Hermione took one look at Harry and burst into tears. He quickly pulled her aside into the nearest alcove and held her as she sobbed. His eyes grew flinty and cold as he listened to Hermione's heart break, resolve strengthening. Something had to be done about Ronald Weasley.
Chapter 10: Friends In High Places
The clever thing about juicy rumours, Harry considered, was that they always contained a nugget of truth. It was easy to figure out that portraits had seen Harry and Hermione holding hands as they made the walk up to the Room of Requirement. A few students were sneaky enough to listen to the whispers of the painted canvases and would quickly run to tell their friends. Word would have undoubtable circulated about Harry's 'illness' in Potions (he would put gallons on the story having leaked before Potions had even ended), so it was easy to combine the two rumours into one obscene tale.
Once a notorious gossip like Romilda Vane, Marietta Edgecombe (whose pimples were long gone but grudge as strong as ever), or Lavender Brown had caught whiff, it was basically the same as someone standing in the centre of the Great Hall and shouting out the news like a demented town crier. Harry mused that the rumour was mostly fuelled by the fact that that he was Harry Bloody Potter, the world's easiest target. That and Hermione was loathed by all three girls, who gleefully took every opportunity to rip their talented classmate down.
Hermione had grown into her own over the summer, becoming a stunning vision of intelligence, elegance and classically good looks. Harry once would have assumed that in of itself was enough to inspire the raging jealously of the other girls. But Harry knew it was more than just his best friend's newfound confidence, a darker and crueller storm boiling under the surface.
During his etiquette classes, Harry had discovered that promotion of muggleborn rights fell in and out of favour almost once a decade. Though it was 'fashionable' for liberal families to promote muggleborn equality these days, the same families very rarely committed to the idea in practice. Their pureblood children, despite being told that the muggleborn community was equal in many ways, were silently pushed away from marrying non-purebloods, let alone those descended of muggles. It was a sickly-sweet and hypocritical at best. Even the Weasleys, some of the most liberal purebloods Harry knew, treated muggleborns as if they were a special child at which one would look down their nose. To Wizarding Society as a whole, muggleborns were just… Less.
Harry knew that the fact Hermione could outsmart everyone with ease despite being ignorant of magic until eleven must burn at those envious half-bloods and purebloods around her. She was rising above her "station", outshining even the privately tutored. It was hard to tell a muggleborn that she didn't quite belong when she was better than any student her age – pureblood or not. It was due to this that Hermione, smart, clever, wily Hermione, would always be pushed down by her peers.
Tall Poppy Syndrome, Harry had heard it referred to as once. The thought tapped into a pool of rage Harry had fought all summer to muzzle.
The dark musings had Harry glaring in poorly concealed disgust at the students in the halls who dared to purse their lips pettily and stage whisper in uppity tones as Hermione walked by. While Harry would never be able to think of Hermione romantically, he felt as strongly and protectively of her as he would a sister. He had never wanted to hurt anyone younger than him before, but listening to a gaggle of third year girls gossip loudly about Hermione's rampant 'sluttiness' within the poor girl's hearing nearly had him casting a permanent slug eating curse on the entire Great Hall.
Ron had once more decided that both Harry and Hermione were personae non gratae. It seemed a few Hogwarts students of varying houses had become bored with the pro-Harry media over the summer and jumped on the bandwagon, sneering at Harry with distaste and gossiping about the Backstabbing of Ron. Ron took this as encouragement and promptly began a rather physical, extremely public affair with the head of Ron's Side (as it was embarrassingly titled), Lavender Brown.
However, the majority of the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws seemed extremely uncomfortable with the entire situation and tried to play nice with both parties. Only Neville and Ginny sat resolutely on Hermione and Harry's side of the table and provided a buffer to the constant awkward silences. Thankfully, the two largest mouth-pieces of the movement, Ron and Lavender, had decided to mesh together for the time being and the division slowly puttered out into nothing.
The only group that didn't seem to take any form of interest was the Slytherin house, which Harry found surprising as the smarmy bastards loved to adopt a viciously untrue Potter rumour and run wild with it. He was extremely unnerved to discover that no buttons, banners or fanfare had come of the situation and it made him suspicious.
At first, Hermione had scowled at his theory and laughed it off as paranoid. But as the days passed since the first day of class and not one word of the subject was broached by a green-tied student, from the littlest first year to the biggest seventh, even she started paying attention.
Hermione and Harry sat in the Room of Requirement warming their feet, chairs positioned around a summoned circular fire pit in the middle of the room. The smoke curled lazily up into the rafters, disappearing without a trace, the smell and sound of the crackling fire soothing the group's nerves. Neville, Ginny and Luna had joined them for a discussion and it had quickly devolved into Harry's obsession with the Slytherin silence.
"Harry, maybe they just have a lot going on right now," Hermione said, always the voice of reason to a fault.
"Yeah, all seventy-five students have more going on right now than every other student in the school," Harry shot back sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"Seriously, Harry," Hermione insisted, frowning at his childish antics. "There's a war brewing on the horizon and I wouldn't be surprised if they've all grown up a bit."
Harry opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by Ginny's voice cutting across the room.
"Harry, while we're on the subject, did you really shag Hermione in the broom cupboard?" She asked cheekily, though a dark undertone belayed her light humour. Neville immediately blanched, a spectacular beetroot-red blush flaring up his neck, and even Luna put down her Quibbler to peer over her cut-out spectacles at the duo with interest.
"No," Harry answered shortly, hoping it would be the end of the conversation.
"Seriously, Harry, tell the truth. It's been a week, so no one will be any more upset now than they were before if you just fronted up," Ginny pressed encouragingly as she tried to needle an answer from the frowning boy.
"I'm gay," he responded abruptly and continued staring into the flames with disinterest, ignoring Ginny's flabbergasted expression, Neville's shrinking frame, and Luna's leering smile.
Even Hermione was gaping at him and Harry realised the subject was going to be discussed with or without his participation. He scowled and leaned back into the chair, adjusting his feet by the fire.
"What?!" Ginny squawked after a beat of silence, leaping to her feet. "Merlin, this is so much better than the 'sex with your pseudo sister' shit!" She bounced on the balls of her feet, clearly torn about who to run and tell first.
"Ginny!" Screamed Hermione, a shrill sound that had everyone jumping in their seat. "Hasn't Harry been through enough, yet?" Hermione then burst into tears, hands covering her face as she sobbed.
Ginny immediately deflated and sat down, looking embarrassed and upset.
"It doesn't matter who knows," Harry muttered, trying to clear his mind while looking into the flames.
Hermione looked up with surprise, tear tracks glittering in the fire light.
"It's not like anyone actually cares," Harry continued. He suddenly laughed, a sound hollow and rough. "It'll be the next hot topic for a few weeks, then a barb in conversations for the next forty years. Provided Voldemort doesn't turn me into dust first."
The group sat completely still, looking at the sullen boy in shock. Luna rose to her feet and walked over, crawling over his armrest to sit in his lap. Harry looked at her with surprise as she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him awkwardly. Harry snapped out of his dark mood instantly and smiled tenderly at the blonde girl.
"I care," Luna whispered. "Whether you're happy, that is."
Murmurs of agreement chimed in and Harry bowed his head, grateful for the support he had.
Though she would never admit it, Ginny had been a little suspicious of Harry and Hermione's relationship and had felt a little defensive of her brother at the first scent of foul play. She had taken Harry and Hermione's side, especially since Ron was acting like such a prat, but a little piece of her still doubted if she was doing the right thing.
But after she finally dragged the full story from Hermione at Harry's approval, Ginny had reeled with shock and, well, was kind of surprisingly unsurprised. To her irritation, Hermione's lips were sealed on the matter of whom Harry smelled in his Amortentia. But Harry's revelation that he only discovered his 'tastes' during that exact moment in Potion's class on the first day of sixth year was a fact 'so adorably, typically oblivious Harry' (her words exactly) that Ginny focused on coddling Harry instead.
Harry was sure that no amount of head damage was going to remove the memory of Ginny cornering Harry in the common rooms and announcing that they were going to have so much girl talk. He didn't have the energy to tell her that being gay didn't automatically mean that he also liked all the things she did. It seemed she was a little starved for effeminate sibling relationships, so he allowed the girl to prattle on for hours about so-and-so's new six pack and whatnot and silently begged the gods to oblivate him on the spot.
On the bonus side, Ginny's realisation of Harry and Hermione's genuine 'just-friends' relationship seemed to be a turning stone in the fight against the Hogwarts rumour mill. Harry had never realised it before, but Ginny was a very popular girl. As in, very, very popular. It seemed due to a combination of being from a well-known pureblood family, friends with upper-classmen (and close confidant of Harry Potter), dating an older boy who snuck her butterbeer, attractive, a rising star on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and now a household name for having joined Harry at the Battle of the Ministry. Ginny also made sure she worked all of these facts to her advantage with Slytherin-esqe cleverness.
He was stunned to note that little Ginny was one hell of a catch. He then realised that he probably should have figured out from day one that he wasn't into girls if he couldn't even give Ginerva Weasley a second glance. 'Classically oblivious Harry', indeed, he thought to himself.
By deciding to fully defend Harry and Hermione's honour and scoffing at all attempts to string out the rumour of their 'fling', Ginny had put most of the fifth and lower years of Gryffindor in their place. However, it took one girl to put most of Hogwarts in place.
Bathsheba Belby, a pinched girl in Ginny's year who followed the redhead like a lackey, had attempted to make an ill-witted joke regarding Hermione's propriety in the commons after supper. Though the joke had become so over used by now that even the first years rolled their eyes, a few girls tittered meanly. It was then that Ginny finally snapped. She began to laugh. It soon turned into a fit and the girl's overly dramatic wails of laughter rang out in the commons, bringing out every student in the house, even from within the depths of the sleeping quarters.
Ginny made a scene of calming herself down dramatically and fluttered her hand against her chest, wiping tears of mirth off her face and pointedly stared at Bathsheba the entire time.
"Are you alright, Ginny?" Emily Mudgeright asked, concerned for her friend.
"Oh, you know," Ginny chuckled lightly. "It's just that Bessie (a nickname that had the other girl cringing) is so funny. I really don't know where the girl gets it from. Hey, Bessie," she called out, drawing all eyes to the girl. "How did you get so funny?"
Bathsheba had looked around like a frightened mouse, silently begging for the others to help her as the redhead approached her.
"I, I," she stuttered, backing away helplessly.
"You're just so funny, Bessie. I think you should do stand-up comedy. Perhaps you should start now with a show for the whole house, hm?" Ginny then turned to the rest of the Gryffindors, who watched the scene with bated breath, and flung out her arms to gesture to the crowd. "Who wants to see Bessie here tell a joke? Go on, Bessie, say it again!" Ginny crowed.
Harry and Hermione descended the stairs of their respective rooms, confused by the commotion.
"Harry, Hermione!" Ginny shouted. "C'mon, get down here!"
Bathsheba shook her head, looking close to tears, as the duo cautiously approached a vaguely hysteric Ginny. Ginny whipped around and grasped Bathsheba's hands, ignoring the girl's flinch, and dragged her across the common room to meet Harry and Hermione halfway.
"Ginny, what are you doing?" Hermione asked, appalled.
"Oh, Hermione," Ginny gushed. "You really must hear this joke Bessie made." Ginny turned to the ashen, shaking girl, and gripped her hands tighter. "Go on, Bessie, everyone's waiting."
Bathsheba began to cry silently, trying to tug her hands out of Ginny's white-fisted grasp.
"Say it," Ginny demanded suddenly, expression cold and voice echoing in the deathly silent room. Harry was shocked at the display; for a brief moment, he could see the influence Tom Riddle had on the youngest Weasley as she commandeered the room in an effortless power play.
Bathsheba accidentally locked eyes with Harry and she whispered ashamedly, "I a-a-asked if Harry had found his f-f-firebolt yet, be-because I th-think I s-saw st-sticking out of Her-Hermione's sk-skirt."
Hermione turned bright red and gasped, but Harry kept his eyes affixed coolly on the younger girl's.
Ginny let go of Bathsheba without warning and the girl tumbled to the floor. "Hm, no," Ginny said, in paux disappointment. "It really wasn't that funny this time around. Actually, it sounded a little mean," Ginny announced.
Ginny turned to Hermione and Harry, continuing with her elaborate, overacted skit with joy. "Hermione, Harry, do you think that was funny?" She asked curiously.
"Ginny," whispered Hermione, horrified and still blushing to her roots.
"No, I don't," Harry answered tonelessly. "I think that was supposed to be mean."
Ginny grinned at Harry, winked, then turned to a very traumatised Bathsheba. "See? Harry fucking Potter doesn't think that was very nice. What do you say to someone when you hurt their feelings, Bessie?"
Bathsheba trembled, still trapped under Harry's pinning gaze, and whispered inaudibly.
"What was that, Bessie?" Ginny pressed, sickly sweet.
"I'm sorry!" Bathsheba screamed, jumping up and running. She bolted for the entrance door and tumbled through, picking herself up and sprinting down the corridor. The door creaked and swung, pushed by a draft in the chilly hallway.
Ginny turned to the entirety of Gryffindor House (minus Ron and Lavender, who seemed to always be shut away somewhere outside of class) and scowled at them darkly.
"I get it that you all like to get your rocks off by putting others down, but now is not the time," Ginny hissed and, though her voice was low, the sound reverberated in the deafening silence. "Harry and Hermione are a little too busy trying to save your fucking lives by fighting the most powerful Dark Lord in centuries, not fight stupid rumours about shit you know nothing about."
A few people shifted uncomfortably.
"You either stand with us or against us. There's no grey area in the battlefield, where you can skulk in the shadows and both publicly cheer and privately mock your champions. For shame!" Ginny yelled, the noise shocking a few flinches out of her audience. "We're going to need to unite this year. Not against Slytherin or Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff," she emphasised, disgustedly, "But rather against people who want to rip you from your beds as you sleep and murder your families before your very eyes. Who will steal your magic and will and then turn it against those you love."
Ginny stopped talking as her voice broke. Harry put a comforting hand on Ginny's shoulder. He could hear the scared little eleven-year-old in her once more, crying into his shoulder as they flew to freedom out of a secret death chamber. Her tiny, weak voice begging him to believe that she didn't want to do it.
"This stops tonight. You study hard, you work hard, and you protect your own," Harry announced, taking over Ginny's stage. "You don't have to fight with me, or even alongside me. But don't think for a second that you won't have to fight. Let's just get on with the year and enjoy being children a little while longer."
The older Gryffindors voiced their agreement and even though the younger years looked frightened, they nodded in response.
"Mr. Potter," a harsh voice admonished from behind him. Harry turned around to see a furious Professor McGonagall holding the elbow of a tear-stained Bathsheba in the open portal of the common room entrance. "What in Merlin's name is going on in here?" The woman's voice snapped. Like a whip had cracked, every single Gryffindor abandoned their pride and scrambled at once to their bedrooms in a flurry of movement.
In seconds, Harry, Hermione and Ginny were standing alone to face the trembling professor.
"Go to bed!" McGonagall snapped at the girl in her grasp. She let the girl's elbow go and Bathsheba scrambled past them quickly, running up the stairs to the sleeping quarters at breakneck speed.
"You three, come with me," McGonagall demanded, brooking no room for argument, and strode out of the common room.
"I didn't even do anything!" Hermione breathed, upset at the turn of events.
"Ah, and yet you're always caught with the troublemakers," McGonagall responded from a fair way ahead. Hermione paled, horrified by the woman's sharp hearing.
The trio followed the stalking Deputy Headmistress through the halls of the castle. McGonagall made quick work of opening her office door and shooed the students inside.
Once they had settled into the office, all three sitting on uncomfortably hard wooden chairs and McGonagall settled nicely into a comfortable looking, wingback leather chair, the woman's demeanour softened.
"Professor –" Hermione started explaining desperately, always the first to break when it came to the Head of her house.
"Ms. Granger," McGonagall cut her off. "I'm not mad at you. Well, perhaps at Ms. Weasley – that was a little harsh," she scolded lightly, peering at Ginny over her spectacles.
Ginny had the decency to blush. "She had it coming, Professor," Ginny muttered defiantly, looking down at her shoes. "I've been telling her all week to stop with the jokes about Hermione and Harry. I just… Snapped."
Professor McGonagall hummed noncommittedly. She summoned a highball glass and a crystal flagon from a bookshelf. She poured herself a fifth of dark coloured liquid and sipped it quietly, ignoring Hermione's gape.
"We are indeed in dark times," McGonagall stated after a few minutes of silence. "I find that as the outside looms near, people will try harder to bury their heads in the sand and fill their days with nonsense – if only to hold the horrors at a bay a little while longer."
Harry nodded at the woman, who was looking wearier and more stressed with each passing day.
"Well, I suppose I must punish you," McGonagall sighed as she put down her empty glass.
Hermione's wide eyes filled with unshed tears.
"Oh, Ms. Granger, don't look at me like that," McGonagall huffed. "You must begin to understand that there is nothing I could possibly do to you to hurt you, nor any other figure of authority in this school. With the exception of expulsion, of course," the woman muttered, waving her hand dismissively. "You really must realise by now that you are an adult, or at least on the cusp of being one, and that house points, homework, and detentions mean nothing in the end."
Hermione twisted her hands, seemingly shocked by the elder woman's words, but smart enough to nod and accept her professor's knowledge.
"Alright, ladies, out with you. I really must speak with Mr. Potter alone," McGonagall dismissed the girls distractedly. Just as the girls had reached the door, she added, "Ah, and thirty points from Gryffindor."
Both girls looked at one another, clearly horrified but trying to not appear affected, and scampered out of the room. They shut the door tightly behind them and their steps could be heard fading down the hall.
During the entire meeting, Harry had kept his eyes trained faithfully on McGonagall. He quietly watched her movements, her mannerisms, her gestures – and smelt a rat.
Just as McGonagall turned to address Harry, in a flash of movement he reached out his right hand and cast a wordless, wandless stunning charm. Unlike charms from a wand, which were directional, small beams of light, Harry had discovered that casting with his palm spread out often caused the spell to spread out like a net made of the five points of his fingers. It caught McGonagall soundly by surprise, the red web of magic wrapping around her face and knocking her out instantly.
Harry was grateful that the deputy headmistress was seated for she certainly would have collapsed spectacularly to the floor otherwise. He wasn't sure if she was not herself, but rather a polyjuiced version under another's control – in the event she wasn't, he certainly didn't want to deal with a bruised McGonagall seeking revenge.
Harry absolutely, one hundred percent did not want to deal with Dumbledore or Snape at this hour, or ever, but he acknowledged that he may be slightly out of his depth. And there was no way in hell that he was going to summon Ginny or Hermione to face down whatever was sitting in the chair before him.
He took out his wand, still a little bitter that he couldn't produce the Patronus Charm wandlessly yet, and summoned his stag. To Harry's surprise, instead a truly enormous dragon curled out of his wand. It was a humungous beast, long and narrow with wings that filled the room, and it turned on Harry with reptilian, alien-like eyes. He smiled at the patronus warmly despite the confusion and the beast snorted a misty, clear vapour resembling smoke through its sharp nostrils. A Norwegian Ridgeback, Harry realised with a laugh.
"Hello, there," Harry whispered, reaching his hand out to touch the beast's evanescent head and it closed its eyes, leaning towards the impossible touch. "Could you please deliver a message to Dumbledore and Snape?"
The beast reacted precisely how Harry felt about the matter, baring wickedly sharp teeth and snorting blue flame.
"Ah, I know," Harry whispered laughingly into the silence. "But it really is an emergency. Please repeat after me: 'Come to McGonagall's office immediately. There's a situation.'"
The dragon tilted his head at Harry and looked at him sullenly. Harry wasn't even aware that patronuses could behave in such a manner. He laughed once more when the beast shook his body in moody obedience and shot off into the castle, passing through the office walls with a swoop of strong wings.
Harry stood and gently bound McGonagall's hands tightly enough to restrain her but not enough to hurt then cast a full body-bind curse to freeze her in position. Once he was sure the woman was unarmed, fully bound, and out of reach of anything remotely useful as a weapon (highball glass included), he pointed his forefinger at the woman and whispered, "Rennervate!"
McGonagall awoke with a strong inhale of her nostrils but not much else as the full body bind had her immobilised. Her eyes flickered around the room, as if unsure of her location, and Harry watched with careful consideration. She attempted to speak, to scream, to throw a fit, but the bind kept her incomprehensible mutters muted.
Once McGonagall eventually calmed down, she trained her eyes on Harry in sad, pleading manner. Harry didn't move a muscle, sitting comfortably in the wooden chair facing McGonagall desk and watching her reactions apathetically.
After nearly ten minutes of nothing happening at all, Harry staring at McGonagall and McGonagall staring back, her eyes turned hard as glass. A madness flickered in the woman's blue irises, gleaming cruelly in the candle light.
"And there we are," Harry whispered victoriously, his carefully constructed image of relaxion gone in a flash as he leaned forward to study the person hiding behind McGonagall's eyes.
The door McGonagall's office burst open Dumbledore raced in, followed by a dishevelled Snape.
"Harry?" Dumbledore asked perplexedly, clearly not expecting the boy to be the source of the patronus received. Dumbledore's eyes flickered up to McGonagall and he gasped. "What have you done to Minerva?" Dumbledore raised his left hand (the other suspiciously black and reeking of black magic) and unbound McGonagall.
Instantly, McGonagall's head snapped back and her body writhed painfully. She began to scream a horrible, piercing sound. Her mouth gaped open and balls of vapours arose from her mouth, a self-imposed exorcism by the creature possessing McGonagall's body. Dumbledore reared back, eyes wide, as the vapours pulled from McGonagall's shaking frame and evaporated immediately.
McGonagall collapsed into her chair, head lolling back and body shaking in strenuous shock. Snape lurched forward and withdrew a medical bag of potions. He carefully unstoppered multiple vials and poured them down the shivering woman's throat.
Harry looked at Dumbledore calmly, staring into the wrinkled, pale face of his once-mentor.
"I was trying to keep that from getting away," Harry answered Dumbledore's original question simply, his response inspiring a look of bewilderment from Dumbledore.
"What happened, my boy?" Dumbledore asked softly, sitting down on the wood chair next to Harry.
"Nothing, really, sir. McGonagall asked to speak to me, I noticed there was something… Odd. So, I immobilised her, summoned you and Professor Snape, and… That's basically it," Harry answered truthfully if not a little flippantly, lips thinned and eyes downcast to avoid the man's piercing gaze. Though he had become much better at Occlumency over the past three months, he still was not ready to try his defence against Dumbledore's decades of experience.
"You did well, Harry," Dumbledore whispered. "I wish I had trusted your instincts from the beginning," he admitted quietly into the dark room. "I find my own to be lacking and sluggish in these trying times."
Harry chanced a glance up at Dumbledore and smiled softly. "No harm, no foul, sir," he answered respectfully, though perhaps a little too polite and stilted. "May I go to bed now?"
Dumbledore looked over at the recovering Minerva McGonagall, still being treated carefully by Severus' steady hand, and nodded at the almost unrufflable boy-turned-man before him.
"Of course, m'boy," Dumbledore agreed. Harry was out of his seat and halfway through the doorway when Dumbledore spoke next. "Do come see me after dinner Saturday evening, Harry." Harry turned to the slouched elderly wizard and bowed his head in deference to the request. And then he was gone, firmly closing the door between himself and Dumbledore's sad eyes.