The Harmony bond, chapter two.
Disclaimer:-
To anyone who has been on another planet since 1997, this is to let you know that Harry Potter belongs to J.K.Rowling, her various publishers and Warner Brothers. This story and any new characters belong to me.
The story so far...
Harry has been rescued by the Grangers, but the first time they touched Harry and Hermione fell unconscious...
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"Albus, are you there?" called a head from the green-glowing fire in the office of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, the revered headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "Albus?"
Immediately concerned, an elderly gentleman with a long white beard got up from his desk and walked to the fireplace and asked urgently, "Arabella? Has something happened?"
"Yes," the woman's face answered. "I don't really know what exactly, but Harry was taken away in a police car."
"Why? Do you know where?"
"I don't know any more than that, but another, ordinary car was following them."
"Thank you, Arabella. Stay there in case he comes back. I'll handle it from here."
But as he settled himself back into his chair behind his desk, for perhaps the first time in many years, Albus Dumbledore had no idea what to do.
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He wasn't the only one. In the hospital, the doctors were at a loss to know why the two children had suddenly collapsed into unconsciousness.
They'd rushed another trolley to Hermione and lifted her onto it, but as they moved her away, both children had begun to gag and have difficulty breathing. After attempting that three times, they had moved Hermione's trolley back next to Harry and the two children slowly began to recover their colour.
The head of the team of doctors who had ended up caring for Harry and Hermione turned to Mr. And Mrs. Granger and finally decided what to say.
"Both of them seem stable for now. I'm not going to try to fool you. You've probably gathered that we have no idea what caused them to collapse like that. There appears to be nothing wrong with your daughter and none of the boy's injuries could cause anything like this. All we can do is keep them both in for observation overnight and then we take it from there."
"But why do they seem to have trouble breathing every time you separated them?"
"Mr. Granger. I don't know. I've never seen anything like it and nor have any of the other staff here."
A thin angry-looking woman came bursting in at that moment. "What's going on? Where's my husband? What lies has that boy been telling you?"
The doctor turned to the woman and asked, "And who are you, may I ask?"
"Petunia Dursley. His aunt. He lives with us."
"Well, Mrs. Dursley. He hasn't been telling us anything. But my report will say he has been abused and neglected for a long time. If you want your husband, I suggest you go and see him at the police station."
With a look of hatred, Petunia Dursley turned, sniffed, and stormed out of the ward.
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Just as confused as the doctors was Mafalda Hopkirk and her staff in the Improper Use of Magic Office in the Ministry of Magic. A tremendous burst of magic had occurred in a muggle hospital in Surrey, south of London. Unable to ascertain what had cause it, she had immediately alerted the duty auror in the Magical Law Enforcement office.
"I'll go, just to see what's going on," said one of the auror team that had immediately been summoned to the office.
"Be careful," said his colleague.
Using a disillusionment charm to stay invisible, the auror apparated to the hospital and quickly detected the source of the magical outburst. It appeared to have come from two young children and had happened in the presence of a full medical team.
When most of the team had finally moved away, he crept closer to examine the two children. There didn't appear to be anything unusual about them until something made him take a second glance at the boy's face. There was some mark under his hair. Hoping nobody would see the hair move, he brushed the hair away from the boy's forehead and saw the scar he would have recognised anywhere.
Not even realising that he had actually knocked one of the nurses over in his haste to get out, he ran outside and apparated back to the Ministry.
"It's Harry Potter," he gasped.
Harry Potter was famous. There had been an evil wizard bent on taking over the country and probably the world. Nobody who opposed him survived, but one night he had gone to a house in the village of Godric's Hollow to kill a family. He had killed the father and the mother, but when he had cast the killing curse on the baby boy, it had rebounded on him and he had never been seen since. The boy, who was left with a strangely shaped scar on his forehead, was called Harry Potter.
He had also disappeared that night, secreted away from the wizarding world by the most powerful good wizard of the time, Albus Dumbledore. Not even the Ministry knew where Dumbledore had hidden Harry Potter and no persuasion had been able to make him tell.
"We ought to alert Fudge," said one of the aurors. Fudge was the current Minister of Magic.
"No. Get a message to Dumbledore," said another.
"The Minister won't like it."
"Who would you rather face when he's angry, Fudge or Dumbledore?"
"I'll get Dumbledore. He can decide what to tell the Minister."
After a quick call through the fire, called a floo-call, Dumbledore himself had jumped into his fireplace and reappeared from the fireplace in the aurors' office.
"You've found Harry?" he asked urgently.
"Yes," said the auror who'd seen him. "We were investigating an outburst of magic in a muggle hospital in Surrey. But the magic wasn't just from Harry. It was from a girl as well. And from what I heard the doctors saying, they can't separate them."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that. Every time they are taken away from each other, they have trouble breathing."
The look of shock on Dumbledore's face amazed the aurors present. Nothing shook the great Albus Dumbledore, victor so many years ago over the previous dark lord and the leading figure in the wizengamot, the nearest thing the wizarding world in Britain has to a parliament. As well as that he was a powerful figure in the international wizarding world. But shocked he was. He simply gasped and said, "it can't be."
The other aurors stood waiting for instructions.
"Tell nobody. I will investigate this myself. Then we'll need a team to obliviate the muggles."
"Yes, sir," said the senior auror, glad that someone else was now taking the decisions on this case.
As Dumbledore walked out, one of the junior aurors said to the senior auror, "Don't you think we ought to tell the Minister?"
"Dumbledore said tell nobody. If you want to go against Dumbledore, that's up to you."
The junior auror shut up.
Dumbledore walked to one of the apparation stations in the ministry, as it was not possible to apparate to or from just anywhere within the ministry for security reasons. A fraction of a second later, he was outside the hospital and quickly transfiguring his cloak into something more like the clothes he saw the muggles wearing.
Walking in to the hospital, he began to head to where he could feel the magic coming from.
"Sir!" a woman called. "You'll have to check in here."
"Oh. I'm sorry," he said to the bored-looking receptionist. "I am looking for a boy who was brought in a while ago in a please car."
"Huh? Oh, a police car? Oh, yes. Can I ask your name please?"
"Albus Dumbledore."
"And are you family?"
"Not exactly."
"Family visiting only, I'm afraid."
"I represent his parents, who are dead."
"Oh. I'm sorry. Well, the social worker is in that office over there."
"Social worker?" he asked, confused.
The woman looked at him strangely. "The one who is responsible for him now. You'll have to see her."
"Over there, you say?"
He walked to the office the woman had pointed out and knocked, but there was no reply. Seeing that the receptionist wasn't watching, he turned and walked to the source of the magic.
He saw the two children lying on the two casualty trolleys, almost side by side and couldn't help a slight smile. He noticed a worried-looking couple sitting beside the girl, but ignored them for a moment as he approached the still unconscious boy and said simply, "Hello, Harry."
The woman looked up at him. "You know Harry?"
Dumbledore smiled. "Well, I was a good friend of his parents, but it's been a long time since I've seen Harry."
"Obviously not that good a friend," commented Mr. Granger.
"I'm sorry?"
"Didn't a 'good friend' of his parents' ever think to check on how he was?"
Dumbledore was puzzled. "After his parents were... er, died, I took him to live with his only relatives, so I don't understand what you mean."
"Some relatives..." the other man retorted, but whatever else he was going to say was lost as his daughter began to stir.
"Mum? Dad?" the girl mumbled.
Her two parents got up and while her father took her hand, her mother stroked her daughter's forehead. "We're here, darling."
"What happened?"
"You just fainted," her father replied.
"I don't faint," the girl denied, her voice a little more forceful.
"What's the last thing you can remember?" Dumbledore asked.
The girl looked at him. "Who are you?"
"I'm a friend of Harry's," he explained.
"Harry doesn't have any friends," the girl snapped angry, now sitting up. "Friends don't let him half starve to death, get beaten up every day, or shut in a cupboard for hours on end."
Dumbledore recoiled, partly from the girl's obvious anger and partly from the shock at what she'd said.
"Is this true?" he asked the girl's parents.
Mr. Granger nodded. "He's covered in bruises and the doctor said he's grossly underweight. Hermione, that's my little girl's name..."
"I'm NOT a little girl," Hermione insisted.
"Hermione found where Harry had been living, in a dirty cupboard under the stairs. So I'd say your choice of guardians left a little to be desired."
Dumbledore walked to be beside the boy and pulled down the sheet covering him. The sight made him take a sharp breath. Without a second thought he pulled out his wand and muttered something. The others watched, astounded, as the boys bruises faded into nothing.
"Harry, it's time to wake up now," Dumbledore spoke in a gentle voice, waving his wand lightly over the boy.
Harry stirred, then squinted his eyes at the bright hospital lights, "Hermione?" he mumbled, still only half awake. "Don't go."
"I'm right here," said Hermione.
Startled at her voice, Harry opened his eyes wide and turned to look at her. "You're real? But I was dreaming about you."
"Really?" asked Dumbledore. "And what were you dreaming?"
"I... I can't remember. Who are you, sir?"
"Just a friend," Dumbledore replied, while Mr. Granger snorted at his description of himself.
"I told you. Harry doesn't have any friends," Hermione argued.
Harry looked ashamed. Hermione immediately sensed that she'd said something wrong. "Harry. It's not your fault."
"I'm a freak," Harry said sadly. "That's why nobody likes me."
"You're not a freak!" cried Hermione, beginning to cry with frustration. "And I like you."
"Who told you that you were a freak, Harry?" asked Mrs. Granger.
"My uncle and aunt. That's what they always call me."
Dumbledore sighed. "When I sent you live with them, I thought Petunia at least would love you for Lily's sake."
Without warning Hermione flew at the elderly professor as if she wanted to scratch his eyes out. Startled, he gave a quick flick of his wand and Hermione was lying back on the bed.
"Don't touch her," Harry screamed.
"He didn't," Hermione assured him, then she turned back to Dumbledore and asked, "How did you do that?"
"Magic," smiled Dumbledore.
"There's no such thing as magic," said Harry.
"Who's Lily?" asked Hermione.
Dumbledore smiled again. "You don't miss a thing, do you, Hermione? I think you're going to be a very bright witch one day."
"She's not a witch. She's nice," cried Harry.
"You don't even know what a witch is?" asked Dumbledore. "It's worse than I thought. I'll explain it to you later, but first I have to take you back to the Dursleys."
"No!" cried Hermione.
"Over my dead body," said Mr. Granger. "Anyway, I think you'll find nobody at home right now. They're at the police station, being interviewed for abusing Harry."
"This complicates matters."
"How can you say you're a friend of Harry's and want to send him back to those... those... people?" asked Hermione, looking at her father wondering if she dare use another word and deciding that she daren't.
"There are other factors you don't understand," said Dumbledore.
"I don't care."
"Well, if Harry can't go back to the Dursleys tonight, he'll have to go home with you, just for tonight."
"He can't," pointed out Mrs. Granger. "The doctors want them both to stay in overnight, then Harry has to go to a home with Social Services."
"No. We can't have that. Too many people to remember," said Dumbledore.
"And anyway, we can't separate them. They had trouble breathing when the doctors tried," Mr. Granger added.
"Really? Very curious. Yes. Please excuse me. I want to go and check on something. I will be back shortly."
Without another word, Dumbledore walked out.
"Who was that man?" asked Hermione.
"I have no idea," her father answered.
"Well he's not taking Harry back to the Dursleys. I won't have it."
Mr. Granger smiled at his daughter's unaccustomed passionate statement.
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Deep in the department of mysteries was a room entitled magical contracts. It contained just five items. A table, a chair, a quill, a bottle of ink and a large, rather dusty book with the title "Record of Magical Bonds, 1546-" The end date was left blank.
It was to this book that Professor Dumbledore went. He quickly flicked through the pages, past the records of centuries of marital bonds, life debts, unbreakable vows until he came to page for that day's date.
Clearly written in the somewhat old-fashioned style the quill used, were the words "Harry James Potter and Hermione Jean Granger. Soul Bond."
Frowning, the professor closed the book. "Yes," he said to himself. "This certainly does complicate matters."
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Author's note...
Wow! Two chapters in two days. Please don't expect me to keep up that pace, especially as I'm still supposed to be moving very soon. And I can't believe I've got twenty three reviews for the first chapter of this story already. I hope you like the second chapter as much. Please review.
