Chapter Seven
As their lunch progressed, Hermione began to get nervous. Draco had said he was going to test Harry in impulsive magic to see if he had maintained any memory, and she was nervous about how he was going to aggravate Harry's emotions enough to elicit a response. However, her fears were alleviated when Draco asked her to take the lunch trays out. He could have put them in the return chute, or asked her to do it, but he clearly wanted her to leave.
Maybe he thinks I have some kind of good influence, Hermione allowed herself to think as she walked through the halls toward the stairs. Honestly, no matter what the reason was, she was glad she had been allowed to leave. She much preferred talking to a cheerful Harry over a chicken salad than watching Draco manipulate him into (maybe) performing magic. She felt unusually protective over the man who had been her best friend. Although he appeared to have the same hardy personality he'd always had, he also seemed strangely vulnerable and lonely. He had seemed so happy to see her, someone he'd only met a few days before.
As she turned the corner toward the chute in the hallway, she unexpectedly met a rapidly moving obstacle and very nearly dropped the trays she was holding.
"Goodness," she exclaimed, looking up at whatever - or, as it turned out, whomever - she'd hit. "Oh, Merlin, Terry."
"You're in a hurry," Terry Boot said, grinning down at her. Terry worked in the Creature Injuries Ward of St. Mungo's and, coming in the year after Hermione, was the top of his Assistant Healing class. Hermione respected him and found it nice to have another Assistant Healer that was her age; while the Auror office had experienced an employment boom after the war, St. Mungo's hadn't. "Did you just leave Potter?"
Hermione had forgotten that Terry was going to be interacting with Harry too. "Yes," she said. "Draco is busy trying to incite him into a rage or something. He's trying to bring out accidental magic, I guess."
"You guess?" Terry asked. "Is he keeping things secret from you or something?"
"I guess I just don't like it," Hermione replied. "He's still my friend, even though he doesn't remember me anymore."
"That's tough, huh?" Terry asked sympathetically. "I lost people but at least they weren't there to remind me of it all the time."
"That's a good way of putting it," Hermione said rather sadly. "Although I'd like to think I haven't lost him yet. And hopefully you're on your way to help prevent it," she added, smiling. "I don't want to keep you."
"Please do," Terry said, although he moved around her to start walking down the Closed Ward hallway. "There's someone in Creature Injuries that's somehow escaped a Lethifold and it's getting ugly. Honestly, Potter might have a neighbor soon up here!"
When Hermione left work at the end of the day, Harry hadn't yet expressed any magical ability. Draco suspected it was somehow because he knew he was a wizard and was expecting it in some way, but Hermione privately thought Draco might not have been able to agitate him enough. The old Harry would have risen to Draco's bait in no time, but the new Harry seemed much more easy-going to Hermione.
However, right now she wasn't thinking about that. She was steeling herself to knock on Ron's door again - or, rather, for the first time. Last time she hadn't bothered with that courtesy. She wanted to find out more about Ginny; hopefully, Ron had been looking into things on his own. She was still reeling somewhat from the news that Ginny had been pregnant and potentially abducted or - Hermione's stomach clenched thinking about it - perhaps even harmed. Steeling herself at the thought that she could be helping her friend, she knocked on Ron's door.
Don't tell him anything, she thought to herself. The door opened and she plastered as real a smile as she could manage on her face. "Ron," she said, "hi."
"Blimey," Ron said, stepping back to let Hermione in, "it's nice to see you again, and not flying out of my fireplace. Didn't know you were interested in setting things back up again."
Hermione's smile became a little more genuine. "I have missed you, Ron, you know," she said. "I just didn't know how to come back. Things when we broke up were very … difficult. I felt like, for a while, at least, I'd lost not only you, but Harry and Ginny as well. That was basically all my friends from school."
"I understand," Ron replied. "Bygones are bygones and all that. So," he continued, closing and locking the door, "what can I do for you? Was the tea I had so good you couldn't resist a second visit?"
"You mean the tea I made myself?" Hermione questioned, winking. "That and I've wanted another chat about Ginny."
"Merlin, Hermione, you haven't changed a bit," Ron said. "Your persistence is still just as obnoxious as ever."
"Is it polite to say that to someone you've barely spoken to in six years?" Hermione asked, slightly hurt.
"Consider it my attempt to bring our friendship up to speed," Ron replied, half serious, half joking. "Well, all right, Hermione; you always get what you want in the end, so what is it you wanted to talk about concerning my sister?"
"Well, you said she hadn't moved in with Harry yet, but I went back to her apartment and she still wasn't there, so I went to Godric's Hollow to check there for her." This was something of a lie, as Hermione hadn't been able to visit either place, but she thought it was acceptable since she had a sinking feeling they had to move quickly if they wanted to find Ginny. It felt strange to think of her friend as someone whose face might have been on the back of her milk carton. "She wasn't there either, so I just wanted to know if maybe she was staying with your parents or any of your brothers; I didn't want to intrude on them one at a time until I found the right one, you know."
Ron's frown had been growing steadily deeper as she spoke, and now it was a concerned near-glower. "Are you trying to tell me Ginny is missing, Hermione?" he asked.
With a sigh, Hermione let all her pretense drop. She felt the aging effects of the past week hit her abruptly, an emotional and psychological ton of bricks. "Yes, Ron," she said. "I'm really, really scared for her." Briefly, she described the situation in Ginny's apartment the last time she had been in it, water and note included. There was a deadly, cold silence when she finished speaking.
"So she left in a hurry," Ron said slowly, finally. "She wouldn't just leave a glass on the table - I mean, Ginny was a right mess, but she was really concerned about the baby and all. She wanted to stay hydrated, she was taking something called 'vit-a-mins,' she's started doing all these odd exercises to stay healthy and whatnot… And that note seems a little odd to me too. I mean," Ron continued, "you know Ginny. She and Harry were like … well, I mean, even I could tell they really cared about each other. They seemed happy, you know?"
"I know," Hermione said sadly.
"So," Ron continued, looking strangely at Hermione, "why haven't you been sniffing about for Harry? I mean, do you know where he is but not my sister? He wouldn't just leave her and he wouldn't just do nothing if she were missing, right?"
Hermione hesitated. "Ron," she said slowly, "I do know where Harry is … I just … I can't exactly tell you."
It was as though she could see his neurons firing. She watched him puzzle out her abstruse statement, then saw him make the terrifying connection and watched his face blanch. "The hospital?" he asked hoarsely.
"It's not terrible," Hermione reassured him quickly. "He was found unharmed as far as anyone knows. He was sort of wandering around London; luckily someone happened upon him and recognized him and brought him to us."
"Unharmed?" Ron repeated. "Then why is he with you?"
Again Hermione paused. She wasn't sure how much more emotional turmoil Ron could take, on top of the fact that she'd probably already revealed more than Malfoy wanted her to say. But, as she thought about it, it seemed absurd to not tell Ron everything. "You mustn't tell anyone this," she said. "You can't visit yet and you'll have to arrange everything to Malfoy. He's going to be very miffed that I told you anything at all, so make your demands gently." She took a deep breath, maybe for courage, maybe just to aerate. "Harry's lost all his memory. He's in a suite on the Closed Ward and he doesn't know me. He won't know you. Quite honestly, he knows almost nothing."
Another silence.
"Bloody. Hell."
AN: My beloved readers, although I'm sure you've inferred this already, things have been INSANE here at university. I haven't been updating as frequently as I would like, and I do know that I'm putting you all through pain over this. I'm telling myself now that I need to update more often, but I'm sure you all know that's a piecrust promise. Know, however, that I have not forgotten about this story, nor do I intend to abandon it any time soon! Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Happy reading!-TheGoldenAge
