5
Someone gently shakes me awake the next morning, and I open my eyes wearily as though I haven't slept at all.
"Hermione, we're going to go down to Hogsmeade today," Harry says softly.
I blink and rub my face, sitting up. "Why?"
"Get supplies from the houses," Ron says from behind me, and I turn to see him opening up the bag of food. "This won't last us very long."
He tosses me some sweet bread and I chew on it silently, watching Harry who is leaning against the entrance of the cave, his hands in his pockets, his face pensive.
I find myself thinking about this past year, all the worrying I've been doing about Harry, all the grief that has broken my body. But now Harry is back, and I feel like I'm in some wonderful dream.
"I don't see any Death Eaters out there," Harry says.
A dream quickly shattered by reality. I stand up, brushing crumbs off of my robes, and walk to the cave entrance. Harry instinctively snakes his arm around my waist.
"Are you sure about this?" I say, leaning my head against his shoulder.
"No," he sighs. He then smiles and looks at me. "But that's what makes it fun, right?"
I smile slightly. "What if we get caught?" I ask him quietly, looking down at the beaten up old town.
Harry grabs my chin and turns my face to his. "I won't let them hurt you," he says seriously. "I won't let them even touch you, okay? Everything will be alright. We won't get caught, we're just going to the outskirts of the town."
His bright green eyes are so serious, so intense, that I can't help but trust him. "Okay," I say.
He leans down and kisses me, and the familiar tingle runs down my back.
"Are you two just going to snog all day or are we going to do this thing?" Ron's voice says from right next to us.
Harry pulls away from me and smiles, walking outside to the bright sunlight.
I look at Ron who is staring at me with his eyebrows raised.
"Sorry," I say hurriedly. "Let's go."
The rocks are slippery and wet, and it takes us an extraordinary amount of time to get all the way to the bottom of the mountain. When we do, we race to take cover in some trees.
Harry whispers the plan to us. "We'll go house by house. Nobody do any magic, nobody light any candles, nobody talk above a whisper. We're not taking any risks today. We take only things we need -- blankets, food, maybe a candle or two. Nothing we can't carry with us at all times." He sticks his head out from behind the giant oak tree and looks down the street. "Everybody ready?"
We all nod.
"Keep a hand on your wand at all times, but remember, no magic unless you really need to use it," Harry whispers. "Quickly, now."
He dashes out from the trees and we all race after him until we get to the first house. We find the front door open, and hurry inside.
There has obviously been a fight in here. The first room we come across is the parlor. Chairs have been knocked to their side, tables are overturned, and broken pieces of glass and wood litter the ground along with dirt and snow that has blown in from the front door.
"Bloody hell," Ron mutters, bending over and picking up a broken leg from the coffee table.
Harry, Ginny, and I continue through the house, entering the kitchen. Dishes are in the sink with brushes and sponges washing them continuously. There are full plates of food on the table, and if I didn't know better, I'd say there were people still living here.
Ginny bends over the food and plugs her nose. "It's all rotten," she says.
I go into the pantry and find cans, boxes, and bags of food. Harry, Ron, and Ginny show up next to me and immediately start rummaging through the shelves, stuffing bits of food in their pockets. I am just about to open a box of crackers when a floorboard directly above me creaks.
Harry and Ron both freeze and look up at the ceiling, and I set down the box and reach for my wand as Ginny slowly inches toward Ron.
"Stay here," Harry whispers, pulling out his wand and leaving the pantry. He disappears out the kitchen and I can hear his steady footsteps up the stairs and across the hall. Ron, Ginny, and I both watch the ceiling, listening hard, when Harry's footsteps are right above us.
I hear Harry's muffled voice say something, the floorboard creaks, and then his footsteps are coming back down the stairs.
Ron and I watch the kitchen door cautiously. Harry comes back in, and in his arms is a dirty, skinny, meowing tabby cat.
"Oh my goodness!" I cry, rushing forward and relieving Harry of the cat. It squirms a bit in my arms but soon settles down and looks up at me with wide, amber eyes.
"Poor thing," I whisper, stroking it gently. I look up at Harry and see that his face is very pale and his eyes are cast downwards. "What's wrong?"
He looks up at me, and his voice breaks slightly when he answers me. "I, uh. . . I found it with it's owner. . ." he whispers.
I glance quickly at Ron who's eyes are fierce as he looks at Harry. "What do you mean?" Ron questions hesitantly.
"I mean there's a corpse up there," Harry says, jerking his thumb upwards.
We stand in silence. Ginny quickly empties her pockets of the food. "This doesn't feel right," she says quietly.
I silently agree with her. It just doesn't feel right. Here we are, stealing from this house, and there's a dead body upstairs. The dead body of the owner of this house, nonetheless. It just doesn't feel right.
"Ron, help me go cover it up," Harry whispers.
Ron nods, and I am suddenly overwhelmed by Harry's thoughtfulness. The next thought that comes into my head is that Harry isn't being gender specific.
"Harry," I say quietly before Harry leaves the kitchen, "is it a man or a woman?"
Harry freezes, his back to me. "I can't tell," he says softly. "The body's too badly mutilated."
The words cause a tightness in my chest. I look at Ginny and I can tell that she is feeling the same thing. I snuggle the cat closer.
When Ron and Harry return, they both look like they are about to be sick.
"Let's go to a different house," Harry says. We all empty our pockets of the food, but I return to the pantry and snatch a can of cat food. "The cat will have to stay here," Harry says as I am about to put the food in my pocket.
"Why?" I snap.
"Because we can't be worrying about it. Just leave it some food out, the Death Eater's won't hurt it."
Reluctantly, I put the cat down. Ginny appears at my side with a can opener, and I open the food. The instant I put it on the ground, the cat starts devouring it. I open three more cans and turn to leave with the others.
The next house has not been wrecked, and there is no sign of a dead body anywhere, so we have no qualms about taking what food we can, deciding that whoever was living there has gone into hiding.
Our pockets bulging, we poke our heads out of the front door and cast anxious looks up and down the street.
At the far end, towards Honeydukes and Zonko's, is a dark figure simply standing in the middle of the street, alone, unmoving, his back to us.
"Death Eater," Harry growls next to me.
"Why's he just standing there?" Ginny whispers.
"Patrolling, maybe," Harry says. "He'll be there for a while."
"How do you know?" I ask, watching the dark figure.
"Look at how he's standing. He's not looking for someone or something, he's just standing there, guarding. No, he won't be gone for a few more hours. I think that it's a good idea to figure out their shifts so the next time we come down here we can maybe get into the other stores closer to the castle."
Ron sighs and turns back in to the house. Ginny follows him in, but I stay with Harry. He is holding his wand with his left hand, to keep it outside the door and pointing towards the Death Eater. I lean against the doorframe opposite him, my wand also drawn.
I watch Harry carefully, though he keeps his eyes trained on the enemy. For perhaps the first time I notice the dark circles around his eyes and the paleness to his skin as it clings to nothing but muscle and bone. His eyes themselves are empty and cold, but I can sense that somewhere deep inside of them there is a fire of anger burning to get out.
He looks so sad, I decide. I realize that ever since he was a child, his eyes have been losing their brightness, his spirit losing it's liveliness. When I first saw him on that train six years ago, I could see that he had been through hard times. At the end of that year, he had been through worse. But even then he managed a small façade of happiness.
That's all gone now.
I suppose his downfall began in the Shrieking Shack in our third year at Hogwarts. If Sirius hadn't escaped from Azkaban and hadn't come looking for Wormtail, perhaps Pettigrew would still be Scabbers and would still be a non-threat living in the comfort of Ron's pocket. That way he would have never run off to Voldemort and given life to the wandering spirit.
No, I can't wish that on Sirius. I can't wish that an innocent man had remained in Azkaban until his death. No, that's too horrible. But even so, Voldemort would not be back.
The pain in Harry's eyes is all too real. I can't wish that something else had happened, I can only help him through the present, the reality.
I gently push back a strand of hair from my face and tuck it behind my ear, my eyes now stinging slightly with unshed tears.
But I can't help but wish that things had happened differently. If they had, I might still have my parents. . . .
Despite my desperate attempts to keep it in, a tear leaks out of the corner of my eye and runs coolly down my cheek. Harry notices in a heartbeat.
"Hermione, what's wrong?" he asks, stepping towards me, all the pain in his eyes now masked in concern.
I shake my head and wipe my face with my hand. The earlier feeling of peace at having Harry back has been replaced by the familiar loneliness of not having parents.
"Hermione," Harry whispers now, his arms circling me and pulling me to his warm chest, "what are you thinking about?"
"Everything's so wrong," I sob into the fabric of his robes.
"I know," he agrees, nestling his chin in my hair. "It'll get better, though."
"No it won't," I say a bit more angrily than I intended to. "How can it get better? Even if we somehow manage to get Hogwarts, I still won't have my parents back. I won't have a home. I won't have someone to be proud of me or share Christmas with me or do normal parents stuff with. . . ." I trail off, realizing that I am preaching to the choir.
Harry holds me tighter. "I know it's hard, I know," he comforts. "But you have me, and I'm proud of you always. I know I'm not nearly a replacement or compensation or anything like that, but I'm here for you, and as long as my heart is beating, I will love you. Please don't be sad that your parents are gone, be glad that now they can see you all the time, even in the Wizarding World. And even if they're not physically here, they're still proud of you and nothing will change that."
I cling to his robes, my eyes shut tight and the sobs slowly receding.
"You are beautiful and smart and. . . Hermione, I need you now," he says. "I need you by my side, I need you to be strong for me because I can't do this by myself, I don't know how to do this by myself. You've helped me through so many things, but I need you now more than ever, and I know that somehow we can get through this. But I need you to stop thinking about the past because I hate it when you're sad or in pain and I hate that I can't keep you from being sad. I'm trying my hardest here to do the right thing, but you've always been my lighthouse in the darkness, and I need you to be here for me." His voice is so sad and worried that I am certain that I can feel the anguish inside of him.
I lift my head and cradle it in the crook of his neck, my right hand on the back of his neck, my left hand on his shoulder. "I'm here for you, Harry," I whisper quietly.
In one swift motion his lips have found mine and we kiss, a seemingly desperate attempt to wipe away the sadness in our lives and remember what it is to be teenagers. My left hand is on his chest, and through the fabric of his robes I can feel his heart beating. When we separate, I remain in his arms, deciding that it is the safest place in the world to be.
And I remain there until just before sunset, when the Death Eater finally leaves his post and Harry notes the time.
We find Ron and Ginny inside playing with an old chess set with broken pieces.
"He's gone," Harry informs them. "Now all we have to do is strategize how we're going to get into Hogwarts."
We lock eyes as we both realize how hard this is going to be.
"Alright," Ron says, slapping his hands together and rubbing fiercely, "let's kick some Death Eater butt and show them that we mean business."
"If business doesn't mean us getting killed," Ginny quietly adds.
We all crack weak smiles though none of truly find it funny at all.
"Don't worry," Harry says, attempting to break the sudden melancholy, "Hogwarts has been witness to too many deaths. The castle will not see ours."
Later I wonder how Harry can possible show so much heart when his has been broken so many times. And I silently swear an oath that I'll keep it from breaking any further. Harry's right, the carnage has gone on for too long. It's time to change the tide. It's time to shift the sails. It's time to. . . .
Oh, hell. It's just time to do the fighting we've supposed to have been doing.
Suicide mission or not, I will not go down as a scampering coward. Running has been wearing my legs out. It's about time that my wand got a little bit of the exercise.
A/N Wow. I am SUCH a bad person! It's summer and I haven't updated for a looooooooooong time…. Geeze. I'm so sorry, guys. A lot has been happening, and writing for this story has kind of taken a back seat. As soon as the title for HP 6 was released, I started work on that. And then I started work on my own original novel. Then on MNI (Mugglenet Interactive) I found out that someone was plagiarizing my story "The Will to Survive." The idiot didn't even have the sense to change the title. Sheesh. So I sorted that out. In the midst of that I went traveling to the coast and then to Washington with my family, and now I'm back and I finished this chapter. Can you see how my style has kind of changed? Hmm. Maybe not. Oh well. So, no promises about the next chapter.
Please don't hurt me for taking so long!
peace
felony melanie