This Summer is Different
By Yellownotepaper
Chapter Three
"AHHH!"
Harry sat straight up in bed, his sheets sticking to his sweaty body. He wiped a shaky hand across his forehead, his breath coming out in sharp, unsteady pants. That was the – the scariest dream he had ever had. He hadn't had a nightmare since – well, since before he had defeated Voldemort. Badly needing a drink of water, he stood up quietly, trying not to walk on one of the creaky floorboards. He carefully stepped over Ginny's peacefully sleeping form, pausing only for a quick look at her angelic face before he closed the door.
Ambling into the pale yellow bathroom, he turned on the cold water, letting it flow into his shaking hands. He splashed it into his face, and then pressed the handle back into its original position, stopping the flow of cool water. Harry placed his hands on the edge of the sink, and stared into the large, ornate mirror. He studied the faded scar above his eyebrow in the bright white light that enveloped his senses so completely. It reminded him again of that final battle between Voldemort and himself….
In a matter of seconds, an ominous presence descended upon the Weasley household. Harry felt it deep down, his stomach turning over and scar buzzing painfully. He was aching for his wand, as he always had at the ready as a boy in Hogwarts. Deciding to retreat to the bedroom, just to be safe, he was attempting to muster up enough courage to dash across the hall. You'll be okay... Just one leap... he told himself repeatedly, but still couldn't do it. It's now or never... Suddenly, the burning intensified and his stomach tied itself in knots. His scar was throbbing more painfully than before. His breath turned shallow, beads of sweat trickling down his arms, and somehow he knew that he had lost his chance.
Fear gripping his heart, Harry quickly glanced at the section of mirror reflecting the doorway. A hooded, dark figure was hidden in shadow, just escaping the white glow of the bathroom. Its head was slumped forward, arms falling limp by its sides. He slowly turned to face the demonic figure, hoping against hope that this was just a figment of his tired mind. His heart thumping wildly, Harry thought of his friends sleeping blissfully in the quiet room across the hall.
"They can't get to them," he thought, trying to work out a plan in his mind. Sadly, his mind was not functioning properly, as the figure had just made a move towards him.
In a sudden movement, the figure snapped its head up and bore into Harry's soul with bloody, punctured eyes. Its hand flew up, pointing accusingly at him, and it began to advance. It didn't walk; it floated; its bare, worn feet barely grazing the tiled floor. Harry receded into a panicked craze, backing up against the glass shower doors. As the shrouded, bloody creature came closer and closer, Harry's mind slowly shut down. The ceiling swirled faster and faster as the lights began to dim. Darker... darker... darker... and soon Harry collapsed, fading into complete obscurity...
The room was sparkling in the morning sun, bright and still full of radiant dreams. Ginny slowly blinked open her eyes, taking in all of the world's small beauties that had filled the room overnight. Stretching her arms and yawning, she stood up, seeing, but not comprehending, the dreams gradually vanish. She smiled cheerfully, and made her way to the door. Briefly wondering where Harry had gone, she apparated downstairs for a nice, traditional, Weasley breakfast.
"Ginny!" Her harried mother greeted her, already enchanting multiple dishes to begin cleaning themselves. Still in a bit of a morning mist, Ginny simply nodded her head and sat down at the long dinner table between Bill and Charlie. She hesitated a moment before digging in, thinking it might be un-ladylike. Then she recalled that Virginia Weasley had never been accused of being ladylike in the first place.
"Well, someone's hungry today," Charlie said dryly, amused at Ginny's eating habits.
"Maybe you really ARE a Weasley!" Bill added approvingly. She merely grunted and continued to shove all of the scrumptious food into her mouth as fast as humanly possible. While eating, she was vaguely aware of her brothers still staring at her, but she was too tired to care.
Once she had finished her fair share of food, more than enough by her mother's standards, she wandered over to the sink. Quickly pecking her mum on the cheek and thanking her for the wonderful breakfast, Ginny apparated up to her own room. It had been deserted since she was 19 years old, so it was a complete dump. She had more fun staying in Ron's room with the other three anyways, even if it did make her back hurt like hell.
Staring at the mess her room had become, she felt increasingly sad, wondering where the charm it used to possess had gone. The faded yellow paint, which had once been so vibrant, was peeling and chipped. Light was flowing forlornly through the window, broken into fragments by the many cracks that had spread through the dusty glass. Even the belongings she had dumped inside earlier that week had been absorbed into the lonely aura that was radiating from the walls. The bed was made, had been for years, which only added to the neglected feel of the room.
She drifted over to the empty closet and placed her hand softly on the splintered wooden doors, but she tore her hand away immediately. Her hand was still tingling, and she stared at the door uncomfortably. Quickly moving away, she rubbed her arms vigorously to get rid of the cold, sinking feeling that had surrounded her. She decided to forget about feeling worthless for the time being, and hurriedly pulled on a blue tank dress and straw sun hat. Apparating out to the garden, she approached Charlie, who was busying himself with ridding the yard of gnomes.
"Have you seen Harry lately?" she asked, still a bit shaken by the creepy feeling she had gotten in her room.
"I see you're awake now!" he remarked, and then laughed as if he had just seen someone shoot milk out of their nose. "And I haven't seen him. Sorry."
"Don't apologize," she said, smiling at him.
Instead of continuing her search for Harry, Ginny helped her brother get rid of a particularly difficult gnome. She then forgot all about the strange experience in her room, and proceeded to sunbathe on the front lawn.
After an hour or two of sunbathing, Ginny awoke from her deep slumber to find a horde of wild gnomes running about. Muttering the only incantation she remembered that didn't have to do with healing, a flash of light exploded from the sky. Closing her eyes quickly, Ginny waited until she couldn't hear the gnomes' laughter anymore. Once this occurred, she opened her eyes again and saw that her spell had indeed succeeded. The gnomes were frozen in place, glancing around fearfully. She swiftly plucked them up off the ground, and chucked them over the wooden fence behind the house.
Raising her hands in victory, she paraded through the front door. While she expected at least someone to be in the living room, she found no one. However, she did spy a piece of notebook paper taped to the mantle.
Dear Weasleys,
I'm sorry if any of you are worried about me. I was called upon for some urgent ministry business. I should be back soon, but one never knows.
Yours Truly,
Harry potter
The handwriting didn't look quite like Harry's, but then again, she hadn't really studied his lately. After all, people change, why shouldn't their handwriting? She wondered why it was worded so formally... Well, Aurors need to be formal sometimes, she reminded herself.With that, she went back to Ron's room for another fun-filled day with Hermione.
Hermione Granger loved gossiping as the next person, but even she couldn't hold up for 3 ½ hours straight. Stretching exhaustedly, she stood up.
"Oi, do you Weasleys have any board games? I'd quite fancy a game of Candyland," she asked Ginny, as they had exhausted all topics of conversation.
"Check the attic; I'm pretty sure I saw some earlier."
"All right, I'll be right back." Hermione plodded over to the door and tirelessly climbed the flights of stairs leading to the attic. Upon reaching the door, she carefully nudged it open and surveyed the mess hidden behind it.
She couldn't conceive how anyone could deal with such a mess being in their own house! However, she was a woman on a mission, and promised herself that she would organize the attic later. Shaking her head vigorously to rid herself of this temptation (which was very difficult, she was a woman after all), she plodded through the mess of papers to the overflowing shelves. She sorted through piles and piles of boxes and belongings, she found everything from old spell books to a bunch of letters addressed to Gilderoy Lockhart that Mrs. Weasley had never sent. What she didn't find was anything of entertainment value; not so much as a set of gobstones or wizards chess, let alone muggle board games. After disentangling herself from three lengths of rope that were hiding amongst the papers, she trudged disappointedly back to Ron's room.
"No luck?" Ginny remarked as Hermione slowly stepped into the room. She shook her head and crossed her legs as she sat down next to Ron.
"Oh, you know what? I think we put all that stuff in Ginny's room after she moved out." Ron exclaimed suddenly, eyes squinted from all of the mental exertion.
"So you're making me get up again?" She stared a Ron incredulously. He smiled broadly and nodded.
"Well, we could always go to sleep. I mean, it's already 6:18 pm!" Ginny said, faking a yawn, while Hermione rolled her eyes.
"All right... I'm getting up..." Hermione staggered to her feet, and then hobbled overdramatically to the open door. With one last glance at the pair of laughing Weasleys, she disappeared into the hallway. Making sure they couldn't see her, she apparated down to Ginny's room instead of taking the stairs; she tired quite easily, and climbing up and down the steps to the attic was enough for one day.
After appearing in the room, she warily eyed the closet's decaying, splintered wood. Muttering a charm, she slipped her wand out of the back pocket of her jean shorts and pointed it at the eerie doors. In seconds, the doors were painted a charming shade of purple and looked like they had when the Weasleys had first bought the Burrow. Deciding the rest of the room needed a sort of pick-me-up as well, she satisfied her craving for organization by magic-ing up Ginny's old room. The glass was wiped clean and no longer cracked, the walls were stripped of their depressing wallpaper and painted a painful but somewhat pleasant white. The dresser was given a new layer of paint like the closet, and the floor that it sat on was polished and shiny.
Her urge to clean subsiding, Hermione placed her wand, which she made a point to carry at all times, back into her jeans pocket and plopped down on the now-plushy bed.
Wow... Ginny and I may have to sleep in here one night! She thought. The bed was much more comfortable than Ron's was... and the room much more hospitable. Happily jumping to her feet, she danced joyfully over to the closet once more and flung open the lovely lavender doors. Indeed, her dear Ronald was correct, a great amount of both Magical and Muggle games were piled on the top shelf of the beautified space. Trying repeatedly to reach it, standing on the very tips of her now-sore toes, Hermione soon realized that she was just too short.
Summoning the blue footstool from the bathroom, she stepped up to the shelf and grabbed Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, and a Wizarding Chess board. Throwing them on top of the bed, she jumped off the footstool and made to close the closet doors, when she noticed a wet sensation near her right ankle.
Stooping down, she gasped to see a wide ribbon of blood trickling down into her white socks, coloring them a gruesome pink. It had taken her by surprise, but she resolved that she must have cut herself while straining to grasp the games. Pushing it out of her mind, and charming the cut so it would stop bleeding for the time being, she quickly went to shut the doors and apparate back to Ronald's room.
However, she was soon quite confused, because they wouldn't shut. There was a dull, thumping noise each time the door was about three inches from the frame, which she found a bit peculiar. Itching to make it normal again, she remembered what Ron had said that time when he had unwittingly mixed veritaserum and thouspien. 'Hermione, you're such a perfectionist-I wish you would lighten up once in awhile! Everything has limitations, flaws. You can't make everything faultless.' (The finished potion had made him tell everyone what he thought was his or her major flaws-Harry and Hermione had had to bring him to the hospital wing.) She chuckled bitterly; who knew Ron even understood such large words at sixteen? Nonetheless, remembering this prevented her from trying to fix the door any longer. Exhibiting relentless self control, she snatched the games off the bed and plodded over to the door, with only one last scornful glance at the broken closet door.
"Oh my god! What happened!" Ginny cried when Hermione appeared back in the room. Ron's brain suddenly snapped into place, and he rushed over, taking her hand.
"Sweet Merlin, Hermione," he said, helping her sit down. "What did you do to yourself?"
"I don't know, I guess I scraped my knee or something when I was trying to reach those games." She shrugged and motioned to the three games sitting on the bed in the corner. Still worried, Ginny quickly leaped across the hallway to grab a wet paper towel. When she came back all of two minutes later, Ron dabbed the dried blood away carefully. To their surprise, there was no cut, no scrape, no bug bite, even, that all of the blood could have come from. The only blemish on Hermione's leg was a small, elliptically shaped birthmark to the right of her knee.
"Maybe when you stopped it from bleeding, it closed the wound!" Ron exclaimed hopefully.
"No. I don't think so. That's an entirely different charm, which I would've used, but you can only use it if your injury is much bigger. I'm not really sure."
"Is there even anything in my closet that you could cut yourself on? Besides the rotting wood, I mean."
"No, it was empty. By the way, I-er-fixed up your room up a bit. No more rotting wood." Hermione smiled despite her confusion. "But-I'm not sure if this has anything to do with anything-the door wouldn't close. It sounded like something was stuck between the door and the wall, but, like I said, your closet was empty."
Everyone grew quiet. Ron had plunged deep into thought, and if you've never seen him deep in thought, it's quite an alarming experience. While he and Ginny wore almost identical-although Ginny looked intellectual instead of frightening- facial expressions, things kicked into high-gear in Hermione's mind. She went through every possibility over and over, until she came to a stunning conclusion.
"Well, I suppose we should just go check it out." This was met by worried stares from both Weasleys, for different reasons.
"Are... you sure we should go in there? What if it's dangerous?" Ron said nervously.
"Hermione, you're pregnant! You probably shouldn't poke around where it might be hazardous to your health," Ginny said, biting her lip.
"All right... maybe Ginny should go. I need company if I'm going to stay here, and I don't think Ron could handle it if there is something there." Ron was acting defiant, but both women could tell that he was inwardly relieved at this statement.
Ginny put on a brave face, and courageously saluted her brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law as she disappeared through Ron's door.
Thudding down the stairs, creaking open the door. Pounding over to the closet, fumbling for the door handle, scraping open the doors. Silence.
Then a blood-curdling scream.
A:N/MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! A cliffie! I LURVE to torture the poor little helpless…I mean ahem that I will update soon if you review. Yes..yes, that's it.
Erin