The Funeral
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe and all the characters in it belong to J.K. Rowling. This story is a work of imagination and is directed solely at readers of this website. No infringement of any rights is intended and no criticism of J.K. Rowling or her work should be considered to be stated or implied.
Part 3. Pygmy Puff Lament
If Harry had harboured concerns about Ron and Hermione's relationship, he had also often been confused about his own marriage to Ginny. It wasn't that he had any doubts about the fact that he loved his wife. Generally, at least when they were together, they were very happy; their relationship was almost idyllic, in fact. It was only when Harry was away from home for any length of time that he and Ginny started to argue and become annoyed with each other. But it was also during these times apart that Harry had often wondered about how they came to get together in the first place. The suddenness of his attraction to Ginny had always amazed and puzzled him.
Ginny had just been Ron's little sister, as far as Harry was concerned, even though the events of his second year at Hogwarts had convinced Harry that, for some reason, she had developed a slight crush on him. However, after he had rescued her from the Chamber of Secrets towards the end of the school year, she really hadn't entered his thoughts for the next two years. It wasn't because she was unattractive. By the time she had reached 13, Ginny was already developing into a beautiful young witch and Harry remembered how thrilled Neville Longbottom had been to take her to the Yule Ball in fourth year, even though she was in the year below them. Harry had far more important things to occupy his mind during those years and, in any case, all of his romantic attention had been focused on Cho Chang. In his fifth year, Ginny was around much more and became a member of Dumbledore's Army, but he still felt nothing for her. He even remembered being openly hostile to the idea of her accompanying them to the Ministry of Magic, when he took the others on that fool's errand to rescue Sirius. His reaction, as he recalled, had nothing to do with concerns about Ginny's safety but simply resulted from his lack of respect for her magical ability at the time.
By then, Ginny was regularly dating other boys at school, but Harry didn't remember feeling any jealousy when she announced that she was going out with Dean Thomas, a boy in his year, as they returned home on the Hogwarts Express that summer. He had gone to the Burrow at the end of the school holidays, before his sixth year at Hogwarts started, and still there had been nothing. Ginny had been around and he was more conscious of her presence, but that was only because she had started to latch on to the trio whenever she had the opportunity. Then, on the train going to school that year, everything changed and he had suddenly felt the first stirrings of attraction for her. Things escalated rapidly from that point and by the middle of the first term he had become obsessed with thoughts of her. She haunted his dreams and his stomach churned and his chest tightened whenever he saw her.
It had seemed perfectly natural to him at the time and he had just thought that this was what being in love felt like. It was only when he looked back at that period, some years later, that the sudden progression had sometimes seemed slightly odd. He had been completely out of control, he realised, and his thoughts and feelings had been totally different to those that he had experienced for Cho Chang. Yet, he had not found it difficult to contemplate leaving Ginny to go and hunt horcruxes and although he had occasionally thought longingly about her during those dreary months, he suspected that had been more to do with loneliness and the despair brought about by the presence of Regulus' locket. It had also been strange that when he finally saw Ginny again, as she emerged from the portrait in the Room of Requirement, it had been like he was seeing her for the first time and he had immediately been struck by her beauty; something that he had simply not remembered with any clarity.
But, despite these occasional doubts, Harry had been reasonably content in those first few weeks after the capture of McBride. Ron had seemed to be suffering no after effects from his brush with the killing curse, although he was complaining of the occasional headache, and Harry had won fresh laurels for ending McBride's rampage and also uncovering a previously hidden cell of Voldermort sympathisers. Harry had therefore slipped back effortlessly into his daily routine and had no idea of the pitfalls that lay ahead.
It was only some two years later, when Ron's headaches began to become more regular and painful that Harry had any cause for concern. Ron went to see several specialists in the effects of dark magic and Hermione scoured the libraries and bookshops for information. But nobody was able to pinpoint exactly what was wrong and so eventually Ron had been admitted to St. Mungo's for observation. Harry and Ginny had visited him frequently, normally finding Hermione already at his bedside when they arrived. However, due to several incidents of rowdy behaviour, St. Mungo's had recently introduced a strict policy of only two visitors per patient at any one time. For this reason, Hermione, who had never been one to flout the rules, always quickly departed, with hasty goodbyes, when the two of them appeared, so that Harry had little time to talk with her.
And then, three weeks after Ron's hospitalization, Harry had woken up one morning feeling decidedly strange. He had been light headed and dizzy, as he groped for his glasses on the bedside table, and when he stood up, bright flashes of light had pulsed before his eyes. As he had dressed, these symptoms had improved slightly and so, when he had slowly and carefully wandered down the stairs to the kitchen for breakfast, he had almost, but not quite, returned to normal.
Harry and Ginny lived in a large four-bedroom terraced house in one of the most exclusive parts of wizarding London, which was furnished and decorated in a modern manner that was completely at odds with the Burrow and Grimmauld Place. The bedrooms, landing and stairs were thickly carpeted and so, although Harry was still slightly groggy, his heavy footsteps were muffled as he descended into the hallway. The kitchen was a large, bright, welcoming room, positioned towards the back of the house. It had white walls and shiny white cupboards to offset black granite work surfaces and dark grey, ceramic floor tiles. From the interior wall, an island of cupboards effectively divided the room into two similar sized compartments. In the centre of the nearest of these was a large table, with a thick, smoked-glass top, surrounded by six chairs. On the outer wall there was a large window, positioned above a double sink unit, and a glass panelled door that opened out onto a long, narrow garden. Since Lily had finally joined her two brothers at Hogwarts, Harry and Ginny now had the house to themselves for most of the year.
When Harry entered the kitchen, Ginny was already standing before the sink, casually lifting her breakfast dishes from the table, cleaning and drying them, before stacking them back into one of the kitchen wall-cupboards with a flick of her wand. She was deep in thought and didn't acknowledge his presence as he sat down at the table and picked up the folded copy of the Daily Prophet that had been left there for him, flicking it open to the front page. As Ginny moved past him, to go into the lounge, Harry didn't experience his normal urge to grab her around the waist and pull her towards him and he shook his head to clear it, wondering why he was feeling so abnormal. Ginny returned a few moments later, a concerned expression on her face.
"I don't think Elfreida is feeling well today," she informed him, frowning. "She's just lying on her blanket and her breathing seems really shallow."
"Oh, it's probably nothing. Perhaps she didn't sleep too well," Harry replied, glancing over the top of his newspaper. Elfrieda was the name of Ginny's pet Pygmy Puff. Ginnny had purchased her from Fred and George's joke shop, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, at the beginning of her fifth year at Hogwarts. This meant that Elfrieda was now over 20 years old and Harry suspected that her lifespan was probably nearing its end, although he didn't trouble Ginny with this thought.
"Well, I've never seen her like this before," Ginny continued. "How are you feeling, Harry? Are you all right? Some type of negative charm might have been cast in the area without us being notified." She peered at Harry, looking slightly more worried than he thought was warranted by concerns over a sick pet.
"No, I feel fine," Harry lied, not wanting to increase Ginny's anxiety level any further.
To Harry, there seemed to be a stiffness about their exchanges, an almost mechanical quality that was unusual. Ginny seemed to sense it too, but whether it was this or simply her concern for Elfrieda that was troubling her, Harry couldn't be certain. For his own part, it crossed his mind that perhaps some of those particles from the deflected killing curse might have made contact with him that night at the farm and he could be starting to get whatever it was that Ron was suffering from. But he quickly dismissed the idea as highly unlikely and, putting his newspaper back on the table top, he pushed back his chair and went to the cupboard to get some cereal, his usual weekday breakfast.
And that had been the start of it; so simple and ordinary. Harry had continued with his breakfast and then left for the ministry as usual, only giving a still worried Ginny a peck on the cheek as he moved out of the kitchen.
Harry had quickly become immersed in his work when he arrived at the office. He was in the middle of a departmental re-organisation and had to chair a number of meetings with more junior members of staff. As a result, all thoughts of Ginny, Elfrieda and the killing curse were pushed to the back of his mind. But, like the good husband and father that he was, Harry had not been entirely immune to Ginny's distress and so, at lunch time, he had taken the almost unprecedented step of going down to the library in the basement of the ministry building to do some research on Pygmy Puffs.
He had found a detailed entry on Pygmy Puffs in the standard reference work "Magical Creatures Through the Ages" and settled down to read at one of the highly polished, dark-wood tables that lined the centre of the library's main room. He had been surprised to find that Pygmy Puffs had originated fairly recently in Bulgaria as a result of a cross-breading experiment that had gone slightly wrong and were the favourite pet of the Veela. There were several references to unusual magical powers that were as yet not fully understood and few specific details were given. He had also been intrigued to note that Pygmy Puffs had been reclassified about five years ago and were now awarded "controlled" status; a classification generally restricted to creatures that could, under certain circumstances, cause harm to magical folk or Muggles. The reason for this change, however, was not fully explained and it was just described as "precautionary". Their life expectancy was given as 15 to 20 years, and so it already seemed as if Elfreida was well past her prime. Like most magical creatures, Pygmy Puffs had not been noted to suffer from any illnesses or disease, but when they reached the end of their life, rather like the Phoenix, they just seemed to evaporate and disappeared but, in this case, leaving no trace behind.
Harry had been saddened by this news, since it confirmed his suspicions about the likely cause of Elfreida's malaise and he was already trying to think of ways to break it gently to Ginny as he moved towards the library door. He had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he had not noticed Hermione entering until they collided in the doorway.
"Oh, hello Harry," Hermione said, startled. "You're the last person I expected to see down here." She smiled weakly.
"Well, you know how it is. You have to make sure you stay one step ahead of the competition," Harry replied, attempting humour to try to defuse the embarrassment caused by their collision. "No, actually, I was just looking up some information on Pygmy Puffs. Elfreida is a bit under the weather at the moment and you know how much Ginny dotes on that thing," he added hurriedly.
Hermione shook her head knowingly. "I might have guessed that you being here had nothing to do with work." She paused for a moment. "I hope it isn't anything serious," she added awkwardly.
Harry hesitated, perplexed. Hermione seemed different to him today and, for some reason, he felt self conscious in front of her. She looked the same as she always did but Harry could detect a tension between them that he hadn't been aware of before. He could also sense an attraction towards Hermione that he could not remember experiencing since she clung to him in the Forbidden Forest during their first encounter with Grawp in the fifth year at Hogwarts. Harry found that he was studying her closely. The narrow almond-shaped face, framed by waves of soft, light-brown hair, the expressive hazel eyes that missed almost nothing, the delicate lips….
"How's Ron?" Harry asked quickly, to cover his confusion. "I haven't been in to see him for a couple of days, I'm afraid."
"There's really no change," Hermione replied, frowning. "If anything, he seems to be getting worse. He has started hallucinating now. Yesterday, he could see spiders in the room and you know how much he hates that. The nurse had to sedate him in the end."
Hermione's voice became more uncertain as she completed her sentence and Harry realised that the expression on her face had changed completely. The frown had gone and she was now gazing deeply into his eyes, her cheeks reddening slightly.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" she asked tentatively.
Harry wasn't sure what to say; he hadn't been aware of anything; only that he had moved slightly closer toward her, so that they were now almost touching.
"I wasn't. I didn't mean…" Harry tried to organise his thoughts, but the light-headed, giddy feeling had returned and he could sense beads of perspiration breaking out on his forehead.
Hermione was looking intently up at him, waiting for him to continue. But she was so close and as he gazed at her, his eyes were drawn irresistibly towards her lips; glistening and slightly parted in expectation. The scent of her seemed to overwhelm him, and he felt himself swaying involuntarily forward. Then suddenly he was kissing her. He felt the cool softness of her lips and tasted the sweetness of her breath and it was the most wonderful feeling that he could remember since that first kiss with Ginny, all of those years ago. And, just for a moment, he felt her responding and kissing him back; but then her hands were pressing against his chest, pushing him away and she took a small step backwards, looking flustered and breathing heavily, her gaze drifting downward to the floor, avoiding his eyes.
"Oh… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Hermione. I don't know what came over me," Harry gabbled, feeling dazed, as if he was watching the scene unfolding from the outside.
"It's alright," Hermione muttered, still not looking at him. "We shouldn't really….Look, I'd…I'd better go," she stammered, turning quickly away and pushing the door open in one movement, before rushing out into the corridor. Harry stood transfixed, staring at the door as it swung shut and trying to understand what had just happened.
He returned to his office, feeling embarrassed and ashamed. Harry found it almost impossible to concentrate on his work and spent long periods staring out of his window over the rooftops of Muggle London, deep in thought. What if Hermione told Ron and then Ginny and the rest of the Weasleys found out about what he had just done? What then? But Harry realised with surprise that a part of him didn't really care and just wanted to dwell on the look and feel of Hermione, desperate to repeat the experience. Why did he feel like that and why had he kissed her in the first place? It was if he had just given in to some type of primitive instinct rather than acting in any rationale, acceptable manner. Again, he wondered about the effects of the killing curse. There had to be something that could explain the odd way that he had been feeling and behaving all of that day.
By four o'clock Harry gave up on the idea of getting any more work done and he left the ministry early, wanting to put the day's events behind him and to be alone with Ginny. But when he got home, he found Ginny, sitting in one of the armchairs in the living room, sobbing, a white tissue clasped firmly in her hands. Elfrieda had disappeared.