Disclaimer: Characters and the world in which they exist do not belong to me, but to JK Rowling who went and thought them up, bless her soul.
Author's Notes: Thank you for all the delicious feedback; I treasure it all. Gary Skinner, leave an email address sometime; I'd like to talk to/thank you. I hope you all keep enjoying the story; I'm having the most wonderful time romping through Rowling's magical world.
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An Organ of Fire
by Kristen Elizabeth
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"Sirius!" Without trepidation, Harry ran towards his godfather. The man set down his drink and stood up just as Harry came to a stop in front of him. "Sirius. You're..."
"Late, I know. My apologies. An important affair that I had to settle. I hope I haven't inconvenienced you."
Hermione came up behind Harry. "Just worried us."
Harry nodded emphatically. "I thought that Malfoy might have..." He shook his head. "He had better just be glad, for his own sake, that you're all right."
"It was just a bit of miscommunication, Harry," Sirius said, picking up his Guinness. "What have I missed while I was gone?" He used the glass to indicate Hermione. "I see you haven't been alone."
"Harry and I have been looking for you," she said. A frown crinkled her forehead. "What sort of business kept you from sending an owl?"
"Well..." the older man began.
Harry cut him off. "It doesn't really matter, Sirius. The important thing is that Hermione and I found the information."
"In Ron's office?"
"Yes. Malfoy's robes." Harry glanced around and lowered his voice. "They belonged to Voldemort." A moment passed. "That was the information we were supposed to investigate, right?"
Sirius blinked. "What? Oh...yes. Yes, it was."
Harry cursed, suddenly remembering the other part of his mission in London. "There was also the bit about Pansy's murder. Malfoy's wife," he emphasized. "I forgot to look into that entirely."
"Don't worry. I'll take care of that. But the part about Malfoy's robes...that's all you found in Ron's office?" Both Harry and Hermione nodded. "Nothing else?"
Hermione looked up at him. "Nothing, Sirius."
"I see." The man took long sip of his drink. "Well then...we've done pretty much all we can for now. Good job, both of you."
"But Malfoy..."
Sirius licked his lips to clear away the foamy traces of the Guinnesses head. "It's now just a matter of biding our time, Harry. Waiting...watching. One of these days, he'll slip up. In the meantime, you both have classes and students you should get back to."
"We were just about to leave for Hogsmeade," Hermione informed him. "Harry....our Harry might have gotten his letter while we were gone."
"Your Harry. Yes." Sirius drank again. "Then you should go, right?"
"What are you going to do, Sirius?" Harry asked.
The older man put his drink back down. "There are Governor's meetings coming up. Malfoy will be attending all of them. And I plan to be there to map out his every move."
Harry nodded. "Thank you." A moment passed before Harry moved to embrace his godfather. "I felt completely lost when I thought you were gone."
Sirius clapped a hand against his back several times. "Safe journey back to Hogwarts."
Straightening up, Harry reached for Hermione's hand. "Shall we?" He was too caught up in his own relief to notice her hesitation as he began to guide her away. "Goodbye, Sirius."
Hermione turned her head for one last look back at the man. He had sat back down with his drink, his profile dark against the roaring fire.
****
The wonderful thing about returning to Hogwarts after any absence, short or extended, was the fact that it never really changed. It always stood tall and distinguished, and ready to welcome back any member of its family.
Harry and Hermione reached the castle at dusk and piled their two travel bags next to the staircase that led to the Great Hall for an unseen, but Hermione was happy to note, compensated house-elf to whisk away to their apartments.
They stood on the stone landing for a long moment, merely looking at each other. The light from the torches caught up in Hermione's hair and cast a warm glow over her lovely face. Harry had to remind himself to breathe for a moment. "Back to the daily grind," he said, out of the blue.
She nodded a bit. "Same as before."
"But it's not." Harry took her hand. "Hermione, I don't want to part ways in the hall tonight and just go back to my apartment by myself. I can't ever be happy waking up alone again when I know what it feels like to wake up next to you."
"I shouldn't have come to London, should I have?" She looked away. "I've made things worse..."
Harry reached for her other hand. "No...no! We're a team, Hermione. We always have been. I needed you in London."
"And now?"
"I still need you. Just differently."
"You have no idea..." Hermione began a second later, fighting with her tears. "...how much I need you, too. But..."
"But there's our son to consider." She nodded again; Harry lowered his head. "Perhaps it's a good thing. Malfoy has no idea Harry is mine. I think it might be better for him to keep thinking that." He suddenly chuckled.
"What's funny?"
Harry's chuckle turned into a laugh. "I'm sorry. It's just...I was thinking about how odd it is. Both Malfoy and I...fathering children straight out of school. It's just...well, all right...it's not *that* funny. It's just rather..." He cleared his throat. "Sorry. I'll stop talking now."
His laughter was infectious; a tiny grin spread across Hermione's face. "My greatest comfort when I found out I was pregnant came from the fact that at least I wasn't the first out of our class. Pansy was already showing at that point." The look on his face only increased her smile. "Don't tell me you didn't notice...even through her graduation robes."
"I don't think it's something men tend to pick up on straight away."
Hermione's smile lost some of its momentum. "No..I don't suppose....that it is."
If he noticed the hand she pressed to her stomach, it certainly didn't stick out as anything of great significance to him. "I wonder if the entrance to the kitchens is still the same," Harry mused. "I could do with some supper. Are you up for it?"
After a half second's hesitation, she replied. "I'm all right. I should be getting upstairs to check on..."
"Mum!!"
They both turned their heads to look at the banister above them on which their son leaned far over to see them better. "Harry!" Hermione's hand moved up to her chest. "Careful on the..." He was already halfway down the stairs before the word even left her mouth. "I give up," she sighed.
When the boy arrived on the landing, he immediately launched himself into his mother's arms. Taken aback by the sudden contact after nearly a month of the silent treatment, Hermione instantly forgot to scold him for his recklessness on the stairs. She closed her eyes and folded her son into an embrace, bending her head to kiss the flaming top of his head.
Harry's throat closed up at the scene before him. The desire to be a part of it made the very centers of his bones ache. Looking down at the floor, he backed up a few paces. The movement caught his son's attention; he cracked one emerald eye open and lifted his cheek from his mother's chest. "You don't have to go."
"I don't want to intrude." Harry's voice was hoarse.
"Harry," Hermione bit her lip. "You're..."
"You're not intruding," the boy finished. "Hagrid says....that you're a part of me. Whether I like it or not."
Hermione studied her son for a moment. "Just what else has Hagrid been telling you?"
Little Harry lifted his shoulders. "Just...stories. About you and Dad and..." He hesitated. "...Professor Potter." Harry visibly flinched at the formal title. "Did you really play live game of Wizard's Chess?"
"Harry." She combed her fingers through her son's messy locks. Like his father's hair, it was a lost cause and no brush, Muggle or magical, could keep it neat. "You're being very mature about this."
He looked up at his mother with a solemn expression. "I'm not a child, Mum." From the pocket of his khaki pants, he withdrew a cream-colored envelope whose wax seal had been broken. "This was brought by owl while you were gone."
Harry couldn't help but grinning. Not that he had been worried, but physical proof that their son was, without a doubt, a wizard was certainly something to celebrate. Hermione had already embraced little Harry again; he could just make out the shiny path of a tear on her cheek.
"I'm so very proud of you," she whispered to the boy. "And you're right. You're not a child anymore. Which is why I think you'll understand this." Hermione pulled back and looked little Harry straight in the eye. "Professor Potter...your *real* father and I love each other very much."
Little Harry looked back and forth between her eyes. "I know. You always have."
"Hagrid told you quite a lot, I see." When their son said nothing, she continued. "I want him...Professor Potter...Harry...to feel welcome in our home whenever he's there from now on. All right? Can you make sure that happens?"
"I can," the boy replied, still watching his mother carefully. "But only because Dad would have."
It was a start and Harry tried to be content with it. Taking a breath, he held out his hand to his son. "Congratulations on receiving your letter, Harry. I'll never forget the day I got mine." *And the twelve thousand that followed,* he added to himself.
A moment passed before the boy warily shook his father's hand. Hermione bit her lip hard enough to wince from the pain. Little Harry ended the handshake and looked up at his mother. "May we go eat now, Mum?"
"Harry?" She looked at the older bearer of the name.
He forced a smile. "Don't worry about me, Hermione. I'm going to go tickle the pear."
It was a cryptic statement that almost anyone would have puzzled over for hours. Hermione simply returned the smile knowingly. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?" As Harry nodded, she took their son's hand. "Come on, Harry. I'll make us mince pies."
Harry watched them...his little family...ascend the stairs and then disappear around a stone corner. There was a heavy weight pressing upon his chest; he wanted to be with them so badly that it hurt. But he couldn't. And he wasn't sure, after everything that had happened, that he would ever be able to.
After several long minutes of indulging in his own guilt-born self-pity, he turned around started the opposite way, out the port trellis entrance and across the dark field of snow to Hagrid's hut. It was a short trek he had taken innumerable times during his school days, most of them spent underneath the protective folds of his father's Invisibility Cloak. Now, as a Professor, he had no cause to hide as he walked up to the little cottage and knocked on the door.
"'arry! Yer back!" Hagrid answered the door with hot mitts on each of his huge hands, a sure sign that he was baking. Suddenly Harry was quite glad that he had lost his appetite. "Come in!"
He followed the half-giant inside and closed the door for him. Hagrid was already back at the fire, lifting the cast iron lid from a huge cauldron set over the flames. Harry undid the button that held his woolen robes closed at his throat and hung the garment on the rack next to the little cottage window.
"What are you making?" he asked, more out of politeness than curiosity.
"Stone soup," Hagrid replied, stirring the pot's contents. "'ungry?"
Harry shook his head; it was quite likely that there was nothing more in there but water and rocks. "No thank you." He took a seat in one of Hagrid's oversized chairs. "Hermione and I just got back."
"So, I gath'rd." He replaced the lid and moved into the chair opposite of Harry's. "Did yer find what yer were lookin' fer in Lond'n?"
"In a roundabout way," he said, looking down at his hands. It only took a few minutes to fill Hagrid in on the events that took place during his trip, although he left a few significant details out, including his night with Hermione at the Leaky Cauldron.
But Hagrid wasn't fooled. "Does my 'eart good ter see yer and 'ermione 'ave patch'd thin's up bertween yer. Now, yer kin be a real fam'ly."
"I don't know if I'd say that." Harry met his old friend's knowing gaze. "May I ask you something?" Hagrid indicated for him to go ahead. "Just what exactly did you tell Harry these past few days?"
"Don' be worried, 'arry. I didn' tell the boy any more th'n he need'd ter know. But he 'ad ques'ions, surely. And I ans'er'd 'em, best I could." With some effort, Hagrid stood back up. "He want'd ter know 'bout yer 'n Ron."
Harry watched Hagrid lift a smaller kettle from the fire and begin to set up tea for two. "About me and Ron? Do you mean...how we met, how long we were friends, that sort of thing?"
"Aye." The older man strained two cups of what Harry knew would be extremely strong tea. "Seem'd ter me like he want'd ter un'erstand what made yer leave yer best friend *and* 'ermione, 'is mum." Hagrid added cream and lumps of brown sugar to their drinks.
"What did you tell him?" Harry asked, accepting his huge cup of tea with two hands.
Hagrid plopped back down, his chair creaking under his weight and took a thoughtful sip before answering. "I couldn' tell 'im anythin', 'arry. I don' rightly know the whole story meself."
Long minutes passed as Harry pondered this and Hagrid patiently waited until he was ready to speak. Finally, the younger man set his untouched tea aside and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "I want to believe that I left for the sole purpose of protecting her, Hagrid. But there was also part of me that wanted to...see what else was out there. Not in terms of women..." He grimaced. "Although I won't lie and say that I never touched another one during all those years. It was more the fact that all I knew was England and Hogwarts. I wanted to see what was beyond that. And with my knack for attracting danger, I presumed that the best place for me to be was well away from everyone I loved." His green eyes stared straight across at his friend. "I swear to you, Hagrid. If I had known about Harry, I would have returned in an instant."
Hagrid held his tongue, unwilling to remind the Boy Who Lived that had he read any of the owls sent to him, he would have known about his child.
"I blame myself, Hagrid. Every day I think...that because I've made so many mistakes...it wouldn't be unfitting if I were never afforded the opportunity to make them all up to my son." He took a breath. "But I want to. More than anything. I want to be his father."
"There's one thin' yer got ter un'erstand, 'arry. Fer the boy, Ron'll always be 'is firs' father. As lon' as yer kin accept that...yer kin be part o' 'is life."
Harry considered this before nodding. "I would never try to take Ron away from him."
The half-giant smiled, drained half of his entire tea in one gulp and stood back up. "Yer sure yer not 'ungry?"
"Just...worn out. I think I'll head back to the castle." Harry pulled himself out of the large seat and went to retrieve his cloak. "Hagrid."
"Hmm?" The other man had pulled the lid off his bubbling dinner, inspecting it with a cook's keen eye.
"Thank you." At his words, Hagrid turned his head to look at him. He continued, "I have to ask you for a favor. If anything should ever happen to me....would you please keep looking after them? Like you have been?"
There was a pause before Hagrid bobbed his head in agreement. A moment passed between them before Harry swung his winter robes around his shoulders "Good night, Hagrid. Enjoy your supper."
Hagrid lifted a ladle full of his soup out of the pot. The sharp end of a rock stuck up through the thin liquid. "'arry." The young wizard stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "Nothin' gonna 'appen ter yer. Got tha'?"
He wanted nothing more than to nod, but Harry found that he couldn't make his head move. Instead, he opened the door and walked back out into the cold night, alone as he all too often was.
****
A month slipped by without notice. Harry wouldn't have even picked up on the passing time had the weather not begun to change. As February slowly turned into March, more and more tufts of green grass fought their way through the lingering snow, catching his eye one day as he hurried to his morning lesson with the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff fifth years.
During the weeks since their trip to London, Harry and Hermione had not purposely tried to avoid contact, but their busy schedules managed to keep them apart except for a few rare occasions at lunch in the Great Hall or House meetings in the Gryffindor common room.
Letters from Sirius had been few and far between and always short. The Governor's meetings had begun, but Malfoy had yet to make any bold moves according to his godfather. Harry tried to take this as a good sign, but he couldn't help feeling that his adversary was simply waiting for the right moment to strike. The notion kept him awake many nights.
The day Harry noticed the grass pushing up into the white and grey winter courtyard, Hermione woke for the fifth morning in a row feeling sicker than she could ever remember feeling. Even when she had been pregnant with little Harry.
Ever since she had fainted in the Ministry, Hermione had been valiantly ignoring all the warning signs her body was giving off. The timing was just too horrible for her to be...
More than that, she argued with herself as she dressed for her morning classes, it just couldn't be possible that after only being with Harry once, she had become...
Again!!
Her first class of that day was with the Slytherin and Gryffindor second years. She was teaching them about the formation of Hogwarts, a subject in which she was particularly knowledgeable. But even as she began the lesson, she instinctively knew she wasn't going to make it all the way through. Dizzy and nauseated, Hermione dismissed the students twenty minutes into the class.
There was no one in the hallways as she stumbled for the Hospital Ward for which she was more than grateful. Madam Pompfrey was most surprised by her arrival.
"Hermione? What on earth...?" The older woman helped her lie down on a cot. "Is it your stomach, dear?"
Hermione wrung her hands, embarrassment washing over her in a great tidal wave. "It's a bit more than that." As she explained her symptoms, the medical witch began to catch on.
She placed a hand on Hermione's lower stomach and after a moment, smiled. "I can give you a potion for the nausea, but you're going to have to be careful about taking it."
"I know." Hermione looked up at the vaulted ceiling. "I've done this before." She touched her abdomen; it was just beginning to feel firmer, but it would be a long time before her figure gave away the secret. "Two months, right?"
"Just about, I suspect. Although I am rusty in this particular area. It's not often that I see this in my patients." There was a long pause. "Congratulations, Hermione." She chuckled. "Harry Potter will be a wonderful father."
Hermione closed her eyes. She was in no mood to celebrate. "Oh god...what have I done?"
****
To Be Continued