Chapter 16 - Unloading an Old Man's Soul
Harry made his way downstairs, Hermione's hand still entwined in his. Feeling nervous at the thought of holding her hand in front of her parents, he gently tried removing his hand from her grasp.
For a fraction of a moment, Hermione's hand tightened around his reflexively, as if unwilling to let go. She gave him a brief, hurt look and Harry quickly explained to her.
'If we're telling your parents tomorrow, I don't think we should walk in there holding hands, should we?'
'No,' Hermione mumbled. She flashed him a quick smile and walked ahead of him to the table.
Harry smiled to himself, before he followed her at a leisurely pace.
Lunch was quiet, everyone focusing more on satisying their hunger than making conversation. Harry and Hermione exchanged quick glances at each other occasionally, not daring to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds.
Thomas didn't notice anything different between the two, but Jane certainly did. She decided not to do anything at the moment, for she and her husband were already late for work.
Before leaving, Jane asked for a quick moment with Harry and Hermione.
'Are you both going to be alright on your own?'
'Yes, we will,' came two straightforward replies, reeking of innocence in their own right.
'Okay, there are leftovers in the fridge and you know where to reach me.'
'Can we order pizza if we get hungry again?' Hermione asked.
'I don't see why not, but we'll be back well before dinner, so I don't see how you could get so hungry within five hours.'
'Okay,' Hermione replied timidly.
'Besides,' Jane continued, turning her back on them and making her way out of the house, 'what can you possibly get upto that will make you so hungry?'
Hermione blushed and Harry snorted. Both of them had a vague idea of a few things they could get upto.
After another two minutes, they found themselves alone.
'So what do you wanna do?' Hermione asked.
'Well...' Harry began, 'we could do a couple of things that would enable us to be hungry enough for that pizza you were talking about.'
Hermione raised her eyebrows and looked away from him.
'Maybe in five years if we're still dating,' she muttered.
'You don't think we'll still be dating in five years time?' Harry asked in surprise.
'A lot of things could happen in five years.'
'Such as?'
'I don't know, you're the one from the future, you should be telling me the answers,' Hermione replied.
'Yes, but you know everything, so you could enlighten me as well,' Harry said seriously.
'You really think so?' Hermione asked shyly, slightly flattered by Harry's words.
'Well, not exactly,' Harry replied carefully.
Hermione's shy smile turned into a glare.
'Well, you can't fly,' Harry pointed out.
'And I can't cook either,' Hermione grumbled under her breath.
'Really?' Harry asked teasingly, 'I thought Miss I'm-perfect-at-potions-and-everything-to-do-with-it would have no trouble whipping up a good meal!'
'Shut it,' Hermione growled, digging him in the ribs.
Harry caught her hands before she could move away.
Looking into her eyes with humour and love twinkling in his own, he asked, 'you seriously can't cook?'
'No,' Hermione replied stubbornly. 'I tried using the stove after I got my Hogwarts letter.'
'After you got your Hogwarts letter?'
'Well, mum and dad weren't too eager to send me off into an unknown world they had no idea of, so I tried impressing them.'
'By causing a gas explosion?'
'No, silly!' Hermione scolded, 'I tried making them some tea.'
'Aaaand?' Harry prodded.
'It didn't work out.'
'Hmmm.'
'Anyway, I've been forbidden from going anywhere near the stove and when I'm alone, I have the leftovers from the fridge or I call for home delivery.'
'Oh.'
'I can serve microwave popcorn though!'
'That's cool.'
They sat down on the sofa, facing each other. For a while, neither of them spoke.
Finally, unable to bear the silence any longer, Hermione asked, 'what're you thinking about?'
'Aunt Marge,' came the flat reply.
'Oh, that's nice,' Hermione harrumphed, 'your girlfriend's sitting right beside you and all you can think about is your aunt.'
'No, it's not that. I had a lot more fun with her the last time around. This time I barely got to interact with her.'
'What did you do to her?' Hermione asked accusingly.
'I blew her up.'
'YOU BLEW HER UP?!! You KILLED her, what were you - '
'I didn't kill her, for Christ's sake, I just blew her up!'
'Please elaborate, you're not convincing me at all,' Hermione said.
'Well, it was my accidental magic, I think, that engorged her from the size of a room to that of a house and she ended up floating fifty feet high in the air for the whole evening.'
For a moment, Harry thought Hermione had gone into a coma of sorts, and the only indication he had to the contrary was the fact that she hadn't yet fallen face first onto the floor.
Harry waved his arms in front of Hermione, but she continued looking at him unflinchingly.
After a moment during which Harry plucked up his courage, he darted forward and planted a quick kiss on her cheek.
That brought Hermione out of her reverie. With one hand touching her cheek in surprise, she finally spoke, 'so were you expelled?'
'Huh?'
'Were you expelled for using magic? It was the second time, wasn't it?'
'Um... yeah and no. I was pardoned by the Minister because they were too worried about my safety 'cause Sirius had escaped some time ago.'
'The Minister himself?!' Hermione said with awe, 'that must - '
'Yeah, that was probably the only useful thing the dumb dork did.'
'Harry, he's the Minister of Magic! You can't - '
'You can't possibly understand the crap he did and the hell he and his lackeys put me through for three years.'
'Oh,' Hermione said sadly, 'I'm being really inconsiderate of this whole time thing, aren't I?'
'No... you're reacting much better than I would have expected anyone else to. Just try to remember that I know some things you don't and not to jump at things because of their face value.'
Hermione nodded in reply.
'So where were we? Oh yeah, Aunt Marge... Can you pass me the telephone, Hermione?'
'Okaayy,' Hermione said uncertainly, sliding the set over the table to Harry.
Harry dialled and waited.
'Hello?' the gruff voice of Uncle Vernon spoke.
'Hi, I'm Auror McNally from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement,' Harry said in a high-pitched voice. 'Is this the current location of a Marjorie Dursley?'
'THE FREAKS! Who is this and what do you want?! Stay away from - '
'I would like to remind you that you have twenty five concealed and highly armed wizards surrounding your property. Let me check my MAGICAL records... you live in Surrey, am I right?'
'Just tell me what you want with my sister and leave me and my family alone,' Vernon snarled, but there was no disguising the fear in his tone as he peeked out behind the curtains to see if he could spot the ''concealed and highly armed wizards''.
'I'd advise you not to look out behind the curtains, Mr. Dursley,' Harry said, guessing that his uncle was doing exactly that. 'We have shoot on sight orders to bring down Marjorie Dursley, who has been acccused of a Class A crime and is already facing lengthy imprisonment.'
'WHAT??!! HOW DARE YOU! Marge is as normal as us and we have nothing to do with your kind and we never will! NOW STOP - '
'Mr. Dursley, if you continue to emit noise in that despicable manner that you are accustomed to, I will have no choice but to fire, and trust me, our weapons are not as unsophisticated and primitive as your missile launchers and panzers.'
'TELL ME WHAT MY SISTER DID, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO LAUNCH ARMS AGAINST A PEACEFUL, NORMAL, MIDDLE-INCOME FAMILY!'
'The crime is as drastic as someone threatening your queen. Marge Dursley has been charged with the serious dislike and disrespect of one of the wizarding world's wealthiest and most prominent citizens, Lord Harry Potter!' Harry said as seriously and solemnly as he could. Hermione hit him hard on the head with her copy of The Elementary Book of Spells, Grade Three.
'DISLIKE AND DISRESPECT?!' Vernon bellowed, before he remembered the freak's threat and lowered his voice. 'So that's a bleeding crime now?! What is he, the future King of England? Or is he the next Pope?!'
'The Vatican doesn't exactly approve of our noble arts, however, we would be honoured if he would one day consent to being our King,' Harry said as modestly as he could. 'Coming back to the point, I have to tell you that we are carefully monitoring the situation and your house will be under constant surveillance for the duration of Miss Marjorie's stay. We have taken the same precautions with her own residence in Ipswich, hasn't she ever mentioned this to you?'
There was a sound of incoherent sputtering on the other side and Harry muttered a quick 'good evening' before he broke out into peals of laughter.
Hermione however, remained stern, although it looked like she was trying to hold back a smile.
'Do you really think your uncle is stupid enough to believe that? He's going to go mental when he finds out the truth.'
'Well, I'm playing on his outrageous fear of anything remotely magical ; I doubt he'll be thinking properly in the first place. Nope, he's going to question Marge and after that he'll be the head of a paranoid and neurotic family for two weeks or however long Marge's staying.'
Hermione just stared at him.
'How many hours of sleep do you reckon they'll get every night? Two? Three?' Harry grinned.
Hermione shook her head disapprovingly. 'That's petty Harry. Very petty.'
'Well, what's over is over. You can't stop these things.'
'Yes, I can, I'm your girlfriend, aren't I?'
'So you get to control what I do?' Harry asked indignantly.
'Yup,' Hermione nodded matter-of-factly.
'That's what I was afraid of,' Harry muttered.
Hermione swatted the back of his head.
They had barely studied for another fifteen minutes, when Hermione dropped the next bombshell.
'Harry, you said V-Voldemort took over the Ministry right, in your seventh year?'
'Um... yeah... what of it?' Harry asked cautiously.
'Didn't he die that Halloween night when you were a baby?'
Harry thought for a long time before he answered.
*
'D-Did you get a letter from Ron yet?' Hermione tried her best to make conversation with Harry during dinner. Her mind was still reeling from everything Harry had told her that evening.
Horcruxes. The word itself gave her goosebumps. And there was a monster out there who had not only spoken the word, but he had created them ; seven times at that.
'Nope, but you know how long he takes to write,' Harry replied.
'Where did they go again?' Jane asked.
'Egypt, to see their oldest son Bill,' Harry replied for Hermione. He had a feeling that he made a mistake telling a fourteen year old about the darkest variety of magic that even fully grown adults had trouble comprehending.
'Hmmm, that'll be a really fascinating tour,' Thomas commented.
'Yeah.'
'Poppet, are you alright?' Jane asked, looking curiously at her daughter who had barely touched anything on her plate.
'I'm fine,' Hermione said softly.
'You've barely eaten,' she pointed out.
'I'm fine, I'm just not too hungry.'
'You wanted pizza in the afternoon but you didn't eat anything then either. Hermione?'
'I -, I'll just go to sleep now, good night!' she managed before she ran out of the room.
Three dumbstruck people watched her go with their mouths wide open, till the youngest one dropped his utensils and got up in a flash.
Hermione's parents looked at him, wordlessly asking him for an explanation but he wasn't about to tell them that Hermione's sudden bout of depressing behaviour was a result of her being associated with him and his morbid tales.
'I'll just go see if she's alright,' was all he offered.
Strangely enough, he received two understanding nods from Hermione's parents and that was all he needed.
Back at the dining table, two adults who were both deep in thought silently finished their dinner and got up to wash the dishes together.
'You do know they're dating, don't you?' Jane remarked casually to her husband.
'What?! They can't be. I think they would've told us something like that,' Thomas said, shaking his head at his wife.
'We'll probably be getting an announcement sometime tomorrow, they'll wait till we're both in a good mood.'
'How does that matter? I doubt that we'll be killing one of them if they break the news to us when we're in a bad mood.'
Jane sighed loudly. 'Have you noticed that Hermione has been having a lot of mood swings in the last two days?'
Thomas nearly dropped a dish in fright. 'W-Why a-are you telling me all that? I - I thought women could - could take care of all that stuff.'
'What are you talking about?' Jane asked.
'I'm talking about, you know - that time of month, you know - '
'Oh, sweet Moses, I wasn't talking about that!!' Jane exclaimed. 'And even if I was, heaven forbid you should have any minor details of your only daughter's life!'
'All right, all right, take it easy, you just surprised me with that.'
'What I was saying was, have you noticed that Hermione's moods have been wildly alternating between great and terrible in the two days that Harry's been here?'
'Kind of.'
*
'Hermione?' Harry cautiously put his hand on Hermione's shoulder.
She wasn't crying or anything, but she certainly looked depressed by Harry's sadistic explanation of death rituals and soul fragments earlier on in the evening.
She didn't reply ; she looked as if she was meditating over something and Harry knew that surprising her by kissing her on the cheek wouldn't help matters much this time.
'Hermione?' he called again.
'Harry, please tell me everything,' was the only thing she said, before she went back to her previous posture.
'Huh? Everything, as - '
'I don't want to know things in bits and pieces anymore. Just tell me your whole life story from the end of your second year till the day you, you d-died. I want to hear it in one sitting and after that we can let go. I'm sorry if I sound so brutally frank, but I need to know what you've been through, I need to know what's happened to you in the last five years. I need to know if we're going to make this relationship work.'
Harry closed his eyes again ; it seemed as if he had been doing that a lot over the past two days in Hermione's presence. He was feeling like an old man at the moment, with all the thinking and brooding.
Finally, he opened his eyes.
In all essence, he had a weary and burdened soul. And he had just made the painful decision of unloading its entire dark and dreary contents into the innocent soul existing beside him.
AN - Much shorter than usual, I know, but I just felt this was the proper place to end it.
So today (Sep 19th) marks the 30th birthday of Hermione Granger, my second most favourite character in the Harry Potter series, (And no, my most favourite isn't Harry...) HB!!
As usual, (please) leave a review on your way out...! :)