Thanks for your reviews *Achilles4* and Anne, nobody else reads this.
Whatev, just as long as I'm writing, I guess. To clear up your confusion,
though, Achilles, that's the mystery: does Ron get Hermione or does Harry?
Who wants Hermione? Are they all just friends or what?
Dun dun dunnnn- keep reading, that's the cliffhanger. ;)
p.s. Tomorrow a new member of the Order and her charge will be coming into the picture- stay tuned.
_ _ _ * _
When Harry woke up, Hermione was sitting on the edge of the foot of Harry's bed. He had not been aware of falling asleep, but obviously he had. 'Of course,' Harry thought, 'I was tired. That's why I had such a crazy dream. Then I fell back asleep. That's all.' But he couldn't help thinking that falling asleep with Hermione had been wrong, because the expression on her face begged to differ. Harry sat up.
"Hermione?"
Hermione jumped and turned to face Harry. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "You're- you're awake."
"For someone so smart, Hermione, I'd have thought you got the whole sleeping thing down. When you fall asleep, you wake up," Harry grinned at her and said, "Hermione- you look like you've seen a ghost. Whets wrong with you?"
Hermione seemed to snap out of her reverie then, and looked up at him in her usual, confident way. "Listen, Harry," she began, "We should go down for dinner. Mrs. Weasley probably thinks we're dead by now." And with that, she stood up and walked to the door. "Well?" she asked.
Harry glanced at Phineas Nigellus's empty frame and wondered again if Phineas had any friends, before standing up to walk downstairs with Hermione. As they walked down the stairs, Harry wondered if Phineas was bad because he came from Slytherin and the Black family. He wondered if bad people could have friends so good as Hermione was.
When they entered the kitchen, Mrs. Weasley was bustling about the stove and ovens, talking a little to herself as she supervised the potatoes peeling and mashing themselves and the turkey basting itself. At the table behind her were Ginny, Ron, and Juliet. Ginny and Ron were in low voices to Juliet, rather conspiratorially, while a goblet of something steaming sat in front of her. Ginny looked up and saw both Hermione and Harry framed in the doorway and she pressed her finger vehemently to her lips and motioned for them to come sit down. When they had, she leaned across the table and whispered, "Where have you two been? Mum's been all worried that you're sick, Harry, so she set out that horrible pepper potion for you two to drink, and if you don't drink it, she'll skin you alive. I don't want her to know you're here until we've figured out what to do, this stuff makes you sick if you take it when youre not sick, and-"
"Morning all! Lovely day it is today! Harry! Great to see you, mate!" Fred and George burst into the room out of nowhere, grinning. Their mother jumped and spun around, causing the potatoes to swirl around and the turkey to stab itself, whereas Ron, whose hand was next to the goblet of Pepperup potion, almost knocked it over. Fred and George grinned around as though there was absolutely nothing crazy about the idea of apparating into a room that contained their very angry mother and an assortment of butcher knives. "Hello, Mum," George said, striding forward to give her a hug before she could protest. At the moment that their mother was distracted, Fred took his wand from behind his back and said under his breath "Evanesco." The entire potion disappeared from the mug and he slipped two chocolates into Harry's hand, muttering, "These will make your ears smoke, but you wont feel a thing. Pepperup Phonies, 16 knuts each-"
At that moment, George let go of his mother and said, "Mum, we are sorry we haven't been around this summer. Like we said, business is really even better now that all the little kiddies are out of school," he turned to wink at Fred, who then began to speak right where his brother left off, on the same thought, and even in the same tone of voice. "And we are making lots of money to bring home to you. We know you don't approve, but we love you and you really should expect better of us. Which is why we have come to tell you we have joined the Order."
Mrs. Weasley, who had been kept from speaking by her sons, looked like she might faint. She didn't, for once, seem to have much to say. But instead of remaining cheery and rather haughty, Fred and George both looked a little worried.
"Mum? Listen, were not trying to upset you- Mum- MUM!" Mrs. Weasley turned back to the counter very abruptly and continued making dinner. But George was not done, and began again, "It's our duty. It's our duty to Harry, it's our duty as Gryffindors, and it's our duty to the side of good. Mum, please don't be angry with us, we know you're upset about Sirius's death-" George broke off as his mother whipped around and slapped him as hard as she could across the face.
Everyone in the room recoiled, even Juliet, as George staggered and Fred dashed up to support him. "What's the matter with you?" he shouted, "You're not the same! You taught us the difference between right and wrong, but you're angry because we chose the moral path! You're treating us like you would treat Percy for joining up with You-Know-Who! Why can't you just accept that we are adults and we can run our own lives?"
Fred threw George's arm across his shoulders and both disapparated instantaneously, leaving Mrs. Weasley standing with her back to the stove, a hand over her mouth, looking utterly horrified. For several seconds that seemed much longer than usual seconds, nobody said anything. Finally, Ginny murmured, "Guys- go upstairs- I'll take care of this-" and the remaining four left the kitchen, Ron rather reluctantly, and walked through the entrance hall, where they sat down on the dust-ridden, moth-eaten, maroon carpet that covered the stairs. Ron put his head in his hands.
"Its driving her mad, you know," he began, "all this. She can't deal with it. She cares too much about all of us, she doesn't want to see anyone hurt and she doesn't want to see anyone hurt while they should still be under her protection."
"Ron, its okay, everything's going to be okay," said Hermione soothingly. "Your mother is such a strong woman, and we will all get through this, right Harry?"
But Harry couldn't answer truthfully. He didn't know whether everything would turn out all right. He remembered the prophecy and that his life must include, or end in, violence and death, and he did not want that to happen. He knew that everything wasn't going to be okay, and that Sirius would definitely not be the last member of the Order to die. It would be an insult to Sirius's death and Sirius's cause to say that. But he had to; everyone was looking at him so expectantly-
"Everything is going to be just fine, you wait and see," said Juliet out of nowhere, sensing Harry's inability to lie to his best friend. "You know how in books and in Muggle movies, the good always wins? Well, who's to say that life isn't like that? Life can be like that if you make it so."
Both Harry and Hermione were stunned by this romantic, impractical view of life, but on the contrary, Ron seemed to be entranced by it. Harry and Hermione glanced at each other, wondering whether this opinion was real or was just taken for Ron's sake, while Ron stared up at Juliet. "You think so? You really think so?"
"It's the only thing I can believe in," said Juliet, smiling warmly at Ron. I can see your mother is a good person who just needs a little time and a little patience to get over what she's seen. I can see, she loves you too much to let you go, but she will get over this all very soon." Ron smiled, looking as though he felt much better. Harry wondered how Ron and Juliet were bonding so very nicely when they had only known each other for about two hours. So, to change the topic, Harry asked some questions that had been on his mind since he walked through the front hall for the first time this summer.
"Where's Mrs. Black? Where's Kreacher? Where's the Black Family Tree?"
Hermione's face darkened, and Ron, suddenly alert, turned his to the wall. "What?" asked Juliet, "Whets a Kreacher?"
Hermione's eyes flashed, and she began. "Kreacher was the poor house-elf who died-"
"Laughing after he heard Bellatrix Lestrange killed Sirius," Ron finished, determined to make the house elf look as bad as he possibly could. "Anyways, Juliet, he was the supposed house elf of number 14, Grimmauld Place, but he's also the one who made Harry come into the city and start the whole prophecy thing, and that whole chain of events led to Sirius dying."
"He died WHAT?" Harry roared, the words suddenly registering his head, jumping up.
Hermione flinched and said quickly, "He's dead, Harry! The house elf is dead! You can't hurt him! Besides, he didn't die laughing, he died in his sleep."
Ron rolled his eyes and interjected, "That foul thing laughed for a day after the news, all through the night. He laughed in his sleep. Therefore, if he was asleep when he died and was laughing, then I am correct."
Juliet sighed. "So this house-elf, he was crazy, but now he's dead, but nobody liked him, so nobody cares."
"Basically," Harry and Ron said together, Ron adding, "Shut up, Hermione, you know you hated him too, don't say a word about it."
"So," Harry said, cutting off Hermione and probably another endless tirade about the evils of house-elf enslavement, "What happened to Mrs. Black? Where's the family tree?"
"When Phineas Nigellus told her, she freaked out. Broke through her picture, the canvas got all torn up and basically she killed herself. When she 'died', the Family Tree fell off the wall and we burned it in Sirius's memory." Ron nodded towards the empty frame by the doorway.
"Why would the Tree fall down with her?" Harry asked.
"Well," began Hermione, "Mrs. Black was the guardian of the family. As long as her memory lived on inside the picture, she could watch over the family and give them some ancient form of protection. However, when she fell, so did the roots of the family."
"And good riddance!" said Juliet, quite unexpectedly and vehemently. When she saw everyone staring at her, she said, rather quietly, "I met Mrs. Black once. Remus used to come around a lot to see my mother, and sometimes he'd take me places. We came here once, and she saw me, and she just- she just lost it. She almost broke through the canvas. Nobody knows why. We only stayed here for about a second. Remus asked me to open the curtains, and when I did, I screamed and fell backwards, and she started shouting all this filthy stuff. I was pretty scarred. Remus told me about the Black family on the way back from London. He sounded pretty relieved, actually, that Mrs. Black shouted at me."
There was an awkward silence following this confession, Juliet turned a brighter red than before. Harry felt bad for her, but all he could do was pull at the loose strings in the carpet. Suddenly, though, saving them all from the clutches of silence, Ginny slunk out through the kitchen door, looking very tired. "Hey," she said, "Dinner's gonna be ready soon. Mum's okay, she's just really overwhelmed right now-" Ginny trailed off, but began again. "If you see Lupin, Dad, Moody, or Tonks, tell them dinner in fifteen. I have to go take a shower. I have gravy in my hair." And with that, Ginny ran up the stairs past them.
"There was no gravy in Ginny's hair," said Hermione.
"We should go after her," Juliet looked at Hermione, and at once they began to run up the stairs after Ginny.
When they were gone, Ron looked at Harry. "Man, you just have the best luck with girls, huh?"
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, knowing that Ron didn't know anything about he and Juliet.
"You just stumble onto Juliet in some random town in Surrey, and she just happens to be related to a member of the Order and she just happens to be switching schools into yours and she is so hot. And last year you had the whole Cho thing-"
"Hey- Ron? Do you like Juliet?"
"She's real nice looking, Harry. And she's smart and funny and- reassuring- "
"But don't you like Hermione?"
"What?!? Of course not! Are you shitting me?"
"Ron, I'm serious."
"Harry, I'M being serious. I don't like Hermione. I like Juliet."
"Well, then I don't know how to tell you this- listen, Ron," Harry began, not knowing how to tell his best friend that he had gotten the girl again, "listen, I just- she kissed me, all right? On my birthday, she said it was my present."
There was a bit of a stunned silence as Ron let this news sink in, and then he said, rather confusedly, "Then what were you and Hermione doing alone earlier?"
Harry didn't know how to answer. He didn't want to admit that he had problems, he didn't want to say he had been crying, but it could mean the demise ofr he and Juliet if he didn't tell Ron about his dream. "Okay, Ron," Harry began, "you just can't laugh, okay?"
Ron looked at him very solemnly, "I won't laugh."
"Well, I had this terrible nightmare, right? And when I woke up, Hermione was there. She asked me about my dream, and I told her what happened. And- " Harry really didn't want to do this- "And I started to cry, okay? So Hermione hugged me. That's it, okay?"
Ron looked as though he were about to explode. "Sure," he managed, "I be- I- I believe-eve- you."
Harry jumped to his feet and said, "You can laugh now, I'm going to unpack."
"Good."
And Ron's shouts of laughter could be heard echoing, bouncing, and ringing throughout the empty, cold, Black house.
Dun dun dunnnn- keep reading, that's the cliffhanger. ;)
p.s. Tomorrow a new member of the Order and her charge will be coming into the picture- stay tuned.
_ _ _ * _
When Harry woke up, Hermione was sitting on the edge of the foot of Harry's bed. He had not been aware of falling asleep, but obviously he had. 'Of course,' Harry thought, 'I was tired. That's why I had such a crazy dream. Then I fell back asleep. That's all.' But he couldn't help thinking that falling asleep with Hermione had been wrong, because the expression on her face begged to differ. Harry sat up.
"Hermione?"
Hermione jumped and turned to face Harry. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "You're- you're awake."
"For someone so smart, Hermione, I'd have thought you got the whole sleeping thing down. When you fall asleep, you wake up," Harry grinned at her and said, "Hermione- you look like you've seen a ghost. Whets wrong with you?"
Hermione seemed to snap out of her reverie then, and looked up at him in her usual, confident way. "Listen, Harry," she began, "We should go down for dinner. Mrs. Weasley probably thinks we're dead by now." And with that, she stood up and walked to the door. "Well?" she asked.
Harry glanced at Phineas Nigellus's empty frame and wondered again if Phineas had any friends, before standing up to walk downstairs with Hermione. As they walked down the stairs, Harry wondered if Phineas was bad because he came from Slytherin and the Black family. He wondered if bad people could have friends so good as Hermione was.
When they entered the kitchen, Mrs. Weasley was bustling about the stove and ovens, talking a little to herself as she supervised the potatoes peeling and mashing themselves and the turkey basting itself. At the table behind her were Ginny, Ron, and Juliet. Ginny and Ron were in low voices to Juliet, rather conspiratorially, while a goblet of something steaming sat in front of her. Ginny looked up and saw both Hermione and Harry framed in the doorway and she pressed her finger vehemently to her lips and motioned for them to come sit down. When they had, she leaned across the table and whispered, "Where have you two been? Mum's been all worried that you're sick, Harry, so she set out that horrible pepper potion for you two to drink, and if you don't drink it, she'll skin you alive. I don't want her to know you're here until we've figured out what to do, this stuff makes you sick if you take it when youre not sick, and-"
"Morning all! Lovely day it is today! Harry! Great to see you, mate!" Fred and George burst into the room out of nowhere, grinning. Their mother jumped and spun around, causing the potatoes to swirl around and the turkey to stab itself, whereas Ron, whose hand was next to the goblet of Pepperup potion, almost knocked it over. Fred and George grinned around as though there was absolutely nothing crazy about the idea of apparating into a room that contained their very angry mother and an assortment of butcher knives. "Hello, Mum," George said, striding forward to give her a hug before she could protest. At the moment that their mother was distracted, Fred took his wand from behind his back and said under his breath "Evanesco." The entire potion disappeared from the mug and he slipped two chocolates into Harry's hand, muttering, "These will make your ears smoke, but you wont feel a thing. Pepperup Phonies, 16 knuts each-"
At that moment, George let go of his mother and said, "Mum, we are sorry we haven't been around this summer. Like we said, business is really even better now that all the little kiddies are out of school," he turned to wink at Fred, who then began to speak right where his brother left off, on the same thought, and even in the same tone of voice. "And we are making lots of money to bring home to you. We know you don't approve, but we love you and you really should expect better of us. Which is why we have come to tell you we have joined the Order."
Mrs. Weasley, who had been kept from speaking by her sons, looked like she might faint. She didn't, for once, seem to have much to say. But instead of remaining cheery and rather haughty, Fred and George both looked a little worried.
"Mum? Listen, were not trying to upset you- Mum- MUM!" Mrs. Weasley turned back to the counter very abruptly and continued making dinner. But George was not done, and began again, "It's our duty. It's our duty to Harry, it's our duty as Gryffindors, and it's our duty to the side of good. Mum, please don't be angry with us, we know you're upset about Sirius's death-" George broke off as his mother whipped around and slapped him as hard as she could across the face.
Everyone in the room recoiled, even Juliet, as George staggered and Fred dashed up to support him. "What's the matter with you?" he shouted, "You're not the same! You taught us the difference between right and wrong, but you're angry because we chose the moral path! You're treating us like you would treat Percy for joining up with You-Know-Who! Why can't you just accept that we are adults and we can run our own lives?"
Fred threw George's arm across his shoulders and both disapparated instantaneously, leaving Mrs. Weasley standing with her back to the stove, a hand over her mouth, looking utterly horrified. For several seconds that seemed much longer than usual seconds, nobody said anything. Finally, Ginny murmured, "Guys- go upstairs- I'll take care of this-" and the remaining four left the kitchen, Ron rather reluctantly, and walked through the entrance hall, where they sat down on the dust-ridden, moth-eaten, maroon carpet that covered the stairs. Ron put his head in his hands.
"Its driving her mad, you know," he began, "all this. She can't deal with it. She cares too much about all of us, she doesn't want to see anyone hurt and she doesn't want to see anyone hurt while they should still be under her protection."
"Ron, its okay, everything's going to be okay," said Hermione soothingly. "Your mother is such a strong woman, and we will all get through this, right Harry?"
But Harry couldn't answer truthfully. He didn't know whether everything would turn out all right. He remembered the prophecy and that his life must include, or end in, violence and death, and he did not want that to happen. He knew that everything wasn't going to be okay, and that Sirius would definitely not be the last member of the Order to die. It would be an insult to Sirius's death and Sirius's cause to say that. But he had to; everyone was looking at him so expectantly-
"Everything is going to be just fine, you wait and see," said Juliet out of nowhere, sensing Harry's inability to lie to his best friend. "You know how in books and in Muggle movies, the good always wins? Well, who's to say that life isn't like that? Life can be like that if you make it so."
Both Harry and Hermione were stunned by this romantic, impractical view of life, but on the contrary, Ron seemed to be entranced by it. Harry and Hermione glanced at each other, wondering whether this opinion was real or was just taken for Ron's sake, while Ron stared up at Juliet. "You think so? You really think so?"
"It's the only thing I can believe in," said Juliet, smiling warmly at Ron. I can see your mother is a good person who just needs a little time and a little patience to get over what she's seen. I can see, she loves you too much to let you go, but she will get over this all very soon." Ron smiled, looking as though he felt much better. Harry wondered how Ron and Juliet were bonding so very nicely when they had only known each other for about two hours. So, to change the topic, Harry asked some questions that had been on his mind since he walked through the front hall for the first time this summer.
"Where's Mrs. Black? Where's Kreacher? Where's the Black Family Tree?"
Hermione's face darkened, and Ron, suddenly alert, turned his to the wall. "What?" asked Juliet, "Whets a Kreacher?"
Hermione's eyes flashed, and she began. "Kreacher was the poor house-elf who died-"
"Laughing after he heard Bellatrix Lestrange killed Sirius," Ron finished, determined to make the house elf look as bad as he possibly could. "Anyways, Juliet, he was the supposed house elf of number 14, Grimmauld Place, but he's also the one who made Harry come into the city and start the whole prophecy thing, and that whole chain of events led to Sirius dying."
"He died WHAT?" Harry roared, the words suddenly registering his head, jumping up.
Hermione flinched and said quickly, "He's dead, Harry! The house elf is dead! You can't hurt him! Besides, he didn't die laughing, he died in his sleep."
Ron rolled his eyes and interjected, "That foul thing laughed for a day after the news, all through the night. He laughed in his sleep. Therefore, if he was asleep when he died and was laughing, then I am correct."
Juliet sighed. "So this house-elf, he was crazy, but now he's dead, but nobody liked him, so nobody cares."
"Basically," Harry and Ron said together, Ron adding, "Shut up, Hermione, you know you hated him too, don't say a word about it."
"So," Harry said, cutting off Hermione and probably another endless tirade about the evils of house-elf enslavement, "What happened to Mrs. Black? Where's the family tree?"
"When Phineas Nigellus told her, she freaked out. Broke through her picture, the canvas got all torn up and basically she killed herself. When she 'died', the Family Tree fell off the wall and we burned it in Sirius's memory." Ron nodded towards the empty frame by the doorway.
"Why would the Tree fall down with her?" Harry asked.
"Well," began Hermione, "Mrs. Black was the guardian of the family. As long as her memory lived on inside the picture, she could watch over the family and give them some ancient form of protection. However, when she fell, so did the roots of the family."
"And good riddance!" said Juliet, quite unexpectedly and vehemently. When she saw everyone staring at her, she said, rather quietly, "I met Mrs. Black once. Remus used to come around a lot to see my mother, and sometimes he'd take me places. We came here once, and she saw me, and she just- she just lost it. She almost broke through the canvas. Nobody knows why. We only stayed here for about a second. Remus asked me to open the curtains, and when I did, I screamed and fell backwards, and she started shouting all this filthy stuff. I was pretty scarred. Remus told me about the Black family on the way back from London. He sounded pretty relieved, actually, that Mrs. Black shouted at me."
There was an awkward silence following this confession, Juliet turned a brighter red than before. Harry felt bad for her, but all he could do was pull at the loose strings in the carpet. Suddenly, though, saving them all from the clutches of silence, Ginny slunk out through the kitchen door, looking very tired. "Hey," she said, "Dinner's gonna be ready soon. Mum's okay, she's just really overwhelmed right now-" Ginny trailed off, but began again. "If you see Lupin, Dad, Moody, or Tonks, tell them dinner in fifteen. I have to go take a shower. I have gravy in my hair." And with that, Ginny ran up the stairs past them.
"There was no gravy in Ginny's hair," said Hermione.
"We should go after her," Juliet looked at Hermione, and at once they began to run up the stairs after Ginny.
When they were gone, Ron looked at Harry. "Man, you just have the best luck with girls, huh?"
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, knowing that Ron didn't know anything about he and Juliet.
"You just stumble onto Juliet in some random town in Surrey, and she just happens to be related to a member of the Order and she just happens to be switching schools into yours and she is so hot. And last year you had the whole Cho thing-"
"Hey- Ron? Do you like Juliet?"
"She's real nice looking, Harry. And she's smart and funny and- reassuring- "
"But don't you like Hermione?"
"What?!? Of course not! Are you shitting me?"
"Ron, I'm serious."
"Harry, I'M being serious. I don't like Hermione. I like Juliet."
"Well, then I don't know how to tell you this- listen, Ron," Harry began, not knowing how to tell his best friend that he had gotten the girl again, "listen, I just- she kissed me, all right? On my birthday, she said it was my present."
There was a bit of a stunned silence as Ron let this news sink in, and then he said, rather confusedly, "Then what were you and Hermione doing alone earlier?"
Harry didn't know how to answer. He didn't want to admit that he had problems, he didn't want to say he had been crying, but it could mean the demise ofr he and Juliet if he didn't tell Ron about his dream. "Okay, Ron," Harry began, "you just can't laugh, okay?"
Ron looked at him very solemnly, "I won't laugh."
"Well, I had this terrible nightmare, right? And when I woke up, Hermione was there. She asked me about my dream, and I told her what happened. And- " Harry really didn't want to do this- "And I started to cry, okay? So Hermione hugged me. That's it, okay?"
Ron looked as though he were about to explode. "Sure," he managed, "I be- I- I believe-eve- you."
Harry jumped to his feet and said, "You can laugh now, I'm going to unpack."
"Good."
And Ron's shouts of laughter could be heard echoing, bouncing, and ringing throughout the empty, cold, Black house.