- - -
"…Hermione Granger?" Harry croaked, finally awake.
"Yeah." James stopped in the doorway "You know her?"
"Yeah…" Harry's mind was racing. How was she going to handle this? How was he going to handle this? He hadn't told his parents about him and Hermione. But that didn't really matter right now - Hermione's parents were in the hospital. "She's staying with the Weasleys."
"Oh, how do you know that?" His father's eyebrow crept up.
"She's a… friend" said Harry cautiously, not sure exactly how to say that.
"Oh. Ah…" James caught on "That's a bummer. You want to come with me to break the news?"
"Sure" Harry replied mechanically, his mind still on the insanely quick turn of events. As he slowly changed out of his pajamas into normal clothes, he waved his dad out the door.
How the hell had this happened? Everything had gone from wonderful Christmas eve - Sirius and Remus came for the obligatory dinner, they were even supposed to have the Christmas morning Quidditch match after opening presents - to this. Harry could only hope that Hermione enjoyed her Holidays so far.
Fifteen minutes later, Harry was fully dressed and made his way downstairs. Sirius and his father were waiting by the fireplace.
"I've already talked Molly Weasley, she said we could come over whenever. She was even kind enough to offer us breakfast. I've let Mum know that you're coming with Sirius and I. We'll join Remus and your Mother for dinner, after we've talked to Hermione and taken care of everything in the Burrow."
- - -
"My parents are what!" She screeched. Hermione had woken up to a very agitated Mrs. Weasley ushering her downstairs, where Mr. Potter, Sirius Black, and Harry were all waiting for her. Before she even knew what was happening, they told her about how her parents had almost died.
"Don't worry, Miss Granger, they're fine." Sirius sighed "Since this is a wizard-caused accident, they were immediately forwarded to St. Mungo's hospital. They're going to be out for a couple of days as the Healers fix all the broken bones and internal bleeding."
"We can take you there after Breakfast, if you wish." Mr. Potter told her. "They won't be conscious, but I'm sure they'd appreciate the sentiment."
Hermione nodded still in shock. How the hell had this happened? She had just seen her parents a little bit over a week ago. Hermione ran her hands through her hair. It wasn't setting in very much - perhaps she just needed to give it time.
"Excuse me…" She whispered, and quickly ascended the stairs.
"Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, could you help me set the kitchen table for breakfast? With all the extra mouths to feed…"
Harry's dad and Sirius quietly joined Mrs. Weasley in exiting the room, leaving Harry alone on the couch. He sighed, still not sure what the bloody hell he was doing in the middle of the Weasley's living room all alone. Of course, this was all for Hermione. Even though they had only spent a tiny amount of time actually together, he still felt it was important to be there. How would he like it if someone had killed his parents? Sure, he didn't get along with them, but they were still his parents.
As Harry contemplated these deep thoughts, Fred and George Weasley descended the stairs, presumably to sneak an early peek upon their Christmas presents.
"Well, well." One started
"It seems to be our least favorite Slytherin." finished the other.
"Care to tell us what you're doing here?"
"My dad's here on business… not that I should tell you two." Harry grimaced. He really wasn't looking forward to seeing any Weasels this morning. He was severely outnumbered and on their turf. That meant that Harry wouldn't be able to fight with them.
"Well…" Harry guessed Fred said - he was never very good at telling the Weasel Twins apart.
"… good for you. Having fun?" He hated the Twins' habit of finishing each other's sentences. Bloody annoying, he wasn't sure how anyone else got used to it.
"My, my, my." said one of the Twins as they bent down and picked up a small packet. "George, we seem to have dropped one of our creations."
"Perhaps the esteemed Mr. Potter would like to try it?" Harry could only assume George said. Fred (or at least who he thought was Fred) threw the packet to him. Turning it over in his hands, he grinned.
Slughorn had given a potions book about making prank candy as a Christmas present. He had turned around and made prank candy for his gift to everyone this year. The extras of his 'Steaming Snaps' must have fallen out of his pocket when he had first arrived.
"No thanks, I know what these are." Harry said, tossing it back to her. "I'm pretty sure they aren't yours. Maybe you should try them?"
Fred opened the wrapping "Oho!"
"It seems that we aren't the only prank candy developers at Hogwarts!" George exclaimed "My hat's off to you, Mr. Potter."
Both of them made a little mock bow. "What do they do?"
"Try them out." Harry grinned mischievously "I promise you they aren't dangerous."
- - -
Hermione threw herself on her bed, sobbing silently. Somewhere between seeing Harry in the family room and running back upstairs, the reality of what happened set in. Her parents were hurt because of a wizard. A wizard that could have just as well been her. Well, not her, of course - she hated to fly, and she was here at the Burrow - but the point was made nonetheless.
"Happy Chris'mas, 'ermione." Ginny mumbled out of her pillow when she heard the door open. As she slowly came to her senses, she realized that Hermione was crying. "What's wrong?"
"My parents." Hermione choked out "They're in St. Mungo's!"
"What! Why?!?"
"Some bloody Wizard flew into their plane!"
"Are they going to be all right?"
"Yeah…"
"Then why are you so upset? Sure, you should be worried about them, but they're fine." said Ginny matter-of-factly. "Come on, it's Christmas. Enjoy the holidays, open the presents, then I'm sure mum'll take you to St. Mungo's to see them."
"Harry's here with his dad to take me…"
"What?"
"His dad's the Head Auror, so he just tagged along."
"And you're in here crying and worrying about your parents when you could be snogging him? You'd better hurry before Ron sees him. He'll raise a bloody fit about Potter." Hermione wiped the tears away - Ginny's practicality was really cheering her up.
"Mom!" they both heard Ron yell.
"Bloody hell, what has he done this time?" Ginny muttered as the two
- - -
The entire population of the burrow filled the family room to witness Ron and Harry with wands at each other's throats. Sirius and the twins stood to the side, looking vaguely amused at the whole situation. Ginny and Hermione were at the top of the stairs, shaking their heads. Mrs. Weasley and James looked downright furious.
"Ron!" Mrs. Weasley admonished "Put your wand down! That's not how you treat a guest!"
"Harry!" James barked "Drop that wand now!"
Both boys reluctantly put their hands down, holstering their wands. Though, if looks could kill, the glares they were pointing at each other would have been more effective than any Avada Kedavra curse could be.
"I'm so sorry Mr. Potter, my Ron-"
"No, it was probably a bad idea brining Harry over here in the first place." James reluctantly cut in "House rivalries and such. I think we'll have to scrap the breakfast and take Hermione over to St. Mungos now. We'll bring her back in a couple hours."
- - -
"What the bloody hell do you think you were doing?" James whispered to Harry angrily. After quickly retreating from the Weasley home, they immediately took Hermione to her injured parents. No longer needed, Sirius went back to whatever he did at 12 Grimmauld Place in his free time. Probably seducing women, Harry surmised.
"He attacked me! What do you expect me to do? Just let me hex him?" Harry shot back, making sure his voice couldn't be heard by Hermione in her parent's hospital room. "I thought that's why you had Remus teach me how to duel."
"But that doesn't exactly mean you go looking for fights." His dad replied, not happy with Harry's answer. "You're not the only one Remus has been talking to - he told me you give as good as you got at school."
"And you can honestly tell me that you didn't do the same when you were at Hogwarts?"
James shifted uncomfortably "Yeah… well, I'm not so proud of a lot of things I did there. I was a terrible little thug back then. Do as I say, not as I do."
"Whatever." Harry turned his view to Hermione and her two parents laying in the bed. They were lying unconsciously in their beds, heavily bandaged from all the contusions they had suffered in the crash. Hermione looked like she was on the verge of crying, just sitting there.
"Well, I'll leave you two alone for a bit." James said, patting Harry on the shoulder "I need to take care of some things at the office. I'll be back in a hour or two."
As his father's footsteps quietly faded down the echoing halls, Harry settled into the seat next to Hermione.
"Hey" Harry put his arm around her to offer support "You okay?"
"Yeah." Hermione sniffed "It's just… so hard to see them like this. They're supposed to always be there for me, but now I have to be there for them."
Harry just sat there, not exactly sure what to say. Comforting words weren't exactly a Slytherin strong suit. But one thing that he knew from all his years of dating girls that a pair of ears and a comforting shoulder would be more than enough in this situation.
Hermione took the offer readily, burying her face into Harry's shoulder. Despite the gravity of the situation, Harry felt his heart rise like the first time he had ever liked a girl. Sitting there silently, he realized how grateful he was to be with her. He was definitely much better off than his first attempt at romance.
- - -
It was love at first sight for Harry. Well, more like puppy love. He started to notice her just a month into his first year at Hogwarts. It was Tracey Davis, same year as him in Slytherin. She was half-blood like him, and didn't seem to care about all of that "blood purity" stuff that some of the stuffier Slytherin did.
Harry hadn't noticed many girls before her, but she was impossible for him to ignore. She had long straight brown hair, and piercing blue eyes. That was about as much as Harry knew; he was almost afraid to even talk to her.
But two months further into the year, he hadn't done anything about it. He was still uncomfortable with a lot of the attention that the other students gave him because of his parents. While he acted quite normally amongst his newfound friends of Draco, Blaise, and Theo, he was quite shy towards others. To put it simply, he had trouble working up the courage to talk to her. His friends all tried to encourage him to talk to her as best he could.
"Go for it." Draco advised "You're a proud member of Slytherin, that should be more than enough for any girl."
"Just go ahead and talk to her." Theo encouraged "Words can't really hurt you."
"Aw, man." Blaise complained "Why can't I find a nice girl?"
Eventually, this encouragement led to Harry asking her to the next Quidditch match after Potions one day. It took a lot of effort on Harry's part to keep his voice steady, but it paid off when he said yes. After she said yes, he smiled wider than ever before.
The Quidditch game was a major success; Slytherin won and Harry earned a peck on the cheek from the beautiful Tracey. All of the Slytherin first year boys were quite jealous with his successful exploit. Though he probably wouldn't admit it, Draco asked out Pansy Parkinson soon after, and it was widely rumored that he was driven to do so by Harry going out with Tracey.
However, it was doomed not to last. Harry unfortunately stumbled upon Tracey and a Ravenclaw making out in the hallway just after the Christmas holidays. Harry was pretty furious, and almost hexed the two of them - Theo had recently discovered a particularly nasty one that caused the victim to sprout bats made of their own snot out of their nose.
But after that, Harry retreated from meeting other girls. It just didn't seem worth it anymore.
- - -
Harry was glad that he had finally grew out of his discouragement as he sat there with Hermione. It had been a couple hours since Harry's dad had left them. Hermione had stopped crying, and just held Harry tightly.
"Thanks for coming." Hermione said, "I really appreciate it."
"No problem." Harry replied, still not totally sure what exactly what to say. "I just heard my dad mention it and I just tagged along…"
"Really - I'm very grateful that you came." Hermione smiled. Harry smiled back. They leaned in closer to each other, Harry tilting his head to better reach Hermione's soft lips. After what felt like an eternity, they finally made contact.
"Oy!" Harry's father interrupted, causing Harry and Hermione to abruptly jerk apart. "It's time to go, you two. Mrs. Weasley wants you back for dinner, and I have to drop you off Harry so I can go get Theo."
Somewhat disappointed by the abrupt end to only the second opportunity they had to snog in their relationship, they followed him sullenly to the Floo. James stepped away from the two to throw the powder into the fireplace, as brilliant Emerald flames shot up.
"Owl me!" Hermione called as she stepped into the flames, quickly transporting herself to the Weasley residence.
"Quite a nice girl you've got there - Molly told me all about her." James remarked "Top marks, no disciplinary issues, even a Gryffindor. To say the least, I strongly approve."
Harry threw him a dirty glare "You had better not tell mum. Or I'll-"
"Don't worry, I won't say a word to her." James rose her hands defensively. "But I guarantee you she'll find out eventually - she always does."
"Whatever - let's go home." Harry muttered.
"Godric's hollow." James said as he threw the floo powder into the fireplace. "You go on ahead. I'll go pick Theo up from his aunt's"
- - -
Harry heard a familiar pop at the doorstep from someone Apparating to the house. Moments later, Harry's father opened the door, Theodore Nott right behind him.
"Theo!" Harry beamed. After the debacle with Hermione's parents, it was so nice to finally see his friend.
"Hey, how's it going, Harry?"
"I'll go get the bags, then I'll floo Sirius. He'll want to make up the Christmas Quidditch match."
"Come on, Theo - let's get the brooms out." Both parties left to take care of their own tasks.
"How's the holidays been, Theo?" Harry asked as he opened up the broom shed behind the house.
"Quiet. Thanks for that candy you made - what was it called?"
"Steaming Snaps - I came up with them myself. Slughorn gave me an early Christmas present - 'Supernatural Sweets and other Magical Chocolates'. The entire book's bloody brilliant, covers all the basics on how to make the kind of stuff that Honeydukes comes up with."
"Sounds cool." Theo grinned as he sifted through the brooms in the closet for his favorite. Harry's dad was big into Quidditch, and had a full stock of Firebolts. Still, each one had slight differences in their temperament as with all magical objects, and Theo had ridden them enough to tell the difference.
"Yeah, I'm going to make some really nasty ones for the Weasel twins. I talked to them over the break, and they're working on their own line of prank candy. Apparently, they're making a killing - you know how Filch is about stuff from Hogsmeade."
"Wait." Theo frowned "When did you talk to the Weasel twins?"
"My dad took my over to their house during the break." explained Harry "Hermione's parents were in St. Mungo's, and she was staying with them."
"That sucks." remarked Theo "How are you two holding up?"
"Fine, fine." Harry said, extricating his broom from the top shelf where he put it when he was home from school. "It was nice seeing her, even though it was terrible timing."
"I'd bet."
"And her parents are fine, so Hermione's bouncing back pretty quickly."
"You sound pretty happy for her. I guess Slytherin and Gryffindors really can get along."
"Don't let my dad ever hear you say that." Harry remarked as they got their favorite brooms out of the shed.
"Hear him say what?" James was standing next to Sirius.
"How bad we're going to trash you two at quidditch." Harry responded, grinning.
"Oh, really?" Sirius smirked "Shall we modify little Theo's opinion, James?"
"Oh, lets!" James replied "Lets go get some brooms and teach them a lesson."
Just a few minutes later, and the four of them were standing in the spacious land that accompanied Godric's Hollow. Sirius and James had quickly transfigured a set of Quidditch hoops out of the ground. They also brought out a Quaffle for the match.
"Well, you two know the rules" James said, deftly spinning the Quaffle on the tip of his finger "First team to five goals scored wins."
"You know, you can just give up now and save yourself the time." Harry quipped.
"Like that's going to happen." James shot back, throwing the Quaffle in the air. The game was on!
- - -
Harry and Theo got up early on the last day of the winter break to floo to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. It was a few trips through the fire, but finally they had all their bags ready to be carted onto the train.
"Well, back to Hogwarts!" James exclaimed happily as he shook hands with Theo and Harry. "Best wishes to the both of you!"
"Oh!" Lily sighed sadly "I'm going to miss you Harry! Theo, take good care of him!"
"I will, Mrs. Potter." Theo replied as she hugged them both.
"Well, gotta go!" Harry exclaimed, clearly anxious to get on the train.
"Okay, okay, we won't hold you here." Harry's father laughed. "Go on, we'll see you at the next quidditch game."
Harry and Theo hurried onto the train; the hustle and bustle of students was less than the beginning or end of term, but still quite crowded. Through the crowd, Harry saw Draco and Pansy flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. Harry's stomach dropped like a stone. He had completely forgot about that dilemma over the craziness of the Holidays. Just another thing on the list of things he had to resolve by the end of the year. It was going to be quite a crazy term.
- - -
A.N.: I know that I made a pretty nasty cliffy, so I tried to finish this as quickly as possible. However, summer jobs and massive writers block really set me behind in the creative department. I'm really sorry that I wasn't able to complete it in a timely manner for you. Well, better late than never, right? Right? 8(
20,000 Hits! Whoo! I feel so great right now. To my Naruto fic readers, I apologize for doing two chapters of Bookwyrm in a row - I was inspired and couldn't leave it alone.
On another note, I'm assuming all of my constituents saw Half Blood Prince. It's been a while since I last posted, and I'm assuming that if you read Harry Potter Fanfiction, you watch the movies. I don't know how you all feel (I see myself on the very moderate end of the Fandom rabid scale), but I was very happy with it. The extra bit in the beginning with the girl at the subway stop fit in nicely and cut out the Dursleys (which by book six seemed a bit forced to me anyways). Also, a lot of the changes made the movie adaptation flow better, even though it may anger hardcores. Less of Tonks, but established romance between sets up for movies 7a and 7b. Ginny and Harry just felt smoother, Hermione/Ron was funny and good (my only complaint there was the Lavender breakup, in which I really would have loved that to play out exactly as the book dictates).
My only issue was Cormac. He did not seem like a bad guy at all. I really liked him in the movie actually, actually. The only sense of unpleasantness was Hermione's whining about him (it was whining because there was nothing to base it on). She hexed him for apparently no reason in tryouts (except maybe they wanted to establish Ron/Hermione). Cormac in the movie just seemed like a guy that was really cool, but everyone picked on ('Dragon Balls' - oh man, I cracked up so hard)
If you would like to register your opinion on the movie with me, feel free to PM me.
Cenright: I hope you enjoyed this chapter a little better. Also, I'm not quite sure why you don't like my sequencing. Bold is flashback, Bold + Italics is writing. Are they not showing up in the fic (I don't look at them after going through Document Manager's editing.)?
Dougal74: It's not so much that he hates everything about his father - more like he hates his father's personality. He doesn't feel that he should limit his opportunities just because of his father. Whether or not he decides to be an Auror isn't 100% now, I am considering a couple other things to do as a sequel. Perhaps Hogwarts professor, or some other mystery ones which I will keep silent on.
ErikArden: Voldemort isn't dead yet if you count the of times Voldemort loses. James is capable of beating him - just like how Regalus was able to destroy a horcrux. Unless it isn't the final piece, the prophecy isn't broken. Also, Voldemort has failed to mark either Neville or Harry. Until he does, the prophecy hasn't taken hold. I've given a lot of room for Voldemort to end in the fic.
Freak1798: I'll try to keep the cliffies a bit less evil next time.
Celexs: Thanks. I'll try to keep this fic at the same level of quality.
Thanks to everyone else who was kind enough to review.
Also, please click on the review button and let me know what you think. It's really what makes me want to write more.