The Harmony bond

Chapter thirty-six.

By Brian Grove

brian at rescueddoggies dot com

Disclaimer:-

Still not mine, sniff, sniff.

In the previous chapter...

The Prophet admitted the truth (sort of!) and Hermione, Harry, Susan, Ron and Neville faced a troll...

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Of course, the story of what happened in the girl's toilets with the troll quickly got around the school, being exaggerated with every telling. Of those involved, it made the greatest effect on Neville Longbottom, unless you count the troll.

From being looked down upon as a coward, suddenly he and Ron were being feted as heroes. Being hoisted into the air and carried into lunch the next day by the Weasley twins seemed to put a cap on their new status. Neither of them could keep huge grins from their faces, but better was to come.

At lunchtime, an owl dropped an envelope in front of Neville. "It's from my Gran," he said, shocked.

"Well, open it then," said Fred.

"It's not a Howler," George pointed out.

"Mr. Longbottom!"

"Y... yes Professor?"

Professor McGonagall smiled warmly. "If I might suggest, you would perhaps like to open that letter in private. My office, perhaps?"

It was some time later that Neville left her office to find her waiting outside on a chair she had conjured. His eyes were red. "You told her?"

"Yes, Mr. Longbottom. I thought she ought to know."

"She said..." he sniffed loudly. "She said my parents would be proud of me."

"Mr. Longbottom. I knew your parents for quite a few years. I can tell you that they would have been proud of you anyway, but, yes, today they would be extremely proud of their son."

Neville nodded.

"Now, can I suggest that you wash your face before going to see everyone else?"

"Thank you, Professor."

"You are most welcome, Mr. Longbottom."

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At dinner that evening the other four also received letters from their parents. Harry and Hermione shared a letter. Unlike the others, along with congratulations on how they had behaved, was a note that they had also written to Professor Dumbledore demanding to know how a troll had been allowed to endanger their children's lives in the first place.

After dinner, Hermione had been asked to go to see Professor Sprout.

"Come in. Take a seat, please."

"Am I in trouble, Professor?"

"Not that I know of. Are you?"

"What do you mean?"

"From what I hear, you were in the toilets all afternoon, crying, when, I might add, you should have been in lessons."

"I'll make them up."

"Of that I have no doubt. I am more interested in why."

Hermione stayed silent, unwilling to blame her friends.

"Nothing to say?"

"No, Professor."

"Very well. Then I will begin. Your professors have been very concerned at your behaviour recently, not that you have done anything wrong, but you seem to be a little, shall I say, over eager."

"What's wrong with that?" Hermione protested.

"Nothing, unless it drives people away from you and leaves you alone."

Hermione said nothing.

"I wanted to know if this was normal for you, so I spoke to your previous teacher, Miss Collier. She tells me that you used to be like that a long time ago, but hadn't been since the wizarding junior school opened. So I was very concerned about what made you change."

Hermione kept on looking down at the ground.

"Hermione, in your first week here, you went through some terrible experiences. Miss Collier suggested that you might be suffering from what Muggles call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Madam Pomfrey has a book about that and thinks that you have been reverting to your old behaviour patterns to push people away and feel safe on your own."

"But why?"

"If you don't let people in, they can't hurt you, can they?"

Hermione shook her head slowly.

"This is what we are going to do. Once a week, you will spend a couple of hours with Madam Pomfrey, and once a week you will come to see me. If you like, you can just tell me how you are getting on, little things, it doesn't matter, it is up to you. You can even sit here in silence if you like, though I gather that you aren't very good at silence."

Professor Sprout was smiling and even Hermione had to grin at her slight dig. As even Remus had been forced to admit, Hermione never used five words when fifty would do.

"I would suggest cutting back on the studying. No," she added quickly at the look of horror on Hermione's face, "I am not suggesting failing to do your homework, but an answer long enough to be a small encyclopaedia is not really required when you have been asked to do a twelve-inch essay. You might go easier on your friends as well."

"Yes, Professor."

"And I suggest you go to see Harry now. He's been trying not to show it, but he's worried sick about you."

"Thank you, Professor."

"You're welcome. And well done on destroying that troll."

Hermione looked shamefaced. "Actually, I panicked. It was Susan who told me what to do."

"It sound like you're safer with your friends than without them, doesn't it? Just like all of us. Run along now. I have marking to do."

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Another, less pleasant, conversation was going on elsewhere..

"But My Lord, we are not ready."

"Enough. He is becoming suspicious. And I was nearly exposed last night. We must act now."

"So soon after the troll?"

"Yes. The troll should have killed the girl. It didn't. We can wait no longer. The next time the old fool is away, we will get it. And then..."

"And then?"

"Then we kill the girl and my safety is ensured forever."

"I don't understand."

"Even a fool like you should know the unique weakness a Bond brings about. Enough with this. You don't have to understand. You just have to obey."

"As you command, my Lord."

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The autumn term grew weirder and weirder for Hermione. As a consequence of the on-going conversations that she was having with her professors, Hermione found herself in the constant, happy company of Harry, Ron, Neville and Susan. As the weeks passed, they became closer and closer friends and went everywhere together.

One unusually bright afternoon in late November, during tea at Hagrid's, they discovered that he had somehow won a dragon egg from someone in The Hog's Head pub in the nearby Hogsmeade Village. In organising the effort to get the baby dragon safely out of the country and to the dragon reserve for which Ron's brother Charlie worked, they all managed to get themselves caught by Professors Sprout and McGonagall, thanks to having been overheard by Draco Malfoy.

Professor McGonagall's immediate reaction was to deduct points, but Professor Sprout wanted to know why they had been outside before deciding the punishment.

At their hesitance, she asked them, "Are you trying to protect someone?"

Professor McGonagall turned to Draco Malfoy and said, "You may leave. We will notify Professor Snape of your punishment."

"My...?"

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy. Whatever your reason, you were also out of bounds at night. I will see you in the morning."

As Draco stormed off, she turned back to the others. "Hermione?"

Hermione remained tight-lipped.

"I promise you, you will not get anyone else in trouble," said Professor Sprout, "will they, Minerva?"

Professor McGonagall didn't look one hundred per cent happy about that, but nodded her head in agreement.

"Hagrid had a baby dragon. We had to get it out tonight, so some of Charlie's friends could take it away to the refuge. That's Ron's brother."

"Yes, Hermione. I know who Charlie is," Professor McGonagall smiled. "The fool."

"Charlie's not a fool!" Ron protested angrily.

"Not Charlie," the professor reassured him. "Hagrid."

"Under the circumstances, I think we can forego the points, shall we, Minerva?"

"Very well. But all of you will have to serve detention… I believe Hagrid had, as a matter of fact, asked for students to help him out this Saturday night."

Professor Sprout looked unusually stern. "It will take most of the night, and you can tell him that I still expect him to de-slug the cabbages on Sunday as he promised."

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The detention nearly ended in disaster when after splitting into two groups, Harry came up against a dark shape in the forest. He collapsed to his knees from the pain in his scar and was about to be overcome when a creature that appeared to be half-horse, half-man saved him by driving the creature off, into the woods. Holding out his hand, the creature helped Harry to his feet. "You took a chance, wandering into these woods alone, Harry Potter."

"I wasn't alone. Malfoy ran off. Where's Susan?" Harry panicked slightly, looking around until he found her.

The creature looked down at her. "She will be all right. She has just fainted."

"What are you? And how do you know my name?"

"I am a Centaur, Harry Potter. Many, many things are known about you and about your destiny. The stars reveal much."

"But how did you know….what was that thing? And why was that thing drinking Unicorn blood?"

"Unicorn blood will keep you alive, no matter what your condition, but at a terrible price. You will have a cursed life, a half-life."

"Who would want that?"

"Can you think of nobody, Harry Potter?"

"You mean? That thing, was Voldemort?"

"It is dangerous for you out here, Harry Potter. Especially now."

"Why now?"

"Do you not know what is hidden in Hogwarts at this very moment?"

"No. We know something is, though."

"The Philosopher's Stone, which can give the elixir of life"

The same night, Ron, who had been in the group with Hagrid, had managed to get out of him that the thing the three-headed dog was guarding had something to do with Nicolas Flamel.

Hagrid escorted them directly to their various dormitories and, as it was nearly dawn, ordered them not to leave them until dinner time.

The group got up in time for dinner and sat together and shared what they had learned. Ron asked, "But what has Nicolas Flamel to do with it?"

"To do with what? Why would naughty little firsties want to know about him?"

"Do you know who he is, Fred?" asked Ron.

"I'm George, he's Fred."

"Stop it!" snapped Hermione. "This is important."

Something in her worried eyes more than her voice made them take her seriously. "We'll tell you. But whatever you're doing, we're in."

Hermione hesitated, but Harry said at once, "Okay."

The twins pulled from their pockets bunches of chocolate frog cards, which they shuffled until one of them said "Here it is" and handed it to Hermione. She looked puzzled. "On the back," they said.

"This is Dumbledore's card." She read it out loud... "With his partner and friend, Nicolas Flamel, the only known maker of the Philosopher's stone. Harry. It's true. It's here."

"I know. The centaur told me last night. He said it can bring somebody back to life."

"There's more Harry. What aren't you saying?" Hermione demanded to know.

"He said... that it was Voldemort killing the unicorns."

"And Snape's after the stone for You-Know-Who," finished Ron. "And Hagrid admitted that he told the guy in the pub how to get past Fluffy."

They ran to Dumbledore's office, but nothing could make it open up.

"Professor McGonagall! We have to see Professor Dumbledore."

"The Headmaster is away on Ministry Business until the morning."

"But it's about the Philosopher's stone," Harry cried out.

"How do you know about that?"

"Snape's trying to steal it."

"Nonsense. The stone is well-protected. Now be off with you before I remember those points I almost deducted for your dragon escapade."

The troll-bashing five, as they had been nicknamed went back to the twins to try to decide what to do.

"Dumbledore's away," said Harry. "Snape'll get it tonight."

"We'll just have to stop him," said one of the twins.

"S...stop Snape?" asked Neville.

"Don't you see, Neville?" Hermione explained. "If we don't stop him, Voldemort will be back. I don't like it any more than you do."

"I won't be much use to you," said Neville.

"It's okay," said George. "You don't have to come."

"I'm coming," he said firmly. "I might not be much use, but I'm coming."

"We can't all go," Ron objected. "We'll get caught."

"No, we won't," promised Fred. "We'll come for you all. We won't get caught."

"We never do," added George.

"How?" asked Susan.

"That, you will have to wait until tonight to find out."

As the others went off towards their beds, Susan took Harry's arm. "I think perhaps I shouldn't come tonight."

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

"I want to, it's just..." Susan looked down at the ground. "You could have been killed last night and I just fainted. I guess that's why I'm not in Gryffindor, huh?"

Harry gave a rueful grin. "Nor am I, remember?"

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Author's note...

FULLMETAL, while being too cowardly to sign his review raised a valid point about following canon. In canon Voldemort used the troll to distract everyone and make an attempt to get past fluffy, so he did the same in my story. JKR used the incident to bring together Hermione with Ron and Harry. I used it to knit the five together AND to be the first time Hermione has used the power they have together. Sorry someone was not paying enough attention to notice that.

This story WILL follow canon to a large extent BUT anything which would be changed by the bond or by the ripple effect caused by the bond will change. Those changes will grow. In the next chapter a major event is brought forward due to Voldemort's reaction to the power Harry showed in rescuing Hermione from the Slytherins. In the following chapter something very major which does not happen in canon totally changes their year one, but it comes about BECAUSE of Voldemort's knowledge of the bond.

On a personal note. As you know from reading my author's notes, I suffer from quite severe depression following my wife's death as well as other growing health problems. Thank you FULLMETAL for kicking me when I'm down. If I ever abandon this story, it'll be people like you that make me do it. Thankfully most readers have some humanity.

Thank you to all those who wrote with sympathy and understanding. It means a lot.

Thanks to my betas, Nachoman1, a.k.a. Ignacio Ramírez, Militis, a.k.a. Mike, omega13a, Helena, The_Scribbler and Minara.

Please review.

Brian