"Yes it is Harry," she said standing behind him.
"What happened? Where did these come from?" Harry turned and walked over to the small kitchen table. "It doesn't matter," he snapped at her irritably.
Hermione walked over to the table and gently placed her hand over his upper arm that was also covered in scars.
"They whipped you," she said softly as she ran her hand up and down his arm. "Who did this to you?" she demanded.
"Hermione, it doesn't matter. It's over with," he said and pulled his arm away from her.
"Harry James Potter!" Hermione yelled causing Harry to jump.
"It does matter. Someone hurt you! Someone took you away from me, for everyone and he or she hurt you. How can you say it doesn't matter?" she yelled as hot tears streamed down her face. Harry ran his hands though his hair, and then pulled Hermione to him.
"I don't want it to matter anymore," he whispered. "For so long it did, and now I am finally getting past it all," Hermione looked up at him through her tears. "Do you remember what happened?"
"I do," he said softly looking into his cup of tea.
"Will you tell me?"
"I don't want to upset you," he said and pushed a few stray hairs behind her ear.
"Harry I need to know," she said as she ran her hand down his arms, feeling his bumpy flesh.
"I can't promise that I won't be upset, actually I am very sure I will be, but I need to know what happened to you. You were gone for so long. Please Harry, tell me,"
"All right," he said and pushed Hermione gently off him and walked into the sitting room. He quietly started a fire and grabbed a near by blanket.
"Sit with me," he said as he sat on the couch and opened the blanket for her to get under. Hermione quickly climbed on the couch next to him.
"I was sitting next to your bed about a week after the war, I still don't know how we won, but I know we did," he said and grabbed her hand for comfort and support. "I think I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up when someone grabbed me. They put several full body binding spells on me before I could react," he said as he watched Crookshanks enter the room, leap onto the couch, and crawl onto Hermione's lap. "I don't how long I was out, but when I woke up, I was no longer in Hogwarts, and I still don't know where I was. It was cold," he said and shivered at the memory.
"I didn't have any clothes on anymore, and I could feel blood dripping from my head," he said as Hermione gasped. "I was in and out of consciousness for a while, it could have been days, weeks, or months. I really don't know. Sometimes I would wake up and there would be moldy bread and dirty water for me, other times there would be some kind of creature to try to kill me. They use to put snakes in there with me, but they soon found out I could talk to them and stop. After a while they stopped putting them in the room with me, and would drag me out of the room and into a bigger one," Harry looked over and Hermione and saw tears streaming steadily down her face.
"Sometimes there would be just me and one other person in the room, but most of the time there were three others. They would take turns using various weapons to hurt me, mostly a whip," he said looking down at his chest and arms. "They would hit me in the head with books a lot too. I think that is how I lost most of my memory, but I don't know. They would talk to me too, told me that no one cared for me anymore, that no one was looking for me and that how the Dark Lord would rise again and this time he would win. After awhile, I started to believe them,"
"Who? Do you know who they where?" Hermione asked clutching to his hand tightly.
"Let me finish," he said wiping a few tears away with his thumb. " I started to believe what they were saying. I was convinced that no one cared about me. That once I killed Voldemort no one needed me anymore," he said and put his hand over Hermione's mouth to stop her from protesting his last statement. "One night they dragged me into a new room, and they threw me onto this large steel table face down. I didn't know what they were going to do to me, but I knew it was going to be bad. After several moments there, the three talked about what was going on I knew, they were going to burn the dark mark on my back. They said it was so I would always remember who was part of me, that this was his wish. He wanted me to always carry his mark around,"
"That night was the first time I dreamed since I was gone. I don't know what it was about, but the only thing I remember is a pair of brown eyes looking at me. They were your eyes Hermione. I knew that whoever had these eyes wanted me back. So I began to make a plan to escape,"
"By this time I had no memory, I didn't know who I was, why I was there, I just knew that I needed to get out. After several failed attempts I managed to get out. One night someone came in a give me some food. I attacked the person, stole the clothes they were wearing and ran. At first I didn't know where I was, I didn't recognize anything, I just ran as fast as I could. I had to get as far away from that place before they knew I was gone,"
"Where did they take you?"
"Germany,"
"How did you get back to England?"
"I really don't know, I just remember waking up one morning and I was in a ditch on the side of the road. I walked around and found out I was in a small in England," he said casually as he stroked Crookshanks ears. "Then I wandered around England for a long time. I eventually made my way to London and walked into Dudley's café,"
"Do you know who did this to you?"
"That is the one thing I don't know. I would see faces every now and then, but I don't know if I would be able to pick them about again," he answered as Hermione rested her head on his shoulder and ran her hand over his arm.
"This is why you don't want people to touch you," she said softly and kissed one of his scars.
"You are afraid someone is going to hurt you again. We won't Harry, you know deep down that these people love you and will never do anything to hurt you,"
Harry rested his head on top of hers and inhaled her scent of shampoo. "Vanilla," he said and inhaled again. "You always smelled of vanilla when we where in school,"
Hermione smiled slightly. "You always seemed to like it,"
Harry closed his eyes and let the sent overtake him. He did love the smell of Vanilla, and from time to time when he was trying to find his way home he would smell it and know that he was on the right path home.
"Harry?" Hermione asked. No answer.
"Harry," she asked again. This time there was an answer, a loud snore escaping Harry's mouth. Hermione let out a sigh and snuggled in closer to him and fell into a peaceful sleep.
Harry was jolted awake when Crookshanks jumped onto his lap and dug his claws happily into his thigh. "Ahh!" he yelled and bolted up from the couch only to yell again in pain, this time from his sore muscles.
"Remind me to never sleep on the couch like that again," he grumbled and noticed that no one was in the room with him, but Crookshanks. Harry yawned and screeched his arms carefully before walking into the kitchen in hope to find Hermione.
After looking at all the rooms downstairs, and in the back year Harry decided she must have gone into her room to sleep. Something he wished he would have done. Hart reached the top of the stairs and turned down the hall to her room, and ran right into Hermione.
"Harry!" Hermione screeched. "I didn't know you were up,"
"I wouldn't have been but your cat decided to use my leg as a scratching post," he said with a half smile.
"Sorry, he is just happy to see you I guess,"
"Well I am happy to see him too, but that doesn't mean I am going to eat his kitty treats,"
Hermione giggled and brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. "Why don't you go shower and met me downstairs for breakfast? While we eat, we can decide if we want to go anywhere today, or just stay at home," she said and walked pass him. "Remus left some more clothes for you, but I was thinking it may be fun to go and buy you some new clothes,"
"That would be nice, but I don' t have any money. I need to get a job first,"
"Don't worry about it. We can talk about that downstairs too. Now go shower. You are starting to stink up the hallway," she said with a playful smile.
Harry looked at her with a puzzled look, then turned down the hall to the bathroom. "I know you are looking at my back" Harry mentally said to Hermione, making sure the pendants where still working.
Hermione instantly turned red. "Sorry, I just wanted to get a better look at it,"
"It's okay, just don't tell anyone else. I'll tell Ron, but I don't know if anyone else should," he said as he turned on the shower and began taking off his boxers.
"I won't. Have a nice shower. I am going to turn off the connection so you can shower in peace,"
Harry walked into the kitchen expecting breakfast to be ready, what he did not expect is to see Hermione covered with flour. He smiled and walked over to her.
"Did you get in a fight with the flour?" he asked wiping some off her nose.
Hermione glared at him. "No," she said as she attempted to flip over a pancake, but could not. She forgot to put butter on the pan. "That's it!" she yelled and threw the pan in the sink. "Lets go out. Dudley's will be open by now, why bother with making breakfast, when we can relax and have someone else make it for us,"
"That's fine. I've been wanting to go over there again," Harry said looking around the kitchen. Never had he seen a mess like this before. He smiled at it.
"I know what you are thinking," Hermione snapped at him. "And it is not funny,"
Harry smiled. "It's nice to know that you aren't perfect," "Believe me. I've tried the cooking thing. I've taken several classes, but dropped them. Molly and Dudley have even tried to teach me, but they stopped when I set Dudley's kitchen on fire,"
Harry's smiles widen as he began cleaning up the kitchen. "How did you manage that?"
Hermione growled at him, and walked out of the kitchen. Harry chuckled and followed her out.
"You set a pan of water on fire?!" he laughed. "I didn't know you could do that"
"If you want to live to see tonight you better stop laughing Potter. I don't see you in there cooking," Harry's smile suddenly faded. "Do you want me to?" he said softly. "I used to cook all the time," he said looking down at the ground. Hermione's heart broke, she forgot about his time at his aunt and uncles.
"Harry you do not have to cook unless you want to," she said stepping close to him and gently placed her hand on his arm.
"I think I need to go see Dudley," he said and began walking to the door.
"Okay, I'll drive," Hermione said and followed him out the door.