A/N: Okay, I wrote this off of Garth Brooks's "When you come back to me again". I don't know what's gotten into me lately, but I have been doing romances. Warning: This is a bit weird. I've gotta stop drinking Ski. So, anyway, tell me what you think of this. I really want to hear your opinions, comments, whatever. If you want to tell me the weather, that's fine. Just review!!
Disclaimer: When you come back to me again belongs to G. Brooks. All the rest belongs to JK Rowling.
When You Come Back To Me Again
There's a ship out
On the ocean
At the mercy of the sea
It's been tossed about lost and broken
Wandering aimlessly
And God, somehow you know that ship is me
"This is just great," Harry muttered to himself, trying desperately to unfold the map. As it was windy, he had very little luck, for the map kept getting blown in his face. "I'm lost, cold, and alone, without food, without anything, out in the middle of Romania. Can life get any worse?"
"Yes, it could," rasped a voice behind him.
Harry whirled to face the owner of the voice, his face dropping when he realized that it was the Death Eater simply known as Nott, holding a combatant wand in his long spindly fingers. Nott was tall and balding, his skin pale white with spiderish veins creeping across it. Harry hated the man with a vengeance. "Nott!" he sneered.
"An twenty-year-old kid wandering out in Romania? This could get dangerous..." Nott simpered. Harry raised his wand, but Nott was faster...Harry barely managed to dodge the blast Nott sent at him and sent one back in return. Nott laughed cruelly as he easily sidestepped the shot. "Now, young Potter, die!" he commanded.
"Not now, you freak," Harry muttered, glaring at his opponent angrily. His eyes blazed with a green fire, sparkling with rage.
Nott just laughed and raised his wand at the same moment Harry did. He started to mutter something, but something black came flying out of nowhere, knocking Harry solidly upside the head. Right then and there, Harry Potter blacked out into the mud. "Too easy," Nott said, spitting on his foe. "Come, Avery, let's get him back to the master!"
There's a lighthouse in a harbor shining faithfully
Pouring its light out across the water
For this sinking soul to see
That someone out there still believes in me
Hermione gasped as she felt a strange tugging at her mind. "HARRY!" Her breathing came in ragged gasps and she closed her eyes against what she saw...what she saw...
"Hermione?" Ginny asked groggily, lifting her head. "Is it the nightmare again?" Her red hair
was matted with sleep and her blue-green eyes were bleary.
"Go back to sleep, Ginny, I'm going to make myself some cocoa," Hermione stammered, thinking quickly. Ginny just rolled her eyes sleepily and burrowed back underneath the blankets on her bed in the apartment they shared. Hermione wished she could back to sleep that easily, but she had never been an easy sleeper and the vision of what she had just seen was too fresh and too real. Hermione shuddered as she swung her legs out of her bed and headed towards the small kitchen.
She didn't make cocoa - she never did. Instead she rummaged around in the pots and pans drawer (Ginny had not inherited her mother's culinary abilities, so Hermione knew the area was pretty much untouched) and drew out a box. Carefully opening the lid, she drew out a wad of envelopes. Her hands shook as she opened the top envelope and read the letter. Soon, her eyes were wet with tears.
The creases were well-creased, the ink read constantly. Whenever she would have nightmares about Harry, she would sneak into the kitchen and read his letters. He sent them every few weeks, keeping her updated on where he was. Hermione had let nobody know about the letters.
"Come back to me," she found herself whispering. "Please come back."
On a prayer
In a song
I hear your voice and it keeps me hanging on
Ahhh, raining down against the wind
I'm reaching out 'til we reach the circle's end
When you come back to me again
"Why don't you just kill me?" Harry grunted against the pain.
"What, and destroy our fun?" Avery mocked. "I can't believe that you, the great Harry Potter, would let yourself be caught by such a simple spell." He was pudgy and silver-haired, dressed in grubby robes and smelling like the woods they were in.
"Yeah, we all make mistakes," Harry forced through gritted teeth. "What are you going to do with me?"
"We can't kill you - that would be too easy on you, wouldn't it? I think seeing you separated from your friends, from your girlfriend - " and the memory of Hermione the night that he had left came up fresh in Harry's mind " - would certainly cause enough damage to keep us satisfied for a long time," Nott said with a sinister smile. He raised his wand and performed another curse. Harry screamed and writhed in agony.
And then, uncalled, Hermione's image was in his head. Her hair was sleep tousled, and she was wearing plaid pajama pants and an old T-shirt. She was sitting at a table, tears in her eyes, reading the letters that he'd sent her. Harry's eyes closed and he hung his head. "Come back to me," he heard her say to him in his head. "Please come back." Her voice sounded so heartbroken that he nearly succumbed to the pain. But the anguish in her eyes when she looked up was enough to make him toss his head and glare defiantly at Avery and Nott, denying any pain.
"Li'l Potter's getting past the basics," Avery taunted.
"Yes, I suppose we should give him something harder. The Cruciatus Curse will do nicely."
Harry's eyes flashed, but he said nothing as Nott performed the curse. The pain wracked his body, sending him into delirious dreams of Hermione, back safe in London. In his delirium, he reached out to her, strained to touch her...
There's a moment
we all come to
in our own time and our own space
Where all that we've done
we can undo
if our heart's in the right place
Hermione stood with the Weasleys as they laid Harry's coffin to rest, her eyes bright with tears. To anybody watching, she looked like she was in terrible grief. Even Ron, who had grown mute in the two years that Harry had cut all contact off, did not approach her.
To herself, she was remembering all those conversations with Harry. Staying up late in the common room, chatting about nonsense, heartfelt talks about love and romance, even thoughtless talks that occurred whenever she didn't wake fully. She was wishing with every ounce of her being, wishing that she could see him again. And, for a moment, she could.
He was standing alone, his black hair tousled, wearing a black turtleneck, his green eyes filled with pain. Hermione could tell that he had lost his glasses, for he was squinting. He was staring into space and Hermione almost imagined herself behind him, reaching out to give him a hug.
Then Ginny shook her shoulder and they headed mutely back to the car.
On a prayer
In a song
I hear your voice and it keeps me hanging on
Ahhh, raining down against the wind
I'm reaching out til' we reach the circle's end
When you come back to me again
Harry slowly climbed out of the taxi, blinking as he tried to make out the blurry shapes around him. "You're sure this is the place?" he asked the driver.
"Positive. The Dursley place." And, looking at him strangely, the driver drove off, leaving Harry on the neatly printed front lawn in front of a very typical house with a brass number four next to the door. Harry, feeling confused, walked up the walkway and tapped on the door. A large man with very little neck and a purple face answered the door.
"What are you doing here?" he sneered.
"Uncle Vernon!" Harry gasped, the name suddenly coming back to him.
"Yes, that's me. Now what do you want?" Uncle Vernon asked gruffly. He glared at Harry, as if daring him to come inside.
"I...I need a place to stay for a couple of days...I need to get my memory back....the people at the hospital told me to...to come here," Harry stammered.
He felt odd and that pleading voice was still in the back of his head, begging him to come back. It nearly drove him mad at times, because he didn't know who was talking. Back to where? Back to who? A fuzzy picture of a young woman in pajamas with bushy brown hair accompanied the picture, but no names did.
Uncle Vernon looked tempted to slam the door on him, but edged it open anyway. "Just for one night," he growled. "Don't want you stayin' in the front yard, scaring the neighbors." Harry nodded and went up the stairs, bits and pieces of memories coming back to him.
The people at the hospital said that he had been in the coma for three months. They'd found him, outside of London like that and had taken him to the hospital. Harry didn't remember a thing except his name and a few other odd facts. He wished he knew the voice calling out to him. Not bothering to get out of his shoes, he flopped onto the bed and was asleep before he knew it.
And again I see my yesterdays in front of me
Unfolding like a mystery
You're changing all that is and used to be
"HERMIONE!"
Harry sat up suddenly, blinking rapidly. He was gasping for breath, but he knew. Yes, he knew he had to get back to Hermione before, before it was too late. What if he was too late? What if she'd gotten a new boyfriend or was married? Harry's fingers fumbled in the laces of his shoes, and he stumbled out of the door and down the stairs, not caring if he woke the Dursleys up. He had to get to Hermione.
After a few minutes in a dead sprint, Harry slowed to a halt. There was no way he could get there in the middle of the night - there were no taxis. He leaned his right elbow against a sign so that his right hand dangled over.
BANG!
Harry leapt back in surprise as a large, triple decker purple bus appeared in the middle of the street. A man in his late twenties stepped out and began to ramble on about something and the Knight Bus, but Harry droned him out. "How much...to London?" he gasped. He had some wizard gold in his pocket, hopefully enough.
"Eleven sickles, good sir, twelve if you..."
"Here, here," Harry said frantically, shoving some gold into the man's hand. He hopped aboard the bus and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I gotta get there fast!"
"Well, Ern, you heard the man. We've gotta get to London anyhoo, to drop off Madam Jolene!"
With a jolt, the bus was off, everything moving out of its way. Harry, tense, fidgeted eagerly in the seat, eager to get to Hermione. The bus was going much too slow for him...when it finally stopped, he pelted out the door with a shouted thanks and found himself standing right in front of Hermione's apartment building. To his horror, the front doors were locked.
"Fine, then," he mused, "I'll just go through the fire-escape." The stairs were on the side of the building and Harry took them four at a time, trying to get to Hermione as quickly as possible. He nearly passed up her landing in his haste.
Luckily, the sliding glass door wasn't locked. Quietly, he let himself in, looking around. Ginny must have moved out, because he didn't see any of her stuff there. Harry wandered through the room, looking at stuff, touching a certain item, suddenly nervous. His fingers trailed over the mantel, where there was a picture of all three of them, Ron grinning from the center, Harry and Hermione on either side of him. They were all grinning and waving, Ron's eyes sparkling with mischief.
"Harry?"
Harry looked up from the picture to see Hermione standing in the doorway, looking like she'd seen a ghost. "Is it really you?" he heard her whisper.
Harry nearly leapt over the couch to get to her. "I've missed you!" he said, wrapping her up in a hug. "And, no, this isn't a dream."
Hermione just stared, shocked. "They told me you were...they told me you were dead!" She managed to get the words past a lump in her throat. Harry tenderly wiped away a tear from her cheek and kissed her. Then, she wrapped her arms around his neck and Harry felt her tears of relief on his shoulder. "What took you so long?" The words were muffled in his shoulder.
"I don't know, honestly."
"What?" Hermione lifted her face, her nose blotchy and her eyes red and wet with tears, to study his. "It's been three years since you left. How can you not remember?"
"I just can't," Harry replied. "All I can remember is your voice, Hermione. You called me. You called me back."
On a prayer
In a song
I hear your voice and it keeps me hanging on
Ahhh, raining down against the wind
I'm reaching out til' we reach the circle's end
When you come back to me again
(When you come back to me again)
***
A/N: I left a lot hanging, so I might as well tell you that Nott and Avery were killed in a fire. Harry was found in a coma because one of the firemen moved him out of the prison (Tom Riddle's old house) and he fell into a weird coma. Really lame, I know, but give me a break.