Hello all, I have been a fanfiction reader since 2003. When there was a break between books being published, fanfiction is how I kept myself going. I have written a few different short fanfictions, but never posted them. I started writing this in 2015 when I had a plot bunny that I couldn't get out of my head. I finally decided that I have done enough edits with my wife to start posting this story.
A few notes:
1. This is a dark dark story. This a story about war, and what war really looks like. Lots of tough topics will be mentioned. Many aren't super fun. But they won't be gratuitous or anything and mostly will occur off screen. But heavy topics will be mentioned.
2. This is a H/Hr story, I try to stay away from the tropes as much as possible, but there are a few that worked too well with the plot that I wanted to use, that I left them in.
3. The characters might seem OOC from a certain perspective. Since I am writing them how I feel real teenage Harry would act. Not the kid version in the book, a Harry that swears and does things that you would expect a 17 year old to do. And someone put under life and death stress on constant occasions, these things change a person and I wanted to explore that. I do my best to keep the OOC reasonable and believable as much as possible.
4. This story is completed. It clocks in just under 300k words. I won't leave it abandoned or stop posting, so if you are one of the people (like me) that doesn't like to risk getting invested in a story that might be dropped before it is done, that won't happen here.
5. And finally, I know I'm not perfect. I'm also from the US, so there is probably a lot of room for britpicking, but I didn't know how to do that in a realistic way, so I decided to not try to fake it that often. If there are suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comments.
I hope you enjoy this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Without further ado:
Harry Potter and the Nightmare War
PART 1:
Chapter 1: Ènouement:
The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.
Saturday, July 27th, 1997
The walls of his 'bedroom' at Privet Drive seemed to close in a small bit closer every time Harry took note of them. The room had always been small, after all, some 6 years ago this very room had been used for Dudley's extra toys. Harry rolled his shoulder uncomfortably. The feeling of tingling between his shoulder blades seemed to creep up and down his back. He tried to tell himself that the discomfort came from the fact that he was trapped at the Dursley's again, but he knew that wasn't true.
The tightness in his throat started to rise and he felt himself start to breath faster. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he could feel his glasses start to slide down his nose. This mental battle that would happen every night was starting to wear him down physically and mentally. If his thoughts started to wander too far images plagued him and refused to leave him in any semblance of peace. Clear your mind indeed. The clearer he tried to keep his mind, the more intruding thoughts started racing into the space.
Harry tried to force the thoughts away but he found that he couldn't. Like a sticking charm the thoughts and voices seemed to swirl around his head and stick on to anything. Word strings started to blend together. Lines of thought streaming off of any word that seemed to spark a new idea. He closed his eyes as the voices, some his own and some not, started to scream things at him.
"Of course I'm not afraid Harry, you are with me."
"Books and cleverness, there are more important things, like friendship and bravery."
"It is time to choose between what is right and what is easy."
Avada Kedevera!"
The responsibility was what was crushing him. The idea that there were people out there that were counting on him for their very lives. Dumbledore had trusted him, and he had let him down the night on the tower. Hermione and all the other muggle born students and families were all counting on him. There was an entire country waiting for him to save the day like he had when he was a baby. Did his mother get credit for saving his life and ultimately being the one to destroy Voldemort the first time? No, it was somehow the doing of a baby boy. Now, over a decade later, the world was looking to him to do it again. Never-mind the way they had treated him in recent memory, they still looked to him.
And now Dumbledore was gone. Hermione didn't trust him anymore after the Department of Mysteries, for good reason, he added as an afterthought. And Snape was a murderer on the run. Their voices echoed around him. The taunts for Snape in his 'potions' lessons. The looks of disbelief and pity on Hermione's face when he described worrying about Malfoy. The look on Dumbledore's face while he drank the potion in a poorly lit cave. The hate on Snape's face when he fired the curse at Dumbledore. The limp form of him falling off the tower. The images and sounds were overwhelming and before Harry could stop himself, he had drawn his knees up to his chest and had his eyes tightly screwed shut.
He had been so close to having help with this mission. He had been so close to having a chance and then it was all taken away in a second and a flash of light. He had felt like there was a chance for him to survive the prophecy up until that moment. Harry knew there was a lot of grief pent up inside of him for the lost mentor. He was ashamed to admit the other reason he was taking it so poorly was because he was scared. When he had seen the Professor fall, the last line of defense Harry had against the real world fell from the parapets as well. And now all Harry could feel was panic and fear.
Dumbledore had made an attempt this past year to try to mentally prepare Harry for what was to come. To give him a few more tools in this war that had found itself resting firmly on his shoulders. The nine months that they had spent attempting to better understand the darkest wizard of their time had certainly not been wasted, but at the end of the day Harry still felt woefully unprepared for what was ahead of him. The knowledge of what Voldemort had done and the extent he had gone to protect his idea of immortality was precious in the light of understanding what was necessary to destroy him. However, Tom Riddle had been an incredibly gifted wizard before his decent into madness, and the years and transformations had not made him weaker, despite his skeletal appearance. Making Tom Riddle mortal again was only half the battle. Besting him in a performance of magic...Harry knew the odds well enough to estimate his chances of surviving that duel.
The walls closed in on Harry a little more. The room feeling even more stifling than it had even just a minute previous. He had seen so many people die, and now he was all alone in his room. The same way how he was alone in all of this. That final moment, facing off against Lord Voldemort, what would likely be Harry's last moments as well, he would be all alone.
Harry squeezed his legs harder and felt the muscles in his arms weaken a bit with the strength he was exerting on trying to make himself as small as possible. After about fifteen minutes of the feelings of overwhelming panic seemed to wash aside, he opened his eyes and looked around.
He tried to absorb the room around him. The late afternoon sun sparkled through the windows and refracted across some of the more shiny things in his room. Headwig's perch, his glasses sitting on the bedside table, and the pictures of him and his friends that he had put up to try remind him that for the moment he might not be as alone as he felt.
The pictures didn't do anything to make him feel better. Sitting next to the pictures was a small stack of letters. Well it wasn't that small anymore. It had started off as a small stack of letters at the start of the summer, but it had grown substantially since then.
Hermione's letters...they had gone unanswered. He wasn't sure what to do about them. There was a decent mixture of shame and fear when he stared at that stack of letters. The truth was, he didn't know what to say. There was a part of him that wanted to leave them unanswered so that way she would be safe. If he just didn't answer and disappeared after his birthday then maybe she would be safe. She had a family, a life ahead of her, careers to have. Hermione had so much in her life that she could fall back on, it was selfish of him to want her with him the entire way to Voldemort.
The shame bubbled up then. She had distanced herself from him last year for good reasons. Hermione had been focused on her grades, her tests and the book that Harry was using. Lavender and Ron provided some distraction for her as well it seemed, but in the end she hadn't believed him because the last time he had asked her for help, he had been dead wrong, and she had almost just been dead. Over the years his 'adventures' had always turned out to be correct hunches or a matter of life and death where a decision had to be made. The Department of Mysteries was different. He had been completely wrong, led them all into danger, and ended up getting his Godfather killed and facing down Lord Voldemort. She had been right to walk away, he was useless without guidance from someone else. Dumbledore had been out of the castle and he had made a decision about saving Sirius, Hermione had tried to stop him, to make him see sense, but he hadn't been able to hear her.
When the decision had come down to Harry, he had been wrong. When it had come to step up and help Dumbledore on a mission, the Headmaster had ended up dead. Harry wasn't good enough to function on his own and Hermione was completely right to step away from that life.
The selfish part of him wanted her to stay. Ron as well. He wanted them there, he wanted their friendship and support, but it was coming to a breaking point where he couldn't ask that of either of them anymore without asking them to more or less sacrifice their lives for this. Something he was not willing to ask them to do.
Enough people had died trying to keep him alive, he wouldn't let the same thing happen to his friends.
The letters were unanswered because he knew he wasn't strong enough to tell her to stay away from him. Her and Ron were the backbone of what he was trying to do, they always had been, but now it was time for him to handle things on his own. At least that is what Harry kept trying to tell himself. At the end of the day he wasn't scared of losing to the Dark Lord because he was scared of dying, because he wasn't. He was scared of other people dying for him if he didn't work fast enough. He was scared for the others and hoped that if he left them behind he wouldn't have to hold on to that feeling.
So there they sat and Harry couldn't take his eyes off them sometimes. He had been able to answer Ron's letters without too much problem. A couple lines about Quidditch and a few lines about how the muggles were treating him and Ron didn't expect much more than that. Hermione on the other hand, Harry cringed, there were two options. Either she would be far more invasive than he wanted and he would have push her away. Or she would be avoiding the subject completely, meaning that she had for sure walked away from this. They both made his stomach turn.
He moved to the desk, unfurling himself from the ball he had made of himself on the bed. Sitting down he sighed. He was tired since he had trouble sleeping these days, but taking another nap didn't seem like a good use of his time. His fingers drummed on the desk in a repeated fashion. The soft crinkle of Hermione's letters crunched out from underneath his fingers, but he kept the rhythm. Hedwig had been gone for longer than she should have been at this point. He had sent her to the Burrow yesterday with an update letter for Ron. Ron had wanted to come and rescue Harry again a-la-Second year, but Harry had managed to persuade him against it. She should have been back by now though.
As if summoned by his dreary thoughts, Harry heard the soft whip of feathers and sound of air brushing over feathers as the snowy white owl winged into the room. The afternoon sunlight reflected in her amber eyes as she stared him down disapprovingly. Harry knew Hedwig was quite upset that he hadn't answered Hermione's letters. Many times after a wizard and a pet such as an owl spent enough time together, they formed a bond that went beyond that of normal pets. Harry was sure that his familiar more than understood what was going on and she was probably very upset that they were still at the Dursley's as well. Regardless there wasn't a whole lot that Harry could do about the Owl's mood other than to offer her some treats and rest after her journey.
She dropped the small parcel and letters on the desk and turned her back to him. Dipping her beak in the water cup on his desk before hopping over to her perch.
"What did you bring me today girl?" Harry asked softly, surprised at the sound of his voice, seeing as he had only used it a few times since arriving here earlier that summer.
Her hoot of indignation answered him enough.
He knew that she had dropped off more from Hermione. Hedwig was taking it personally that he wasn't sending as many letters as she would like.
He reached for the parcel first and tore the brown paper away from it only to find himself staring at a small mirror. It was nondescript, but didn't appear to have any impurities or scratches on the face of it. Harry turned it over, not really sure what to do with it. He knew that Sirius had given him something similar in his 5th year, but he wasn't sure who had sent this to him and he knew that the mirrors that he had previously owned, were shattered. Placing it gingerly on the desk, Harry opened Hermione's letter, thinking she would be the logical choice in the matter.
Harry,
You have a map that works similar to the way the mirror does.
Hermione
Harry winced as he read the note. There was a definitive lack of personality in the note. Even the way she used punctuation screamed that she was restraining herself. Harry could almost hear the clipped tone in her voice and the line appearing between her eyebrows that was a warning sign to her anger. The only other option was that she was in danger and reaching out to him.
He knew that activating the mirror meant one of two things. Either Hermione was in trouble, or Harry was in trouble with Hermione. Either way the conversation was going to be unpleasant, but Harry's concern for her safety finally won out in the end.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" Harry intoned slowly.
The mirrors face fogged over for just a moment before a familiar face came into view. The fog on the face dissipated and Harry could see all the tell tale signs that she was quite angry.
The question was, who was she angry with? Harry didn't actually need to ask the question, and yet he hoped that he was wrong.
"Harry Potter, you selfish bastard." She threatened.
He wasn't wrong. Damn.
The corners of her eyes were tight and Harry could tell that she had not been sleeping much recently. "Did you even bother to read my letters or did you just decline to comment?" Her tone was fury, but he could see in her eyes that she was also somewhat relieved that he had answered. She had been worried about him, which had clearly caused her distress. Double damn.
He didn't even have the mental strength to argue with her. If she was that mad at him, then maybe it would make the decision for her and he wouldn't have to put her in danger.
"'lo Hermione" He mumbled. Again surprised at the sound of his horse voice.
She waited with a stern look on her face, not deterred by a second at his disheveled appearance.
"I'm sorry I didn't write back. I don't really have a good answer as to why." He said meekly, not coming up with anything to side track her away from his real reasons. Leaving it open ended just begged for her to open this conversation up again at a later date. Harry hated the small part of his brain that screamed at him that there would never be a 'later'.
"So you don't even send me a note saying you are," she waved her arms around for a second searching for the word, "not feeling social and that you were safe?! I've been worried about you!" She said, the anger not coming off her face yet. "If I hadn't heard from Ron that he got a letter from you I would have thought something was really wrong!"
"Sorry Hermione I just didn't think it was important." Harry said, letting a little of the truth slip out.
"I'm not important enough to send a quick note to?" Hermione asked, looking hurt.
"That's not what I meant." Harry said lamely. "I just figured after last year I would respect your wishes a bit more." The words floated out of his mouth before he had a chance to snag them again and put them back.
"Respect my wishes?" Hermione anger seemed to falter and the small line between her eye brows faded. "What does that mean?"
"It's not important Hermione, I just wanted to give you the space you needed. I saw you and Ron at the funeral, I didn't want to intrude or make things more difficult, and I know last year was a lot of academic stuff, and you were mad at me about the book and..." Harry realized he was rambling all the insecurities that he had felt over the last few weeks to her. He snapped his mouth shut. "Really it is just not important."
"The hell it isn't." Hermione said in a softer tone then the words could have warranted. "I don't want to have this conversation through the mirror. I will be there in 2 hours to pick you up. You are staying the rest of the weekend with me and my family. Before you argue, I don't really care. I'm older than you, I'm of age, and if I really wanted to take you out of that house, we both know you can't do a damn thing to stop me. I'll be there in 2 hours. Have your things packed." She snapped out the words in a rush as if she had summoned the strength just to say as much as she had.
Harry sighed staring at his wand on the bedside table. The wand seemed to mock him. Despite knowing that he wasn't going back to Hogwarts this coming term, he also knew that he didn't want the Ministry following him around in an attempt to snap his wand this summer. A few more days of no magic wouldn't be the end of the world. The anonymity it would buy him if he remained under the Ministry radar was worth far more than arguing with Hermione when she was set on something such as this.
Harry packed his things quietly. He knew that he wouldn't miss Privet Drive, but he also knew that leaving here would be leaving behind the last semblance of a childhood he had ever had. Miserable and lonely though it had been, running from Dudley and his gang had been a sight more innocent than running away from Death Eaters that would murder you as soon as saying hello. The loneliness of childhood had hidden a greater gift than he had ever realized as well. Loneliness was a burden that he had to bear while he was young, but it was far less of a burden that knowing that you could be responsible for your friends deaths. His time with the Weasley's had taught him that. Being afraid for the lives of people you cared about was the greatest fear one could have and it made the fear of childhood bullies fade into an annoying buzz in his memory.
This bedroom had been his childhood home and prison through the summers. But even so, it was without the responsibility of the future. The mistakes of childhood didn't result in people dying. It didn't result in families being destroyed. The walls around him closed him in, kept him boxed here. Stationary. Just as restricting as they were, they had protected him for a time. Kept him in the season of life that had allowed him to become strong in his own time. Even without relatives that gave a damn, this had been a soft place to fall. A shred of normalcy in a world that had gone to hell. These walls had kept him locked in childhood, and despite the growing fear in the pit of his stomach, Harry knew that it was time to leave. These walls would no longer protect him ever again. As Hermione had said years ago "Everything is going to be different now, isn't it?"
Harry walked down the stairs to the sound of the start of the evening news. He had just over fifteen minutes before Hermione would arrive. She would be punctual as always he knew. Before she showed up he wanted to at least say a few things to his relatives. They deserved to know at least what was about to happen.
"Recent reports show that has been another house fire recently. This time closer to London. These house fires are becoming more and more destructive as the summer continues. Gas leaks and faulty electrical work seems to be the cause of many of them, but that doesn't explain why now and why so many. We'll have more on this story and more at 9."
The 6pm news had always just been an hour long advertisement for the 9pm news. However in this case Harry had heard enough.
"You know as well as I do that those are not house fires by accident." Harry said quietly.
His Aunt didn't look at him, and his Uncle's only response was to start turning purple around the ears. "Well, it's none of our concern either way Boy." He muttered sharply.
"It will be after my birthday. The protections here will fade and they will come for you. They will want to know where I am." Harry said factually.
"Well we can tell them we don't know and send them on their way." Vernon said simply as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Petunia's eye twitched, she knew that wasn't true.
"That isn't the way it works. They think less of you than they do a bug on the street. They will come to find me, which I guarantee you won't know, which I guarantee they won't believe. Then they will break your bones, tear your skin apart, begin the process of liquifying your insides, and then if you are lucky they will kill you. It will be sport to them." Harry said coldly. While he didn't wish that kind of fate on another human being no matter who they were, Harry wasn't going to stick his neck out too far for them. After all he was no more than an annoyance to be hidden in a cupboard.
Petunia seemed to be going through the five stages of grief rapidly.
"You know what happened to my parents because they wouldn't give me up. They had the power to protect themselves. Do you think it will go so quickly for you?" Harry barely whispered making dead eye contact with his Aunt. "Is Dudley's life really something you are willing to risk on stubborn pride?"
They stared at one another for a long moment. She gave him the barest of nods which he returned. Spinning on his heel, Harry returned up the stairs to his room. Feeling like he had done all he could for them, he snapped the lid of his trunk shut and opened Hedwig's cage.
"Go to Hermione's girl, I'll be there soon." She hooted softly in return. Seeming happy with the turn of events.
Harry sat on the lid of his trunk waiting. He knew she would be here soon, and he knew the conversation he was about to have with her wasn't going to be pleasant. He deserved it.
Harry sensed it before he heard it. The change of pressure in the room, the displacement of air and the small bubble of magic that apparition brought with it. Hermione's soft 'pop' of displaced air was absorbed by the walls of his room as Hermione stood in front of him. Hands already on her hips.
No words were spoken as she waved her wand and shrunk all his belongings that he had placed on the bed. Next she did the trunk just as Harry was standing. The now small items flew into her pocket as she wordlessly snatched his arm and disapparated with him in tow. Harry had expected at least a verbal warning before being whisked away.
The squelching sensation of apparition was something that Harry had yet to get used to. Despite having side-alonged Dumbledore at the end of the school year, Harry hadn't had a lot of opportunities to apparate himself, confident though he was that he could do it just fine. Harry wiggled his ears nonchalantly trying to get the faint sense of pressure to be lifted from his ear drums.
"Hermione, as happy as I am to not be at my Aunt and Uncles house, why did you bring me here? What couldn't you tell me through the mirror?" Harry asked exasperated. He had followed her instructions because if he hadn't she would have done it for him anyways. In cases like this there was really no arguing with her. But he still wasn't sure why he was here.
"Because you haven't contacted me for over a month and then when I finally hear from you, you say it's not important? I have to kidnap my best friend to get him to talk to me?" Hermione said with a cross expression on her face.
"What do you want me to say Hermione?" Harry asked, running his hand through his hair. "I haven't been doing anything important. I'm sure you are sick of hearing my crazy theories again. Or listen to me complain about the most recent person in my life has died. Hell I'm sick of it."
"Sick of it?"
"Last year you kept your distance from me, and I don't blame you! My mistake at the Department of Mysteries almost killed you! It for sure did kill Sirius and I'll have to live with that. I don't blame you for wanting some distances from me, you have goals and ambitions in the world, you have a future. I wouldn't have listened to me about Malfoy either." Harry sighed, the words tumbling out of him a slight bit faster than he liked. "I'm sick of being the one that gets everyone killed Hermione. I can only imagine that everyone else is even more sick of it."
"That all makes sense in a universe where I'm a sociopath that doesn't care about her friends." Hermione said, her lips pulled into a flat line that would make McGonagal proud. "What gave you the idea that I wanted space from you?"
"You pushed me away because of the potions book and yelled at me about it most of the time we were together. Whatever was happening between you and Ron, didn't seem like something I needed to be involved in." Harry said, thinking to the way Hermione and Ron had reacted to one another throughout the year.
"Yes! Because I didn't want you in danger!" Hermione snapped at him, her hair falling away from its hiding place behind her ear.
Harry was frustrated now. "Well that ship has sailed now hasn't it!? Chances of me making it through this alive are pretty small. The best chance for you and your family to be safe is to be far away from me. Certainly not keeping me here for a summer weekend! I thought you had figured that out and that's why you were keeping your distance." Her seemingly intentional density on the matter wasn't cute anymore.
"So that made you not answer my letters?" Hermione asked, trying to search for a way to gleam more information out of him.
"Yeah," Harry sighed, he was frustrated, but clearly so was Hermione. "I didn't have the heart to pretend about homework or test scores. I don't even know if I will survive to September, much less attend. I thought that if I kept to myself, you would go back to school without distractions." He was being honest to some extent. He however knew that he was blowing things a little out of proportion. However if that made her keep her distances a bit, the safer she would be.
"So you thought that I was just trying to forget about everything that had happened and go on with my schooling like normal? Like it wasn't just a month ago that I attended the funeral of our Headmaster?" Harry stopped himself from cringing at her clear and immanent fury.
Time to seal the deal. He was pretty much out of ideas for keeping her safe if pushing her away like this didn't work. "Yeah pretty much."
Smack.
Her hand had snapped across the space from her side to his cheek faster than he would have guessed. While it did take him by surprise for a moment, he didn't begrudge her the slap.
"Do you really not know me at all? Do you really think so little of me that I would just abandon you when things got hard?!" He had expected anger, but the absolute devastation on her face was not in his plan. "You didn't even read the letters did you?
Harry made to shake his head, she caught the motion and tears started to leak down her cheeks. Any kind of frustration that she had felt earlier was completely gone.
"All I've been doing in those letters has been apologizing and begging you to forgive me for making such a stupid mistake last year. I tried to keep you safe when I should have been trusting you. But I didn't trust you, and now Dumbledore is dead because of it. I'm so so sorry." She sat down on her bed and put her face in her hands, her shoulders rising up and down in a hitched motion belying the sobs she was trying to hide.
"Hermione, you don't have anything to apologize for, Dumbledore being dead isn't your fault."
"Oh let me guess, it's yours?" She snapped her head up and glared at him through through red eyes and smudged makeup. When had she started wearing makeup?
"Of course it is! I was there with him. I failed him and now he's gone for caring about me and trusting me to help him. He trusted me, and now he is dead."
"So you are allowed to blame yourself but no one else is?" She snapped rising from the bed now, scrubbing her hands down her cheeks wiping the dampness away.
"If it was anyone elses fault then yes. Hermione, for the last three years I have gone home to grieve for another person that died because of me. My parents were only the first people to die for caring about me. I'm tired of being the reason. I don't want to have to grieve for my friends anymore Hermione." Her upset was starting to make him slip on his goal here.
"AND THEY WOULD DO IT AGAIN!" She stamped her foot her hands balled into fists at her sides. Books on her bookshelf started to quake a bit. "That's what being close to someone is!" She looked like a terrifying tornado of anger and upset all at once.
"WHICH," Harry raised a single finger to iterate his point. "is exactly why you should stay far away from me. He takes away people I care about to hurt me."
The silence that stretched between them started to become unbearable before Harry broke it. "I haven't answered your letters because I haven't known what to say. My parents cared for me, he came for them. The Weasley's cared for me, and he came for them. Sirius cared for me, and he came for him. Albus cared for me, and he came for him. Don't you see Hermione? Everyone who has cared for me, or helped me...anyone who has started to feel like family, he has come for them in some sick attempt to destroy me from the inside out." His hand rose to his scar, "I suppose you could say that in some ways he already succeeded. I haven't answered your letters, because I don't know what to do next and I have no idea how to survive what's next. I don't know that I can. And when I fail, I don't want him to come for you next." Harry finished, his voice barely a whisper as he came to and end.
"Oh Harry..." She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder before he had much time to react.
"Oh Hermione dear, I see you have already brought Harry over," Hermione's mother appeared at the doorway, as the two of them jumped apart. "I heard some yelling up here, but I wanted to give you two some space. Dinner is ready if you two wanted to come down and eat with us."
Hermione turned to face her mother tears still glinting in the edges of her eyes. Harry hoped she wouldn't start crying, not only was he terrible with crying girls, he just didn't want to see Hermione cry. He would rather she be angry than sad.
Hermione cleared her throat. "Harry this is my mother, Jane. Mom this is Harry Potter." She said gesturing between them as was the polite thing to do.
"Nice to meet you Mrs. Granger. Sorry for all the yelling." Harry said, a little embarrassed about his share of the outbursts.
"Hermione, before you come down, you should clean your face a touch. I don't know how your father would feel if you came downstairs not only with a boy that you teleported into your room, but also crying. I feel like that is setting Harry up a bit don't you think?" Jane said with a smile and a pat on Hermione's cheek, swiping a lone tear away with her hand.
"Thanks Mum, you're probably right. I'll be right back." Hermione rushed away, yanking her wand out of her pocket and giving the bathroom door a shove before it clicked shut behind her.
Harry wasn't sure what to do, standing in Hermione's bedroom with Mrs. Granger who was staring at him intently.
He cleared his throat. "Erm, thank you for having me for dinner?" He didn't intend for it to come out like a question, but he was nervous.
"I feel like the four of us have a lot to discuss over dinner tonight don't we?" She asked quietly, her eyes not leaving his now.
"I'm not..."
"Your name appears in almost every letter I have ever gotten from Hermione since she left this house for Hogwarts." Jane said, her eyes not leaving his. "I hear stories of your adventures. Obstacle courses with real dangers as a final test. A mistake in the greenhouses resulting in her missing a semester. Dragons at a tournament run by the government. And then a mysterious injury that she had to travel to London for a number of times to be treated behind closed doors." Jane said calmly.
The bottom of Harry's stomach dropped out. Hermione hadn't told them.
"But there is something deeper than all that. She has always been focused and intense, but I have never seen her on the verge of panic day after day. She behaves as if the world is about to come to an end, and I know my daughter well enough to know that if she is that afraid, there is a reason." She smiled, Harry wasn't sure if it was a warm smile or not.
"I can't wait to tell you more about school?" Harry's uncertainty on what to do next caused the rise in inflection again despite his attempts to prevent it.
"Good lad." She patted him on the shoulder in a kind way before leaving the room as Hermione came out of the bathroom.
Hermione looked at the retreating form of her mother heading down the stairs and then a look at what must have been Harry's horrified expression. She motioned with her head to go down the stairs and as she started to turn, he snagged her shoulder halting her.
"Hermione, you haven't told your parents have you?" He asked in a whisper.
"What do you mean?" Hermione said, her eyes darting to the side.
"You haven't told them what has been happening at school have you?" He pushed.
"Well, er, no. I didn't want them to take me out of school so I smudged the details a bit." Hermione sucked in her lower lip between her teeth as she monitored his facial expression.
"This is going to be uncomfortable." Harry said as he turned toward the stairs, letting his hand fall from her shoulder as she turned to follow him. He could tell she wanted to ask more questions, but as they hit the bottom of the stairs and rounded the corner into the kitchen, it prevented her questions before they started.
Her father was sitting at the head of the table facing the door that Hermione and Harry had just walked through. He smiled at his daughter and rose from his chair to shake Harry's hand.
"Dan Granger, nice to meet you Harry." He said in a friendly tone. Harry was not used to adults outside of the magical world treating him with much decency at all, but he proffered his hand and met Dan's handshake.
Dan flipped Harry's hand around and laughed. "Now there is something I didn't expect! You have callouses on your hands!" Dan chuckled again. "Doesn't magic kind of take away the need to have rough hands?" He asked, letting Harry's hand fall back to his side.
"I play Quidditch, so I have to hold on to the broom pretty tight." Harry said, only realizing afterwards that what he said didn't make any sense. "It's a sport where you fly on brooms."
"Wow, you'll have to tell me more about it, Hermione has mentioned it, but hasn't gone into detail. It's unfortunate that even after all this time, I know so little about the magical world." Dan said, seating himself again. It appeared that whatever reservations that Jane had, she hadn't shared them with Dan yet, Harry was grateful for that much at least.
Dinner was uneventful. Dan and Jane asked Harry all sorts of things about what kind of classes he was taking and which ones he didn't share with Hermione. They seemed amused when he regaled them with some unfortunately true, stories from Divination. It was one of the rare classes that they didn't get to ask Hermione about.
"There isn't any stock in any of that rubbish." Hermione said, waving her hand dismissively.
"Oh hush, just because it isn't real, doesn't mean it isn't interesting!" Jane said swatting at Hermione's shoulder in a playful way. Hermione huffed in response and turned her attention back to her plate.
The rest of dinner passed amicably. So much so that Harry almost forgot Jane's warning from earlier.
"Dan, why don't you take the kids into the other room and get settled, I'll make a few cups of tea and then we can discuss the rest of the weekend." Jane said with a smile.
"Sounds like a great plan." Dan said and led Hermione and Harry into the den where they all settled into the couches facing the television.
"So Harry, I feel like I know so much about you from Hermione's letters. It's great to hear some of the stories from your side rather than Hermione's." Dan said leaning back in his chair.
"Daddy, I don't write about Harry that often." Hermione said moving her hair so that it fell over some of her blush.
"Actually out of 477 letters, Harry is mentioned in 468 of them." Dan said as he smiled. Harry felt his jaw fall a little bit. Turning to Hermione confirmed that she had turned a full shade of Weasley orange from her neck to her hairline.
"You counted?" Hermione stammered out.
Jane came into the room with a noted lack of tea and a large cardboard box in her hands instead.
"Oh yes, when we started digging a few weeks ago, we decided that data would be the best way to get to the bottom of things." Jane placed the box on the coffee table in front of them.
Hermione immediately slid off the couch and reached for the lid of the box throwing the lid off. Inside the box was stacks of letters, and stacks of newspapers.
Stacks of Daily Prophets.
Hermione's entire face went from the orange to a pale grey color in a matter of seconds. "When did you get a subscription to the Daily Prophet?" Hermione whispered.
"About a week after you came home." Jane answered simply. "Imagine my surprise when Harry's name was in the newspaper almost as much as he was in your letters."
"The Prophet has been obsessed with me for years. That doesn't much surprise me." Harry said, trying to deflect some.
"Yes well, reading some of the recent reports in there, matching them up with some of the news reports from around the area there were quite a few connections that were pretty obvious. There aren't as many gas leaks around as the news would have us think it would appear." Dan said, leaning over to grab a bottle of liquor and a tumbler glass.
"It was also fairly obvious that whomever this "You-Know-Who" terrorist is, there is a connection to Harry in all the reports. Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, and "You-Know-Who" all appear repeatedly in most of the reports." Jane said with a relaxed expression on her face. Harry was learning so much about Hermione in this moment he was trying to file it all away for later. Her parents approached problems and questions the same way that Hermione did, with single minded ferocity. "The final nail in the coffin so to speak was when we started matching some of the dates in the Daily Prophet to local papers. I've been spending some time after work gathering information from the newspapers in the library."
Hermione's love for libraries and her apparent fear on her face right now almost made Harry laugh. He imagined she felt completely betrayed by this local library. For her part, Hermione just kept making confused noises, completely at a loss for words. Jane calmly put a stack of recent newspapers next to the Prophets. Circles and notes scribbled in the margins in red and black ink. The mystery of one Hermione Granger was starting to unravel for Harry.
"So the question we are left with is, what connects my daughter," Dan gestured to Hermione. "Her friend," motioning to Harry. "And a terrorist so terrible that the newspaper won't even print his name?"
Silence reigned supreme in a moment that seemed like it would never end.
"He's the one who murdered my parents." Harry blurted out. Hermione's parents deserved to know the truth about what he had gotten her into. So many people had been kept in the dark for so long, Harry didn't have the heart to keep secrets anymore. Too many people had died with their secrets to the detriment of others, Harry wasn't going to participate in that.
Dan and Jane narrowed in on him. "Why?" Simple question, complex answer.
"I don't know what they have printed in the newspaper recently, but the terrorists name is Tom Riddle. He created a name for himself as Lord Voldemort. The things he did in the eighties were so bad that people don't even like saying his name to this day. Cowards that they are." Harry said.
"Ok, so he was a terrorist twenty years ago, why did he target your parents in particular?" Dan asked.
"What makes you think..." Hermione stepped in. Harry didn't give her a chance.
"He was afraid of me." Harry said.
"Harry! Professor Dumbledore said..."
"I know what he said and I don't care! He died keeping his secrets and look what is going to cost the rest of us? If you can't trust your parents with this, then Tom already won." Harry said not breaking eye contact with Hermione.
She seemed to deflate a bit. "Years ago, during Voldemort's rise to power he was gaining strength and it didn't seem like anyone was going to stop him. A prophecy was made."
"You just said that that kind of stuff was bullshit?" Dan said critically.
"Yes, but the bigger problem with Divination is that there are people that believe it word for word. Even if it doesn't make any sense." Hermione said putting a hand to her forehead. "The details aren't important, but a prophecy was made that said that there would be a baby born that would have the power to defeat the dark lord. Voldemort took that to mean that it was Harry and went after his family."
"So Voldemort was so afraid of some words that he went after a baby to prevent himself from being defeated." Dan took a long sip from his glass. "You know if I hadn't seen you teleport from place to place a few hours ago, I would tell you that this was crazy talk out of a fantasy novel."
"Tom is an egomaniac, he doesn't just want to win, he wants the world to know his name. So even the slightest threat to his power was something he took seriously. My parents went into hiding to get away from him and protect him. But he came after us anyways. They were betrayed by one of their friends and when Tom came for us, my dad fought him to give my mother time to run up the stairs. After Tom had killed my father, he went upstairs and killed my mother. Then he tried to kill me but something happened and instead of me dying, he disappeared. The world thought he was dead and I was left with a scar on my forehead and no family." Harry said dispassionately. He recounted the events void of emotion. His flashes of memory were enough to send his emotions into turmoil, but he refused to think about that right now.
"I'm so sorry Harry. Your parents must have loved you a great deal." Jane said softly placing a hand on his arm. He attempted a smile of gratitude and ignored the mist in his eyes.
"Thank you." Harry said quietly when he trusted his voice to speak. Hermione placed a hand on his and he felt the warmth of her touch on his hand.
"So the terrorist attacks that we are seeing in the paper are connected to the terrorist that killed your parents? But you said he disappeared when he hit you with the curse." Dan said with fingers steepled in front of his face.
"He came back." Hermione said, finally deciding to join the conversation. "He used incredibly dark magic to keep himself alive. At the end of the tournament in our 4th year, he kidnapped Harry and did a ritual to regain his body."
Harry winced at the memory.
"So he was successful in finding a way to not die that night." Dan summarized quickly.
"More or less, more specific information than that could put you in danger." Harry said, trying to draw the line somewhere.
"Ok, fair enough, let's be more specific then. Have the different incidents that have happened at Hogwarts, are they tied to this Tom Riddle person?" Jane asked shrewdly, darting her eyes between himself and Hermione trying to gauge their reactions.
Silence.
"I'm going to take that as a yes." Dan said taking a long draw from the drink he had poured for himself. "I would ask more questions, but it seems like we have tapped the subject of our confusion. Why don't you tell us the REAL story of the past few years of your schooling." Dan said, saying it with such authority that there was no getting out of the conversation.
"Well, hold on. Before that, I think it is fair for us to know WHY you lied to us about it Hermione?" Jane said calmly. "I don't like being lied to, but I'm starting to understand more of what is happening her, I just want to know why."
"I didn't want you to take me out of Hogwarts. There are thousands of muggle born students across the country that are in danger because of Voldemort. He would exterminate us like bugs if he got the chance. I have, and had in the past, a chance to help in that fight. I didn't want to risk you taking me away from that, or from helping Harry." She said staring directly at her shoes. Sounding more and more like a scared child the longer she spoke. Then her shoulders squared and she drew a deep breath.
Looking up she locked eyes with her mother. "There is a war going on, and I have a chance to help change the tide of it. I have to do this for all the others that can't. I am in a position where I can help Harry finish this and kill Voldemort for good. I can't turn away from that responsibility. Deceiving you ate me up inside, but I needed to keep you safe." She finished, sitting up strong now. Confident in the fight she had chosen. "I hope you can forgive me."
"I'm not thrilled with it, but I understand and I forgive you. I don't think I would have known what to do either." Dan said leaning back and finishing off the first glass he had poured and immediately started another. Leaning over he pulled another glass from the side table and he filled that as well handing it to Harry. "Drink up son, you look like a strong breeze could knock you over."
Harry took the glass and stared at it. He had snuck a few sips of firewhisky once or twice when the other guys in the dorm had brought it in, but he had never really liked the taste. Not wanting to be rude though, he raised it to his lips to take a quick nip. The liquid burned, but Harry found that the distraction of the burning took his mind off the problems that were flying around the room and he found himself grateful for Dan's kindness.
"Thanks, that does help a little bit." Harry said, resting the glass on his knee.
"Well don't drink it too fast or it won't be very helpful anymore." Dan said with a snicker.
Jane shot a glare at her husband. He was clearly trying to lighten the tension a bit. His daughter declaring that she was about to fight in a war was probably more than he had bargained for when the conversation started.
"So tell us the real story of what happened at Hogwarts the past few years and then we can discuss what that means from here." Jane said pragmatically.
"Well, it really starts with me being an ass." Harry said as he proceeded to tell his story of the train ride and not knowing what to do with the incredibly bossy twelve year old that he met that day.
"Harry, language. And you weren't being an ass. Ron was being an ass." Hermione said smiling slightly at him. Her face hadn't gained its color back quite yet, but her smile seemed to bring some of the glow back.
Hermione proceeded to tell the rest of the story of their first year. Her memory being much better than Harry's was that far back. The rest of the evening was spent in a similar fashion. They went year by year telling the stories of what they had already been through, trading off for different parts where the other left off.
Dan slowly got more and more rosy in the cheeks, Jane's tea was reheated and went cold again half a dozen times while the two teens recounted the beginnings of the war they had been fighting in for the past six years.
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