"The Harmony Bond"
Chapter Fifty-two.
By Brian Grove
Brian at rescueddoggies dot com
Disclaimer – I don't own HP. Bet you never knew that!
Help with "Britishisms"? "thesiteofbrian DOT com SLASH cultural" or see link in my profile.
In the previous chapter...
Luna - the aftermath. Flitwick takes action... and so do the twins!
Hermione went to bed that night worrying about Harry. She sighed in rather annoyed frustration. "After all this time he STILL thinks everything is his fault."
Yeah, but he's cute, her own thoughts replied.
Where did THAT thought come from? At least I'm not hung up on that idiot Lockhart, she thought to herself, unlike most of the girls in school. I mean, even the Ravenclaws, who should know better, go all dreamy when he's around.
He IS gorgeous looking though, came another thought. If I wasn't bonded with... Hermione angrily stopped the traitorous thought, but a smile came to her face as she wondered if she'd be as bad as his Hogwarts fan club if she wasn't bonded to Harry.
No, she decided. She couldn't be that stupid. He's an incompetent prat and half the stuff in his books contradicts itself. And she could never fancy a self-important big-headed twit like him anyway.
If I did though, she admitted to herself, at least I bet he'd notice I'm a girl, unlike someone else I can think of.
She got up and walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Maybe if my hair wasn't such a mess and if my teeth didn't stick out so much.
Although her parents had become much more comfortable with magic, being dentists they had still wanted her to get her teeth fixed the Muggle way, with a brace. Hermione had been tempted, with her mother in a coma, to take the easy way out and get Madam Pomfrey to correct them, but somehow it felt like betraying her parents, so she hadn't.
It's not as if that would solve anything anyway, she thought. She had fat in all the wrong places, on her tummy and her thighs, and not enough where she wanted it. She looked down, irritated at her still small breasts. Although there was still plenty of time for them to grow, she knew, as her mother wasn't that big, she doubted that she would be. Suppose Harry liked big boobs? There were loads of girls here better endowed than she was. Ginny was almost as big as her and she was only in her first year. She was sure her mother would have had some advice, but she couldn't talk to her.
She frowned. She really needed her mother so she could ask her something else too. Just how do you buy a bra? What size would she need? How do you take measurements? Her mum would know all this. I mean, her boobs might be too small, but they were there and she needed to buy something. Otherwise she might get attention she didn't want. Some hope, she thought, miserably, looking down at herself once more.
As she raised her head again to look in the mirror, she snapped at herself. Really. Harry's blaming himself for everything bad that happens and I'm busy worrying about how I can get him to fancy me.
Being fairly sure that Harry still sometimes had nightmares didn't help her to stop worrying, nor did the fact that she couldn't sense them as well as before. Were they just less powerful and therefore less important, or had it been a mistake to accept places in the dorms instead of demanding married quarters? Were they even drifting apart, she wondered, and if they were, what would happen?
A few nights later her worries about their closeness, or lack of it, were brought home to Hermione vividly. They had been to the "Deathday party" for Sir Nicolas, the house ghost for Gryffindor, as Harry had been foolish enough to get in a conversation with him and accept the invitation.
On the way back, Harry had suddenly heard something. "Did you hear that voice?"
"What voice?"
"It says it's going to kill."
"Harry. There's no voice. Let's go down and see if there's still some food we can actually eat."
"I heard it once before, at the beginning of term. You must be able to hear it."
"Harry. Even in the wizarding world, hearing voices isn't a good sign," Hermione had begun to say, but Harry took off down the corridor.
A slightly annoyed Hermione decided to follow him.
Harry had skidded on a wet floor and bumped himself on the wall. Looking up, both he and Hermione saw vividly written over the wall the words, "The chamber of secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware."
"It looks like blood," said Hermione in a small voice, then gave a scream as she saw Filch's cat hanging from a hook in the wall. Filch was the rather unpleasant caretaker and the cat was equally unpleasant to everyone but him, but she still wouldn't want anyone to kill it.
Harry turned to her angrily. "Hearing things, was I? Now do you believe me?"
He turned to go, but at that moment a crowd came up from the Great Hall. Draco Malfoy was in front. "Enemies of the heir beware?" He looked directly at Hermione. "You'll be next, Mudblood."
Neither of them had time to react as another voice broke through. "My cat! Someone's killed my cat!" Filch pushed his way through the crowd. "Potter! I'll kill you. I'll kill you."
Hermione didn't think that she'd ever been as pleased to see anyone as she was to see Professor Dumbledore at that moment. Apparently the cat wasn't dead, but petrified, and Madam Sprout would be able to provides mandrakes to cure it, once they were mature.
Hermione had actually managed to make a History of Magic lesson interesting by persuading Professor Binns to explain about the Chamber of Secrets. They learned that Slytherin had left a hidden chamber containing a terrible monster that could only be controlled by his heir, who would use it to eradicate Muggleborns from Hogwarts.
Harry's reaction had been to insist that Hermione hardly leave his side outside of the Hufflepuff quarters, which Hermione refused to do, pointing out that she'd be perfectly safe in the library and did he really want to be forced to spend half his spare time there with her?
The term got worse after that. Harry was seriously injured by a bludger in a game of quidditch and Colin Creevey, an annoying first year Gryffindor who showed up everywhere with his camera to take photos of Harry and Hermione, was also petrified. He had been taken to the hospital wing while Harry was still there recovering from his quidditch injury and he learned that the chamber had been opened before.
He also learned that the bludger had been hexed by the house-elf Dobby, in an attempt to persuade Harry to leave Hogwarts for his own safety.
The twins had thought that hilarious, commenting that "Dobby's gonna kill you if he doesn't stop trying to save you." For once, Harry hadn't been amused at their comment.
Hermione was so concerned that she went to tell Professor Dumbledore about it. "Very interesting," he replied. "You need not worry. No house elf would intentionally harm anyone."
Ignoring her first reaction that it looked like Dobby was quite capable of injuring Harry without intending to, she asked, "But what about what he said? About terrible things happening? He might be able to tell us something."
"I doubt that very much. I am quite surprised he was able to tell Harry that much."
"But if we can find out which family he works for, that might help."
"Hmm," the professor replied, non committally. "Well, do let me know if you learn anything more."
Hermione took that as a dismissal and left, rather annoyed at what seemed to her to be a rather cavalier attitude on the part of the headmaster.
If Hermione thought that things couldn't get any worse, she was wrong. Professor Lockhart decided to run a duelling club, then, at Professor Snape's suggestion, picked Draco Malfoy to duel against Harry. Malfoy conjured a dangerous snake which looked like it was going to attack. To the shock of everyone there, Harry began to hiss like a snake. The snake reacted, looking between Harry and Justin, who was nearest to it. Just as the snake seemed to be about to launch itself at Justin, Professor Snape vaporised it with a spell.
Justin turned to Harry and yelled "What the hell do you think you were doing?"
Afterwards Ron and Neville explained to Harry what a Parselmouth is (even though Hermione had already done so the previous summer) and that it looked like Harry had been encouraging the snake to attack. It had fallen to Hermione to explain to Harry that being able to speak Parseltongue was considered a dark gift because not only wasn't it common, but the only recorded Parselmouth in recent years was Voldemort. She also explained that the reason the symbol for Slytherin House was a snake was because Slytherin himself was a Parselmouth. She'd found all this out after reading up on Parselmouths after their experience in Chessington Zoo.
As Neville pointed out, "Now everyone's going to think you're his great great however many times grandson and you're controlling the monster."
"But they can't!" Hermione had protested. "He's bonded to a Muggleborn, everyone knows that."
"This lot are stupid," Ron had replied. "Neville's right. They'll think you're the heir of Slytherin."
Ron's pessimistic prediction proved to be correct. Even Harry's own house mates seemed wary of him, especially when Justin turned up petrified only a few days later.
"Honestly," a frustrated Hermione argued. "He's bonded to a Muggleborn. How can he hate Muggleborns?"
Even their friend Susan disagreed with her. "Perhaps you're the exception," she replied. "After all, we know how much Colin annoyed him with his camera, and he had that argument with Justin."
Seeing how upset Hermione was becoming, she added in a doubtful tone "perhaps he doesn't really know he's doing it."
The twins of course, made light of it, choosing to escort Harry as often as possible, "Make way for the heir of Slytherin." "Seriously wicked wizard coming through."
They also conjured lots of little rubber snakes, which looked surprisingly realistic, especially when they twitched or moved on their own.
When Hermione yelled at them for disrupting a whole day of History of Magic classes Fred explained, "we're practising to become professors."
"Professors?" she snorted. "You two?"
"Defence Against Boring Lessons professors," George countered.
"That's not funny. And it's not fair, picking on Professor Binns like that."
"Come off it, Hermione. He didn't even notice."
"They probably helped people learn more," said Harry.
"How do you work that out?" Hermione asked, incredulously.
"Well, the snakes kept them awake, so they heard more of ol' Binns droning than they usually do."
Even Hermione couldn't think of a response to that.
When some of the first years were overheard talking about Harry being the heir of Slytherin, George threatened to feed them to the Slytherin monster.
"You can't," one had responded. "Only Harry can do that."
"Then we'll feed you to Fluffy."
"Fluffy? Who's Fluffy?" laughed the first year.
"Hagrid's vicious three-headed dog."
"How come we've never seen it?"
"Well, it's only here sometimes," Fred explained. "It was so vicious that the rest of the time Dumbledore has it transfigured into a lawyer and lets it work for a Scottish writer."
"You what?"
"Don't worry," said George. "He doesn't know what he's talking about either. If you want to know who Fluffy is, ask Hagrid."
"Before we feed you to it," added Fred. "Otherwise you'll find out anyway."
Not even an announcement to their house by Professor Sprout could stop the rumours that Harry was the heir of Slytherin, though the Hufflepuff students made sure not to say anything when the professor was around.
Although the twins' pranks had concentrated on anything to do with snakes rather than on Ravenclaw for the latter part of term, they still had time for the occasional prank aimed at Ravenclaw.
The most successful was the simplest. An official-looking sign on the door of the library saying "Library out of order until further notice."
Luna had ignored it and simply walked into the library anyway, but Hermione was furious. "How can they close the library?" she ranted, even more annoyed and frustrated than most of the Ravenclaws had been.
Ron bursting out laughing didn't help her mood.
"It's not funny. We have to study and I was busy looking up a special potion as well." She put her hand to her mouth and looked around to make sure nobody else had heard.
Of course, the twins had. "Special potion?" George asked.
"Can we help?" added Fred.
"Only if you can get me into the library."
"Might be possible. Depends on what the potion is for."
"You can't tell anyone. It's Polyjuice potion, to change us into some of Malfoy's friends. If anyone knows who the heir of Slytherin is, it'll be him."
"Maybe he is the heir of Slytherin," said Ron. "He hates Muggleborns, calls them all... well, you know what he calls them."
"Honestly, Ron. Malfoy? The heir of Slytherin? He's a joke." She turned to the twins. "So are you going to help me get into the library?"
"It's really easy," said Fred.
"Really easy," added George.
At Hermione's annoyed expression he added, "Open the door. The notice is a fake we put there to annoy the Ravenclaws."
"It's not funny," fumed Hermione, picking up her books and heading for the library.
"It was," Ron assured the twins.
They prepared the potion in the first floor girl's bathroom, as it was haunted by a ghost called Moaning Myrtle, so everyone avoided using it. That didn't stop the twins from calling out to any of the girls, if they were leaving a group to go to the toilet or to a shower, "Hey! Going to give Moaning Myrtle an eyeful?"
The twins pranks came to an abrupt end, or at least a pause when they were caught setting snakes in Professor McGonagall's classroom. Her reaction to Fred complaining that she shouldn't take things so seriously was to place them in detention every evening for the rest of term.
Harry's suggestion that they should try telling Snape not to take himself so seriously was met with the reply from both the twins, "Even we're not THAT stupid."
The Polyjuice was a disaster. It spoiled Christmas as Hermione accidentally added a cat hair instead of a hair from Millicent Bulstrode and partially turned herself into a cat, which took a month in the hospital wing to put right. She looked so funny that even Harry couldn't help laughing at her predicament. Not only that, but the only thing they learned was that Malfoy had no idea who the heir of Slytherin was either.
The one thing it did mean was that there was no Hermione to tell the twins off for turning all the first years into different colours on Christmas day and insisting that they were mobile Christmas decorations. Harry had to laugh because they had also turned Malfoy green and silver. When asked by Ron why they'd picked on him, not that he minded, Fred replied, "well, he's as childish as a first year."
When Harry told Hermione about Malfoy, even she couldn't resist laughing about it.
After the embarrassment of a month looking like a cat, Hermione did most of her research alone. She was often spotted creeping around the castle holding a mirror, but wouldn't explain why.
One evening in early February, Harry was walking through the Hufflepuff common room, which was filled with mostly first and second years studying, when he suddenly began to feel ill.
Harry assured everyone that he didn't need to be taken to the hospital wing, he would just go to bed early. At that moment, Professor McGonagall entered the common room, a most unusual event.
"I'm afraid I've some bad news. Mrs. Potter has been petrified."
Feeling weak or not, Harry ignored her shouts not to run in the corridors and ran as fast as he could to the hospital wing.
Taking Hermione's hand, he found that she was cold as ice. A distraught Harry insisted on sitting by her for the next day, then, when Madam Pomfrey came to wake him in the morning, she found that he was as stone-like as his wife.
Professor Flitwick was called and pronounced that it was the bond and that he probably wouldn't awaken until Hermione did.
Author's notes...
This chapter was a difficult one to write (hence the looong delay) as so much of what had to happen was simply what was in the books. I am glad to say that from here on out, things are different, in fact, this is probably the last section in the whole story where much happens in the same way as the books.
Thanks to ghostchicken for pointing out that Voldemort is BIDING his time not BIDDING it in the previous chapter (now corrected). Also to alix33 for pointing out that some Ravenclaws WERE going to the library, not WHERE going...
Thanks to my beta for this chapter, omega13a. Obviously the others were busy, but Real Life is more important. Helena, sorry you weren't sent this chapter, somehow I've lost your email address.
Please review.
Brian
Help with "Britishisms"? "thesiteofbrian DOT com SLASH cultural" or see link in my profile.
