The Harmony bond
Chapter Thirty-eight.
By Brian Grove
brian at rescueddoggies dot com
Disclaimer:-
Still not mine, sniff, sniff.
In the previous chapter...
Harry confronted Quirrell/Voldemort and destroyed the mirror of Erised. Voldemort struck back by attacking the Grangers on Christmas day...
From Chapter Thirty-Seven...
He pointed his wand at Mrs. Granger and she screamed in agony.
"The Cruciatus Curse. One of my favourites. I wonder how long she can take before her mind goes."
"Stop it!" Hermione screamed. "Please!" She ran towards her mother but was frozen in place before she got half way.
"Now, Harry Potter. Let's see how long your bond mate can take it before I kill her."
It was Hermione's turn to collapse screaming. Even over her screaming, Harry could hear the laughter from Quirrell.
Then it seemed like the floodgate opened and he could feel the pain. In seconds, he collapsed, still watching Hermione, unable to turn his eyes away, his whole body seeming to burn with pain and Quirrell's laughter echoing in his head.
Suddenly the pain began to fade and Harry looked up. Professor Dumbledore was standing between Hermione and Quirrell and his face was a picture of pure anger.
Flashes of light of different colours came from their wands as the two Professors battled.
"You can't protect all three of them at once," Quirrell jeered, sending a spell towards Harry. Harry moved just quickly enough for it to miss, then Quirrell shot a spell at Mrs. Granger.
Something snapped inside Harry and, remembering what had happened in front of the mirror, he flew at Quirrell with his bare hands.
As his hands touched Quirrell's face, it began to smoke and he screamed in agony. He tried to Apparate away, but Dumbledore had cast a spell to prevent him. With a final long scream, Quirrell seemed to burn up and crumble into ash; leaving nothing but a tattered, sooty cloak on the ground, over the pile of ash. There was nothing else left of the binary horror that had killed Hermione's father and tortured Hermione and her mother.
Backing away from the remnants of the professor, Harry looked at his hands. There was no sign of burning. A series of cracks announced the arrival of Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout as well as Madam Pomfrey.
"We came as quickly as we could, when we heard the wards had..." Professor McGonagall's voice faded to nothing as she saw Hermione crouched over her mother.
Ignoring the new arrivals, Harry checked to see Hermione and then ran to Mr. Granger. He was joined by Professor Dumbledore. One look at the lifeless eyes of the man Harry had come to call "Dad" told them all they needed to know.
Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout had not moved from where they had arrived, wands out, ready for another attack if it came.
Harry and Professor Dumbledore crossed the garden to the two female Grangers, being tended to by Madam Pomfrey, who looked up with sadness in her eyes. "Cruciatus. Hermione will be okay."
"I am okay, Professor," Hermione confirmed. "Madam Pomfrey, how's Mum?"
Madam Pomfrey sighed. "I don't know. Muggles have no magical defences. I'll have to take her to St. Mungo's right away."
"And my Dad?" Hermione asked, her voice hard. "He's dead, isn't he?"
Professor Dumbledore nodded.
"It was the killing curse," said Harry, bitterly. "Green. Like when he killed my mother."
Madam Pomfrey insisted on checking Mr. Granger for herself before turning to Hermione and saying, "I'm very sorry. Now I must take your mother to St. Mungo's."
"I'm coming too," Hermione said firmly. She looked across to Harry, who just froze for a moment, then turned and walked into the house.
As the others left, Professor Dumbledore followed Harry into the house. "It isn't your fault, Harry."
"If I hadn't been with her..."
"Harry, this isn't worthy of you. You should be with Hermione."
"I can't face her."
"Harry," the Professor said in an unusually harsh tone of voice. "Hermione has just lost her father. She might still lose her mother. Don't you dare let her feel as though she has lost her husband at the same time. She is your wife and right now she's hurting. Whatever you think, right now she needs you."
Harry didn't reply. There was a part of him that was completely numb. He and Hermione had just become more alike than Harry could have imagined… it was too much to take in.
"Shall I take you?"
Harry nodded, unable to find any words.
When they arrived, as soon as the receptionist saw Professor Dumbledore, she had someone escort them up to the Long Term Spell Damage ward.
Hermione was sat in a chair at the foot of the bed as the mediwitches tended her mother. One of them tried to give Hermione a potion, but she waved it away.
"What's the potion for?" Harry asked.
"To ease the pain from the curse," the mediwitch replied. "But she won't let us give her anything."
Harry took the potion from the mediwitch, eased himself into her chair, passed an arm around her back and offered the potion to Hermione. "Please," he said.
Hermione looked up at him, her eyes red.
"Please take it," he repeated.
To his relief, Hermione took the potion and drank it down in one gulp, grimacing at the taste.
For the first time, she noticed the name on the bed beside her mother's. "Longbottom," she said. "Is she any relation to Neville?"
"His mother," said Madam Pomfrey.
"I never knew."
"He doesn't talk about it."
"What's wrong with her?"
Madam Pomfrey closed her eyes for a moment. "Both Neville's parents were tortured with Cruciatus until their minds went. They've been like this ever since."
"How long?"
"More than ten years."
"And my mother?"
Madam Pomfrey hesitated.
"Tell me. Will she be like them?"
"We don't know. We think the Longbottoms were subjected to the curse for almost half an hour. For your mother it could only have been a short time, as we arrived as soon as we knew the wards had been penetrated..."
"But she's a Muggle," said Hermione, heavily. "You said she had no magical defences."
"That's why we don't know," Madam Pomfrey admitted. "But they will do everything they can, I promise you."
"Professor," Hermione said, turning to Professor McGonagall. "What is happening to my father?"
"At the moment his body is being guarded, until you decide what you want to do."
"There'll have to be a funeral, of course, and I'll have to let my relatives know, and I think I have to register the death or something like that, and..."
"Hermione," said Madam Pomfrey. "Right now, his body will be kept safe. I'm sure Miss Collier will be able to help you. You don't have to do everything right now."
Hermione nodded, then turned back to the Professor. "I want to know why."
"I would guess that Voldemort, having possessed Professor Quirrell, decided to get revenge for what happened with the stone."
"That's not good enough, Headmaster," Hermione replied, her voice like ice. "I want to know why Voldemort is obsessed with Harry, and I want to know now."
"The only people I told were Harry's parents and the Longbottoms. You see why I can't tell you."
"Professor," said Harry. "I want to know. Voldemort wants to kill me anyway. At least we should know why."
"Tell us exactly what you think he can do to us, that he hasn't already done," snapped Hermione. "He killed my father, as good as killed my mother, tried to kill us. I want to know why. I need to know why."
Unnoticed by any of them, Professor Sprout had entered the ward. "Albus, if you know anything, they deserve to know."
"Walls have ears," Professor Dumbledore replied. "Now isn't the time or the place."
The next few days Mrs. Weasley insisted on them staying at the Burrow as much as possible, but quite a bit of the time was taken up with Miss Collier, making funeral arrangements for David Granger.
The funeral took place on a cold rainy day, just before the new year. Hermione spent the whole time clinging to Harry's hand as if her life depended on it. If any of her father's professional friends who had attended wondered who some of the more strangely dressed guests were, they were too discreet to ask.
"Do let us know if there's anything we can do," they all said, one after another. Neither Hermione nor Harry noticed a photographer taking their photograph.
Miss Collier had barely left their side the whole time. When it was finally all over, Hermione turned to her and said simply, "Thank you. For everything."
Risking offending Mrs. Weasley, Hermione had asked if it was okay if they returned to Hogwarts after the funeral. She didn't like to say so, but the always busy and bustling Burrow household was too much for her right now.
So it was that Professor Sprout and Madam Pomfrey were waiting for them when the guests had finally all gone. They Apparated to Hermione's now sealed home, then Flooed to Hogwarts.
After a short rest, insisted upon by Madam Pomfrey, Hermione got up and found Harry in the common room.
"Now?" he asked.
"Now," she replied.
Dinner was just finishing and the few staff and students who were staying for the new year were getting up from the one big table that had replaced the normal house tables.
Hermione walked up to Professor Dumbledore and said, "Headmaster. It's time."
There wasn't a teacher at the table who didn't know what Hermione meant and Professor McGonagall turned to the headmaster and said, "Albus?" with a tone of clear expectancy in her voice.
"Come to my office. I need to show you something."
On reaching the office, Albus showed them a giant bowl filled with a silvery liquid. "This is a pensieve. It is full of memories. There is one you need to see. Just touch the surface, it won't hurt you."
As they touched the silver liquid, it seemed to both of them that they were catapulted into a dark room. A slightly younger Professor Dumbledore was sitting at a chair, while a woman they recognised as a teacher at Hogwarts began to speak in harsh, hoarse tones.
"THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES...BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES...AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT...AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES...THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES..."
Hermione was first to speak. "It means Harry, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It does."
"But Divination is just rubbish. Surely nobody believes it nowadays."
"While your opinion on Divination is shared by many, including myself, Mrs Potter, this was a true Prophecy. True Prophecies are rare and serious enough to have their own brand of researchers in the Ministry of Magic. I believed it and hired the woman just for the off chance of hearing any new ones. Voldemort believed it, and although he only heard the first two lines, when he attacked Harry that night, he fulfilled the next line. He marked Harry as his equal. Until then, the prophecy could have referred to two boys, Harry, or your friend Mr. Longbottom. But by leaving you that scar, he marked you forever as the child of the Prophecy. Of course, if he had heard that line he would never have attacked you like that."
"What is the power the Dark Lord knows not?" Harry asked. "I don't have any special powers."
"Anyone who saw the hole you left where the Slytherin door used to be might disagree."
"Our shield? But that didn't stop him. We tried. He just laughed and it disappeared."
"What were your thoughts when you tried to use it?"
"I was angry. I wanted it to blast him away," Harry admitted, "like it did that troll."
"Your shield will never destroy Voldemort, and despite the troll, you can never use it as an offensive weapon."
"But why did it work against the troll?" Harry argued.
"Hermione, what were your thoughts when you used it against the troll?"
"I was scared. I just wanted to protect all of us," she replied quietly, with a slight shiver at the memory.
"Precisely. Your shield is unique. It comes from your bond. It comes from the love you share. Used to protect it is very powerful, as you have seen. But it can never be used to destroy. None of the power you get from the bond can ever be used, except in love."
"So it was my fault it didn't work?" asked Harry heavily.
"No. Even used correctly, your shield would not have been strong enough to defeat Voldemort. The strongest wards the Aurors and I could make did not defeat him. There was nothing you could have done."
"How can I ever defeat him then, if even your spells couldn't?"
"That is what we have to find out. But I believe I do know the power he knows not."
"What is it?" asked Hermione.
"You," the professor replied with the nearest thing they had seen to a smile. "You, your Muggle background which he doesn't understand, nor value, and the love you have together."
"It doesn't sound very much," said Hermione.
"No? I suspect that it will be more than enough to defeat him, in time. But that's in the future. What are your plans now?"
"May we stay at Hogwarts until term starts?"
"Of course. And I know the reason you gave to Mrs. Weasley. Might I know your true reason for asking?"
"Voldemort can attack us wherever we are. No wards are going to be enough to keep anyone safe, if we live with them, are they?"
The professor didn't answer.
"We have to go to the only place Harry can be safe, and this time I will be with him."
The professor nodded. Harry just looked puzzled.
"Harry, we have to go back to the Dursleys."
Author's note...
Thanks to my betas, Nachoman1, a.k.a. Ignacio RamĂrez, Militis, a.k.a. Mike, omega13a, Helena, The_Scribbler and Minara.
Please review.
Brian