Chapter Twenty-Two
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Hermione was lying on her side staring into the fire in the middle of the tent. It was late, probably around three o'clock if she would guess. The camp was silent now, the feast had stopped. She could hear someone walking by once in a while, probably going to the loo.
The fire felt hot on her face and she closed her eyes for just a moment. She should be asleep, what she and Harry had done had exhausted her but she couldn't fall asleep. All the "what if's" and "could haves" playing in her mind.
She startled when she felt Harry kiss her shoulder and then drape his arm over her waist pulling her close to him. She felt that he was still warm and sweaty.
"Why aren't you sleeping?" he whispered in her ear.
"Why aren't you?" she answered and smiled. She couldn't see him but she could just imagine his flustered face.
Harry shoved the thin blanket of her and it was now laying carelessly over her hip, exposing half her bottom to him. He jumped back a bit from her, breaking contact and gently traced her spine with his index finger.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked.
"The war," she answered.
"Anything in specific?" he asked and when he reached her lower back he caressed it with the whole of his outer hand.
She thought for a moment before she decided to answer truthfully.
"I was thinking about who I would want to meet in battle if I could choose." Harry's hand stopped for a moment. "Who would you meet?" Hermione asked before he could ask her anything.
"I would want to meet Voldemort," Harry answered.
"Yeah, the root of all evil. But don't have you someone in specific you want to meet because of… something?" she said and her voice sounded odd.
"Yes, him." Harry started tracing her spine again. "He killed my parents, in person."
Hermione rolled over on her back and looked into his eyes.
"I didn't know," she sounded apologetically.
"It's fine," he assured her and now started tracing circles around her bellybutton.
"I'm sorry Har-"
"What about you?" he wanted to change the subject. "You must have had someone specific in
mind."
She looked into his face, it looked very soft in the firelight. She reached up and softly caressed his face, he looked more pink than red.
"I don't, that was just the thing. I have no one I would want to meet more than any other. I want all of them to meet their justice," she clenched her jaw and Harry studied her face. Just in that moment she looked very harsh and he didn't recognize her.
"No one stands out?" he asked.
"Sure," she agreed. "Antoin Dolohov is one. He came to my school the first week we started. I had just lost my parents and I had just found I was a witch, obviously I was rather in a daze…" she got quiet as she thought back. "It brought me back to reality though, my new reality."
He hesitated, not sure she wanted to talk about it. She had turned her face and was looking into the fire again. He placed his whole palm on her stomach and caressed her skin lovingly. She took a deep breath and the carried on.
"He took twenty-two children into the dungeon of our school and beat us, he told us what we were… in his eyes. He told us what we would be in our lives. One boy didn't make it back up from the dungeon…"
She turned and met Harry's eyes, she didn't look sad just angry. "He beat him to death in front of all of us. We were eleven!" Her whole body tensed.
"Why?" Harry whispered.
"To teach us a lesson. I will never forget when we were allowed to leave the dungeon, Professor McGonagall was waiting for us to take us to the sleeping hall. She had tears running down her face…"
Harry pulled her to him and hugged her tight but she didn't hug him back. She seemed harder after telling the story.
"There are so many of them who have to pay," he whispered in her ear and she closed her eyes defiantly. She didn't want to get upset by the story, she had decided long ago that enough tears had been shed over the past.
"Do you want some wine?" he asked and leaned forward for the glass just next to the mattress. She nodded gratefully and took a large sip, she didn't want to talk about her school days anymore.
"So you had a crush on Cho Chang huh?" she asked and smiled while she took her second large sip. She laid back down on her back and Harry started caressing her bare skin again.
"Please, I was like fourteen or something," he grinned and Hermione laughed at him. "What?" he demanded.
"You're blushing!" she giggled and took another sip of wine. She loved this about him, how he could make her feel so much at one time, and then he could make her forget all the troubles in the world in the next second.
"I am not blushing!" he grinned back. "Well nothing ever happened between us, she was in love with someone else at the time, I guess it was Cedric, and then… well I got interested in someone else."
Hermione met his eye, he sounded serious as he said it. She gave him a curious look.
"And when did you and Cedric get together?" he asked and was obviously trying to change the subject.
"Oh stop it, just tell me," she laughed.
Harry gathered himself and scratched the back of his head. He seemed unsure of what to say. Hermione doubted if she wanted to know for just a moment, why did he doubt telling her the truth? How bad could it be?
"It wasn't Bellatrix was it?" she smiled.
"It was Ron's little sister," he answered and she got more serious. She hadn't expected that. She raised herself on her elbows uncertain what to say for just a moment. She didn't know who Ron's sister was, she just knew that Cedric had said that she was very pretty, had bright red hair and that many boys at Hogwarts had fancied her. Her mind wandered over the fact that Harry had known her for years and years, and that she must have known Harry so well. It made Hermione feel left out and more jealous than she had ever felt before.
"Ginny right?" she tried to sound as casual as she could.
"Yeah." He peered down at her, trying to read her face but she seemed just interested.
"So what did Ron think about you hooking up wit his sister?" she pushed his bangs away with the back of her hand.
"Hook up?" he stuttered and laughed awkwardly "No no no, nowhere close. No I fancied her for, well awhile, but she never saw me that way."
"Why not?" Hermione had a hard time believing it. She was not blind to how girls and women looked at Harry.
He was a very handsome man, and she still remembered how Darina drawled over him.
"I'm not her type, in fact I believe she fancied Cedric for a while when he won the TriWizard tournament," Harry thought aloud. "But no, nothing ever came close to happening between us. I never told Ron that I fancied her, never needed to. It kind of died out after school."
She nodded and looked back into the fire. Now she was curious about this Ginny, not that she was jealous. But of course she wanted to know who had kept Harry's interest for so long.
"And you and Cedric?" Harry asked trying to look casual but she could read the anxiousness on his face. She
smiled and looked down at his hand. It had been making soft circles over her skin but now he was looping his finger
around and around her left rib so intensely that she thought it might break her skin.
She reached out and handed him the glass of wine she had just drunk from. It was almost empty; he peered into it and then with some effort pushed his way out of the bed and walked over to one of the full bottles standing by the door. Hermione looked at his naked form and got a bit pink around the cheeks.
"We don't have to talk about that," she suggested. Harry walked back over to the mattress but he didn't lay behind her as he had. Instead he laid down next to her, propping head in his hand, on his elbow and looked into her eyes.
"I want to know everything about you," he answered. "And I want to know about you and Cedric."
She agreed with a nod and took a sip from his glass.
"How many details do you want?" she asked and when Harry opened his eyes widely she laughed out loud. "I just mean how far back should I go?" He shrugged uncertainly and she smiled widely. "You are so cute," she assured him before she started telling the story. Before she did, she draped her leg over his waist and propped her head up on her elbow just as Harry had.
"Cedric came to my school with his father once on an errand and we just saw each other in the hallway. I had no idea who he was, or that we would ever meet again. But I guess he remembered me because when we met-"
"When was that?"
"I guess he was just about to leave Hogwarts."
Harry's mind overflowed for just a moment.
"What, wait!" he demanded and sat up. So Cedric had known Hermione when he was still in school? That meant that when Harry still saw Cedric in the corridors of Hogwarts, Cedric already knew her?
"Well you knew about the camp, the mudbloods, the Order and the upcoming rebellion didn't you?" Hermione asked as if she had heard his thoughts.
"Sure."
"And you had met some of them?" she added.
"Yeah."
"Well Cedric and I met, but we were just friends. Look, details aren't necessary but after a while we became… and item. And we remained so for a couple of years."
Harry was still sitting and he realized that he missed her skin as he looked down at her. She must have felt exposed, emotionally or physically because something made her reach for the blanket and cover herself.
"And what happened?" Harry asked, his voice sounding hoarse. He noted how uncomfortable she looked and she hesitated. She wanted him to drop it, he could see it. He should have, had he been a bigger and better person. But if he didn't ask now he would regret it always. She looked at him once before she answered.
"Life happened." He didn't answer he just kept looking at her, she looked very sad. "Cedric lived in the real world, I kept going back and forth as a spy… he couldn't take it anymore. He wanted to live in the camp permanently, like Sirius. He wanted us to get married…" she trailed off and Harry didn't push her anymore. "I wasn't ready for that. He was my best friend but… time…" she stopped speaking. He guessed that she had never told anyone about it.
"When did he meet Cho?"
"About a year after we ended it."
"Were you upset?" he looked at her trying to read any signs of jealousy on her. He still didn't know her well enough to know her thoughts; he wished he'd known her better.
"I was happy for him," she answered and he knew she was honest.
They were quiet for a while. Harry finally scooted back down in the bed behind her; he put his arm around her and kissed her shoulder.
"I am sorry I have so many questions," he said.
She caressed his arm, draped over her.
"I am sorry I don't have better stories to tell you," she whispered and they were quiet again. Hermione looked into the fire; it was burning just as brightly. It looked exactly the same, but even though it hadn't had time to change, so many things had in this little tent. The mood had dropped notably.
"It is too bad you don't know George or Fred, I could tell you some stories about those two… they would crack you up," Harry said and she relaxed slightly.
"Well I have seen them through the window, but I don't know who's who," she admitted.
"Who does," he snickered into her ear and she loved the sound of laughter on his breath. She pulled his arm even tighter around her and shut her eyes shut tightly.
"I wish you didn't have to go," she whispered. He kissed her hair softly but didn't answer.
"I have another question for you," he spoke after a minute or so.
"What now?" she joked.
"Tell me about summers at Hogwarts. I loved Hogwarts because I loved Dumbledore and the freedom Gryffindor tower gave. But imagining people there, learning illegally during the summers... it is so exciting!" he admitted and she smiled even though he couldn't see it.
"Well…" she started and wondered where she should begin. "It wasn't for all muggleborns. Many muggleborns were forced to be educated at Improbus, most actually. When you are muggleborn you are taken by Death Eaters, they bring your parents too, and then you get told what you are. A slave… school is mandatory just so you won't reveal yourself to a muggle. Then you are pretty much expected to return to that world, or be - as I am - a slave to magic society."
"It's horrific," Harry swore.
Hermione flipped around again and stared him sternly in the face.
"Why is it more appalling than what the elves go through? Why should it matter more?"
"I-I don't know…" he stuttered shocked by the anger in her voice.
"I am treated exactly as an elf, they are wonderful warm creatures ad they are slaves just like m-"
Harry held up a hand to top her, she seemed to get carried away.
"Whoa Hermione, I never said anything about elves. Let's set everyone free, that's what I say." She
quieted and seemed a bit shameful.
"Sorry, I get carried away."
He reached behind her and caressed her back, trailing down to her lower back.
"No, you are just passionate. It's wonderful," he reached down and grabbed her bottom. She squealed and laughed.
"Honestly?" she asked and he wondered if she meant his hand on her bottom or his statement about her personality.
"Yes," he said huskily and leaned down and kissed her. She tasted salt, heat and she tasted like an open fire. He groaned when she gently pushed him away, he leaned back and looked into her eyes, which looked in the dark firelight looked black.
"I am terrified about you going to war," she admitted. He hesitated for an instant before he truthfully answered:
"I am terrified about leaving you…"
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Not too much happened in this chapter, but we need a few chapters like that as well. The story would not be online without Anna, so as always - a huge thanks to her!
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