Chapter 10 – Shooting Stars and Sentimental Mush
Harry lay, on his back, with his hands behind his head, gazing up at the night sky. He was only halfway paying as much attention to the stars right above him as to the girl right next to him. As he peered over at her, Silver suddenly gave a jump of delight, which was fairly amazing considering that she was laying on her back.
"Ooh, Harry, look!" she exclaimed, pointing upwards excitedly.
He didn't feel compelled to look away from her in the least, and therefore, he didn't. She turned to look at him, her eyes bright with excitement, and gave him a halfheartedly chiding look as she saw that he was looking at her.
"It was a shooting star, Harry," she explained.
"Oh," was his only reply.
She smiled at him and scooted closer, much to his delight. He wrapped an arm around her waist to ensure that she didn't move away, pulling her to him happily.
"Harry," she protested weakly against his chest, "I can't see the stars this way."
He reluctantly loosened his grip, but she seemed to have changed her mind, and snuggled closer to him instead. Grinning, he began to wrap his arms around her, but Lupin cleared his throat loudly from the porch, no doubt in warning. Silver tilted her head upwards to look at him, obviously having understood Lupin's warning, and gave him a mischievous smile. Unfortunately, she wasn't the only one that interpreted Lupin's caution. Ron gave a derisive snort in their direction, and Fred and George made a great show of taking one large step over the two.
"Get off of Potter," Snape commanded grumpily from his own seat on the porch.
"I'm not on him, though," Silver protested.
"You may as well be," Snape retorted, "You're all over him."
"Fine," Silver sighed, reluctantly rolling away from him.
Harry definitely felt like protesting. It was their last night at home, and the first one since Snape and Silver moved out that he had spent with her. Weren't they at least allowed to cuddle? He glanced up towards the sky for about the second time during the hour they had spent there, and was surprised to find that it was actually pretty interesting. Stars dotted it at every angle, some of the brighter ones forming interesting shapes.
"Look," he said amusedly, pointing to a group of stars.
Silver obediently turned to where he pointed, and her expression quickly turned to that of one attempting to stifle giggles. She exchanged a gleeful look with him, and then they both turned their attention back to the stars. Harry had pointed out a group that looked to be an exact replica of a familiar looking, large, hooked nose. He hoped Snape hadn't looked.
As they lay there, Silver subtly snuck her way back into his arms, and he raised no protest or sign that they were doing any such thing. He realized that she seemed to be whispering things into the crook of his neck, and he quickly strained to hear.
"...so much, Harry," she sighed softly.
He found himself wishing that he had heard what she had just said.
"Silver," he whispered back.
Some more snuggling let him know that he had gotten her attention.
"I love you," he whispered quietly, "I want to be with you forever, you know."
It was the closest he had come to hinting about what he had come to regard as the 'm' word all summer.
"Me, too," she agreed, without so much as a moment's hesitation.
He raised his eyebrows at how easy it had been before cautiously continuing, attempting to remember the words of advice Mr. Weasley had been pouring out at him over the past couple of weeks.
"I could never be away from you," he ventured.
"Me either, Harry," she agreed, snuggling closer.
Harry figured that he had gone far enough for one night, and contentedly placed a kiss atop her head. She gave a small sigh of happiness, making Harry smile. As he held her, he felt her begin to relax even further, and he knew that within a short while she would be sound asleep. She had never been very good at staying up late, anyhow. Sure enough, in the short time lapse of only three minutes, she was fast asleep in his arms, and he was beginning to feel a bit drowsy himself. No sooner than he had closed his eyes than something nudged him painfully in the back, making him give a grunt of surprise.
"Out of my way, Potter," Snape demanded, obviously not caring that Harry was very comfortable in his current position.
Harry reluctantly loosened his arms around her and watched as Snape levitated her up and began to direct her towards the house. Giving a yawn, he decided that his best bet would be to follow before he woke up, alone, in the backyard, the next morning.
The sound of footsteps brought Harry to a startled state of wakefulness the next morning. He grumbled halfheartedly as he fumbled for his glasses. Once he had slid them on, he glanced at the clock. He would have had to get up in another fifteen minutes, anyway. As he got out of bed, he glanced over at Ron, who was snoring loudly and incessantly. He threw a pillow over his friend's face to muffle the noise as he changed, but it didn't help much. In fact, he worried that Ron might be loudly suffocating. After pulling on his shirt, he reached over and whapped Ron firmly with the pillow, along with a verbal command to get up.
"You're like a slave driver," Ron groaned as he rolled over.
"Just get up," Harry retorted.
Mumbling, Ron did so, and Harry impatiently waited for him to dress. Finally, Ron managed to get ready, although he looked as if he might topple over into a dead sleep at any moment, and Harry reached for the doorknob.
"Wait!" Ron suddenly shouted, as if it were the most important thing in the world.
Harry jumped away from the door as if it were going to eat him, looking curiously at Ron.
"Uh, I just thought you should know" Ron said, looking very uncomfortable as he rubbed the back of his neck, "Hermione and Iâ€we made up, you see."
"I kind of figured when I caught you two snogging on my bed," Harry replied sarcastically.
"Er...yeah," Ron agreed, looking vaguely amused, "But I just, uh, followed your advice, and...well, she liked it."
Harry gave a snort of laughter. "Well, that was obvious," he commented as he reached for the door once more, "You're just lucky you two will never get in trouble for snogging, cause she's the Head Girl this year."
He heard Ron chuckle from behind them as the two lugged their things downstairs. It wasn't any shock that Hermione had made Head Girl, and everyone had gotten used to the idea quickly, teasing her about her initials standing for 'Head Girl' instead of 'Hermione Granger'. As Harry had expected, everyone excepting Fred and George were already up. Of course, they had no reason to be, as they were closing their shop for the day.
"Why does everyone get up so early?" Ron inquired loudly as he and Harry entered the full living room.
"Self-discipline?" Hermione suggested pertly from the couch she was sharing with Ginny.
"Har har har," Ron answered, taking a seat next to her and putting an arm around her.
Looking very content, Hermione leaned into the embrace. Harry looked around for Silver and found, to his dismay, that she wasn't there. He looked questioningly at Snape, who met his gaze with an annoyed glare of his own.
"Calm down, Potter, she's getting ready," he huffed, sounding almost offended that Harry was impatient to see her.
Truthfully, Harry felt a bit out of place without her. He took a seat in an armchair that practically engulfed him as he sat down, sulkily waiting for Silver to appear. It took him a moment to realize that Snape was doing the same thing, except that he was hiding his face behind a book. It wasn't long before he heard her voice echoing through the house, however, causing a smile to come to his face before he even saw her.
"Sev!" she called out, making Snape give an exasperated noise from behind his book, "Where are those hairclips you bought me? I could've sworn I put them in my bag, but I've looked and looked and...oh, good morning Harry...I can't find them anywhere!"
At her greeting, she had appeared in the doorway, her hair flowing over her shoulders in shiny – probably due to their wetness – ringlets. She shot Harry a brief smile before fixing Snape with a questioning look. Snape looked to be debating whether or not to tell her where they were, when a tapping noise at the window made everyone look.
"My owl," Snape commented from his chair.
"Hades!" Silver exclaimed gleefully, running to the window and unlatching it.
A large brown owl swept into the room, seeming to move both silently and effortlessly through the air. It stopped at Snape's chair, extending a leg that held a very official-looking letter. For some reason, this seemed to excite Silver immensely.
"Open it!" she urged, bouncing up and down in front of his chair.
He raised an eyebrow at her amusedly and opened the envelope with deliberate slowness. Then, shooting another look at her, he began to withdraw it from the now open envelope as slow as he possibly could.
"Oh, stop!" Silver exclaimed exasperatedly, "Open it, please!"
"I'm opening it," he insisted stubbornly, still moving rather slowly as he unfolded it and began to read.
Silver bounded over to Harry, her face alight.
"Harry," she murmured excitedly, taking his hands in hers and dragging him up from his chair as she bounced around incessantly.
Harry didn't ask what it was, for she wasn't paying that much attention to him anyway. Other than squeezing his hands tightly and dragging him a few steps every now and then, her attention was focused solely on Snape, who looked only mildly interested in the apparently important letter. Finally, he folded it up and slid it back into the envelope. Silver gave Harry's hands one last squeeze and jumped towards Snape, who looked up at her emotionlessly.
"Well?" she demanded breathlessly.
"The papers," he said simply.
She gave a squeal of delight and snatched the envelope from him, yanking the letter out and then throwing the envelope in his direction. Looking amused, he set the envelope down in his lap and watched her. Her eyes traveled anticipatingly over the paper, and she was nearly shaking with excitement. She gave a whoop of happiness and jumped into the air as she finished reading, enveloping first Harry, since he was closest, in a hug, and then running over and tackling Snape.
"Good heavens child, calm down," he chided, patting her back and looking as if he were trying to avoid her wet curls.
"Don't tell me to calm down!" she replied sternly, although she was smiling, "There's no hope of them getting me now, not legally, don't you see? I'm yours."
"Ah," Lupin commented suddenly, "The custody papers."
"Yes," Snape agreed over Silver's shoulder, for she was currently squeezing him in a hug once more.
Lupin nodded and pretended to be interested in something else immediately, as did everyone else in the room, excepting Harry. He watched with a kind of fascination as Silver murmured incomprehensible words, no doubt of utter contentment, into Snape's shoulder, and he listened without saying anything back except for an occasional, "Yes, child." Finally, Silver broke away, beaming down at him. He seemed to be trying very hard not to let the corners of his mouth curve upwards.
"The hairclips are in my cauldron," he announced, as if this would be a perfectly normal place for storing hairclips.
"Thank you," she breathed, turning around and immediately enveloping Harry in a hug.
"Come with me, Harry," she proposed, taking his hand as she dragged him from the room.
Not that he was complaining, of course, but it caught him a bit by surprise to suddenly be dragged up a flight of stairs by his overly excited girlfriend.
"Oh, Harry," she sighed as she pushed open the door to Snape's room, and began digging through his cauldron, which apparently had quite a few things in it, "I'm so happy! I mean, it's official and all, and my mom can't get me – well, she's in Azkaban right now of course, but no doubt dear old Tom will break them out soon."
"Why do you call him that?" Harry asked suddenly.
She withdrew a pair of ivory hairclips adorned with rubies as she turned to look at him. "Tom?" she asked confusedly.
"Yeah," Harry said, "I mean, you're not afraid to say Voldemort, but you act like Tom and Voldemort are two separate people."
Her mouth settled into a slight frown as she dug around for something in Snape's desk, finally withdrawing a mirror and propping it up as she began to pull a small piece of her hair into the small clip.
"Well, it's almost like they are," she replied quietly, "Tom is the Voldemort I've known all my life. He's the one who taunted me when I was young, the one that I mocked and was rude to. But Voldemort – he's the one who worries me half to death when he takes you and Sev away, and the one who...who did...things...to me. I feel safer calling him Tom."
"What did he do to you?" Harry asked quietly.
He had been wanting to ask all summer, but whenever the topic had even been so much as approached, Silver had either remembered that she had to go tell Snape something, changed the subject, or decided that she needed a nap. Now, he couldn't help but ask, not when she was finally talking about it without running. Her eyes flew away from the mirror and the second clip fell from her fingers, bouncing softly onto the desk. She looked up at him, and he realized that her lower lip was trembling.
"No, sweetie, I'm sorry," he said quickly in an attempt to stop her from crying, "I shouldn't have asked like that, with no warning, I just-"
He was too late. Her face crumpled and a sob escaped her. Silently smacking himself over the head, he held out his arms for her. Without hesitation, she ran into them, sobbing as if her heart was going to break.
"Don't cry," Harry murmured, "I love you."
His words seemed to have some effect on her, as her sobs quieted considerably. He led her over to the bed, sitting down on it with her. He waited, his arms around her, for her tears to stop altogether. She shook in his arms, and he could feel his shirt becoming soaked with her tears. He decided that he really needed to think before he spoke.
"It...it was horrible," she choked suddenly into his shirt, "They took me into a room – a cold room, Harry."
She shivered as she spoke, and he drew her nearer to him.
"Voldemort...he tried to get me to tell him things about you," she said softly, "And about what I had told Dumbledore. He tried Crucio, but...well, I'm still pretty resilient because of my mother and all. He got frustrated and left, and told Lucius to...to degrade me until I broke, basically. Every time I wouldn't answer...every time, Harry..."
She trailed off, shaking uncontrollably.
"You don't have to tell me," Harry said quietly.
She didn't appear to hear him as she continued. "...he just took off a piece of my clothes. Like it was nothing, Harry, like I wasn't even...like I had no dignity. And...I didn't. I couldn't fight him, Harry. I was so weak already from the Cruciatus that I just...I couldn't. And then, when he got past my clothes, it was touching – and threats. Voldemort came in and joined in for a bit, but they got tired of me after a while and they took me through that town. They made me speak, Harry, and I saw you dead, and...it hurt..."
Her voice was barely above a whisper, and she was clinging to him tightly. He gently rubbed her back, letting her know that it was okay.
"And they put me there...I suppose until they felt like using me next. They...they just"
She burst into fresh tears, and he held her. "I couldn't stop them, Harry, even when I tried!" she sobbed, "I was so...so...helpless."
Harry felt a bit helpless himself, at the moment. He wasn't sure he had wanted to know all that, because, while it made him want to beat the tar out of Voldemort and Lucius, it also made him realize just why Silver had been so jumpy over the summer – anyone would be if they feared that at any moment they might be snatched up and have that done to them. And he was wholly unsure of what to say to comfort her. For once, he was glad when Snape's figure appeared in the doorway.
"What is going on here?" he demanded, looking from the sobbing Silver to the confused Harry suspiciously.
"Uh...she just...um" Harry stammered, not knowing what to say that wouldn't make Silver cry more.
"I...w...was...so...s...scared!" Silver wailed suddenly.
Realization passed over Snape's face quickly and he quickly stepped forwards and reached for Silver, ignoring Harry completely. She flung her arms around his neck and he picked her up, cradling her as one would a small child after they were hurt.
"There now," he said gruffly, gently swaying back and forth on the spot, "You're safe now."
"I...k...know," she sobbed, "I just...just"
She trailed off incomprehensibly, still sobbing.
"I know," Snape assured her, "But there's no need to cry, or be scared. You're fine."
Slowly, she sniffled up her tears, giving Harry the impression that she and Snape had had the conversation many times before. Snape waited for a good while after she stopped before gently lowering her to the ground. She looked up at him, and he at her.
"Go downstairs, child," he said, "Granger wants to see you about some Arithmancy rubbish and Remus keeps blabbering on about a moonstone of sorts."
Silver nodded and obediently left the room. Snape didn't say anything, and motioned for Harry to do the same. The sound of Silver's footsteps on the stairs made him finally speak.
"Why did she tell you?" he demanded furiously, as if Harry had beaten it out of her.
"I...well, I asked her, but I took it back right away because she started to cry," Harry admitted.
"She wasn't ready," Snape hissed, "Why do you think she hasn't told you yet?"
"She just did," Harry pointed out.
"You asked," Snape replied irritably, "You know she hates to refuse you asking – and don't tell me you think she was ready from the way she was shaking. You'd think there was a bloody blizzard!"
Harry found Snape's analogy a bit amusing, but refrained from smiling with difficulty.
"Er...well, I didn't know, so I didn't know it was so bad," he reasoned.
"Next time you don't know something, be content to leave it that way!" Snape snapped in reply, turning on his heel and then, amazingly, pausing only a moment before spinning once more, causing himself to do a complete circle that was rather comical.
"Get out of my room!" he snapped, as if he had just realized that Harry was in there.
Harry nodded and walked out behind Snape, whom apparently had no use for his room, but simply didn't want Harry in there. The two entered the living room at the same time, each searching Silver out. She was standing by Lupin, rocking back and forth on her heels as she looked at a something he was showing her.
"...and I want you to have it," Lupin finished proudly.
"Really?" Silver exclaimed delightedly, throwing her arms around Lupin's neck in happiness.
"Yes," Lupin confirmed, looking very proud of himself.
"It's gorgeous," Silver said as she released him, staring at a something that was now in her hands.
"What is it?" Snape asked suspiciously as he walked up, tailed closely by Harry.
"A moonstone necklace," Lupin declared, "It's supposed to protect the user in times of-"
"Rubbish," Snape interrupted irritably.
"But I want to know," Silver protested.
"Absolute rubbish," Snape answered, taking the necklace from her and examining it carefully, "Go put it somewhere safe."
Frowning slightly at him, Silver ran out to the entryway, no doubt to put it inside her trunk.
"What was that for, Severus?" Lupin inquired, sounding dismayed.
"I don't want her to have a false sense of security," Snape answered shortly, "She's already convinced that the damned locket will save her from certain death, I don't need her blabbering incessantly about a moonstone, as well."
Still looking disappointed, Lupin nodded. Harry went over to meet Silver in the doorway, where she rewarded him with a kiss.
"Think we'll make it through this year, sweetie?" she asked quietly.
"Yes," he replied immediately.
She leaned against him, and he knew she was thinking of all the things that were against them.
"Because I love you," he added.
"And I love you," she agreed, as if that settled it.
"Move your sentimental mush out of the way so that an old man can get by," Snape suddenly demanded.
Giggling, Silver slid her arms around Harry and pulled him to one side of the doorway as Snape swept by. Harry was surprised by the Snape's apparent lack of concern that he and Silver were snuggling so openly. Usually he gave them opposing looks when they so much as held hands.
"Did he just tell you to move your sentimental mush out of the way?" Ron inquired suddenly from a few feet away.
"Yep," Silver confirmed contentedly.
Ron burst into laughter, followed shortly by Hermione.
"It's not funny," Silver insisted.
"Yes it is!" Ron exclaimed, "He said it likeâ€like it was your name or something!"
Hermione giggled from beside him, obviously agreeing. Harry grinned down at Silver, who looked only halfway amused. She beamed up at him and stood on her tiptoes to place a kiss on his lips. He smiled down at her as she drew away, stroking her cheek gently. He didn't feel as if anything could make him remotely unhappy at the moment.
His good feeling continued for the next few hours, during which goodbyes were said, a crazy ride on the Knight Bus took place, and an uneventful passing through the barrier was made. Separated from Snape completely, Silver was a bit jumpier than usual, and clung to Harry's hand the entire time, although he rather liked it. Once they found their own train compartment – of course, sharing with Neville and Luna, as had become rather traditional – she relaxed immensely, giving Harry the same feeling of happiness that he had been carrying around with him all day. It lasted all the way until he fell asleep, his arms around her and his head resting lightly on hers.
Note: Rather a fluffy chapter, really. The next will have more to do with Voldemort and how Harry's year is going to go as far as that. Oh, and some other interesting things, such as teachers and all that stuff. Of course it would be ridiculous if a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher lasted for more than one year, wouldn't it?