Chapter Three:
Same as Always
For two days, Hermione was not allowed inside Harry's room. At first, this didn't bother her. After the initial exuberance over Harry's sudden recovery wore off, Hermione had promptly collapsed in the room she shared with Ginny, one floor above Harry's, and had remained in a coma-like sleep of her own for nearly fourteen hours, the result of three months' restless nights. Once awake, she had been so frightened that someone would press her about what had happened to wake Harry up – not to mention so guilty that she might be endangering them all by not owning up to her fairytale fantasy, in case that would give Dumbledore some clue about Voldemort's master plan – that the next half-day had passed in a haze of questions and celebrations.
By the end of the second day, though, when Dumbledore and Sirius at last emerged from Harry's room, closeted themselves away with Mad-Eye, Tonks, Lupin, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, Hermione fully expected Harry to call for her and Ron. Instead, he summoned Snape of all people (using Mr. Weasley as his messenger), and for the next six hours, Hermione, Ginny and Ron had paced the floor of what had once been Ron and Harry's room at Grimmauld Place, wondering what could possibly motivate Harry to spend so much time with their detested Potions professor. Occlumency, that was Hermione's answer; Dumbledore must have ordered Snape to help Harry protect his mind against Voldemort.
But no answers came that day. Hermione helped Mrs. Weasley prepare supper and clean up. The Order of the Phoenix whispered at one end of the table while Hermione, Ron and Ginny quietly speculated at their end. By bedtime, Hermione was beginning to fume.
Sure, she was only sixteen. Sure, she wasn't officially a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Sure, she hadn't owned up to being the reason Harry was now awake. Nevertheless, she had proven her loyalty to her best friend and to the Order not just this summer but time and time again since her first year at Hogwarts. Why was she being cast aside, kept out of the loop?
Or did Harry not want to see her?
Ron took their exclusion even harder than Hermione. On the third day, they camped out across the hall from Harry's room, in a large, darkly-curtained space that might once have been a dining room but was now musty and moldy like every other room in the Black mansion. "Bloody well think he might want to see us," Ron muttered darkly to Hermione when Lupin, rather puffy-eyed, emerged from Harry's sickroom.
"And so he does," Mr. Weasley said from behind them, causing Hermione to jump so high she stepped on Crookshanks' tail. The cat howled off down the hallway. "Go on in, you two."
Hermione hoped Ron and his dad attributed her suddenly-flaming cheeks to excitement about seeing Harry. Her legs trembled numbly beneath her as she moved toward the room that had been her constant haunt for three months.
What if he remembers? What if he accuses me…?
Of what? Hermione pressed her cool palms to her scalding cheeks, willing herself to calm down. Of suspecting that a magic older and more powerful than even Dumbledore had considered might be behind Harry's enchanted sleep? Of doing whatever was necessary to rescue a friend? No. Her actions were more than defensible; they were admirable. It was the secret desire that had motivated those actions Hermione feared everyone – especially Harry – would suspect when they learned how she had woken him. Would everyone guess how long she had secretly wished Harry would notice her, while he was busy mooning over Cho Chang?
And if Harry remembered those moments before his eyes opened, her lips trembling against his, pressing hard against him for one brief second…Then he, at least, would know that her motives hadn't been purely innocent.
Yet the only expression on Harry's face when he turned from the sunlit window to greet them was happiness. "Good to have you back, mate," Ron declared, his irritation evaporating as Harry rushed toward him, looking whole and healthy as ever in old jeans and a faded Wyrd Sisters tee-shirt (a cast-off of Fred's).
"I know what you did for me."
Hermione almost fainted at Harry's words, until she realized his grin included Ron, who had most certainly not been kissing him. "Staying up with me everyday and every night," Harry went on. Ron shrugged; Hermione managed a weak smile, fearful her voice would quake if she spoke. "Thank you. Both of you."
"So tell us what's happening," Ron prompted. They settled around the room: Harry in the chair Hermione had so long occupied, Ron cross-legged at the foot of the bed, Hermione leaning against the headboard with her knees drawn up to her chest. They stayed that way for almost four hours, the sun climbing and falling, spilling over them through the grimy windows, while Harry relayed his fragmented, improbable tale.
Divination. Prophecy. Occlumency. As Harry talked, Hermione tried to focus. Staring into his emerald green eyes, letting the pleasure of having him back with them wash over her again and again, made it difficult to concentrate, though. Did it matter if the future Harry had glimpsed was real, if Voldemort, in trying to use his connection to Harry to lure the Boy Who Lived into the Department of Mysteries, had inadvertently revealed some of his deepest secrets to his arch enemy? Did it matter if the prophecy was true, that neither could live while the other survived? Did it matter if Horcruxes were the key to Voldemort's undoing, or that Harry felt certain he would recall what and where these powerful objects were as needed?
How could any of that matter when Harry was alive, well, and here with her again?
Afraid her sappy thoughts were plainly spelled out on her face, Hermione wiped her dreamy expression blank and ordered herself to stop acting like that ridiculously boy-crazy Lavender Brown. Focus. She needed to think here, because it had become clear to her as the afternoon wore on that Harry had no theories about what had caused his long sleep, nor did he seem particularly worried about it. Yet to Hermione, that was the biggest question of all. It seemed dangerous to ascribe so much truth to what Harry had dreamed until they could figure out who might have been directing those dreams; to her, the possibility that Voldemort might have wanted Harry sidelined this summer, that he might have wanted unfettered access to his enemy's mind, was just as likely as Harry suddenly becoming a Seer.
She knew what she had to do. Even though she could hardly stand the humiliation of it, thought she would rather endure a full Body-Bind curse than speak the truth, Hermione was willing to suffer just about anything to protect her friends, Harry most of all.
Drawing up a fair amount of courage along with a deep breath, Hermione broke across Ron's excited commentary on leaving school to fight Death Eaters with a sudden: "I kissed you, Harry."
A moment of stunned silence descended, into which Harry finally managed to ask, "When?" at the same time that Ron demanded, "Why?"
Cheeks blazing, Hermione hurried to explain. "To wake you up. I mean, when you woke up."
Ron was determinedly staring at a hole in the carpet at his feet. At first, Harry seemed unable to look her in the face, either, but as she related how the idea of waking him with a kiss had come to her from a fairytale, a look of supreme satisfaction replaced his embarrassed grin. Finally, having run out of words, Hermione ended desperately, "I just couldn't think of what else to do, Harry, we'd tried everything, and it seemed wrong not to-to try…"
"But don't you see? Of course that was the answer." Harry leapt to his feet and began pacing in front of the bed. Accustomed to seeing him prone, Hermione felt a little dizzy watching him move so nimbly, like he'd been practicing Quidditch instead of lying abed for three months. "In my dream, you found the Hallows in the Tales of Beedle the Bard, Hermione. Maybe my subconscious was working out the answer along with you, like…like…"
"ESP?" Hermione supplied. When Ron looked baffled, she offered, "That's a Muggle term for reading someone's mind."
"Muggles can read minds?"
"Some think they can," Hermione started.
Harry waved Hermione's explanations off impatiently, his concern obviously elsewhere. "This might be something, Hermione. It might tell us what went wrong when Voldemort tried to make me see Sirius at the Ministry – how I got inside his head, too. Voldemort doesn't respect the old magic, like what house-elves can do – "
Slightly alarmed by Harry's manic tone, Hermione interrupted, "I don't know, Harry. How could Voldemort have accidentally put you into an enchanted sleep? In the story, it was Briar Rose's mother, trying to protect her, not someone trying to control her mind."
"Yeah, but that's not always the story," Ron challenged. His cheeks were still a little pink from Hermione's announcement, and he still seemed rather fascinated by the carpet, but he chanced a glance in her direction that gave Hermione hope they might all get back to normal someday soon. "In some stories it's a curse the girl's wicked stepmother puts on her. Or something like that, anyway."
Harry was now staring frankly at Hermione, an odd smile playing on his lips. She blushed again under his gaze, expecting him to call her out on her crush, but his thoughts were far from her own.
"You think it was just a dream."
Feeling rather traitorous, like she was reporting Harry's anonymously-gifted Firebolt to McGonagall all over again, Hermione countered, "Haven't you even thought about it, Harry? How can you be sure you haven't seen exactly what You-Know-Who wanted you to see? Or-or maybe you didn't see anything real at all?"
"Nice way of saying he might be mental, Hermione," Ron muttered.
For his part, however, Harry appeared unoffended. "I've checked out some of what I remember with Professor Dumbledore and Snape. There's things I know I couldn't know if some of what I saw wasn't real. But you're right," he admitted, his steps slowly coming to a halt as he reached the bedroom door. "There's really only one way to know if what I saw about Voldemort's weakness is true."
Listening to Harry, hearing the steely edge in his voice, it occurred to Hermione that she had been foolish not to expect this. Harry would not awake from his trance with any sort of fear for his own life, or any greater interest in saving himself than he had ever shown; of course his first objective would be to test his new theory of how to defeat Voldemort, without regard for the peril he was rushing headlong toward.
Wasn't that the Harry she so admired? Hermione recalled a board of life-sized wizard's chess and a much younger Harry looking to her for encouragement, believing her so much more gifted than he. She had told him that night what she knew to be even truer now: Harry was a great wizard. She loved his bravery, his unswerving dedication to fighting a wizard nearly everyone else in their world feared to name. She wouldn't want him any other way, not really.
But that didn't mean a part of her wasn't dying to protect him.
No way of arguing Harry out of his decision came to her, though – at least not one that wouldn't involve more fierce blushing and awkward silences. So she said nothing of her feelings as Harry opened the door, inclining his head to invite her and Ron to join him. Without hesitation, they both stepped forward.
Where you go, I go. Forever.
"Where to?" Ron asked, sounding a bit concerned that they might be off to meet Voldemort himself.
Harry's answer startled even Hermione, who thought she was ready for anything.
"We need to see Kreacher."
