Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than the story line . All rights belong to J.K. Rowling
Chapter Two: Explanation and Understanding
Harry awoke to find himself in a strange bed, in a strange location. He had a hard time seeing, and there seemed to be someone snuggled up next to him! He reached over and groped to find a night stand, discovering his glasses there. Best as he could, without disturbing the person next to him, he fumbled with his glasses until he had them on his face.
He glanced around, and came quickly to the conclusion that he was in some sort of hospital or infirmary. The strange part was that it seemed to be one straight out of the middle ages. The walls were stone, and there was a fireplace along one wall. A large candelabra hung from the ceiling and there were privacy screens were set out next to all the beds.
Harry could see a nurse's office, and there appeared to be someone in there! He glanced down at the person that was beside him. It was the girl from the zoo! He struggled to remember her name. It was an unusual name, and he strained his memory. Hermione! That was it. He shook her shoulder lightly.
"Hermione," he whispered. "Hermione, wake up, please wake up." He was getting scared. Did Uncle Vernon hurt her? He vaguely remembered her placing herself in front of him when Uncle Vernon started kicking him, but he couldn't remember much more.
Hermione slowly came awake. Harry was amazed at how pretty she seemed. She had very bushy brown hair, and chocolate brown eyes. They radiated an intelligence that was frankly kind of scary, but Harry didn't care. All he knew was that she was his own personal angel, and she was the most beautiful young girl he had ever laid eyes upon.
"Harry! You're awake! Are you okay?" She practically screeched it out. Harry flinched slightly as she was right next to his ear when she did this.
"Yes Hermione, I'm okay," he reassured her. He couldn't help himself, he reached up with his free hand and brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek. She sighed and moved into his touch. He felt a strange contentment at that.
She enveloped him in a strong hug. "I was so worried," she went on. "I thought that your uncle was going to kill you," she whispered. She opened her mouth to say more when a matronly looking woman dressed in classical nurse's robes.
"Well, I see that you're up Mr. Potter. How are you feeling?" she asked kindly.
"Erm… I guess that I'm feeling alright ma'am," he replied.
"Good, good. I just wanted to make sure before I released you. You had a couple of broken ribs and a punctured lung. It was nothing at all to get you healed up. I have a couple of potions I would like you to take for the next few days. Miss Granger, would you please see to it that he takes his potions?"
"Of course Madame Pomfrey," Hermione replied with a smile. She liked that the healer felt she was responsible enough to look after Harry.
"You know her?" Harry asked incredulously. "How long have we been here, and where is here?"
"Here is the Hogwart's infirmary, and we have been here for about a day," Hermione responded. "You were hurt pretty badly, Harry. I was really worried. Madame Pomfrey didn't want me to stay here in bed with you, but I insisted and my parents agreed with me." She smirked at the thought of getting her own way.
"Excuse me, but what is Hogwarts?" he asked.
Hermione was about to reply but a deeper voice beat her to it. "Hogwarts is my school of course, Harry." The speaker was a tall man in bright purple robes with a high pointed hat on his head. He looked to be very old, and had a long silver beard that stretched all the way down to his belt.
"You were at the zoo!" Harry exclaimed.
"Yes I was, and now you are here as well. I have something for you, Harry." He pulled an envelope out of his robes and handed it to Harry. "This would have normally been sent to you a little closer to your eleventh birthday, but seeing as you ended up here, I felt that you should receive it now. Go ahead and open it. It happens to be your invitation to attend school here starting in the fall."
Harry quickly opened the letter and read it through. He looked at the second page and his face fell. "Sir, I haven't any money for these things, and I just know that my Uncle Vernon will never pay for any of this. For that matter, he'll never agree to pay for my coming here. My relatives don't exactly like me…" He let his voice trail off.
Dumbledore let out a low chuckle. "Not to worry my lad," he replied. "There are always ways around any difficulties that we might face. I guarantee that these things shall resolve themselves rather quickly. For now suffice it to say that you have been listed to attend this school since the day of your birth, and it was your parents' wishes that you should do so. Oh yes," he stated as Harry's eyebrows rose, "I knew your parents well young man."
Harry could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. He would not cry. He would not break down in front of this man and Hermione. He blinked back the tears that were threatening and clutched onto Hermione for dear life.
"You shall find that I know a great lot of things, Harry. I am the Headmaster of this school after all. Now, on to business: I have arranged for temporary lodging with the Grangers for you. They have agreed to take you in and provide you with a proper home for the summer. After that we shall have to figure out what we are going to do, but I have no doubt that something shall present itself before then.
"In the mean time, I would appreciate it if the two of you would follow me to my office. Miss Granger, your parents are waiting for you there." He turned and looked at Madame Pomfrey. "Poppy, is it alright if I take Mr. Potter now?"
"I suppose Headmaster," she replied with a sigh. "He should be fine if he remembers to take his potions." Harry couldn't get over the archaic term for medicine that the nurse used.
Shakily, Harry got out of bed. He noticed for the first time that he was dressed in pajamas and a dressing gown. He whispered to Hermione. "Hermione, why would my parents want me to come to this school?"
"You're a wizard, Harry," she replied. "You're famous. There are books written about you."
"No. You must be mistaken, Hermione. I can't be a wizard. I'm just Harry." He was having trouble with this.
"You may be 'just Harry', but you're also a wizard. Please trust me. I want to be your friend, Harry. Can you please trust me?"
"Of course I trust you, Hermione. Do you really want to be my friend?" He looked at her, not daring to hope. "I… I've never had a friend before. Dudley never allowed it. He always threatened anyone that wanted to try." He looked at her again. "Can I really come and live with you for the summer?" he whispered.
"I just know that my parents will love you Harry," she replied. "Of course you can come and stay with us. We have plenty of room, and the Headmaster did say that he had already arranged it."
"I'll not have to go back to my cupboard," he whispered under his breath. Unfortunately he was a little too loud.
Hermione yanked him to a stop. She spun him around and looked at him in shocked disbelief. "What did you just say?" she asked in a tone of voice that sort of scared Harry.
"Nothing," muttered Harry.
"No, you said something about a cupboard. Out with it Harry," she ordered in a tone that brooked no disobeying.
Harry let out a defeated sigh. This Hermione was definitely someone to reckon with. "I said that I'll not have to go back to my cupboard under the stairs."
He watched as her mouth moved mimicking the words that he had just spoken. He watched her eyes blaze with an anger that was quite formidable. She grabbed his other hand so that she had both of them in her grasp. "You listen to me and you listen closely, Harry Potter," she said in a low, dangerous voice. "I swear that you shall never have to go back to those wretched people again." There was a flash of light and then were both enveloped in a bright glow for a few seconds. Then a pulse of pure magic radiated off of them both, rippling down the corridor.
The Headmaster stopped in his tracks as the pulse ripped past him. He was almost knocked from his feet, and devastation followed in the wake of the pulse as it sped along the corridors, knocking most everything to the floor. He turned to see the youngsters holding hands and Hermione's hair swirling in an eldritch wind.
"You two come with me at once," he commanded. They hurried up the stairs to find the Headmaster's office in shambles and two rather frazzled looking parents wondering what had just happened. Fawkes was flying around the room trilling softly. He spotted Harry and Hermione and quickly came to rest on Harry's shoulder.
Dumbledore flicked his wand and the place became a whirlwind of motion as the room reset itself. He motioned for the two to sit on the couch along one of the walls. As they did so, Hermione's parents sat down on either side of them.
The door burst open and three rather distinctive looking individuals came rushing in. The first was an older, stern looking woman in green tartan robes and a long pointed witch's hat. She had a confused look upon her face. The second was a diminutive man, perhaps a dwarf or midget, about three feet tall and quite old. He looked extremely excited. The last was a giant of a man. He was easily twice as tall as Mr. Granger, and he was about five times wider than the man. He had a great black beard and small, beetle-like eyes. He wore a moleskin coat and heavy trousers.
"Professor Dumbledore, Sir, what just happened?" the giant said in a great, booming voice.
"Ah, Hagrid, and Professors McGonagall and Flitwick, won't you join us?" the Headmaster replied. He looked over at the people already in the office. "Might I introduce Professor Minerva McGonagall, my Deputy Headmistress and the Head of Gryffindor House. She also teaches Transfiguration here at Hogwarts. Next to her is Professor Filius Flitwick, Head of Ravenclaw House and our resident Charms professor. Lastly might I introduce Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Groundskeeper here.
"Professors and Hagrid, might I introduce Robert, Jean and Hermione Granger, and of course, Harry Potter."
The two professors nodded politely in the visitors' direction, but Hagrid had another reaction.
"Blimey," he said simply. "Ya look just like yer Dad, Harry, 'cept o' course ya got yer Mum's eyes. Cor, it's just like James was here ag'in." He reached up to wipe a tear from his eye.
Harry was finding it hard to adjust, so he just clung to Hermione. She was proving to be his life line. She seemed to like this though.
"In answer to your question Hagrid, I do not yet know what just happened, but I suspect that it shall be answered shortly by young Miss Granger and Mr. Potter. Hermione, Harry, would you care to enlighten us as to what just happened in the corridor?"
The two hesitantly described the conversation that they had in the corridor and the pulse of magic that seemed to be generated by them when Hermione made her oath. Dumbledore looked quite pleased as the others in the room looked frankly dumbfounded.
"What does it mean, Sir?" asked Harry, seeing the look on Dumbledore's face and sussing out that he knew something.
All eyes turned to the Headmaster. He sighed and seemed to come to a decision. "Harry, I didn't want to have to tell you this at such a young age, but taking into consideration all that has happened in the last couple of days, I suppose that I must reveal some things that shall be rather disturbing to you."
He got up and moved over to a cabinet and opened it. In it there was a stone basin on a stand. He put his wand to his temple and pulled a couple of long silver strands from his head. He placed the strands in the basin.
"This is a pensieve. It is used to view memories. I have placed some memories in the pensieve for us to view. I can make it so that it plays the memories like a movie above the pensieve, or we can go into the memories. While I would normally enter the memories, it can be rather disconcerting to do so, so I think that we shall simply view them, shall we?"
Getting a few shaky nods he went on. "Harry, when you were fifteen months old an evil wizard was terrorizing the magical world. He had killed many good men and women, and he decided that he wanted to kill your family. He succeeded in killing your father, and he moved in to kill you. Your mother intervened and he killed her as well. Her sacrifice set into effect an ancient magic which somehow protected you from this wizard. When he went to try and kill you his spell rebounded on him and vanquished him. That is how you came to have that scar upon your forehead."
"My Mum and Dad were mur… murdered?" Harry stammered. He sank back into the couch and started to shake. He was instantly wrapped in two hugs from both Hermione and her mother. He felt Hermione's Dad's hand on his back. He couldn't help it, the tears came and he couldn't stop them this time. He sobbed quietly for a while into Mrs. Granger's shoulder. He felt Hermione's body shake with her own sobs as well.
When he finally was able to calm down, Dumbledore continued. "Harry, I have made so many mistakes in my life, and yet I have been right more than I have been wrong. I am afraid I have gotten used to being right so much that I made more mistakes concerning you." Harry looked confused.
"When your parents were killed I invoked another ancient magic based upon your mother's sacrifice. It placed wards around your home that made it so that any of this evil wizard's followers that tried to find you would be unable to do so. What I did not take into account was that your aunt and uncle would not accept you into their home. Professor McGonagall tried to warn me about them, but I in my arrogance refused to be persuaded by her.
"My reasoning was two-fold, and I believed it sound at the time. Firstly were the wards that I had placed there for your protection. Secondly, I wanted you to grow up away from the notoriety that surrounded your newly formed legend. You were immediately named 'The Boy Who Lived' in our world. I did not want you to grow up with that kind of pressure, Harry. To be famous for something that happened when you were an infant, it could have had a very bad affect on you. I am sorry Harry, I did not realize that you would grow up in a household where you were treated as a slave and regularly abused."
Dumbledore hung his head in shame. He suddenly looked very old indeed. Harry got up off the couch and approached the old wizard. He lifted Dumbledore's chin and looked him in the eyes. "I forgive you, Sir. You did what you thought was right." He then did something that amazed everyone in the room. He reached out and gave the Headmaster a warm hug. When he pulled back there wasn't a dry eye in the room.
Harry went back and sat next to Hermione. She wrapped her arms protectively around him once more. He looked at her and smiled. To her surprise he placed a small kiss on her forehead. He immediately blushed a deep red color.
"Harry, there is more that you must know, for we must both set up protection for you and the Grangers, and set up training you and your young friend for the trials that shall surely come your way in the coming years." Dumbledore looked at Harry plaintively. Harry looked at each of the Grangers and at their affirmative look nodded to the Headmaster to continue.
"There were two prophesies made, almost at the same time that set everything in motion. It was the first of these that set Voldemort, the wizard that wanted to kill you, at your door. The second of the two appears to deal with both you and Miss Granger." He motioned to the pensieve. A young woman appeared above the basin. She was thin and dressed in gypsy-like robes with large, insect-like eyes. She opened her mouth and spoke:
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
There was a moment's pause and the woman spoke yet again:
"Alone and unwanted, the chosen one makes his choice… Half-blood and first born, together they shall be successful in their endeavor… Her intellect provides the guidance for his passions, they shall meld together, to become as one… Terror, pain and heartache shall accompany them throughout their quest, yet never shall one turn from the other… Alone and unwanted the chosen one makes his choice, and the children shall lead…"
The woman sank back into the pensieve. Harry sat there considering what he had just heard. "Headmaster, what did that mean?"
"The first prophesy deals with you and Voldemort, Harry. As you can see, you were born on July 31st, nineteen eighty. Your parents had been in three prior run-ins with Voldemort. He clearly marked you with that scar. You must be the one to kill him, or he shall surely kill you."
"I thought that he was gone," said Mr. Granger. "Isn't that what you said? That Harry had vanquished him?"
"Yes, I did say that. Harry indeed vanquished him, but I do not believe him gone for good. I believe that he is still out there awaiting an opportunity to regain power. Some day he shall return, and Harry must be ready.
"Now, as to the second prophesy, I believe that it applies to the two of you. You, Harry, are considered a half-blood in our world. That simply means that one of your parents was pure-blooded magical and the other was either a Muggle or a first born witch or wizard."
"Excuse me, what is a Muggle?" Harry asked.
"It's a non-magical person," Professor McGonagall piped in.
"Ah," said Harry, "I presume that my Mum was a first born witch?" At
Dumbledore's nod he continued. "I mean, look at my Aunt Petunia. There is definitely no magic in her."
"Quite correct Harry. Do not, however, equate blood status with ability or power. Your mother was a vary formidable witch, and extremely powerful. I believe that young Miss Granger shall be very much like her in that regard.
"Now, as you have probably gathered, Miss Granger is a first born witch. The two of you appear to have formed quite a bond, Harry. I have never seen its like in two so young before. Your magic together is going to be very powerful. I fear, however, that you have a long and very difficult road ahead of you.
"Never lose faith in each other. Harry and Hermione, you are blessed with great talent, and have become each the first friend to the other. I believe that you have made your choice, and your magics have decided to take an active role in bringing you together.
"Mr. and Mrs. Granger, I believe that you shall find that these two delightful young people shall give you many challenges over the next few years. I have no doubt that you shall be up to those challenges, however I should like to give you some advice.
"You shall notice many changes in these two as the bond draws them closer and closer. They shall mature much more rapidly than is usual in children their age, mentally, emotionally, and physically. You shall probably have a very hard time keeping them apart. For bonded pairs this is usually the case. While I have not encountered a bonded pair this young before I have dealt with a few cases of couples that have chosen to bond later in life.
"I have two last things for the four of you, and then I shall let you go on a tour of our grand school. Firstly, I believe that the power the dark lord knows not is simply love. He is a being of pure hatred and rage, and as such finer, gentler emotions such as love are completely foreign to him. Mr. and Mrs. Granger and Hermione, please nurture the fledgling feelings of love that Harry shall develop over the time. He has never known this and needs it if he is to be successful.
"Secondly, I shall be bringing two people to meet you later today who shall escort you to your home. They shall act as both guardians and guides for you over the summer."
"I'll be happy to do that for 'em, Perfessor," said Hagrid .
"No, Hagrid, I'm afraid you would have too much difficulty blending in to Muggle life for the period of time necessary. The two that I have picked are both volunteers and are also well equipped to do just what is need of them. Enjoy your tour," he finished, turning to the visitors.
Harry wondered who the people were that were going to be with them for the summer. He hoped that he liked them as much as he did the others. It was actually looking like things might be looking up at last.
He did wonder what it was going to be like being with Hermione all the time. He had never had a friend before, let alone a girlfriend. If he understood the prophesy correctly they were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend to each other, and maybe more later on…
He never even realized he had done so as he took her hand in his while they went around the castle. It just seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do so.