Chapter 26
Some hours later, Harry and Hermione did exactly what they planned. After quickly eating their food, they were standing close to the entrance of the Great Hall, under Disillusionment Charms, and were waiting for Ginny to walk out. They were also holding hands so that they wouldn't possibly lose each other while disillusioned.
In the time beforehand, their work with wandless Stunning Spell practice was a bit slow. They had first spent about fifteen minutes verifying that they could do a nonverbal spell with their wands, before then starting the actual wandless practice. By the point that it was time to begin walking to the Great Hall so that they would arrive right at the start of lunch, they were still working on practicing the wandless version that was nonverbal but still used the spell's hand gesture. They were having to take some more frequent breaks, somewhat similar to how their practice with the Shield Charm had gone, giving more credence in Hermione's mind to the idea that more advanced spells required more and more energy to try and perform wandlessly.
Lunch itself had unfortunately been predictable. While they were in the Great Hall, murmurs about them and stares towards them had once again been given. Hermione was a bit frustrated in her mind, as they sat down at their normal spot and began making their plates when food appeared. Of course, Harry resting his leg against hers while they ate, as though he knew what she was thinking about, gave her no small amount of comfort. And she was glad when Neville and Luna joined them again, when those two walked into the Great Hall not long after Harry and Hermione did.
Coming out of her thoughts, Hermione couldn't help being a bit nervous. Then again, how many people wouldn't be, when you were going to make the move to find out whether a former friend could despise the fact that you were in a relationship with someone else, and that friend would try to interfere and break up the relationship?
She let out a slow, quiet sigh. Immediately afterwards, Harry's right hand gave her left one a squeeze, though he himself remained silent. She gave a responding squeeze in thanks.
Eventually, though, Hermione tensed up when she could hear Ginny's voice beginning to grow louder. And soon enough, the youngest Weasley walked out of the Great Hall, talking to one of the other sixth-year students.
As those two were walking towards the stairs, Hermione let go of Harry's hand. That was the signal for him to cancel the charms on both of them.
She called out, "Ginny."
The two other students stopped, while Ginny quickly turned in fright. She then began frantically looking around in confusion, which told Hermione that she and Harry still weren't visible. A second later, however, she could see herself again in the bottom of her vision, as well as see Harry from her side. Of course, that only made Ginny's terror grow.
Before anything else could happen, Harry then spoke up next. "That offer you made to take Veritaserum from Slughorn. We want to use it."
Ginny's overall expression seemed to drop in resignation. She turned and said something to the other student, who glanced to Harry and Hermione for a moment and then back to Ginny before walking up the stairs and out of sight. Then, Ginny slowly made her way over, stopping two steps in front of them.
She asked, "There's no other way? You really want this?"
Hermione bluntly replied, "No, there isn't. And yes, we do."
The other girl glanced between the two for a moment. Then, with a sigh, she said, "Alright. When do you want to do this?"
Harry responded, "Right now. Let's go to Slughorn's office and wait there while he eats here."
Hermione added, a bit snidely, "In fact, you can lead the way there, so that we know you won't try and run away."
Ginny huffed a bit but didn't actually say anything more. Instead, she just nodded before beginning the walk to Professor Slughorn's office. No one said a word on the way there or even after arriving. They all just silently waited, until the Potions professor finally appeared.
Upon seeing the group of three waiting at his door, he joyfully called out while walking, "Harry, Miss Granger, Miss Weasley! This is certainly a surprise!"
Hermione heard Harry scoff. She looked at him with a tiny smirk, knowing that he hated how Professor Slughorn continued to use his first name, even after having been asked not to, while not using the first name of any other student.
When the professor arrived at the door, he opened it and said, "Well, come in, come in! You must have questions, if you were all waiting out here for me."
Everyone quickly walked in. And soon enough, the short and portly professor was sitting behind his desk in the main part of the office, while the three students were sitting in chairs in front of him.
He then asked, "So, what brings you all here?"
Without any prodding, Ginny was the first to speak. "Professor, I want you to give me Veritaserum, so that Harry and Hermione can ask whatever questions they want of me."
That took the man aback. He ran a hand, quite nervously, over his bald head while looking back and forth between the three students.
Then, he quietly said, "You all know that one must have approval from the Ministry to use Veritaserum, correct? We could all be in some serious trouble if this happened otherwise."
Ginny immediately begged, "Please, sir? I want to do this. If it's the only way to put Harry and Hermione at ease about what happened with that article in the Daily Prophet and get them to see that I had nothing to do with it, then I'm fully willing to do this and will never say anything to get you in trouble."
The old man sighed and just looked at Ginny for a moment. He then turned to Harry and Hermione before asking, "Is there truly no other way?"
Harry's response was firm. "No, Professor. There isn't."
Hermione just silently nodded her own agreement.
The professor gave another sigh. Silence held for about five seconds.
It was broken when Slughorn stood from his seat and reluctantly said, "Alright then. Give me a moment."
He walked over to the second room of his office, a smaller room which Hermione knew he had made by magically walling off an area of the large office sometime between the end of sixth year and the start of the current year, and shut the door. Hermione just stared at the closed door until the professor reappeared about thirty seconds later. He was holding a glass bottle of clear liquid, which Hermione recognized as Veritaserum.
He walked over to the middle of his office and then said, "Miss Weasley. Would you please move your chair over to here?"
Ginny nodded and did so, while Harry and Hermione stood up and walked over to stand by Slughorn. Ginny sat back down in the chair once she had positioned it where she was directed.
Then, Slughorn said, "I'll ask one final time. Are you certain that you wish to go through with this?"
She nodded and merely replied, "Yes."
The professor sighed once more but simply said, "Very well, then. Open your mouth, please."
Ginny silently did so. With that, Slughorn opened the bottle and poured out three drops of the potion into Ginny's mouth. As soon as Ginny swallowed, her face went slack and her gaze became unfocused.
Closing the bottle, Slughorn turned to Harry and Hermione. "I will go back into the second room of this office and shut the door, as I'm not sure I want to hear anything that may be asked, so I am trusting you two to not abuse this moment you have. Once you are finished with your questions, please come get me so that I may give her the antidote."
The two Head students merely nodded, remaining silent until the professor did as he told them. Once they were alone, they moved at the same time to stand in front of Ginny.
Hermione decided to waste no time, beginning with easy questions to test things. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes," Ginny instantly muttered in a monotone voice, with her gaze still just looking straight forward and not actually focusing on anything.
"Is your full name Ginevra Molly Weasley?"
"Yes."
Hermione couldn't help asking her next question a bit more harshly. "What did I tell you to do about Harry between your fourth year and fifth year of school?"
Ginny's reply was, "You said to get on with my life, and maybe try to go out with some other people, so that I could learn how to be myself rather than falling into an obsession if Harry may never look at me the same way as I did him."
Hermione nodded, as that was completely true, but she turned to Harry in confusion when he gently nudged her. That confusion deepened upon seeing a puzzled frown on his own face.
He leaned in and whispered, so quietly that she wouldn't have heard him if he hadn't moved closer, "Is that exactly what you said to her?"
She nodded and responded just as quietly, "Yes, it is. And I used that as a question because I said it to Ginny when we were alone."
Harry's frown deepened, but instead of saying more to her, he turned to Ginny and asked his own question to the girl.
"What did you say to me before giving me your gift for my seventeenth birthday, and what was that gift?"
Though her gaze remained unfocused, a small smile grew on Ginny's face as she replied, "I said to you that I'd like to give you something to remember me by, if you met some Veela while you were away. You replied that dating opportunities were going to be pretty thin on the ground, and I said that was the silver lining I was looking for. And then, even though we had broken up after Dumbledore's funeral, I kissed you, and that kiss was my gift."
Harry looked to Hermione again and said, "All true, so the potion is definitely working."
She nodded but couldn't help leaning closer to him this time and whispering, "You know I'm going to ask you later about that reaction once we're finished here, don't you?"
He sheepishly nodded, but she continued before he could respond. "For now, though, we don't have time to waste."
With that, she just turned to Ginny, whose expression had gone completely flat again after her last answer, and took a deep breath before finally getting to the necessary questions. "Did you send information about Harry and me to Rita Skeeter, or to anyone at the Daily Prophet in general, for that article that was published yesterday?"
"No," Ginny replied.
"Have you talked at all to Rita Skeeter or anyone else at the Daily Prophet at any point in your life?"
"No."
"Have you ever sent any kind of letter or message to Rita Skeeter or anyone else at the Daily Prophet at any point in your life?"
"No."
That made Hermione blink in surprise and stop the questions for a moment. Looking to Harry, she saw a bit of shock in his eyes.
He whispered, "It sounds like she really isn't the one that talked to Rita about us."
But then, he grew thoughtful and added, "Although…"
After trailing off, he immediately turned to Ginny and firmly asked, "Do you have any knowledge about who may have sent information about Hermione and me to Rita or the Daily Prophet?"
"No," was the only reply from Ginny.
"You've never had any person tell you that they were talking to or sending a letter to Rita or someone else at the Daily Prophet, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"You've never overheard any person here at Hogwarts talking about having sent or planning to send any information about me and Hermione to Rita or someone else at the Daily Prophet, is that correct?"
"Yes."
Harry finally stopped his questions. Shifting his gaze back to Hermione, he whispered, "Did I cover all the bases in my questions about the culprit?"
With a sigh, she replied, "Unfortunately, I think so. If Ginny has never had contact with Rita or someone else that works at the Daily Prophet, and has also never heard or been told about anything, then it sounds like we're dealing with an unknown party."
She then let out a scoff and added, "Of course, there is the matter of the Howler."
With that, she continued interrogating Ginny. "The Howler that your mother sent to me last night. Did you have any knowledge that she was sending it?"
"No."
"Have you ever sent your mother a letter, or talked to your mother at all, lamenting the fact that you were no longer together with Harry?"
"Yes."
Hermione couldn't help nodding at finally getting an affirmative that could lead to something. She continued, "Was it just letters, just talking in person, or both?"
"Just in person," Ginny replied. "I never talked about Harry in the letters that I would send Mum once a month in the first part of the term before the holidays."
That threw Hermione off a bit. She slightly tilted her head as she asked, "So when did these conversations take place, then? And what exactly were they?"
"They were over the Christmas holiday. With the biggest one, which happened on the day before New Year's Eve, Mum grew frustrated about not having heard anything from you or Harry since the end of the war. When she rounded on me about if I knew anything as to why the two of you could be avoiding us, I could no longer hide things and burst out that Harry was ignoring me after having said that he would never get back together with me, as well as saying that he was through with Ron because of Ron abandoning the two of you when you all were, under Ron's words, hunting artifacts of Voldemort's that were necessary to destroy. Ron then added that he didn't know why you were ignoring us, as well as that the three of you had just gotten separated after a battle and it took a long time for him to be able to find you again.
"Mum was angry and wanted to send you both Howlers, but then Fleur and Bill both stood up for you before leaving for their home. Nothing more was said about the situation that day. But at one point the next day, when I was alone with Mum while helping her in the garden, she tried to console me and said that maybe it had been long enough that I could talk to Harry again and get him to see that he was being foolish for ignoring us. I was skeptical in my mind considering what happened at the beginning of the school year, but I didn't say so to Mum and just thanked her. And remembering that piece of advice, after Harry actually spoke to Neville and Luna on the train about something that wasn't just related to classes, was the only reason I got the courage again to try and speak to him."
Hermione's mouth dropped a bit in a frown. Well, she thought, most of that at least lined up with all that Fleur had mentioned. But there was still more digging to do.
Hermione asked, "Alright, that's twice. How many more conversations were there about Harry and me?"
"None really," Ginny replied. "George tried to comfort me one time afterwards, saying that there was someone out there for me and that things would eventually look up. But he never said specifically that Harry would get back together with me. I didn't really want to talk about it, so I just nodded along until he left me alone. That was the only thing resembling another conversation about you or Harry."
Harry then jumped in. "So, you haven't said or written anything to either your mum or the rest of your family about Hermione or me, since the Christmas holidays ended?"
"No," Ginny said. "I was about to once, when I was in the common room and making a letter to Mum a few days after the two of you revealed your relationship, but Neville came over and saw what I was writing and how I was talking about how I can't be with Harry now. He convinced me that it was a terrible idea to mention to my family anything about you being together before the two of you did so first.
"He asked me, if the two of you disliked me for your own reasons already, then how much worse would things get if I wrote to my mum about no longer having a chance with Harry? And what might the two of you do if you found out about it or if something happened where someone might try to interfere with your relationship? I realized that Neville was right and scrapped that entire letter, since I never wanted to give either of you any reason to come after me, after what Hermione said on the night that everyone found out the two of you were a couple."
At that point, Harry and Hermione turned to each other at the same time, both frowning.
Harry then took a step away from Ginny. After Hermione followed, he whispered to her, "That means Mrs. Weasley basically sent the Howler of her own accord because of Rita's article. That conversation that we first heard about from Fleur probably played a part, but that was also before anyone besides your parents knew we were together."
He then shook his head. "So, I guess Ginny's completely clean in regards to the article, unless you can think of anything more to ask her."
Hermione began thinking, shifting her gaze towards Ginny as she did so. And from the back of her mind, a memory began playing, making her realize that there could be something else about which she could question Ginny, even though it didn't actually relate to Rita's article.
Looking at Harry again, she said, "Yes, there is. And I'm sorry for what I'm about to ask, because this is an opportunity that I just can't pass up."
She didn't wait for his reaction and initially turned to step closer to Ginny again. Before she could take that step, however, she felt Harry grab her hand.
When she turned back to him, the confusion was palpable in his expression as he dropped her hand and then asked, "What do you mean?"
Hermione glanced at Ginny for a moment while taking a deep breath. Then, she said to Harry, "Your hypothesis about potions."
His eyes widened, and he murmured a little, "Oh."
She watched as he shifted his gaze towards Ginny. Surprisingly, though some confusion still remained, she also began to see a bit of turmoil in his expression.
Hermione's curiosity grew about what could be going through his mind, when Harry continued to remain silent. After a minute, she couldn't help speaking up, causing him to finally look at her again.
"What's wrong, Harry? I know that we talked at the church about just letting things lie and not trying to pursue your idea. But with Ginny actually having taken Veritaserum, we'll never have a better chance than now to test it out and get an answer for certain, at least when it comes to you."
"I know, Hermione," he replied. "I get it and understand why you would want to ask. It's just…"
He trailed off, with his eyes glancing downward.
When he remained silent for a few more seconds, she tried to gently prod an answer from him. "Just what, Harry?"
His eyes then locked back onto her, before he finally continued.
"Does it matter? What difference will it really make?"
Her eyebrows raised in surprise. In the face of this situation, that was not at all an answer that she was expecting.
She said to him, "Like I said, it would give us an answer for you. With the opportunity we have, aren't you at all curious?"
He blinked a couple of times before turning away to look at Ginny. Hermione didn't say a word as Harry just stared for at least a few seconds. She wanted to let him peacefully think about whatever response he wanted to give.
But eventually, to her further surprise, the left side of his mouth curled up in a half-smile as he gave a quiet chuckle. He then shifted his gaze back to her, with his expression sobering up.
He said, "So yeah, it's definitely a great opportunity, and I know that I'm the one who even brought up that hypothesis at all in the first place. Still though…"
He trailed off for a second, the smile returning to his face. "Still, like I said, does it really matter at this point? All that's happened this year – the combination of the one conversation we had with Ginny at the start of the school year along with the incident on the Hogwarts Express when we were returning from the Christmas holidays – we've both already lost our trust in Ginny thanks to that. So, any answer we received wouldn't exactly change anything from that standpoint."
Harry then gave a shrug of his shoulders. "And as far as asking just to see if there was foul play in me getting involved with Ginny back in sixth year… well, that's all just part of the past. I'm OK with it just remaining as me getting into a relationship that ended up not working out, for various reasons that are already tangible."
The smile on his face then grew into a full and tender one, before he stepped closer and touched his forehead down to hers. Hermione couldn't resist smiling at the total affection in his expression.
"I'm with you now," Harry whispered. "I love you, and you're my future. I was lucky enough to have time to realize that before possibly forever losing the chance to be with you. And all I want… well, like we agreed at the church. Leave the past behind, and reach forward for the future."
Hermione felt a few tears well up in her eyes and couldn't speak, though she knew that her smile still said everything that Harry needed to know. No matter what he said or how he said it, she would always think of herself as the luckiest person on the planet for being the one that received such love from him.
After a few seconds, Harry pulled his head away and continued, "All of that is why I don't need to try and get any answers about my hypothesis, at least regarding myself. But again, you are right about this being a prime opportunity to get some kind of answer. So, if it's important enough to you, I won't mind if you want to keep questioning Ginny about whether she may have used or thought of using a potion."
With that, Harry finally grew silent.
Hermione took a moment to blink away her unshed tears. Then, she took a deep breath and quietly said, "It truly wouldn't bother you to not dig further into this and find out for certain if Ginny may have ever done anything?"
His mouth twitched upward for a moment before he shook his head. "No, Hermione, it wouldn't. Ginny, and my past relationship with her, don't matter. Only you do."
She instinctively smiled again at his loving words. She then glanced over to Ginny for a couple of seconds before speaking to Harry.
"Well," she said, "my whole reason for asking about this topic was because this was such a good chance to give you an answer to your idea about Ginny. But if trying to get any answer doesn't matter to you… then I'm alright with keeping things just like we agreed to at the church and letting this drop."
"Are you sure?" he asked. "It won't bother you to let it stay unanswered, as though the hypothesis was just a silly idea I had, even if there could be some truth to it that we may never know?"
She gave one quiet laugh before replying, "No, Harry, it won't. We leave that in the past with our failed tries at relationships with the Weasleys…"
Then, she took hold of his hands and gave them a squeeze. "And we look forward to what is hopefully a wonderful future."
Another tender smile grew on his face, before Harry responded, "Yeah, I hope so, too."
Hermione just hummed in agreement. The two of them gazed at each other for a few seconds, before Harry let out a small sigh and pulled his hands away. He looked towards Ginny, causing Hermione to do the same. She was grateful to find that the girl still appeared to be in the Veritaserum stupor.
She turned back to Harry when he said, "So, is there anything else besides that to ask Ginny?"
Hermione bit her lip in thought. After a few seconds, her eyes widened slightly at another memory.
"Yes actually," she answered. "What you told me about how, in your and my sixth year, Ginny said to Ron that Viktor snogged me. I could ask some questions about that."
With that, she stepped back over to Ginny. As Harry followed and took up post beside her again, Hermione began with her questions.
"So, Ginny. On the Hogwarts Express, when we were returning from the Christmas holidays, you believed that I never had a real boyfriend before, correct?"
"Yes," came the monotone answer from the Weasley.
Hermione nodded and then crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, you were correct at the time in that belief, since Harry really is the first actual boyfriend for me. Do you also, however, believe that Viktor Krum ever kissed me in a full-on snog?"
"Yes."
A little hum left Hermione, before she asked, "Why do you believe that?"
Ginny replied, "On the night of the Yule Ball, I heard part of a conversation between Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil in the hallways when I was going back to Gryffindor Tower. Parvati said to Lavender that someone told her about witnessing Krum kiss you at the portrait entrance, before he left to go back to the Durmstrang ship. The way he hung around you after that night seemed to confirm that something had happened."
Harry jumped in at that point. "But if you thought something happened between them, then why didn't you ever think that Krum was Hermione's boyfriend?"
"Because afterwards," Ginny answered, "no one ever really saw Krum and Hermione doing much of anything like a boyfriend and girlfriend would. People only ever saw the two together in the library, with Hermione always studying something whether Krum was or not. There were never even any rumors about the two ever going into a broom closet or an abandoned classroom together. So, to me, it was clear that Krum seemed to want Hermione as his girlfriend, but Hermione didn't feel the same for some reason. And it baffled me that she could have someone like that at her fingertips so easily, someone that had already kissed her, but then act like she wants nothing to do with it."
Hermione shook her head in frustration and said, "Of course you would have heard something only on the actual night of the ball. Why did you never come to me to get an actual confirmation of things?"
"Because, as I said, the way Krum tried to hang around you – that, along with the articles written about you and him – made it seem obvious that something happened between you two, and that asking about it would be unnecessary."
A scoff left Hermione before she retorted, "Well, hopefully you can remember this once Professor Slughorn gives you the Veritaserum antidote and you come out of your little haze here. Viktor only ever kissed me once on the cheek. It took much too long for me to finally squash the rumors that my dormmates held over what happened, when they wanted to gossip with me about it a few days after the ball, and to convince them that it had been just that single cheek kiss. And if you had actually come to me, Ginny, I could have told you the same thing, and you wouldn't have falsely told a certain someone else, just to make him angry, that Viktor snogged me."
At that moment, Hermione felt a hand on her shoulder, which then gave her a comforting squeeze. She turned to find Harry looking at her with sympathy. Without a word, she just smiled at him and put a hand on top of his for a second. He returned the smile, but it only lasted for a moment before his sympathetic expression reappeared.
As he pulled his hand off her shoulder, he said, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. You've always deserved better than all the rubbish you've had to deal with throughout your life."
She gave a little hum before replying, "Well, I have better now, don't I? The best, even. I have you."
That caused him to smile again. "And the fact that you genuinely think that of me means more than I could ever convey with words."
She hummed again before shifting so that she could softly kiss him. When she pulled away, they happily gazed at one another for a few more moments.
Then, Harry became more pensive and said, "So, do you want to get back to questioning Ginny?"
Hermione looked at the other girl, who was still looking straight ahead without any focus, for a few seconds. Then, she turned back to Harry and shook her head.
"No," she replied. "I have nothing more, unless you may have thought of something else since I first brought up the topic of Viktor."
He merely shook his head in response.
"Alright," she said. "Then I'm going to inform Professor Slughorn that we're done."
With that, Hermione walked over to the closed door to the second room of the office. She knocked three times in quick succession, and the door opened almost instantly to reveal the Potions professor.
She said to him, "Harry and I are finished, Professor. You can give her the antidote."
"Ah, good!" he exclaimed. "Let me take care of that immediately then."
Hermione didn't respond and just simply walked back over to Harry, who was now standing off to the side of Ginny's chair. Slughorn followed as quickly as he could, and Hermione saw him stop in front of Ginny before pulling out a different bottle from his robes.
At that moment, Harry said to her, "Come on, why don't we leave? We've done what we needed."
Before Hermione could respond, Professor Slughorn quickly said, "Ah, before anyone leaves, I just have one thing. Now, I think that it barely needs saying that we would all benefit if no one ever spoke about what I allowed to take place here, correct?"
Hermione replied, "No one will hear anything from us, Professor. And thank you for letting this happen."
Beside her, Harry added, "Yeah, we won't say a word."
The relief was quite palpable in the portly old man's entire being as he said, "Well good then."
Afterwards, Hermione said to Harry, "Alright then, let's go."
With that, they walked out of the office, shutting the door behind them.
Outside, however, they only went a few steps before, to Hermione's surprise, they stopped walking at the same time.
She said to Harry, "Well, I'm not sure why you stopped as well, but I was going to say that I wanted to wait here for Ginny. There's still something that I want to say to her."
He actually chuckled before replying, "I thought you might. That's why I wanted us to go ahead and leave in the first place, so that we could be away from Slughorn when talking to her after she takes the antidote."
She couldn't help smirking at him and lightly saying, "Oh, have I become so predictable?"
He smirked right back at her. "Not necessarily. It's just nice to be the one reading you for once, considering how often you do it to me."
She laughed at that for a second. Her laughter quickly stopped, however, when the door to Professor Slughorn's office opened.
A moment later, Ginny stepped out. The girl was looking down at the floor, in what appeared to be almost sad confusion, as the office door slowly shut behind her. She then shook her head before turning towards Harry and Hermione's direction. After taking one step, though, she brought her head up and immediately froze, in a bit of fright and astonishment, upon seeing the two of them.
Even after having found out that Ginny was truthful about the article, the mere sight of the girl still caused Hermione, almost instinctively, to harden her expression. She took a step closer to Ginny, who didn't move a muscle and just continued to stare. Harry followed an instant later to stand beside her.
At that moment, Ginny tentatively asked, "Were – were you both waiting for me?"
Harry replied, "Yes, we were. We still have things that need saying."
He then added more softly to Hermione, "Is it alright if I go first?"
Hermione answered, "Of course, Harry, go ahead."
He smiled for a moment before facing Ginny again.
"So," he said, "now that you're out of the haze from the truth potion, do you remember everything that we asked, and all the answers you gave?"
Ginny just slowly nodded a couple of times.
"Good," he responded.
He took a deep breath before continuing. "Now, I'll credit you with this, Ginny. It seems that you were truthful about not being involved in the creation of Rita's article. So, because of that, and I'll only speak for myself here, I'm willing to be polite or quiet around you should the situation require it. By that, I mean that I won't force you to run off if you are just merely in our presence, like if you would need to talk to Neville and Luna about something when those two may be sitting with Hermione and me."
He then frowned and said a bit more firmly, "However, you shouldn't expect anything more than that little courtesy from me. The two of us have already lost our trust in you, thanks to the way you pushed for answers from me twice, as well as you trying to hex Hermione on the train. It'll be a long while before either of us could forget those."
Ginny visibly sagged, before she replied, "So, that's it? Even after I prove that I was telling the truth, now you're saying that we'll never be even just friends again?"
At that point, Hermione finally spoke. "Don't act like that's such a shock. Harry and I aren't the same people that you knew from school two years ago. But you seemed to think that, even after everything that happened in the last year-and-a-half, things would simply go back to the way they were back then in school. And when everything didn't go as you had planned, you lashed out like your brother would. Trust takes years to build, moments to break, and forever to rebuild, and you've used your moments with the two of us."
When she finished, exasperation appeared in Ginny's expression for a second, but the other girl didn't say anything before shifting her eyes back to Harry.
To that, Harry quietly added, "I'll just say… don't hold your breath on it for now, Ginny. Like I mentioned before, I'll be quiet or polite if it may be necessary, but that's the most you should expect for the foreseeable future. I won't say that it will absolutely never change from that, but it certainly will take some time before I even begin to entertain the thought."
Ginny closed her eyes and hung her head at that point. When she didn't say anything, Harry turned to Hermione and said, "OK, that's all I had to say, so you can speak now."
Hermione smirked and gave a little hum, before she replied, "No, I think you already covered my topic of choice. Come on, why don't we go back and continue our studies?"
He just silently nodded his agreement.
The two of them had only just turned to walk away before they heard, "Wait!"
They shifted back to find Ginny staring up at them again. Then, she asked, "So, Hermione, you really didn't snog Viktor Krum? It was only one kiss on the cheek that he gave you?"
Hermione gave a stony gaze to Ginny for a couple of seconds before firmly saying, "Yes, that's correct. And you and Ron should have both trusted me enough to come and ask me about it directly, or at least have done like Harry and just kept your thoughts to yourself, rather than believing every rumor you hear without question and basing your own actions off of those rumors."
Not wanting to wait around for Ginny's reaction, she then turned to Harry, took hold of his hand, and said, "Let's go."
He just smirked and nodded. Thus, they began walking down the hall, with Ginny keeping silent and not stopping them this time.
It was a mostly quiet journey back to the Room of Requirement, with Harry leading them to the kitchens first to get a refill on their supply of water for their practice before going to the Room itself. Once they were in the replica of the common room, Harry set their water on a table by the sofa, where goblets for them were already sitting in wait to be used.
Hermione, meanwhile, went over to the sofa and sat down, leaving enough room on her left side for Harry to sit by the arm. She silently kept her gaze on Harry, watching as he moved about the room until he finally sat next to her.
Once he did, he gave her a sad smile before saying, "So, now that we're here again, I suppose that you first want to talk about the reaction I had to that question you asked to Ginny about something you had previously said to her?"
She looked at him sympathetically but nodded a confirmation. "Yes, Harry. Why were you so confused when Ginny repeated what I said she should do with her dating life?"
He nodded and replied, "Well… this has to do with something from when I broke up with her after Dumbledore's funeral. You already know about Ginny's 'happy hunting' comment that she made. But there was also something else she mentioned before that."
A little sigh left his mouth. "I had just told her about not wanting her to be in danger, and for the funeral to be her own, because of me. She looked towards the lake before saying that she never really gave up on me. And then she talked about you telling her to get on with life and maybe go out with other people, to relax a bit around me, and that I might take more notice if she was more herself. I then talked about how she and I could have had more time, and she interrupted and made her comment about me being busy saving the world and how she knew I wouldn't be happy unless I was hunting Riddle, though she used the pseudonym since she obviously doesn't know Riddle's history."
Hermione furrowed her brow a bit. "I'll ask you the same question. Is that exactly what she said to you?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah. There was never any mention about you having told her not to get too obsessed. And it sounds like you never actually told her that I might take more notice of her if she acted differently."
"No, I didn't," she replied. "It seems that she didn't really take my advice in the way that I meant it, which was to try and get her to move on and look elsewhere for happiness when it appeared as though she wasn't going to get exactly what she wanted from you."
She shook her head for a moment. "Instead, she used it in a way that almost just furthered her fixation on you."
Harry nodded in response. "Yeah, that's what it sounds like."
He then turned his gaze to the burning fireplace. "And just like that hunting comment, as well as what you heard her say she did for my seventeenth birthday, it's another piece that points to her never fully letting go of that old hero worship she held towards me, even if it wasn't as bad as those early years where she couldn't speak to me or be in the same room as me."
Another sigh left him, before he locked his eyes onto her again. "So yeah, that's why I asked for clarification from you that Ginny's answer had been exactly what you said to her. Because it's more evidence to what I'd first thought about during the summer here at the castle after I'd left Australia, and why I was so harsh at the beginning of the year in putting down Ginny's thoughts about her and me being together again. It's more evidence that Ginny would only ever see me primarily as the knight in shining armor."
A little half-smile grew on his lips. "Unlike you, who knows full well about the recklessness that comes from me having a saving-people thing, but you still refused to leave my side even when you disagreed about what I wanted to do. Never left when things seemed so hopeless on the hunt after Ron deserted us. Never left even when I was being a right bastard to you this year in trying to keep all my problems hidden. You were always at my side, patiently waiting no matter how many times I blew off your concerns even when I'm sure that the way I was trying to keep people at a distance had to be killing you inside, until everything reached such a point that I finally opened up to you."
Hermione couldn't help giving him a small but tender smile, before she responded, "For those earlier years, you're my best friend. I could never have let you waltz into danger without me there as well. And for this year… I wanted you to be happy. That's always been the most important thing for me, even before I actually realized my true feelings."
Harry's smile became a full one. "And there are no words I could give that would be great enough to show my appreciation of that, my appreciation of you."
She shook her head and lovingly said, "I don't need words, Harry. Every action you take says more than enough."
After a moment, he quickly pulled her into a hug, placing her head underneath his chin and then burying his face into her hair. Hermione immediately held him tightly in response. The two sat in silence like that for some time, enough so that Hermione began to think back to the events from Professor Slughorn's office.
So, it seemed that Ginny had been telling the truth about not being involved with Rita, at least going by all the strict yes-or-no questions that Hermione and Harry had tried to ask. But if that was the case, then it meant that almost anyone at Hogwarts who was already in school during the 1996-1997 school year could be a suspect. There were too many people that had shown interest in Harry, after the announcement of the anniversary ball, to try and narrow the list of suspects beyond just simply every student that wasn't in their first year. And the only reason for discounting the first-years was because none of them would have been at Hogwarts when Hermione had been trying to go for Ron.
At that point, she couldn't help letting out a quiet sigh. It must not have been quiet enough, though, because she felt Harry pull his head away. She shifted to look at his face and found him staring anxiously down at her.
"Are you OK?" he quietly asked.
The concern in his voice caused Hermione to give a small smile to him, as she let go of him and pulled out of the hug.
"I am," she replied. "I was just thinking again about what we learned in Professor Slughorn's office."
He tilted his head slightly. "What about it, Hermione?"
"Well… let's just say that there's a part of me which actually wishes that it had been Ginny sending information about us to Rita Skeeter."
Harry was confused at first, but then his eyes widened a bit. He responded, "Oh. Because it not being Ginny means that we're now completely in the dark as to who it could be, right?"
She nodded. "That's right."
He sighed and then glanced towards the floor for a moment before saying, "Yeah, it doesn't exactly leave us in a good position for that to be the case, does it? Especially when there were so many people that seemed eager with the thought that they had a chance to go with me to the anniversary ball."
Hermione's smile turned slightly sad. "No, it certainly doesn't."
The smile then dropped as she became somewhat grim. "Anyone who isn't a first-year student could potentially be the culprit, and the only reason that I exclude the first-years is because they wouldn't have been here two years ago to know about me going after Ron that year, even if Ron's name wasn't specifically used in the article. The only thing we have to go on at this point is that it's possible that the person is slightly more likely to be in Gryffindor, since they would have had more opportunity to have seen my interactions with and towards Ron two years ago, but there is hardly a guarantee of that because of, once again, the number of people that immediately showed interest in you for the ball."
Harry said, somewhat reluctantly, "Yeah, you're right."
He then frowned and added, "I don't like this at all. It's almost like being on the Horcrux hunt again, where we don't know anything and basically have to act by the seat of our pants until maybe something comes along that points us in the right direction."
Hermione couldn't help but be filled with sympathy. She circled her arms around Harry's neck and pulled herself so that she was straddling his lap, to which he wrapped his arms around her waist.
She responded, "No, we're certainly not in a good position at the moment when it comes to this mystery. But just like the hunt, we simply watch out for ourselves as best we can. We continue to use my detection spells on anything and everything we receive or consume, we have the elves helping out with all of our letters so that nothing physically harmful makes it to us, and we have some wandless magic that we're able to use in a pinch if we would need to do so. There's not much else that can be done unless the culprit does something to make themselves known."
"Yeah, I know," Harry hesitantly said. "That doesn't mean I feel that much better about our circumstances, though."
Then, a smile rose on his lips. "Still, like has been said so many times before. As long as we stick together, we'll make it through anything."
Hermione gave him a smile in return but didn't say a word. Instead, she just lovingly kissed him, and they both let out happy sighs when she pulled her mouth away.
After a few seconds of affectionately gazing at one another, Harry smirked a little bit and said, "Well, speaking of wandless magic in a pinch, do you want to get back to our practice session?"
Hermione chuckled and replied, "Yes, perhaps we should. As you stated this morning, we're giving up some perfectly good time for N.E.W.T. studies, so we should use it as best we can."
Harry laughed in response, before they let go of one another and moved to get ready to practice the Stunning Spell again. And without them needing to say another word, the Room responded to their wishes by creating a similar practice dummy as it had when they began earlier that morning.
The two practiced until twenty minutes before the start of dinner. At that point, they decided to stop and take one final rest break, and afterwards, they would walk down to the Great Hall and wait for dinnertime to officially begin. As they rested, Hermione thought back over the previous few hours.
The magic session had gone well, all things considered. She and Harry were able to reach the point of successfully casting the complete wandless version of the Stunning Spell. However, in line with her earlier thoughts about the energy required for more advanced spells, or more advanced usages of spells in the case of the General Counter-Spell, they could only cast so many times in a row before needing to stop and rest. At the time that they stopped their session, Hermione's limit with the Stunning Spell was three castings before she was too tired to cast anything else, while Harry showed once again how he possessed more power than her by being able to do four in a row before becoming too tired and needing to rest. Regardless, though, the two of them still took the day as a success with what they were able to accomplish thus far.
But there were also the various happenings in Professor Slughorn's office. Finding out that Ginny was being truthful about not being involved in the creation of Rita's article did leave Hermione and Harry in somewhat of a blind spot as to what would happen going forward. And of course, there was the talk between herself and Harry about whether to find out if Ginny could have ever used or thought of using a love potion.
At that point, Hermione couldn't help turning her head to look at Harry, who had his eyes closed and was leaning his head back against the sofa, while her thoughts continued to roll. Even with a clear chance to see if his hypothesis wasn't just what some would probably call a crazy idea, getting an answer for certain from Ginny wasn't important to him. He said that it wasn't important for him to dwell on that part of his past when he had what he thought was a wonderful future to look forward to instead.
Hermione smiled as she thought of this. And at that moment, as though he could sense her eyes on him, Harry opened his own eyes with a few blinks and then turned to look at her. Upon seeing her gazing at him tenderly, the left side of his mouth lifted in a combination of happiness and confusion.
"What?" he asked.
She lightly shook her head, not dropping her smile all the while, and replied, "Just… I love you."
That caused his own expression to become affectionate, before he then leaned in and kissed her for a couple of seconds.
When he pulled away, he whispered, "I love you, too."
Hermione just widened her smile and then cuddled further into his side, as the two of them continued to rest.
Staring into the fire again, she thought back to Harry's earlier words. Yes, she and he could make it through anything together. And whenever it was that something may happen from this point, the two of them would surely face it then.
A/N: This chapter ended up going through a couple of rewrites before finally settling on its current form. Still not completely sure of how I feel about it, but this version at least works enough to move things along with the story.
But yeah, as you most certainly already gathered, the jury is still out regarding the person who went to Rita. I've always had a plan as to where this little plotline will go (or at least, I've had certain major points that I want to hit, and we'll see what kind of more-specific little details may arise to go with them as chapters continue to be written haha), so hopefully you're willing to stick with it and see how things unfold.
Next, to the matter of love potions, I'll admit that I kind of wrote myself into a corner and was required to at least bring up the topic again, since Ginny was going under the truth potion. Now, is the way I handled that entire bit kind of a cop-out? Yeah, probably. But as I tried to make known back in Chapter 7 and then said somewhat more clearly here, having any explicit answer to the idea was never my main goal. It was always about using it just in a way for Harry and Hermione to help each other with certain issues and basically move on from the past. And as for the question regarding whether Ginny actually did or didn't ever use a love potion... well, you can use the combination of what you may believe about Ginny plus what's gone on thus far in the story to come to your own decision on that matter.
If you made it this far, thank you kindly for reading! Again, I'm not sure about the quality of this chapter, but hopefully y'all are still willing to stay tuned for more to come!
