After three days, Harry was certainly annoyed. Every morning, Hermione ate breakfast with him before disappearing into the study until he forced her to stop long enough for dinner, then she locked herself in again until Merlin only knew what time. A few times, Harry couldn't help but wonder if she slept in the office. During meals, they chatted amicably using the opportunity to catch up. Harry told her stories of Teddy and the newest Weasley additions, while Hermione occasionally interjected with a story from her time traveling. The meals were a comfort, familiar.
For three days, he let it go, worried she would shut down if he pressed it. But it was downright ridiculous. The fourth morning, he broached the subject after serving her favorite breakfast, French toast. Harry Potter was not above a small amount of sucking up and bribery.
"I know my cooking is pretty good," he started, hoping humor was his best option, "but I don't think it's good enough for you to drag me around just to feed you."
To his relief, she chuckled. "Actually, this is probably the most consistent I've eaten since I left the New Order. Definitely the best I've eaten since before that."
The joke fell flat. Perhaps humor wasn't the best for this situation. The faucet dripped, marking the silent seconds that passed between them. Seconds that felt as long as the years that separated them.
"I wanna help," he offered as he refilled her coffee cup for her. "Put me to work, Hermione."
She spun the cup, slowly watching as the bubbles drifted lazily through the dark liquid.
"I'm not used to having help. I wouldn't even know where to start."
"If there's one thing I know you can do, it's give me a lecture." Harry realized the mistake in saying such a thing a half-second before her icy glare landed on him. Blushing, he took another sip of coffee to hide behind the yellow cup. "Uh, poor choice of words. My bad, my specialty."
Hermione hummed her acknowledgment before returning to her plate. For several minutes, Harry contented himself with watching her and carefully considering his next words. Secretly observing her in quiet moments had been a favorite pastime of Harry's in school. Something about Hermione had always drawn him in. He had always been intrigued by her fierce, yet quiet demeanor. She had always been the one able to calm his inner demons, yet be the Muggle-born witch that stood up to the likes of Draco Malfoy. Determined protector of those who couldn't.
During the first few months after she disappeared, everything reminded Harry of her. It wasn't until he sat on a beach in Australia, desperately searching for answers, that he realized the ocean reminded him of her most of all. How the tides would shift from soothing and lapping to churning and dangerous in an instant. The same way Hermione could turn from comforter to protector in the blink of an eye. And just like the tide, she had always been constant. Steady in his life, and something he had been dearly missing at the time.
She was still the ocean, perhaps even more so. Because now she was a rip current that could drag him under any moment. A rip current he was determined to learn how to swim in.
"Hermione, you're keeping me away from this at all times, and I can't help you like that. I can't help you if you don't tell me what we're facing if I don't have all of the available information."
"You also can't get hurt that way. You can't be exploited."
"I'm in this whether you like it or not, Hermione."
The kitchen felt small, closing in around him as he waited for her answer. She had never been one to accept help easily, and he couldn't imagine that had changed much in the last four years. Which was why he was decently surprised when she sighed and told him, "Don't ever say I didn't try to keep you out of this."
"And I wouldn't let you. Yes, I know. Hermione. Talk to me."
The internal battle in her raged as she warred between her desire to protect his naivety and the knowledge that he wouldn't let this go. She stared at him a long moment before standing from the table and leaving the room without a word. Harry groaned in frustration, covering his face with his hands. Why would she let him come along if she just intended to keep him away from it? Before he could overthink things further, she returned with a small black book and tossed it on the table in front of him before taking her seat again. She poked at the remains of her breakfast, suddenly losing the remainder of her appetite but refusing to meet his eye.
The book was unassuming. Black, leather-bound. It looked like several of the journals they each took notes in at Hogwarts. He had seen her carry one for note-taking hundreds, maybe thousands, of times at school, but even without opening it, he knew this book didn't contain Transfiguration notes.
"This is what they're after me for," she explained, nodding towards the book with wary eyes. "Why they attacked me in Diagon Alley."
For the first time in years, Harry watched as Hermione fiddled nervously with her necklace, a tick he knew well even though he hadn't seen her wear one since the locket. In school, her fingers would twist nervously at the necklace settled against her collar sometimes to the point of near strangulation. Now, the silver chain pulled taut against her throat as she rubbed the pendant that sat at her sternum.
Her anxious behavior set Harry further on edge. The leather cover felt well worn as he turned it over in his hands, still afraid to open it. The book gave him an odd feeling, not quite as strong as Tom Riddle's diary, but similar, as if whatever evil residing between the worn cover was attempting to lash its way out.
"What is it?" he finally asked after examining each scuff mark and coffee ring.
"It's all of my research from when I was there. Every spell, every potion, every ritual I was developing. Some that others were working on. Anything I could get my hands on."
Harry settled the book in his palm and let it fall open at random. Silly as it was, he almost braced for a gust of wind or a scream, some reaction like the majority of dark books gave. The page fell open with a whisper. He recognized Hermione's handwriting instantly, having seen it enough at Hogwarts to know, but he didn't recognize the words and honestly wasn't sure they were words.
"Merlin, these make no sense at all. Some of this doesn't even look like letters. It looks like gibberish."
"That's because you've got the book upside down," she told him cheekily, an amused smile breaking the anxious lines of her face.
A blush colored his cheeks as she flipped the book right side up. Even correctly oriented, the letters were unreadable to him. The letters didn't organize themselves into words at all.
"Is this even a language?" he huffed out, squinting for anything familiar. It wouldn't surprise him to find that she had created her own.
"It's in French."
He met her eyes over the top of the page. "French? When did you learn French?"
"Primary school," she offered, giving no further elaboration. With a sickening pit in his stomach, Harry realized he knew almost nothing about Hermione's life prior to Hogwarts. Questions about her primary school and learning French flooded his mind, but he knew the conversation would have to wait. The black book weighed heavy in his hands, determined to be addressed.
"You took all of your notes in French that you learned in primary school?"
"Obviously, I learned more than just primary school French."
Harry squinted at the letters a moment longer trying to recall his own Primary school French lessons. Unfortunately, he couldn't remember much past counting to ten. Seeing the confused look, Hermione took pity and explained, "No one that I knew of at The Post knew French, but it would have been too easy to translate it. I created a code for my notes as well just to be safe. A variable displacement cipher."
The term was familiar from some of the Muggle films Harry occasionally watched, but he still didn't know what that meant for deciphering the information. Seeing the confused look in his eyes, Hermione pulled a blank page from the back of the book. After conjuring a pen, she wrote L-E-T-T-E-R across the top of the page.
"The first letter of a word is one letter forward." Under the L, she scribbled an M. "The second letter would be two letters forward, and continue from there." She filled in the remaining portions of her code, making the combination M-G-W-X-I-W for the word "letter." Taking a random word from the page, she deciphered her notes, revealing the odd combination to be "potion."
"So what all is in here? Er, my French is a little non-existent, and deciphering this would take me forever. What exactly were you researching that they're after?"
"Magic," she mumbled, drawing her feet up in the seat and wrapping her arms around her knees. It was the most vulnerable he had seen her the entire week, years.
"Okay, so like Hogwarts."
"No. I was studying how it works. The mechanics." The dripping faucet drew her attention, giving her something to look at other than him or that damn book. "How two Muggles are capable of producing a magic child. How a witch and wizard can have a squib. I was researching how we can produce magic."
"Okay and how's that?"
"I think it's biological. I think we possess a gene that allows us the ability to convert energy into magic. And that's why it goes in and out of generations."
Harry looked back at the page, trying to understand why she sounded guilty. Discovering how magic worked sounded like a fantastic research project, one Hermione would be perfect for. "Okay, but I still don't understand. How is any of that bad?"
She pulled her coffee cup to her chest, letting the warmth seep in and ground her. For several minutes, she stared catatonically at the dripping water, counting, and Harry worried she would lock herself away again taking the mysterious book with her.
"The research itself wasn't bad. The intention was," she whispered into her cup.
Answers were not something she would be giving up easily, Harry realized. Drawing it out of her was frustrating him, but he knew it was necessary if they were to move forward. He needed to understand. "So that means what for us? We start deciphering this and finish your research."
"No!" Her eyes flashed to his, fear etched into them. "We absolutely do not finish my research ever."
Her reaction to the suggestion concerned him. Hermione always thirsted for knowledge, especially when it pertained to her own person, and to vehemently refuse to seek out information made Harry question just what type of dark magic this involved. She hadn't protested this harshly even during the darkest moments of their horcrux research. "Hermione, what were you working on?"
"I can't."
"Can't or won't? When did we start keeping secrets?" He knew he shouldn't keep going, knew there was an invisible line he was currently toeing, but the famous Potter anger got the better of him. "Actually, perhaps I should have expected that from you. Seems you've been keeping secrets longer than I thought."
Her eyes blazed bright with indignance. In a blink, she was on her feet towering over him. "That's rich coming off you!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" he huffed back.
"It means this was a mistake. Go home, Harry."
When the door to the study slammed, the entire house shook with it. The shock wave rattled him and reaffirmed what he already suspected. He had truly and utterly fucked that up.
"Good going, Potter," he muttered to the empty room as he cleaned the dishes, opting to wash them by hand to give him something to do.
Harry spent the rest of his day puttering around the house, hoping if he stayed out of her way, she wouldn't actually force him to leave. After a few hours of mind-numbing television, he turned to the bookshelf, hoping to find something of interest when an English/French dictionary caught his eye. The black book and example cipher still laid on the kitchen table. That would certainly give him something to do and more insight. Perhaps if he knew what she was working on and could show her he didn't care, she would open up to him again. After four years of separation, he already missed being near her. But if he couldn't be near her, he could at least try to help. After collecting the black book and dictionary, Harry rummaged through the kitchen drawers until he found a notebook and pen. If she wouldn't talk to him, he would just find out for himself.
