A/N: I'm back with the final chapter! So ashamed about the posting delay . . . But there was nothing for it, I had too many projects and papers. And I guess I'm just a slow writer obsessed with editing. But now spring break is here, and I'm off to the North Carolina mountains for an idyllic week of doing absolutely nothing! I hope everyone likes this last chapter, it's a little different. Darker. Scarier. Quieter. I loved writing this story and the effort I put into it, so if you enjoyed reading it . . . REVIEW! Reader Review responses below.
Standard Disclaimers Apply: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter & Co., Inc. in its entirety. I don't even have the status of a minority shareholder . . . . Also, there's a Samuel T. Coleridge reference in this chapter. Bonus points to those who spot it.
Hermione's Valentine
Chapter 5
Harry started awake. Limbs shaking, he pushed himself upright in bed. His right hand was throbbing, and he grasped it, hunching over and focusing on breathing. He tore away the sheet that had twined itself about his neck. A dank sweat covered his skin like a greasy film on water, and his pyjamas stuck to him as he moved.
The sky outside his window was still dark, and he could just make out a few glimmering stars. Letting out a whoosh of breath, he limply fell back on his pillow. He lay still for some seconds before rolling over with a grunt and grabbing the watch on his nightstand. The fluorescent hands read 4:30 a.m. Dawn was still hours away.
Dawn or not, Harry Potter knew he wouldn't sleep again. He stared weakly at the bed curtains hanging heavily about him, wondering how he should occupy his thoughts until other the others awoke. If he didn't keep his mind busy, he would dive back into the nightmare again and again and again . . .
He shuddered. He didn't want that.
Completely awake now, he swung his legs off the bed and stuffed his feet into a pair of slippers. He stood up and wrapped his robe about himself for warmth. He could at least go down to the Common Room and try to start Professor Binn's comparative essay on the Atlantis Accords of 44 B.C. and the 1066 A.D. Goblins Against Mirth Convention, which had tried - unsuccessfully - to banish laughter.He doubted he'd get much work done, but it couldn't hurt to try. At least it was Saturday, and he wouldn't have to struggle through classes hazy from fatigue.
Making his way out of the dorm, Harry was surprised to see a dark figure slumped over Ron's desk, its head collapsed upon folded arms, snoring softly.
"Lumos," Harry muttered, raising his wand and walking over to his sleeping friend. The light cast ruddy shadows on his Ron's head, which emerged tousled from the turtleneck he'd worn the day before. Shadows brooded beneath his closed eyes. One cheek was pressed against papers scattered across his desk, and his rustling snores escaped from a mouth slightly agape.
Harry reached out a hand to shake him awake, but pulled back abruptly when he saw the paper laying beneath Ron's cheek.
It was a heart, cut carefully from an iridescent material. Even as Harry stared, the color of the paper shimmered from pink to red to blue to violet and back to white again. Meticulously drawn dragons danced about the edges. A single word was emblazoned across it: Hermione.
Harry shook his head and blinked. The letters looked like they were moving. Peering closer, he caught himself just before laughing aloud. He didn't know how Ron had done it, but the letters of Hermione's name were formed by miniscule fairies, artfully arranged to form the requisite letters, the fluttering wings creating the illusion of movement.
Harry slowly backed away and whispered, "Nox!" Ron would never forgive him for waking him up in this situation.
He fumbled his way down the darkened spiral stairs. As he neared the bottom, he was surprised to see a dim, flickering glow coming from the Common Room, where the fireplace must be lit.
Someone was already awake.
Harry scowled, annoyed. During the past year he'd gotten used to thinking of the Common Room before dawn as his own private escape, a place inviolable. Almost he turned around and retreated back upstairs. Mornings like this were not for companionship.
But the nightmares had made the dorm room a cold, unwelcoming place . . . He didn't want to return.
Slowly, Harry peered around the staircase wall to see who was there. At first glance, the room appeared empty. But then he saw the small red head poking up over the top of one of the stuffed armchairs.
He breathed a sigh of relief. It was only Ginny, reading a piece of paper intently. She would let him sit in silence.
He walked forward. "Hello, Ginny."
She gasped and flew up out of the chair like a startled wild creature, whirling to face him. She swiftly thrust the parchment she'd been studying behind her back. Harry had never seen such a look of pure horror on her face before.
"Easy," he laughed quietly, raising his hands above his head.
An exasperated look came over her face. "Really, Harry!" she snapped. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that! You nearly scared me to death. Your voice sounded just like. . ." She trailed off, her eyes skittering away from his.
She bent down hastily and stuffed the paper under the chair cushion. Harry caught a brief glimpse of blue and a handwriting that looked familiar. He frowned, and thought of his Aunt Petunia singing Madonna to keep from blushing.
"My voice sounded like what?" he prompted, trying to sound nonchalant so that she wouldn't know he'd seen her poring over the Valentine he'd given her.
"Never mind," she laughed nervously. "It was silly." She fell back in the chair and drew a blanket over her. "Have a seat," she waved one hand vaguely.
He took the armchair facing hers on the other side of the fireplace. With a sigh he slouched down and stretched his legs out toward the fire, positioning a pillow behind his head. The flames snapped and roared, and his sniffing nostrils were just able to catch the faintest whiff of cedar.
"So," Ginny said, her hand picking pieces of green fuzz from her robe.
"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Uh . . . do you come down here a lot in the mornings?" He leaned forward and prodded a log with an iron poker to give him something to do. The flames hissed angrily at him in response: What a stupid question, Potter.
"Every now and then . . . It's nice to have space to think that's not cluttered with nail polish and magazines. You?"
"No, never," Harry lied, not really sure why he did so. "We don't really have the nail polish problem in the boys' dorm, you know."
"Oh."
Harry grasped for something to say. He hadn't realized how awkward sitting in silence could be. "Really, though, Ginny. What did my voice sound like?"
Her face hardened, and she wouldn't look at him . "Nothing," she said distantly.
"C'mon," Harry grinned stiffly. "It can't be that bad, can it? Just tell me." He tried blunt honesty: "I mean, there's nothing else to talk about, right?"
Ginny muttered a name he could barely hear and buried her face in her hands.
But it was enough to make Harry's heart stop. The nightmare came roaring back at him, and it felt as if there was something slimy crawling in his stomach.
"What?" he asked, barely hearing his own voice through the roar in his ears.
Ginny raised her face, which was pale and unhappy. "Tom," she muttered uneasily. "You sounded just like Tom Riddle."
Harry found there was nothing for him to say.
"Look here, Harry," Ginny said in a rush, pulling her legs up on the chair and pushing hair back from her face. "It's nothing, really. I shouldn't have said anything. I was just sitting here alone, and you know your imagination does strange things sometimes. And I don't know why, but I was remembering what had happened my first year, and then you walked in and my imagination must have "
"Stop it, Ginny," he said forcefully.
She stopped.
"I'm sorry, Harry," she said helplessly.
Harry shook his head and looked at the fire through the dark hair falling over his eyes. "Don't worry," he said sadly. "Dumbledore and I talked about it once . . . about the fact that I - I look like Voldemort." Ginny grimaced at the name, but said nothing. "It really shouldn't surprise me I sound like him as well. After all, I am Parseltongue." Harry flung the last sentence out like a challenge, as if daring the girl across from him to shriek in terror and flee.
Ginny studied the boy calmly. There was a desperate fierceness to the sadness on his face, and for that she didn't whether to feel scared or grateful.
"Harry?" she asked sharply. "Why are you here?"
He shrugged one shoulder and looked at her ruefully, leaning back in his chair. "Nightmare," he admitted simply.
"I see."
"I lied earlier, you know. I'm here often on mornings."
"That's all right, I knew you were lying. Your nose does this strange, twitchy thing when you're not telling the truth."
"Really?" Harry was taken aback. Did he lie that often? He remembered all the excuses he'd made to Snape over the years . . . all right, he guessed so.
"Ron told me about it. Has he never mentioned it?"
"No, and I'll kill him for it." Harry cursed and kicked himself mentally. It was hard to remember not to use words like 'kill' nowadays.
"Look, can we talk about something else?" he asked hastily, ruffling his hair with one hand.
"Anything, please." Ginny begged, giving him a stricken smile.
"How's Hermione?"
Ginny laughed. "She hasn't drowned herself yet, if that's what you were worried about. Although she was rather harsh to the book she flung at me. I think it had been one of her favorites."
"Ouch. Sounds painful."
"Don't worry, I have quick reflexes. And Hermione leaves soft pillows on the floor perfectly positioned to dive upon."
"Is she still mad?"
"After I snuck down to the kitchens for a jug of mead, she wasn't."
"Hermione let you do that?"
Ginny gave him a sideways, calculating glance, as if debating what to tell him. "I think there's a side of Hermione you boys haven't seen yet," she said mysteriously. "In fact, she was perfectly charming when I tucked her into bed. Kept going on about what a lovely romance novel the whole situation would make."
"Huh." Harry pondered the astonishing revelation.
"Now," Ginny folded her arms, settled herself more firmly in the chair, and looked at him shrewdly. "Was my darling brother still awake when you came downstairs?"
"Nah," Harry answered. "He was sleeping at his desk. You wouldn't believe what he made for . . ." His voice trailed off. "Ginny, you knew!" He said accusingly.
"Knew what?" Spoken with complete - and unconvincing - innocence.
"That Ron made a Valentine for Hermione!"
Ginny giggled. "I didn't know," she corrected him. "But I suspected."
The smug look on her face said otherwise. "Ginny," Harry said suspiciously, "you didn't tell Ron to do that, did you?"
"Don't worry, I had no nothing to do with it," she assured him. "He came up with the idea all by himself. Fred and George would be proud. He did ask me for some help, though. He mentioned some disparaging remarks you'd made about his artistic talent."
"True," Harry grinned. "It's hideous."
"By the way, how did you like the fairy letters? I'd read the charm in an old spell book of Mum's. I told him how to do it."
"Brilliant."
Ginny smiled and smoothed the blanket over her knees. "I just hope it works," she said. "Poor Ron, he looked so wretched. He just needs help making the right decisions sometimes."
Harry watched the way the fire burnished her hair and remembered the sweet openness of her laughter. Sometimes, it was hard to remember she was one of the few people he knew who had encountered Voldemort and lived to tell the tale. He supposed she had more strength than anyone knew. "I hope I'll never make the wrong decision," he said, staring at her in fascination, not really knowing what he was saying.
Ginny glanced at him with one eyebrow raised. She seemed to be suppressing a delicious grin that wanted to play about her mouth.
"Don't worry," she said shyly. "You won't."
Harry grunted and let his eyes close with drowsiness. The warmth from the fire was making his legs tingle, and the armchair was deliciously soft. Minutes passed, and neither of them said a word. Watching Ginny through half-closed eyes, Harry saw that her head had rolled softly to one side and was resting against one of the armchair's velvet wings.
"Harry, don't let me fall asleep here. Fred and George will paint something horrid on my face if I do . . ."
"Mmm . . ." he agreed sleepily, meaning to get up. But it was so warm . . . and the pillow beneath his cheek so comfortable . . . and the world so hushed . . .
Hours later, the morning sun finally broke into the Gryffindor Common Room. A girl sleeping soundly in an arm chair stirred as the light warmed her freckled cheek andpulled her robe more tightly about herself. Across from her, a pair of glasses sitting askew on a sleeping boy's nose sparkled brilliantly as the light hit them. But both continued to slumber peacefully.
With the sunlight also came Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger, who fortuitously staggered into the Common Room at the exact same moment. Both were probably somewhat groggy: Ron from lack of sleep and Hermione from mulled mead. What they did and said upon meeting has gone unrecorded, and no one knows for sure where they went that Saturday morning. But one thing is certain:
They didn't bother to wake their friends.
Finis
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AJ Lovegood: Alive, barely, but slowly coming back to full life, I think. Thanks for wondering where I was, and especially thanks for reviewing my Earthsea fic! It's kinda just sitting there quietly, lonely, waiting for people to read it. I'm working on another one somewhat along the same lines, it's my next project now this is done.
GiGiFanFic: Ah, don't we all know and love guys like Ron. Strangely enough, they always seem to succeed in the end!
darkwickedwitch: I don't know whether Hermione in this chapter will make you pity her more or less. Some people might think her wild night sad, but I see it more as a form of empowerment. Strange, I know, but everyone needs to let their hair down sometime.
Moonhawkpebbly: Thanks! Again, sorry about the delay : (.
hopeforthefuture: Yeah, I was a little confused about the name, but I got it now! As for your recommendation, "have them . . . well u know," I hope this satisfies. There are certain things I feel that pale when put upon paper, and must be left to the imagination. Or maybe I'm just not that good a writer yet . . .