Chapter Twenty-Six: Perspectives
Anger. It was so much easier to be angry with him. Angry at his boyish temper. Angry at him for running off like some foolish child, disappearing without word or trace. Angry at him for not responding to her letters. But now her anger had been stolen from her like all else, and she was left once again with only her guilt.
"Arrested... prisoner... tortured..." McGonagall's hellish tale of the fate of Harry after Australia screeched like the harsh wails of a banshee in her ears. She could not feel any lower. Harry had not abandoned her. He had been taken from her. It had been she and she alone that had rejected him, abandoned him, and she could not find a way to forgive herself for it.
She plopped down on her lonely bed, staring back at her packed trunk. Her room felt like some distant past of herself, she matured out of it. But here she was, and the summer was over. She was going back to Hogwarts, today, still a student, still a child. It all felt so surreal.
It had been over a year, fourteen months precisely since she had left Hogwarts last as a pupil. It had been just after Dumbledore's funeral, just before they would leave on their quest for the Horcrux's. A long, arduous journey - a wide arching circle filled with harrowing tales that would lead her back here today. Where had the time gone? It felt as if that day were only yesterday.
Nothing in her life, not even within those bleakest hours, in the midst of the war, with the weighted locket about her neck did she feel so helpless and without control. The world was spinning on without her and she could not keep up.
Those guilty of crimes had met a swift and harsh judgment in the days and weeks following the final battle. Shacklebolt and the Ministry were as eager as the rest to put it all behind them, and now it was almost as if the whole thing had never happened. Thoughts of war and hiding and running and dying were all forgotten, pushed out of mind and out of sight for a more amiable future. The three who had been at the heart of it all seemed to be the only ones unable to forget and forgive and move on with their lives.
"Am I really doing this?" she spoke aloud to herself as she still stared at her trunk, overladen with books and notes, robes and clothes, quills and the rest of her assigned supplies - all monotonous and meaningless to her now. Her "Head Girl" badge sat right on top. The day's Daily Prophet sat just beside her on the bed, speculation on the return of the Golden Trio to Hogwarts its cover story. Harry's doubts filled her now.
When she had first read of the annulment of the previous term and the invitation to return to complete her education, she'd been elated. It had been what felt right, the next logical step, but now, she wasn't so sure. Harry...
Hermione's thoughts drifted back to her best friend as her fingers curled around a worn, leather bound journal laid beside the Prophet. She brought it to her lap, gripping it tight, as if to squeeze all that it held out into her. It's pages were now full from beginning to end with her life over the last seven years, ending appropriately on the very last page with their very last battle with Him.
It had been the first gift she'd ever received from a real friend before... a Christmas present from Harry their first year. She'd gotten him a package of Chocolate Frogs. She'd never admitted it, she'd felt so foolish by her inadequate gift to him, but more than any other memory she'd first had of him, he'd whole heartedly endeared himself to her with this... how well he understood her right from the beginning.
She was to return to that same Hogwarts today... without her Harry. These last few months without him, able only to dream of and remember him, unable to see him and talk to him... they had been a slow and wrenching torture unto her, seemingly eroding her away. Her last images of him, alone in that grim dungeon of Grimmauld... that was not her Harry. Those empty, fearful eyes... they were of someone afraid and running. Not her Harry.
It was a cruel punishment not to be able to go to him now, help him, hold him, comfort him, just be there for him, and if she left for school now, it would be a whole other ten months before she would be able to get back to him, reach him. A part of her felt treacherous for this, like she was abandoning him all over again. He needed her, just as she needed him, but...
"I wanted you to be able to get away, to escape, to be free from it all... It is not safe for you here..." It was now Harry's words that came to her. She knew what Harry was doing, why he thought he had to do it. That damned savior complex! Everywhere he turned, he found trouble, or rather, trouble found him.
"Do not trouble trouble, unless trouble trouble's you."
It was not his fault! They - it - would not leave him alone. He'd been pushed too far. Now, he was trying to shut everyone out. To protect them... from himself. But they did not need protection from him, but by him. Why could he not see that?!
A knock came from her bedroom door, interrupting her depressing thoughts. "Hermione?" It was her father. She took a deep breath, trying to undo that knot in her stomach. "It's time to go, sweetie." he cracked open the door, stopping short when he saw the long look across her face. The sad frown drooping across his was indisguisable.
"Y-yes..." she moved frantically, knocking the paper off her bed as she tried to conceal her private journal and move to her trunk, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong. "Just a few more..." she scrambled on nervously. "I can't seem to find..?" she buried her journal in her trunk and turned to look about her room curiously.
"Hogwarts: A History?" her father said coyly, holding out the thick tome.
"You..?" Hermione started, but stopped, at a loss for words. What was her father doing with that?
Dan sighed as he set the book on her desk. "We just - we just wanted to understand it all a little better..." he tried explaining. "It's been seven years already and we feel like we hardly know anything about that half of your life," he admitted a little boyishly.
"We?" Hermione intoned.
"Yes," her father answered. "Your mother and I," he stated the obvious. "Shortly following our return, we were visited by your Headmistress, Professor McGonagall..." he stalled as he saw his daughter's brow rise with the revelation. "We don't expect you to delve into it all now," he quickly explained. "She was gracious enough to fill us in on some of the more particular details from Harry's and your own tale..." Dan trailed off when he witnessed his daughter flinch at the mention of her friend's name.
"It's..." he went on after it was clear Hermione did not wish to speak on the matter. He took her by the hand and led her back to the bed, sitting them both down. "Your mother and I always wanted you to get out and live a little... you know, outside of your books..." he chuckled impishly at the irony, shaking his head at his thoughts.
"I will not pretend to understand... I can't even begin to fathom what it must have been like..." he spoke in short, incomplete phrases, his stress evident. "But... I don't know... you've always been so exceptional... and I guess, now that it is all over, that we didn't have to live through it, so to speak, reading about the heroics of my little girl, to see how others speak so highly of you... it's quite amazing, to say the least."
"Read?" Hermione shot out.
"Yes," he admitted. "McGonagall gained us a subscription to the Daily Prophet," that coy smile of his returned. "I just... we're so very proud of you Hermione, of both of you."
"Both of us?"
"Harry..." Dan spoke the name with unease, for his daughter's sake, but Hermione knew, she had witnessed the bond form between them within the White Sands.
"Oh..." was all she could say.
"If I may ask... how is he? You do not speak of him." Hermione gulped heavily, and her father read in to it. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
"No," Hermione interrupted. "No, it's okay..." But it absolutely wasn't okay. "He's just..." she shook her head feverishly. Harry was anything but okay, the last images of him plaguing her soul.
"Forget it," Dan said, gripping her hand. "I know it's not my place..." he started awkwardly. "But I just don't want... well, after what we've read and speaking to McGonagall and the Weasleys-"
"The Weasleys?!" Hermione jerked her head up with surprise.
"Yes," Dan admitted further. "Arthur and Molly. They wrote not long after McGonagall's visit. That poor, little owl!" he seemed still quite amazed by it all. "We're still adjusting. They were nice enough to meet with us at Dorothy's..."
Hermione gasped. Dorothy's was a local coffee shop near their house. "What..?" How had she not been aware of all of this?!
"Well, we figured after what all you three had been through, it only seemed proper. We tried to write to the Dursleys..." Hermione scoffed at this. "But we never received a response."
"How surprising!" Hermione cut underneath her breath.
"Anyways," Dan went on, "Hermione..." his look turned more serious. "As I was saying... I don't mean to overstep, I know you are far more clever than I could ever dream..."
"Daddy," she cut his flattery short.
"Harry..." he dropped the bombshell, sighing heavily. "You don't have to say anything, I just want you to hear me out."
Hermione was left speechless.
"Your mother and I did not give birth to a genius being dimwits ourselves..." he went on. "We've gathered enough to guess at what is happening, between you and Harry and Ron..." he waited for some reaction from his daughter, but she was left stricken.
"We've seen how you've been since we've been back, and whether that is all from the war, or..." he took a deep breath to go on, "we saw how you two were together, how happy you both were in Australia... that was not all show... and how you've been since..."
"Dad..." Hermione tried to interrupt. "It's not..."
"I am proud of you Hermione," her father said with all seriousness. "For what you've already done, already proven. Your courage, your loyalty, your love... I can hardly believe you're my own daughter, and I say that only because I could never imagine myself rising to such an occasion as you have, but..."
"Daddy..." Hermione's voice was strained and rattled.
"When it comes to matters of the heart... I will not pretend to know everything, but I still know my own daughter, I know enough," Dan took a deep breath. "When you find your true love. You never let it go, not for anything. It comes along so rarely, if ever, in one's life," he explained.
Hermione struggled to speak. At first she was angry again, she wanted to scream at him, but he persisted.
"There is nothing more real, nothing more true in this world than that. When I was your age, there was this girl..."
Hermione shot her father a disapproving look, aghast at his words.
"We were good friends. She was the most beautiful I had ever laid eyes on, funny, smart, a wit like no other... But I never said a thing, never wanted to risk what we had. Then, one day... she and my best friend, Gregory and her started dating. He was handsome, popular, athletic... I'd had plenty of chances to make a go at her first, tell her how I felt, but I didn't. At the time, I thought my world was over..."
"What are you..?"
"Until one day," he ignored her, lost in his own story. "One day I just told her. I let it all out... I risked it. Told her everything, even with Gregory and her..."
"I'm sure that went over well..." Hermione found a way to tease.
"Actually," Dan chuckled lightly, "it did." He smiled over at his daughter. "I shocked her alright, but.... turned out she fancied me too. Oh, Gregory was plenty pissed at me, we had a good couple of rows over it, but in the end... in the end friendship overrode all else, and he could see what I had seen for so long, what she had seen."
"If it all worked out so well, why have I never heard of this Gregory and mysterious girl before?"
"Gregory?" Dan laughed, "he moved off to the States after school, we keep in touch from time to time. And the girl..? She's your mum. Love, Hermione, true love, overrides all else. Do not let it go."
. . . . .
"Five minutes! Lets go, Ronald!" His mum called up to him. Ron simply started chucking anything and everything he could get his hands onto into his trunk without any real rhyme or reason. Of course he would wait until the morning he'd be leaving for Hogwarts to start his packing.
"Hey..." he heard a soft, feminine voice from his doorway.
"Hi, Ginny," Ron only glanced at her as he continued his frantic scrambling about his room, tossing shirts and jeans, robes and socks over his head towards his trunk.
"Need some help?" she offered, taking a few cautious steps in. His old room looked like it had been ransacked by the ghoul.
"Thanks, but - just - about - got it!" he struggled with a shirt that had somehow gotten wedged beneath his dresser, before it suddenly gave and he landed hard on his arse.
"Yeah..?" Ginny just laughed and shook her head at her lame brother as he smelled at the armpit of the now free shirt, before making a face and tossing it back towards his closet.
"Yeah," Ron grumbled, moving on.
"Ron, I..."
"What is it, Ginny, I'm a little busy here," he said impatiently, still rummaging about his things.
"I wanted to ask you about Harry..." she finally just blurted it out. Ron froze in place without looking to her.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah..."
"Ginny..."
"I know Ron," she wringed her hands nervously in the middle of his room. "It's not like that... I just... George told me you've seen him..." A long silence followed as Ron slumped in place.
"Yeah?" Ron seemed to be reduced to that one word.
"Is - is he okay?" The worry could be heard in her voice.
It wasn't a total collapse, but Ron slunk to the floor, crossing his legs beneath him as he stared away into his closet.
"Ron?!" Ginny moved fluidly to him, slinking down beside him. Seeing he was otherwise okay, she just sat there too, waiting for him to explain.
"We broke into Gringott's," Ron started with a distant reverie. "Escaped on the back of a dragon," his brow wiggled in jest at the recollection. Ginny watched him silently, a slight hint of amusement at the remark evident. "Did battle with a mountain troll at the age of eleven. Got lost in the Forbidden Forest at Twelve, almost became dinner for a hive of angry spiders. Won the Quidditch Cup three times..." he did not let that little fact go unsaid. "Snuck into the Ministry twice, once during the war with His drones all over the place," Ron shook his head, picking up something to throw. "Took us nearly a year, hunting the darkest objects known to man, but we still beat His arse!" a fire seemed to light with inside Ron. "Harry beat him..."
"Ron..." Ginny placed a hand on his shoulder. "You all beat him."
"NO!" Ron shouted angrily, but it was not directed at his sister, rather at the trainer he chucked next into the wall. "Ron... Ronald Weasley, member of the Golden Trio!" he mocked. Ginny said nothing, but let him vent. "Who am I?" he asked rhetorically. "What would I be without Harry Potter?"
"Just what you are. A savior, just like Harry, one of the-" Ginny tried again, but Ron wasn't having it.
"Goddammit!" he cursed, cutting through her. "I wouldn't have done a damn thing without Harry. It was Harry! Harry who was my best mate. Harry who led us. Harry who showed me..." he trailed off. "And what was I to him?"
"You were his friend," Ginny answered. "His best friend."
"One of his Trio," Ron answered," and a traitor." Ron added with disgust. "Turned on him our fourth year, just like the rest of those cocksuckers, giving him hell about getting into the Triwizard Tournament. I wasn't there to help him save you from that damned Basilisk. I wasn't there to help him save Buckbeak or Sirius. I left him and Hermione alone in the woods during the war because I couldn't take it anymore, because I afraid, because I was too weak!" he spat, his voice was harsh, as if meaning to shout, but too out of breath to give it his full.
"Ron, no... That's not true."
"YES!" he shouted fully and with finality. "And he asked me to go. Damn near begged me, but I abandoned him and Hermione again when they left to get her parents. I left them, and now... now - they got him, Ginny. They got to him and I wasn't there to help him."
"What are you talking about, Ron?" Ginny did not understand, unaware of the latest, harrowing tale.
"Ha!" Ron laughed with a touch of insanity. "I saw him. Just like mum told you," Ron could not look at his sister. "They got him. They always come for him. In Australia. And I wasn't there. I'm never there for him, not when he needs me most."
"Ron, you've always-"
"Goddammit, Ginny! Are you not listening to me?!" he finally turned his fiery eyes towards his sister and they scared her. "They got him," he took her harshly by the shoulders. "They took him, they imprisoned him, tortured him, and damn Merlin I wasn't there!"
"Ron, I don't..?!" there was fear and panic in her eyes as her chest heaved. Seeing this, Ron deflated. He deflated all the way, letting her go, slumping down almost into a curled ball.
"They got him. But they didn't know who they were messing with," he whispered. "Didn't know who the fuck they were messing with," his words were vulgar with his spite. "Harry got them, got away, as he always does... but they took something from him... They took that last bit he'd been hanging on to. He's here now, at Grimmauld, but he's not coming back. He's not coming back, Ginny, and I wasn't there."
. . . .
It was dark, the thick fog hanging over the grounds setting a certain doom and gloom about the now sordid, yet sprawling estate. This was all of no matter to him, however, for his soul was much darker and fouler than the worst nature could bestow.
He had no problem maneuvering through the labyrinth of wards, he'd been here many times before, and the weak additions added by the owner failed in comparison to those left by their Master. Invisible, soundless, unplottable, this land no longer existed outside the few trusted who had made up His inner circle, and were all now its Secret Keeper. The concentration of dark magic still lingering within his left forearm allowed him to pass the final, impassable barrier marked at the wrought iron gates.
The crackling gravel beneath his feet was the only sound this quiet night as he marched briskly down the hedge-lined lane. The two, large, oaken doors rent a booming echo through the mostly empty house as they swung inwardly, revealing their owner awaiting just inside the entry, his bright, blond hair practically glowing amidst all the darkness.
"You're still alive then?" the owner welcomed the uninvited guest, obviously displeased.
"Hmm..." the guest's taut lips turned into a sneer as he paced leisurely forward, looking lazily about the old mansion's grand hall. "Good to see you too, Malfoy," he said mockingly.
"What are you doing here, Lestrange?" Malfoy was cold and harsh.
"Reckon the Ministry's got ahold of all your funds too. I've been offered a job," he revealed.
"I'm not interested," the elder Malfoy retorted.
"Oh?" Lestrange intoned. "Sold us all out and now everything has been forgotten?"
"Not in the slightest," Malfoy said. "It's over. I live for my family now."
"And the cause?"
"The cause is dead!" Malfoy growled at him. "I've given everything!"
"Hmm..." Lestrange continued his idle laze. "Everything? Not interested in earning a few thousand Galleon then?"
"No," Malfoy was short. "Shouldn't you be off in hiding with Dolohov?"
"We can't all afford such luxurious abodes," Lestrange said. "And I will die before I go the way of Dolohov, Lucious. They killed her!"
"You lost her long ago!" Malfoy dared, shouting back at his compatriot, but Lestrange was not rattled.
"I've got Rookwood."
"Good for you."
"Our patron offers well."
"I'm not interested."
"No... didn't suppose you would be."
"Then why are you here?" Malfoy demanded.
"I need a center to operate out of. To have my revenge!" that maddening look of Lestrange fell across his dark face as he remembered his fallen love. Bellatrix. "We'll all have our revenge!" his voice was pitched and sinister, on the edge, if not already over, mad.