A STRANGER AND HER SYMPATHY
CHAPTER NINE
THE PAST THAT I FORGOT
He must have fallen asleep.
He woke to a vision of bushy brown hair across his face. It didn't take long to realize that his hands were still wrapped around Hermione's naked waist. The two remained there lying on the couch as a warm blanket kept them warm and hidden from the rest of the world.
If he was going to be trapped in time… he sure hoped that it was this moment. He felt a feeling of great joy in all sense after making love to the girl that he loved so much.
Hermione suddenly woke up. She tossed and turned until she found herself facing him. She greeted him with a warm smile which he gladly returned. He brushed the hair that covered her face. She responded by taking his hand and placing it on her cheek. It was warm to the touch.
They stayed like that for minutes, enjoying the peace and solitude they found on the other. He didn't dare to speak fearing that word would ruin this sweet moment he had with her. Their gaze only broke when she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.
"I really should be going." she said softly.
"What? And leave me alone?" he playfully told her.
"I thought you can take care of yourself?"
"I'd rather take care of you." he teased.
"My big, strong protector." she mockingly sighed.
"I don't know about that, I'm very skinny."
She snickered as she played with his bare chest.
"Won't you defend my honor from ruffians?"
"I can't fight good… but I can scream pretty loud."
"Harry!" she playfully slapped him on the stomach.
"Ouch! Sorry."
He gazed upon the ceiling as she nuzzled against him. As he looked on, he didn't see the stone top of the room as he busied himself with the decision he must make as a certain murderous wizard is out to get him.
He loves her, but does he love her enough to leave? Heaven knows he rather be anyplace where she is. Should he ask her to come? Could he stand putting her in danger? The more he though about it, the more it became clear that he had to leave her behind. He finally found the person he cared the most in this world. He loved her too much to put her in harm's way.
"What time is it?" she whispered.
Harry glanced at his wristwatch.
"About half an hour before breakfast." he replied.
"Hmm… I wish I could stay longer."
"Stay forever."
"Hmm?"
"Nothing." said Harry.
THUD!
The sound of someone running into the walls from outside startled the two. Harry instinctively put on his clothes right before running out the door to see what caused the sound.
He saw no one in the empty castle halls. The only thing that filled it in fact was silence. Whatever made the noise was sure to have gone by now.
"What is it?" asked a now clothed Hermione who peered outside as well.
"Dunno." he told her, still looking from left to right.
"Come on." she beckoned him inside.
But as Harry walked in, he realized that the door was unlocked. He must have forgotten about it as he and Hermione busied their selves with each other earlier.
As more time passed by, it became apparent to keep Hermione in the confines of the room impossible. She had to go back to her dorm and sort some stuff out and go to breakfast with Ron at the Great hall right after (She promised to some back right after and bring him some bacon and eggs.)
"I'm going to get you two plates of bacon." she urged him.
"I told you, you don't have to. One will be just fine." Harry explained.
"You're skin and bones, Harry. You haven't been eating right lately. You're going to get stuffed whether you like or not." she said with finality.
Harry could only smile at her.
"Yes mam." he said.
She smiled right back.
"I'll be back in no time." she said.
"That's seems too long." Harry playfully whined.
"They say absence makes the heart grow fonder." said Hermione as she playfully honked Harry's nose.
"Obviously, they're all idiots." he replied.
She giggled at this. It was hard for her to go… not because she didn't want to leave Harry, but he had perfectly foiled any plans of her escape by clutching both of her hands.
"Don't try to charm me into staying, Potter." she said.
"Can't hurt to try though, right?" he said.
She leaned forward and gave him a long passionate kiss which Harry though took hours.
"You're so cute when you're trying to manipulate someone." said Hermione.
Harry finally let go of her as this seemed to take finality in the matter. Hermione opened the wooden door leading outside and gave Harry a reassuring smile before disappearing.
This, once again left Harry all alone with himself. The mystical room was once again his. He looked at the bronze clock on the wall and wondered if he can stand there and count the seconds that she's gone.
Harry always preferred to be alone. But after meeting Hermione he found loneliness to be seclusion and not salvation. He paced around the room as he tried to busy himself without the company of a certain bushy-brown girl.
He folded the blanket that they used, he stacked the pillows back where they took them from, and he even managed to move some furniture around. In some ways, he thought of wanting to impress Hermione with his decorating skills. He felt like a husband trying to do something nice for his wife.
It was this thought that harry stopped dead on the middle of pushing a sofa closer to the fireplace. He thought of life with Hermione outside these walls. It must be a great feeling having that life and for it to be true. But the fact that the only safety he can provide her is inside this room kills him somehow.
As much as he wanted to, this can never be. He was still marked for death by a mad murderer on the loose, and as long as his life is in danger, so is hers… His heart ached a little to that realization. He had finally found love but he has no choice but to let her go.
It was if God was playing a cruel game on him. One, where the only person who loses is Harry. Whatever future he may have outside of this school didn't bother him as much now as he finally found a chance of happiness. What dreaded him the most was what he will say to Hermione when the time comes when he has to leave. After she cried at Dumbledore's death, the last thing on his mind was to hurt her and cause her more pain.
He absentmindedly collapsed down on the couch that he was moving earlier. He felt heavy with the emotional weight he now carried. He surrendered a sigh to the air. Never has he felt confusion this bad. As he buried his head on his convivial palms, that's when it happened…
He spun around as he heard a faint whisper. The surprise isn't exactly what he really needed at the moment. He got to his feet and walked carefully as he darted his eyes all over the room for the source of the sound.
He quickly whirled toward the direction of the now lifeless fireplace as he heard the noise once again. This time it was definitely louder. The doubts inside Harry's head that he was only imagining things were completely now gone.
Is this another mystical anomaly, normal to this world? Do people hear strange sounds in their heads all the time here? Even for a magical world, this still seemed crazy.
The noise came again… louder this time. The sound was clear now. He stared at the oak door leading outside as he heard the sound of someone banging on the door. Harry quickly ran towards the door and opened the door with all his might.
There was no one there. He looked at both directions of the corridor and saw emptiness.
"Hello?" he asked the air, taking a chance that it might answer back.
People in Harry's current situation would normally think about getting an appointment with a Psychiatrist by now. But he knows that he wasn't one of those people. Unlike those people who has better grip with reality, he knows he's not insane.
The dreaded sound came for a fourth time. This time, the sound of the banging door was followed by a voice.
"Let me out!" the voice yelled furiously.
Harry was helpless to do anything as he searched for any signs of the person the screams were coming from.
"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" the voice continued.
Then suddenly…WHAM!
A sudden surge of pain rushed through his head. Along with it was a blinding light that came out of nowhere. The light vanished before his eyes and was replaced by visions… no! … They were replaced by new memories.
-"I'm Hermione Granger… and you are?" he saw a ten or eleven year old Hermione on the door of a train compartment. She was already wearing her school uniform as she fixed Harry's glasses with a spell-the scene quickly changed to an eerie archway with audible voices-"Ron, Ron Weasley." said a younger Ron sitting across him on the train compartment. He held his hand towards Harry as a gesture of friendship.
A series of flashes hit Harry. Along with it was the pain the surged his brain as another memory entered his mind.
-A small sphere was on his hand. Inside was some sort of bluish mist which whirled around its home-he was sitting in Ron's house. They were all eating breakfast with him. He saw Ron's friendly parents along with Ron's brothers and sister who treated him as one of their own-
"Aaahhh!" he yelled. The pain was like a series of knives through his head and every blade was more painful than the last.
-Flashes of light flew across in every direction as Harry found himself in the middle of a battle in the arch room-the roar of the crowd was almost deafening as Harry raised the snitch on his hand to the air. Gryffindor had finally won the Quidditch Cup-he chased the mad, cackling woman along the corridors as he wanted nothing more but to kill her-
The pain brought Harry to his knees as it was too much for him to handle. He was helpless to do anything… helpless to resist the unbearable ache he was going through. All that he wanted is for it to be over.
-He soared through the skies as he and his broom flew away from a giant dragon which sole intent is to impair him-the image of an evil man whose face remarkably looked like a serpent looked into his eyes -he watched a man loose his life in front of his very eyes as the veil under the archway took him away from him-and then finally, he found himself at the headmaster's office.
This didn't seem like a memory anymore. It was like he was on a rollercoaster ride of his life.
Harry finally found out who the screaming person was. To his surprise, it was actually him begging to be let out of the room as hopefully he banged his way through the door. A feeling a mixed anger and guilt filled him. Tears were coming down his cheeks as he rammed the door harder.
"LET ME OUT DAMN YOU!" he bellowed at the man behind him.
He turned around and saw Dumbledore's static face looking back at him. He appeared to have every intention of staying where he was and not giving into Harry's orders.
Harry stopped bashing on the exit… realizing it was a fruitless endeavor to escape this room. He needed to get out. The fact that the headmaster stood there silently only made him feel worst than he already did.
He kicked the globe display on his left with all his might, sending it crashing across the room.
"Let me out, NOW!" he roared at Dumbledore.
"I'm afraid I cannot let you do that, Harry." the headmaster replied.
"I'm not asking!" he said through gritted teeth as he grabbed a big figurine from one of the displays.
"I fear your threat will not do you any favors."
Harry hurled the figurine towards Dumbledore missing the headmaster by mere inches.
"I don't want to be here!" said Harry.
"You have to, Harry."
"Why, WHAT are you bloody keeping me here for?"
"You may not go until we talk."
"I don't want to talk! I just want to be alone! I just want to be as far away from here as possible!"
"I understand what you're feeling right now."
"No YOU don't! You don't know a damn thing! You don't-you don't-You've got no idea."
"What you are feeling… is guilt… too much guilt. You think that what happened tonight was entirely your fault."
"It was my fault! It was because of me Sirius died. It was because of me that my friends got hurt." Harry confessed. There was uneasiness on his throat. His stomach ached for some reason.
"No, it wasn't your fault. You did not kill Sirius. He was murdered by Voldemort's Death Eaters. He was-"
"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! I don't want you to try and make me feel better! This isn't just something you can reason me out of! I lost the only thing I've got closest to a real family-AND WHAT FOR? NOTHING! You think you could just stand there and make everything go away? You think you can just step in, fix everything and make yourself feel good about it? You don't bloody know how I feel! How DARE you tell me that you do!"
"It pains me to see you like this, Harry" said Dumbledore closer from behind his desk. "All the hurting which you choose to shoulder alone, all the grief and the sorrow that drowns your heart. You can put the blame on others if you wanted to, but you choose to feel it alone. You prefer to take the insurmountable ache so that no one else has to. I admire you for that that, Harry. It is one of the many things that makes you, you."
"I DON'T WANT TO BE ME! I DON'T WANT TO BE HARRY POTTER!"
"You're too hard on yourself." said Dumbledore, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder.
But a friendly gesture wasn't what Harry needed. He slapped Dumbledore's hand away and started for the door once more. He used his shoulder, his fist, he tried kicking it down but it was no use. Dumbledore had definitely put magic on the exit. But irrationality and his goal to get away from this cage was what kept Harry going.
He used his fist again and pummeled the oak door. He wailed away to his heart's content. He didn't care if his hand was bleeding nor that it was broken. He just wanted an escape.
"Harry…"
Like a child denied of something he wanted, Harry cried in frustration as he beat the door harder. Tears ran down his cheeks as blood splattered on him.
"Harry…"
Harry suddenly collapsed on the floor, the look of defeat on his eyes. He howled in frustration as he realized that his attempt of escape is futile.
"Please… please let me out." he pleaded.
"Harry, I can't—I can still—I can make you forget."
"Please Professor… please…please." Harry begged as he crawled towards the headmaster and seized Dumbledore's left ankle.
The sight of Harry was too much even for the headmaster. Dumbledore failed to restrain the tears from his eyes. Harry was like glass, broken, all over the floor and with the inability to see himself.
It was this moment that Dumbledore finally gave in to Harry.
"All right, Harry… you win… you win." said the headmaster bending over Harry.
Harry stayed on the floor, crying for salvation.
"A normal modification of your memory is not enough. A strong feeling like this one can destroy such futile magic. What I'm going to do is give you freedom… from all of this. I'm going to cut you away from this world and make everyone forget your very existence. No one will be able to remember you aside from me and Professor McGonagall. For you, the day the owl that delivered you a letter from Hogwarts never came."
Dumbledore lifted Harry's face up. He smiled at Harry knowing at last that Harry will hurt no more.
"There, there Harry. Everything's going to be all right." said the headmaster pointing his wand on Harry's forehead.
A blinding light erupted from it engulfed the whole room in brightness. The next thing Harry knew was he was walking along the corridors of Hogwarts. It was thought he was in a trance as he strode straight to his destination. He did not care whether a few students saw him along the way nor if blood from his nose ran down his face.
A few minutes later, he arrived at the Great Hall. The chatter of the Hall died at once as everyone in the room stopped dead at his arrival. He took two or three more steps inside and saw Hermione and Ron with the shocked expression on their face.
"I remember everything."
ooo000ooo
A/N Alright, another chapter down. I hope you guys like it.
Now you guys know that this story took place after the battle at the Ministry from the third book. Harry's guilt in that scenario inspired me to do this story. That was the moment where this story takes off.
I hope I've answered some of your questions. I know that there are still questions unanswered, I will get to them at the next chapter (but be a dear and remind me anyways, If you still have some questions, just ask in the reviews.)
Sorry I took so long with chap. I'll try to get the next ones in fast. I love you all, please keep reading.
-Muggleborn out
HarryHermioneBellaSwan: Thanks, I appreciate it.
pawsrule: ahh, my avid reviewer. It was bound to happen sometime, why not make them kiss now, right? Lol. I actually put Peeves there to let Harry know who threw that spear from chapter 3. It was the only logical thing that he would do on that scenario… so…there you go. Please keep up with story ok? If you see some questions, tell me in your reviews and I'll try to answer.
Verificus Totalus: here ya go. Please enjoy.
Timberbabycake: Did you by any chance read DON'T PRETEND YOU LOVE REVISED? Thanks, I know my writing style is different. This is me trying to be a writer style. DPYLMR was just lazy writing but just enjoying on the act. It was my sole intent to make them stay in that bubble. I didn't want any other characters running around because they will serve so little purpose. We're following Harry here, and we see things as he sees them. I have my reason really. If I did what you want, this will just drag on. I just want to there and tell what I needed. Thank you so much for reading, please tell me what you think or if you have any suggestions, or just plain questions. I'll be waiting.
Dracosbiyatch: when I actually mentioned the idea for that with my sister, she actually laughed, at me… and not the lines…idiot. Btw thanks for the review. It was actually fun writing that part.
December'sRaine: calm down, hope you're not feeling lazy to leave a review when you read up on this chap.
Ginnysinlove: I smell Peeves bashing.
Mionefan: thank you sir, I'm very flattered with your review. I just hope I don't disappoint.
Jazzgirl123: well, well, well. Look who it is. It's one of me readers from DPYLMR. What made you read this story? I'm interested to know. While I was reading your comments one by one, I thought you were gonna hate this story. I know the writing style is completely different but I'm trying to experiment. On your question about Ginny, she nor other characters won't be in this, just few important people who will serve their purpose. Thank you so much and tell me what you think about this chap.
