not as bad a cook as I thought I was."

"Your mum was up at this time in a morning?" Hermione asked raising an unbelieving eyebrow. Now that she had no more little ones to look after in the mornings, to feed and the like…Molly hardly ever got up before ten and it was half past eight.

Ginny nodded. "Draco too. He felt kinda bad about the whole Leaky Cauldron thing. He said that he felt like an accessory to the crime I committed."

"Well, all is forgiven and forgotten," Hermione replied, finishing off her bacon on a piece of tomato soaked bread. "Where is Draco anyway?"

"He got a call really early this morning," Ginny replied with a sip of her morning coffee. "Something about the Ministry and something and someone…can’t exactly remember. He did say something to me…but you know me and three in the morning. I was straight out when he left."

Hermione sighed and drank some more coffee, glad to have something in her bloodstream that would turn her into a super energiser bunny the moment she stepped out of the door. "I should be going in a minute. Ugh, I wanted to catch the news this morning. I’ll just have to catch tonight’s evening report."

As the girls cleared away their breakfast dishes, the morning’s Daily Prophet lay forgotten on the kitchen table.

@@@@@@@

Draco Malfoy paced through the office with a worried and fearful look set on his brow. He’d been awake since three that morning and hadn’t had a decent cup of coffee in nearly four hours. He felt jittery. He felt ill and he felt like lunging for the Minister’s throat when he was to walk through the door.

According to the owl Draco had got that morning, Harry had been found in BrookHolme beaten and injured trying to get hold of an owl to send. It had been Remus who’d found him when Harry had turned up on his doorstep in the early hours. Thankfully, the Ministry had been alerted straight away to the incident on the train but they were still at council about what ‘really happened down there.’ So far as Draco could tell, it didn’t look like Harry was going to get a good deal out of this, no matter how many powerful contacts he had shoved under his belt.

With Draco being Harry’s friend and lawyer when he needed him, he’d rushed down as soon as he’d got the message. If indeed it was an attack from Voldemort as Harry had said, something wasn’t going to be right along the way. The Ministry had decided that the Voldemort threat was still very alive but the threat of him attacking Muggles or bystanders was minimal. This would not only prove them wrong, but also prove that they didn’t know what they were doing.

Draco had been asked to stand outside the room while Harry was interviewed. Must to his reluctance, Draco had finally accepted but only if he could stand behind the blackened glass so he could still see Harry and his movements. The Ministry Police accepted and took Harry in for the interview.

"And that’s all that happened," Harry finished, holding the mug of hot chocolate in his hands, something which had always calmed him down since his Hogwarts days.

The Interrogator looked disbelievingly at Harry through his half-moon spectacles. The half-moon spectacles reminded Harry of Professor Dumbledore, although the man behind them was not as nice and kind. He wore a nametag that said ‘Dr Griffith’ on with a moving picture of himself.

Dr Griffith wrote something down on the parchment notepad he was carrying and put it down on the desk that separated Harry and himself. "That’s all you could conclude from the attack? That it was some act of terrorism from You-Know-Who."

Harry sighed. "It wasn’t ‘some act of terrorism’. He was trying to tell us that his power’s growing."

"Who told you this?" Dr Griffith asked, raising an unbelieving eyebrow.

"Lucius Malfoy," Harry said.

Behind the blacked out glass, Draco gasped. How could his father have been out of Azkaban? It wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be possible. He belonged in there, he should have died for what he did but…he was out?

Dr Griffith smirked and brought out a small notepad from his jacket pocket. "You mean Lucius Malfoy, Death Eater and Prisoner in Azkaban Fortress?"

"He’s not much of a prisoner if he’s out and roaming around," Harry replied setting the mug down on the table.

"And he’s not roaming around if he’s in Azkaban," Dr Griffith smirked. "He never left Azkaban, Mr Black. Guards have been surrounding his cell for the past three years, there has been no chance of escape or even any contact with the outside world."

Harry rested his head on his hands. "Voldemort doesn’t need telegrams or owl post, Dr Griffith. He can speak into your mind."

There was a knock on the door and to Harry’s joy it was Sirius calling a break. Harry and Sirius walked down to the council room and sat down to talk things through when Draco burst through the door, holding a clipboard and several sheets of paper with it.

"We have no case," Draco said, throwing the clipboard down onto the table and pacing about the room, hands on hips. "We have no case."

"What do you mean ‘we have no case’?" Sirius asked, standing up and taking the clipboard, reading through the papers attached.

"I mean," Draco said again. "We have no case. He’s just thrown that at us."

He pointed to the clipboard, which Sirius read aloud.

"Due to the time and placement of the attack, and only having one witness, we are unable to provide specific evidence to pinpoint the attack as a terrorist action. We are therefore, taking up the claim that Harry James Black is the perpetrator in this case, having caused the death of twenty-six Muggles and four Wizards. In a test conducted by the Enchantment and Magic Administration board, Harry James Black cast the last spell initiated in subway tunnel section 4. The spell cast was from his designated wand and is an unknown spell. Nevertheless, this is the spell believed to have caused the devastation found in the subway tunnel. All acts of this nature are to have a sentence imposed on, possibly including Azkaban Fortress. Further details to follow."

Sirius shook his head in disbelief as he slammed the clipboard down onto the wooden desk. "This is ludicrous! It’s…it’s outrageous! How can they think that you’d do something like this?"

"He’s not Harry Potter remember!" Draco said sitting down next to Harry. "Harry Potter never existed.

"Maybe," Sirius replied. "But Fudge knows. Why doesn’t he step in about this?"

Harry shook his head. "Fudge sees what’s in front of his eyes. He sees a chance to get a terrorist from Voldemort, he'll seize the moment. It’ll put his votes back up anyway."

"Well I’m not voting for him," Sirius pouted, sitting down on the desk like a small child.

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Did you ever?"

"That is not the point," Sirius snapped.

Harry laughed but sobered up when he remembered the case. "So, what’re we going to do?"

Draco sighed and puffed out his chest. "There’s nothing we can do. We say it wasn’t you, they throw that back at us." He pointed to the clipboard. "We say it was a natural disaster. They prove you hand a wand in your hand at the time."

"So we have to prove that Lucius was there?" Sirius asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "We find Lucius…"

"We get the proof," Draco finished. "Veritaserum should work on my father, all we have to do is provide the person."

"And it’s safe to assume that Lucius Malfoy had left a trail of breadcrumbs from the underground," Harry remarked sarcastically. "Honestly guys, we’re not going to find him. In a world this big, he could be anywhere. We haven’t the faintest idea where to look for him or if he’ll strike again for that matter."

"Then the first plan of action is to find out if Lucius Malfoy is still in Azkaban Fortress," Draco replied. "And if it’s the real Lucius Malfoy. Remember the old ‘swap-and-change’ with Barty Crouch Jr? Father dearest has a lot of allies that could have him out by now."

Sirius looked at Harry for a second with a thoughtful look then turned to Draco. "Is there anything we could do to buy some time?"

@@@@@@@@@@@

5. An Instrument of Terror

An Instrument of Terror

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: Again I must apologise for the delay in the chapters. I’ve been moving rooms and so fourth, having it disconnected for ages and just sat on the floor of my parent’s house. Well, I got it back and have pumped out more chapters than I can deal with.

Summary: A little tad, teeny weenie bit of H/Hr interaction, but as I said it doesn’t really come on strong until later on. D/G and some more hit and run action. Plus, the first meeting of our fabled couple.

~*~

With a large bang that shook the whole courtroom, Draco Malfoy barged into the court, eyebrows lowered and temperature rising. His scowl looked like it would melt the council if they dared to challenge him and his cool demeanour was frighteningly fiery.

The Council watched as the young Malfoy walked up to the front desk and slammed down several pieces of parchment. He stood up straight and breathed out once then fixated his stare upon the people in front of him.

"I demand that you release my client into the custody of his Godfather," Draco said, standing tall and strong.

The Council shifted around for a second; mumbling and whispering to each other until one dark haired man stood up.

"On what grounds?" he asked.

Draco shrugged. "You give me proof that Harry Black did cast that spell in the tunnel and I will hand him over to you. Until you can provide such evidence, you have nothing to hold him on."

"We have suspicion of…" the dark haired man started before Draco shook his head.

"Suspicion doesn’t require contempt, councillor," Draco replied picking up the parchments from the desk and tucking them into his inner robe pockets. "He has given a witness statement, so I expect him to be released to the custody of Sirius Black immediately."

@@@@@@@

"That was some bloody good show man work in there, Malfoy," Sirius stated as the group walked down the stone steps of the Ministry offices. "I almost believed you for a second."

"Yeah, well," Draco started, coughing a little. "They won’t believe it for long. They’ll check it out sooner or later."

Harry shrugged. "You believe me though, don’t you?"

Draco gave a hearty laugh. "’Course. We’d be mad not to."

"Do you think they don’t believe me because I was down there in the first place?" Harry asked, pulling his robes further around his cold body. For mid September, it was quite cold.

"Hardly," Draco said. "It’s most likely that they have no proof of who you are. The Ministry didn’t exactly make the cleanest mop up of the Harry Potter fiasco."

"Meaning what?" Remus asked, flagging down a London taxi.

They all clambered inside the black taxi as Remus told the driver where to go. The taxi moved away from the curb and back into the flowing London traffic.

"Meaning," Draco continued. "That there’s no record of Harry Black ever being born or even holding a job down apart from the Phoenix squadron back in the Auror division. Once Fudge is out of the way, the only other reliable person who knows who you are is Dumbledore, but on a primary source basis, he’s never supposed to have met you."

"Leading us back to square one on the drawing board," Sirius groaned, slumping into the taxi seat.

After a slight pause, Harry interjected. "So, what do I do know? Lay low for a while?"

"That would be the best bet," Draco replied. "Until I can get the rest of it sorted. Don’t use public transport and don’t get nabbed by the police. If you can, try and avoid Diagon Ally as well, we don’t want any officials seeing a suspect of a terrorist attack wandering about in broad daylight."

"Where can I go then?" Harry asked. "Lloyds’ is probably being watched and so will Sirius’."

"I could ask Ginny if you could camp in with us until I get on good grounds with the Council," Draco replied.

"Draco, I haven’t got another hundred years here," Harry said. "We need to get something done fast or I’m in Azkaban faster than you can say Strawberry. I’ve got to do a disappearing act."

@@@@@@@

Draco slung his briefcase down on the floor and slumped into the dark chair. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, thinking about the situation he was in now. Not only was his father out of Azkaban, Harry was getting the blame for a crime Lucius had committed. It would put the Malfoy name to shame yet again, after all Draco had done to break away from his father’s ever-casting shadow. He couldn’t escape the fact that he was a Malfoy, he’d never be able to run away from the fact that Lucius Malfoy shared the same blood as him.

It’d been surprising when Sirius Black had turned up at Draco and Harry’s apartment door beginning him to be Harry’s secret keeper if you like. Not so much of a secret keeper as a friend who would know who he was. Draco was let in on the plan, and even though he didn’t agree with it, went along with it anyway. He’d complained that it was confusing not being able to talk about Harry Potter in front of his girlfriend and close friends.

Draco took a small gold pocket watch out and looked at the time. Ginny should be home soon, so he’d better put the kettle on. Slowly, he dragged himself out the comfortable chair and into the kitchen, filling up the kettle and putting it on the stove to boil. He put three tea bags in three familiar mugs; one baring a D, one with a G and one with an H.

How was he ever going to tell Ginny that Harry was moving in with them? At least until the case blew over or they found Lucius, or they pinned the blame on something else.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Daily Prophet from that morning was lying on the kitchen table. Draco picked up the paper and instantly frowned. The main headline was the destruction of the underground the previous afternoon along with Harry Black’s name in big, bold letters. Unfortunately, it also had a moving picture of Harry stumbling into the light of one of the platforms that he was found on.

Draco swore and threw the paper done onto the table in exasperation. They had a picture of him, everyone would know him by now, it was Harry Potter all over again. Draco kicked the table leg in frustration and poured out the boiling water from the boiled kettle. He took a few deep breaths and tried to calm himself in case he tried to pour the scalding liquid onto his hand.

"Chill," he told himself straight. "Everything will be fine. You’ll figure this out."

He began saying the case aloud to himself as he moved the cups onto the coffee table in front of the sofa. Just as he sat down and began to sip his drink the door clicked open.

"Draco?" Ginny called from the front door.

Draco turned and watched her freckled face appear at the living room door. She grinned and walked over to the sofa, kissing him hello and snuggling down by his side.

"Everything go alright today?" She asked, pulling his arm around her and picking up her mug. "How was the case?"

Draco sighed. "Didn’t go too well."

Ginny sipped her tea and rested her feet on the coffee table, careful not to knock the other mug over. "I know I can’t ask this question but…why?"

"The client is a friend," Draco replied.

"You have friends now?" Ginny said jokingly surprised. Draco hit her shoulder playfully. "Who is he, or she or it? Depending on the gender or even species of the person or thing in question of course."

"An old friend from…Crosskeys," Draco said, sipping his tea quickly. He’d nearly said Hogwarts; it’d been on the tip of his tongue.

Ginny smiled. "Does this mysterious friend have a name and/or gender? Considering they came from Crosskeys, I’m guessing yes. Not many Centaurs attend a Wizarding/Muggle Law University."

"Harry," Draco said. "Harry Black. Didn’t come out of Crosskeys with a…good reputation so to speak. He’s go himself into a tidy spot of trouble, has our dear Harry."

"Harry…Harry…" Ginny repeated in a faraway mind. "Why does that name sound so familiar?"

Draco shrugged for effect. "Oh I‘m sure I’ve mentioned him before. He’s been working with the Ministry for some time. Anyway, he needs a place to crash while he gets himself back on his feet."

"Are you asking if he can stay with us?" Ginny asked, sitting up rather rapidly. "Here, in our home."

Draco nodded and drank from his cup as Ginny considered her boyfriend’s request.

"On two conditions," Ginny stated turning back to Draco and staring him in the eye. She meant business. "You tell me exactly what Harry was up front in the Council for and…"

"But Gin…" Draco tried to protest but Ginny silenced him.

"AND…" she continued. "You can ask Hermione."

@@@@@@@@@

Hermione was absently flipping through the Daily Prophet on her lunch break. Some idiot had spilt coffee all over the front page and it’d dried on, making it impossible to remove magically. Maria had ranted and raved about it being the only works copy, one of the first prints of the press. Of course, it’d been Nina. She’d scurried out of the place as soon as Maria had arrived for the afternoon shift.

The clock bell above the door rang, signalling Hermione’s shift was ending. She grabbed her bag and put her books back into it. When Hermione was walking out of the door, she called to Maria and said that she’d see her for their ‘glorious’ morning shift on Monday. A full weekend was open now and Hermione was looking forward to some good relaxing and maybe some light drinking with a few friends. Nothing was more thrilling than sitting around a table at the Leaky Cauldron with Lavender Weasley who was now very heavily pregnant with a little Weasley, Ginny Weasley; very soon going to be Ginny Malfoy when she finally gets her act together and Parvati Krum, who as you can see by the name married Viktor Krum a year earlier. Hermione hadn’t attending the wedding; she wasn’t big on all the fanfare that they’d had. She went to the after party though and didn’t enjoy it. All night, Dean was making drunken passes at her until Draco warded him off.

But this weekend was going to be different; she could feel it. She didn’t believe in Divination but she did believe in gut feelings. And her gut was telling her that something was coming, something extremely satisfying and completely unexpected. But on the other hand, if her gut was wrong, at least she could have a relaxing weekend in front of the Muggle Television watching good old British Comedy re-runs.

Hermione stepped out of Flourish & Blotts feeling very happy with herself. She walked down to the Leaky Cauldron and stepped inside. It was surprisingly quite dead for a Friday afternoon. There weren’t many customers in, only Tom standing at the bar rinsing some glasses out. When Hermione walked up, Tom grinned happily. He was older now; older than he was when Hermione had been at school that’s for sure. He looked it, all under his eyes. Maybe it was the influence of his wife after the old git had refused to retire. Everyone was grateful of that though. There weren’t many bartenders that could memorise nearly a thousand regulars.

"Having a drink with us today, ‘Ermione?" Tom asked with his welcoming smile.

Hermione shook her head. "No, not today Tom. I’ve got to get home."

"Your turn to cook again?" Tom asked pleasantly.

"I’m afraid so," she replied. "But I’m not sure what to make for the rabble."

Tom dived under the counter and appeared a moment later with a very old cookbook in his hand. "Here."

Hermione took the old cookbook and looked at the front cover. ‘Thirty Kwik-n-Easy Recipes for the Witch on the Go.’

"The Missies swears by it," Tom said, picking up another glass and wiping it on the dishcloth slung over his shoulder.

"Thanks Tom, you’re a lifesaver," Hermione said, tucking it into her bag. "You wouldn’t happen to have the Daily Prophet in her would you?"

"Today’s?" Tom said, scratching his head. "Check on the big table over there. If it’s there, we’ve got one."

Hermione walked to the big table and picked up the folded newspaper from it. "Can I borrow this? I’ll bring it back tomorrow."

Tom shrugged. "What use’ll today’s paper do me tomorrow? Take it, lass, but you owe me a drink now."

Hermione grinned as she left through the large front door and stepped out onto Charing Cross Road. She flicked through the paper as she walked down the busy street, glancing momentarily at the front page. She flicked through to the politics page and glanced over the week’s campaigns for the up-coming elections. Hermione didn’t really like politics, there were too many promises made and not enough carried out. Closing the paper, the moving picture on the front caught her eye.

‘TERRORISM STRIKES IN A NEW FORM – Today’s Report on Harry Black’

Hermione stopped dead in her tracks. The name, the name Harry Black rang a thousand bells in her head. He was the guy who ordered books on Beauxbatons from F&B’s, he was the guy who lived in Lloyds’, he was the guy who she’d been having freakily scary dreams about and now he was the guy who’d committed an act of terrorism? Trying not to jump ahead of herself, Hermione decided to read the article thoroughly.

"Today’s report may come as a shock to many of our readers but it is a fact that we must deal with before it grows. Yesterday, the London Underground, popular with both Muggle and Magical commuters was the victim of a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, the train was not the only victim in this tragedy as several people have lost their lives. It is estimated that there were four wizards among the thirty presumed dead in the attack.

"The Ministry has issued no formal statement on this case but we have sources who have come forth with information regarding the attack. One of our sources, who is very high up in the Council, has said that the suspect in this case was a Mr. Harry Black, an ex-Auror from the Phoenix Divisional Squadron run entirely by Minister Cornelius Fudge, current Minister for Magic. He hasn’t put forth a statement on his ex-Auror’s behaviour and has neither denied nor confirmed the allegations towards Harry Black.

"Harry Black is reportedly a relative of the famed Sirius Black, who was released from formal imprisonment in Azkaban Fortress only five years previously. The Daily Prophet hasn’t been able to uncover any solid evidence to Harry Black or his History within the Wizarding Society. There is no record of his attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or of any Muggle Education. He has never been admitted to St. Mungo’s before the age of eighteen and the Ministry Division Psychiatrist has declared his mental state as ‘exceptional’.

"Whatever has driven a young man in his early twenties to commit such an atrocity must only be linked with You-Know-Who. For full details on the recent Auror activity in your area, please turn to page 6."

Hermione looked at the front page again and watched the hurt figure of Harry Black limp onto the platform of the London Underground. He couldn’t have done it, it didn’t seem possible. Hermione just didn’t feel like he could do something like that. She shook her head; she didn’t even know him yet she was trying to establish an excuse for him in her mind. It was stupid, but nothing had ever made her feel so vulnerable. For the first time in years, she felt as though her mind was on display for the whole wide world to look into.

And yet, she felt like the only person she ever needed was Harry Black.

@@@@@@@@@@@

Hermione arrived home, chucking her bag down by the hat-stand and removing her coat. She walked past the mirror that she usually checked her daily appearance in and went straight into the living room. Without even thinking, she walked into her bedroom and brought out her diary from under her mattress. This was her secret diary. It wasn’t the one that she kept on her desk or the one that she kept in her locker at work. This was the one she hoped to pass on to her children someday in the hopes that someone out there will one day understand the real Miss Granger.

Taking the diary to her desk and flipping it open to the last unblemished page, she began writing in her famously neat quill-scrawl; first the date then an introduction to her hectic week. And then, she stopped. She couldn’t continue. She couldn’t put her feelings about harry Black to paper. They were minuscule, didn’t matter to the spinning of the Earth one tiny little bit but still…

She tried again, putting the quill down on the paper and moving it in the shape of letters. She first spelled out the name, an H then A – finally she had his name spelled out in her diary, the ink drying successfully. Within seconds, the name had vanished and all that was left was the unblemished page in her book, so clear that no pen had ever touched the paper. There wasn’t even a scratch mark where her quill had indented the page.

Before she could process a second thought on the stupid ink and the stupid page that didn’t seem to want to stupidly write on the stupid thing, Ginny was calling from the Living room. Hermione quickly snapped the diary shut and put it safely under her mattress again, stashing the purple quill along with it. She nearly jumped in fright when Ginny knocked on the door.

"What in the world are you doing, frightening people to death like that?" Hermione asked indignantly, opening the door and walking out, closing the door behind her.

Ginny shrugged. "Always worked for Peeves. You never shouted at him."

"Peeves did it because he’s a trapped soul in the castle," Hermione replied.

"Oh please," Ginny laughed. "The only thing trapped in that castle forever is Nearly Headless Nick’s sense of humour."

Hermione and Ginny walked into the front room together but the sight inside was more surprising for Hermione. Sat on the sofa was Harry Black, clad in jeans and a T-shirt not manacles and a ball and chain. Draco was sat in the big comfy chair, not looking miserable but rather excited and overly too happy for Draco Malfoy to be at this time in an afternoon. Both men stood when the girls entered, Harry grinning from ear to ear about something.

"Oh, we have a house guest," Ginny said, with adult embarrassment. "Hermione, this is Harry. Harry this is Hermione."

Harry, still grinning, walked from the sofa to Hermione, who was standing perfectly rigid at the sight of a terrorist and a murderer rolled into one perfectly normal wizarding male. She was still standing rigid when he offered his hand for her to shake. She took it, and shook it, without so much as a blink. Then, her reactions kicked in and she withdrew her hand from him with bullet-like velocity.

Harry, in all his sheepish glory, looked almost shy for a moment – shy and embarrassed. The something was back again, the something familiar that Hermione had felt when she’d first seen him in F&Bs, ordering Beauxbatons books…which had arrived that morning funnily enough. There was that something that was annoyingly and almost painfully familiar about him, about him when he was just standing there looking embarrassed and about him when he was sitting down on the sofa a few moments ago, grinning like a cat with cream.

"I guess you’ve read the papers then," Harry said, without faltering once. She could see it though, and she could almost feel it. He was faltering inside, omitting to something, perhaps his own shyness. Something about his confidence seemed…off.

She coughed and straightened herself out before answering. "Yes, I have."

"Well…" this time he faltered when he spoke, but he covered it up by using the pause to add a smile. "What can I say? I don’t suppose ‘I didn’t do it’ would work well?"

"It’s not me you have to convince, Mr Black," Hermione replied, looking him the emerald eye, the emerald eyes that she’d seen countless of times but right now, the memory of them seemed so distant.

Ginny coughed in, moving almost in between Hermione and Harry, working her way between the tension sparked up. "Draco’s working on Harry’s case at the moment. I’m sorry if this is a tad out of the question, but harry needs a place to stay until the hearings are finished."

Hermione shot Ginny a look, a look that means to men what poverty means to Royalty. With a fake smile, Hermione turned back to Harry and almost glared at the poor boy.

"As long as we don’t end up the next victims of Voldemort’s return," she said finally, and stalked back into her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

There was a slight pause before Draco sighed. "Very unlike Hermione, very unlike her. She’s usually quite good at pretending she doesn’t mind someone."

"I’m sorry about that Harry," Ginny said. "I guess it’s the same with everyone at the moment, huh?"

Harry gave a small laugh. "Not quite everyone. I’ve had this face a long time and not many people recognise me. I should do alright if I have to go outside."

"You could always use a polyjuice of one of us," Draco said, standing up and moving into the kitchen, coming back a second later carrying four mugs of tea. "If you have to go out."

Harry shrugged. "I think I’ll patch up with the insiders of the house first."

"It’s your funeral," Draco replied, with a wink intended in his voice.

Ginny picked up on it though. "How long have you two known each other?"

"Long enough," Harry replied taking the extra mug of tea from Draco and walking over to Hermione’s bedroom door. He turned back to Ginny for a second and said, "Do you think it’ll be safe?"

Ginny nodded. "She doesn’t stay mad for long."

@@@@@@@@@@

Hermione was lying on her bed staring up at the ceiling. She didn’t need this, she didn’t need him. If they were caught with him in their home, harbouring a criminal, they could be sentenced for it. By getting rid of them, Draco would be helping everyone, including himself and Harry.

Harry didn’t deserve to be sneered at, and he didn’t need the treatment she’d given him before. He was just a suspect in the crime. He wasn’t going to be put in Azkaban yet. Innocent until proven guilty she reminded herself over and over again. She wasn’t going to make excuses for behaving the way she did; she was just protecting her home from invaders. The invading party being a man who she’d dreamt about, well, the man was a boy once - the boy who lived in her dreams.

In one of her dreams he was a scruffy urchin sat on the Hogwarts train with broken glasses and stuffing his face with chocolate frogs. In another dream he was standing tall and proud, aiming a wand at Draco Malfoy on a stage and talking to a snake in Parseltongue. In another he was riding a Hippogriff with her and her arms tightened around his waist when she looked down. That dream was exhilarating. She felt young, she felt thirteen. In another she was watching him on a broomstick, riding around a dragon and practising the Accio charm with him after lessons. And in the last she was kissing him then walking away from him as he faded into a blissful sunrise, faded away from her. The sunrise was painful to watch but it didn’t stop him from fading from her.

A knock at her door roused her from her day dreaming. She sat up and nearly shouted, "Who is it?"

There was a momentary pause before a voice replied, "It’s Harry. Can I come in? Please?"

There wasn’t a second worth of hesitation before she replied, "Yes."

The door opened and Harry walked in awkwardly. He stepped only a few steps in the room and handed her the cup of tea in his hands. She felt comfortable though, unlike she did when she’d first met him in the living room. She drank the tea before pointing to the chair by her desk.

"Sit down if you like," she said, crossing her legs beneath her.

He smiled his thanks and pulled the chair from underneath the desk, sitting down and then smiling again.

"Look, I know I don’t have to convince you that I didn’t do it," Harry started the dreaded conversation. "But I feel like I have to. I have to day that I’m not a terrorist working for Voldemort…"

Hermione gasped at the name. Something she hadn’t done in a while because no one ever said it. He was always referred to as You-Know-Who around the house or at the Weasley’s. Even Draco, son of a DeathEater, never used his name. Yet, when she gasped, Harry looked surprised, as if he wasn’t expecting her too.

"Sorry," he quickly said. "…I’m not a terrorist working for You-Know-Who, I never was, never will be. I was the only survivor…that’s probably why I’ve been slammed for it. To tell you the truth, I haven’t picked up the Daily Prophet since the day on the underground. I haven’t had the guts."

"Today’s the only print of it," Hermione replied, feeling more relaxed every minute. "I read it a few hours ago." She sighed. "I’m sor…"

Harry shook his head. "Don’t be. I wasn’t expecting anything warm or even welcoming from anyone. If I were in your shoes, I’d be running for the door right now."

"What makes you think I’m not considering it?" Hermione asked jokingly, relaxing a bit more and letting the tenseness out of her body. "I know how you must feel right now, the world giving you a swift kick up the backside for something you haven’t done."

Harry nodded, his shyness creeping up on his through his dark hair. She noticed that his hair was short but not too short, like he could still run his hands through it. He still wore glasses, his nose hadn’t changed but she was comparing him to a dream boy, a boy she’d never met before.

"Did you go to Hogwarts?" Hermione asked, not being able to stop herself.

Harry fell just short of answering yes to the question but shook his head quickly. "No, I went to a Muggle school. A Muggle boarding school actually near Oxford, stayed until I was old enough for University then went to the Crosskeys with Draco."

"Is that where you met him?" Hermione asked. "Met Draco? How did you know magic anyway, about the magic world if you didn’t go to Hogwarts?"

Harry cleared his throat and frowned before replying. "Mostly my family. I didn’t have the best upbringing someone could have, but I’m a quick learner. I learned what I needed to, the little bits of info you pick up over the years, and then I moved in with Remus and Sirius. They did the rest. You went to Hogwarts didn’t you?"

Hermione nodded. "Oh, I loved it there. I’m going back next term, teaching Charms. One of my old professors, Professor Flitwick is retiring this November."

"I was supposed to be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts this year," Harry said almost sadly. "I’m supposed to start in a few weeks time actually. How do you reckon my chances of that are now?"

It was strange. Hermione felt like she could spill out everything about everything in Hogwarts and he’d understand. Like Ron used to, she felt that if she showed him her copy of Hogwarts: A History, he’d laugh and then flick through, counting the dog-eared flaps on every corner. She felt like asking him if he missed the nights they stayed up together, reading or playing Wizard Chess, then she wondered why she wanted to ask him that. Something strange was underneath all of this. She watched him talking, like it was strange to see. He smiled at his own little joke about nothing in particular and it lit her up inside, like a light bulb flashing on in her brain.

She remembered watching him laugh.

It wasn’t a dream; it didn’t feel like a dream. This felt real. It felt more real than the quilt she was sat on, it felt more real than the lukewarm cup of tea clutched in her trembling hands. She remembered sitting with him, she remembered looking at him and watching him laughing. She remembered his eyes, his emerald eyes lighting up like they’d done a second before. It was a memory.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" Hermione asked, looking strangely at Harry, studying him like he was something on her lab table.

Harry almost swallowed his tongue. "Wh – why do you ask? Do I look familiar or something?"

"Your face," Hermione said dreamily. "Looks familiar to me somehow."

"Well, I’ve had it a long time," Harry replied. "And I don’t recall you at all."

Hermione shrugged. She couldn’t be defeated yet. "Maybe I’ve seen you around London or Diagon Ally maybe. You live on Lloyds don’t you?"

Harry nodded. "How do you know that, Miss Granger?"

"You ordered books from Flourish and Blotts last week," she replied. "Which came into today by the way. I’ll pick them up for you tomorrow. You left your address on the register."

"Ah," he sighed, looking very relieved. "Then it’s surprising that you know where I live, or rather ‘lived’. Looks like I’m not going back there anytime soon."

There was a slight pause then Hermione asked, "How’s Hedwig doing?"

"What?" Harry asked, his head snapping up.

Hermione didn’t know where that had come from. She didn’t have a clue who or what Hedwig was but something had triggered her to ask. It was instinctive. For that fleeting second, she’d let herself and her mind relaxed, letting way for all the unanswered questions to flow, to keep the conversation alive with something fresh instead of the dreary subjects they were talking about. It seemed to spark his attention though.

"I don’t know who Hedwig is," Harry replied. "Isn’t that a barn owl at Hogwarts? I remember reading about it or something. Fastest deliveries Hogwarts has ever seen, or something like that."

Hermione nodded. Maybe that was where she’d heard it. Maybe Harry Black was dancing around unanswered questions of his own. In any case, she felt tired now and wanted to get some dinner in her stomach before collapsing in front of British Comedy.

"Are you hungry?" Harry asked, standing up and walking to the door. "Because I could really go for some crumpets or even some pasta if you’re in the mood. Feel like some?"

"Harry Black, you read my mind," she replied, standing up and walking out of the door with him.

It made her wonder for a minute whether he had read her mind or not but she dismissed the thought. It was stupid thinking he could read minds. He was just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’d happened to so many people before him. She wanted to protest that he wasn’t who he said he was, although she had nothing to back that up with. She couldn’t prove that he wasn’t Harry Ian Black, ex-Auror from the Phoenix Division, graduate from Crosskeys Wizarding Law University. All she had was some stupid dreams.

She had an inkling that if she were back at Hogwarts, Professor Trelawney would tell her that the spirits were warning her of something or of someone, the dark haired man in the corner with the shifty looking broken specs and the distinct smell of magic imbued on his skin. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the kitchen with Harry ready to make a meal and to find out more about the mysterious man.

If it were the last thing she ever did, she’d find out who he was and what he was doing as a young boy invading her dreams. Harry Black was definitely odd.

But she loved a challenge.

6. When The World Keeps Spinning Round…

When The World Keeps Spinning Round…

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I do not own any of this whatsoever.

Spoilers: Books 1-4.

Pairing (if any): H/Hr, D/G

Summary: This chapter, although quite strange in places, is a bit out of character. Granted that two years on a Mercenary Squad would change you, I think that my Harry in this chapter isn’t all I thought he could be…

Anyway, another small piece of H/Hr interaction and I mean small…like tiny…It’s coming…don’t worry.

~*~

Harry felt strange when he woke up the next morning. The night had been filled with laughter and eating and conversation most of which he couldn’t remember. The most he could remember was sitting with Hermione Granger in Draco Malfoy’s living room debating whether he’d suit a frilly purple cravat and lace up 6-inch heel boots.

And to his knowledge, that had been the extent of a good evening, topped off with heavy sleeping on the sofa of the living room.

Sleeping alone mind you.

The week he’d spent at Draco’s house hadn’t gone too well. It’d started off perfectly; everything was going to plan. Harry was being phased back into the family of friends, which he’d missed. Whenever he had to go out, he went as Draco, suiting himself up with a Polyjuice potion brewed (with much hesitation) by Hermione. She insisted on telling them with every stir of the big wooden spoon that she disliked the fact that they were disobeying the law. Of course, she’d been brought round to believe in Harry, to believe his story but she thought that if he was indeed innocent (which he clearly was) then the law would straighten itself out. This was met with very heavy laughter from both Harry and Draco.

Draco proceeded to tell her that the Wizarding Law was as straight as a London roundabout at 9 am on a Monday morning. Taking this into consideration, Hermione decided to read everything she could about the Wizarding Law between sleeping and working. She had a degree in Charms, Herbology, and Transfiguration and was a qualified Magical Psychiatrist yet she was amazed at how much she didn’t know about the legal system. Turned out that a Higher Court Judge in Muggle Courts was the same as the Minister for Magic’s desk polisher. The Muggle world was inches away from having its legal system run by the Ministry and this appalled Hermione. The Wizarding world could be so careless with it’s laws that even Mince Pies were still banned at Christmas, ever since the disastrous reign of Fingel Baxter, who’d presided over the Ministry in the early sixteen hundreds. He had an intense fear of Mince Pies and banned them throughout the Wizarding world.

To this, Hermione raised her eyebrow at the very large book and uttered a ‘hmm’ before carrying on ploughing through the book within her lunch hour.

Harry and Draco tried almost effortlessly to get a foothold on the case but nothing was becoming available. The Ministry worked in such funny ways. Harry had found a way to clear his name then found that ‘suicide’, although quite legal, was not an option. When Hermione arrived home, she explained that ‘Suicide’ was legal because if you did it properly, you couldn’t be tried for it. Hence no case. Ginny then went off on a tandem about how suicide was an appalling thought and how she hoped that it would never come to that.

But, just in case, Ginny had been waking up every two hours every night just to check whether Harry was still living and breathing in the other room.

With no case and further more no tangible or living witnesses to prove that Harry didn’t do it, the case file was left on Draco’s desk, unopened and untouched by man nor beast. Until Friday obviously, when Draco had almost convinced himself blind that if Harry was to appear in court carrying a wad of balloons, he was free to go. But, Draco was also convinced that a pink cloud in the form of a very large elephant was following him around the room.

It took three of them to wrestle the wine bottle from his hands.

~*~

No reports had come through about deatheater attacks. No news was reported about Harry Black, apart from a strange woman Ohio who believed that Harry Black was the father of her unborn child by power of his menacing thoughts. It was printed in the Quibbler under the by-line of Rita Skeeter.

For some unknown reason one morning, Harry felt the need to alleviate his tired lungs with some air. He was sick of being stuck indoors and needed to get out somewhere. To a park maybe or even just across the street to the local pub. He needed to be around people who chatted about their cats and dogs like they were real children or something. He needed some information about life in the city and he needed to get some views on life. He was fed up with reading, writing and going over his stupid case with Draco. His brain ached for some human civilisation so, downing the Polyjuice potion, he set out for the pub.

Hardly anyone was in when he arrived. The pub was basically empty apart from a few people playing on instruments in the corner. Harry didn’t even know what the instruments were. Some looked like a cross between a violin and a piano while others just looked weird. He wondered how much the Muggle world had change in the last two years, or maybe the people sat in the corner were just plain weird. That was the only explanation. There wasn’t a pool table in the pub or even a darts board. This was just a pub for pulling pints in, a pub where the local lads met and drank together, singing praises for the girl in the tight skirt sat in the adjacent booth with her rich boyfriend. This was the Muggle way of saying ‘let’s party like it’s 1939’.

And that made Harry wonder what happened in here at night. Suddenly, he was scared to ever venture out again.

With a grin at himself, a rather cheeky grin actually, Harry ordered a run of the mill pint of Guinness and sat at the bar drinking as Draco Malfoy, heir to a flipping fortune. It’d be a kick in the teeth if Draco walked in now to see himself sitting at the bar drinking a drink that Harry didn’t think Draco Malfoy would ever drink in his lifetime. He thought that Draco might order a red wine or vodka and coke, some girl drink like that. Harry knew Draco Malfoy had more class than to be sat in the pub at the bar drinking a pint of Guinness on a really decent Thursday afternoon. Unlike Harry, who’d spent the last two years cleaning up the Ministry’s sloppy messes.

Then it dawned on him. A light bulb the size of Asia flashed on above his head and he felt like shouting, "By Jove I’ve got it!" at the top of his lungs.

He had the answer!

All that time wasted, all that time spent on paperwork in the cramped office at Draco’s house, all the useless mulling over of stupid A4 wads of trees while all he had to do was let his mind relax.

All the work he’d done for the Ministry, he knew their secrets, their inner most pitiful secrets. He knew what their weaknesses were and he had friends in high places that believed his innocence, that would put his story out there for the world to see as Harry Black brought the Ministry down to it’s knees making it cower in fear at the might of the wonderful. Smite the wicked as some might say.

Azkaban was a fortress. One of the reasons it was referred to as Azkaban Fortress maybe but there was something mysterious going on in there. Harry had been and walked around inside. He’d visited every room, made sure it was safe and secure before the madly insane prisoners were dragged back in, kicking and screaming. Harry knew that there was a way of escaping Azkaban Fortress that didn’t require a body double, which didn’t require fooling the Dementors. This was something that no one had thought about, that no one had found out about. All this required was some deep thought and some initiative.

It required the prisoner to have died in his cell and to be left, rotting in the cell.

Harry stood up, his body moving without the power of his brain as he moved through the bar, past the balmy band in the corner and through the doors until he wasn’t exactly moving anymore. He hit someone, who shouted "Ow!" and jumped backwards.

"Draco? You drunk, man?"

Harry looked up and nearly fainted.

It was Ron. It was redheaded Ron-bleeding-Weasley staring at him with the most confused expression on his face. Harry remarked at how older Ron looked now. Two years of playing professional Quidditch, two bleeding years playing that really brilliant game had bulked Ron up no end. He was growing stubble for one. When had Ronald Weasley had stubble? He’d barely had a chin at Hogwarts and now he had stubble. Life just was getting weirder and weirder every minute.

"Draco?" Ron asked shooting Harry back into reality, as he stumbled backwards and collided with the door. The hit made his head spin for a moment before he noticed Ron still in front of him looking more than slightly confused.

Harry stood his full tallness and looked Ron in the eye. "Ron?"

Ron nodded. "Yes, it’s Ron. Do you think I should take you home?"

Ron was talking to Harry like he was a child. A very drunk child. Harry waved his hand.

"Don’t be daft," Harry said, opening the door and walking out. "I’m fine."

Harry took a quick stumble for second, tripping over his shoelace. Funny, he didn’t remember wearing shoes today. Oh God, he really was drunk. How many pints had he had? He only remembered ordering the one then…oh boy. He couldn’t remember the rest up to having his brilliant idea then trying to walk out of the door.

"I think I’ll take you home," Ron said, helping Harry down the pavement and up to the road Draco’s house was on. "What made you get this drunk anyway? Did Ginny say no or something? I swear man, she’ll come round in time you just have to give her some space you know."

"You really should stop talking so fast," Harry tried to say but it came out as more of a slur and a rasp than actual words strung together.

Ron shook his head. "One day you’ll get really drunk and come home to find all you’re things and Ginny gone. You know she hates it when you get like this. What’ll your kids think one day?"

"I’ve got kids?" Harry asked, reaching into his pocket for the key to the door to find it wasn’t here. "Uh, my keys. She’s, err, kinda gone. Not here. Whoa, the floor’s spinning. Can you see that Ron? The floor’s spinning. Ha! Wow! Look!"

Harry pointed down to the spinning floor that wasn’t actually spinning at all. His eyeballs felt like two over flown fishtanks containing two bloated goldfish.

"Yeah, Draco," Ron replied, fishing his own key from his pocket. "The floor’s spinning, yep. The floor is definitely spinning. Jeez, I hope someone’s in. Hello?"

Ron banged on the door and Hermione came to answer it. The look of pure horror on her face when she saw Harry, or rather Draco slumped against Ron’s right arm, his arm over Ron’s shoulder being supported by a very helpful looking Ron in the middle.

Harry looked at Hermione and got a goofy grin on his face.

"You’re really pretty," Harry slurred. "Why are you so pretty? It’s your nose! You’ve got your mum’s nose!"

Hermione nearly jumped in shock. "Oh Merlin, he’s drunk! Bring him in here quick, Ron."

She opened the door a little wider as Ron dragged Harry through and let him down on the sofa. Harry slumped down on the sofa with a bang. The bang was probably the bag of unopened crisp in his jacket pocket that was now making a crunching sound.

"Where in the world did you find him?" Hermione asked coming back from the kitchen carrying a bucket and a glass of water which was green, so Harry decided that it couldn’t really be water if it was green. Maybe it was Wizard tap water, Corporation Pop as they call it down in jolly old London. Was he still in London? Didn’t he catch a bus up too the North Pole about half an hour ago?

"The pub across the street," Ron replied, helping Hermione lift Harry up from his lying position to a now more seated position on the sofa, bent over a purple bucket that was bubbling with liquid inside already. "He’s completely out of it isn’t he? I didn’t think Draco would ever get this drunk."

"He doesn’t…usually," Hermione said as Harry barfed up something from his dinner the night before. "He’s been working on the Harry Black case and…"

Ron nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I know all about it already. Lavender knows someone on the Council that tried him. Said he looked guilt as charged."

"Well, he hasn’t exactly been charge for it, so he can’t look guilt as charged," Hermione replied with her school tone, the I-Know-Everything tone evident in her voice. "So it would be more fitting to say ‘guilty as suspected’, or ‘guilty as suspected by the majority of the council…"

"I get it, ‘Mione," Ron said, shaking his head. "I get it. Now can we please get back to the mountain of puke sat on your sofa?"

Without warning, Harry’s hair started to turn from Draco’s white to Harry’s raven black. His hands were changing, his face was changing, and damn it, his whole bleeding physique was changing back into that of Harry Potter! His nose grew slightly shorter, his cheekbones weren’t so defined anymore and the bridge of his nose was undoubtedly that of an Evans descendant.

Harry Black, known as Draco Malfoy for about an hour turned back to Harry Black faster than he turned into Draco Malfoy. Within the space of another hurl, Harry had changed back into his old self minus the glasses.

Ron stood, infuriated and frightened grabbing his wand from hi belt and pulling Hermione away from Harry’s side. He stood in front of her bravely; guarding her against this terrorist sat on the sofa.

He held his wand at the culprit and said, "Move Black, and I’ll curse you back to Azkaban!"

While, trying to get from behind Ron, Hermione was shouting, "Jesus Harry! You scared the life out of me! What the hell do you think you’re doing?"

Harry tried to stand up. He was being forced into a duel for which he must forsake his barfing duty and tally ho to the fight as fast as humanly possible at this very moment in time. Harry withdrew from his belt what looked like a third of a pool cue and pointed it at Ron challengingly.

"You, sir, are a cad!" Harry slurred, pointing the stick at Ron, who was looking more than slightly confused at this odd behaviour even for a drunken wizard. "I’m not about to let you speak to me like that! I’m gonna…I’m gon…gonna…be sick!"

And he was. Horizontally, all over the living room. Exorcist sick.

Then he collapsed onto the living room carpet in a dead faint.

~*~

The first thing he saw when he woke up was a pair of big, brown eyes staring back at him. Big, beautiful brown eyes like two saucers of chocolate milk with a chocolate button in the middle that moved from side to side very time he blinked. Testing this, Harry blinked. Then blinked again. Then blinked some more until he was sure he was awake and was regaining consciousness.

He sat up and the figure with the beautiful brown eyes moved away, sitting down on a chair next to the bed. It was Hermione with a worried expression on her face. Harry swore that that expression must’ve been tattooed on Hermione’s well-trimmed line of facial expressions because that was the one he remembered seeing every time he woke up in a hospital bed.

Which was what he was in at this very moment, a hospital bed.

"You feeling okay?" Ginny asked from the other side of the bed.

Harry nodded slightly then felt his vocal chords vibrating in his throat, making the urge to speak. "I feel…hospitalised."

That was the only word he could think of. What better word than ‘hospitalised’. He was in a hospital, a very nice hospital by the looks of it.

"I’m in St Mungo’s aren’t I?" Harry asked looking around, through the glass window then own at his clothes, which had been switched for a blue nightgown.

"Yep," Ginny replied, sipping coffee from one of those awful polystyrene cups. Something never change despite what world you’re living in. People still drink from polystyrene cups when they’re visiting someone in hospital. "They had to drag you in kicking and screaming."

"They?" Harry asked.

Ginny pointed to the girl with the beautiful brown eyes who was Hermione, who was one of his oldest and most dearest friend, who was sitting by the hospital bed, who was holding his hand.

"You okay?" Harry asked Hermione, running his thumb over the back of her hand.

Hermione smiled and ran her thumb over his. "I am. I can’t believe you yesterday. You were sick all over the place. Ginny had to use a really strong cleaning spell on the place but I doubt we’ll ever get rid of the smell."

"Trivial details," Draco chirped in finally, back from his insistent pacing at the foot of the bed. "Seriously Harry, are you alright? You’re not seriously hurt? No broken bones, no limbs missing?"

"Not that I know of," Harry replied with a small yawn. "Bloody hell, why did I end up here?"

"Do you remember yesterday? At all?" Hermione asked.

Harry shook his head. He couldn’t remember yesterday apart from waking up in the hospital bed minutes earlier to a pair of the most beautiful brown eyes he’d ever seen in his lifetime. "Nothing further than about two minutes ago. Wednesday yeah, but not Thursday. Thursday is a complete blank. Apart from…"

Draco’s face lit up. "Apart from what? What do you remember?"

"Running," Harry said. "Running. I was running from something, down a dark ally. It caught me, grabbed my foot and I was falling. Don’t ask me what that means but I know I was falling. Oh! I know how we can win the case as well."

Laughter hung like a hangman.

"Just like that?" Ginny asked, laughing still, dabbing laughter tears away from her eyes.

Harry nodded. "I know, I know. I’m crazy. I think I’ll need to get to work on it so if you ladies don’t mind leaving while I get dressed…"

Hermione put pressure down on Harry’s hand. "Hold it there cowboy, you’re not going anywhere. The doctor says you’ve got to stay in here until he can get things cleared up."

"Cleared up?" Harry asked confused. "Cleared up? What do you mean cleared up?"

"Harry, you had your drink spiked," Hermione answered. "You had you’re drink spiked with something, some substance that the lab is trying to figure out. You had a sip of your drink and that was it. You were out of it. You can’t even remember the entire day yesterday. That got to mean something to you."

"Yeah," Harry replied. "It means that I’ve got to stop Lucius Malfoy before he spikes the hospital food so let me get up!"

Hermione forced Harry back down against the pillow. "Stay there!" She commanded in her McGonagall way. "Stay there and don’t move! You will not leave this bed until you are told to. So stay put."

"Yes sir!" Harry said, saluting. "Jeez, Herm, chill. It’s not like I’m contagious or something. Whatever it is will flush out eventually so it’s no big deal. I’m fine! Look!"

Harry waved his arm around. "I’m fine!"

"You’re not fine!" Hermione replied sternly. "Someone is trying to get to you Harry and until we know what’s going to happen next, you are staying in that bed, understand?"

Harry nodded defeated. Hermione and Ginny made a move to leave but Hermione leaned over to Harry and kissed him on the forehead.

"Get well soon," She said picking up her jacket.

Harry smiled. "A card would have sufficed you know."

"Somehow I knew you’d like that a little more," Hermione replied, leaving through the ward entrance with Ginny.

Draco and Harry were left in the ward along with the sleeping old man in the next bed.

"Look, Draco," Harry started. "I don’t know what happened yesterday but I do know that something is going to happen soon. That’s why I need you to do some things for me."

"I’m beginning to see that there’s no upside to being your lawyer," Draco smirked, sitting down on the seat Hermione accompanied only moments before.

"But there’s a plus side to being my friend," Harry replied. "All the wild adventures you get to partake in must mean something, so…"

"Fire away," Draco sighed, taking out a small notebook and his quick note quill, which set about writing the date and a suitable title for a note page. It was entitled ‘Harry’s Hospital Bidding’. Very punny, Harry thought.

"I need you get me the exact charges Lucius went down for," Harry said. "And his sentence record, how much he’s served, how much there is to go, yada yada yada. They have to be the exact ones, not short copies or something. I need the exact ones."

Draco raised his eyebrow. "It sounds like you’ve got an ace up your sleeve."

Harry shook his head. "Not an ace, just a few very clever pigeons."

7. Beginning To Understand

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 1^st, 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.

8. Way Back When

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I do not own any of this whatsoever.

Spoilers: Books 1-4.

Pairing (if any): H/Hr, D/G, R/LB

Author Note: - I know, I’m terrible for updating quickly. I’m doing a lot of work at the moment, coursework and the like and planning a wedding so…I’m kinda busy with other things as well. I write when I can but I’ve been writing out flat this weekend and have written a few good chapters. This is the first one that I’ve written in a while. Thanks so much for sticking with me on this, you can’t imagine how grateful I am.

This continues from the last chapter, the dreaded cliff-hanger that I got snap-reviewed for. I can’t say I’m a 100% with this chapter, more like 50-50…Anyway, there’s something about the chapter that made me keep this and not the other six versions I have on my computer. I must confess though, I think that I jumped a little too far ahead at this stage but I wanted to get it all over and done with quickly because it is fast, it doesn’t take it’s time. Thanks for reviewing and I’ll see you at the end.

~)*(~

~)Way Back When(~

Someone, somewhere was eating ready salted crisp. Ginny could feel it in her gut. Somebody was eating ready salted crisp. For some unknown reason, Ginny had a craving for crisp, and not just any crisp. They had to be ready salted and she couldn’t find any in the markets for the life of her. The only place she knew that sold them was in Hogsmeade and she wasn’t even going to try and Apparate there again on a Saturday. The crush usually developed later on in the afternoon when everyone was going for their weekly shopping. Maybe a trip over wouldn’t be so bad. Just a quick apparition…nothing too spectacular. She could even floo if she wanted but no…will power, Ginny, will power.

Hermione had told Ginny about the note she found. That led to gasps and all sorts of female conversation. At the end of it, Hermione was completely convinced that Harry Black wasn’t Harry Black and if he was, then they knew him when he was younger. The piece of parchment didn’t exactly prove anything whatsoever but it did outline that Ron had known Harry and that Harry had known of Hermione.

Then there was the decision about what to do: should they ask Harry about it or wait until he’s finished his trial? Ginny had opted for the second of the two but Hermione wanted to get it over and done with. Granted, it wasn’t Ginny who was having the strange dreams that were actually memories (according to Hermione).

The window clattered. Ginny hadn’t heard the window clattering in a while and she looked up from her desk. It was snowy white owl at the window, pecking the glass pane in the hopes to get inside and out of the rain and thunder. Ginny opened the window and let the owl in, which landed on the carpet and wheezed theatrically. She laughed and removed the letter from its leg, balanced it on her desk and fed it some of the banana she’d been eating moments ago. The owl ate happily while Ginny unfolded the letter.

It was a letter from Dumbledore, but it wasn’t just any old letter from Dumbledore.

Miss Virginia Weasley,

I am writing to inform you that there have been numerous strange happenings since the appearance of a certain Harry Black. I have been assessing the situation and although I would not like to participate in either the trial or the proceedings, I wish to elaborate on the situation.

Harry should tell his story but I feel that it is my duty as a tutor and friend to tell you at least the basics, and here is the first revelation:

You do know Harry Black.

You have met him before although under another name. You are good friends and have bee for many years. I have witnessed the growth of many people at this school but none have been able to compare with the growth of Harry and his friends, including you, Miss Weasley. I cannot stress enough how important it is that you trust Harry, and I know it must be very hard to trust someone fully, especially someone who has just been accused of terrorism.

I must apologise for my absence in this past week. I cannot say that it has been a joyful absence but all will be revealed in time. This is something that requires much communication from all of you.

Good luck, Miss Weasley,

Albus Dumbledore

Ginny folded up the letter and placed it on her desk. She couldn’t believe it, it just wasn’t possible. Everything that had happened in Hermione’s memories, they were coming true. She had known Harry or rather did know Harry, or still does know Harry. It was all very confusing and she needed a drink, but she resisted the temptation and instead went to the fireplace.

Ginny uttered a few words and Lavender’s face appeared in the fire.

"Ginny? How are you?" Lavender asked.

"Fine, is my brother there?" Ginny asked hurriedly. Lavender disappeared for a moment and Ron appeared in the fire.

"What’s up?" He asked.

Ginny looked over at the letter on the table and looked back at her brother. "You will not believe what I’m going to tell you."

~)*(~

"What?!" Draco screamed at the runner. "Wh…where is he? Leave anything out and I’ll hex you too oblivion!"

The scared runner just stood there, stunned. His hands were quivering as he held the note, clutching at his wand that was on his belt.

"I’m sorry, Sir," the runner apologised quickly, sweat dribbling on his forehead. "I’ve just been told to tell you about it. Mr Robing is missing from St Mungo’s. The nurses have done a search and nothing is left of him. Even his bed was made when they went in this morning."

Draco buried his face in his hands. How could he have let this happen? How could he have not kept a decent security on him? God, he was a fool! A damnable fool! He hit his fist on the desk and sat back in his chair looking at the runner.

"Who told you to come?" He asked.

The runner looked confused for a moment then held the note out for Draco to look at. "It’s from Dr. Palmer-Stuart at the hospital."

Draco read the note over and put it in his top pocket of his robes. "Look, I hope it’s no trouble but could you do a return delivery? I need to get something to him pretty quickly without causing too much fuss over it."

The runner nodded as Draco handed him a small letter then made a small cracking sound as he Disapparated out. Draco hung his head, it was going to be a long day, and he could feel it. Breathing out, he leaned back in the wooden desk chair and sighed. If he didn’t have this sorted soon, he’d be a dead man.

~)*(~

Someone was breathing heavily from the corridor. It wasn’t just any type of breathing, it was the sort of panting a really unfit person makes when they’ve just climbed a hundred stairs. The staircase leading up was like climbing up to the tower at Hogwarts, only about three towers in quick succession.

Harry clambered to his feet. The back of his head hurt and the cut on his lip had ceased to bleed but still hurt. Harry raised a hand to the back of his head and felt the patch of hair there. It was covered in blood and for a second, Harry felt slightly dizzy. If he could perform a healing spell, he’d be fine, but his wand had been confiscated when he was brought here…to wherever here was. He didn’t exactly know but he had a pretty good idea.

The panting was coming closer now and so was the jangling of keys on a belt. The familiar sound of a prison guard, Harry thought as he reached out for the metal bars that he knew were in front of him. The only problem about being in the pitch black was you never knew what you were grasping onto. The cold metal touched Harry’s hand and he let out a breath that he’d been holding, just in case he grabbed a bone or something.

A cough and a splutter then the jingling of keys again, this time being taken off the belt and inserted into Harry’s cell door.

"Evening, Mr Black," an old guy said, opening the cell door and shinning a torch into the darkened cell.

Harry had to back up for a moment and shield his eyes from the light of the torch. It’d been a good few hours since Harry had seen any type of light at all. He was still dressed in his blue night-gown from the hospital and the cell floor was freezing. Harry could see the old man’s face now. He looked a nice enough old bloke, a few wrinkles under the eyes and quite saggy skin, so Harry determined that he was about fifty if not sixty. His old grey hair was producing white streaks now and it suited him, in Harry’s opinion. Someday, Harry hoped to have a grey streak in his hair, from his ears all the way round but he knew that he’d have to wait a good few years for that to happen.

"I’ve got to take you downstairs, Mr Black," the old man said, opening the cell door and walking Harry out of his cold cell and onto the cold floor of the corridor. "Got to get you into some clothes for the hearing and so fourth. It’s not until tomorrow but the Minister doesn’t want you dying on us just before the case."

Harry gave a small laugh. The old guy’s joke was quite fitting for the occasion, because if you knew the Ministry, you’d know that they loved criminals hopping the proverbial tree branch just before the trial. It meant less work for them and more work for whoever had to clean up the mess you left. Harry wondered if they actually gave you a length of rope when you were sent to their lesser prisons based around Muggle Britain.

"Some jeans would be nice," Harry said, walking down the corridor towards the staircase.

The old guy laughed. "I can’t promise anything that fancy, Mr Black. Only what we’ve got from…previous occupants."

"Previous occupants?" Harry asked alarmed. He’d be wearing a dead guy’s clothes?

They stopped at the top of the staircase and the old guy turned to Harry and held out his wand. "Now, Mr Black. I’m not going to have to use this on the way down am I? You’re not going to try anything?"

Harry shook his head and added a "No" for the old guy’s benefit. Harry couldn’t even see two feet in front of him so for the old guy to see a head movement would be near impossible.

~)*(~

Ron was getting impatient. He’d been waiting in Ginny’s living room for the past two hours, waiting for Draco to return from his office job. Ginny had completely informed him about Harry Black and Dumbledore’s message, although Ron wasn’t quite as convinced as Hermione and Ginny was. He said it was all an elaborate prank or something or other, devised by the Ministry, then he had to remind himself that the Ministry didn’t have a sense of humour.

There was a time, Ron remembered, that he did feel like something was missing from his life. It wasn’t the absence of Hermione because, despite their mutual break up, remained very good friends throughout their adulthood, from graduation. No, it was something…else. Something Ron couldn’t exactly put his finger on. He hated being in the dark about anything and this intrigued him beyond all measure.

"He should be here in a minute," Ginny said, rocking back and forward in the big chair, resting her feet on the coffee table.

Ron sighed and collapsed into the sofa. "That’s what you said an hour ago."

"But this time I’m sure," Ginny replied.

"But this time I’m sure," Ron mimicked his little sister. Ginny responded by sticking her tongue out at him. "Where does he work anyway?"

"Somewhere in London," Ginny said. "He Apparates, anyway. Usually, he doesn’t get in earlier than this. He’s off on a business trip or seeing a client, and to be honest Ron, I’m sick of it."

Ron laughed. "How can you be sick of it? You do the same thing!"

Ginny threw a pillow at her brother. "I may, but Draco says he’s going to be home at such a time and he never is. I’ve had enough of waiting around for him."

"How you ever ended up together is beyond me," Ron sighed. "I ended up with someone simple, a nice and non-evil person and you just had to go for the big guns didn’t you?"

"Don’t give me the mother speech, Ronald Weasley!" Ginny said, covering her face with a cushion. "I’m not in the mood to hear this. Jeez, how you’re going to be a father is logic I have to question."

"Well, you see, when two people love each other, Ginny, they do this thing called…" Ron said, patronising her as much as he could.

"Shut it," Ginny replied, sticking her tongue out again and pouting childishly.

A resounding crack came from the kitchen. Moments later, Draco rushed in and got them to their feet.

"We’re off," he said. "Got to go to Azkaban."

~)*(~

Harry dressed in the cleanest clothes he could find out of the pile. He usually wasn’t picky but when a guy has probably died in your clothes, it’s hard not to pick anything that hasn’t been manhandled by a corpse. He made an involuntary shudder and pulled on the pair of boots from the big pile of boots sitting in the corner.

"I guess you get many people coming in from hospital then?" Harry asked the old guy, who was actually called Jim and was sipping a mug of coffee.

He handed the mug to Harry before replying. "Not really. Some come straight from their houses, when the Aurors have gone in and took them from their beds. Some of them are still asleep when they get here."

"Must be a bit daunting to wake up in this place then," Harry said. "It’s not exactly a place I would like to wake up in every morning."

Jim shrugged. "I know a guy who was in here from being about your age. He left not long before you came. He was twenty when he came in. He’s gone off to Azkaban now."

"He wasn’t waiting for his hearing was he?" Harry asked.

Jim laughed and shook his head. "No, he wasn’t. He’d been sentenced to here for theft of a Minister’s property. I think he took a bottle of ink or something from the Minister’s front desk."

"Bit strict for doing something like that," Harry replied, tying the shoelaces.

"Just says that you don’t cross Lucius Malfoy," Jim said.

It took Harry all of a few seconds to actually process that.

"Lucius Malfoy? The Minister? Have I slipped into some sort of time dilation or something? Fudge is the Minister," Harry clarified.

Jim shook his head again and took the mug back from Harry. "I think you’ve been hitting the bottle too much. Fudge is in Azkaban now, just a few days ago. It was announced on the papers."

Everybody in the cell tower must’ve heard Harry’s body hit the floor in a dead faint.

~)*(~

Draco, Ginny and Ron could be seen running up the dark steps of Azkaban and into the horrid entrance hall. It wasn’t much of an entrance Hall as Dementors were posted at every column. Ron gave a shudder when he looked at the lifeless and crippled face hanging under the dark hoods. Something about Dementors always frightened him to his very core.

"Please remind me why I’m actually here," Ron said, gulping down his breakfast for the second time that day.

Ginny sighed. "The same reason the rest of us are. Trust me Ron, I don’t want to be here much more than you do."

"Well, that’s nice for you," Ron replied. "But I just want to get out of here. It really is like Hell isn’t it?"

Ginny shrugged. "I don’t know. I’ve never been here before."

"Not even to visit Lucius Malfoy on Christmas?" Ron joked.

"Oh please!" Ginny said, stalking off ahead to find Draco.

Draco was looking into a large book on the front desk. A very small Dementor, much smaller than the rest, monitored the front desk. Ron wondered whether or not this was a job you applied to do, like being Death. Was there an application form that got sent out at the Job Centre? It’s not a job he’d like to do personally, but if it came down to it and he needed the money, maybe being a Dementor Monitor wasn’t a bad job.

Ron reawakened when Draco smashed his hand down on the wooden desk, making a resounding thump.

"What?" Ginny asked, waking up herself from a small sleep.

Draco swore to himself and then clutched the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. "He’s not here."

The world seemed to come crashing down right at that moment and, with the best precision two siblings could have, Ron and Ginny said, "WHAT?"

"He’s not here!" Draco shouted. "Lucius T. Malfoy is not a resident at Azkaban Fortress. He…Is…Not…Here!"

Ginny did a half stride and a half-run to the front desk and looked over the register herself. For a small girl, Ginny could walk pretty damn fast. ‘Power Striding’ was what she used to call it back in Hogwarts.

"Shit!" Draco shouted, clutching at his blond hair that was no longer slicked back but a mess. He had run his hands through it too many times to be considered sane and usually Draco never touched his slick hair.

"So, what do we do now?" Ron asked, sitting down at a welcoming chair and then wondered home welcoming Azkaban could possibly be. Would the little Dementor Monitor run up in a minute with a cup of tea?

Draco shook his head. "I don’t know. I just…don’t know."

"Alright," Ron replied. "We now know that Lucius Malfoy is out on the rampage and we know that it must’ve been Fudge’s signature on the release papers."

"So we have to find my father," Draco concluded with a sigh and leant back in his chair. "This is bad. This is very bad."

A girlie type of squeal emanated from Ginny as she waved her hand frantically at the two men to go to her.

"Look!" she pointed at the register at one name.

A look appeared on Draco’s face. A look that meant ‘We’re Doomed’ and ‘Look! Pretty Colours!’ at once.

"Cornelius Fudge!" Ron shouted, almost bouncing with happiness. "What’s he in here for?"

Ginny shrugged, "It doesn’t say but this means that Lucius must’ve bended the Ministry’s arm or something!"

"Ginny, this tells us nothing," Draco sighed. "This tells us that Fudge has been arrested. Nothing more."

"Forever the optimist, ey Draco?" Ron stated, looking over the register.

"Draco," Ginny started, giving him her best look. "If Lucius is out, and Fudge is in, something must’ve happened. We’ve just got to figure out what."

"And pretty damn quick," Draco replied, moving away from Ginny and to the Dementor Monitor.

"Well, at least we know that he’s not here," Ron said looking optimistic. "Maybe he’s gone on holiday."

"Maybe he’s gone on a killing spree," Ginny retorted.

~)*(~

"I have a lovely bunch of coconuts."

"Diddle-lee, diddle-lee."

"There they are standing in a row."

"Bom, bom, bom."

"Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head."

"Give them a twist, a flick of the wrist."

"That’s what the showman said."

"SHUT UP!" shouted someone from the opposite side of the cell block, his head up against the bars and a terrifying look on his ugly face. "Shut the hell up before I curse you into oblivion!"

Harry looked at Elliot, the jailbird in the next cell and his singing partner.

"I’ve got a…"

"SHUT UP!" The man screamed. "SHUT UP!!"

"Will you cut out the racket?" Jim yelled form the staircase. "You’re singings bad enough, don’t get the other prisoners annoyed will you?"

Harry laughed. He hadn’t laughed in a while, almost two days now without anyone who knew where he was. Anyone he’d call a friend on the outside anyway. His hearing and trial had been postponed until Lucius Malfoy could see him. In the cell next to Harry was Elliot. She was a sprightly young girl with long brown hair who liked to sing more than anything. She’d been hauled into here for her trial in a week’s time. She didn’t like to talk about what she’d done. She said that it was terrible and something she’d never, ever do again.

The lights went out so Harry figured it must be after dark. There were no windows in the complex, just bars and a small cell. The lights only came on when Jim wanted them too but Jim wanted the lights kept on until he went to bed. He was afraid of the dark ever since an incident with one of the cellmates who’d escaped. Nasty business that included some Transfiguration of the poor old chap.

"Harry?" Elliot whispered.

Harry sat down against the wall and yawned. "Yeah?"

"What’ll happen if they forget we’re here?" she asked. "I mean, what if they forget we’re locked up in here and never set us a date for our trial?"

Harry shrugged, then remembered that no one can hear a shrug. "I don’t know. They’ll probably leave us here to rot."

"That’s not funny," Elliot replied. "I’m really frightened of this place."

"I know," Harry said. "It is a bit creepy isn’t it?"

"A bit? More like a hell of a lot creepy. I’m getting creeped out just by thinking about how creepy this place is."

"Well don’t dwell on it and get some sleep."

"If I could see my bed, I would go to sleep."

"You don’t have a bed."

"I don’t have a bed?"

"Nope."

"Do you have a bed?"

"At home."

"In there?"

"Nope."

"Then what do you sleep on?"

"I sleep upside down hanging from the rafters."

"Oh hardy flamin’ ha."

"Just settle in the corner."

There was a rustling from Elliot’s cell, which Harry assumed was Elliot settling herself into the corner and covering her body with the thick blanket Jim had tossed in for her. There was a sudden squeal and a clang of metal hitting metal.

"Harry!" Elliot whispered again making Harry chuckle. "There are spiders in here!"

"No kidding."

Another squeal. "Spiders. In the corner. Oh Merlin, oh Merlin…spiders…"

Harry yawned and couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.

"They won’t hurt you so just sit down and sleep."

"Easy for you to say. You can incinerate spiders with a clever phrase. I can’t even levitate a banana."

Harry chuckled again and was falling into a deep sleep. He felt like he hadn’t slept in years, his lids were heavy and his body was aching all over from sitting down all day. His throat was coarse from repeated singing of musicals over and over again.

Harry was scared. He could feel it inside. On the outside he appeared calm, he had to or else someone would find his weakness. On the inside, he was shivering in fright. He couldn’t think about anything but his hearing. He knew that Lucius Malfoy was going to sentence him to Azkaban, he knew it deep into his bones. He knew that his nightmares would return, he couldn’t run away from his mother’s painful screams.

And that night, as his eyes drifted closed, he could almost hear Lily screaming into the cold and bitter darkness, laying in wait for the fate that fell before her.

~)*(~

Hermione had been spending a lot of time in Harry’s apartment in the Lloyds Tower. She’d been thumbing through all the old school books on the bookshelves, trying to find some evidence, well, some more evidence that he was at Hogwarts. She believed it, she believed that he was there but…it was hard. It was hard to cope with the fact that a terrorist was not only her childhood friend but also a love interest in her early years.

For all she knew, she could’ve slept with him time and time over.

That thought made her shudder. It wasn’t an unpleasant thought but she didn’t know him! Sleeping with someone she didn’t even know…correction…that twenty-year-old Hermione Granger didn’t know was a tad frightening.

Under any other circumstance, say they’d met at a party a week ago instead and didn’t have to go through all this just to end up with Harry in the clear. Lets say they just met, both looking handsome and gorgeous at one of Draco’s dinner parties, sat next to each other, hit it off during the wine course and got to know each other that way. Then things would be different. She’d probably be curled up in bed with him somewhere, playing with his belly button in the wee hours of the morning.

But no, life had to slap her with something different. Instead, she was sleeping at the mystery man’s apartment and reading his books every chance she got. She had them piled everywhere, open at different pages. They were taking up most of the floor and table space. She couldn’t have breakfast without a page of Harry’s adolescent scrawl peering at her, begging her to read it.

She’d read all about Harry Potter. It’d been hard to believe at first, that the man that sat on her bed was the saviour of the world at one point in his life. The point when she and Ron were around him the most. True, she’d found him magical just by looking at him. To find out that he’s Harry Potter made her put the book down and explore the rest of the books around the apartment.

She found all of his old schoolbooks filled with tiny notes and doodles. He’d drawn his friends on the inside-back covers all with name labels. He was a very good artist and had drawn them all when they were reading or writing. There was a picture of himself riding his broomstick that was copied from a page in the Daily Prophet. The article was stuck inside next to it.

‘Harry Potter: Wizard of the World’

Ron was drawn with his fiery red hair bent over his desk, scribbling away. Unfortunately, the pictures couldn’t move or they’d be telling Hermione a story she’d forgot. There were several drawings of Neville, Ginny, Draco (with Snape in a very undignified way) and herself.

The one of Hermione made her do a double take. It was perfect. He’d taken up a whole page to draw her on and the sketch looked like it must’ve taken hours. She was asleep, lying down on the Gryffindor common room couch, Crookshanks napping on her stomach.

Hermione smiled to herself as she looked at the picture. It made her feel warm knowing that Harry had taken his time with this one, made it perfect then signed his name to his work. To know that he’d wanted this picture in such precision was a wonderful feeling for her. To be honest, she never really thought that someone could see her like this. The picture itself seemed to glow magically and the white shading in her cheeks seemed to be brighter than usual.

Harry had seen her the way she wanted to be seen: as herself.

He’d captured her in her most innocent moment and it was a picture she wanted to keep now.

Hermione stood up and walked to the window, looking out over Diagon Alley. All the people bustling by, all the people who never knew about anyone called Harry Potter; the Boy Who Lived.

She knew one thing for sure. She was falling in love again with a man she barely knew and her heart wasn’t taking this slow. She was falling hard and fast for Harry and she couldn’t control the way her heart was pounding or the ache in her chest when she thought about him.

She knew her world wasn’t the same anymore.

~)*(~

Author Note: - I don’t know what I was trying to achieve with this but…it’s the New Year and my New Year’s resolution is to upload more quickly and do better fics than I have previously. I can’t say that this is nearly finished but it’s nearly there…nearly at the last few legs of its race.

Adjacent To The Fray

1. Prologue

2. Living In A World I

3. Glimpse Of A Stranger

4. Foe

5. An Instrument of Terror

6. When The World Keeps Spinning Round…

7. Beginning To Understand

8. Way Back When