Author Intro
Heya, and welcome to the revised first chapter of "Your Heart Knows the Way". I can't believe how much of a hypocrite I've become... Sorry for taking nearly 2 years to get back to this, but rest assured, I'm back on this like stink on a skunk! For new readers, this takes place after 5th Year, and will be a Harry/Hermione pairing (but I'm sure you already knew that ;P)
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It was a beautiful July day in Privet Drive, but there was at least one person not enjoying it. Some people called him The Boy Who Lived, but to most, he was just Harry Potter. His guardians, the Dursleys, were out for the weekend at a garden show, and he was lying on his bed, just doing nothing. The Dursley's had informed him that if any "trouble" happened, he wouldn't see outside of his old cupboard for a long while. Harry was perfectly happy to agree, as he didn't want to do much more than lie down and think. His mind kept going back to what had happened at the end of his last school year. He just kept seeing his godfather fall through the veil at the Department of Mysteries, again and again, until his brain burned with the image of it. He rolled over, and, as he had been wont to do since term ended, fell asleep in the middle of the day.
He woke up to a noise in his room. It was hard to see anything, owing to the fact it was apparently nightime. He could, however, make out the outline of a person near his door.
Even though his instinct said not to, he grabbed his wand off the bedside table and yelled, "Stupefy!" at the intruder. But the instant before the curse hit, a female voice yelled "Protego!" and his own spell was thrown back at him.
His one thought before he lost consciousness: "Oh, she's going to kill me…"
The girl paced around the room, muttering. "Oh boy, what have I done now? Well, it's his fault!" she declared to the silent room. "He's just too paranoid!" Sighing, she walked over to the unconscious boy and, tapping him with her wand, said, "Enervate".
Harry jerked up, looking around sharply. "Hermione, what are you doing here!" he practically yelled. As an afterthought, he added, "And don't sneak up on me like that!"
"Well," she replied, "maybe if you hadn't been asleep, you would have noticed that I didn't "sneak" up on you at all."
"Oh, right." he replied, looking sheepish.
"And do you really think it's a coincidence that I happen to show up the same night that the Dursley's are gone?" She smirked, then realized she could barely tell which direction to face. "Ummm, Harry …" The brunette looked around. "Where's the light here?"
"Oh," the surprised boy replied. He was so used to being up at night, he hadn't even realized that it was dark.
He got up and flicked the light switch. They were both dazzled by the sudden brightness. Harry looked over at Hermione. Her exceptionally curly hair shone to his eyes, and she appeared to have gotten a tan. As he looked at her, he noticed a weird, floaty feeling in his body. He'd have to check with Hermione on the side effects of being stunned.
He apparently stared a little too long, because Hermione questioned, "Something wrong, Harry?" her eyes full of concern. She knew how much the prophesied boy had been through, and she hated when he was unhappy.
He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "No, nothing's wrong."
She appeared satisfied, and proceeded to sit down on his bed. Her head suddenly jerked up, and she looked around the room nervously. "Umm, Harry? Why hasn't the Ministry sent an owl yet? We both used underaged magic…"
Harry laughed. "Dumbledore didn't want to take any chances of me hesitating to act if something happened. He managed to shield this house from the Ministry's detection."
"Oh." Hermione visibly relaxed. "Why were you asleep at this hour Harry?"
The raven-haired boy tried to make something up in his mind, but he just couldn't lie to her. He reconciled himself to tell her the truth. "It's the only way to escape, even if it's only for a little while." He stated quietly.
"Escape?" She looked confused. "From what?"
He sighed. "Well, I just keep thinking about Sirius, and what I could have done to stop him going through the veil. I could have stopped it happening, I just know I could have!" he emotionally cried out. He knew the only person he could trust with things like these was Hermione. Ron didn't have enough emotions to understand what he was going through. And Dumbledore was always too hard to reach. As weird as it was showing all these emotions to his best friend, it was all he could do.
She looked exasperated. "Now, Harry, we've told you a million times, you could not have prevented his death. It was not your fault. It was Voldemort's. HE lured you to the Department of Mysteries. HE used your love for Sirius to get you to the prophesies, and HE tried to kill us, NOT YOU!" She finished, almost yelling in Harry's face. "What will it take for you to believe us?"
"I don't know," he replied "I just don't know what or who to believe. I can't even believe myself lately, with all the dreams I have." He looked down at the floor as he said this, not wanting to see Hermione's face as he said this, knowing what expression she would be wearing. Unfortunately for him, she had other plans.
She gently took his face and guided it to look at her. "Harry, look at me. Would I lie to you?" she queried.
"No." He had to admit, he had total faith in her.
"Then listen to me. You-are-not-to-blame-for-Sirius's-death! You hear me, stop beating yourself up about it! Everyone needs you to be focused, and if you keep blaming yourself, Voldemort's going to get exactly what he wants! You'll be out of the picture, and he can take over again! We need you Harry…" and then, she murmured, looking away, so softly he wasn't sure he heard it: "I need you."
He didn't really want to ask her, and he didn't want to argue anymore, so he just said: "Look, let's just let go of this for now. Why are you here in the first place?"
She looked shocked and then really annoyed. "Crud, I forgot this whole time!" She fumbled in her pocket, and then pulled out a seemingly ordinary small ball of yarn. "They thought it would be less conspicuous." She stated.
He looked at her, confused. "Who thought what would be less conspicuous?"
"Oh, right, sorry. The Order sent me to tell you that they moved the headquarters. Grimmauld Place hasn't let them in since Sirius died."
Harry froze.
She immediately looked panic-stricken. "Oh my God, sorry Harry, I didn't think."
"It's okay," he mumbled. "Just one more thing for them to blame me about."
"Good grief Harry, will you let it go? They are not blaming you! It's just something that happened! Now if you'll let me finish?"
He nodded, still looking downcast.
"Well, I was the only one really available to come, since everyone is busy. This string is a portkey to the new house. It's should be activated at seven o'clock."
They both turned to look at the alarm clock on his bedside. It read five o'clock. "Well," she proclaimed. "That gives us two hours to do whatever we want." She suddenly yawned. "Oh… God, I'm tired…we've been getting irregular hours of sleep at the headquarters." She looked at him. "Maybe we could take a nap?" she suggested.
Harry looked at her quizzically. "How? What if the portkey goes off?"
"Well," she replied. "We could use your alarm."
Harry laughed. "That thing hasn't worked in years. The Dursley's moved it from Dudley's room after he smashed it for waking him up too early."
"Oh." She looked nonplussed. "Well," she said. "We could tie the portkey to us, and then it would wake us up when it went off."
He thought about it a moment. "Yeah, I guess we could do that. But where would you be?"
She blushed. "Well, I figured we could share the bed." She then hurriedly said: "That's only if you don't mind, you don't have to do it if you don't want to."
The raven-haired boy blushed as well. "No… I, I don't mind. Just… could one of us be on top of the covers, and one under?" He looked bashful as he said this.
"Sure." She looked relieved. "Well, let's get it ready then."
They climbed on top of the bed, and proceeded to tie some of the yarn to their arms. They settled down, and Harry tried to calm himself enough to sleep. "Why'd you have to make such a big deal about being on different levels on the sheets?" He shook his head, trying to rid himself of thoughts that would make it impossible for him to sleep.
He settled down again, trying not to think about Hermione, and drifted off, his thoughts a confused jumble.
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Well, that's the first chapter of my first fanfic! Please review guys; I really, REALLY need to know how I'm doing. I will take any criticism, as long as it's constructive, and not just flaming. Tell me your ideas, your remarks, what you like, what you hate, anything, so long as I can take it and use it to make this story better. That's all for now, and again, sorry for taking so long to get back to this. Oh, also, I still have yet to revise the second chap, so, unless you see my author's note at the top of the next one saying it's the revised one, read at your own caution.
