The Catalyst
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Chapter One: Shadowed Horizon
Scattered shoppers from all points of sunlit Diagon Alley turned to look at the source of the hearty laughter ringing from one of the tables on the flagstones outside of Florean Fortescue's. Many stores had been refurbished since the end of the War, and, even five years later, the striped canopies, the gleaming storefronts, the bright windows still held a charming, cheerful newness. There had been a period of caution, even wariness, but Wizarding society had surged back, as if in defiance of the fear and oppression so recently vanquished, and this better-than-ever Alley was only the most visible part of the result.
Even more gratifying was that the laughter emanated from the Boy Who Lived himself: head thrown back, mouth open, eyes shut. He leaned weakly against the back of the chair, as he subsided, wiping tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes, amid the snickers and snorts from the companions at the table with him. His hand was intertwined with that of a very pretty girl, whose face, crimson with mortification, clashed with her vivid hair. Chagrined, she lowered her forehead to the curled fingers of her free hand, and shook her head. A ginger-haired young man, obviously related to the girl, leaned over to make another remark that threatened to set Harry off again. The girl snatched her hand out of his, in mock anger, but his eyes softened as he took her hand back, murmured something nobody else could catch, and brushed a kiss across her knuckles.
Harry knew that they likely had the eyes of many passers-by, and as much as he normally loathed the lavish attention, he couldn't make himself care much today. The day itself was beautiful, he was in company with his best and closest friends in all the world, he had a good job he enjoyed working as a flight engineer for prototype brooms, Voldemort was dead, the Death Eaters were all but defunct, and the lovely girl beside him was in love with him. And he was eating caramel ice cream. His mood was easily broadcasting itself to all who saw him.
"Easy there, Harry!" Ron told him good-naturedly, noisily slurping the dregs of his milkshake through his straw. "You look like you might just take flight right now, even without that new Proton-whatsit broom."
"It's a Photon A-220," Harry corrected him, even though he knew Ron knew exactly what the new broom was called. "And I don't believe I'll do any sort of flying right now, broomless or otherwise, if it meant leaving this one behind." He brought Ginny's hand up to his lips again.
There were harmonized groans from the other two at the table.
"Harry, don't make me regret this lovely ice cream I've just had." Ron pretended to shudder in horror.
"At least he tries!" Hermione spoke up, but the sparkle in her brown eyes belied her miffed tone. Ron mimed taking a hex to the heart.
"If I kissed your hand, I might bloody my lip on that rock I just bought you," he pointed out. Hermione exchanged a glance of fond amusement with Harry. Ron was inordinately proud of the engagement ring he'd presented to Hermione, only one week earlier. She couldn't help but be touched by how hard he'd worked to afford such a luxury item on the piddling salary offered him by the Auror Corps. At the same time though, she and Harry joked that they were going to start a drinking game: a shot every time Ron mentioned the ring.
She thumbed the solitaire lightly, twirling it on her finger, watching the sunlight splinter into a thousand facets as it collided with the stone.
"I'm surprised she can perform any sort of procedure at all," Harry put in, breaking into her reverie, with a cheery wink. "Can you even lift it on rounds? A Healer with a game hand isn't much good, is she?"
"Resident Healer," Ron put in, and Hermione threw him an arch look.
"Oh, such accuracy from the Auror Trainee."
"Believe me, I'm well aware of your status. Especially since you said you wouldn't marry me until after you completed that bloody residency."
"Ron, what on earth is the rush? I just turned twenty-three. It makes perfect sense to wait until we've both finished our training courses, and are working full-time."
"Until we've both finished? Now you're adding conditions! It's another year and a half until I'm done. Tell me the truth - you don't really want to marry me, do you?"
Hermione rolled her eyes, and dropped her spoon into her empty saucer with a clink.
"Ron, don't be ridiculous."
"Well, there's a ringing endorsement!"
"Tell me how in the world wanting to wait and marry you at the right time translates to not wanting to marry you at all?!"
Harry and Ginny exchanged long-suffering glances. While many things had changed since the end of the War, some things had not, and Ron and Hermione's rows were one of them. He had trouble understanding why Ron insisted on winding her up, or why Hermione let Ron do it for that matter, but he had come to assume that it was some kind of bizarre courtship ritual. He had lost count of the number of times he'd thought to himself, Don't say it, Ron, don't say it, just shut up and … But Ron invariably said the thing he shouldn't have said, being completely unaware of Harry's mental advice on the matter.
"Shouldn't most girls be so head over heels with their blokes that they can't wait to marry them and set up house?" Harry reflected that he was occasionally in awe of Ron's Seeker-like ability to say exactly the phrase that would irritate his best friend the most. Hermione's cringe was visible and obvious in reaction to the words "set up house". She fixated Ron with the most withering glare in her considerable arsenal.
"We could just leave," Ginny muttered out of the side of her mouth. Harry shook his head in response.
"Nah, it's going to be over soon. Watch. Hermione's going to get up."
"When have I ever been `most girls', Ronald Weasley? If you want `most girls', there's always Lavender Brown."
Wisely enough at that moment, Ron chose not to respond to that particular barb. "Of course, I'm glad you're not `most girls', Hermione, but a bloke'd like to be appreciated every once in a while, and you - "
"I told you `yes'! I accepted your ring! I love you, Ronald Weasley. Why isn't that enough for you?" Hermione's voice had risen to a sort of hissed screech, if there was such a thing, and she grabbed her satchel with a huff, and stood to her feet.
"Where are you going?" Ron protested.
"I don't want to be late for afternoon shift." Her answer was laced with venom, as though he had called her a rude name instead of asked her a question.
"I'll walk you out," Harry offered casually, standing up and arching his back to stretch it. "I've got to drop a set of schematics off for Gareth, before I go back out to Clampshaven."
"More testing?" Ginny asked.
"They want to roll out the new line before Christmas," he replied, and stooped to brush her mouth with a kiss. "See you tonight?"
"Sure," she nodded. "Bye, Hermione."
"Later, Gin," Hermione replied, amiably enough, although her voice still held traces of her annoyance with her fiance. They had proceeded about half the distance back toward the Leaky Cauldron, before Hermione sighed, "I'm sorry."
Harry shook his head, dashing his bangs out of his eyes, and dismissed the apology. "You didn't do anything."
"We're always rowing in front of you. I'm sure it gets old."
He lifted one shoulder noncommittally. "Reckon I'm used to it by now."
"I'm not," she said, in such a low voice that Harry barely heard her.
"What?"
"I - I don't like fighting with him all the time. I mean, I'd - I'd like it, if he weren't my fiance. Sometimes it's fun watching him get all red-faced and apoplectic, but… " She tossed her hair, searching for the right words. "He needs so much … propping up, so much constant reassurance. It comes off feeling like he thinks I'm a pathological liar, and doesn't believe a word I say."
"Ron's always been a little - " Harry began his automatic that's-just-Ron defense, but she cut him off.
"Do you think I'm settling?"
Her sudden question made Harry misstep, and he staggered over a couple of cobblestones before he could be entirely sure that he wasn't going to fall down. He thought he heard someone snicker from the doorway of an adjacent shop.
"Wh - what?"
"Settling for Ron? You know, because he's there and he asked me? It's so convenient too - you and Ginny, me and Ron." She saw Harry's startled and panicked expression, and read it immediately. "Harry, I love Ron. You know I do." She leaned toward him to knock his elbow with hers. "The good times are really, really good. But the bad times are kind of… tiresome."
Harry wasn't sure what to say to that. Hermione looked up into his flummoxed eyes, and laughed.
"Oh, don't look so nauseated, Harry. I'm not asking you to take sides, or even telling you there's an irreparable problem. I just needed to … vent a little."
The relief that flooded her best friend's features really was comical, she reflected. He pulled her to his side in a comradely, one-armed hug, as they arrived at the brick entrance to the Cauldron.
"You know I'll be your sounding board anytime, Hermione." He kissed her cheek, and then patted his pockets, checking for the shrunken blueprints. "Talk to you later." He winked at her, and then Apparated away.
Hermione was there for just a moment longer, tucking her wand in her pocket, and thumbing her satchel more securely onto her shoulder. She concentrated on the employee's entrance at St. Mungo's, and with a small crack, reappeared in a lounge-like area with several banks of lockers on one side. Another door led to some sleeping quarters for healers on-call or working extra shifts due to emergency. It was very quiet, and Hermione was thankful yet again for the charms that kept the bustle of the hospital out of this small haven.
She lifted the strap of her satchel over her head, and walked over to her locker, a small one in the darkest corner, due to her relatively low status in the St. Mungo's pecking order.
"Ms. Granger?" Her neck jerked her head to the side, her chin up and eyes wide with surprise, but not alarm. One hand twitched reflexively toward her wand, a wariness in her stance that no amount of time could ever fully erase. An Auror stood there, still in his work robes, two file folders under one arm. He was her senior by perhaps ten years, and had a craggy, determined face that recalled stolid trustworthiness.
"Yes?"
"I'm Auror Guinnein Dunwiddie, and I - " He seemed almost at a loss as to what to say next, and he started to heedlessly crease the folders in his hands.
"Is something wrong?" Now alarm did flare up in her eyes. Ron? Harry? She'd just left them. Her parents? Maybe they'd been looking for her while she'd been whiling away the time with her friends.
"No, well - that is, there's something we need to discuss. It is of paramount importance." He looked awkwardly apologetic, and Hermione couldn't fathom why. "Will you please come with me?"
TBC
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