CHAPTER 17 - LEARNING
"FINALLY!" Ron exclaimed with a sigh of relief as he slumped down onto the large armchair in the living room of the tent. It had been two and a half days since they left the Leaky Cauldron and they all prepared to spend their third night inside their particularly luxurious tent (well, as luxurious as a tent can be). None of them besides Harry were used to this kind of travel and it had indeed taken a toll on their bodies. Ron had taken to complaining but it was used mostly as a joke and seemed to lighten everyone's mood.
Against his better judgment Harry decide that they would travel in the day and rest at night. Over the summer, he had chosen to do it the opposite way but it was only him then. He felt that night was more of an advantage for the Death Eaters than them and he would risk concealing themselves over being surprised in the dark. Plus, he thought, no need for those who can sleep to have their schedule messed up.
On the first night of their journey, they had come across a very interesting debate: sleeping arrangements. Harry smiled to himself as he remembered that interaction.
"If you think that I'm going to stay here while I know that my sister is in another bed doing lord knows what," Ron had yelled.
"Like you would notice when you and Hermione are snogging all over your own bedroom!" Ginny yelled back at him. "You do it so loud everyone can hear you anyway. I don't know whether to call it snogging or slopping. It sounds like a dog drinking from a water bowl."
Harry also remembered his conversation with Ron in the 'Boys Bedroom' afterwards.
"Harry," Ron had said, "sorry about earlier. It's not that I don't trust you with Ginny but sometimes I just get carried away."
"No worries mate," Harry told him.
Harry knew by now how protective Ron was. He didn't mind and, in fact, it was probably a better idea that they kept with the same-sex bedroom assignments as Harry was sure it would only add another distraction on their journey.
"Oi!" Ron yelled bringing Harry back to reality. "How far you reckon we got left?" Harry pulled out the map and looked at it thoughtfully. They hadn't even traveled halfway yet.
"Probably another four days," Harry replied. "We're not moving as fast as I thought we would and the weather hasn't helped."
"I can't wait for this to end," Ginny said distantly.
"I know," Hermione agreed, "my feet are rather sore."
"I meant all of it," Ginny corrected her as every head turned to look at her. "I want the war to end. I want V-Voldemort gone."
They all sat in silence for several moments thinking about what it would be like after everything was over. Everyone knew that they were thinking the same thing because they started talking about a life after and what they wanted out of it.
"We wouldn't have to worry about everyone in our family getting attacked," Ginny said.
"Or our friends," Ron added.
"Or our parents," Hermione croaked. They knew her parents were muggles and would have no chance of defending themselves.
"We could have just a regular, plain, boring ol' day," Ron said.
"I could be a healer at St. Mungo's," Ginny said.
"Or a keeper for the Chudley Cannons," Ron almost yelled.
"Or a professor at Hogwart's," Hermione seemed almost excited as Ron.
Harry sat and listened to his friends talk about their peaceful lives. He didn't say the one thing above anything else that he wanted for fear of dampening the good mood around the room. For the only thing he wanted after all this, was to be alive. Though it seemed like the more he thought about this, the less it seemed plausible.
After the dream session they shared, the group said good night to each other. Ron and Hermione snuck away for a few quiet moments in one of the bedrooms. Harry smiled to himself as he prepared the kitchen for breakfast the next morning. He was standing at the kitchen counter when he felt a pair of arms reach around his chest and a warm presence lean against his back.
"You were very quiet tonight," Ginny whispered from behind him.
"It felt really nice just to listen to all of you," Harry said. It was true. He felt at ease listening to his best friends talk about what they wanted out of life.
"What does Harry Potter want for his future?"
Harry took a few moments to answer. What was it that he truly wanted more than anything? He knew his answer would be odd at his and Ginny's point in a relationship but he wanted to be truthful to her.
"Family," he said softly. "I want to have children who know their parents. Who spend holidays with each other. I want my children to have someone who tucks them in at night and makes them feel safe. Who sends them off on their first day of school. Helps them with their homework and maybe even helps them get into trouble."
As he spoke, his voice was filled, not with sorrow as he had expected, but with hope. Filled with the determination to give his family everything that was taken from him. He turned around, pulling Ginny into a hug as he did so, and felt her lean her head against his chest.
"You're going to be a great father Harry," she said quietly.
They stood there for several moments, not speaking, just breathing in each other's presence and basking in the moment with each other.
Hem Hem Ron gave a polite noise from the doorway. Harry and Ginny broke apart. She gave him a soft kiss on the cheek, said goodnight and retreated to bed. As Harry walked to his bedroom Ron put an arm around him.
"She's right you know," he whispered to Harry. "You're going to make a great father. You never know, maybe our kids'll all go to Hogwart's together."
"Let's hope they don't get into as much trouble as we did," Harry said with a smile.
Harry waited patiently, lying in his bed, listening for Ron's breaths to deepen and include some slight snoring. When he finally heard it he slid out of bed, careful not to wake his friend, and walked out of the room. He poked his head in the girls' bedroom to make sure they were asleep. When he was sure they were, he crept out of the tent and found a nice clearing in the wooded area.
He had been doing this since the time they left to start their journey. He knew he wasn't going to get much sleep so he spent his time in the woods learning. Before they left, Harry gathered every book he could about fighting the dark arts and stowed them in a secret compartment the twins had shown him.
The first spell he learned was silensarca, which cast a silence charm around an area defined by the caster. In this area, all sound would be held in so as not to echo throughout the woods. It took half of the first night to learn it but Harry was sure that it was worth it.
The more he studied advanced techniques for fighting dark wizards the more he learned that his words from fifth year held more truth than even he thought at the time. He had said that it's not about memorizing a bunch of spells. Coupled with the books' information and his own memory of the battle between Voldemort and Dumbledore, he learned that the most advance techniques are not memorized spells, but understanding the theory of magic and how to manipulate it. In fact, he assumed that the spells the two wizards cast that night were invented as they cast them. Although his learning of magic theory was slow, it was still immensely informative. He split his time between this and learning actual spells that could help him.
Tonight was no different for Harry. He began his work with one of the books from Sirius' library. He worked so hard that night that he didn't realize how late it was before he quit. He climbed quietly back into bed to get some sleep, no matter how little it was.
He awoke the next morning before everyone else, as was usually the case, and walked out to the kitchen to start on breakfast. He was so tired that he forgot to put on a shirt, something that he made a point to do ever since his last meeting with Voldemort. He was standing at the counter when he heard her.
"Oh my god, Harry!" It was Ginny standing in the doorway to her room staring at the scars on his back. He looked down and, realizing he didn't have a shirt, turned to retrieve one from his room. As soon as he turned he heard a loud gasp from a different person.
Standing behind Ginny was Hermione. They both had their hands over their mouths staring at the scars on his chest. This was the reason he had made it a point to keep a shirt on at all times.
"What's with all the noise this early in the – BLOODY HELL!" Ron, who was now wide awake, stopped mid-yawn to stare at Harry. Nobody moved for several moments before Ginny walked, very slowly, across the room. She reached a pair of shaky hands up towards Harry and ran them over his scars. Hermione turned her head not wanting to look anymore, and Ron simply stared.
"It's nothing," Harry started to say that he was okay but was interrupted.
"It's not nothing Harry," Hermione almost shouted from her doorway.
"That's why mum didn't want us in the room when she was helping him heal," Ron said. He had regained his composure slightly and walked towards Harry to get a better look.
Harry was starting to get very irritated. He didn't want to be poked and prodded like some patient. And to make matters worse, he was down right angry that Hermione couldn't look at him.
"Hermione, look at me," he said to her. "Look at me," he used a little more force in his voice but to no avail. She shook her head quickly as she stared at the ground. He walked over to her quickly and, grabbing her head in his hands, forced her to look at his scars.
"LOOK AT IT!" he shouted. Tears started falling down Hermione's face. Although he felt horrible doing this to her, Harry knew that it was something she needed to see. Ginny grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him away but he shrugged her off.
"Harry you're scaring us," Ginny pleaded from his side. Her voice started to break and he could tell that she was almost terrified of him. He let go of Hermione's head and turned to face everyone.
"GOOD!" he shouted. "YOU NEED TO BE SCARED! THIS IS WHAT HE DOES! HE ENJOYED THIS! EVERY MINUTE OF IT!" He held out his hands, palm up, to show the long scars down his forearms. "YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT HE'S CAPABLE OF AND THIS IS IT!"
The girls had tears staining their faces and Ron was trying to grasp the back of a chair. He failed several times before he finally found it. Harry was breathing very hard and took a minute to regain his composure.
"This is why I didn't want you to come," he told them. "He could do this to any one of you. There's not a single part of him that isn't evil." He was doing it so they would understand. He needed them to know what kind of danger they were walking into.
"He enjoys the pain and thinks that it'll break people," he said. Lowering his voice to almost a whisper he finished the conversation, "He never broke me."
He turned and walked back to his room to gather his things for the day, breakfast lying forgotten on the counter.