Came out of the Darkness 6 – jcswriter
As always – all recognized characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
It was too dark. Harry was desperate to look through his mother's trunk. He'd examined every inch when he was five. But barely glanced last year. Last year. Which was actually six years from now. This was confusing as all hell. And he was tired. And it was too dark. So he just ran his hand along the rim of the lid until his finger found the velvet pouch. He could feel the rings inside. He slipped the drawstring over his wrist and climbed into bed. He thought he'd never fall asleep, but next time he opened his eyes, sunlight streamed in the window by his bed.
"Morning, Harry!" Ron greeted. He was sitting up on his bed. A quick glance showed they were the only ones in the room.
"Morning," Harry yawned, rubbing his eyes.
"Hey, what's that?"
Harry looked to see Ron walk over to his mother's trunk and move as if to open it.
"DON'T!" Harry leapt up and yanked Ron away.
"What? That wasn't here last night! I just want to look at it!"
Harry stood in front of the trunk with his arms crossed. "It's mine."
"What's going on?" Neville walked in from the bathroom.
"I just wanted to see it!" Ron snapped. "And he went mental."
"My Gran always says look with your eyes," Neville said. "If you did, you would see, the trunk is his mother's." Neville pointed to the name on the lid.
"Oh," Ron looked at his feet. "Sorry."
Harry nodded, "Me too. It's just, I got a House Elf to steal it from my aunt's last night. I didn't really have a chance to look through it."
Percy cleared his throat from the doorway, "You three have fifteen minutes to be up, dressed, and down for breakfast." Ron grabbed his things and ran out of the room.
Neville walked over to Harry and gripped his arm, "You all right?"
"Yeah, thanks," Harry replied as he pulled the pouch from his wrist and opened it up to examine his parents' wedding rings. "I found these when I was little. I forgot about them until my aunt told me to take the trunk when we moved out. I remembered again last night and went out to find some way to get it."
"Harry hold up," Neville interrupted him. "Get dressed, we don't want to be late for breakfast. And we'll get together later with Hermione and you can tell both of us. Speaking of our little lady Maya…" he opened his own trunk and pulled out a long black cord. A knife from his potions kit split it evenly in half. "You guys can't wear them on your fingers quite yet but I expect you want her to have hers."
"Thanks Nev," Harry whispered as he strung the rings on the cord. He hung his own around his neck and tucked it out of sight.
"Go get dressed," Neville reminded. "Before Ron gets down there and eats the cupboards bare."
*x*x*x*x*x*
Hermione was waiting in the crowded common room. Harry walked over to her. They stood eye to eye for a long moment. Then Neville stumbled into a table and knocked a lamp over. Everyone turned to look and Harry took advantage of the distraction to drop the corded ring over her head. Hermione caught the ring and smiled broadly. She quickly tucked it down under her shirt and kissed his cheek.
"Hey, thought you said no kissing!" he whispered.
"That wasn't a real kiss," she replied. "Not on the lips. So it's allowed."
"Oh, OK," he stretched slightly and kissed her hairline.
*x*x*x*x*x*
They had breakfast and got their course schedules. Harry kept grinning because Hermione kept touching her chest where the ring lay under her clothes.
The rest of the first day of classes passed in a blur of faces (staring at him, pointing at his forehead) moving staircases and a lot of information to take in, in a short period of time. It was late afternoon, a few hours before dinner, when they were able to slip, one by one, out of the common room. Harry was last, as he was only able to sneak away after getting Ron to challenge Seamus to a game of Wizard's Chess so that they could teach Muggle raised Dean Thomas. Once the three boys were engaged in the game, Harry snuck over and behind the tapestry.
Hermione and Neville were sitting on opposite sides of the couch, facing each other, their sock clad feet up on the middle cushion. Harry walked over and climbed up behind Hermione. "What's going on?"
"I feel eleven," Neville sighed.
"You are eleven," Harry reminded.
"No… I'm eighteen! I've got eighteen years up here," he tapped his head. "But I'm feeling more and more eleven since we got here. Do you?"
Harry nodded, "I can still remember a lot. But not everything."
Hermione sighed, "It's not possible to remember every minute or even every day of your life. You remember the big things. Part of this is that we get to relive this part of our lives. If we focus too much on what's coming, we'll miss what's happening in the here and now. Yes I agree we need to change things for the better, but we also need to live this life."
Silence fell for a long moment, then Harry gave her a squeeze, "I love your mind. Just imagine what it'll be like once you're eleven."
Hermione rolled her eyes. Neville blinked, "You're not eleven?"
"Not yet," Hermione admitted. "But I know how enormous a thing it is, so I would like to just quietly turn eleven in three weeks."
"You're ten?!" Neville shouted.
"So much for quietly," Hermione sighed.
"Shh Nev, take it easy," Harry soothed.
"You can't hear anything outside of this room. Even if you're standing just out in the hallway." Neville calmly reported. "Haven't you noticed we can't hear the common room noise? And I'm sorry Hermione. But you do realize that no one has entered Hogwarts before their eleventh birthday in forever."
"Dumbledore did it," Harry sighed as he rubbed his chin on Hermione's shoulder. He leaned back for a moment and stroked her hair down.
"I can't believe he's dark," Neville said sadly.
"I don't think he's evil, Nev," Hermione leaned forward and took his hands in hers. "It's just that he believes that what he's doing is for the greater good. I think that everything that he's done is with that single minded focus. He is a great and powerful man, but he is just a man. We're just not supposed to notice that."
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," Harry remarked. (1)
Hermione looked back and smile, "The great and powerful Oz."
Neville looked confused, "What?"
"It's a movie," Harry said. "My aunt watches it every year."
"It's a book actually," Hermione corrected. "Rather it was a book first. 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum. A Muggle book published in 1900."
"I didn't think Muggles knew anything about Wizards. What's it about?" Neville asked wide eyed.
"It's a fictional book, Nev," Hermione reported. "It's a made up story. I actually brought a copy with me, if you want to read it." Harry snickered. "What?"
"Did you pack anything but books in your trunk?"
"No," she shook her head "Why would I?" then she smiled. "Actually I only brought four of my favorites."
"And you let me borrow one?" Neville looked astonished.
"Of course, we're friends aren't we," Hermione said. "I'll get it as soon as we go back upstairs."
"I almost forgot," Neville jumped up. "Speaking of books." He picked up an item from the table. He turned to show it to his friends. It looked like a miniature wardrobe for a doll house. "My Gran let me bring a bunch of extra books. Some from our home library, some are new. I thought we could use them to better prepare ourselves. I spent the last few weeks trying to figure out how to let you know I had them." He smiled at them. "In case I haven't said today, I'm so glad you remember." He back at the wardrobe in his hands. "She shrank them." He pulled a note off of the back. "Sit it down. Be sure there is enough space around it. At least six foot by six foot."
"There," Harry pointed to a space against the wall.
"Perfect," Neville sat the wardrobe down against the wall in the empty space and continued to read from the note. "Tap top of it twice with your wand and say Restorado." He leaned down and tapped twice. "Restorado." Then he leapt back as the wardrobe seemed to wiggle and shake, then stretched back to full size. Unfortunately with all the shaking about in transit, the books were all leaning forward. The doors sprung open spilling books onto the floor. "Whoops." He glanced down at the slip of parchment. "Be sure to check that the books are on the shelves before restoring to size. Ugh. Why couldn't she have written that first?"
Hermione laughed, "It's OK, Neville. We can put them to rights. Good job on the spell by the way. For an eleven year old."
"Thanks."
They spent the next hour sorting through the books. Hermione came up with a way to organize them, and wisely they agreed with her. There were books on Occlumency and Legilimency, Defensive Spells and Charms, Potions, Herbology, Arithmancy, Runology, even Divination and Prophecies, and Magical Creatures. More or less, everything they would need for their classes and to prepare for the coming battles.
"This is brilliant Nev," Harry gushed, giving him a hug. "Absolutely brilliant."
Neville smiled broadly. "I had to think fast. I woke up the day before my birthday, got my letter on my birthday, then went to Diagon Alley two days later. But if we think of anything else we want, I can send an owl to Gran or to Obscurus Books. They do more owl order than Flourish and Blotts."
"I wish I'd woken up earlier. I'd give anything to have come back before my birthday," Harry sighed as he sat a Wizarding Etiquette book on the shelf where Hermione pointed.
"What would you change?" Hermione asked.
Harry glanced at the next book, 'Dealing with Lesser Creatures: A Wizards guide to Goblins, Elves, and Centaurs'. "Well for one, I would have been much more respectful to the Goblins at Gringotts. I don't think I said more than two sentences to Griphook. I never even thanked him."
Hermione smiled, "Easily fixed."
"How?"
"You write him a letter."
"You have better handwriting," Harry smiled charmingly.
Hermione rolled her eyes, "Harry a Hippogriff has better handwriting than you do. But fine, I'll write it with you."
Some time later, they slipped back up to the common room and separated. Harry went to watch Dean now playing chess against Ron, with Seamus' coaching. Hermione ran up to her room and returned with a battered copy of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and gave it to Neville, before slipping into the group of gossiping girls. Neville simply claimed a spot in the corner and began to read.
Quote from 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum