Hello again! The customary mucho mucho thanks to everyone who has left me reviews! They really make my day!!!
Here's the next installment - hope you like!! It is dedicated to my dear friend Ellie (Loveday Goodchild), for whom I wrote the distinctly adjectival description of Snape, to be found towards the end of this chapter ;-)
xxx
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Twice Frustrated Love
Harry leaned his hot forehead against one of the pillars on the terrace. It was beautifully cool. The wind blew against his skin with a healing force that calmed him inside.
The garden was deserted, and deathly quiet. He looked at his watch. Three o'clock.
"You all right, Harry?"
He turned round swiftly, to see Hermione leaning in the kitchen doorway. She was in her pyjamas, and her expression was grim and sympathetic simultaneously.
"Yes."
"Thinking?"
"Yes."
She paused for a moment, and gradually made her way across the patio towards him. She leaned her elbows on the wall and followed his gaze across the lawn to the dark avenue.
"You moved too quick, didn't you?"
Harry's stomach jolted in surprise. "What?" He turned his head sharply.
"Ginny," replied Hermione, simply.
"How the hell do you know?"
Hermione smiled. "Feminine intuition," she answered, calmly. "And the look on your faces when Ron and I found you. What happened?"
Harry saw no sense in lying his way out of this one. He had been completely candid with Bill, and Sirius had required no explanation. In fact, the latter had implied that he was as transparent as his father had been.
"I almost kissed her," he said, softly, staring fixedly at a spot some distance away.
"Why didn't you?"
Harry glanced at her in wonder. He hadn't expected that.
He shrugged. "The twins set off their fireworks, and then you and Ron arrived." A wave of emotion threatened to overpower his automatic reticence. Suddenly he saw Hermione in a new light. Here was someone whom he could trust. Someone who knew him and understood him, and who was by all appearances going through similar feelings to his own. "Oh God, what the hell was I thinking? That look in her eyes. She wasn't angry with me. It was like - oh, I don't even know! I didn't understand it! Why am I feeling like this? Why does it hurt so badly? After so long - "
"Because we're not the same people we once were, Harry," replied Hermione, gently. "We've grown up - perhaps too quickly, considering all we've been through. Not many other teenagers have seen what you and Ron and I have seen. You grow fond of friends. So gradually that you don't notice it turning into love. Until it's too late and you're in so deep you can't get yourself back out again."
Harry was dumbstruck. His mind reeled with the realisation that she had put into words exactly what had been happening inside him during the past weeks. Months, probably, if he looked back hard enough. Not only that, but her feminine intuition, as excellent as it might be, could not have created that explanation out of thin air.
"Ron?"
"I didn't say that." She did not prickle up at the introduction of his name, nor did she blush or drop her eyes. Swiftly, she changed the subject. "What was Remus saying tonight?"
"Yeah, what's with this 'Remus' thing all of a sudden? He was Lupin in third year."
Hermione shot him a sardonic look. "Do we ever call Sirius 'Black'? Besides, he asked us to."
"Who's us?"
"Merlin, Harry, you're sounding like a jealous boyfriend!"
"I'm not jealous! Neither am I a boyfriend."
"Yet."
Harry felt his stomach jolt again, and rounded on her immediately. "What?"
"Oh, for goodness sake, Harry!" she cried, raising herself to her full height, which was not very much, and glaring at him with flashing eyes. "Can't you see how serious this is? You men are just hopeless at seeing the painfully obvious! Ginny is mad about you. Ginny has always been mad about you. This isn't just some silly crush she had on you in her first year! This is the real thing, Harry - for her and for you. For God's sake don't mess it up, this could be your only chance to make things work."
Harry could only stare in astonishment as she gesticulated and paced in agitation
"Hermione - calm down!" he managed to say, tentatively putting his hands on her shoulders through her wildly flailing arms. He gave her a firm shake to silence her. "Why are you so bothered about what happens between me and Gin?"
Hermione pouted and looked sulky. "You're my friends, for a start!" she retorted, wriggling free of his grasp.
"This is so not about me and Gin, 'Mione, is it? It IS Ron, isn't it?"
She had turned her back to him, and had resumed her pacing. "NO!" she cried, giving him a half glance over her shoulder. "Ron - " She broke off and swallowed. "Ron can jump off a cliff!"
She stormed back inside, leaving Harry repeatedly blinking in confusion.
***
Surreal.
There was no other word to describe the car journey to London a week later.
Mr Weasley was driving, and in all honesty, he was rather bad at it for a start. Every few miles he would spot something of tremendous interest and stare excitedly out of the side window, swerving the car across the road. Assisting matters not at all were Fred and George, who had insisted on accompanying the party to the station, for reasons as yet unknown. Bill had promised to Apparate later to say goodbye when he was sure Charlie was able to fend for himself for half an hour, Percy being of no use whatsoever stuffed into his bedroom drowning his connubial woes in paperwork.
"Muuuuum?"
"Yes, Ginny?"
"Are we nearly there yet?"
"That's the sixth time in an hour, Ginny. Please stop whining."
Ginny winked at Harry, and arranged a look of pure innocence on her brown face.
Harry shifted as best he could, crammed in the back seat between Hermione and Ron. This was a rather hellish feeling, really. He had started to believe that the night of his party had been either a dream or an inebriated moment of abstraction for both of them. But then, they hadn't technically done anything -
No - interrupted a little voice in his head - only gazed at her with passionate abandon with your lips two thirds of a millimetre away from hers!
Oh, dear God. Why won't she say anything?
But no - not even a stammering 'um - Harry - about the other night - ?'. Was she doing this on purpose, or had she not even noticed what had been going on?
I'm confused, wailed the voice.
More confusing still, however, was the peculiar behaviour of Ron and Hermione. He couldn't tell whether they were angry with each other or not, which was very unusual, but a frosty atmosphere indicated something was awry.
"Hey, Harry," hissed Fred, turning his neck to peer over the back of his seat. "You remember the You-Know-What we gave you in your third year?"
Harry nodded suspiciously.
"Have you got it safe?"
Oh, if they only knew the truth! He nodded again, biting back a smile.
"Well, use it wisely this year, laddie. You're going to need all the help you can get." He winked, looking frighteningly like Ginny, and turned back again.
Great - more confusion.
***
The platform was chaotic as usual, scattered liberally with multicoloured garments and small people rushing into each other's arms or tearing blindly through the crowds to say their goodbyes.
Ron snapped at a second year boy who collided with his shoulder as he bent to lower Pigwidgeon's cage to the floor, watching unrepentantly as the boy cringed away into the shadows, red with embarrassment. Hermione scowled, but wisely kept her mouth shut.
Mrs Weasley fell sobbing into Ginny's arms and had to be forcibly removed as carriage doors began to slam.
"Oh, my dears! You will be careful, won't you?" she sniffed, grasping each of them in turn. "When I think, goodness knows when I'll see you all again!"
"For heaven's sake, Molly, you'll see them next summer!" grumbled Mr Weasley, placing a firm hand under her arm to hold her back. He passed her to the twins to make his own farewells.
"Good luck, boys," he said, fondly. "Keep your heads down and your ears open and you won't go wrong. That goes for you too, Hermione. And no trying to juggle training with school work, all right? I know that you will if they don't stop you."
Harry felt quite ashamed to admit that the thought had not crossed his mind.
He automatically held out his hand to help Ginny into the train first, placing it firmly under her elbow. She turned to smile at him gratefully, her blazing curls bouncing glamorously around her neck and shoulders. Harry felt Hermione poke him in the ribs, and he hastily ascended the steps.
"Bill didn't come!" sighed Ginny, as they settled into an empty compartment. She flopped into a window seat, and gazed out hopefully into the mass of parents and siblings.
Mr and Mrs Weasley were not hard to locate. They were the ones standing in front of two hyperactive young men who were making questionable hand gestures and pulling faces.
They waved as the train started to pull out, and continued until they were well out of the station.
"Ron - you've got dirt on your nose."
"I seem to remember that was the first thing you ever said to me."
"No - the first thing I ever said to you was 'have you seen a toad?'."
Ron stared sideways at her. "You can remember that?"
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the book she had open on her lap. "And the first thing you ever said to me was 'we've already told him we haven't seen it'."
Harry smiled at Ron's face as he absent-mindedly rubbed his nose.
"You missed it totally."
"How do you know? You weren't even looking!"
"Oh, for goodness' sake!" She tucked a leg up under herself, twisted in her seat and reached out to pull Ron's face sideways.
Harry decided it was far less uncomfortable to avert his eyes at this point, since the tension was almost physically painful. How amusing that both of them were so blissfully unaware!
Ginny coughed.
"Harry? Care for a stroll up the corridor?" She nodded enthusiastically towards the door.
"Um - sure!"
The corridor was minutely narrow, and they were not the only ones stretching their legs, but Ginny managed to squeeze sideways while Harry pulled the door up behind them. They burst out laughing as soon as they were out of earshot.
"He is such an idiot!" groaned Ginny, leaning her head against the wall.
Harry was doubled over, one arm clutching his stomach, the other bracing himself over Ginny's shoulder. "I am seriously considering letting Sirius go ahead with his evil plot."
"Oooooh - what evil plot? Can we join in?"
The click of striding heels around the corner warned them in advance, but unfortunately the way back down to their compartment was barred by the refreshment trolley.
The tall, lean person of Draco Malfoy lounged idly against the wall, his black robes framing his physique like a dark cloud. The inelegant bulks of Crabbe and Goyle stood at a respectful distance in the clattering join that linked their carriage to the next. Malfoy viewed them through half-lidded eyes and several strands of blonde hair.
"Well, well, well," he drawled, eyeing Ginny with a disturbing combination of disdain and admiration. "Little Miss Weasley has grown up, hasn't she?"
Harry put a defensive hand on her shoulder, feeling his blood begin to boil. Malfoy's eyes narrowed further as he raised his eyes from the level of Ginny's collar buttons to Harry's face.
"Oh, and you, Potter. Not been run through with Avada Kedavra yet, then?"
"No, no thanks to your father," retorted Harry, venomously.
"Pity." His eyes descended to Ginny again, a cruel smile tilting his thin lips upward. "You have poor taste. But I suppose you are a Weasley. What a shame. You could have been worth something." His lascivious gaze glided over her briefly, before he brushed past Harry's shoulder with an unnecessarily hard nudge.
"Harry - calm down," she said, before he could explode with indignation and anger.
"I'm going to kill the bastard!" he seethed, clenching his fists as he watched Malfoy's retreating figure disappear around another corner.
"Let it go," she suggested, turning to face him. The space was so narrow that she was practically pressed against his chest., and being at least a head shorter than he was, they fitted together perfectly. A gentle hand covered his fist, her eyes lowered. "He only does it to wind you up."
"Doesn't it bother you having a worm like him lusting after you like a - like a - "
"Harry! Stop it! If either of us gets upset, he'll have done what he intended to do, so don't let's get worked up, OK?"
Her shining eyes calmed him like nothing else could, and he took a deep breath. "OK, you win. Let's go this way. I don't think I can stand the stench of perversion he's left behind for another minute."
***
With about twenty minutes to spare before the train arrived at Hogsmeade Station, Harry and Ron were thrown out of the compartment while the girls got changed.
"What the hell are we supposed to do when we get there?" hissed Ron. "I mean - do we act as normal, or are people going to know what we're up to?"
Harry shrugged. "Act as normal, I suppose. We weren't told not to tell anyone, but I don't much fancy having Colin Creevey whining and following me around all the time."
Ron sniggered. "So we just head for the Great Hall as usual then?"
"Guess so. We're still students, as Lupin - Remus - Lupin - whoever the hell he is - said. Besides, I'm damned hungry."
"So are we still in our Gryffindor Tower dormitories, or what?"
Harry shrugged again. "We'll find out." He rapped on the door impatiently. "Come on, you two! We'll be there in a minute!"
"Two seconds!" called back Hermione. A moment later, the door slid across and they were admitted.
"What the hell were you doing?" muttered Ron, striding purposefully to his trunk.
"Tidying ourselves up," replied Hermione, curtly. She caught Ron by the arm of his robes and proceeded to straighten his tie.
"'Mione, gerrof!" he mumbled, attempting to bat her hands away.
"Dear God, do we have a year of this to look forward to?" whispered Ginny, as she and Harry removed their belongings into the corridor.
"No we damn well haven't. If they haven't got this sorted by Christmas, I am going to lock them in the Quidditch changing rooms until they do."
"Nice," laughed Ginny, accepting his assistance in dragging her trunk onto the platform amid the mass of grey and black figures spilling from the doors. She sat down on top of it to get her breath back.
A loud voice hailed them, and Seamus and Dean reached them just as Ron and Hermione came out of the train, still bickering.
"Been playing Quidditch all summer, Harry," declared Seamus, proudly presenting a shiny blue badge pinned on his robes. "Me Dad took me to see the Chudley Cannons again. Got a signed photograph and all!"
The boys were in the throes of discussing various Quidditch-related things, while Hermione and Ginny yawned deliberately in the background, when the vast form of the Hogwarts' gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid, loomed over them like a mountain.
"Hello there, everybody!" he exclaimed, cheerfully. "I was beginnin ter think yeh weren't coming! The train's over an hour late, yeh know!"
He beamed down at Ginny, and drew Hermione into the crook of his gigantic arm.
"I hear yeh've got something up yer sleeve, Harry," he said, in a ludicrously low voice tinged with excitement. "Heard all about it from Dumbledore himself. Yeh'll still come and see me, now, won't yeh?"
"Of course we will!" cried Hermione, wrapping her arms around his giant wrist, oblivious to the peculiar stares they were attracting.
Fellow seventh-years Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil hurried by them, with a wary glance at Hagrid and an amicable wave to the rest.
"See you at the Sorting!" called Parvati, her golden bangles jangling with the enthusiasm of her wave.
"Oh blimey! The Sorting!" cried Hagrid, disengaging himself from Hermione so abruptly that she fell back into Dean and Seamus, who made a spectacular catch just before she hit the cold, stone platform. "Can't stand 'ere gossiping!" Hagrid was muttering, clearing a wide path for himself as he strode towards the train. "Firs'-years over 'ere! Firs'-years with me, over 'ere! Come on now, don't be shy. Be quick about it!"
Harry heaved Ginny to her feet while Hermione reassured the boys that she was perfectly all right, and they left their trunks in the care of the station porter.
"How nice to have a carriage all to oneself," sighed Ginny, sinking into the foam seats.
"Um - hello, Gin? We're here too!" said Ron, raising an eyebrow.
"You know what I mean! Just the gang together."
"Where's Neville?" asked Harry, suddenly realising they were one person short.
Nobody appeared to know, but both Dean and Seamus admitted to having seen him on the train.
"He was arguing with that Lovegood girl about Herbology," explained Dean, rolling his eyes. "We couldn't hack it, so we left him to it."
Harry quite enjoyed the journey up to the school. Hermione and Ron picked at all each other's comments as was customary, and Dean and Seamus continued with their Quidditch debate, leaving Harry pleasantly occupied in exchanging winks and smiles with Ginny.
It was utterly wonderful to step down onto the squishy grass beside the main entrance, and gaze up at the towering stones that had been his home for six years. He had little time for sentimental reflection, as a wave of uniformed students poured from the other carriages and up the stairs into the Entrance Hall, thrusting him along with them.
Everything was just as he had left it two months earlier, right down to the roped-off swamp in the corner that remained as a tribute to the Weasley twins' flight to freedom not so very long ago.
"Oh!" squeaked Hermione. "This is the last time we'll watch a Sorting! How sad!"
Peeves the Poltergeist was hiding ineffectually behind a suit of armour half way up the Marble Staircase. Ineffectual partly because most of him was unobscured to those who were approaching the doors to the Great Hall, and partly because he was giggling.
Whatever he had been plotting, presumably since the end of last term, apparently came off successfully as Harry and the gang made their way through the four long house tables to their usual seats. Shrieks and squeals drifted in through the open doors for another ten minutes, before a peaky collection of third years shuffled in drenched to the skin.
"Oh no!" sighed Hermione, clambering over the bench to sit down. "He hasn't pulled that old water bomb trick again, has he?"
"Evidently," said Ron, grimly. He didn't so much have to clamber over the bench as casually step, winning an envious rolling of eyes from Hermione.
"There's Neville!" said Ginny, pointing to the fair-haired boy sitting a little way down the table with Parvati and Lavender. They all waved to one another, calling out greetings and well-wishes, until Professor Dumbledore's booming voice called for silence from the staff table.
Harry's eyes scanned the row of teachers as they always did. Professor Sprout sat at the far end, her little hat bobbing excitedly up and down as she conversed with Madam Pomfrey of the Hospital Wing. The empty space beside Dumbledore was reserved for Professor McGonagall, who would be guiding the new first-years into the Hall at any moment for the Sorting Ceremony.
Harry worked his way along the line until his gaze rested on a lean, wiry man with lank black hair and thundery eyes. Snape was glaring at nothing in particular, but years of bitter experience warned Harry that the intense expression on the Potions master's face was due to more than his customary churlishness.
"Look out," he murmured to Ron, nudging his elbow. "The Bat is peeved about something this year."
"Bet I could take a wild guess as to what," replied Ron. "DADA's vacant as usual, isn't it? Bet he lost it again."
The Sorting Ceremony was uneventful, but curiously poignant. As Hermione had observed, this was the last time they would sit here, watching the new first-years take their turn under the Sorting Hat, their entire futures at Hogwarts depending on its decision. It was moving, but not depressing enough to put him off the feast that followed.
"You're not still stressing about the damned house elves, are you?" said Ron, noticing Hermione's tendency to poke at her food before eating a mouthful.
"No, I'm not," she replied, haughtily. "I have decided that since they cannot be persuaded to go free, their lives must be made as comfortable and easy as possible."
"So what are you going to do, provide them with fluffy armchairs and compulsory cups of cocoa at half past ten?" sneered Ron, stuffing a forkful of Yorkshire pudding into his mouth.
"You're a greedy hog, Ron," remarked Ginny.
Hermione frowned. "You may mock me, Ron, but you'll see that I'm right one day."
Harry was so engrossed in his meal that he had to be prodded by Ginny before he was aware of a dark, shadowy form standing at his shoulder.
"Good evening, Mr Potter." The silky, caressing tones of Severus Snape were unmistakable. He was a slender man, and deceptively elegant in his movements. Draping the length of his jet robes over his arm, his hard lips curved into a mocking smile. Harry couldn't help noticing a thin, jagged scar running along his jawline, partially obscured by tendrils of black hair. A recent acquisition, no doubt, for it was still red in colour. The baritone timbre of Snape's voice was chilling, but it could hardly be described as harsh. "How very pleasant to have you back again. For the final time." The emphasis being on the word 'final', of course. "I understand I am to have the pleasure of seeing you in my advanced Potions class this year. How delightful." His obsidian eyes narrowed further in distaste. "I trust you will not make a nuisance of yourselves, though that is perhaps too much to expect from the infamous Mr Potter. Family failing, I suppose."
Harry scowled as he watched Snape sweep up to the staff table with long strides, his cloak billowing out behind him.
"What the hell did he want?" muttered Ron, his freckled cheeks burning with annoyance.
"I don't know, but whatever he was doing, I didn't like it."
Ginny poked him again and nodded towards his lap, where a thin, folded piece of parchment lay exhibiting the word 'Harry' in elaborate longhand.
"It fell out of his cloak when he swept it over his arm," she explained.
Harry opened the paper under the table, and peered at the contents.
"Listen - 'Dear Mr Potter: You are required to keep a strict silence as regards your plans for this year until further notice. This applies to your two friends as well, and Miss Weasley, who I am sure has been taken into your confidence. The three of you are obliged to remain in your Gryffindor Tower dormitories as usual, and report to my Office at 8.30am tomorrow, promptly. No doubt Professor Snape will have eluded to the fact when he presented you with this letter, but you must understand that you will be required to attend Potions and Transfiguration classes with your fellow students. Both subjects are important to your current situation. Beware of curious questions. Regards, Albus Dumbledore.'"