A/N: Unfortunately, I've yet to figure out how to re-upload chapters without completely deleting the story. So, here it is: Chapter Eighteen. You will meet Jack, however not quite as thoroughly as you might think… enjoy!
Chapter Eighteen
"I still think it was rather rude of Jack," Yasmine said to Katy, as they flew back and forth on the tire swing. Katy shrugged, using one hand to scratch her nose.
"Maybe he's just not ready for it," she suggested reasonably.
"I think he was just trying to be rude." Yasmine said as the swing twirled around. "He's like that."
"Or you think he is." Katy said, peering at her around the rope, "It was good of him, to take all of us on his turn. And wasn't it lovely for them to take us to the park?"
"Just like you," Yasmine said, "to think the best of him."
The swing slowed, and they jumped off it together, landing in the mulch that covered the playground.
"I don't see why I shouldn't see the best in people," Katy said, sounding puzzled, "wouldn't you like to have that thought of you?"
"Well, when it's not true, there's no use pretending," Yasmine said, suddenly struck by the strangeness of the statement. She loved playing pretend, though she didn't say so now. At eight, Jack had already scorned the game as "kid stuff". She couldn't let on now, though she often did it by herself.
"But suppose it is?" Katy persisted, as Yasmine mounted the steps of a large red slide, "Suppose he really did want us to have a good time?"
"Well, it isn't. What do you suppose they think of him?" Yasmine looked over at Harry and Hermione, who were pushing Jackie and Adrian on the swings, "Sitting like that on the bench. You'd think someone had died!"
` "But it's not just him," Katy pointed out, as Yasmine pushed off and skated quickly down the slide. "Ben's with him!"
"All the same," Yasmine said, "he should at least act like he's having a good time."
"But you said there was no use pretending," Katy pointed out. "And I really don't think Harry and Hermione mind."
Yasmine couldn't think of anything to say to that. So instead, she persuaded Katy to go down the slide with her, and after one or two good rides, the subject was dropped.
"Do you suppose they look like the adventure sort?" Yasmine said after a while, climbing the play set and beginning the monkey bars. "Or more the romantic sort?"
"Well," Katy said thoughtfully, "I'm not sure."
She studied the two grown-ups. Harry had just given Jackie a good strong push, sending her flying into the air. Hermione laughed and seemed to caution him.
"They really don't seem very adventuresome to me," she said presently, sitting on the steps of the playground and watching Yasmine drop from the monkey bars. "But I suppose they could. They seem like the rescuing sort of people."
"Yes, I suppose," Yasmine agreed after a bit. "Like the knights in that Muggle book. The one with Arthur and the Round Table."
She paused, looking dreamy.
Katy swung her feet back and forth. She was used to this sort of thing by now. She wasn't very good at it, but Yasmine didn't seem to mind. She simply couldn't understand why anyone would want to imagine a person (besides themselves) as someone else.
"But they really do seem the romantic sort," Yasmine said presently, clambering back up the steps and beginning the monkey bars again, "don't you think?"
Katy shrugged.
"I don't know."
"Well, I think they do," Yasmine said decisively, "I think Harry would make the perfect outlaw, and Hermione could be… I don't know. Who do outlaws normally fall in love with?"
Katy shrugged, but Yasmine didn't seem to notice.
"A duchess," Yasmine decided after a moment of debate, "or… the daughter of some famous lord-no, the sheriff! Yes, that's it, the sheriff's daughter. And then-"
"But Harry and Hermione aren't…" Katy said, but Yasmine was charging ahead.
"And then, Hermione went out for a ride-you know, like they do in stories, horseback and all that-and one of Harry's band found her and captured her! And then…"
"Yasmine, I don't think-" Katy began, but gave up. Yasmine's imagination had run away with her, and at that point there was no use trying to keep up with it.
Katy hopped off the playground.
"Come on, Yaz, let's go talk to Jack," she said loudly, over Yasmine's excited storytelling. As expected, Yasmine ignored her. When this happened, Katy always decided that her end of the conversation was finished.
Katy wandered over to the park bench. Ben had gotten up and left Jack sitting on the bench alone.
"Hullo, Katy," said Jack unenthusiastically. Katy perched on the bench beside him.
"It was really nice of you to let us come on your turn," she ventured. Jack laughed rather flatly.
"Well, I wasn't going to come alone."
Katy looked down at the sidewalk.
"It's all or none of us, you know that," Jack said, "I know you do. Yasmine doesn't care, and Jackie's too small to understand. And I think Dusty understands, too."
Katy said nothing.
But Jack didn't seem to notice.
"Yasmine said I should be grateful," he said scornfully, "Well, I'm not. They're trying to break us up. Probably going to pick one or two of us and try to adopt just those two."
Katy stiffened.
Jack noticed it this time. "I know. If they pick anyone, I'll bet it's you and Jackie. Jackie, because she's the smallest, and you, because you're quiet and obedient and everything else. Remember that one boy, Samuel? I don't think that he really had any relatives, but someone came and claimed him because he was the little one."
He scuffed his shoe against the sidewalk.
"Me and Yasmine are too loud and old, probably," he muttered, "And Dusty; most people think he's strange. You remember right after the war was finished? When they brought us back to St. Mungo's? Everyone was coming to our ward then, just looking for their relatives. I saw the way they looked at me and Dusty and Yasmine. They looked right through us. You're pretty, and quiet, so people don't mind you."
He shrugged.
"And Jackie had gone to bed already, but I bet if they had seen her, they would have picked her right away."
He scowled.
"I don't see why Yaz wants a family," he muttered, "when all those families passed her up."
Katy didn't say a thing. Jack saw her face, and grinned.
"You and I know better. Dusty, too. We'll talk Yaz around, don't worry."
Katy doubted this very much, but she managed a weak smile. Jack, looking heartened at her response, jumped up.
"Come on, Katy-girl!" he said, using an old nickname, "Let's race to that big tree over there!"
Momentarily forgetting the conversation, Katy darted forward and dashed toward the tree.
"Well, it seems he's finally perked up a bit," Hermione said with relief, watching Jack and Katy run. "Katy's good with the others, isn't she?"
"Yeah, she is," Harry, said, helping Jackie out of the swing. "But I wonder what Yaz is doing over there?"
Hermione noticed Yasmine sitting by herself on the playground.
"You'd best go talk to her, Harry," she said, "See what's bothering her. I'll watch Jackie and the others."
Obediently, Harry went and sat by Yasmine on the plastic steps. Yasmine looked up, words dying on her lips.
"Hello," she said, feeling embarrassed. Harry smiled.
"Hi," he said, "what are you up to?"
"Oh, nothing," Yasmine said, and when Harry merely nodded, she added, "just thinking."
He nodded.
"Hermione does that, too. A lot," he said, shifting and looking at her. "Are you having a good time here?"
"Oh, yes." Yasmine said sincerely, "It's fun. I've never visited a Muggle playground before."
"Magic ones never really compare," Harry said, watching Hermione spin Adrian, Ben, and Dusty on the carousel, with Jackie in one arm, "bit too noisy and too flashy."
Yasmine thought back to the few times Healer Smitt had taken them to the hospital's playground. Everything seemed to light up, spin, transfigure when touched, or even levitate.
"You're right," she agreed, "the hospital has one. We never had much fun on it."
"There was one by the house I lived at, when I was your age. Almost like this one, really, with the four swing sets and slides at each corner, and then the play set. I used to hide in the tube slide-like that one-when my cousin was chasing me."
Yasmine tried to imagine a Harry her own age, hiding in the tube slide, and was surprised to realize that it wasn't all that hard.
"How old are you?"
Harry grinned. "Eighteen."
"And Hermione, how old is she?"
"She's eighteen, too," he said, glancing at Hermione and smiling. Yasmine carefully memorized the soft way he looked at her. It would help to imagine things with him later.
"You're not that old," she found herself saying. He shrugged.
"We both grew up quickly," he said, "I had to."
"Why?" Yasmine said, curiously.
"Well, I reckon you know," Harry said, with a rueful smile, "My parents died when I was about one."
"Oh, that's right," Yasmine glanced instinctively up at his scar, nearly hidden behind his hair, "That's awful."
He was silent for a moment, and then sighed.
"I don't remember them," he said, after a pause, "I do have a few pictures, of course. I used to wonder why I had to lose my family before I could remember them, and why Ron had such a big family. But…"
Yasmine looked at him.
"But…" she prompted in a whisper. She felt as though he were letting her in on a great secret. Harry smiled quietly.
"I realized that family doesn't have much to do with who your parents were. And I had friends, too… good ones. And I couldn't take those for granted, even if I wanted to know my parents."
"Hermione," Yasmine whispered. Harry looked at Hermione and smiled broadly.
"Yeah. I had Hermione."
He put an arm around her.
"Look, Yaz, I may not know a lot about how it was to live at St. Mungo's, but I know what it's like to feel lonely. And Hermione does too."
"She does?" Yasmine stared at him in disbelief. "Hermione?"
"She was a right little know-it-all in school," he said with a laugh, "extremely annoying, as it was, so not many people liked her. She and Ron hated each other."
Yasmine shook her head, hardly able to imagine the three hating each other. And it wasn't often that her imagination failed.
"She really didn't have anyone at Hogwarts," he continued, "Except the teachers."
"Then what made things change?" she asked, swinging her feet and staring at the mulch.
"My first Halloween," Harry said, "Someone let a troll into Hogwarts. Things went mad; prefects leading everyone else back to their Houses and all that. Earlier that day, though, Ron had been rather mean to Hermione, and she'd gone off crying. Reckon that she had finally had enough. And she stayed in the bathroom crying half the day."
Yasmine gaped at him.
"Really?"
He nodded.
"Then what happened?"
"Well, she didn't come out for dinner. So she wasn't there when people started heading for the houses. But then, as we were, I realized that Hermione was still in the bathroom. So I made Ron come with me, and we found the troll. It was in the girls' bathroom, and the key was in the lock, and we locked it in."
Yasmine stared at him.
"You locked it in with her?"
Harry looked embarrassed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, we didn't realize it was the girls' bathroom … didn't think. She screamed as we were running away, and so we came dashing back, and we managed to knock it out. Then the teachers all came running, and she… erm… well, she got us out of trouble by accepting the blame herself." He grinned fondly, "You can't really go through something like that together and not become friends."
"You saved her," Yasmine said, feeling awe and respect come over her, "as if she were a damsel in distress, and you came back and…"
"Well," he said, looking embarrassed, "it wasn't that glorious or anything. Quite nasty, actually. Trolls have a terrible smell. Besides, she's saved my life more than once. I owe her a lot."
Yasmine looked at Hermione, who was tickling Jackie in the grass, and felt a new respect come over her. "She saved your life?"
"Several times. And other peoples' lives, too. She's brilliant like that."
He paused.
"Looks like Hermione's gotten lunch out. We'd better hurry, or Adrian will scoff all of the ham sandwiches before we get there." He winked, and she laughed.
"Race you there!" she said, even though she knew she would lose, and before he could respond, she had dashed ahead, ignoring his complaints.
"Hey, you got a head start!"
"So that proves," Yasmine finished relating the conversation to Katy after lunch, as they climbed the tree, "that they really are adventuresome, and that they love each other, too."
"I wonder," Katy said thoughtfully, "if they know they do. Love each other, I mean. They've never said it to each other when I was there."
"They probably have when they're alone," Yasmine said confidently, "he's probably given her a kiss once or twice, too. That sort of thing."
"I don't know," Katy said. "She always seems quite flustered when someone says something of that sort about she and Harry."
"So?"
"So maybe she loves him, but she doesn't realize."
Yasmine scoffed.
"Who falls in love with someone and doesn't know it?"
"It was just an idea," Katy said meekly, hugging the tree trunk to keep her balance.
"It doesn't make sense," Yasmine said firmly, "Perhaps they just don't want people to know yet. Maybe Hermione's parents would be upset."
"I don't know why. Harry's a very good person." Katy said, "Maybe we shouldn't talk about it. It's really not our business."
Yasmine fell silent after that.
"I think it's interesting, all the same," she said, as Katy settled on one of the thicker branches. "But we'll figure it out, soon enough."
"I think we should let them figure it out first," Katy said. "It's only fair."
"Fine," Yasmine said, sitting next to her, "I won't talk about it anymore, if it bothers you that much."
But she couldn't help but think about it, all the same.
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