FUNGUS-BRAIN (Chapter Four)
"You can't leave!" Harry pleaded with Ron. "Please, just trust me!"
Ron gave him a disgusted look. "Harry! You don't realise how important this is! Why can't you just trust me?"
"But Dobby... warning...danger..." he could barely get the words out.
"Harry, DOBBY knows more than he should, and you know what it's like when that happens. He stole all your mail, he closed the Kings Cross Station platform 9 ¾ barrier, he even set a bludger trying to kill you! He's a wacko, just ignore the damned house elf!"
"NO! Dobby has always helped me always..." Ron's face slowly turned a red-ish purple that reminded Harry of Uncle Vernon.
"YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS!" Ron screamed. Harry stayed silent. "You're JEALOUS because I graduated, and I am being SENT ON A MISSION, while you sit around here DOING NOTHING! All this time, you've been jealous because I can't tell you WHERE I'M GOING, WHAT I HAVE TO DO, AND WHO FOR! YOU'RE USELESS!"
Ron picked up his bags and apparated away.
"Filthy little Weasel" Harry muttered to the thin air. That was the last time Harry and Ron saw each other for a very long time.
"This can't be good." Hermione paced in front of the burning fireplace nervously. It was night at Grimmauld Place, and all were asleep bar the occupants of the living room: Harry, Hermione and Leery, Hermione's house-elf (Well paid with holidays, of course). Leery was taller than most house elves, and it's name quite suited it – or him, as Hermione would snap – as the elf had a bizarre talent of leering out of sight right behind you, or beside you, or anywhere in the shadows, and you wouldn't even notice. The elf was doing this right now, in fact. Harry was sitting in a big chair, looking at the Daily Prophet, with Leery peeking over the chair at the paper. The headline read: Dementors Rejoin Side of Evil!!
The picture on the paper was haunting, just showing the figure in the black cape. The tips of the green scaly hand were barely visible. But Harry didn't even flinch at the sight of it. He wasn't afraid, not anymore.
Harry looked up at Hermione. "Don't worry about it. The Ministry can handle them."
She clenched her hands in to fists, but didn't look at Harry, and continued to pace. "Harry... you know what the dementors can do. How can you just be so calm about this?" She looked up at him with tears brimming in her brown eyes. Her usually strong and demanding voice was quavering with fear. Harry walked over to her and led her to the couch. When she sat down as Harry pulled her into a comforting hug, her shoulders quivered, and Harry guessed she was crying, but he didn't care. She was upset, and she needed him, or so Harry thought.
"You know the Ministry will be able to handle the dementors. They can handle anything. They have all those Aurors..." a thought struck Harry that nearly made him panic. Hermione read his silence.
"Ron." She whispered. "Oh, Harry, you don't think he has anything to do with fighting dementors, do you? He's hopeless at magic!"
Harry chuckled slightly.
"I'm sure, wherever he is, and whatever he's doing, he's doing it right, and he's doing okay. Even better, I'm sure. He's doing just fine."
Two weeks went by without any notice from Ron. Members of the Order flew in and out of the house constantly, but none could or would answer his questions. Harry, out of complete boredom, went to sign up for Auror training one day and was greatly shocked. The trainer/tester was the ex-Professor Moody. Moody was much less like he was when he was rescued from his trunk at Hogwarts, he even looked, to Harry's surprise, happy. So happy in fact, when Harry turned up, he got to sit the test – the one Auror's do at the end of their extensive training – immediately.
"I have great faith in you, and judging by your seven years at Hogwarts, we'll just give you a few spells and you'll be set."
Unfortunately for Harry, Moody was right. He was an auror before you could say "Chudley Cannons", which left him right where he started – back at Grimmauld Place, bored out of his wits.
His only happiness came when he had a very unexpected visitor.
"Harry! So I hear you're an auror now!" Came a deep booming voice from the main corridor when Harry was reading his Broomstick Servicing kit for the fifty-third time.
"HAGRID!" He yelled, speeding through the rooms to meet him at the door. When he stopped abruptly at Hagrid's sight, he looked Harry up and down.
"My, oh my," Hagrid said. "Last time I see'd you, I was droppin' you off ta live with some Muggles!" This was a joke that Hagrid used often and Harry found extremely lame, but he laughed anyway just to see that familiar twinkle that flashed in Hagrid's friendly eyes.
"Come in! Sit down!" Harry beamed, but Hagrid's twinkle quickly faded, and his face once again grew glum.
"I'm sorry Harry, bu' it's official buz-ness I'm here for. I need to speak with Dumbledore."
Okay, thought Harry, but he can stay with me anyway because Dumbledore isn't here! But then Dumbledore's voice shattered Harry's hopes.
"Ah, Hagrid. Glad to see you're here at last. Please, come in to my office." He smiled at Harry. "I'm afraid Hagrid's desperately needed somewhere, Harry. Please excuse us." The two men walked away, Hagrid stooping so as not to hit his head on the ceilings or chandeliers. It seemed as those two men slowly strolled away, Harry's hope, happiness and faith walked with them.
"Please, Harry, just SNAP OUT OF IT!" Hermione pleaded, about a week after Harry last saw Hagrid.
"What are you on about now Hermione?" Harry snapped. For the past week he had been totally isolated from the outside world, special orders of Professor Dumbledore, and the loneliness was driving him mad.
"YOU, Harry! I'm on about YOU and this STUPID sort of phase you've been in for the past seven flipping days!" She was starting to get exasperated at Harry's lack of care about anything going on in the outside world. He had barely spoken a word to anyone since the meeting he had with Dumbledore, and the longest he had traveled was from his bed to in front of the fire, or from the in front of the fire to the kitchen.
Harry waved a hand at Hermione, as if trying to swat her away, the way you would an annoying little fly.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER!" She screamed. "YOU HAVE GOT TO DO SOMETHING OR YOUR BRAIN WILL TURN TO FUNGUS, AND MINE WILL OVERLOAD FROM TRYING TO HELP YOU!" Harry suddenly felt life surging through his limbs again. And something else. Anger.
"You're right!" He shouted, jumping up from his chair. Hermione smiled. "I'm sick of listening to Dumbledore! Just because he told me to stay in the house doesn't mean he can stop me from going out! I can make my own choices now!" Hermione's smile quickly faded and her voice lifted a notch with panic.
"That's not what I meant! Harry, you have to stay... Dumbledore knows... he knows what's best, and he says to stay... you have to stay!" Harry laughed at the pale Hermione, pleading to him in her panic.
"I've had enough of this place! I want to go out again, Hermione! And you are coming with me!" He strode over to her with a hearty grin on his face, wrapped a hand around her shoulder, and disapparated.
If anyone, Muggle or Magical was watching, they would not have seen Harry and Hermione appear out of thin air, for they appeared in total and complete darkness.
"Where are we?" Whimpered Hermione.
Harry peered through a crack in the door, and seeing all was clear, swung it wide open. Several house-elves squealed in surprise, and came flooding around the pair.
"Mr. Harry! You have returned!"
"Mr. Potter, sir! It is so good to see you!"
"Can we get Mr. Harry Potter anything sirs?"
Dozens of squeaky voices bombarded them all at once. Hermione laughed. For a while she had actually thought Harry had apparated somewhere dangerous, but no. They were in the Hogwarts school kitchens. Turning around to look at the room they apparated in, Hermione saw it was merely a large pantry, stocked full of food.
Suddenly a pair of pointy ears was seen to be violently pushing it's way through the crowd of other pointy ears, squeaking every now and again as it elbowed someone in the head or trod on somebody's foot.
"Sir Harry has come back! Sir Harry has come again to visit his good friend Dobby!"
Harry looked down into his over-sized eyes and laughed with glee. Dobby laughed to, running forward to wrap himself around Harry's knees.
"Easy Dobby! I have something to talk to you about. Is there somewhere we could go that is a little more...quiet?" Harry asked.
"Why certainly sirs, I know..." Suddenly all the house-elves, including Dobby, froze. Footsteps could be heard slowly coming along the corridor towards the kitchen.
"You must go! You must not be caught!" squealed Dobby.
"Okay, okay." He whispered, for fear of being heard in the now completely silent kitchen. "But we'll be back!"
Harry grabbed Hermione's arm and apparated out of the kitchen just as Filch burst through the door.